The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States

The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States provides information on and analysis of significant Supreme Court cases. Content is organized alphabetically by case name and each entry includes a discussion of the legal and social background of the case, the reasoning behind the court’s decision, and the impact of the case on society.

This work provides a comprehensive guide to the history and current operation of the Supreme Court. It does through an alphabetical organization and comprises several broad categories of entries. It includes biographical entries (justices, nominees rejected, prominent lawyers) and entries central to the Court’s operations or the meaning of American constitutionalism, like basic terms associated with the Supreme Court and constitutional doctrines.

There are more than 400 entries about the Court’s decisions, selected among the most historically significant. It included dates argued, dates decided, what the vote was, who wrote the opinions, etc. The summaries of cases include not only information on the case and the decision, but also any lasting constitutional effects, and whether or not they were later overturned (whether by other decisions, or by constitutional amendments).

Edited by Kermit L. Hall, 2005

Content

Some of the content includes:

• Abington School District v. Schempp
• Abortion
• Academic Freedom
• Actual Malice
• Adair v. United States
• Adamson v. California
• Adkins v. Children’s Hospital
• Administrative State
• Admiralty and Maritime Law
• Advance Sheets
• Advisory Opinions
• Affirmative Action
• Agriculture
• Alienage and Naturalization
• Alien Land Laws
• Allgeyer v. Louisiana
• American Civil Liberties Union
• Antitrust
• Appellate Jurisdiction
• Appointment and Removal Power
• Article III
• Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority
• Assembly and Association, Citizenship, Freedom Of
• Bailey v. Drexel Furniture Co.
• Baldwin, Henry (14 Jan. 1780)
• Bank of Augusta v. Earle
• Bank of the United States v. Deveaux
• Bankruptcy and Insolvency Legislation
• Barbour, Phillip Pendleton (25 May 1783)
• Barron v. Baltimore
• Betts v. Brady
• Bill of Rights
• Black, Hugo Lafayette (27 Feb. 1886)
• Black Monday
• Bork, Robert Heron (1 Mar. 1927)
• Bowers v. Hardwick
• Brandeis, Louis Dembitz (13 Nov. 1856)
• Brandeis Brief
• Brown v. Board of Education
• Buck v. Bell
• Burr, Aaron (1756)
• Butler, Pierce (17 Mar. 1866)
• Butler, United States v.
• Calder v. Bull
• Capitalism
• Capital Punishment
• Cardozo, Benjamin Nathan (24 May 1870)
• Center Chair
• Certiorari, Writ Of
• Champion v. Ames
• Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge
• Chase, Samuel (17 Apr. 1741)
• Cherokee Cases
• Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company v. Chicago
• Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Co. v. Minnesota
• Chisholm v. Georgia
• Circuit Courts of Appeals
• Circuit Riding
• Citizenship
• Civil Rights Act of 1964
• Civil Rights Act of 1991
• Civil Rights Cases
• Civil Rights Movement
• Civil War
• Clarke, John Hessin (18 Sep. 1857)
• Clear and Present Danger Test
• Cohens v. Virginia
• Colegrove v. Green
• Collector v. Day
• Commerce Power
• Common Law
• Communism and Cold War
• Contraception
• Contract
• Contract, Freedom Of
• Contracts Clause
• Cooley v. Board of Wardens of the Port of Philadelphia
• Corrigan v. Buckley
• Counsel, Right To
• Court?packing Plan
• Criminal Syndicalism Laws
• Cummings v. Missouri
• Curtis, Benjamin Robbins (4 Nov. 1809)
• Dartmouth College v. Woodward
• Dennis v. United States
• Desegregation Remedies
• Discriminatory Intent
• Dissent
• Double Jeopardy
• Douglas, William Orville (16 Oct. 1898)
• Dual Federalism
• Due Process, Procedural
• Due Process, Substantive
• Duncan v. Louisiana
• E. C. Knight Co., United States v.
• Education
• Eighth Amendment
• Elections
• Eleventh Amendment
• Eminent Domain
• Employment Discrimination
• Equal Protection
• Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins
• Escobedo v. Illinois
• Exclusionary Rule
• Ex Post Facto Laws
• Fair Representation
• Federal Common Law
• Federalism
• Federalist, The
• Federal Questions
• Fifteenth Amendment
• Fifth Amendment
• First Amendment
• Fletcher v. Peck
• Footnote Four
• Four Horsemen
• Fourteenth Amendment
• Fourth Amendment
• Frankfurter, Felix (15 Nov. 1882)
• Freedom of Speech
• Fugitive Slaves
• Gelpcke v. Dubuque
• Gender
• General Welfare
• Genesee Chief v. Fitzhugh
• Gibbons v. Ogden
• Gideon v. Wainwright
• Gitlow v. New York
• Goldberg v. Kelly
• Gold Clause Cases
• Grand Juries
• Griswold v. Connecticut
• Grove City College v. Bell
• Guarantee Clause
• Guest, United States v.
• Habeas Corpus
• Hamilton, Alexander (11 Jan. 1757)
• Hammer v. Dagenhart
• Hand, Billings Learned (27 Jan. 1872)
• Hayburn’s Case
• Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States
• Higher Law
• Hirabayashi v. United States
• Holmes, Oliver Wendell (8 Mar. 1841)
• Home Building and Loan Association v. Blaisdell
• Homosexuality
• Housing Discrimination
• Hudson & Goodwin, United States v.
• Humphrey’s Executor v. United States
• Hurtado v. California
• Hylton v. United States
• Illinois Ex. Rel. Mccollum v. Board of Education
• Impeachment
• Implied Powers
• Income Tax
• Incorporation Doctrine
• Injunctions and Equitable Remedies
• Interstate Commerce Commission
• Iredell, James (5 Oct. 1751)
• Jackson, Andrew (15 Mar. 1767)
• Jackson, Robert Houghwout (13 Feb. 1892)
• Jay, John (12 Dec. 1745)
• Jefferson, Thomas (13 Apr. 1743)
• Johnson, William (27 Dec. 1771)
• Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co.
• Jones v. Van Zandt
• Judicial Activism
• Judicial Power and Jurisdiction
• Judicial Review
• Judicial Self?restraint
• Judiciary Act of 1789
• Judiciary Acts of 1801 and 1802
• Judiciary Act of 1869
• Just Compensation
• Justices, Number Of
• Korematsu v. United States
• Labor
• Laissez?faire Constitutionalism
• Lawrence v. Texas
• Legal Defense Fund
• License Cases
• Lincoln, Abraham (12 Feb. 1809)
• Lochner v. New York
• Louisville Railroad Co. v. Letson
• Lower Federal Courts
• Luther v. Borden
• Madison, James (16 Mar. 1751)
• Mandamus, Writ Of
• Mapp v. Ohio
• Marbury v. Madison
• Marshall, John (24 Sept. 1755)
• Martin v. Hunter’s Lessee
• McCardle, Ex Parte
• McCray v. United States
• McCulloch v. Maryland
• McLean, John (11 Mar. 1785)
• McReynolds, James Clark (3 Feb. 1862)
• Meyer v. Nebraska
• Military Trials and Martial Law
• Milligan, Ex Parte
• Minersville School District v. Gobitis
• Miranda v. Arizona
• Mississippi v. Johnson
• Missouri Ex Rel. Gaines v. Canada
• Mobile v. Bolden
• Moore v. Dempsey
• Morehead v. New York Ex Rel. Tipaldo
• Muller v. Oregon
• Munn v. Illinois
• Murphy, Frank (13 Apr. 1890)
• National Association For the Advancement of Colored People
• Native Americans
• Natural Law
• Near v. Minnesota
• Nebbia v. New York
• New Deal
• New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann
• New York v. Miln
• Nineteenth Amendment
• Ninth Amendment
• Nixon, Richard (9 Jan. 1913)
• Obiter Dictum
• Obscenity and Pornography
• Ogden v. Saunders
• Olmstead v. United States
• One Person
• Original Jurisdiction
• Palko v. Connecticut
• Panama Refining Co. v. Ryan
• Passenger Cases
• Paterson, William (24 Dec. 1745)
• Paul v. Virginia
• Petition, Right Of
• Pierce v. Society of Sisters
• Pitney, Mahlon (5 Feb. 1858)
• Plessy v. Ferguson
• Police Power
• Political Questions
• Political Thicket
• Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Co.
• Postal Power
• Powell v. Alabama
• Presidential Emergency Powers
• Prigg v. Pennsylvania
• Privacy
• Private Corporation Charters
• Privileges and Immunities
• Prize Cases
• Progressivism
• Property Rights
• Providence Bank v. Billings
• Race and Racism
• Reapportionment Cases
• Reconstruction
• Reed, Stanley Forman (31 Dec. 1884)
• Released Time
• Religion
• Removal Act of 1875
• Removal of Cases
• Restrictive Covenants
• Reversals of Court Decisions By Congress
• Roberts, Owen Josephus (2 May 1875)
• Roe v. Wade
• Roosevelt, Franklin Delano (30 Jan. 1882)
• Rule of Reason
• Rutledge, Wiley Blount, Jr. (20 July 1894)
• Sanford, Edward Terry (23 July 1865)
• Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States
• School Prayer and Bible Reading
• Scott v. Sandford
• Sedition Act of 1798
• Segregation, De Facto
• Segregation, De Jure
• Selective Exclusiveness
• Self?incrimination
• Senate Judiciary Committee
• Separate But Equal Doctrine
• Separation of Powers
• Shelley v. Kraemer
• Sherman Antitrust Act
• Sit?in Demonstrations
• Sixth Amendment
• Skinner v. Oklahoma
• Slaughterhouse Cases
• Slavery
• Smith Act
• Smyth v. Ames
• Sociological Jurisprudence
• South Carolina v. Katzenbach
• Speech and the Press
• Speedy Trial
• State Action
• State Courts
• State Regulation of Commerce
• State Sovereignty and States’ Rights
• State Taxation
• Stone, Harlan Fiske (11 Oct. 1872)
• Story, Joseph (18 Sep. 1779)
• Stream of Commerce
• Strict Scrutiny
• Stuart v. Laird
• Sturges v. Crowninshield
• Subversion
• Sutherland, George (15 March 1862)
• Sweatt v. Painter
• Swift v. Tyson
• Taft, William Howard (15 Sep. 1857)
• Takings Clause
• Taney, Roger Brooke (17 Mar. 1777)
• Taxing and Spending Clause
• Tenth Amendment
• Territories and New States
• Test Oaths
• Texas v. White
• Thirteenth Amendment
• Trial By Jury
• Truax v. Corrigan
• Tyson v. Banton
• Van Devanter, Willis (17 Apr. 1859)
• Vested Rights
• Vinson, Frederick Moore (22 Jan. 1890)
• Vote, Right To
• Voting Rights Act of 1965
• Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific Railway Co. v. Illinois
• War
• Ward’s Cove Packing Co. v. Atonio
• Ware v. Hylton
• War Powers
• Warren, Earl (19 Mar. 1891)
• Washington, George (22 Feb. 1732)
• Washington v. Davis
• Wayne, James Moore (1790)
• Webster v. Reproductive Health Services
• West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish
• West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette
• White Primary
• Whitney v. California
• Wickard v. Filburn
• Willson v. Blackbird Creek Marsh Co.
• Wolff Packing Co. v. Court of Industrial Relations
• Wolf v. Colorado
• Woodbury, Levi (22 Dec. 1789)
• World War I
• World War II
• Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer
• Zorach v. Clauson

Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States Cover

In Democracy in America, de Tocqueville observed that there is hardly a political question in the United States which does not sooner or later turn into a judicial one. Two hundred years of American history have certainly born out the truth of this remark. Whether a controversy is political, economic, or social, whether it focuses on child labour, prayer in public schools, war powers, busing, abortion, business monopolies, or capital punishment eventually the battle is taken to court. And the ultimate venue for these struggles is the Supreme Court. Indeed, the Supreme Court is a prism through which the entire life of the nation is magnified and illuminated, and through which Americans have defined themselves as a people.

Now, in The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States, readers have a rich source of information about one of the central institutions of American life. Everything one would want to know about the Supreme Court is here, in more than a thousand alphabetically arranged entries. There are biographies of every justice who ever sat on the Supreme Court (with pictures of each) as well as entries on rejected nominees and prominent judges (such as Learned Hand), on presidents who had an important impact on – or conflict with – the Court (including Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt), and on other influential figures (from Alexander Hamilton to Cass Gilbert, the architect of the Supreme Court Building). More than four hundred entries examine every major case that the court has decided, from Marbury v. Madison (which established the Court’s power to declare federal laws unconstitutional) and Scott v. Sandford (the Dred Scott Case) to Brown v. Board of Education and Roe v. Wade. In addition, there are extended essays on the major issues that have confronted the Court (from slavery to national security, capital punishment to religion, affirmative action to the Vietnam War), entries on judicial matters and legal terms, articles on all Amendments to the Constitution, and an extensive, four-part history of the Court. And as in all Oxford Companions, the contributions combine scholarship with engaging insight, giving us a sense of the personality and the inner workings of the Court.

They examine everything from the wanderings of the Supreme Court (the first session was held on the second floor of theRoyal Exchange Building in New York City, and the Court at times has met in a Congressional committee room, a tavern, a rented house, and finally, in 1935, its own building), to the Jackson-Black Feud and the clouded resignation of Abe Fortas, to the Supreme Court’s press room and the paintings and sculptures adorning the Supreme Court building. The decisions of the Supreme Court have touched–and will continue to influence–every corner of American society. A comprehensive, authoritative guide to the Supreme Court, this volume is an essential reference source for everyone interested in the workings of this vital institution and in the multitude of issues it has confronted over the course of its history.

Other Reference Works of U.S. Constitutional Law

• Constitutional Law Dictionary
• The Oxford International Encyclopedia of Legal History
• The Founders’ Constitution
• The Language of the Constitution : a sourcebook and guide to the ideas, terms, and vocabulary used by the framers of the United States Constitution
• The Exhaustive Concordance to the United States Constitution
• The Constitution of the United States of America, analysis and interpretation: annotations of cases decided by the Supreme Court of the United States to …
• Constitutional rights sourcebook
• Modern constitutional law
• A companion to the United States Constitution and its amendments
• Constitutional amendments, 1789 to the present
• Encyclopedia of Constitutuional Amendments, Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issues, 1789-2010. 3rd ed.
• Encyclopedia of Constitutuional Amendments, Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issues, 1789-2002. 2nd ed.
• The Bill of Rights
• Encyclopedia of the First Amendment
• The Constitutional Convention of 1787: a comprehensive encyclopedia of America’s founding
• A Practical Companion to the Constitution : how the Supreme Court has ruled on issues from abortion to zoning
• The Oxford guide to United States Supreme Court Decicions
• Landmark Supreme Court Cases: a reference guide
• Landmark Decisions of the United States Supreme Court
• Supreme Court Cases on Gender and Sexual Equality 1787-2001
• Supreme Court Yearbook
• Guide to the U.S. Supreme Court

See Also

American Jurisprudence (encyclopedia)
The American and English Encyclopedia of Law
U.S. Constitution law resources
List of Constitution Law Periodicals
Some U.S. Constitution law key topics
U.S. Constitution main problems
United States main topics in the Encyclopedia
Encyclopedia of Public International Law
Bouvier’s Law Dictionary and Concise Encyclopedia, 1914
Jurisdiction in American law
United States Supreme Court
Court System in the United States
Encyclopedia of the American Constitution
U.S. States Court Reports
Oxford Reports on International Law
Court Reports
United States Constitution Bibliography
United States v. Stevens
Court Hierarchy in the legal system
List of U.S. Federal Court Reports (9.4)