America's Wars as Constitutional Crises

Catalog description

Course examines the effects of the American Civil War, World War I, World War II and the Vietnam War on the American legal system, and the ways the American legal system influenced the prosecution and outcome of these wars on the domestic front. Some key examples include landmark decisions affecting racial minorities and women; war powers and the constitutionality of war to include wartime civil rights and conscientious objection, sedition, treason, military tribunals, the wartime justice system, and the draft; and outgrowths of the changing nature of post-war society such as substantive due process and the concept of privacy. Students understand how and why historical, social, political and legal factors intertwined during these major American wars. Offered: Occasionally.