A kind, intelligent, and perceptive law student (from Florida, no less, how did he get here? :)) ) posted a comment to our discussion of the Youngstown Steel Seizure case, noting the need to understand something of the history and context in order to understand a Con-Law case.
This, of course, is something I stress because without it I can't understand a case, either.
Like where did this Steamboat or Slaughterhouse case come from?
Or all those cases about milk, cows, wheat, and sick-chickens, during the Depression.
Or Marbury v. Madison.
What's the big deal about a guy who didn't make Justice of the Peace in muddy Washington, D.C. in 1800, for goodness sake?
If you tell me the story, however, there's a chance I'll remember the principle, and maybe even the rule.
Then I'll have learned a Con-Law Something.
Out of context, it's in one ear and out the other like most of the stuff I read and hear. Unless she's unusually beautiful, I won't even remember phone numbers. Right into short-term memory, they go, and you know what happens to that. This, of course, is why they invented the Palm. You should see my 'Starlet" section.
I might just as well read outlines if I can't stand context.
Have YOU ever tried to learn law from an outline?
I did.
It never worked.
Helps dredge the stuff up for finals and bar exams, though.
But not to learn the substance originally.
That's why I wrote the Youngstown post, and others around here. To help tell the story. That way it sinks in for the writer, and maybe even the reader, which is why I do this. Saves me class time. Saves it for next year, too.
***
Harry S Truman said:
"The only thing new under the sun is the history you don't know."
Do you like that?
I do.
Even think it's true.
Truman, of whom it was sometimes said, "To err is Truman," seemed to get it right on the big things:
Beating "the little man on the wedding cake," Dewey in the 1948 election.
The Bomb.
MacArthur.
Bowing gracefully to the Court when dumped on the Steel Seizure.
"The Buck Stops Here."
(HST was a poker player. The buck is the hockey-puck that marks who's dealing. If'n you don't wanna deal, you pass the buck, the responsibility. But you probably knew that already. Sorry.)