Assignment task:
Option 1: Choose any of the Supreme Court cases that we have discussed this semester in lecture or that appear in the SCOTUS excerpts on Canvas. Find two (or more!) scholarly articles in historical journals or law reviews that discuss the case. Explain what you learned from the articles and how they help you better understand the court case. Also explain how the authors' arguments compare to each other. Where are their interpretations similar? Where are they different? What do you think accounts for the differences in the arguments or perspectives of your authors? (Here you are approaching historiography, or the study of the writing of history.) Do you find one of the articles more persuasive than the other? Explain why or why not. Need Assignment Help?
Option 2: Pick any aspect of the case Dred Scott v. Sanford that you would like to know more about, pose a question you would like the answer to, and then try to find the answer using research in scholarly, secondary sources. Choose something fairly specific, such as the plea in abatement (Was asking for a plea in abatement common?), Justice Curtis's dissent (Why did Curtis approach the issue so differently from Taney?), or the Missouri Supreme Court decision from 1852 (Did the Missouri Supreme Court decision acknowledge how it was departing from precedent?). Feel free to reach out about what you are curious about and how you could fashion your curiosity into a researchable question.
General Requirements:
1. Approx. 1200 words, or about 4 pages double-spaced with one-inch margins. Include a word count. I will accept papers that are 15% over or under the word count.
2. Research drawn from at least TWO secondary, scholarly sources:
- Articles published in professional journals, available through the library's databases
- Scholarly books that include footnotes, are ordinarily published by a university press, and are written by a professional historian, sociologist, cultural critic, etc.
3. Use at least two sources not including class materials provided to you. These two sources can be any combination of scholarly books and articles. Note that you will not read all of the book(s) you use, just the relevant parts. You should read all of the articles.
4. Footnotes and bibliography in Chicago style. See additional information below under "Style Guidance."