LAWS233

This course explores the central themes, debates, and ideologies that
have molded (and continue to mold) the American legal system by critically examining the fundamental legal documents and the pivotal cases which constitute the legal history of the United States. Legal history is not merely a mass of empty facts and judgments abstracted from a past long since passed away. Rather, it is the essential, vital source of our living present—an enduring past constantly projected into the future in the everyday trials, the legislative debates, and the administration of justice composing so much of our modern
world. As fledgling legal historians, we must remain attentive to the ever-present influence of this living history, despite the overwhelming temptation to bury it in the long forgotten recesses of our past.