The Fourteenth Amendment: From Political Principle to Judicial Doctrine

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Harvard University Press, Jun 1, 2009 - Political Science - 253 pages
In a remarkably fresh and historically grounded reinterpretation of the American Constitution, William Nelson argues that the fourteenth amendment was written to affirm the general public's long-standing rhetorical commitment to the principles of equality and individual rights on the one hand, and to the principle of local self-rule on the other.

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Contents

The Impasse in Fourteenth Amendment Scholarship
1
Ideas of Liberty and Equality
13
The Drafting and Adoption of the Amendment
40
The Use of Antebellum Rhetoric in
64
Objections to the Amendment
91
The Republican Rebuttal
110
The Judicial Elaboration of Doctrine
148
Lochner v New York and the Transformation
197
Copyright

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Page 32 - That the Government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself...
Page 25 - That government can scarcely be deemed to be free where the rights of property are left solely dependent upon the will of a legislative body, without any restraint. The fundamental maxims of a free government seem to require that the rights of personal liberty and private property should be held sacred.
Page 190 - For, the very idea that one man may be compelled to hold his life, or the means of living, or any material right essential to the enjoyment of life, at the mere will of another, seems to be intolerable in any country where freedom prevails, as being the essence of slavery itself.
Page 169 - It may well be doubted if a man is to hold all that he is accustomed to call his own, all in which he has placed his happiness, and the security of which is essential to that happiness, under the unlimited dominion of others, whether it is not wiser that this power should be exercised by one man than by many. "The theory of our governments, state and national, is opposed to the deposit of unlimited power anywhere.
Page 24 - We feel no hesitation in confining these expressions to those privileges and [immunities which are, in their nature, fundamental ; which belong, of right, to the citizens of all free governments...

About the author (2009)

William E. Nelson is Professor of Law and History, New York University.

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