The Civil War fundamentally transformed the American political compact, including the Constitution and the Supreme Court. In the years after the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Court struggled to define its new role and to give shape to the emerging contest between the state and federal governments.

This course, the second in a series, surveys the broad history of the Supreme Court in the United States from the Civil War through the Progressive Era. It illustrates how the judiciary took on a new role in the post-war period and thrust itself to the center of the ongoing political debate about the proper role of the judiciary in our republic. By examining the source of so-called laissez-faire jurisprudence, the course explains how the judiciary affected the growing conflict over economic regulations. The course also considers the increasing prominence of the Bill of Rights in Supreme Court decisions.