The Power of Our Supreme Court: How Supreme Court Cases Shape Democracy

by Matt Beat

Overview

Mr.Beat Connects the Supreme Court History Right to You!

#1 Best Seller in Courts & Law

Mr. Beat’s The Power of Our Supreme Court is the Supreme Court book of decisions that affect the everyday lives of Americans everywhere.

The real democracy of America unveiled. What does the Supreme Court do? Sure, people care when the court makes a big ruling, but most don’t pay attention to the court’s day-to-day decisions. In this highly relevant law book, Mr. Beat takes you on a journey through our Supreme Court system, what it is, who is in it and how they got to be there, while foreshadowing how it shapes our very future. 

A tour of the most influential cases in history. Inspired by Mr. Beat’s court series, The Power of Our Supreme Court walks through many Supreme Court history cases from landmark cases to the more obscure. Matt Beat explains how each case affects us to this day in a way that is engaging, applicable, and easy to understand, even for beginners.

Inside, you’ll find:

• Detailed explanations of the Supreme Court, how it works, and how it affects you
• A Supreme Court cases book perfect for anyone interested in social science, political science, activism, law, or current events
• Interesting visuals, charts, and graphs to help contextualize and breakdown the historical significance of big and small cases

If you like courtroom books, legal books for lawyers, or books on politics like The Shadow Docket, How Civil Wars Start, The Color of Law, or The Flip Side of History, you’ll love Mr. Beat’s The Power of Our Supreme Court.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781684810680
Publisher:	Mango Media
Publication date:	06/20/2023
Pages:	296
Sales rank:	503,671
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Matt Beat is a teacher, video producer, podcaster, and musician based in Kansas. His YouTube channels Mr. Beat and The Beat Goes On, have accumulated more than 500,000 subscribers and 100 million views, helping expand his "classroom" to around the world. Mr.Beat's speciality is American history, but he also has a big passion for geography and economics. He has a band called Electric Needle Room, known for original indie pop songs about all of the American Presidents. Matt co-hosts an iHeartMedia podcast called Jobsolete. For press and more, visit: https://www.iammrbeat.com/bio.html.

Read an Excerpt

....

Other things are not so easy to make relevant. The Compromise of 1790, which was the first of three incredibly important compromises made between Northern politicians and Southern politicians to keep the United States together, isn’t that particularly interesting to learn about. Sure, it’s a pivotal event in the early history of the country, but it’s kind of a boring story. It only means something to most of us today when you connect it with the cultural divides of today. 

Enter the Supreme Court of the United States. It’s currently made up of just nine people, each who arguably have more power than any politician or plutocrat in the United States. They are at the top of the judicial branch of the American federal government, the branch that interprets laws. Interpret? Well humans can interpret things however they want to, can’t they? This, alone, is a tremendous power, and just five interpretations from the Court can be carved in stone as a precedent that can be used for decades, if not centuries. The Court has basically complete discretion over which cases it decides to hear. Of the 7,000 to 10,000 requests for cases it gets each year, it often only takes between 80 and 85 of those. It has the power to overthrow decisions of all courts underneath it. 

The Supreme Court’s power has grown tremendously since the early 1800s. Beginning with the case Marbury v. Madison, which institutionalized the idea of judicial review, the Court slowly became a powerful force to hold the other two branches of government, the legislative and executive, accountable. Judicial review is the process by which the judicial branch can determine whether or not the actions of the executive and legislative branches are constitutional. This means that if the President issues an executive order the Court thinks is unconstitutional, they can strike it down. If Congress passes a law the Court thinks is constitutional, it can uphold it. Beginning in the 1950s, the Court became more overtly political. In the 1960s, it really ramped it up, to a point where people began electing the President based on who they might appoint to join it. 

...

Table of Contents

Why I Wrote This Book
What the Heck Is the Supreme Court?
Who Makes Up the Supreme Court?
A Brief History of the Supreme Court
How I Came Up with 100 Supreme Court Cases You Should Know About
100 Supreme Court Cases You Should Know About

1. Chisholm v. Georgia (1793)
2. Marbury v. Madison (1803)
3. Fletcher v. Peck (1810)
4. Martin v. Hunter’s Lessee (1816)
5. Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1819)
6. McCulloch v. Maryland (1819)
7. Gibbons v. Ogden (1824)
8. Worcester v. Georgia (1832)
9. Barron v. Baltimore (1833)
10. United States v. The Amistad (1841)
11. The Dred Scott Decision (1857)
12. Ex parte Milligan (1866)
13. Texas v. White (1869)
14. The Slaughter-House Cases (1873)
15. Munn v. Illinois (1876)
16. Strauder v. West Virginia (1880)
17. The Civil Rights Cases (1883)
18. United States v. E.C. Knight Co. (1895)
19. Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Co. (1895)
20. Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
21. Holden v. Hardy (1898)
22. United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898)
23. The Insular Cases (1901)
24. Jacobson v. Massachusetts (1905)
25. Lochner v. New York (1905)
26. Bailey v. Alabama (1911)
27. Schenck v. United States (1919)
28. Gitlow v. New York (1925)
29. Buck v. Bell (1927)
30. Near v. Minnesota (1931)
31. Powell v. Alabama (1932)
32. A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States (1935)
33. United States v. Butler (1936)
34. West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish (1937)
35. United States v. Miller (1939)
36. United States v. Darby Lumber Co. (1941)
37. Skinner v. Oklahoma (1942)
38. West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943)
39. Smith v. Allwright (1944)
40. Korematsu v. United States (1944)
41. United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. (1948)
42. Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
43. Mapp v. Ohio (1961)
44. Baker v. Carr (1962)
45. Engel v. Vitale (1962)
46. Gideon v. Wainwright (1963)
47. New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964)
48. Griswold v. Connecticut (1965)
49. Miranda v. Arizona (1966)
50. In re Gault (1967)
51. Loving v. Virginia (1967)
52. Katz v. United States (1967)
53. Terry v. Ohio (1968)
54. Tinker v. Des Moines (1969)
55. Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969)
56. Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education (1971)
57. Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971)
58. The Pentagon Papers Case (1971)
59. Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972)
60. Roe v. Wade (1973)
61. Miller v. California (1973)
62. United States v. Nixon (1974)
63. Buckley v. Valeo (1976)
64. Gregg v. Georgia (1976)
65. Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978)
66. Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc. (1984)
67. New Jersey v. T.L.O. (1985)
68. Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier (1988)
69. Hustler Magazine v. Falwell (1988)
70. Graham v. Connor (1989)
71. Texas v. Johnson (1989)
72. Shaw v. Reno (1993)
73. United States v. Lopez (1995)
74. US Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton (1995)
75. Bush v. Gore (2000)
76. Lawrence v. Texas (2003)
77. Crawford v. Washington (2004)
78. Gonzales v. Raich (2005)
79. Kelo v. City of New London (2005)
80. Castle Rock v. Gonzales (2005)
81. Morse v. Frederick (2007)
82. DC v. Heller (2008)
83. Citizens United v. FEC (2010)
84. McDonald v. Chicago (2010)
85. Snyder v. Phelps (2011)
86. Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association (2011)
87. Maryland v. King (2013)
88. Salinas v. Texas (2013)
89. Shelby County v. Holder (2013)
90. Burwell v. Hobby Lobby (2014)
91. Obergefell v. Hodges (2015)
92. Murphy v. NCAA (2018)
93. Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission (2018)
94. Carpenter v. United States (2018)
95. Bostock v. Clayton County (2020)
96. McGirt v. Oklahoma (2020)
97. Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L. (2021)
98. Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022)
99. Kennedy v. Bremerton School District (2022)
100. West Virginia v. EPA (2022)

Why the Supreme Court Matters Today
The Future of the Court
Acknowledgments
About the Author

Editorial Reviews

If you don’t know much about the Supreme Court but would like to, this is where you should start. Matt takes the starch out of the legal process and delivers an approachable summary of an institution we should all be well-versed on.”
—Dave Farina, a.k.a. “Professor Dave,” author of Is This Wi-Fi Organic?

“In The Power of the Supreme Court, Matt Beat sounds an alarm that will surely awaken every American sleeping on the vital importance of the Supreme Court. As he traverses the history and function of the Court, Matt unravels complex topics in a way that anyone can understand, and does so with a healthy dose of his signature wit. If every American read Matt’s book and took to heart its lessons, we might find that our national wounds, long in festering, may begin to heal. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.”
—Steve Heimler, of Heimler’s History

“Matt is one of the most popular American history YouTubers for a reason: few can compete with his depth of knowledge and clear and engaging style of communication. This book is essential reading for anyone seeking an explanation for how and why so much of American politics has come to revolve around a small handful of decisions made by a small handful of judges.”
—J.J. McCullough  

From the Publisher