HST 260 - Constitutional History of the United States

Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR (students beginning prior to Fall 2024): Meets general academic requirement HU.
This course examines the history of the development of the United States Constitution and of its interpretation since 1789. In particular, we will pay attention to the contradictions built into the document, to changing ideas about how to understand the Constitution and apply its principles, and to the effects of notable Supreme Court decisions on the lives of ordinary people. In the first half of the semester, our focus will be on the framing, ratification, and first conflicts over the document itself, and then on the application of Constitutional principles to the problem of slavery. In the second half, we will concentrate on the relationship between the federal government and its citizens in the wake of Reconstruction and over the course of the twentieth century, with particular emphasis on questions of race and sex.