Spring 2027

American Legal History to 1860

A survey of American legal history from its English roots through the Civil War, focusing on colonial law, the U.S. Constitution, and the origins of modern civil and constitutional rights.

no offering record for this termCredits unavailable
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 No instructors listed

Summary

1 / 7

Past student reviews · Richard Keyser

The course demanded intense note-taking and studying for timed, closed-note blue book exams, with prompts provided a week in advance.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Analyze how the social, political, and cultural context of England and colonial America helped to shape early American legal and political systems.

  • Analyze how early legal and political systems impacted Americans of all types: men and women; landowners and the poor; settlers and indigenous people; free people, servants, and slaves.

  • Assess how and why the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and other founding documents were shaped by traditions of representative government, Common Law, and the political philosophies of republicanism and liberalism.

  • Find, interpret, and utilize resources relevant to early American law and society, including colonial charters, slave codes, the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and Supreme Court decisions.

  • Analyze legal arguments in historical context, write clearly and persuasively, and construct original arguments.

Source: UW Guide 1 UW Guide 2

Grade history

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average GPA
letter grades
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AB
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All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

Sophomore standing

  • Sophomore standing
HISTORY/LEGALST 261 used by

“Used by” includes alternatives; linked courses may have other requirements. This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree
  • Sophomore standing

Professors

Spring 2027

No instructors recorded for this selection.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

RICHARD KEYSER is recorded teaching in Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Fall 2024, Fall 2025. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

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SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections.

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Richard Keyser

Students described Legal Studies 261 as the most difficult class they took at UW, noting that Professor Keyser lectures the entire class so attention is essential.

Recent recorded grades — Fall 2023: 3.17 GPA, 40.7% A/AB (n=54 letter grades); Fall 2024: 3.22 GPA, 47.3% A/AB (n=55 letter grades); Fall 2025: 2.95 GPA, 38.2% A/AB (n=55 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Richard Keyser

The course demanded intense note-taking and studying for timed, closed-note blue book exams, with prompts provided a week in advance.

Past student reviews · Richard Keyser

One student found the high grading standard fair and noted that all critiques received were justified with notes, which helped them improve later in the course.

Topics

  • English historical background and the development of law in colonial America.
  • The impact of territorial expansion, democracy, and slavery on nineteenth-century American law.
  • Origins of modern civil and constitutional rights.

Skills

  • Analyze how social, political, and cultural contexts shaped early American legal and political systems.
  • Find, interpret, and utilize primary legal and historical resources such as colonial charters, slave codes, and founding documents.
  • Analyze legal arguments in historical context and construct original written arguments.

Grades

Latest available · Fall 2025— not enough history to project Spring 2027.

average GPA
A / AB grades
letter grades
Instructor

Grade distribution · % of letter grades

A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

Grades over time

Through Fall 2025

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Fall 2025 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1316 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

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Selected offering source records

No offering records for the selected term.

Raw records 
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Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
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Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
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Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

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Model & dataset provenance 
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  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "32d95b08de9c7b2304fe4ebdcf5033a43fdcd3a0f2b39f38f13d8072d8bdd99b",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}