The Supreme Court: Core Cases

The American Revolution

Captain John Parker, commander of the Lexington militia, had received Paul Revere’s warning. Great Britain’s…

Resolution Regarding Quaker Pacifists

Source: “At a meeting of the Committee of Correspondence and Observation for the County of…

Petition of the Philadelphia Synagogue to the Council of Censors of Pennsylvania

Source: “Petition of the Philadelphia Synagogue to the Council of Censors of Pennsylvania,” The Freeman’s…

Chapter 2: Merchants and Morality in Colonial Massachusetts

A.Robert Cushman, The Sin and Danger of Self-Love, 1621 Let no man seek his own;…

Religious Liberty: Core Court Cases

Amendment I.  Ratified December 15, 1791 Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,…

Reynolds v. United States

Source: 98 U.S. 145 (1879), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/98/145. We have omitted the concurring opinion by Justice Stephen J.…

Everson v. Board of Education of the Township of Ewing

Source: 330 U.S. 1 (1947), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/330/1. We have included some footnotes from the opinion. Footnotes…

West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette

Source: 319 U.S. 586 (1943), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/319/624. All footnotes added by the editors. JUSTICE JACKSON delivered…

Illinois ex rel. McCollum v. Board of Education of School District

Source: 396 Ill. 14, 71 N.E.2d 161, reversed, https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/333/203. We have included excerpts of Justice…

Engel v. Vitale

Source: 370 U.S. 421, https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/370/421. We include excerpts of Justice Black’s opinion for the Court.…

Sherbert v. Verner

Source: 374 U.S. 398, https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/374/398. The Court decided the case 7–2. We have excerpted Justice…

Lemon v. Kurtzman

Source: 403 U.S. 602 (1971) https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/411/192. All footnotes added by the editors. CHIEF JUSTICE BURGER…

Wisconsin v. Yoder

Source: 406 U.S. 205 (1972); https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/406/205. We have excerpted the Court’s opinion and the dissent…

Widmar v. Vincent

Source: 454 U.S. 263, https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/454/263. We include excerpts of Justice Powell’s opinion for the Court.…

Wallace v. Jaffree

Source: Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38, https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/472/38/. Footnotes added by the editors are preceded…

Lynch v. Donnelly

Source: 465 U.S. 668 (1984), https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/465/668.html. We include excerpts of Chief Justice Warren E. Burger’s…

Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd., et al., Petitioners v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, et al.

Source: 584 U.S. ___ (2018), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/16-111. Justice Thomas, with whom Justice Gorsuch joins, concurring in part and…

Edwards v. Aguillard

Source: 482 U.S. 578 (1987), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/482/578. We include excerpts of Justice William J. Brennan Jr.’s…

Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v Smith

Source: 494 U.S. 872 (1990), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/494/872. We have included excerpts of Justice Scalia’s opinion for…

Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah

Source: 508 U.S. 520 (1993), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/91-948.ZO.html. We include only excerpts of Justice Kennedy’s opinion for…

Lee v. Weisman

Source: 505 U.S. 577, https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/505/577. We include excerpts from Justice Kennedy’s opinion for the court,…

Zelman v. Simmons-Harris

Source: 536 U.S. 639 (2002) https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/00-1751.ZS.html. We omit Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist’s opinion for…

Van Orden v. Perry

Source: 543 U.S. 677 (2005), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/03-1500.ZO.html. We omit the opinion of the Court by Chief…

Locke v. Davey

Source: 540 U.S. 712 (2004), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/02-1315.ZS.html. We include the Chief Justice Rehnquist’s opinion for the…

McCreary County v. American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky

Source: 545 U.S. 844, https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/03-1693.ZS.html. We include the opinions of Justices Souter and Scalia but…

Burwell, Secretary of Health and Human Services, et al. v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., et al.

Source: 573 U.S., https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/13-354. No. 13–354, 723 F. 3d 1114, affirmed; No. 13–356, 724 F. 3d 377,…

Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer

Source: 582 U.S. ___ (2017), https://www.oyez.org/cases/2016/15-577. Footnotes added by the editors are preceded by “Ed.…

Town of Greece v. Susan Galloway, et al.

Source: 681 F. 3d 20, reversed, https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/12-696. Footnotes added by the editors are preceded by “Ed.…

Causes of the Civil War

This volume of primary documents on the causes of the Civil War presents the history…

The Union Must and Shall Be Preserved

Source: The Union must and shall be preserved. Air.- Star Spangled Banner. H. De Marsan,…

Letter to the General Court and Testimony

Source: Edward Burrough, A Declaration of the Sad and Great Persecution and Martyrdom of the…

A Dialogue between Old England and New Concerning Their Present Troubles

Source: The Poems of Mrs. Anne Bradstreet (1612–1672) Together with her            Alas, dear mother,…

Women’s Voices: Religion in American History and Politics

While women have historically made up an overwhelming percentage of America's religious practitioners, their roles…

The Sovereignty and Goodness of God

Source: Mary Rowlandson, The Sovereignty and Goodness of God . . . (1682). We have…

Selected Poems

Source: Phyllis Wheatley, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (London, 1773), 18, 22–24; The…

An Exhortation to the Inhabitants of the Province of South-Carolina

Source: Sophia Wigington Hume, An Exhortation to the Inhabitants of the Province of South-Carolina (Philadelphia: 1748).…

Testimonies

Source: Testimonies of the Life, Character, Revelations and Doctrines of Mother Ann Lee, 2nd Edition…

My Call to Preach the Gospel

Source: Jarena Lee, Religious Experience (Philadelphia: 1849). Between four and five years after my sanctification,[1]…

Letter to Rev. Simon Brute, S. S.

Source: Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, Collected Writings: Volume 2 (2002), 423-425. Vincentian Digital Books. 11.…

Report on the Necessity of Jewish Education

Source: Jewish Women's Archive, “Report of the Female Hebrew Benevolent Society,” 1835. Online: https://jwa.org/media/report-female-hebrew-benevolent-society. Ladies,…

Appeal to Christian Women of the South

Source: Angelina Grimke, Appeal to the Christian Women of the South (New York: American Anti-Slavery…

Record of the Organization and Proceedings of The Female Relief Society of Nauvoo

Source: “A Book of Records, Containing the Proceedings of The Female Relief Society of Nauvoo,”…

Uses and Abuses of the Bible

Source: Michael Warner, American Sermons: The Pilgrims to Martin Luther King, Jr., (New York: Library…

Religious Experience

Source: Olive Gilbert, ed., Narrative of Sojourner Truth (Boston, 1850), 59-73. . . . She…

The Revelation on Celestial Marriage: Trouble Among the Saints

Source: Ann Eliza Young, Chapter 3 in Wife No. 19 (1875). AFTER the Revelation on…

The People’s God: Its Effect on Health and Christianity

Source: Mary Baker Eddy, “The People’s God: Its Effect on Health and Christianity,” The Christian…

The Heavenly Vision

Source: Susan B. Anthony, The History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. IV 1883–1900 (Indianapolis, 1902), 128–133.…

Holiness Camp Meetings

Source: Hannah Whitall Smith, My Spiritual Autobiography or How I Discovered the Unselfishness of God…
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