Category: Historical

In Texas v White, 74 U.S. 700 (1869), the U.S. Supreme Court held that Texas never legally left the Union during the Civil War because the U.S. Constitution did not allow states to unilaterally secede. Accordingly, the acts of the insurgent state gov...

In Cooley v Board of Wardens, 53 U.S. 299 (1852), the U.S. Supreme Court held that the state may regulate interstate commerce under the Constitution’s Commerce Clause, provided that the subject of the regulation is local in nature.   The F...

In Strader v. Graham, 51 U.S. 82 (1851), the U.S. Supreme Court held that it had no jurisdiction to determine whether slaves whose master allowed them to occasionally travel from Kentucky into Ohio acquired a right to freedom. Nonetheless, the justic...

Jones v Van Zandt, 46 U.S. 215 (1847) is one of the U.S. Supreme Court cases that considers slavery issues before the Civil War. The justices ultimately ruled against abolitionists, holding that the Fugitive Slave Law was a valid exercise of the auth...

In Swift v Tyson, 41 U.S. 1 (1842), the U.S. Supreme Court held that the federal courts were authorized to create their own body of common law when hearing cases based on diversity jurisdiction and were not bound by the decisions of the state courts ...

In Worcester v Georgia, 31 U.S. 515 (1832), the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Cherokee Nation was sovereign. It also ruled that the federal government — and not the states — was authorized under the Constitution to deal with Indian nations. ...