Bring the people, places, and history of the Prohibition Era alive with these new interactive lessons. In “The Rise and Fall of Prohibition,” your students will learn about the background of the 18th Amendment, the individuals who fought for and against Prohibition, and its eventual repeal. They will use their new knowledge as well as their drawing skills to get classmates to identify and define key terms in a game of Prohibition Pictionary. Finally, they will learn about the roles of historical figures from the era by taking on their identities for a dinner party. Use any or all of these hands-on, modular activities to teach this important part of our history.  Download these three lessons here.

Celebrate Black History month with materials on two landmark Supreme Court cases on the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. How could the same words have been interpreted so differently in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) and sixty years later in Brown v. Board of Education (1954)? Read some background on the cases, excerpts from the rulings, and thought-provoking discussion questions.

See the complete lesson.

Discussion Questions

1. What Supreme Court decision established the doctrine of “separate but equal”?
2. What Kansas law did the Brown plaintiffs want struck down?
3. How did the Court rule, and what was the constitutional reasoning?
4. What was the Brown II ruling?
5. What role was there for other branches and levels of government in enforcing Brown II?
6. Why might it have taken nearly sixty years to the Supreme Court to get to its current interpretation of the 14^th Amendment?
7. What might this suggest about the importance of looking at the historical context of Supreme Court rulings?

Do you use document-based questions in your classroom?

This fall the Bill of Rights Institute is blogging a document-based question on the Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education (1954). Each weekly post will feature an excerpted document related to the case, along with some questions to guide your thinking on it. Each document should be used to address the question: “Assess the role played by the Court as the protector of individual rights against the tyranny of the majority in Brown v. Board of Education.”

Check out our previous posts for Document A, an excerpt from the Virginia criminal code; and Document B, a section of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Majority Opinion, Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896 

The object of the [Fourteenth] amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute equality of the two races before the law, but in the nature of things it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political, equality, or a co-mingling of the two races upon terms unsatisfactory to either.…

Laws permitting, and even requiring, the separation [of races] in places where they are liable to be brought into contact do not necessarily imply the inferiority of either race to the other, and have been generally, if not universally, recognized as within the competency of the state legislatures in the exercise of their police power….

>Restate this opinion in your own words.

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Check back each week to see the next document and how it might change your thinking on this important question that affects all public school teachers and students in the U.S.! If you are enjoying this DBQ – be sure to check out our curriculum Supreme Court DBQs: Exploring the Cases the Changed History.

Do you use document-based questions in your classroom?

This fall the Bill of Rights Institute is blogging a document-based question on the Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education (1954). Each weekly post will feature an excerpted document related to the case, along with some questions to guide your thinking on it. Each document should be used to address the question: “Assess the role played by the Court as the protector of individual rights against the tyranny of the majority in Brown v. Board of Education.”

Check out our previous post for Document A, an excerpt from the Virginia criminal code.

Section of the Fourteenth Amendment (1868)

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

>What was the historical context of the passage of this amendment?

>What level of government does this amendment limit? What prohibitions did it create?

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Check back each week to see the next document and how it might change your thinking on this important question that affects all public school teachers and students in the U.S.! If you are enjoying this DBQ – be sure to check out our curriculum Supreme Court DBQs: Exploring the Cases the Changed History.

Do you use document-based questions in your classroom?

This summer the Bill of Rights Institute is blogging a document-based question on the Supreme Court case Marbury v. Madison (1803). Each weekly post will feature an excerpted document related to the case, along with some questions to guide your thinking on it. Each document should be used to address the question: “Argue whether or not the Supreme Court should have the power to overturn unconstitutional federal laws.”

Directions: Answer the Key Question in a well-organized essay that incorporates your interpretations of Documents A-K, as well as your own knowledge of history.

Document A: Brutus, No. 15, 1788

Document B: Federalist No. 78, 1788

Document C: Federalist No. 78, 1788

Document D: Federalist No. 78, 1788

Document E: Federalist No. 81, 1788

Document F: Sections of Article III of the United States Constitution, 1789

Document G: The Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution, 1789

Document H: Section 13, Judiciary Act of 1789

Document I: The Kentucky Resolution, Thomas Jefferson, 1798

Document J: Unanimous Majority Opinion, Marbury v. Madison, 1803

Document K: Thomas Jefferson to Spencer Roane, 1819

The Issue Endures:

Do you use document-based questions in your classroom?

This summer the Bill of Rights Institute is blogging a document-based question on the Supreme Court case Marbury v. Madison (1803). Each weekly post will feature an excerpted document related to the case, along with some questions to guide your thinking on it. Each document should be used to address the question: “Argue whether or not the Supreme Court should have the power to overturn unconstitutional federal laws.”

Check out our previous posts for Document A, an excerpt from the Anti-Federalist Papers; Document B, Document C, and Document D, excerpts from Federalist no. 78; Document E, an excerpt from Federalist no. 81; Document F, an excerpt from Article III of the US Constitution; Document G, the Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution; Document H, an excerpt from the Judiciary Act of 1789; Document I, the Kentucky Resolution; and Document J, an excerpt from Marbury v. Madison‘s unanimous opinion.

Thomas Jefferson to Spencer Roane, 1819

For intending to establish three departments, coordinate and independent, that they might check and balance one another, [the Constitution] has given, according to this opinion [Marbury v. Madison], to one of them alone the right to prescribe rules for the government of the others, and to that one, too, which is unelected by and independent of the nation. …The Constitution on this hypothesis is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please.

> How does Jefferson’s reaction 4 to the decision in Marbury v. Madison compare to Hamilton’s description of the judicial branch in Document B?

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Check back each week to see the next document and how it might change your thinking on this important question that affects all public school teachers and students in the U.S.! If you are enjoying this DBQ – be sure to check out our curriculum Supreme Court DBQs: Exploring the Cases the Changed History.

Do you use document-based questions in your classroom?

This summer the Bill of Rights Institute is blogging a document-based question on the Supreme Court case Marbury v. Madison (1803). Each weekly post will feature an excerpted document related to the case, along with some questions to guide your thinking on it. Each document should be used to address the question: “Argue whether or not the Supreme Court should have the power to overturn unconstitutional federal laws.”

Check out our previous posts for Document A, an excerpt from the Anti-Federalist Papers; Document B, Document C, and Document D, excerpts from Federalist no. 78; Document E, an excerpt from Federalist no. 81; Document F, an excerpt from Article III of the US Constitution; Document G, the Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution; Document H, an excerpt from the Judiciary Act of 1789; and Document I, the Kentucky Resolution.

Unanimous Majority Opinion, Marbury v. Madison, 1803

The authority … given to the Supreme Court, by the act establishing the judicial courts of the United States, to issue writs of mandamus to public officers, appears not to be warranted by the Constitution….

Certainly all those who have framed written constitutions contemplate them as forming the fundamental and paramount law of the nation, and consequently the theory of every such government must be, that an act of the legislature, repugnant to the Constitution, is void….

It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. Those who apply the rule to particular cases, must of necessity expound and interpret that rule. If two laws conflict with each other the courts must decideon the operation of each….

So if a law be in opposition to the constitution; if both the law and the constitution apply to a particular case, so that the court must either decide that case conformably to the law, disregarding the constitution; or conformably to the constitution, disregarding the law; the court must determine which of these conflicting rules governs the case. This is of the very essence of judicial duty….

The judicial power of the United States is extended to all cases arising under the constitution. Could it be the intention of those who gave this power, to say that, in using it, the constitution should not be looked into? That a case arising under the constitution should be decided without examining the instrument under which it arises? This is too extravagant to be maintained.

>Why does this ruling argue that the Supreme Court has the power to interpret the Constitution?

>What does Marshall call the “very essence of judicial duty”?

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Check back each week to see the next document and how it might change your thinking on this important question that affects all public school teachers and students in the U.S.! If you are enjoying this DBQ – be sure to check out our curriculum Supreme Court DBQs: Exploring the Cases the Changed History.

Do you use document-based questions in your classroom?

This summer the Bill of Rights Institute is blogging a document-based question on the Supreme Court case Marbury v. Madison (1803). Each weekly post will feature an excerpted document related to the case, along with some questions to guide your thinking on it. Each document should be used to address the question: “Argue whether or not the Supreme Court should have the power to overturn unconstitutional federal laws.”

Check out our previous posts for Document A, an excerpt from the Anti-Federalist Papers; Document B, Document C, and Document D, excerpts from Federalist no. 78; Document E, an excerpt from Federalist no. 81; Document F, an excerpt from Article III of the US Constitution; Document G, the Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution; and Document H, an excerpt from Section 13 of the Judiciary Act of 1789.

The Kentucky Resolution, Thomas Jefferson (1798)

That the several states who formed that instrument [the Constitution], being sovereign and independent, have the unquestionable right to judge of its infraction; and that a nullification, by those sovereignties, of all authorized acts done under colour of that instrument, is a rightful remedy.

>Who or what does Thomas Jefferson assert has the authority to judge the constitutionality of federal laws?

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Check back each week to see the next document and how it might change your thinking on this important question that affects all public school teachers and students in the U.S.! If you are enjoying this DBQ – be sure to check out our curriculum Supreme Court DBQs: Exploring the Cases the Changed History.

Do you use document-based questions in your classroom?

This summer the Bill of Rights Institute is blogging a document-based question on the Supreme Court case Marbury v. Madison (1803). Each weekly post will feature an excerpted document related to the case, along with some questions to guide your thinking on it. Each document should be used to address the question: “Argue whether or not the Supreme Court should have the power to overturn unconstitutional federal laws.”

Check out our previous posts for Document A, an excerpt from the Anti-Federalist Papers; Document B, Document C, and Document D, excerpts from Federalist no. 78; Document E, an excerpt from Federalist no. 81; Document F, an excerpt from Article III of the US Constitution; and Document G, the Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution.

Section 13, Judiciary Act of 1789

The Supreme Court … shall have power to issue … writs of mandamus, in cases warranted by the principle and usages of law, to any courts appointed, or persons holding office, under the authority of the United States ….

>What powers does Section 13 give the Supreme Court?

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Check back each week to see the next document and how it might change your thinking on this important question that affects all public school teachers and students in the U.S.! If you are enjoying this DBQ – be sure to check out our curriculum Supreme Court DBQs: Exploring the Cases the Changed History.

Do you use document-based questions in your classroom?

This summer the Bill of Rights Institute is blogging a document-based question on the Supreme Court case Marbury v. Madison (1803). Each weekly post will feature an excerpted document related to the case, along with some questions to guide your thinking on it. Each document should be used to address the question: “Argue whether or not the Supreme Court should have the power to overturn unconstitutional federal laws.”

Check out our previous posts for Document A, an excerpt from the Anti-Federalist Papers; Document B, Document C, and Document D, excerpts from Federalist no. 78; Document E, an excerpt from Federalist no. 81; and Document F, an excerpt from Article III of the US Constitution.

The Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution (1789)

This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.

>Does this section of the Constitution support Hamilton’s argument in Document B?

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Check back each week to see the next document and how it might change your thinking on this important question that affects all public school teachers and students in the U.S.! If you are enjoying this DBQ – be sure to check out our curriculum Supreme Court DBQs: Exploring the Cases the Changed History.