…James Madison, one of the chief architects of both the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights, echoed Coke’s words: “That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where arbitrary restrictions, exemptions, and monopolies deny to part of its citizens that free use of their faculties, and free choice of their occupations.” Similarly, Rep. John Bingham (R-Ohio), the author of the first section of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which applied the Bill of Rights and other unenumerated rights to the states, said that the 14th Amendment included “the liberty…to work in an honest calling and contribute by your toil in some sort to the support of your fellowmen, and to be secure in the enjoyment of the fruits of your toil.”
So what went wrong? According to Sandefur, the blame falls largely on the Progressives of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, who believed that government action should be the primary agent of all social change. To that end, the Progressives enacted a mountain of new legislation that touched on every aspect of human life, from workplace regulations and antitrust statutes to alcohol prohibition, racial segregation, and eugenics.
How “progressive.” Maybe we need a new amendment.
Has anyone seen any of the usual trolls around? This seems ripe for an uninformed comment from Chris Gerrib who is an expert in this time period.
How about this:
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are preserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Progressives weren’t the only people making assaults on human liberty. In some ways, the rise of corporations could possibly be worse. When our Constitution was written, there wasn’t anything like today’s corporate America. Some people have made the argument that the Progressives were simply defending ordinary people against corporate bosses. That is, sadly, too easy to support.