Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty PDF
Preview Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty
Restoring the Lost Constitution Restoring the Lost Constitution THE PRESUMPTION OF LIBERTY Randy E. Barnett PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS PRINCETON AND OXFORD Copyright © 2004 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 3 Market Place, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1SY All Rights Reserved Third printing, and first paperback printing, 2005 Paperback ISBN-13: 978-0-691-12376-9 Paperback ISBN-10: 0-691-12376-4 The Library of Congress has cataloged the cloth edition of this book as follows Barnett, Randy E. Restoring the lost constitution : the presumption of liberty / Randy E. Barnett. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-691-11585-0 (cloth : acid-free paper) 1. Constitutional history—United States. 2. Constitutional law—United States. 3. Judicial review—United States. 4. United States. Supreme Court. I. Title. KF4541 .B313 2004 342.73'029—dc21 2003044205 British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available This book has been composed in Sabon Printed on acid-free paper. ∞ pup.princeton.edu Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 To James Madison and Lysander Spooner Contents Preface ix INTRODUCTION WhyCareWhattheConstitutionSays? 1 PART I. Constitutional Legitimacy CHAPTERONE TheFictionof“WethePeople”:IstheConstitutionBindingonUs? 11 CHAPTERTWO ConstitutionalLegitimacywithoutConsent:ProtectingtheRights RetainedbythePeople 32 CHAPTERTHREE NaturalRightsasLibertyRights:RetainedRights,Privileges, orImmunities 53 PART II. Constitutional Method CHAPTERFOUR ConstitutionalInterpretation:AnOriginalismforNonoriginalists 89 CHAPTERFIVE ConstitutionalConstruction:SupplementingOriginalMeaning 118 CHAPTERSIX JudicialReview:TheMeaningoftheJudicialPower 131 PART III. Constitutional Limits CHAPTERSEVEN JudicialReviewofFederalLaws:TheMeaningoftheNecessary andProperClause 153 CHAPTEREIGHT JudicialReviewofStateLaws:TheMeaningofthePrivileges orImmunitiesClause 191 CHAPTERNINE TheMandateoftheNinthAmendment:WhyFootnote FourIsWrong 224 viii • Contents CHAPTERTEN ThePresumptionofLiberty:ProtectingRightswithout ListingThem 253 PART IV. Constitutional Powers CHAPTERELEVEN TheProperScopeofFederalPower:TheMeaningofthe CommerceClause 274 CHAPTERTWELVE TheProperScopeofStatePower:Construingthe“PolicePower” 319 CHAPTERTHIRTEEN ShowingNecessity:JudicialDoctrinesandApplicationtoCases 335 CONCLUSION RestoringtheLostConstitution 354 IndexofCases 359 IndexofNames 360 GeneralIndex 363 Preface GROWINGUP,IwaslikemostAmericansinmyreverencefortheConstitu- tion.Notuntilcollegewasthefirstseedofdoubtplantedintheformof anessaybyanineteenth-centuryabolitionistandradicalnamedLysander Spooner. In his best-known work, No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority (1870), Spooner argued that the Constitution of the United Stateswasillegitimatebecauseitwasnotandcouldneverhavebeencon- sentedtobythepeopleonwhomitisimposed.Althoughasanundergrad- uate I found Spooner’s argument unanswerable (and I must admit so it remained untilI was inmy forties),the problem waslargely theoretical. Mymindmayhavedoubted,butmyfaithremained. Until I took Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School. The experi- encewascompletelydisillusioning,butnotbecauseoftheprofessor,Lau- rence Tribe, who was an engaging and open-minded teacher. No, what disillusioned me was reading the opinions of the U.S. Supreme Court. Throughout the semester, as we covered one constitutional clause after another,passagesthatsoundedgreattomeweredrainedbytheCourtof their obviously power-constraining meanings. First was the Necessary andProperClauseinMcCullochv.Maryland(1819),thentheCommerce Clause(abit)inGibbonsv.Ogden(1824),thenthePrivilegesorImmuni- tiesClauseoftheFourteenthAmendmentinTheSlaughter-HouseCases (1873), then the Commerce Clause (this time in earnest) in Wickard v. Filburn (1942), and the Ninth Amendment in United Public Workers v. Mitchell(1947). Nor were these landmark decisions isolated cases. In countless other opinions, the Supreme Court justices affirmed they meant it when they saidtheConstitutiondidnotmeanwhatitapparentlysaid.Accordingto the SupremeCourt, a majorityin Congresscould restrict theliberties of thepeopleprettymuchanywayitwishedunlessalawviolatedanexpress prohibition of the Constitution—or some privileged but unenumerated rightsuchastherightofprivacy.Evenanexpressright,suchasthe“right tokeepandbeararms,”couldeffectivelybereadoutoftheConstitution when the Supreme Court disapproved. Were this not enough, the most famousdecisioninwhichtheSupremeCourthadoncetriedholdingthe line, Lochner v. New York (1905), was taught along with other cases from the Progressive Era precisely as examples of how courts were not supposedtoact.ThatLochnerisamongtheworstdecisionstheSupreme Court ever made was the received and unquestioned wisdom then, and
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