Hello and welcome to The Global Student's
Introduction to the Law of the United
States.
This is the MOOC by the University of
Florida's Levin College of Law.
My name is Pedro Malavet.
I'm a member of the faculty and I will be
covering the introductory materials.
I will also be covering a brief history of
the Constitution of the United States in
this lecture.
And in the series, I will be
discussing the constitutional structure of
the United States.
Allow me to give you an overview of this
series.
It is, it is about the law of the United
States, the basic history of
our Constitution, the constitutional
structure of the United
States with special emphasis on separation
of powers.
And judicial review.
And then, I will spend more time on the
concept of federalism.
The shared sovereignty of the United
States.
The recommended readings for this course
are Jay Feinman, Law
101 is the one that we expect to have you
use.
But I personally use William Burnham,
Introduction to the
Law and Legal System of the United States
in
the courses that I teach, and I highly
recommend
that especially since it is the foundation
of my presentation.
I also recommend the Library of Congress
website as a wonderful resource
on materials on the law and legal system
of the United States.
I teach, basically, this class, in the LLM
in Comparative Law program at the
University of Florida.
I teach Introduction to the Law and Legal
System of the United States.
And if you go to my dedicated website
for the LLM, you will find materials
related to
this class if you wish to learn more about
the law and legal system of the United
States.
We will also give you links in our MOOC
page, to very useful resources.
I start today with a brief history of the
United States as it relates to law.
The American Revolution, the Articles of
Confederation, and then, eventually,
our fundamental legal document, the
Constitution of the United States.
But it all started with the Declaration of
Independence on July 4th of 1776, and
this was the culmination of a process, a
process that involved law in
many parts, but that started with a revolt
against a tax law.
The Boston Tea Party was a, an act
of rebellion against a tax act on tea and
the British followed with severe reprisals
against the colonist.
And, probably the single most important
one again, related to law, it was
an amendment in 1774, to the Quartering
act, which allowed any
British soldier to essentially be placed
in any occupied home in what
is today, the United States, and what was
then just the 13 colonies.
The colonies had had enough, and they
constituted themselves in the first
Continental Congress, which
opened up September the 5th of 1774 and
lasted until October the 6th of 1774.
The Second Continental Congress starts on
May 10th
of 1775, and ends on March 1st of 1781.
On July 4th of 1776, the Declaration of
Independence was approved by the Second
Continental Congress.
Literally, the birth of the United States
as a new nation, independent from Great
Britain.
Although, of course, there was still the
little matter of a war to be fought.
But my focus is on law.
And the first charter for the United
States is
the Articles of Confederation of 1781 and
the colonists
realized immediately after the passage of
the Declaration of
Independence, that they would need a plan
of confederation.
Some way of legally organizing these
colonies into a nation and eventually,
this led to the passage of the Articles of
Confederation, our first charter.
The Articles of Confederation are the most
important legal product of the Continental
Congresses.
It is the first attempt at a charter
for what would eventually become the
United States.
But it had problems.
It had no true national government, the
congress,
the legislature, or congressional
committees were, in fact, in
charge, and it required a super-majority
of 9 of
the 13 then colonies, eventually state,
for most vote.
And unanimity for any kind of amendment to
the Articles, themselves.
This did not work.
Therefore, a Constitutional Convention
would eventually be required.
First, there was conference on navigation
of interstate rivers
at which James Madison of Virginia
recommended that there
should be a Constitutional Convention to
fix the problems
that the country was having with the
Articles of Confederation.
The Congress met in Philadelphia in 1787,
12 of the 13 colonies sent
representatives to this meeting and it
eventually constituted itself in a
Constitutional convention.
This is where they met.
Independence Hall in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania.
This is where the founding fathers of our
nation
produced the single most important legal
document in our history.
The debate at this convention was very
much centered
on what kind of national government we
ought to have.
Should we have a more powerful national
government, on that they all agreed.
But how powerful this government should
be, that they did not agree upon.
They knew that they needed a stronger
government
than that provided for in the Articles of
Confederation.
And one that was not despotic like the
British government.
But, the details divided the convention.
The convention's divisions were, among
federalists and anti-federalists.
The so-called federalists were those who
favored a strong national government, and
the anti-federalists were those that today
we would label state's rights supporters,
people who favored a national government
that had limited powers, and particularly
one that deferred to the states in the
exercise of legal authority.
The document that this convention produced
is,
of course, The Constitution of the United
States.
We the people, in congress assembled.
And this Constitution was approved by the
Convention on September 17th of 1787.
It was sent by Congress to the States
by the Congress, excuse me, on September
28, 1787.
It was ratified by the minimum number of
states on June 21st, 1788.
And the effective date for its application
set by the Congress was March 9th of 1789.
This is why we typically refer to the
constitution as the constitution of 1789.
The Bill of Rights is the first ten
amendments to the Constitution of the
United States.
And they, together, collectively represent
the fundamental rights
that are guaranteed to all Americans by
the Constitution.
The Bill of Rights was very much demanded
by the states.
In fact, five of the states, at the time
of ratification, demanded that the Bill of
Rights be passed.
It was drafted primarily by James Madison,
who was a
federalist one of those who favored a
strong national government.
And he, in fact, had urged a delay
in ratification until passage of the Bill
of Rights.
It was incorporated into the Constitution,
as I said,
as the first ten amendments to it in 1791.
This is the conclusion of our brief
history.
And allow me to give you some ideas of its
importance.
The need for our Constitution and
something to
replace the charter, the previous charter,
was very clear.
The Articles of Confederation simply had
not worked.
But there were different visions among our
founding fathers.
The federalists and anti federalists
views, in
many ways, divide us to this day.
And the constitution itself is a general
document which leaves many
areas unclear and for future decision,
much of it by judicial decision.
But, in fact, the basic legal design of
our country is
this Constitution, which is why we start
our course with it.
And allow me, also in conclusion to say,
that the most common question that
students ask me,
when they're planning to come to law
school
is, Professor Malavet, what should I do in
university?
What should I study in college if I'm
planning to going to law school?
And I always tell them, study history.
It is impossible to study law if you
do not understand the history that
underlies it.
And that is why we have started our first
session with
the legal history of the United States in
extremely brief form.
Thank you.
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