The New Deal. Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal greatly expanded the federal government’s role in the country’s domestic and economic affairs, which led to a long-running constitutional crisis in the 1930s that remains controversial to this day.

The New Deal. Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal greatly expanded the federal government’s role in the country’s domestic and economic affairs, which led to a long-running constitutional crisis in the 1930s that remains controversial to this day. Although the Supreme Court threw out several New Deal programs, others survived and laid the foundation for later developments over the next three decades.

Assess the New Deal as a revolution in constitutionalism. How did the New Deal’s supporters justify the constitutionality of its programs? What objections did opponents of the New Deal raise? How and why did the Supreme Court’s stance on the New Deal change over time? How did Roosevelt’s successors expand on the New Deal and what might explain why these later measures generally encountered less resistance than the New Deal itself?

Summarizing your responses to the questions above, did the New Deal represent a revolution in understandings of and practices under the Constitution? If so, was this development beneficial or detrimental to the American people?

The Bill of Rights. After the Preamble, The Bill of Rights is probably the most famous section of the Constitution, but is often imperfectly understood. For instance, the Bill of Rights initially served only to limit the actions of the federal government, and did not protect citizens from the actions of state governments (as affirmed in the 1833 Supreme Court case of Barron v. Baltimore). Moreover, many rights that Americans take for granted—such as voting—do not appear in the Bill of Rights, and many other rights were not fully articulated or protected until the mid-twentieth century.

Review the Constitution generally, and the Bill of Rights specifically, and explain how and why understandings of citizens’ rights changed in the mid-twentieth century.

What rights did the Constitution, as originally written (i.e., before the addition of the Bill of Rights), protect? What rights did the Bill of Rights add? How did the Fourteenth Amendment and the process of incorporation change the nature of the Bill of Rights? What new rights would be added from the 1950s through the 1970s?