The Revival of Natural Law Concepts
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The Revival of Natural Law Concepts (1930) is a text by Charles Grove Haines.
Full text[1]
THE REVIVAL OF
NATURAL LAW CONCEPTS
A Study of the Establishment and of the
Interpretation of Limits on Legislatures with
special reference to the Development of certain
phases of American Constitutional Law
BY
CHARLES GROVE HAINES
Professor of Political Science,
University of California at Los Angeles
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
1930
LONDON : HUMPHREY MILFORD
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
PREFACE
THE investigation of the practice of the review of legislative acts by the
courts to test their conformity with the provisions of written constitutions
has involved the consideration of theories of natural law and of ideas of
superior fundamental laws. These theories and ideas are closely related to
doctrines of higher or superior laws which have accompanied the growth of
legal systems. Due to the importance of such ideas in public law and in the
development of limits on the different branches of modern governments, a
study has been made of the main stages in the evolution of higher law
concepts. A considerable part of the study is devoted to the significance of
natural law ideas in the interpretation of the state and federal
constitutions in the United States, where natural law doctrines have been
extensively applied. The review of the growth of natural law ideas and the
presentation of representative opinions of European publicists are intended
to aid in the interpretation of American theories and as a perspective to
evaluate some modern tendencies in constitutional development in the United
States.
It is evident that the concepts of natural law and of fundamental law are
frequently associated. Though natural law may be thought of with little
relation to the notion involved in fundamental laws, and fundamental laws
may be conceived unrelated to natural law, it is customary at various stages
of such analyses for one idea to merge into the other. Carlyle, in speaking
of the views of the Roman jurists on natural law, doubted whether any of the
lawyers had very clear conceptions upon the matter. As a matter of fact all
theories of natural law have a singular vagueness which is both an advantage
and disadvantage in the application of the theories.
Philosophers emphasize the fact that such a term as natural law is a value
concept and the result of an attitude -- an attitude which presupposes
certain psychic processes. Such value concepts are in one sense subjective,
and in another sense they have a normative objectivity. It is beyond the
scope of this treatise to deal with the philosophical and psychological
processes which underlie natural law thinking. The purpose is to present
different types of theories in their legal development and to note their
applications by jurists and lawyers.
Articles by the writer relating in part to this subject have appeared in the
Yale Law Journal, Illinois Law Review, and the Texas Law Review. The
portions used from these articles have been rewritten in a continuous
account with the exception of extracts from the Texas Law Review which are
reprinted with some minor changes by permission of the editors. In the
presentation of ideas relating to natural law in European countries, I have
received invaluable assistance from Professor Georgio del Vecchio, Rector of
the University of Rome, and Professor Louis Le Fur of the Faculty of Law of
the University of Paris, who have favored me with very useful Italian and
French publications relating to natural law. In addition I have been
accorded the privilege by authors and publishers to translate and reprint
portions of the works of European authorities on natural law. I take
pleasure in expressing my appreciation for aid received from Dean Roscoe
Pound, who has frequently indicated in books and in articles the influence
of natural law concepts in the development of American law.
CHARLES GROVE HAINES
Los ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
November, 1929
CONTENTS
PART I
A SURVEY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF NATURAL LAW DOCTRINES
I. ANCIENT AND MEDIAEVAL NATURAL LAW THEORIES . . 3
1. Graeco-Roman Concepts ............ 4
2. Natural Law in the Middle Ages ......... 12
3. Theories following the Reformation ........ 17
4. Types of Natural Law Ideas in Ancient and Mediaeval Times
................. 24
II. ENGLISH HIGHER LAW DOCTRINES .......... 28
1. Natural Law Ideas and English Doctrines relating to Fundamental Laws
.............. 29
2. Natural Law and the Doctrine of the Supremacy of the Law
................... 32
3. Evidences of Natural Law Ideas in Judicial Decisions 39
4. Types of Natural Law Theories applied in English Law.....................
43
5. Differences between the Anglo-American and the Continental Legal Points
of View ........ 44
III. AMERICAN AND FRENCH NATURAL LAW DOCTRINES . . 49
1. Transition from Natural Law Doctrines to Theories of Natural Rights
................ 49
2. American Theories of Natural Law and of Inalienable Rights
................... 52
3. French Natural Law Concepts .......... 59
4. The Decline of the Natural Rights Philosophy ... 65
PART II
THE ACCEPTANCE OF NATURAL LAW OR SUPERIOR LAW CONCEPTS IN THE PUBLIC LAW
OF THE UNITED STATES
IV. JUDICIAL CONSTRUCTION or IMPLIED LIMITS ON AMERICAN LEGISLATURES
................. 75
1. Denial of the Application of Natural Law Concepts . 75
2. Natural Law Theories in the Formative Period of American Law
................ 77
3. Higher Law Theories as a Sanction for the Establishment of the Review of
Legislative Acts by Courts 80
4. Limits on Legislatures resulting from the Nature of the Social Compact
and from the Nature of Free Republican Governments ............ 86
5. Construction of Limits on Legislatures to protect Vested Rights
................ 88
6. The Main Purpose of the Establishment of Express and Implied Limits on
Legislative Powers .... 95
7. A Reaction from the Federalist Doctrine of Limiting Legislative
Activities ............. 97
8. The Return to the Former Natural Law Theories . . 99
V. NATURAL LAW THEORIES AND DUE PROCESS OF LAW . . 104
1. Divergent Views on the Meaning of Due Process of Law.....................
104
2. Due Process of Law as applied by the Justices of the State Courts prior
to 1870 ........... 108
3. Cooley's Efforts to extend the Meaning of Due Process of Law........
......... 116
4. Economic and Legal Bases for a Revival of Natural Law Thinking
................ 117
5. Due Process of Law made an Agency for the Maintenance of Reactionary
Tendencies ........ 122
PART III
THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT AND NATURAL LAW THEORIES
VI. THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT TO THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION AND DUE PROCESS OF
LAW ...... 143
1. Period of Restricted Interpretation ........ 145
2. Economic and Political Pressure brings about a Change in Supreme Court
Decisions .......... 149
3. Reversal of the Former Opinions on the Meaning of Due Process of Law
.............. 154
(a) Due Process of Law applied to the Procedure in the Regulation of Public
Utilities ...... 154
(6) Due Process of Law and Liberty of Contract . . 160
VII. THE DEVELOPMENT OF A GENERAL RULE OF REASON TO DETERMINE THE VALIDITY
OF LEGISLATIVE ACTS . . 166
1. Arbitrary Legislative and Administrative Acts are Void
.................... 166
2. Acts Contrary to Fundamental Rights are Void . . 172
3. Police Regulations must be Reasonable ...... 177
4. Results of the Extension of the Meaning of Due Process of Law
................ 182
5. Some Examples of Higher Law Concepts in Recent Supreme Court Decisions
........... 185
VIII. NATURAL LAW DOCTRINES AID IN CHANGING THE BASIS FOR JUDICIAL REVIEW OF
LEGISLATIVE ACTS ..... 196
1. Conservative Doctrines and Judicial Review of Legislation
.................... 198
2. Underlying Purpose of the Revival of the Natural Law Philosophy in
American Constitutional Law . 210
3. Types of Natural Law applied in the United States . 216
Appendix ... ............... 232
PART IV
THE REVIVAL OF DROIT NATUREL, NATURRECHT, AND SUPERIOR LAW DOCTRINES IN
THE JURISTIC PHILOSOPHY OF EUROPEAN WRITERS
IX. THE BACKGROUND FOR RECENT THEORIES OF NATURAL LAW AND THE GERMAN
DOCTRINE OF A "RECHTSSTAAT" 237
1. Continuance of Natural Law Theories in Europe . . 237
2. German Doctrine of a Rechtsstaat ......... 245
3. Current Views Relating to Natural Law in Germany 246
X. FRENCH THEORIES RELATING TO SUPERIOR LAW: HIGHER LAW DOCTRINES OF KRABBE
.......... 252
1. Views of Saleilles and Charmont ......... 252
2. Views of Duguit and Hauriou .......... 260
3. Higher Law Doctrines of Krabbe ......... 274
XI. REVIVAL OF NATURAL LAW IN METAPHYSICAL AND THEOLOGICAL SPECULATIONS;
NATURAL LAW THEORIES AND INTERNATIONAL LAW ............ 278
1. Natural Law Doctrines of Del Vecchio ....... 279
2. Theological Interpretation of Natural Law by Victor Cathrein
.................. 286
3. Metaphysical Doctrines of Geny ......... 288
4. Natural Law Theories and International Law ... 294
5. Theories of Natural Law Prevalent in Europe ... 302
PART V
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE REVIVAL OF HIGHER LAW CONCEPTS IN THE PUBLIC LAW OF
EUROPE AND OF AMERICA
XII. OBJECTIVES IN THE MODERN REVIVAL OF NATURAL LAW THINKING
.................. 309
1. Natural Law as a Device to introduce Ethical Concepts into the Law
.............. 310
2. Natural Law as an Ideal or Philosophical Standard . 316
3. Higher Laws to guide Judges as Legislators..... 323
4. Higher Law Theories as a Basis for Limits on State Sovereignty
.................. 331
5. Limits on the Power to amend Constitutions in America due to Fundamental
Principles and Rights 336
6. Concluding Comments ............. 342
BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................... 353
TABLE OF CASES .................... 373
INDEX ........................ 381
PART I
A SURVEY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF NATURAL LAW
DOCTRINES
CHAPTER I
ANCIENT AND MEDIAEVAL NATURAL LAW THEORIES
THE conviction that there are superior principles of right, or higher laws
to which the ordinary civil rules made by man must conform and which
necessarily place limits on the operation of such rules, is one of the most
persistent ideas in the evolution of legal thought. There have been times
when the import of higher law concepts has been discredited or their
directive force in legal growth has been concealed by a different
terminology. But legal ideas have seldom been free from superior law
influences. Though the significance of this conviction in the growth of
systems of law has been examined frequently by exponents or critics of
natural law theories, the consideration of the ideas therein involved never
ceases to be of interest. Current tendencies in the legal thought of Europe
and of America render it appropriate to review once more certain
applications of these higher law concepts, and to consider their purport in
giving direction to various processes of modern legal adjustments. Only some
representative uses of these ideas in Europe may be considered as a basis
for comparison and contrast with their pervasive applications in the public
law of the United States. The best-known and most influential form of the
higher law doctrines centers around the term "natural law" or "law of
nature."[1]
1. Graeco-Roman Concepts. Few terms in the history of law have had such a
variety of meanings as the "law of nature" or "natural law." This phrase is
not only used differently by writers in the same period but is also not
infrequently employed in either a confused sense or with varying
connotations by the same writer.[2] And, as with most legal expressions, it
has conveyed divergent ideas in various stages of legal history. Because of
the variety of meanings attributed to the term, efforts have often been made
to discredit its use and to discard references to it in relation to legal
phenomena. Thereby it was thought clear thinking might be facilitated. It
remains to be seen whether such efforts have attained the desired object. A
summary of some of the more common uses of this term forms a necessary
background for a consideration of the modern revival of natural law
thinking.
There have been times when the term "law of nature" has been thought of as
comprising a customary law of divine origin. Such a divine origin of law
tended in early Greece to foster a distinction between laws which were
fundamental as in accordance with nature or ancient custom, and the
conventional rules resulting from ordinary human enactments.[3]
The historical background of natural law concepts has been so frequently
analyzed that it seemed unnecessary to attempt to retrace it again, and it
is not the purpose of this study to treat in detail the evolution of such
ideas. A succinct summary will indicate the stages through which natural law
concepts have passed since the time of the Greeks.
The distinction between the laws made by man and laws which are in
accordance with nature or of divine origin may be traced in the works of
many Greek writers.[4]
Throughout much of Greek thought there was a contrast between fusiV (or
phusis) -- a process of growing in the physical sense, and nomoV (or nomos)
-- man's formulation of rules regarding such growth.[5] Early Greek
philosophers speculated chiefly about the physical universe, but the
Sophists directed attention toward the state and its relations to
individuals.[6] With the Sophists the man-made nomoi were likely to be
contrasted with the universal laws emanating from the gods.[7] Sophocles,
who refers at various times to the notion of higher laws, has Antigone say,
in defence of the charge that she had wilfully disobeyed the king's orders:
"Nor deemed I that thy decrees were of such force, that a
mortal could override the unwritten and unfailing statutes of
heaven. For their life is not of today or yesterday, but for all
time, and no man knows when they were first put forth."[8]
The distinction between natural law, which is universal and divine, and
positive law, which is local and human, is attributed to Hippias by Plato in
the Protagoras.[9] As politics and ethics were to the Greeks nothing more
than two phases of the same formula it was to be expected that chief
interest would be manifested in the ethical phases of the natural law
concept. The Greek idea of law being primarily "a coherent interpretation
and reasoned revision of custom" it was inevitable that principles and rules
of reason should predominate in this interpretation.[10]
Aristotle put the distinction between fundamental and ordinary laws into a
standard formula which has greatly influenced subsequent legal thought. To
Aristotle justice was either natural, as in accordance with nature, and
hence universal; or local and conventional, as applicable to a particular
place.[11] The higher law, as Aristotle conceived it, was unwritten,
universal, eternal and immutable, and in accordance with nature. He divided
law into that which is common, being in accordance with nature and in force
everywhere, and that which is peculiar to each separate community. When an
advocate was pleading a cause and found the positive law was against him,
Aristotle suggested that he might then appeal to the law of nature as
rendering the act void.[12] Thus a basis was laid in philosophic thought for
a dualism between the customary, natural, and universal in law, and the
local, conventional, and ordinary enactments of a separate group of men. It
was this dualism to which mediaeval thinkers recurred when they sought to
contrast the natural and divine laws with the civil laws of a particular
time and place, and to which later jurists have turned when some standard
was sought to test the value or efficacy of existing positive laws.
The Greeks perceived rather vaguely the ideal of fundamental laws as now
understood and they instituted a unique plan for the guardianship of such
laws. This was in the form of an action against the proponent of a measure
or an action to secure annulment of the act. If the action was instituted
within one year of the enactment of the law, proceedings could be brought
against the proponent of the measure, but if instituted later the process
applied only to the annulment of the law. The action might be brought "for
infringement of legal rules, neglecting forms of procedure or some
regulation bearing on the legislative process."[13] In their efforts to
establish a rule of law based on the ancient customary rules the Greeks
regarded certain laws of such permanence that it was a matter of serious
public concern to change them.[14] The idea of the sovereignty of law was
one of the fundamental principles of Greek thought;[15] it prevailed widely
during the Middle Ages; and it was transmitted to modern times in the form
of theories of the supremacy of law or of the reign of law.
Though the Greeks were among the first to formulate ideas of natural law the
Romans made more use of such theories and put their views along this line
into more enduring forms. The first indications of the application of this
concept are to be found in the work of the praetors. In the development of a
law relating to the commercial dealings between citizens and aliens, where
formerly only the principle of bona fides or good faith prevailed, the
praetor peregrinus gradually built a legal system based on reason and common
sense.[16] The praetor, by means of the edict and through his right to
refuse an action worked out an equitable law -- the jus gentium -- which
tended to displace the rigors of the jus civile.[17] It was in this
connection that the doctrine of jus naturale became associated with the
growth of the Roman law. Though jus naturale was seldom used in this period
of Roman law the term served to give sanction to the jus gentium as a
universal system of law which was gradually superseding the jus civile.[18]
Thus principles of natural law or natural justice found their expression in
the hands of the judge and the practical administrator rather than in the
writings of political philosophers. It is interesting to see that at times
when legal thinkers attached little weight to such principles they formed
convenient sources for the extraction of new legal ideas by those who found
the law too harsh and too formalistic in its applications.
As the Roman law developed into a coherent system the three main sources of
its growth were legislation, administrative edicts, and juristic reasoning.
It was in juristic reasoning that natural law concepts were extensively
used, for the authority of the opinions of the jurists in their responses
depended upon the reasonableness of their comments.
As a basic concept for a jus gentium or universal law, natural law was
extensively applied in connection with the Stoic philosophy and with the
application of Stoic principles in the Roman law.[19]
Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, has a remarkable passage extolling natural
law as the eternal and universal law of God governing and directing all
things. The Stoics emphasized the ethical side of Aristotle's conception of
natural justice and considered it as a guiding principle immanent in the
universe. This immanent principle was reason and its expression was natural
law.[20] To Cicero, who became an advocate of Stoic doctrines, the law of
nature became the source and limit of all rights.[21] The best exposition of
Cicero's view is as follows:
Of all these things respecting which learned men dispute there is none more
important than clearly to understand that we are born for justice, and that
right is founded not in opinion but in nature. There is indeed a true law
(lex), right reason, agreeing with nature and diffused among all,
unchanging, everlasting, which calls to duty by commanding, deters from
wrong by forbidding.... It is not allowable to alter this law nor to deviate
from it. Nor can it be abrogated. Nor can we be released from this law
either by the senate or by the people. Nor is any person required to explain
or interpret it. Nor is it one law at Rome and another at Athens, one law
today and another hereafter; but the same law, everlasting and unchangeable,
will bind all nations and all times; and there will be one common lord and
ruler of all, even God, the framer and proposer of this law.[22]
To Cicero civil laws were merely the application of this eternal natural
law. He also emphasized the natural equality of men in contrast with the
Aristotelian theory of inequality and thus foreshadowed one of the
interesting ideas of the Roman jurists. The Ciceronian conception of the law
of nature was to exert a formative influence on legal thought for the
succeeding centuries, but it was modified in its transmission by the form
into which the concept was put by the Roman jurists and incorporated in the
Digest and Institutes of Justinian. The Roman lawyers accepted the Greek
conceptions of natural justice and natural law and applied them as a means
of legal reform. To these conceptions may be traced some of the significant
ideas of the Roman law relating to equity. Gaius considered the jus naturale
as virtually equivalent to the jus gentium, which was recognized through
reason as a body of principles, universal and equitable in their
applications.[23] For him natural law was a body of principles recognized
through the reason as useful and just.
Ulpian and other Roman jurists seemed vaguely to distinguish between the jus
naturale and the jus gentium, the former partaking more of the primitive and
instinctive rules applicable to all life, and the latter, of the
conventional rules of mankind at a given time and place.[24] Thus the later
Roman jurists regarded slavery as contrary to the jus naturale, since men by
the law of nature are born free and equal,[25] but as sanctioned by the jus
gentium. By the time of Justinian the jus naturale had come to mean a body
of ideal principles which men could rationally apprehend and which included
the perfect standards of right conduct and of justice.[26] The compilers of
the Institutes attempted to discriminate between the rules and instincts
common to animals -- the jus naturale; rules common to all mankind -- the
jus gentium; and the particular rules of a community -- jus civile.
This classification, though merely suggested by Roman commentators, was
followed with scrupulous care by certain mediaeval jurists.[27] Later
civilians, like the older jurists, used natural law vaguely and sometimes in
an ambiguous way, referring perchance to rules arising from animal
instincts, to a common law created by man and corresponding to the jus
gentium, or in Christian thinking to the laws of the Bible. But from some
statements in Justinian's Institutes Carlyle concludes that "by the sixth
century the phrase was certainly taking that meaning which it has throughout
the Middle Ages and later -- that is, that the jus naturale means that body
of principles of justice and reason which men can rationally apprehend, and
which forms the ideal norm or standard of right conduct and of the justice
of social institutions."[28] All were agreed that natural law was immutable
and not subject to change by civil enactments. It is well to note that two
ideas which become prominent in the later stages of the growth of natural
law concepts, namely, a primitive state of nature and, arising therefrom, a
natural freedom and a natural equality, are the peculiar results of Roman
legal thought in the Lower Empire. It was not until the mediaeval period,
however, that the philosophy of natural law was given a dominant place in
legal thinking.
2. Natural Law in the Middle Ages. A significant development of the concept
of natural law is to be found in the Middle Ages, when the theories of
Cicero and of the Roman jurists were adapted to the teachings of
Christianity. In the writings of the philosophers and of the jurists of this
period the concept of natural law was uppermost. The theory gained in
significance by its association with the concept of a state of nature which
had been recognized by some of the later Roman jurists.[29]
Primary consideration was given at this time to divine laws or to what were
regarded as the eternal laws of the universe, over which man had no control.
But subordinate to these divine and eternal laws was the law of nature. That
the theory of natural law was given an important place in early Christian
thought may be gathered from the writings of Origen, St. Ambrose, and St.
Jerome. Referring to a passage of St. Paul (Rom. ii, 12-14) they spoke of
natural law as equivalent to the law of God and as universal in contrast
with the written laws made by man.[30] But it was Isadore of Seville who
formulated a view of natural law which through the Decretum of Gratian
became a part of the Canon Law. He recurred to the analysis of Ulpian and
the Roman jurists and classified law as jus naturale, jus civile, and jus
gentium with this difference, that jus naturale became the common law of
nations without any reference to animal instincts.[31] In other respects he
followed closely the Roman doctrines of the Code and the Institutes and thus
gave these doctrines a primary position in mediaeval legal thought.
Gratian introduced a distinction which became basic in the Canon Law --
natural law was identified with divine law and human law with custom; the
jus gentium and the jus civile were included under the latter.[32] "To the
mediaeval canonist, then, as to the Fathers," says Carlyle, "the jus
naturale is identical with the law of God, it is embodied in the 'law and
the Gospel,' for it represents the general moral principles which God has
implanted in human nature, and it is, in its essential character,
immutable." It is true that it is set aside by some of the legitimate
institutions of society, but this is to be explained as a necessary
accommodation to the corrupt state of human nature, and is justified by the
ultimate purpose of setting forward the principles of the jus naturale. The
jus naturale is to the canonists the norm by which any law or institution
must be justified.[33]
The great philosopher of the Middle Ages, Thomas Aquinas, distinguished the
eternal and divine laws as forming a part of the universe and as emanating
from God, from natural laws which were the result of the participation of
man as a rational creature in applying to human affairs the eternal law by
which he distinguished between good and evil. To Aquinas the particular
rules of the lex naturalis were not immutable. As rational laws designed for
human ends, they were subject to change as human conditions varied.[34]
The mediaeval churchmen invariably identified nature and reason with a
personal God and law and rights emanated from his will. Following the method
of Thomas Aquinas, the current divisions of law were: divine, natural, and
positive.
Mediaeval jurists usually accepted the tripartite division of law, suggested
by Roman thinkers, into natural law, law of nations, and civil law. Through
commentaries on the Institutes, such as that of Azo, the Roman
classification was applied to the peculiar conditions of the Middle Ages. In
the main they used the phrase jus naturale as meaning a body of principles,
which may be rationally comprehended and which are immutable. In due course
the jus gentium was thought of as the customary law of mankind and the jus
civile as the customs of a particular community.
Mediaeval legal doctrines were based essentially on superior legal concepts
which regarded law in its origin as of equal rank with the state and as not
depending on the state for its existence. The idea persisted for centuries
that the end of the state is the attainment of justice and that civil
authorities act legitimately only when they follow the principles of
justice. Mediaeval thinkers believed that it was the purpose of the state to
realize the ideas of law and "it was never doubtful that the highest Might,
were it spiritual or were it temporal, was confined by true
limitations."[35]
Customs as well as enactments in order to be valid in mediaeval times were
expected to be reasonable, which for the standards of that day meant in
harmony with divine reason. Estimates of reasonableness were made by a
triple standard applied with varying degrees of effectiveness: (a)
revelation or the laws regarded as given directly from God; (b) church law,
as embodied in the papal decrees or the canonical codes; and (c) natural
law, conceived as common to the natural sentiments of man.
As strengthening the mediaeval concept of the law of nature as law, it is
important to recognize that in this age there was little legislation in the
modern sense. Enactments were usually designed to affirm existing rules or
customs or to remedy abuses in administration.[36] To the mediaeval jurists
and theologians, with such exceptions as St. Augustine and St. Gregory, law
was an expression of the principles of justice and all governmental agencies
were subservient to these principles. So important was this factor in
mediaeval life that to understand legal thought it is regarded necessary to
disregard the ordinary conception of a sovereign, the commands of whom are
considered as law.[37] Civilians thought of law, not as the creation of
human will, but as the application of principles or customs.
Along with the almost universal belief in the divine origin of political
power and with the insistence on unlimited obedience to civil rulers because
their authority came from God, there was a growing demand that for kings to
be assured obedience they must rule justly and according to law.[38] Such
political theorists as John of Salisbury and Althusius developed the
distinction between a king who ruled legitimately according to law and a
tyrant, who was guided by his individual whims.[39] A theory of the election
of rulers was advocated which would render it possible to depose a tyrant.
In the theory of the election of the ruler and in the requirement that he
govern justly lay the germs of the later notion of a social contract, as the
foundation of civil government.
There was prevalent at this time a conception of an inflexible code,
emanating from the divine will interpreted and applied through the light of
reason, and from this conception came the doctrine that the higher laws of
reason or of nature controlled the lower laws or enactments of man.
Sometimes a distinction was made between certain immutable principles and
rules derived therefrom, which were subject to change.[40]
In practice natural law might be referred to as a guide to interpretation or
in certain instances it might be appealed to where no rule of law had been
declared. All laws in conflict with natural law, it was urged, must be
considered void.[41]
A change in viewpoint preceding the period of the Reformation may be
illustrated by William of Ockham's classification of natural law as
(a) Universal rules of conduct dictated by natural reason.
(b) Rules which would be accepted as reasonable without
any positive law.
(c) Rules which are arrived at by deduction from the
precepts of the law of nature and are liable to change by
positive enactments.[42]
Rules of the third class were eventually referred to as the secondary laws
of nature.
3. Theories following the Reformation. Not until after the Reformation were
philosophers able to detach natural law theories from ideas of God and to
find their source in an impersonal human reason. This detachment was
hastened and the doctrine of natural law was given wider currency through
the writings of Albertis Gentilis[43] and of Hugo Grotius.
Spanish jurists in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, antedating the
work of Grotius,[44] formulated a theory of a supreme and immutable law of
nature, changeless by God himself and based on "a state of nature antecedent
to the state of corruption, and thus affording the type of perfection for
all actual societies."[45] The mediaeval theological concept of the law of
nature had its culmination in the philosophy of Saurez wherein the law of
nature became an inflexible code willed by God and interpreted by reason.
All enactments civil or religious which contravened this law were ipso facto
void.[46] The Spanish jurists also fostered the belief in the natural rights
of man, which it was the duty of the state to protect. These rights were
thought to arise from a natural condition of equality in which the faculties
inherent in men were to have a free opportunity for development.[47]
To Grotius, who put in a form which became more popular the theories of
Vittoria, Suarez, and Gentilis, the emphasis was placed on natural right,
which was "the dictate of right reason, indicating that any act, from its
agreement or disagreement with the rational nature has in it moral turpitude
or moral necessity; and consequently that such act is forbidden or commanded
by God, the author of nature." Grotius distinguished the law of nature,
which was unalterable even by the Deity, from positive law and from the law
of nations[48] and divided it into divine rules ordained by God and rules
prescribed by man.[49] He and his successors made use of the law of nature
theory in formulating the basic principles of international law,[50] and for
a long time natural law and the law of nations were thought of as closely
related.
Building on natural law as a source and sanction of legal rules mediaeval
jurists laid the basis for the concept of inborn and indestructible rights
belonging to the individual as such. Roman thinkers, such as Seneca, had
suggested that men in their natural state were free and equal.[51] The
Church Fathers accepted this theory and tried to explain the differences and
inequalities in human conditions as due to the fall of man and the
consequent conditions of sin. Doctrines of freedom and equality were made an
integral part of the law of nature by the canon lawyers. With the
development of the sense of individual personality which became a feature of
Christian thought during the Middle Ages and was fostered by church
reformers, similar ideas were considered a part of an individual's right
and heritage. To ecclesiastical thinkers men were equal in the eyes of God;
to the anti-clericals they were equal in the eyes of men.[52]
In the natural law of this period lurked the germ of revolution, for on the
basis of these precepts the whole structure of the state was subjected to
criticism from the rationalist point of view. Catholics vied with
Protestants in formulating a philosophic background for limiting the powers
of the state.[53] To both, the primary rules of natural law were above all
earthly rulers. The law of nature used by the church to support the Catholic
morals and faith was found to be a convenient weapon to oppose the church in
setting over against canonist decrees the rules of life discovered by human
reason. In the conflict between the Empire and the Papacy, then, both
disputants made frequent use of the law of nature.
Mediaevalists agreed on the existence of natural law; they differed merely
as to its force and effectiveness. To some a statute or an executive act
which violated natural law was void; to others, interested either in the
claims of kings and princes to be sovereign in the civil domain or in the
idea of popular sovereignty, natural law comprised guiding principles,
directive only in the processes of lawmaking.
At the same time that men were engaged in discovering new grounds for
limiting political authority, an ingenious Frenchman, following the lead of
the Italian, Machiavelli, was formulating a theory of sovereignty which was
destined to leave small place for the laws of nature. Recognizing a
condition wherein the state as represented by an absolute king accountable
only to God was claiming omnipotent authority, Jean Bodin developed a theory
of sovereignty suitable to the times. To him the sovereign must be absolute
and can be fettered by no human laws. He admitted that there were superior
laws of morality and religion to which princes were bound but for breaches
thereof they were accountable to God alone. Thus Bodin furnished the broad
outlines of a theory which was accepted and elaborated upon by Hobbes,
Spinoza, and Austin. Later developed by modern schools of legal philosophy
it ultimately weakened the respect for, and largely replaced the law of
nature theories of mediaeval times.[54]
"Natural law," "natural rights," and "natural justice," during most of the
Middle Ages, were terms which were often used interchangeably. Thomas Hobbes
undertook to distinguish between jus naturale as a natural right and lex
naturalis as natural law. To him a natural right was a liberty possessed by
every man in a state of nature, of doing what seemed best for the
preservation of his existence. Natural law, on the other hand, was a body of
principles or restraints which were devised by reason to make life secure.
The philosophy of Bodin, Hobbes,[55] and Spinoza tended to discredit the old
natural law ideas and to make the state the sole source of law. They
repudiated the legal significance of the "idea of natural law which aimed at
finding a higher written law, above the rule promulgated by the state, to
which this rule must accommodate itself so far as it aims to be, not a mere
command of force, but an ordinance of justice."[56] They were formulating a
basis for a doctrine of state omnipotence which was eventually to become one
of the dominant dogmas of modern political thought.
Samuel Pufendorf followed Grotius in separating the law of nature from
theology and in regarding most of the law of nature as the dictate of right
reason determining what is right and wrong in human conduct. The natural
rights philosophy was put into its most systematic form in the works of
Pufendorf.[57] Foremost in his system were the natural rights of the
individual, independent of society and of the state, arising from a
condition similar to Seneca's primitive state of nature. The law of nations
was regarded merely as a fragment of natural law. There was the foundation
here for what has been called "the unruly emphasis on rights" which
culminated in the French declaration of 1789.
Locke regarded the law of nature as a body of rules for the conduct of men
in their natural condition. Reason, Locke considered as the interpreter of
this law; equality, its fundamental condition. Conceiving men as existing in
a state of nature Locke constructed his doctrine of natural rights which
belong to man in the pre-political state. These rights were life, liberty,
and property.[58] Legislatures were bound to rule, in his judgment,
according to the law of nature and to carry on their functions by fixed and
general laws rather than by arbitrary decrees; and laws which transgressed
certain fundamental principles were not laws "properly so-called."[59] There
seems to be a warrant here for the opinions of American justices that acts
of the legislature which are arbitrary, though not expressly prohibited, may
nevertheless be void because not "legislative in character." Locke's ideas
relating to the social compact, government under the law of nature, popular
sovereignty, the right of revolution, and natural rights superior to the
government and civil laws, were to reappear in constitutions, laws, and
judicial decisions in phrases adapted to American legal thinking.
Thus the dualism of Aristotle had taken definite form. There was an
immutable law which was of divine origin or the product of right reason, but
whatever its source it was common to all men and universal. And there were
positive enactments which were made by man to meet the contingencies of the
moment. The two systems were in constant conflict -- one a perfect and
rational order and the other an imperative and positive one.[60]
Natural law, emanating from the divine will or from divine reason, consisted
only of certain basic principles. Positive law elaborated this natural law
and through practical reason adapted it to the ordinary activities of life.
Differing from the idealistic interpretations of the concept in Greece and
in Rome natural laws were conceived as norms and positive laws that were not
in accord with the natural law were unjust and therefore had no validity,
though the means to prevent their enforcement were not always at hand. Thus
a criterion was available to measure, in a theoretical way at least, the
validity of civil enactments.[61]
4. Types of Natural Law Ideas in Ancient and Mediaeval Times. It is
difficult to classify the various types of natural law theories which
prevailed in ancient and mediaeval times, but it seems essential to
undertake a tentative classification.
With the early Greeks natural law was law in accordance with nature in the
physical sense, similar to the laws of the natural sciences in modern
terminology. Such a meaning of the laws of nature has been seldom referred
to since the time of the Greeks, though it has had counterparts in Ulpian's
laws common to all animals, in the eternal laws of Aquinas from a quite
different setting, and in a curious medley of ideas in the nineteenth
century, when natural law comprised a resume of ideas relating to the
physical universe, of moral and ethical concepts, and of legal doctrines and
principles.
Natural law was also considered as divine in origin and either comprised
rules given to man by the Deity or his representatives or consisted of
divine law from which principles of right and justice might be deduced by
man's reason. This source of natural law only incidentally mentioned by the
Greeks became to the theologians of the Middle Ages its main origin and
sanction. Following the authoritative presentation of this view by Thomas
Aquinas and other mediaeval theologians it has continued as the accepted
view of Catholic jurists and of others who have chosen to emphasize the
religious factors in the processes of lawmaking. Believers in this type of
natural law may be found in all countries wherein the philosophy and
traditions of the Middle Ages are fostered by religious and ethical
agencies.
The Greeks also set a standard for a natural law of an idealist type --
comprised of universal and immutable principles apprehended chiefly by
philosophers and jurists. It was a law which reasonable creatures were
everywhere bound to obey. Positive laws to have validity emanated from the
ideal natural laws. This type of natural law was closely related to the
current ideas of religion and morality and became prominent in Stoic
political thought. During the Middle Ages it was conceived as an absolute
law of reason which on account of its rational basis binds all reasonable
beings.
Differing in certain respects from the immutable natural law of the Stoics,
a type of natural law was formulated by ancient and mediaeval thinkers which
was comprised of rules or principles of law and justice, divorced partially,
at least, from divine origins. These were sometimes referred to as the
unwritten laws ingrained in the hearts of men. Such principles were used by
the praetors and jurists in rendering decisions which were just and
equitable, and in adapting the rigid formulas of the jus civile to form the
jus gentium. It was this kind of natural law -- principles of common law
recurring among different nations -- on which international law and certain
parts of developing public law were based in the sixteenth century. It is a
type which is always present in the practical applications of the law where
it is molded to accord with advancing notions of morality in human conduct.
Stripped of some of its immutable characteristics, its modern use may be
found in the principles of reasonable conduct applied in English law and in
the authority accorded the judges in certain European countries to fall back
on principles of reason and justice to fill gaps in the law. Continental
jurists also make frequent use of the rationalist form of natural law to
measure the efficacy of existing positive enactments. It thus becomes the
prototype for a "natural law with a variable content." The main trend of
ancient and mediaeval theories of natural law, as Pollock suggests, was
rationalist and progressive in its implications.
There was also a natural law arising from an original and primitive state
of nature from which men derived natural rights -- such as rights of
equality and freedom. To the mediaevalists this state of nature corresponded
to the condition of men before the origin of sin. Sometimes these rights
were regarded as an inheritance of the individual from his birth and of such
significance that it was the prime duty of the state to protect them. The
Reformation encouraged the tendency to consider such rights as natural and
as belonging to the individual as such. It remained for the English, French,
and American philosophers to make them the foundation of civil government.
Natural law was also conceived as a theoretic foundation for axiomatic
truths from which a system of positive law could be deduced. From this
viewpoint the lex naturalis existed prior to the formation of the state and
from it directly or indirectly came all legal rules.
It would be a mistake to think that the different types of natural law were
either clearly defined by ancient and mediaeval writers or were formulated
in such a way as to be readily differentiated. Most of the ideas relating
to natural law, then as since, were vague and theories often involved a
confusion of ideas which make it almost impossible to attempt any
classification of views. Certain trends are evident, however, which may be
indicated. And, above all, it is apparent that, owing to the continual
efforts to contrast the natural and the conventional, the ancient and
mediaeval periods furnished rich soil for the germination of natural law
concepts.
Natural law theories had passed through a cycle from the ideal and
philosophical form of the Greeks and Romans to a standard, presumedly
derived from divine sources, which the mediaeval canonists used as a
criterion to measure the validity of the acts of civil and secular rulers,
and thence to a series of rationalist concepts forming a basis for
international law and for other branches of civil law.[62] As an ideal not
wholly divorced from its divine connotations natural law was not
infrequently called upon to measure the reason, necessity, or convenience of
the beginnings in the way of modern legislation. The cycle was barely
completed when a new turn in legal and political speculation changed the
course of natural law thinking and gave a marked impetus to the emphasis
upon certain higher law concepts. As the new meaning accorded to these
concepts resulted from the social and political developments in England, in
America, and in France, it is necessary to trace briefly the course of the
development of natural law doctrines in these countries.
1. For sketches of the origin of the higher law ideas in relation to "the
law of nature," see John W. Salmond, "The Law of Nature," Law Quarterly
Renew, XI (April, 1895), 121; James Bryce, "The Law of Nature," Studies in
History and Jurisprudence, II, 556; and Sir Frederick Pollock, "The History
of the Law of Nature," Journal of the Society of Comparative Legislation, II
(1900), 418-433, and Essays in the Law (London, 1922), chap. 2. Reprinted in
Columbia Law Review, 1 (January, 1901), 11. See also Guilio de Montemayor,
Storia del diritto naturale (Naples, 1911).
2. Among the most common ideas involved in the word "natural," when used in
such phrases as "natural justice," "natural right," and "natural law" are:
rational; reasonable; in accordance with nature; in agreement with ancient
customs; just; equitable; divine, or in accord with the will of God; ideal,
as differentiated from the actual; appropriate; and, necessary. For a
summary of the various ideas involved in the term "natural" in this
connection, see B F. Wright, Jr., "American Interpretations of Natural Law,"
in American Political Science Review, XX (August, 1926), 542, 543.
3. For an account of the evolution of Greek ideas relating to natural law,
consult E. Burle, Essai historique sur le développement de la notion de
droit naturel dans l'antiquité grecque (Trevoux, 1908). Cf., especially, for
natural law ideas of Sophocles, of Socrates, and of Plato.
4. See Burle, op. cit., beginning at chap. 2. The Pythagoreans taught that
"law ought to be in conformity with nature and it will be if it is made in
the image of natural law which attributes to each according to his merit"
(ibid., p. 86). For the views of the Sophists see ibid., pp. 103 ff. Greek
philosophers, it is observed, constantly referred to an eternal law, the
reason of a supreme being, and absolute and immutable law, which it was the
duty of the public authorities to recognize and enforce in defining the
relations and duties of human beings. In the Socratic philosophy an act
which resulted in injustice had only the appearance of a law (ibid.; p.
157).
5. John L. Myres, The Political Ideas of the Greeks (New York, 1927), p.
270. For reference to the antithesis between the two concepts, see Ernest F.
Barker, Greek Political Theory: Plato and His Predecessors (London, 1918),
pp. 64 ff. See also Gilbert Murray, "The Stoic Philosophy," in Essays and
Addresses (London, 1921), pp. 96, 97.
6. "The principal problem examined by the Sophists in regard to
jurisprudence was how far the basic laws of society can be regarded as
ingrained in the nature of things, and how far they are merely artificial
establishment." Sir Paul Vinogradoff, Outlines of Jurisprudence, vol. II,
The Jurisprudence of the Greek City (London, 1922), p. 26. Vinogradoff
thinks the contrast between fusiV and nomoV may be traced to Demokritos
(ibid., pp. 26 ff.).
7. Xenophon, Memorabilia, 4. 4. 19; Walter Eckstein, Das antike Naturrecht
im sozial philosophischer Beleuchtung (Wien und Leipzig, 1926), chap. 11.
8. Sophocles, Antigone, pp. 450 ff.
9. Barker, op. cit., p. 64.
10. Cf. Myres, op. cit., p. 47; Eckstein, op. cit., chaps. 2, 3.
11. Nicomachean Ethics, 7; Burle, op. cit., chap. 14. There is, Aristotle
maintained, a natural law anterior to the positive laws and from which the
latter take their origin. To render a political order stable there must be
administered in it a justice independent of arbitrary rules or of human
enactments and superior to every individual interest (ibid., pp. 178 ff.;
Bryce, op. cit., pp. 567, 568; Salmond, op. cit., p. 127).
12. Rhet. 1375, a, 27; Bryce, op. cit., p. 567; Eckstein, op. cit., chap. 5.
13. Vinogradoff, Jurisprudence of the Greek City, p. 138.
14. Cf. also G. M. Calhoun, "Greek Law and Modern Jurisprudence" in
California Law Review, XI (July, 1923), 308, and D. Goodell, "An Athenian
Parallel to a Function of our Supreme Court," in Yale Review, II (May,
1893), 64.
15. See Plato, The Laws; also Ernest Barker, op. cit., chap. 15. To Plato
the rule of law meant that every authority in the state was exercised under
a code of laws which was definitely established and which was fundamental.
In the Republic and the Politicus Plato rejected to a certain extent this
idea of the sovereignty of law.
16. Sohm's Institutes, 3d ed., trans. by J. C. Ledlie (London, 1907), pp. 64
ff.
17. Ibid., p. 79.
18. W. W. Buckland, A Textbook of Roman Law from Augustus to Justinian
(Cambridge, 1921), p. 54.
19. W. W. Buckland, A Manual of Roman Private Law (Cambridge, 1925), pp. 28
ff. The Romans, it is observed, were influenced "by the Stoic conception of
life according to nature with its corollary of a natural law -- rules of
conduct implanted in man by nature. This notion of a jus naturale,
principles intuitive in man, his very nature, and capable of universal
application appears frequently in Roman sources. Occasionally it is declared
to be a principle on which all law rests, but the habitual attitude of the
Roman lawyers is different: jus naturale is the ideal to which it is
desirable that law should conform, but it was not really at any time a test
of the validity of a rule of law." Cf. also Buckland, A Textbook of Roman
Law from Augustus to Justinian (Cambridge, 1921), pp. 53 ff; R. W. and A. J.
Carlyle, A History of Medieval Political Theory in the West (New York and
London, 1903), I, 36 ff.; M. Voigt, Die Lehre vom jus naturale, aequum et
bonum und jus gentium der Römer (Leipzig, 1856), secs. 52-64 and 89-96; and
Theodor Kipp, Geschichte der Quellen des römischen Rechts, 4e ed. (Leipzig,
1919), pp. 14 ff.
20. For an analysis of the original Stoic concepts of a "law of right
reason" see Burle, op. cit., pp. 399 ff., and Eckstein, op. cit., chap. 7.
21. Cicero was, of course, not presenting original ideas but was putting
into current phraseology some of the commonplace political ideas of the
time. "The theory of natural law is to Cicero the form of the theory of
justice in society, and it is also the groundwork upon which the whole
structure of human society rests." Carlyle, op. cit., I, 6.
22. De Legibus II, 4, 10; Carlyle, op. cit., I, 3 ff.; cf. Salmond, op.
cit., pp. 127 ff. and Bryce, op. cit., pp. 568 ff.
23. "That law which any people establishes for itself is peculiar to
itself, and is called the civil law (jus civile), as being the particular
law of the state (jus proprium civitatis). But that law which natural reason
has established for all men, is observed by all peoples alike and is called
the law of nations (jus gentium), as being that which all nations use." From
Introduction to Commentaries of Gaius. Carlyle, op. cit., I, 37 ff.
24. Ibid., pp. 39 ff. Pollock thinks that Ulpian's distinction was not
generally understood by the Roman lawyers of his day and that its
incorporation into the Digest and the Institutes gave it a currency quite
beyond its intrinsic merit. Cf. Appendix to Maine's Ancient Law (New York,
1906), pp. 399, 400, and Essays in the Law (London, 1922), pp. 36-38.
25. Digest 1, 1, 4. On the relations between the jus naturale and jus
gentium in Roman law see Pollock, "History of the Law of Nature," in Essays
in the Law. By the Roman lawyers, Ulpian, Tryphoninus, and Florentinus, men
are considered by nature free and equal. Quod ad jus naturale attinet, omnes
homines aequales sunt. 1.17. 32. Cum jure naturali omnes liberi nascentur.
Dig. 2. 1. 4; also 2. 5. 4. Cf. Carlyle, op. cit., I, chap. 5; and Albert
Vaunois, De la notion du droit naturel chez les romains (Paris, 1884),
especially chaps. 1, 2.
26. E. D. Dickinson, The Equality of States in International Law (Cambridge,
1920), pp. 16, 17. For reference to the Greek origin of the phrase in
Justinian's Digest, that this is law, to which it is proper that all men
conform (Digest, 1. 3. 2), see John L. Myres, op. cit., pp. 309 ff.
27 Carlyle, op. cit., II, 28 ff. For opinions holding that imperial
rescripts contrary to natural law are void, see ibid., pp. 32, 33. The
Greeks and the Romans seldom conceived of legal rights inhering in the
individual and hence they did not formulate notions of natural rights. On
this distinction, see J. Walter Jones, "Acquired and Guaranteed Rights,"
Cambridge Legal Essays (London, 1926), pp. 223 ff.
28. Carlyle, op. cit., I, 74, 75.
29. An original conception of a primitive state of nature is found in the
writings of Seneca. Carlyle, op. cit., I, 23 ff.
30. For extracts from these writers, see Carlyle, op. cit., I, 104, 105.
31. Carlyle, op. cit., I, 106 ff. Cf. also, Heinrich Singer, "Das
Naturrecht im Codex iuris canonici," Archiv für Rechts- und
Wirtschaftsphilosophie, XVI (1922-23), 206-215. Dr. Singer observes that the
authors and contributors of the Codex iuris canonici were instructed to
state the law so as to agree with the principles of natural law. An effort
was made to reconcile the jus divinum or revealed law with jus naturale or
rules resulting from the rational processes of man. Ibid., pp. 209 ff.
32. Carlyle, op. cit., II, 28, 98, 102, 105.
33. Ibid., II, 113; also Pollock, Essays in the Law, p. 40.
34. Summa Theologiae, 1, 2, q. 91, art. 2 and q. 93, art. 1. The theories of
Thomas Aquinas are based to a considerable extent upon the doctrines of
predecessors in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries whose works are usually
neglected. For the contributions of some of these men consult Martin
Grabmann, "Das Naturrecht der Scholastic von Gratian bis Thomas von Aquin,"
Archiv für Rechts- und Wirtschaftsphilosophie, XVI (1922-23), 12-53.
Alessandro Bonnucci also traces the scholastic philosophy of natural law in
La derogabilita del diritto naturale nella scholastica (Perugia, 1906).
Rufinus was one of the first to suggest that jus naturale was "a certain
quality implanted in mankind by nature, which leads men to do what is good
and to avoid what is evil." Carlyle, op. cit., II, 103, 107.
35. Otto Gierke, Political Theories of the Middle Ages, trans. by F. W.
Maitland (Cambridge, 1922), pp. 74ff.; cf. p. 172 for note by Maitland on
the theories of natural law in the Middle Ages. "Men supposed," says Gierke,
"that before the State existed the Lex Naturalis already prevailed as an
obligatory statute and that immediately or mediately from this flowed those
rules of right to which the State owed even the possibility of its own
rightful origin. And men also taught that the highest power on earth was
subject to the rules of Natural Law. They stood above the Pope and above the
Kaiser, above the Ruler and above the Sovereign People, nay, above the whole
Community of Mortals. Neither statute nor act of government, neither
resolution of the People nor custom could break the bounds that thus were
set. Whatever contradicted the eternal and immutable principles of Natural
Law was utterly void and would bind no one. The mediaeval theory declared
'that every act of the Sovereign which broke the bonds drawn by Natural Law
was formally null and void.' ... As null and void, therefore, every judge
and every other magistrate who had to apply the law was to treat, not only
every unlawful executive act, but every unlawful statute, even though it
were published by the Pope or Emperor." Ibid., pp. 75, 84. Cf. also,
Carlyle, op. cit., I, 174; III, 32, 128; and Gierke, Johannes Althusius und
die Entwickelung der naturrechtlichen Staats-theorien, 3d ed. (Breslau,
1913), chap. 6.
36. C. H. McIlwain, The High Court of Parliament and its Supremacy (New
Haven, 1910), pp. 43, 46, and "Magna Carta and Common Law" in Malden, Magna
Carta Commemoration Essays, pp. 140, 141. See also, Theodore F. T.
Plucknett, Statutes and their Interpretation in the First Half of the
Fourteenth Century (Cambridge, 1922), pp. 165 ff.
37. Carlyle, op. cit., III, chap. 3.
38. "Any form of government is right and just," said Aquinas, "in which the
rulers seek to promote the common good, but not otherwise." A. J. Carlyle,
"The Political Theories of St. Thomas Aquinas," Scottish Review, XXVII
(January, 1896), 126, 141.
39. For an exhaustive analysis of the theories of Althusius and of the
"Monarchomachs," consult Gierke, Johannes Althusius. The whole view of the
Vindiciae contra Tyrannos, says Laski, "is built on the assumption that it
is the duty of the magistrate to represent the popular idea of right."
Harold J. Laski, A Defence of Liberty against Tyrants: A translation of the
Vindiciae contra Tyrannos by Junius Brutus (London, 1924), pp. 47, 48.
40. In the Middle Ages, says Maitland, "God Himself appeared as being the
ultimate cause of Natural Law. This was so, if, with Ockham, Gerson,
D'Ailly, men saw in Natural Law a Command proceeding from the Will of God,
which command therefore was righteous and binding. It was so, if, with Hugh
de St. Victor, Gabriel Biel and Almain, they placed the constitutive moment
of the Law of Nature in the Being of God, but discovered dictates of Eternal
Reason declaring what is right, which dictates were unalterable even by God
Himself. Lastly it was so, if, with Aquinas and his followers, they (on the
one hand) derived the content of the Law of Nature from the Reason that is
immanent in the being of God and is directly determined by that Natura Rerum
which is comprised in God Himself, but (on the other hand) traced the
binding force of this law to God's Will." Gierke, Political Theories of the
Middle Ages, p. 172.
41. Thus Baldus claimed that on the authority of the law of nature neither
the Emperor nor the Pope could validate the taking of usury. For interesting
efforts to justify slavery and the ownership of property though contrary to
the law of nature see Carlyle, op. cit., I, chaps. 10, 12, 16 and II, Pt. I,
chaps. 4, 5, Pt. II, chaps. 5, 6. See also, Gierke, Johannes Althusius, pp.
272 ff.
42. Goldast, Monarchia, II, 932 and Gierke, Political Theories of the Middle
Ages, pp. 172, 173. For the distinction between principal and secondary
rules of the law of nature, see ibid., p. 175; also, Johannes Althusius, pp.
273, 274.
43. To Gentilis, who with Grotius may be credited with the formulation of
systematic rules of international law based largely on the law of nature,
natural law comprised "such rules of justice as would govern men as moral
and responsible beings, living in society independently of human
institutions -- in other words, in a 'state of nature.'" De legationibus,
II, 18, and Coleman Phillipson in Great Jurists of the World (Boston, 1914),
pp. 119, 120.
44. Edited by Ernest Nys (Washington, 1917). Cf. works of Francisco di
Vittoria, De Jure Belli and De Indis (1557).
45. William A. Dunning, Political Theories from Luther to Montesquieu (New
York, 1905), pp. 132 ff.
46. Ibid., pp. 13 ff. "There was also a philosophic, deductive law of
nations before Grotius, resting upon the same foundations as the natural law
of the schoolmen, and cultivated particularly by the Spanish moralists,
especially by Francisco Vittoria and his followers." General Survey of
European Authors (Continental Legal History Series), p. 412. For theories of
a state of nature and of an original compact, cf. Suarez, De Legibus, III,
4, and Mariana, De Rege, I, 1, 2, 8.
47. Roscoe Pound, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Law (New Haven,
1922), pp. 82, 83.
48. Professor Dickinson, referring to the fact that the natural law
theories of Grotius are often misunderstood, claims that "Grotius presented
a less comprehensive discussion of natural law than either Suarez before him
or Pufendorf who came after." The Equality of States in International Law, p.
43. The law of nature which these men found, Pollock observes "was no mere
speculative survival or rhetorical ornament. It was a quite mediaeval
theory. What is more, it never ceased to be essentially rationalist and
progressive. Modern aberrations have led to the widespread belief that the
law of nature is only a cloak for arbitrary dogmas or fancies." Essays in
the Law, p. 32.
49. Cf. De Jure Belli ac Pacis, Book I, chap. 1.
50. For indications of the use of the doctrine of natural law and natural
rights by jurists and text writers in formulating principles of
international law, see Grotius, op. cit. (1672); Pufendorf, De Jure Naturae
et Gentium (1672); Burlamaqui, Principes du droit naturel (1758); Rutherford,
Institutes of Natural Law (1754-56). The natural law doctrine that contracts
are binding was in Grotius' opinion a limitation on the authority of
sovereigns. Grotius, op. cit., Book III, chap. 24.
51. Referring to the ancient origin of the idea of equality, Professor
Radin observes that "the East gave to Rome both the practical fact of
inequality, fixed into unescapable ordines and regulated by the needs of the
state, and the corrective ideal of a perfect city of equals living in
accordance with a Law of Nature." "Roman Concepts of Equality," Political
Science Quarterly, XXXVIII (June, 1923), 288.
52. "Every one in a state of grace," thought Wycliffe, "has real lordship
over the whole universe." De Civili Dominio (ed. by R. L. Poole), pp.
xxii-xxiv.
53. Harold J. Laski, op. cit., Introduction, and Pollock, Essays in the Law,
p. 50. For the way in which the leaders of the Reformation built on the
political ideas of the church theologians, such as the theory of the social
contract, the sovereignty of princes, etc., see Jean Brissaud, The History
of French Public Law, trans. by James W. Gamer in Continental Legal History
Series (Boston, 1915), p. 536. With the exception of Bodin, Hobbes, and
Bossuet, he notes, most political writers followed the theories of natural
law and attempted to justify political power on the basis of the idea of
justice.
54. See William S. Holdsworth, History of English Law, IV (London 1922-25),
190 ff., and Dunning, op. cit., chap. 3. Cf. Gierke, Johannes Althusius, pp.
299 ff., on the doctrine of Staatsraison, which tended to weaken the
limitations on the state attributed to divine and natural laws.
55. Despite his positivist tendencies Hobbes regarded natural law as eternal
and immutable. Leviathan, chap. 15; cf. Pollock, Essays in the Law, pp. 59,
60.
56. General Survey of Events, Sources, Persons and Movements in Continental
Legal History, Continental Legal History Series (Boston, 1912), p. 415.
57. On Pufendorf and the development of the law of nature, consult Coleman
Phillipson's account in the Great Jurists of the World, pp. 311 ff.; also
Gierke, Johannes Althusius, pp 300 ff.
58. John Locke, Second Treatise of Civil Government, Book II, sec. 6. "The
state of nature has a law to govern it, which obliges everyone: and reason,
which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being
all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health,
liberty, or possessions."
59. John Locke, op. cit., chap. 11. "These are the bounds which the trust,
that is put in them by the society and the law of God and nature, have set
to the legislative power of every commonwealth, in all forms of government.
First: They are to govern by promulgated established laws, not to be varied
in particular cases, but to have one rule for rich and poor, for the
favorite at court, and the countryman at plough. Secondly: These laws also
ought to be designed for no other end ultimately but the good of the people.
Thirdly: They must not raise taxes on the property of the people without the
consent of the people, given by themselves or their deputies.... Fourthly:
The legislative neither must nor can transfer the power of making laws to
anybody else, or place it anywhere but where the people have." Ibid., chaps.
11, 18, and Discourses Concerning Government, III, sec. 11. John Neville
Figgis, The Divine Right of Kings (2d ed, Cambridge, 1922), p. 242, "The
more closely Locke's treatise is studied, the more clearly will it be seen
that it is an attack directed far more against the idea of sovereignty, than
against the claims of absolute monarchy."
60. Cf. J. Castillejoy Duarte, "Kohler's Philosophical Position," Appendix
to Kohler, The Philosophy of Law, trans by Adalbert Albrecht in Modern Legal
Philosophy Series (Boston, 1914), XII, 335.
61. Cf. J. Castillejoy Duarte, "Kohler's Philosophical Position," XII, 352,
353. "The exponents of the law of nature are not always at one in every
particular, but their fundamental conception is that 'Nature' represents
the supreme, unifying, controlling power manifesting itself in the universe
at large; and that 'Reason' is a special aspect of this principle looked at
from the point of view of man and the operation of his mental and moral
faculties. In so far as men are men they possess common elements; and in
their political and social life these elements inevitably emerge and are
recognizable in custom and law. Hence the substratum of this law is thought
to be of necessity established by the universal guiding force, personified
as nature. Such natural law represents the permanent portion of human law in
general, and it is prior and superior to positive legislation, which is only
a supplement thereto demanded by changing circumstances in different
localities. Conventional justice may well elaborate or extend its
applications, but must not alter its essential content or violate its
spirit." Coleman Phillipson in Great Jurists of the World, p. 311.
62. Georges Davy, Le droit, l'idéalisme et l'expérience (Paris, 1922), pp.
41 ff.
CHAPTER II
ENGLISH HIGHER LAW DOCTRINES
THE traditional view of English legal historians was that in English law
there are relatively slight traces of the influence of the Roman law or of
its mediaeval offshoot, the canonical codes. It was taken for granted,
therefore, that the ancient and mediaeval concepts of natural law, though
occasionally referred to by English text writers and judges, were never
accepted in any authoritative way as principles of English law. Recent
investigations in English legal history have modified to some extent the
traditional views regarding the acceptance of Roman law principles and have
tended to indicate some important connections between the main currents of
continental legal thought and the emerging common law of England.[1] And we
are now assured that one of the main connecting links between the two legal
systems was the doctrine of the law of nature or law of reason of ancient
and mediaeval times.
1. Natural Law Ideas and English Doctrines relating to Fundamental Laws. In
the processes by which Anglo-Saxon and Norman customs were transformed into
law, may be traced the growth of ideas relating to a superior law in
England. Authorities do not agree, however, as to the significance of higher
law concepts in the development of English law. Certain authors maintain,
with Professor McIlwain, that customary laws with no assignable beginning
and accepted as a rule without question, in the course of time acquired a
character of inviolability; and whether this inviolability be the result or
the cause of the preservation of these customs, the feeling has somehow come
into existence that there is a law fundamental and unalterable, and rights
derived from it indefeasible and inalienable. The content of the law may not
be definite, -- in England it was always far from definite, -- but the idea
has lodged itself in men's minds as a formative principle, and once lodged
it colors everything.[2]
This idea though vague and indefinite in outline was at times, they assert,
a significant force in the development of law in mediaeval England,[3] and
as a result of it certain principles of mediaeval customary law were thought
to be beyond the power of Parliament to change, and were likely to be
identified with the law of nature.[4] A few provisions of Magna Carta were
occasionally referred to as fundamental and immutable.
William E. Holdsworth,[5] William S. McKechnie,[6] Edward Jenks,[7] and L.
O. Pike[8] have questioned the great claims made for Magna Carta as a
charter for constitutional government and have emphasized that the barons
who forced the King's signature to the document "were guided by class
interests and aimed at reaction and anarchy rather than at legality and
progress." Vinogradoff[9] thinks that these historians fail to explain the
reasons for the great influence of the document on the national life of
England and why it became the watchword of English legalism. He believes
that the feudal interpretation of the Charter fails to take into account
sufficiently that certain provisions tended to impress upon all the
necessity of the appreciation of the rule of law in ordinary legal relations
and to carry over this idea from the class justice of the feudal lords to
the common law of the growing commonwealth.[10] At least there are some
vague general statements which appear to consider Magna Carta in the nature
of a superior law.[11]
Whether or not these ancient customs and the written provisions of the Great
Charter had the characteristics of fundamental laws which were not subject
to change by statutes is a controversial matter which need not be determined
here. It will suffice to note that as a result of a careful study of the
Yearbooks Mr. Plucknett concludes that the examples which Professor McIlwain
cites to sustain his contention that there were fundamental laws in England
in the mediaeval period "afford no support for the thesis of a supreme,
fundamental law."[12] Whatever conclusion may be arrived at in this
controversy there is substantial agreement among the authorities that not
infrequent use was made of the concept of natural law. Mr. Plucknett regards
the instances of such use, which he discovered in the fourteenth century, as
rather loose and vague references to custom, to conscience, or to the
colloquial sense of the unreasonable.[13] Perhaps the difference in
interpretation of these legal phenomena may be due in part to the point of
view of the investigator just as many American legal historians find no bona
fide traces of natural law doctrines in the legal decisions of the American
courts and others discover many illustrations of the applications of these
doctrines in the opinions of the judges.
The use of the term "law of nature" was quite sparing[14] and seems to have
been avoided in the development of equity. More frequent applications of the
term may be found in the beginnings of the law merchant.[15]
If natural law terms were not adopted in the beginning of English equity
procedure, generous use of the ideas involved therein was made by the
chancellors. The common lawyers of the thirteenth and early fourteenth
centuries according to Holdsworth included under the term "equity"
such ideas as abstract justice and analogy. The ecclesiastical
chancellors, on the other hand, based their equity on the
more restricted idea that the court ought to compel each
individual litigant to fulfill all the duties which reason and
conscience would dictate to a person in his situation. Reason
and conscience must decide how and when the injustice
caused by the generality of the rules of law was to be cured.
They were the executive agents in the work of applying to
each individual case those dictates of the law of God and
nature, upon which the ecclesiastical chancellors considered
equity to rest.[16]
Maitland believed that there was a more direct and insistent use of the law
of nature ideas in the development of equity.[17]
2. Natural Law and the Doctrine of the Supremacy of the Law. The evolution
of English ideas relating to a higher law was intimately bound up with the
emerging concept of the supremacy of law. From the dominant idea of
mediaeval thinkers that law should be supreme, and superior to the state
itself, English judges evolved the peculiar English doctrine of the
supremacy of the law, which bound even the King.[18] Bracton, for instance,
who made use of the Roman concept of natural law, regarded the King as
subject to law but did not suggest any effective remedy for a breach of law
by the King.[19] However, the courts of law at this time were regarded as
possessing certain political functions on which Professor Holdsworth
comments as follows:
The law was a rule of conduct which all members of the
state, rulers and subjects alike, were bound to obey, the
whole conduct of government consisted in the enforcement
of the law, and in the maintenance of the rights and duties to
which it gave rise. It was a necessary consequence of this
theory of government that the courts should possess political
functions; for they existed not merely to do justice as
between private persons, but also to see that the law itself
was not arbitrarily infringed or altered by the king or any
other person.[20]
The doctrine that there were superior principles of right and justice which
acts of Parliament might not contravene was asserted and defended vigorously
and effectively by Lord Coke in his controversy with the Stuart Kings.[21]
In the well-known case of Dr. Bonham, wherein the Royal College of
Physicians attempted to impose a fine for illegal practice of medicine, Coke
asserted that it was an established maxim of the common law that no man can
be judge in his own case. And he continued: "It appears in our books that in
many cases the common law will control acts of Parliament and sometimes
adjudge them to be utterly void; for when an act of Parliament is against
common right or reason, or repugnant or impossible to be performed, the
common law will control it and adjudge such act to be void."[22] A number of
cases were cited in support of this dictum.[23] Concerning this opinion
there have been many disputes. Supporters of Coke have tried to show that
the opinion with the precedents upon which it is based is an essentially
accurate reflection of the situation in England at the time when the
principle of the supremacy of law was winning its way over the tendencies
toward the establishment of an absolute monarchy.[24] On the other hand,
historians have endeavored to prove that the cases on which Coke based his
theory of the supremacy of the common law courts do not bear the
construction which he gave to them. Most English legal authorities agree
that there is no specific case on record in which an English court of
justice has directly overruled or disregarded the plain meaning of an act of
Parliament.[25] In England the mediaeval doctrine that law is above the
state, which meant that there was a fundamental law which could not be
changed, came to mean primarily the supremacy of law which Parliament could
change at will. The dictum of Coke in Bonham's case that courts may refuse
to enforce an act of Parliament when it is "against common right and
reason," or "repugnant, or impossible to be performed," Holdsworth considers
as founded on little mediaeval authority. The cases cited by Coke, he
thinks, amount to little more than that the courts will interpret statutes
strictly.[26] Even when the supremacy of Parliament was recognized there
were few who would have admitted that Parliament possessed unlimited powers.
Even Sir Francis Bacon, who took the side of the King against Coke in his
assertions of common law supremacy admitted the superior force of the law of
nature.[27] But the theoretical limits conceived as binding Parliament lost
much of their significance when this body asserted its authority over the
King and the courts.[28]
Recognizing that in the first few centuries after the establishment of
Parliament there were doubts whether private acts could be passed which were
judicial in character, such as bills of attainder, it was contended that in
Henry VIII's reign all such doubts were removed and "the judges were obliged
to admit that these acts, however morally unjust, must be obeyed."[29]
Whatever effects Coke's attempt to set up a superior and fundamental law may
have had, the Revolution of 1688 marked the abandonment of his doctrine as a
practical principle of English politics.[30]
It is necessary to distinguish between the idea of an appeal to a
fundamental law, when the appeal is primarily in the nature of a criticism
and finds its chief sanction in the ancient right to resist arbitrary
authority by revolutionary methods, and an appeal to a fundamental law which
the courts must hold as binding in order to protect citizens from arbitrary
authority. The appeal to a fundamental law as embodying superior principles
of right or of equity is a common method of resisting injustice and accounts
in part for the extreme pretensions of Coke. It was in this connection that
the assertive chief justice set about to revive interest in Magna Carta as a
fundamental charter of liberties.[31] After a period of comparative neglect
the Charter was rendered popular by its use as a weapon to check the
extensive prerogatives claimed by James and Charles. Coke, Hampden, Eliot,
and Pym gave an interpretation to long-forgotten clauses of Magna Carta that
supported their partisan views of constitutional reform. The Great Charter,
McKechnie observes, "as enshrined in the imaginations of the parliamentary
leaders of the Puritan Rebellion was, to a great extent, the creation of
Coke's legal intellect." So great was this creative effort of Coke and his
followers that a contrast may well be made between two Great Charters --
one, the original feudal charter; the other, the seventeenth-century
charter, as it came to be accepted by the political leaders, the judges and
lawyers, and the majority of the people of England.[32]
A middle ground between the pretensions of Coke, that both the King and
Parliament were limited by a common reason and superior principles of
justice of which the common law courts were the ultimate interpreters, and
that of Pollock, Holland, and Holdsworth, to the effect that no cases are on
record in which the will of the King and of Parliament were thwarted by the
courts, resting their opinion on a higher law basis, probably comes nearer
to stating the actual situation in England. Even if it be true, as is
claimed, that there is no case on record in which the clearly expressed will
of the King and of Parliament were really checked by the courts there were
instances in which the courts, interpreting the common law changed the
meaning of statutes, refused to give them the effect intended, or to apply a
rule of his majesty in council until the King, Lords, and Commons joined in
an unmistakable mandate, which the courts reluctantly at times conceded it
was their duty to obey. Short of such mandates clearly and unequivocally
expressed there was a wide realm in which the courts applied the basic
principles of reason of the common law and were seldom interfered with
either by the King or by Parliament.[33] Moreover, the frequent
confirmations or reaffirmations of Magna Carta served to impress upon the
public mind that enshrined therein were fundamental principles upon which
the superstructure of the English constitution might arise. Coke's
reiteration of these principles served to strengthen the basic doctrine of
the supremacy of the law.
It was Coke's version of the supremacy of the common law, as an
exemplification of rules of reason and of justice, which the courts must
enforce even above the King and Parliament, that served as a convenient
argument when American justices were confronted with the demand that limits
must be placed on legislative powers to safeguard individual rights and
privileges.[34]
Blackstone in his Commentaries gave a version of natural law which, through
the popularity of his work, was given wide currency. "Man, considered as a
creature," he said,
must necessarily be subject to the laws of his Creator....
This will of his maker is called the law of nature.... This law
of nature, being co-eval with mankind, and dictated by God
himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other. It is
binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all times; no
human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this; and such
of them as are valid derive all their force and all their
authority, mediately and immediately, from this original....
Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law
of revelation, depend all human laws; that is to say no human
laws should be suffered to contradict these ... nay, if any
human law should allow or enjoin us to commit it, we are
bound to transgress that human law, or else we offend both
the natural and the divine.[35]
He placed these precepts in the realm of moral restraints by later admitting
that no authority could prevent Parliament from enacting laws contrary to
them. With the supremacy of Parliament generally accepted the references to
superior natural laws become less frequent.
3. Evidences of Natural Law Ideas in Judicial Decisions. The efforts to
predicate a basis for a fundamental law, which were gradually brushed aside
as Parliament gained ascendency over the other departments of government,
are by no means the only attempts to apply the ancient and mediaeval
concepts of natural law in England. Sir Frederick Pollock has indicated the
inaccuracy of the prevailing view that English law was comparatively free
from the influence of natural law doctrines.[36] When Roman and canon law
doctrines came into disrepute in England Pollock observes that the law of
nature terminology was frowned upon and gradually dropped, only, to be
restored in common law terminology in the words "reason" and "reasonable."
Due to a natural aversion to Continental ideals and to the influences of
church law and of Roman law it became the English practice to speak of
reason in preference to the mediaeval concept of the law of nature.[37]
Natural justice or reason which the common law recognizes and applies does
not differ from the law of nature which the Romans identified with jus
gentium and the mediaeval jurists accepted as being divine law revealed
chiefly through man's natural reason.[38]
Pollock's summary of the extensive ramifications of the doctrine of
reasonableness or the English version of natural law deserves to be quoted:
Reasonable price and reasonable time are among the most
familiar elements in our law of contract. Oftentimes no more
definite instruction can be given to a jury than to award
reasonable damages. "Natural reason and the just
construction of the law," as Blackstone said, have given us
the various applications of the common counts, extending to
the whole field of what we now call quasi-contract. In Lord
Mansfield's hands the principles of natural equity were an
enchanter's wand to call a whole new world of justice into
being. The test of what a reasonable man's conduct would
be in the circumstances governs our modern law of
negligence and underlies those branches of it which have
been specialized into groups of definite rules. Almost in our
own time a simple and wholly untechnical conception of the
same kind has been developed into the doctrine of estoppel
"in pais," perhaps the most powerful and flexible instrument
to be found in any system of civil jurisprudence.[39]
Since the Middle Ages the law of nature or its offshoot, the law of reason,
has been an important factor in the development of equity, of the law
merchant, and of the law of nations.[40] Principles of natural justice are
also recognized and applied today in cases where the courts review the
exercise of quasi-judicial powers by administrative boards, committees, or
commissions.[41]
One need not seek far in English case law to find impressive examples of the
use of the doctrine of reason or reasonableness, though the law of nature
connotations of these phrases may be inadvertently or purposely
concealed.[42]
The law of nature as "the living embodiment of the collective reason of
mankind" has, indeed, been adopted by the common law in substance if not in
express terms.[43] Despite the persistent applications of natural law
concepts in English law certain English jurists frequently refer to the
philosophy of law as comprehended under Naturrecht as a German product, and
criticize such thinking as "a mere system of elaborate trifling."[44]
4. Types of Natural Law Theories applied in English Law. It is apparent that
natural law concepts of one kind or another served various purposes in
English legal history. First, there was in mediaeval times an identification
of the term "natural" with the "customary" rules of the common law. The
importance attached to these natural or customary rules, the origins of
which were unknown, gave an element of certainty and permanence to the
emerging system of the common law, and encouraged the belief that certain
laws were fundamental. As the courts were the prime agencies in the
application of these rules it encouraged the recognition of the supremacy of
the law as interpreted by the justices.
Second, the doctrine of the supremacy of the law was given a prominent place
in the conflict between the King and the barons when resistance to the King
was supported by reference to the fundamental immemorial rights of
Englishmen -- essentially a form of appeal to a higher law. The assertion of
the idea that there was a law above the King and above Parliament as that
body gained in prominence, despite the differences of opinion regarding its
significance, became a vital principle in the growth of English
constitutionalism. It encouraged a more definite recognition of the
distinction between ordinary law and fundamental law. As a means of
supporting the revolt against arbitrary rulers the concepts of natural law
and natural justice were revolutionary and idealistic.
Third, the theory that law is of divine origin and that such rules as accord
with this law are natural and valid was inherited from Continental European
thought and was accepted by some English lawyers and jurists until the bonds
with the Roman church and the mediaeval canonists were severed. As in
Blackstone's Commentaries, the theory may be repeated at times with little
reference to its practical importance in English law.
Fourth, law of nature ideas were the sources from which the common law
judges derived their notions of rules of reason and natural justice whereby
they aimed to rationalize the legal processes. In this role these ideas
became active and progressive principles of legal growth. They assisted in
establishing close relations between legal logic and practical experience.
The growth of the common law in an inductive, experimental, and pragmatic
manner was conditioned by the famous rule of reason, which prevented the
rigid and archaic procedure and rules of the system from remaining long in
force when they were not in accord with social and economic conditions. The
manifold appearances of the rule of reason in Anglo-American law bear
witness to the fact that natural law doctrines are not ignored or discarded
in the jurisdictions which are subject to this law. But differences in
terminology have tended to obscure the continuous applications in English
law of natural law concepts which play an important rôle in Continental
legal systems.
5. Differences between the Anglo-American and the Continental Legal Points
of View. The fact that in Continental systems of law two words are in use
for the ideas comprehended in the English word "law" differentiates certain
phases of legal thought of Continental nations in contrast with that of
Anglo-American countries. Two sets of words to express two ideas of law are:
Latin jus lex
German Recht[45] Gesetz
French droit loi
Italian diritto legge
Spanish derecho ley
Though the two terms are not always clearly distinguished, lex is the term
which commonly designates written enactments or rules and jus[46] refers to
those rules which are just or inherently right or equitable. To the Romans
jus naturale comprised the eternal principles of justice, as understood and
appreciated by the human reason; but in the Middle Ages, as we have seen,
the jus naturale frequently became the lex naturalis, or positive enactments
proceeding from God, which were considered superior to all human laws.
When law was based largely on custom and on the application of traditional
rules, and legislation was comparatively rare, the lex or loi was regarded
as the embodiment of reason, for customs and traditions to be valid were
expected to be reasonable. Later the distinction between droit and loi was
more clearly drawn. In modern terminology la loi is a declaration of the
will of the sovereign upon an object of common interest,[47] and droit is
the aggregate of precepts or laws (lois) governing the conduct of man toward
his fellows, the observance of which it is possible, and at the same time
useful, to assure by way of external coercion. Thus with a term to
characterize the enactments, usually in writing, to which men are expected
to conform and the rules or ideas of justice which are to guide and control
civil conduct, it is possible to differentiate between the ordinary
conventional laws of a time and place and the underlying rules and
principles which form the very groundwork of the legal structure. The terms
droit or Recht[48] combining the ideas of a rule of civil conduct and a
principle of justice, necessarily mingle law and morals in juridical
speculation, whereas with a single term -- law -- English jurists have been
inclined to divorce law and ethics.
"To this difference of language, and to the consequent difference in the
tone of juridical speculation," Mr. Salmond thinks,
we may attribute, more than to any other single cause, the
acceptance on the Continent and the rejection in England of
that which the French call droit naturel, and the Germans
Naturrecht.[49] It follows that our language can supply no
equivalent for these terms, for they combine ethical and
juridical significations in a manner not permitted to English
speech. To express the ethical meaning we must use the
terms natural right or natural justice; while the juridical
meaning is expressed by the terms natural law or the law
of nature. For a full equivalent for the French and German
expressions, we may resort to the corresponding Latin jus
naturale, which possesses the same twofold meaning, being
either justitia naturalis or lex naturae.[50]
The differences in terminology and points of view are likely to be
exaggerated, for whether or not separate words be used for definite written
enactments and for rules of right or principles of justice the results in
legal thinking do not vary greatly on this account. The fact that writers in
Europe give a great deal more attention to legal speculations and that the
schools of droit naturel or Naturrecht have produced elaborate and
influential treatises is due rather to a different approach to philosophy
and to speculative thought than to variations in terms. The Englishman's
effort to divorce morals and law is, of course, not successful and his vain
attempts to repudiate natural law thinking have failed to conceal the
substratum of rationalizing in accordance with well-known natural law
connotations. The obvious methods of suppression of natural law concepts are
but a reflex of a type of mind which depreciates rationalizing and
philosophizing at the same time that new ideas and new institutions are
being molded in accordance with the assumptions and preconceived notions of
particular schools of philosophic thought.[51] Englishmen are less prone to
formulate the speculative ideas which are the warp and woof of their social
fabric and they have been masters in the application of theories which,
however, have been thought to be more acceptable because they were believed
to be concealed.[52]
It was in the United States and in France, however, that different types of
natural law concepts were to take shape. Higher law ideas were soon to
become in these countries the source and sanction for portions of private
and public law.
1. C. H. McIlwain, The High Court of Parliament and its Supremacy (New
Haven, 1910). Sir Frederick Pollock thinks "there is a real link between the
mediaeval doctrine of the law of nature and the principles of the common
law. It is given by the use -- correct in both systems, though constant,
indeed exclusive in the Common Law, and rather sparing in the Canon Law --
of the words 'reason,' and 'reasonable.'" Essays in the Law, p. 57; see also
Holdsworth's A History of English Law, II, 133 ff. for a modern
interpretation of the adoption of Roman law ideas in English law.
"English as well as Continental jurists and judges," says Professor H. D.
Hazeltine, "were under the influence of doctrines which ascribed the jus
divinum and the jus naturale the quality of immutability and rendered the
man-made positive law opposed to them null and void. Bracton writes under
the influence of these doctrines; and the early common lawyers treat the
common law itself as the embodiment of the jus naturale in the guise of
'reason.'" Preface to Theodore F. T. Plucknett, Statutes and their
Interpretation in the First Half of the Fourteenth Century (Cambridge,
1922), p. xxiii.
2. C. H. McIlwain, op. cit., pp. 51, 52. See also Sir Paul Vinogradoff,
"Magna Carta Chapter 39," Malden, Magna Carta Commemoration Essays, p. 85.
3. McIlwain, op. cit., p. 53. McIlwain continues: "There is a fundamental
law which binds a king and beyond which he may not go. The principle has
persisted through all changes.... Men may not always have been clear as to
what particular rights or liberties were guaranteed by the fundamental law,
but as to the existence of such a law there was no doubt, and any act that
violated it was in a true sense felt to be no law." Ibid., pp. 57, 63. For
the use of the term "common law" as signifying in a real sense a fundamental
law, cf. McIlwain, "Magna Carta and Common Law," in Magna Carta
Commemoration Essays (London, 1917), pp. 122 ff. and 175 ff. This judgment
is not in accord with the opinions of a number of English legal historians,
who regard the theories of a fundamental law, which is superior to the King
and to Parliament, as having little evidence to substantiate them, so far as
the actual operation of the law in England is concerned.
4. McIlwain, The High Court of Parliament and its Supremacy, p. 99.
Expressing the view that the omnipotence of the British Parliament, on which
English jurists have usually built their theories of sovereignty, is really
exceptional, Sir Frederick Pollock says: "The omnipotence of Parliament was
not the orthodox theory of English law, if orthodox at all, even in Holt's
time. It was formally adopted, and then not without lip-service to natural
law, in Blackstone's Commentaries. Sir Thomas Smith had asserted it plainly
enough two centuries before Blackstone; but he spoke the mind of the Tudor
councillors of state, not the judges and serjeants. Down to the Revolution
the common legal opinion was that statutes might be void as 'contrary to
common right' -- an insular version, as I have pointed out elsewhere, and
generally received natural law." "A Plea for an Historical Interpretation,"
Law Quarterly Review, XXXIX (April, 1923), 165. See also the Expansion of
the Common Law (London, 1904), p. 123.
5. A History of English Law, II, 207 ff.
6. Magna Carta (New York, 1915).
7. "The Myth of Magna Carta," The Independent Review, IV (1904-05), 260 ff.
8. Constitutional History of the House of Lords (London, 1894).
9. Sir Paul Vinogradoff, "Magna Carta Chapter 39," Magna Carta Commemoration
Essays, p. 79.
10. Vinogradoff, op. cit., pp. 84, 95.
11. Cf. citations in Rodney L. Mott, Due Process of Law (Indianapolis,
1926), chap. 3.
12. Op. cit., pp. 26-31, 35, 36. For a critical analysis by the same author
of Coke's broad claims for the existence of a fundamental law in England,
see also "Bonham's Case and Judicial Review," Harvard Law Review, XL
(November, 1926), 30.
13. Op. cit., pp. 35, 36.
14. See Fortescue, De Natura Legis Naturae and De Laudibus Legum Angliae,
chap. 16, and Calvin's Case, 7 Co. Rep. 121. Holdsworth finds an occasional
use of the term "law of nature" in the Yearbooks and rather frequent
references to the idea that law must accord with reason, Appendix II,
Holdsworth's History of English Law, II, 602.
15. Cf. Malines, Lex Mercatoria (1656), p. 311, and Sir John Davis,
Concerning Impositions (1656), chap. 3. Pollock, Essays in the Law (London,
1922), pp. 53 ff.
16. Op cit., V, 216.
17. "On the whole, my notion is that with the idea of a law of nature in
their minds, they decided cases without much reference to any written
authority, now making use of some analogy drawn from the common law and now
some great maxim of jurisprudence which they borrowed from the canonists or
the civilians." F. W. Maitland, Equity, p. 9.
18. Holdsworth, op. cit., II, 131, 195, 196. Professor Adams speaks of "the
idea that there existed a body of understood, more or less definitely
formulated rights which the king was bound to observe," as a "guiding and
creative principle" of the English constitution. George Burton Adams, The
Origin of the English Constitution (New Haven, 1920), p. 157.
19. De Legibus el Consuetudinibus Angliae, III, 9, 2, fol. 107 b and
Holdsworth, II, 252, 256. Bracton copied with slight changes his account of
jus naturale from Azo, who in his edition of the Institutes, follows
Ulpian's classification. See Professor Maitland's Selections 8, Selden
Society's Publications (London, 1895), p. 33. A passage of the Roman code
indicated that it was the duty of the Emperor to acknowledge that he was
bound by law, Code 1. 14, 4. This idea was accepted by Azo and through him
was incorporated in Bracton's De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae, II, 16,
3. See also Carlyle, A History of Mediaeval Political Theory in the West,
III, 34 ff., for Bracton's theory of limits on the king's authority.
20. Op. cit., IV, 169. The author refers to two striking examples of
mediaeval courts which actually exercised political powers, namely, the
Justizia of Aragon and the Parlement of Paris. "The supremacy of the law was
a theme on which Coke was never tired of dilating. In fact, it would not be
going too far to say that it was the view of all the leading lawyers,
statesmen and publicists of the Tudor period." Ibid., pp. 201, 202.
21. See Bonham's Case, 8 Co. 118a, b; Plucknett, "Bonham's Case and Judicial
Review," Harv. Law Rev., XL, 30; also C. G. Haines, The American Doctrine of
Judicial Supremacy (New York, 1914), pp. 25 ff.
22. 8 Co. (C.P. 1610) 114a and 2 Brownl. (C.P. 1610) 255, 265.
23. Tregor's Case Y. B. Pasch, 8 Edw. III, 26; Fitzherbert, Annuitie 41. For
a thorough analysis of these cases, consult Plucknett, Statutes and their
Interpretation in the First Half of the Fourteenth Century (Cambridge,
1922), pp. 66-70 "and Bonham's Case and Judicial Review," Harv. Law Rev.,
XL, 35 ff. Cf. also Holdsworth, op. cit., V, 428, 454, 491 ff.
24. Cf. views of Sir Henry Hobart in Day v. Savadge, Hobart, 85 (K. B. 1614)
and Lord Holt in City of London v. Wood, 12 Modern 669, 687 (Mayor's Court,
1701).
25. Pound, "Common Law and Legislation," Harv. Law Rev., XXI (April, 1908),
391. "We find," says Pollock, "a series of dicta, extending to the early
part of the eighteenth century, to the effect that statutes contrary to
'natural justice' or 'common right' may be treated as void. This opinion is
most strongly expressed by Coke, but like many of his confident opinions, is
extra-judicial. Although Coke was no canonist, we may be pretty sure that it
was ultimately derived from the canonist doctrine prevailing on the
continent of Europe. In England it was never a practical doctrine." The
Expansion of the Common Law, pp. 121, 122. He claims that no case is known
in fact, in which an English court of justice has openly taken on itself to
overrule or disregard the plain meaning of an act of Parliament. First Book
of Jurisprudence (3d ed, 1911), p. 264, and Essays in the Law (London,
1922), p 41. This view of Pollock is confirmed by J. G. Holland, who states
that "these dicta, though approved of by Lord Holt in London v. Wood, appear
never to have been followed in practice." The Elements of Jurisprudence
(12th ed., New York, 1917), pp. 37, 38.
Plucknett notes that this judgment needs to be slightly modified so as to
account for the few instances in which courts refused to apply acts regarded
as impossible to carry out or absurd in their consequences, Harv. Law Rev.,
XL, 36 ff.
26. Holdsworth, op. cit., II, 441-443. This view is supported by F. W.
Maitland, who thinks that the precedents cited by Coke do not bear him out.
The Constitutional History of England (Cambridge, 1909), p 301. From this
slim foundation, Plucknett observes, Coke developed a theory all his own --
to the effect that there was a superior body of rules which bound the King
and Parliament. The subsequent results of Coke's ideas are traced in
"Bonham's Case," Harv. Law. Rev., XL, 49 ff. This article should be
consulted for an analysis of the cases reported by Coke and those in which
his views were approved.
27. "Our law is grounded upon the law of nature.... For as the common law is
more worthy than the statute law, so this law is more worthy than them both"
Bacon, Works (ed. by Spedding, Ellis, and Heath), XV, 202 ff.
28. Holdsworth explains the merging of the supremacy of law with the concept
of parliamentary supremacy, as follows:
"But when the Act of Parliament had acquired this authority, the last
remnants of the idea that there might be fundamental laws, which could not
be changed by any person or body of persons in the state, necessarily
disappeared. It was obviously difficult to assign any limits to the power
of the Acts of a body which had effected changes so sweeping as those
effected by the Reformation Parliament. I do not forget that Coke sometimes
writes as it he believed in the supremacy of a law which even Parliament
could not change But it would, I think, be a mistake to lay too much stress
on isolated statements of this kind. In the first place, Coke was often
inconsistent because he had the mind of an advocate, and therefore often
allowed himself to be carried away by the argument which he was urging at
the moment. In the second place, he was so thoroughly steeped in mediaeval
law that he sometimes reproduces ideas which he himself would have admitted
to be archaic. In the third place, he is often writing and thinking of the
supremacy of the existing law, and not of the question whether Parliament
was competent to change it. When Parliament is not sitting it is the
existing law, as interpreted by the judges, which is supreme; and when, as
in the seventeenth century, the different component parts of the Parliament
cannot act together, the same result ensues. In the Fourth Institute, when
he is dealing specifically with the powers of Parliament, and in other
passages, he admits its supremacy freely and fully.
In the sixteenth century, therefore (whatever may be true of earlier
periods), it is clear that the supremacy of the law, taught by Bracton and
the Yearbooks, has come to mean, not the supremacy of an unchangeable law,
but the supremacy of a law which Parliament can change. The supremacy of the
law is coming to mean the supremacy of Parliament. That the lawyers never
placed any difficulty in the way of this evolution was a fact which had
large effects upon the future development, both of the constitution and of
the common law." Op. cit., IV, 186, 187.
29. Holdsworth, op. cit., IV, 185. "It was only in England that the powers
of Parliament had come to be regarded as the main security for the supremacy
of the law; for it was only in England that the lawyers, by freely admitting
the legislative supremacy of Parliament, had gained the support of
Parliament and the nation for the mediaeval doctrine of the supremacy of
law." Ibid., p. 189.
30. On the tendency of Coke to assume the rôle of a strenuous advocate in
the causes which enlisted his interest, on his lack of consistency in
relation to such matters as the supremacy of the common law, and on his
uncritical use of authorities, see Holdsworth, op. cit., V, 474 ff; also
Plucknett, "Bonham's Case," Harv. Law Rev., XL, 58, for citation of cases
recognizing the supremacy of Parliament.
31. For an analysis of Coke's ideas relating to a fundamental law, see R. A.
MacKay, "Coke -- Parliamentary Sovereignty or the Supremacy of the Law,"
Michigan Law Review, XXII (January, 1924), 215.
"In every government there must be Somewhat Fundamental, Somewhat like a
Magna Carta, which should be standing, be unalterable.... That Parliament
should not make themselves perpetual is a Fundamental. Of what assurance is
a law to prevent so great an evil, if it lie in the same legislature to
un-law it again? Is such a Law like to be lasting? It will be a rope of
sand." Cromwell's Speech of September 12, 1654.
32. W. S. McKechnie, "Magna Carta (1215-1915)" in Malden, Magna Carta
Commemoration Essays (London, 1917), p. 12. McKechnie thinks that the
inaccurate eulogies of Coke and Hampden rendered a great service to the
cause of constitutional government. Ibid., p. 19.
33. Plucknett, Statutes and their Interpretation in the Fourteenth Century,
Part II.
34. Cf. The American Doctrine of Judicial Supremacy, chap. 2 and Plucknett,
"Bonham's Case and Judicial Review," Harv. Law Rev., XL, 61 ff.
35. I, 41-43. See also, Hooker, The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Book III,
chap. 9.
36. "The History of the Law of Nature," Journal of Society of Comparative
Legislation, II (1900), 418, and Columbia Law Review, I (Jan., 1901), 11.
Cf. also Pollock, The Expansion of the Common Law (London, 1904), pp.
107-138. "The term 'law of nature,' or natural law, has been in use in
various applications ever since the time of the later Roman Republic. Their
variety and apparent diversity have tended to obscure the central idea which
underlies them all, that of an ultimate principle of fitness with regard to
the nature of man as a rational and social being, which is, or ought to be
the justification of every form of positive law. Such a principle, under the
name of reason, reasonableness, or sometimes natural justice, is fully
recognized in our own system, but the difference in terminology has tended
to conceal the similarity from English lawyers during the last century or
more." Pollock, "The History of the Law of Nature," Col. Law Rev., p. 11.
37. Christopher St. Germain, Doctor and Student, Dial., 1. chap. 5. St.
Germain aimed to popularize the canonist conception of equity and to define
its relations to the common law, and he exercised a great influence on the
development of modern English equity. Holdsworth, op. cit., V, 266 ff.
38. "The Common Law is pictured invested with a halo of dignity, peculiar to
the embodiment of the deepest principles and to the highest expression of
human reason and of the law of nature implanted by God in the heart of man,"
Figgis, The Divine Right of Kings, pp. 228, 229. "Common Law is the perfect
ideal law; for it is natural reason developed and expounded by the
collective wisdom of many generations." Ibid., p. 220.
39. The Expansion of the Common Law, p. 108, also Pollock, Essays in the
Law, pp. 63, 68, 69.
40. The Expansion of the Common Law, pp. 108-113. Pollock speaks of this law
of nature or law of reason as a "pervading ideal, of which it would be
hardly too much to say that it is the life of the modern Common Law," ibid.,
p. 109.
41. Pollock, Essays in the Law, p. 70 See Local Government Board v. Arlidge
(1913) 1 K. B. 463; (1914) 1 K. B. 160; (1915) A. C. 120. In the Arlidge
Case administrative proceedings which did not accord the injured party a
hearing or an opportunity to see the record on which the decision of the
officers had been rendered were held valid. The first trial in the Court of
King's Bench resulted in the approval of the administrative action. The
failure to grant a hearing or to permit an examination of the records, the
Court of Appeal held to be contrary to the principles of natural justice on
which the English common law is based. See especially, opinion of J. Vaughn
Williams, Rex v. Local Government Board (1914) 1 K. B. 160, 176. By the
House of Lords this decision was reversed on the ground that the acts of
Parliament expressly authorized such administrative proceedings and did not
provide in these instances for review by the courts. Lord Shaw disapproved
of the ground on which the Court of Appeal based its judgment. He observed:
"In so far as the term 'natural justice' means that a result or process
should be just, it is harmless though it may be a high-sounding expression;
in so far as it attempts to reflect the old jus naturale it is a confused
and unwarranted transfer into the ethical sphere of a term employed for
other distinctions; and, in so far as it is resorted to for other purposes,
it is vacuous." Local Government Board v. Arlidge (1915) A. C. 120, 138.
Lord Moulton also objected to the use of the phrase "contrary to natural
justice" in this connection, ibid., 150. Cf. also Sir Paul Vinogradoff, Yale
Law Journal, XXXIV, 68, and decisions and remarks in the cases of Scott v.
Scott (1913) C. 417, 176 (an action for the nullity of a marriage in which
proceedings were conducted in camera) and of Chester v. Bateson (1920) 1 K.
B. 829 (interference with rights of citizens through ministerial orders
under the Defence of the Realm Act).
42. Cf. Pollock, The Expansion of the Common Law, pp, 123 ff. A few
applications of law of nature concepts may be cited: Certain decisions
relating to the validity of the procedure of foreign courts when judgments
had been rendered without notice or through fraud made use of the phrase
"contrary to natural justice." For example, Lord Ellenborough said: "It is
contrary to the first principles of reason and justice that either in civil
or criminal proceedings, a man should be condemned before he is heard."
Buchanan v. Rucker (1807) 1 Camp. 63, 66. For a criticism of this language
of Ellenborough as no more than declamation, see J. Blackburn in Schibsby v.
Westenholz (1870) L. R. 6 Q. B. 155, 160.
Bramwell B. "It this were the case of a judgment obtained by reason of
untrue statements contained in an affidavit in a foreign court where the
procedure is contrary to natural justice, then we might refuse to give
effect to that judgment.... If the proceedings be in accordance with the
practice of the foreign court, but that practice is not in accordance with
natural justice, this court will not allow itself to be concluded by them."
In Crawley v. Isaacs (1867) 16 L. T R. 529, 531.
Mellish, L. J. "It was always held that a foreign judgment could be
impeached at law as contrary to the principles of natural justice, as, for
instance, on the ground of the defendant having had no notice of the foreign
action, or not having been summoned or of want of jurisdiction, or that the
judgment was fraudulently obtained." In Ochsenbein v. Papelier (1873) L. R.
8 Ch. 695, 700.
"Our common-law system consists in applying to new combinations of
circumstances those rules of law which we derive from legal principles and
judicial precedents; and for the sake of attaining uniformity, consistency
and certainty, we must apply those rules, where they are not plainly
unreasonable and inconvenient, to all cases which arise." Justice James
Parke in Mirehouse v. Rennell (1833) 1 Cl. & F. 527, 546.
A modern illustration of the application of the old doctrine of natural
rights is made by Justice Farwell when in giving judgment on certain rights
involved in underground water courses he remarks: "The foundation of the
right as stated throughout all the cases is jus naturae [citations to a
number of cases follow] ... I have come to the conclusion, therefore, that
jus naturae is used in these cases as expressing that principle in English
law which is akin to, if not derived from, the jus naturale of Roman law.
English law is, of course, quite independent of Roman law, but the
conception of aequum et bonum and the rights flowing therefrom which are
included in the jus naturale underlie a great part of English common law;
although it is not usual to find 'the law of nature' or 'natural law'
referred to in so many words in English cases." Bradford Corporation v.
Ferrand (1902) 2 Ch. 655, 661, 662. Cf. Lord Mansfield's reference to
obligations of justice and equity in Moses v. Macferlen (1760) 2 Burr. 1005,
1012 and opinions of Baron Martin in Freeman v. Jeffries (1869) L. R. 4 Ex.
189, 199 and Justice Buller in Master v. Miller (1791) 4 T. R. 320, 342.
Justice Parker, referring to the custom that a mortgage on the real estate
of a married woman might be executed by her husband without having been
acknowledged by her, said "It is quite clear that for a custom to be good it
must be reasonable or, at any rate, not unreasonable. The words 'reasonable
or not reasonable' imply an appeal to some criterion higher than the mere
rules or maxims embodied in the common law, for it is no objection to a
custom that it is not in accordance with these rules or maxims.... A custom
to be valid must be such that, in the opinion of a trained lawyer, it is
consistent or, at any rate, not inconsistent, with those general principles
which, quite apart from particular rule or maxims, lie at the root of our
legal system.... 'Custom,' as it is put in Needier v. Bishop of Winchester
(Hob. 220, 225) 'must not deprive the law of nature.' Lawyers of today do
not refer to the law of nature as freely or confidently as lawyers did
centuries ago, but, translated into modern phraseology, I think this means
that a custom ... must be according to the principles of our common law."
Johnson v. Clark (1908) 1 Ch. 303, 311, 312.
43. In British India the law of nature has been used as a device to aid in
the introduction of English legal ideas The judges are instructed in
various Indian provinces to act "according to justice, equity and good
conscience." Pollock, Essays in the Law, p. 70 and Expansion of the Common
Law, pp. 132 ff.
44. W. G Miller, The Law of Nature and Nations in Scotland (Edinburgh,
1896), p. 5.
45. The German Recht is never quite our "right" or quite our "law" says
Maitland in his introduction to Political Theories of the Middle Ages by
Otto Gierke, p. lxiii. Closely related to the German Recht is what is
called by Ihering the Sittlichkeit, "the system of habitual or customary
conduct, ethical rather than legal, which embraces all those obligations of
the citizen which it is 'bad form' or 'not the thing' to disregard." See
Lord Haldane, "Higher Nationality: A Study in Law and Ethics," American Bar
Association Reports, XXXVIII (1913), 393. Though there is no word in English
which exactly expresses the meaning of Sittlichkeit, it is sometimes
translated as "social ethics."
46. "There is nothing in the Greek language exactly corresponding to the
Latin jus. The Roman term cannot be translated by nomoV, which is mainly
used for statutory law -- lex. Nor is to dikaion an equivalent, for it
signifies "the just." ... These phraseological peculiarities point to the
highly important fact that the Greeks regarded law primarily as the
embodiment of justice." Vinogradoff, Jurisprudence of the Greek City, p. 19.
47. Laurent, Principes du droit civil français, vol. I, sec. 2, also
Baudry-Lacantinerie, Precis de droit civil, vol. I, sec. 1.
48. "Recht is 'right and law' -- the law looked at not merely as courts
enforce it, but also with reference to what the courts are seeking to
attain through the judicial administration of justice." Pound, Law and
Morals, pp. 84, 8s.
49. It may be observed that the German terms Recht and Naturrecht include
only a portion of good conduct, the remainder being covered by Tugend,
Sittlichkeit, and Moralität. In France, droit and droit naturel are opposed
to moralité.
Sir Frederick Pollock speaks of the Continental schools of jurisprudence as
either ethical or historical. "By the ethical school I mean ... those
authors who throw their main strength on investigating the universal moral
and social conditions of government and laws, and expounding what such
government and laws are or ought to be, so far as determined by conformity
to those conditions. This is the nearest account I can give in few words of
what is implied in modern usage by the terms law of nature, droit naturel or
Naturrecht." An Introduction to the History of the Science of Politics, p.
110.
50. "The Law of Nature," Law Quar. Rev., XI (April, 1926), 121.
51. "English lawyers are not, and never have been ready," says Professor
Holdsworth, "to receive and use as the basis of their reasoning the theories
of legal and political philosophers." Some Lessons from our Legal History
(New York, 1928), p. 109.
52. Generalizations, often assumed and followed without any definite
formulation, are likely to form the major premises of judicial reasoning.
For some interesting examples of this type, cf. H. Rottschaefer, "Legal
Theory and the Practice of the Law," Minnesota Law Review, X (April, 1926),
382. Mr. Rottschaefer notes that not only are such generalizations subsumed
in much judicial thinking but similar generalizations serve as a background
for those who criticize legal rules.
CHAPTER III
AMERICAN AND FRENCH NATURAL LAW DOCTRINES
BY THE time political theories and customs were taking definite shape in the
American Colonies the characteristic ideas relating to natural law in
England and in Continental Europe had been introduced into the environment
of a pioneer rural civilization. But before the transmission took place a
change in emphasis was under way which was accentuated under the peculiar
conditions prevailing in America.
1. Transition from Natural Law Doctrines to Theories of Natural Rights. When
the standard works of Gentilis, Grotius, Pufendorf, and Burlamaqui aimed to
present the basic principles of the public and private law of Europe natural
law doctrines were generally approved. As the importance of the canon law
declined the doctrines were limited in their applications and, in certain
countries, except for their use as critical standards to oppose the
arbitrary and dictatorial policies of princes and kings, they were sparingly
used in the practical operation of the law. But all branches of the law were
subjected to natural law influences.
The original concepts of natural law, however, were to undergo a marked
transformation, when the Reformation leaders, following Roman and mediaeval
authorities, gave great significance in political and religious matters to
the rights and liberties of the individual. Instead of natural law or rules
of superior validity jus naturale was translated into a theory of natural
rights -- qualities inherent in man which it was the duty of the state to
protect. Grotius was one of the foremost mediaeval thinkers to find a source
of natural rights in certain inherent qualities belonging to the individual.
These rights, which were sanctioned by natural law, might be discovered by
human reason.[1] Montesquieu and the Physiocrats in France and English
philosophers also formulated theories of natural rights as inherent in the
individual, with certain formulas derived therefrom designed to limit all
public authorities.[2] Moreover, the distinction suggested several centuries
earlier that rulers were bound not only by the primary laws of nature but
also by certain fundamental secondary natural laws which were expressed in
positive laws, was formally enunciated.[3]
One of the popular writers of the eighteenth century, who based his
political philosophy on rights inherent in the individual, was Vattel,
whose volume on The Law of Nations appeared in many editions, French,
English, and German.[4] As a representative authority Vattel's views, as
well as those of Grotius, Pufendorf, and Burlamaqui, were extensively
studied and followed during the formative period of American law. Vattel,
who was a follower of Frederic von Wolff, began to translate Wolff's work,
Jus Naturae Methodo Scientifica Pertractatum, and to render it available to
the public and the result was that he put the doctrines of Wolff into such
form that a relatively new and popular treatise was prepared.
To Vattel, it was regarded as settled on the basis of natural law "that
liberty and independence belong to man by his very nature, and that they
cannot be taken from him without his consent." Moreover, "the whole Nation,
whose common will is but the outcome of the united wills of the citizens,
remains subject to the laws of nature, and is bound to respect them in all
its undertakings.... We must therefore," he continued, "apply to nations the
rules of the natural law to discover what are their obligations and their
rights; hence, the law of Nations is in its origin merely the law of Nature
applied to Nations."
Vattel regarded this law immutable as being founded "on the nature of
things," and particularly "on the nature of man" and hence he thought,
"nations can not alter it by agreement, nor individually or mutually
release themselves from it."[5] Vattel aided in the movement to establish
written constitutions, as the foundation of public authority. He maintained
that the fundamental laws enacted by the nation itself are not subject to
change by the legislature. The distinction between fundamental and ordinary
law was clearly drawn,[6] and American legal authorities soon began to make
practical applications of the distinction.
With the writings of Grotius, Pufendorf, Wolff, and Vattel attention was
directed to a state of nature -- a golden age which existed at the beginning
of society in which the laws of nature, as affecting the relations of
individuals and of communities, predominated.[7] These laws of nature were
of the immutable type, and it was not long before jurists and politicians
began to think of man as emerging from this state of nature with a panoply
of rights belonging to him as an individual. Political and economic
conditions in Europe and in America were taking the shape which gave vital
and legal force to the emerging concept of the natural inherent and
inalienable rights of man.[8]
2. American Theories of Natural Law and of Inalienable Rights. In the
process of transplanting fundamental law notions to the American Colonies,
conditions were favorable not only to the reception of higher law theories
but also to their incorporation as basic doctrines of public and private
law. The colonists brought with them many of the current ideas of the common
law as the foundation of their legal arrangements. But the law was as a rule
applied by those untrained in the technical procedure and rules of the
English system. Statutes applicable to local conditions were frequently
lacking. Courts and judges found themselves called upon to make law for the
occasion with little else to guide them except the Bible, the precepts of
natural law or natural justice, and the community sentiment of what ought to
be right and just. Under such circumstances appeals were frequently made to
natural law or to allied concepts.
The pioneer rural conditions in which most of the colonists lived encouraged
self-reliance not only in their economic and social conditions but also in
their political ideas. Dependent for the most part upon their own efforts
for a livelihood, they also had to assume a large share of responsibility in
protecting individual and community rights. With the organized evidences of
government far removed from the ordinary activities of life it was customary
to place a high value on the assertion and protection of individual personal
rights. Moreover, the normal methods of making and enforcing law tended to
give special value to doctrines of natural law. Under the primitive
conditions which prevailed, natural rights and natural law were regarded
either as identical or as merely two phases of the same concept. Having
theoretically, at least, adopted the rules and principles of the common law
the prevailing English views as to the supremacy of the law were accepted.
And the higher law doctrine as later announced by Blackstone gave sanction
to the belief that certain laws were superior to all civil enactments.[9]
The judges in the Colonies frequently indicated their belief in the natural
laws, which were considered true laws, and legislation was thought to be
binding only in so far as it was an expression of these laws.[10]
The process of the transmission of natural law theories to the new
environment was hastened by the appeal to higher law ideas by the leaders of
the revolt against Great Britain and by the philosophic trend of the
eighteenth century to place uppermost in the political sphere the natural
rights of the individual.[11]
The popularity of the concepts of natural rights and of natural law was
greatly increased when they were espoused by the leaders of the American and
French Revolutions. The American Revolution not only came first but also
resulted in a more specific formulation of natural rights as inherent in the
individual. James Otis, Samuel Adams, John Adams,[12] Thomas Paine, Patrick
Henry, and Thomas Jefferson[13] made frequent use of the natural rights
doctrine to support the right of rebellion against the arbitrary exercise of
governmental powers. The Declaration of Independence gave a standard formula
for the use of advocates of the doctrine in the dictum that men are "endowed
by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life,
Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." Many of the Revolutionary patriots
believed with Thomas Dickinson that liberties do not result from charters;
charters rather are in the nature of declarations of pre-existing rights.
They are founded, John Adams claimed, "in the frame of human nature, rooted
in the constitution of the intellectual and moral world."[14] Until the
adoption of the Declaration of Independence it was customary to regard these
rights as having their sanction in the British Constitution.[15] "The law
of nature and the law of revelation are both divine; they flow, though in
different channels from the same adorable source," said James Wilson. In the
course of his law Lectures he frequently extolled the instinctive or
intuitive faculties whereby man arrived at principles of right and
justice.[16]
The doctrine of the freedom and equality of men in their natural state, such
as that described by Seneca and formulated into a dogma of mediaeval
thought, was translated into a principle of political action. Governments,
to justify their existence, were to be measured by the security they
furnished for the natural principles of freedom and of equality.
Concepts of law in North America in the eighteenth and in the early
nineteenth centuries were molded and, in considerable part, determined under
the influence of the prevailing doctrine of inalienable rights and this idea
gave a peculiar turn to all legal thinking. The law of the Colonies, the
public papers and charters of the Revolutionary period, and the first
written constitutions with specific enumeration of certain natural and
inalienable rights, bear witness to the conviction that such rights were
thought to exist, and that governments were designed primarily to preserve
them.[17] Legislative enactments contrary to natural law or natural justice
were regarded as ipso facto void and it was declared to be the duty of all
persons to resist their enforcement. The view of the English philosopher
that "that which is not just is not law and that which is not law ought not
to be obeyed,"[18] was not infrequently taken as the starting point in the
application of legal rules. Moreover, the belief in natural law and in
inalienable rights aided materially in giving support to the courts when
they were asserting the right to declare void enactments which interfered
with these natural rights or contravened the express terms of written
constitutions.[19]
The natural law philosophy, as a background for legal thinking, which was a
part of the heritage of Western Europe and of America in the eighteenth
century, was extensively used in America, where it was transformed into
laissez faire individualistic dogmas under frontier methods of administering
justice. It was also identified with the immemorial rights of Englishmen as
declared by Coke and Blackstone. Into the philosophical mold of Grotius,
Pufendorf, Burlamaqui, and Vattel was injected some of the characteristic
ideas of Coke's Second Institute and of Blackstone's Commentaries and there
was created a unique form of natural law, supposed to be universal in its
applications.[20]
American political and legal theorists made use of every phase of natural
law thinking. Judges with little legal training and with a scarcity of law
books, when precepts from the Bible were not applicable, turned to natural
law as a convenient symbol for the divine sanction of laws, after the
fashion of the mediaeval canonists. To Paine and Jefferson, as with certain
Greek thinkers, there was a disposition to recur to the deistic emphasis
upon the laws of nature and to associate the concept with underlying
principles of natural phenomena. Others identified the rights of nature with
the rights of Englishmen. Though not so well known, Coke's appeal to natural
law and to the higher reason of the common law was called upon by legal
advocates when attacking obnoxious acts of the colonial legislatures, just
as higher laws were appealed to in resisting the arbitrary acts of the King
or of Parliament. The appeal to natural rights and natural law as a
justification for the right of revolution was one of the chief features of
the formative period of American institutions.
Natural law was also conceived as an ideal to which all just laws must
conform,[21] as from the viewpoint of certain Greek and Roman jurists, and,
in this sense, it was a convenient doctrine to temper the arbitrary features
of a system of strict legal rules. It thus became an instrument of legal
growth. Conceptions of a state of nature wherein men enjoyed natural freedom
and equality conditioned the thinking of most of the Revolutionary leaders
and through them a principle was announced which has proved to be one of the
most insistent and fertile concepts of American legal thought, namely, that
each individual is entitled to the equal protection of the laws.
Assuming a state of nature antedating organized political life wherein man
was possessed of inherent and inalienable rights arising from the laws of
nature, and basing government on a social compact resulting from this
condition, there was formulated in the representative American constitution
a group of rights belonging to the individual and of such superior sanctity
that political society was formed primarily to preserve them. Out of a state
of nature and emanating from the laws of nature arose the familiar
inalienable rights which were superior to the state itself and, in fact,
above all forms of political or social control. The theory of natural
rights, which is the characteristic American interpretation of natural law,
became the foundation for the concept of limited government which gained
such a strong foothold in the United States. It gave the theoretical basis
for the American doctrine of civil liberty which set the rights of the
individual against the government and insisted on the formulation of limits
on all forms of political authority.[22]
Thus the democratic ideas of the monarchomachs and of the representative
theorists of England and of Continental Europe were made more concrete and
more directly applicable to human affairs. It seems strange that this
revival of the general acceptance of ideas of natural law and natural rights
should have preceded by only a few decades a marked decline of the belief in
natural laws of superior sanctity. Before considering the causes for this
decline, it is necessary to trace briefly a similar revival of ancient
superior law notions in France.
3. French Natural Law Concepts. The French system of law, arising as a
direct development from the Roman law, was molded in its transmission
through mediaeval channels in the light of the Roman and mediaeval concepts
of natural law. Each variety of the concept characteristic of these periods
had advocates in France. The divine sources and sanctions of natural law
were particularly emphasized by French jurists of the Catholic faith. When
human reason was given an important rôle in discovering natural law, it was
in France that this rationalized natural law found many interpreters. The
French attitude was well stated by Guizot, who said: "Any action, or any
authority of man over man is legitimate only if it is in accord with reason,
justice and truth, which are based on the law of God."[23] It was not until
the modern period that mediaeval canon law, with its natural law principles,
and local customs, often arising from similar sources, were replaced by laws
emanating from a king or assembly. Fostering ideas of permanence and
uniformity amidst the variations in the customary law and in the diversities
of the provincial practices the natural law theories were looked upon as a
factor of unity; and those favoring a united France became devoted exponents
of the law of nature philosophy.[24]
When the French kings in their conflict with the Papacy fell back on the
practices of the Roman imperialists, they asserted principles of political
supremacy which were destined to weaken the controlling force of natural
law. Bodin, as we have seen, became the philosopher of royal absolutism and
he relegated natural law to principles which were merely a guide to the
king's conscience. To those bent upon establishing an unlimited political
sovereign, superior natural laws were an obstacle to be obliterated. But
higher law ideas were too well established in the legal background of French
thought to be entirely discarded. Moreover, the efforts to make of the king
a ruler without limits on his authority soon brought an inevitable reaction
in which natural law ideas again came to the forefront. The economic and
political conditions of the Ancien Regime prepared the way for the French
Declaration of the Rights of Man.
Prior to the French Revolution the Physiocrats advocated the doctrine of
natural rights. There is, in effect, observed Quesnay, above positive laws,
a body of laws, sovereign, immutable, and inviolable. Legal rules which
conform to this body of laws are valid; those which are contrary thereto are
void.[25] The natural rights of the individual, they contended, comprised
three species of property. "First, the property of his person which includes
the right to use all his faculties, and hence the right to labor; Second,
movable property which consists of the results of his labor; Third, landed
property."[26] To the Physiocrats laws were rules of justice and morality;
they were not made by men but were merely discovered. They believed that
certain laws, especially those relating to liberty and property, were
essential to the social order and that only ordinances to carry out such
laws could be made by legislatures or executives.[27] The essence of the
Physiocratic doctrine was laissez faire in character, or to the effect that
"economic law might be depended upon to bring about the best good of men and
nations, if governments kept their hands off."[28] They insisted that
governmental action ought to be restricted within the narrowest limits and
individual activity ought to have every possible opportunity for expression
-- a doctrine which has left its impress on many of the aspects of American
legal thinking. But in certain respects the ideas of the Physiocrats, as
those of their predecessors, tended to favor state absolutism.
The French kings of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries sought to
assert complete control over the social and political life of the nation.
Bossuet, the defender of this regime, followed Bodin and Hobbes and based
the origin of all governments on force.[29] Emerging doctrines of
nationalism gave encouragement to the assertion of principles of state
absolutism. The doctrine of individual rights as a basis to check the
public powers had not yet impregnated French legal thought. Mediaeval
doctrines of a superior natural law, however, served to give a sanction to
the assertion of a theory of individual natural rights. Extreme instances
of the use of arbitrary authority by the kings were paving the way for
resistance sanctioned again by appeals to higher laws. Political theories
often take their peculiar forms because of attempts on the part of those
interested to defend a cause. And in this case Protestants and Catholics
following theories earlier formulated in Europe advocated limits on royal
authority in the interest of the people.
Though the old French parlements performed in the main judicial functions as
courts of the king over which he presided and whose judgments he might
reverse, the natural division of powers which resulted led to the assumption
of a share of the political powers by these bodies.[30] To them was accorded
the duty of registering the royal edicts and in doing so they began to
question the validity of the acts of the king or of his agents. As early as
1648 the parlements had proclaimed the necessity of "a legal order" and as a
basis for such an order proposed certain fundamental laws or fundamental
principles which were so essential that the king could not change them.[31]
"Thus there appeared in an absolute monarchy, by the simple fact of the
separation of powers, an organ of resistance and of control. The parlement,
recruited from the higher middle class, claimed to be the guardian of the
fundamental laws of the kingdom and considered itself as a moderating power
designed to curb the excesses of royal absolutism."[32] A convenient
vagueness in the term "fundamental laws" encouraged the members of the
parlements to intervene on behalf of the people whenever a favorable
opportunity occurred.[33] If need be the king could in the end secure his
way by arresting and banishing the leaders of the parlements, but these
bodies regarded themselves as mediators between the king and the people and
served to keep before the public a belief in fundamental laws which the king
could not change.[34]
Some of the cahiers issued preceding the French Revolution in resisting
certain decrees frankly based their protests on the doctrine of fundamental
and superior laws.[35] These mild protests accomplished little toward
checking the tendencies in the direction of royal absolutism. But they
strengthened the insistence on higher law ideas which were soon to find
expression in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
Just as the leaders of the American Revolution appealed to the doctrine of
natural and inalienable rights, so those who directed the French Revolution
recognized as a fundamental truth the existence of similar rights.[36] A
controversy has ensued among scholars as to whether the draftsmen of the
French declaration were guided by the doctrines of Montesquieu and of
Rousseau as well as of their predecessors or by the previous American
declarations.[37] Whatever may be the merits of the claims of the partisans
on each side it was the French Declaration which heralded to the world the
great principles of natural and inalienable rights which were considered
superior to all governments and which it was the prime duty of all
democratic states to protect.[38] The doctrine of natural rights again based
on the natural and necessary laws of a state of nature was made the very
cornerstone of a political system. Differing from the major portions of the
bills of rights of the American constitutions, which were comprised mainly
of some of the hard-won privileges which Englishmen had acquired in
centuries of conflict with their rulers, the French provisions were rather
in the nature of vague theories or platitudes which had little practical
meaning to the Frenchmen of the time. Similar theories were, of course,
included in the Declaration of Independence and in certain provisions of the
state constitutions.
Though the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the political and social
philosophy involved therein left a permanent impression upon European
thought, the conservative reaction which followed the French Revolution
brought into disrepute natural and inalienable rights concepts which were
regarded akin to ideas of violence and terrorism. It became unpopular in
certain quarters to support the law of nature doctrines or to appeal to
higher laws than those promulgated by the rulers. But Roman law principles
and various ideas connected therewith were conducive to the continuance of
natural law doctrines. And during the nineteenth century many treatises
appeared, the object of which was to adapt natural law phrases prevalent in
codes and in the customary legal terminology to the peculiar conditions of
the time. Various schools of legal philosophy continued to be protagonists
of natural law theories when in political circles these theories were
regarded as exploded vagaries. To the efforts to keep alive natural law
doctrines attention will be directed later. But these efforts for the time
being seemed to be obscured by the persistent influences designed to
discredit natural law theories.
4. The Decline of the Natural Rights Philosophy. As the enthusiasm waned
which fostered eighteenth-century political radicalism in America and in
France and the radical movement came into disrepute in all countries it
became popular to discredit the natural rights thinking. To the conservative
leaders who took charge of the political destinies of the European nations
after the French Revolution the inalienable rights doctrine was "an
invitation to insurrection and a persistent cause of anarchy."[39] And when
the reaction from the practices and the political philosophy of the American
and the French Revolutions gained ascendency in the United States one of the
chief objectives was to discredit Thomas Jefferson and the tenets of the
Declaration of Independence.[40] Both in politics and in religion,
conservatism was in control, and men were disposed to welcome theories which
made for social stability.[41] It is well to note that it was the
politicians who were seeking greater political authority and those who were
inclined to support absolutism in government who were chiefly concerned in
the repudiation of natural rights and related natural law theories. Local
justices in the application of the law to concrete cases and the people
generally clung to natural law concepts long after they were thought to be
repudiated in high political circles.
The anti-natural rights doctrine, according to Mr. Becker, became the
accepted creed of all those who wished to be classed neither with the
reactionaries nor the revolutionists, those liberal-conservatives and
conservative-liberals who realized that they lived in a changing world but
ardently prayed that it might not change too rapidly.
To prevent the world from changing too rapidly, nothing is more effective
than to look with admiration on the past.[42]
A combination of factors tended to discredit the natural rights doctrine.
Politically the doctrine was used to justify not alone political democracy
but also the free right of the people to change their governments -- namely,
as a sanction for the right of revolution.[43] When the right to revolt led
to the Reign of Terror and its aftermath the political reaction that
followed in Europe placed the stamp of disgrace on the much-heralded
doctrines of the revolutionary period.[44] Michel finds that the reaction
against the individualistic doctrines of the French Revolution was fairly
complete by 1825. French political thought with the exception of small
groups had turned away from the belief in natural rights, anterior and
superior to the state. Rights were the result of laws and laws came from a
state or political power with supreme authority. Public powers were limited
only by the personal God of De Bonald or the Absolute of Hegel, but the
sovereign alone was to be judge of the nature of these limits.[45] The
attack on eighteenth-century individualism was encouraged and strengthened
also by the economic doctrines advocated by Saint Simon and his followers.
There is no place in his system for the idea of rights but instead of rights
he directs attention to interests.
In America the conservative reaction which followed the periods of the
Revolution and of the Confederation did not so quickly discredit the natural
rights philosophy of the Declaration of Independence, but the defenders of
this philosophy grew fewer in number while the critics and opponents
increased.[46] Some authors, Dr. Wright observes,
like Chipman, Hurlbut, Lieber, and Gerrit Smith, retain
almost unchanged the traditional American theory that the
basis of all laws and of all rights is to be found in the
immutable truths taught by nature and to be learned by men
through the use of reason, conscience, and the revealed
work of God. Others, like Calhoun, Brownson, Fitzhugh,
and Hildreth, discard the idea that there are certain
inalienable rights derived from nature, although in every case
holding that there are basic laws or principles which underlie
all government and all of the social and economic
relationships of men.[47]
He finds only one writer, Thomas Cooper, who attempts to refute the whole
natural law theory.[48]
In England the natural rights theories were attacked also quite vigorously
by the Social-Utilitarians who repudiated the foremost eighteenth-century
political theories and made social utility the test of political
institutions. Bentham, one of the leaders of this school, lent the weight of
his influence against the natural law doctrines. For the idea that men had
rights by nature which the sovereign was compelled to respect Bentham felt
great contempt, nor did he have any confidence in the effort to place
limitations on the supreme authority in a state.[49] "To maintain," says
Bentham, "that there is a natural right and to impose it as a limit to
positive laws, to say that law cannot go against natural right, to
recognize, in consequence, the right which attacks law, which overturns and
annuls it, is at once to render all government impossible and to defy
reason."[50] He and his associates could see no limits to the sovereign
power except restraints through the judgment of those in whom this power was
reposed.
The historic method which grew in favor in history and in politics admitted
that rights were founded in nature but identified nature with history and
affirmed that the institutions of any nation were properly but an expression
of the life of the people. By a change in the definition of nature the
former concepts were made the basis for anti-revolutionary philosophies.
Historians such as Ranke[51] and Renan,[52] the philosopher, Hegel,[53] and
the sociologist Auguste Comte[54] also joined the ranks of those who sought
effectively to dispose of the ideas of natural rights superior to man-made
regulations. And the historical school of jurists led by Savigny repudiated
the eighteenth-century doctrines of natural rights and of a law of nature.
To this school law existed independently of the state. It was the creation
of the national consciousness or the spirit of the people and was evidenced
by their customary habits. It was merely the function of the state to
discover and enforce these customary laws.[55] Rights do not belong to man,
as such, Savigny maintained, they are the result of positive laws. And
positive laws, like language, morals, social and religious institutions,
develop through the customs, habits, and traditions of a people. And with
the aid of the historical jurists the older concepts of the law of nature
and of natural rights were to give way to legal ideas as an outgrowth of
history. Law was conceived as the unfolding of ideas of right through the
customs and traditions to which people give obedience.[56] The philosophic
forces at work in this development are suggestively characterized by Justice
Cardozo, who observes that
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries put their faith in
Nature, and "their dominant philosophy was that of natural
law." Preordained and immutable were the patterns to which
conformity was due. The nineteenth century put its faith in
unconscious and undirected growth; and Nature dethroned
as an exemplar, was made to yield place to History. "None
of the nineteenth-century interpretations will hear of an
element of creative activity of men as lawyers, judges,
writers of books, legislators. They have nothing to say about
juristic endeavors to reconcile or harmonize or compromise
overlapping claims by creative reason or an inventive
process of trial and error. They think of the phenomena of
legal development as events, as if men were not acting in the
bringing about of every one of them." In the thought of this
school, law is in the grip of forces stronger than itself, which
shape the path of its advance.[57]
Thus the historical school of jurisprudence set about to destroy all
vestiges of the ideas of natural law or natural rights.[58]
The natural rights philosophy received its most direct blow from the jurist
John Austin and his successors who founded the analytical school of
jurisprudence, and the advocates of the German theory that the state is the
sole source and sanction of law, such as Ihering, Laband, and Jellinek. The
Austinians conceived as the essence of the state a sovereign -- a supreme,
irresistible, absolute, and uncontrolled authority. The rules made or
sanctioned by this authority were laws -- all other rules were merely
customs, habits, or moral practices. Questions relative to justice and to
the aims of the law were consigned to the domain of positive morality.[59]
Thus much of public law was denied the status of law, and the familiar
dogmas of natural law and of inalienable rights were utterly repudiated. To
the followers of Austin the attack upon natural rights, so far as such
rights are accorded legal significance, is one which must be continued
until no trace of the concept is left. Similar views were advocated by the
supporters of the Macht Politik in Germany.[60]
Many factors and influences combined, therefore, to discredit political
theorizing based on the doctrine of natural rights until it was referred to
as "an exploded theory no longer believed in by any one of note."[61]
Natural law was absorbed as a feature of American public and private law at
a time when the theories on which such a law was based were declining in
Europe. The decadence of natural law concepts which affected the political
circles mainly and which was characteristic of the decades in the middle of
the nineteenth century in most European countries had its counterpart in the
United States in somewhat narrowing the scope of the law of nature thinking
and in giving the term a rigidity which tended to support the existing legal
order. It was under these conditions that the courts fostered the gradual
acceptance of some principles of natural law in the public law of the United
States.
1. See De Jure Belli ac Pacis, Book I, chap. 1.
2. Recognizing that the formulation and classification of the inborn and
indestructible rights of the individual belonged to a later stage in the
growth of the theory of natural law, Gierke observed that mediaeval thought
was filled with such ideas. Political Theories of the Middle Ages, p. 81;
cf. also, Gierke, Johannes Althusius, pp. 107 ff. It is obvious that to
attribute the origin of the theory of natural rights to the Protestant
revolt is incorrect. Cf. David G. Ritchie, Natural Rights: A criticism of
some political and ethical conceptions (3d ed., London, 1916), p. 6.
3. Gierke, Johannes Althusius, p. 175. For the effort to distinguish between
immutable laws which do or do not admit of exceptions, see Domat, The Civil
Law in its Natural Order, trans. by Wm. Strahan (2d ed., London, 1737), I,
64.
4. M. de Vattel, Le droit des gens ou principes de la loi naturelle
appliques a la conduite et aux affaires des Nations et des Souverains (ed.
of 1758) reproduced in the Classics of International Law, edited by James
Brown Scott and published by the Carnegie Institution of Washington (1916).
5. Vattel, The Law of Nations, III, 3, 4. Professor Reeves thinks that the
"impress of the law of nature upon the American ideas of the law of nations
seems upon the whole not to be great." His view is apparently influenced by
the tendency of American lawyers to depreciate natural law ideas. J. S.
Reeves, "The Influence of the Law of Nature upon International Law in the
United States," American Journal of International Law, III (1909), 547.
6. The Law of Nations, III, chap. 3.
7. Cf. Introduction by Albert de Lapradelle, in Vattel, op. cit.. III,
viii. John Milton claimed, in the Gangreana, that "all men are by nature the
sons of Adam, and from him have legitimately derived natural propriety
[property], right and freedom. By natural birth all men are equally and
alike born to like propriety, liberty and freedom."
8. One reason why Englishmen have given less consideration to natural
rights, it is claimed, is that they have regarded their liberties as due to
acquired rights rather than to natural rights. To them the concept
"natural" became identical with the term "traditional." Jones, Cambridge
Legal Essays (Cambridge, 1926), p. 228.
9. According to the classical natural law theory prevalent in colonial
times all positive law was "a reflection of an ideal body of perfect rules
demonstrable by reason, and valid for all times, all places and all men.
Positive legal precepts got their validity from their conformity to these
ideals" Pound, "The Theory of Judicial Decision," Harvard Law Review, XXXVI
(May, 1923), 802.
10. P. S. Reinsch, "Colonial Common Law," Select Essays in Anglo-American
Legal History, I, 376, 413; Professor Reinsch observes that "the analytical
theory of Hobbes, making positive law independent of moral considerations
and basing it on a sovereign will, was not accepted at that time. The law of
God, the law of nature, was looked upon as the true law." For citations of
representative colonial opinions see B F. Wright, Jr , "Natural Law in
American Political Theory," Southwestern Political and Social Science
Quarterly, IV (December, 1923), 202, 206. Cf. for example, John Wise, "A
Vindication of the Government of New England Churches" -- a
pre-revolutionary treatise based on the natural law doctrines of Pufendorf.
11. Professor McIlwain maintains that the colonists based their argument for
freedom from control by Parliament, first on their charters; second, on the
contention "that the English constitution, founded on natural law, was a
free constitution, guaranteeing to all its subjects wherever they might be
the fundamental rights incident to free government"; and third, on a
"non-constitutional appeal to natural law, no longer as a part of the
British constitution, but as the rights of man in general." The American
Revolution. A constitutional interpretation (New York, 1923), p. 152.
12. John Adams thought there were "rights antecedent to all earthly
government -- Rights, that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws --
Rights, derived from the great Legislator of the Universe." Works, ed. by C.
F. Adams (Boston, 1865), III, 449. See also Otis, The Rights of the British
Colonies Asserted and Proved, pp. 11, 16.; Wells, Life of Samuel Adams
(Boston, 1865), I, 16-23, 70-77; and Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man.
13. For Jefferson's views, see Writings (Ford's ed.), V, 147, 329; VI, 87,
88, 102, 517; VII, 172, 406.
It was asserted that colonial rights were based on "the immutable laws of
nature, the principles of the English Constitution and the several charters
or compacts." Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. by Ford (Washington,
1004), I, 67.
James Otis in his argument against writs of assistance relied on natural
rights and fundamental law. Cf. The Rights of the British Colonies; also C.
H. McIlwain, op. cit., and my article "The Law of Nature in State and
Federal Judicial Decisions," Yale Law Journal, XXV (June, 1916), 617, 623.
Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence in qualifying the inalienable
rights used the English formula "life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness." The Virginia constitution asserted that: "All men are by nature
equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which,
when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact,
deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and
liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing
and obtaining happiness and safety." Constitution of Virginia, June 12,
1776.
The right to revolt was characterized in the Massachusetts declaration as
"incontestable, unalienable and undefeasible."
14. See B. F. Wright, Jr , "American Interpretations of Natural Law,"
American Political Science Review, XX (Aug. 1926), 524 ff.
15. Samuel Adams, Writings (ed. by H. A. Cushing, 1904), I, 65. "The
primary, absolute, natural rights of Englishmen as frequently declared in
acts of Parliament from Magna Carta to this day, are personal security,
personal liberty, and private property." Wells, Life of Samuel Adams, I,
75-77.
16. Works (ed. by Andrews), 1, 106, 117, 124. Wilson expressed the current
opinion among lawyers and judges during the Revolutionary period when he
wrote: "The law of nature is immutable; not by the effect of an arbitrary
disposition, but because it has its foundation in the nature, constitution,
and mutual relations of men and things."
17. Jefferson believed that the "will of the majority is in all cases to
prevail, but that will to be rightful, must be reasonable; that the
minority possess equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate
would be oppression" Legitimate restraints on the rule of the majority were
inalienable rights and the laws of reason. Works, VIII, 2. When Secretary of
State and President, Jefferson continued to apply doctrines of natural right
and natural law. "The evidence of this natural right [expatriation], like
that of our right to life, liberty, the use of our faculties, the pursuit
of happiness, is not left to the feeble and sophisticated investigations of
reason but is impressed on the sense of every man." The Writings of Thomas
Jefferson (ed. by H. A. Washington), VII, 73. He also defended the right of
navigation on the Mississippi on the broad ground of the law of nature and
of nations.
18. Sydney, Discourses Concerning Government, Book III, chap. 11 See also,
Pound, "Comparative Law in the Formation of American Common Law," Acta
Academiae Universalis Jurisprudentiae Comparativae (1928), I, 183 ff.
19. The American Doctrine of Judicial Supremacy, pp. 18 ff., and D. O.
Wagner, "Some Antecedents of the American Doctrine of Judicial Review,"
Political Science Quarterly, XL (December, 1925), 561 ff.
20. Pound, "The Theory of Judicial Decision," Harv. Law Rev., XXXVI, pp.
804, 805. Hamilton identified the common law and natural law. Works (ed by
Lodge), VIII, 421.
In the disputes between the English political leaders and the colonists of
America, Dr. Wright notes that those "who had read the orations of Cicero,
the writings of Grotius and Vattel, Pufendorf and Burlamaqui, Locke and
Blackstone, who had listened to sermons upon the eternal supremacy of the
laws of God or had perused the arguments of the deists found in such
philosophy controversial weapons suited to their needs" See, "American
Interpretations of Natural Law," Amer. Pol. Sci. Rev, XX, 526 And he
observes, "In the writings of all of the most influential theorists of the
time the concept of a superior law of nature, from which are derived the
basic rights of men, holds a very prominent place."
21. Natural rights and natural law, as an ideal form of the actual law were
in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries "guides to lead growth into
definite channels and insure continuity and permanence in the development of
rules and doctrines." Pound, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Law (New
Haven, 1922), p. 44.
22. "The constitutional doctrine of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, working with the tools of natural law, erected constitutional
limitations into legal obligations founded on unimpairable contract, gave a
vis coactiva to constitutional limitations, enforceable if necessary by the
right of resistance, and posited for every state an implied constitution
founded on the natural law rights of the individual and having as much force
as a written constitution." Edwin M. Borchard," Government Responsibility in
Tort," Yale Law Jour., XXXVI (April, 1927), 794.
23. See, F. P. Guizot, Works, V, 60, 399, 519, and Histoire des origines du
gouvernement représentatif en Europe (Brussels, 1851), II, Lecture X.
24. Voltaire referred to natural laws and natural rights which have a
fundamental and immutable character. Oeuvres Completes, (new ed., Paris,
1883). In speaking of intolerance and natural law he wrote: "Natural law is
that law which nature has indicated to all men." XXV, 39. At another time he
referred to rights as never being established only by necessity, or force,
or custom. XV, 452.
25. Quesnay, Traité du droit naturel, chap. 5, p 376. A dictum to which the
Physiocrats referred was: "Ex natura jus, ordo et leges, ex hominare
bitrium, regimen et coercitio."
26. William A. Dunning, Political Theories from Luther to Montesquieu, p.
59.
27. Cf. Henry Michel, L'ldée de l'état (2d ed , Paris, 1896) 17 ff.
28. Ibid., p 62. For the natural law doctrines of the Physiocrats see
Quesnay, Traité du droit naturel (1765), L'ordre naturel et essential des
sociétés politiques (1767). Physiocrates, Par. I, 41 and Par. II, 445.
29. Henry Michel, op. cit., pp 4 ff.
30. Glasson, Parlement de Paris et son rôle politique.
31. A. Esmein, Cours élémentaire histoire du droit français (11 ed., Paris,
1912), pp. 582 ff., and V. Marcaggi, Les origines de la déclaration des
droits de l'homme de 1789 (2e ed., Paris, 1912), p. 85. Marcaggi observes
that the history of the états généraux (States-General) is replete with
illustrations of the assertion of the rights of man in opposition to the
rights of the state.
32. Jean Brissaud, A History of French Public Law, trans. by James W. Gamer
in Continental Legal History Series (Boston, 1915), p. 447.
33. V. Marcaggi, op. cit. p., 98. The remonstrance of March the 4th, 1776
cited the fundamental rule of natural law which protects the rights of
person and property. Ibid., p. 101.
34. Jean Brissaud, op. cit., pp. 448 ff.; Esmein, op. cit., pp. 595 ff.
35. Marcaggi, op. cit., chap. 8.
36. Article I of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen,
states that "Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social
distinctions may be founded only upon the general will." "The aim of all
political association is the preservation of the natural and indefeasible
rights of man. These rights are liberty, ownership, security, and
resistance to oppression." See also article I of the Declaration of Rights
of 1793. See Robert Redslob, Die Staatstheorien der franzosischen
nationalversammlung von 1789 (Leipzig, 1912).
The extent to which the ideas of the Declaration of Rights are based upon
the political philosophy of Grotius, Pufendorf, Burlamaqui, and Vattel,
concerning the natural equality and freedom of the individual, the right to
own and use property, the liberty of conscience, and the consent of the
people as the source of government, is considered by Marcaggi, op. cit., pp.
109 ff.
37. Sir Paul Vinogradoff regards the French declarations as only "the last
consequences of a movement which is preeminently English and American." Yale
Law Jour., XXXIV, 65. George Jellinek defended the thesis that the impetus
for the French Declaration was given by Rousseau and its prototype was the
American Declaration of Independence. The Declaration of the Rights of Man
and of the Citizens, trans. by Max Farrand (New York, 1901). For reply to
Jellinek, see Boutmy, Annales des sciences politiques, July 15, 1902. See
claim that the Declaration of Rights comes from Rousseau, Paul Janet,
Histoire des doctrines politiques (2d ed.), II, 612 and Tchernoff, Revue du
droit public (1903), II, 96. For denial of this claim cf. Léon Duguit, "The
Law and the State," Harv. Law Rev., XXXI (Nov. 1917), 27 ff. See also E.
Doumergue," Les origines historiques de la Declaration des droits de l'homme
et du citizen," Revue du droit public, XXI (1904), 673; and Fritz Klovekorn,
Zur Entstehung der Erklärung der Menschen und Bürgerrechte (Berlin, 1910).
38. Jellinek, op. cit., p. 88. Marcaggi deals fully with different phases
of this controversy. He concludes that the Declaration of 1789 was
essentially a French product -- the French Declaration presenting an
interpretation, philosophic in character, of superior laws, universal and
immutable, whereas the English and American bills of rights were traditional
and practical in character. Jellinek declares that "whatever may be the
value or worthlessness of its general phrases it is under the influence of
this document that the conception of the public rights of the individual has
developed in the positive law of the states of the European continent." Op.
cit., p. 2.
39. Carl Becker, The Declaration of Independence (New York, 1922), pp 256,
257. Edmund Burke styled the French Constitution of 1793 a "digest of
anarchy."
40. At the time of the adoption of the federal Constitution, Professor
McMaster states that "we see that very scanty recognition seems to have been
given to the equality of men, or to their inalienable rights to life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness." John Bach McMaster, The Acquisition
of Political, Social and Industrial Rights of Man in America (Cleveland,
1903), p. 40.
41. Becker, op. cit., p. 258. The chief object at this time was "to make
terms with political democracy without opening the door to social upheaval."
Ibid., p. 238.
Eighteenth-century natural law developed anti-social tendencies by making
the individual conscience the ultimate arbiter of political and legal
obligations. Cf. Pound, Law and Morals (2d ed.), 88, and Justice Wilson's
dictum that "The consent of those whose obedience the law requires ... I
conceive to be the true origin of the obligation of human laws." Works
(Andrew's ed.), I, 192. David G. Ritchie set about in an extensive treatise
to demolish the theories of natural rights. "I had a certain fear," he
wrote, "that in criticising that famous theory I might be occupied in
slaying the already slain. Recent experience has, however, convinced me that
the theory is still, in a sense, alive or at least capable of mischief. ...
The real significance of the appeal to nature is, in the first place, the
negative element in the appeal, it is an appeal against authorities that
had lost their sacredness, against institutions that had outlived their
usefulness." Natural Rights: A Criticism of some Political and Ethical
Conceptions (London, 1895), IX, 13.
As is the case with other opponents of the doctrine the gist of Ritchie's
argument centers about the use of the terms "natural" and "necessary" and
some who refuse to accept his version of the use of these terms regard his
criticism as largely futile and overdrawn. For instance, A. Inglis Clark
believes that Ritchie's work contains "the materials for a perfect defense
of the doctrine which it was written to confute." "Natural Rights," in The
Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, XVI (1900),
221.
42. Becker, op. cit., p. 266.
43. Justice Wilson, an exponent of natural rights theories, believed that
"no exterior human authority can bind a free and independent man." Works
(Andrew's ed.), I, 192; cf. also, Letters of Jefferson, Writings (Ford's
ed.), V, 115-124; X, 37, 42-45.
44. For English reactionary views, see H. J. Laski, English Political
Thought from Locke to Bentham, pp. 243-256 and for the reaction of the
historical school of jurisprudence, consult Savigny, Vom Beruf unserer Zeit
für Gesetzgebung und Rechtswissenschaft (1814).
45. Michel, op. cit., pp. 164-168.
46.Professor Becker thinks "the political ideas which in the United States
discredited the doctrines of the Declaration of Independence were similar in
essentials to those which in Europe had already deprived the Declaration of
the Rights of Man of its former high prestige." The Declaration of
Independence, p. 256.
47. "American Interpretations of Natural Law," Amer. Pol. Sci. Rev., XX,
536; see also Wright, "George Fitzhugh on the Failure of Liberty,"
Southwestern Pol. and Soc. Sci. Quar., VI (December, 1025), 219.
48. "American Interpretations of Natural Law," Amer. Pol. Sci Rev., XX.,
537.
49. William A. Dunning, op. cit., p. 217.
50. Works, 1, 136. "The founders use this phrase [natural law] as if there
were a code of natural laws, they appeal to these laws, they cite them, they
literally oppose them to the laws of the legislators, and they do not
perceive that these natural laws are of their own invention." Bentham, in
Principles of Legislation, Part I, XIII, 46. Cf. chapter by Michel on "La
reaction en Allemagne et en Angleterre," pp. 134 ff.
Sir Frederick Pollock charges Bentham with being a follower of a form of
Naturrecht which is "no more congenial to the positive law which lawyers
discuss and administer than that of Ahrens or Kant." Science of Politics, p.
111.
For Burke's criticism of the French theories of the rights of men consult
his Reflections on the French Revolution (1790).
51. Cf. Friedrich Meinicke, Die Idee der Staatsräson (2d ed. Berlin, 1925),
pp. 468, 480; also Renan, L'Avenir de la science.
52. Renan believed that the individuals who insisted on natural or inherent
rights were rarely able to appreciate them if guaranteed protection by the
state, and he thought the needs of society should take precedence over
individual rights. Op. cit., p. 357, and Questions contemporaines, p. 477;
cf. also, Philip G. Neserius, "The Political and Social Philosophy of
Renan," Southwestern Pol. and Soc. Sci. Quar. VIII (June, 1927), 40, 41.
Natural rights or rights belonging to the individual were to be replaced by
"the right of reason to govern humanity and by rights which are the result
of history."
53. Grundlegung der Philosophie des Rechts, secs. 104-114; Reyburn, Hegel's
Ethical Theory, pp. 118-121; Michel, op. cit., pp. 154 ff. Hegel repudiated
the ideas of a state of nature and of natural rights resulting therefrom. He
believed that the ultimate sanction of a state's power is force and that the
prince or sovereign cannot be bound by a higher law.
54. "No man has any rights properly called. No one possesses any other right
than that of always doing his duty." Comte, Politique positive, II, 361.
55. Vom Beruf unserer Zeit für Gestezgebung und Rechtswissenschaft (1814),
pp. 5 ff., and System des heutigen Romischenrechts, sec. 7. Consult also
followers of Savigny, G. F. Puchta, Kursus Institutionem and F. J. Stahl,
Die Philosophie des Rechts (Heidelberg, 1854).
"Glorification of the positive law that is, to the disparagement of the
natural law that ought to be, is characteristic of the reaction that has
followed the rationalistic liberalism of the Age of Enlightenment. It may
be that this positivism is largely due to the expansion of modern industry
and commerce which has caused lawyers to be more concerned with the
protection of private economic interests than with the larger issues of
social well-being. In any case it is true that since the French Revolution,
authoritarian reactionaries like De Maistre, romantic historicists like
Savigny, idealizers of the actual like Hegel, utilitarians like Bentham,
and positivists like Comte, have all united to heap scorn on the old liberal
doctrine that men can and should change law to conform to their idea of
natural law or justice." From Morris R. Cohen, "Positivism and the Limits of
Idealism in the Law," Columbia Law Review, XXVII (March, 1927), 237.
56. Cf. Pound, Law and Morals, 2d ed., pp. 15-25. Dean Pound observes that
"the historical jurist merely gave us a new natural law on a new basis."
Ibid., p. 21.
57. Review of "Interpretations of Legal History," by Pound, Harv. Law Rev.,
XXXVII (December, 1923), 280.
58. R. Saleilles, "Ecole historique et droit naturel d'après quelques
ouvrages recents," Revue trimestrielle de droit civil, I (1902), 80 ff.
59. See John Austin, Lectures on Jurisprudence, 5th ed., edited by Robert
Campbell (London, 1885), I, 86, 178; II, 567 ff.
"The whole or a portion of the laws set by God to men is frequently styled
the law of nature, or natural law; being, in truth, the only natural law of
which it is possible to speak without a metaphor, or without a blending of
objects which ought to be distinguished. But, rejecting the appellation Law
of Nature as ambiguous and misleading, I name those laws or rules as
considered collectively or in a mass, the Divine Law, or the Law of God."
Ibid., 1, 86. Austin regarded the laws of God as laws In the proper sense
because they were commands. I, 89, 175, 183, 338; also, Vinogradoff,
Historical Jurisprudence, I, 115 ff.
60. Duguit, "The Law and the State," Harv. Law Rev., XXXI (November, 1917),
126 ff.
61. George Lawrence Scherger, The Evolution of Liberty (New York, 1904), p.
11.
PART II
THE ACCEPTANCE OF NATURAL LAW OR SUPERIOR LAW
CONCEPTS IN THE PUBLIC LAW OF THE UNITED STATES
CHAPTER IV
JUDICIAL CONSTRUCTION OF IMPLIED LIMITS ON
AMERICAN LEGISLATURES
1. Denial of the Application of Natural Law Concepts. Despite the recognized
use and importance of natural law phrases in American law in colonial and
revolutionary times, and the continual reference to such phrases in judicial
decisions, it is frequently asserted that in the United States there have
been merely isolated attempts to formulate a doctrine of natural law or
natural rights.[1] Following the customary habit of English legal
authorities of depreciating the importance of natural law theories in the
growth of English law, legal writers in the United States insist that such
theories have been of no practical significance in the evolution of American
law. Except for its unavowed use in the applications of the rule of reason
of the common law, the natural rights doctrine, after the enthusiasm of the
revolutionary period had waned, was most frequently invoked by judges in
those cases which involved the validity of legislative acts, tested by the
terms or standards of written constitutions. The orthodox legal view,
therefore, is that there is no case in which the courts have held an act
invalid or refused to enforce a law because regarded as contrary to natural
law, except when such a law was in conflict with an express constitutional
provision.[2] The doctrine of natural rights then is regarded as of mere
academic importance and not of vital concern in the application of actual
positive law in America. Others admit that the natural law concept served a
useful purpose in the formative period of American constitutional law but
claim that the term has now been consigned to "the museum of juristic
relics."[3] An example of the prevailing view today is as follows:
They [natural rights] are, and by right ought to be, dead ...
and yet, while in this country only old judges and hopelessly
antiquated text-book writers still cling to this supposedly
eighteenth century doctrine, on the Continent the doctrine of
natural law has been revived by advanced jurists of diverse
schools.[4]
Most lawyers and jurists in the United States are inclined to agree with
John W. Salmond that "as far as secular science is concerned, the history of
the doctrine of natural law is for the most part a chapter in the history of
human error." Notions of law and of obligation are, he thinks, "in the
sphere of natural right, but mocking and misleading echoes." Natural law can
be used by philosophers only to refer to principles of right.[5] Political
scientists have joined the lawyers in attempting to discard the use of
concepts of natural law.[6]
It is usual to insist that natural law theories are false historically and
untenable philosophically because they confound the actual and the ideal.[7]
The cavalier manner in which these theories are disposed of may be
illustrated by the following extract:
When we come to a general philosophy of law, writers are
still chopping the old worthless chaff of what they call the
analytical or the historical or the jus naturale school, which
have been the work of men not lawyers. They go on
classifying, reclassifying, subdividing and resubdividing the
writers upon legal philosophy and their conceptions, which
have never had the slightest influence on the actual
development of law. Kant's or Hegel's philosophies of law
which are merely philosophies of right, the term used
ambiguously, -- this pale moonshine of metaphysics which
never had scientific reality, -- or theories of the divine origin
of law or of its historical growth, or dicta of the school
which bases law not on what it is, but on some assumed
power that created it, are still the stuff of which legal
philosophical dreams are made. We have the tangled
metaphysics of Kohler, the rigid, logical deductions of the
French or the practical makeshifts of the English seeking to
do duty as legal philosophy.
What has always been needed is scientific study. That study
asks for facts and facts alone, unclouded by hasty
generalizations.[8]
2. Natural Law Theories in the Formative Period of American Law. Some years
ago I traced in a brief summary the prevalence of the ideas associated with
the doctrine of natural rights and natural law in the public law of the
United States.[9]
It was then indicated that those who imagine natural law theories may be
consigned to the "museum of juristic relics" fail to comprehend, or to give
due consideration to, one of the characteristic and significant phases in
the development of American public and private law. Numerous instances were
cited indicating the persistence in American judicial opinions of doctrines
of natural rights and of natural laws which were regarded as limiting the
exercise of all public powers. It was shown that, in the decisions of the
courts in the United States, there were frequent reassertions of the old
doctrines of natural rights or of natural laws despite many criticisms of
these doctrines and in the face of repeated assertions that there were
neither natural rights nor natural laws. And that at the time when some of
the significant ideas embodied in the old doctrine were slowly being
discarded they were given new vigor by incorporating them with more
extensive implications in a new meaning derived from the phrase "due process
of law." Merely a brief consideration can be given to the background of the
natural rights philosophy in American judicial reasoning.[10]
The terms "natural right" and "natural justice," which were in common use by
lawyers and judges in colonial and revolutionary times, were not entirely
discarded when the Declaration of Independence and its philosophy began to
lose repute. Higher law concepts were made use of freely to strengthen the
belief in the efficacy of written constitutions, to support the developing
practice of the courts of reviewing legislative acts to test their
conformity with these constitutions, and to assist in the judicial
construction of implied limits on legislative powers. They were applied
especially to construe limits favorable to the protection of vested contract
and property rights. In developing the principle that vested rights should
be protected, whether or not written provisions of laws or of constitutions
required, Justices Paterson, Chase, Marshall, Story, Kent, and others made
extensive use of the theories of natural and inalienable rights.[11]
Natural law theories influenced various branches of private law, as it was
accepted and developed in the Colonies and later when separate state
governments were set up. Just as Pollock indicates in his summary of the
concealed applications of these theories in English law, common law ideas
embodying the rule of reason were made an integral part of the American
legal practice. In fact, the application of such ideas was more extensive
and persistent in the United States because of the necessity of applying
principles of justice and of reason in adapting English law to American
conditions and in supplementing defects in legislation, where conditions
were rapidly changing. It is not within the scope of this study to enter
into the details of these extensive uses of natural or higher law concepts,
as they were interwoven into various branches of private law. Attention will
rather be directed to the acceptance of the superior law philosophy in the
development of implied limits on the activity of legislatures, and in the
interpretation of the general terms of written constitutions. The natural
law philosophy, which was extensively applied in the formative period of
American law, soon after it came into disrepute was covertly restored and
became the most prolific source of limitations on the legislatures both of
the states and of the nation. So far as public law is concerned
opportunities for the use of higher law doctrines occurred chiefly in
connection with the review of legislative acts by the courts, and especially
in that phase of review in which the justices aimed to discover implied
limits on legislative powers. Hence, it is to this phase of the acceptance
of higher law notions in American constitutional law to which primary
consideration will be given.
3. Higher Law Theories as a Sanction for the Establishment of the Review of
Legislative Acts by Courts. As a sanction for the moral and legal notions of
a period there are what has been termed "postulates of legal thought,"
usually taken for granted and seldom critically examined.[12] Some such
postulates or fundamental conceptions alone can account for the importance
attached by the American colonists to written instruments, as fundamental
charters of political organization, and to the correlative idea that judges
were charged with the duty of serving as intermediaries to preserve these
charters for the benefit of the people, as against actual and anticipated
attacks by the other departments of government. At this time, it was
generally taken for granted, in the first place, that there were natural
rights inhering in the individual as such which governments could merely
discover and preserve but could not legally curtail. All governmental powers
were to be carefully scanned to determine whether these individual rights
were not unduly interfered with. Second, there was a notion that some of the
important relations and powers of government should be defined in a
fundamental act or constitution, and such a constitution was considered as
having a superior sanctity. It is remarkable to see how soon after their
adoption the first written constitutions were looked upon with reverent awe.
Third, since the preservation of individual rights and privileges often
involved the application of legal terms developed largely by the courts and
since the fundamental written charter also embodied numerous phrases of
legal significance, there was a prevalent desire to turn to the courts as
authoritative interpreters of the fundamental law. Especially was this true
since the judges had gained prestige at times in resisting the arbitrary
acts of either kings or parliaments.
The general acceptance of these postulates or assumptions accounts for the
relatively few critical analyses of the arguments of the courts in favor of
the doctrine that it was their duty to review legislative acts. Such
postulates go far to explain not only why so few men are on record as
opposed to the assumption of extraordinary powers of a quasi-legislative
nature by the judiciary with no express grant to warrant it, but also why
such reasoning as that of John Marshall in the case of Marbury v. Madison
was not critically analyzed and its weaknesses pointed out for more than a
decade.
The reasons for the adoption of the American doctrine of constitutional law
as defined by John Marshall were as follows:
1. The Constitution is a law of superior obligation and
consequently any enactments contrary thereto, which are
ipso facto void, must be held invalid.
2. The courts must exercise this power in order to uphold
the terms of a written constitution or, in other words, a
written constitution necessitates the exercise of this power
by the judiciary.
3. The oath of judges to support the Constitution requires
that justices follow the Constitution and disregard the
statute.
4. The phraseology of the Constitution warrants the exercise
of such authority by the judges.
It may readily be shown, as was done by Justice Gibson in 1825,[13] that not
one of the above reasons in any way explains or justifies the use of this
extraordinary power by the judiciary. First, if the Constitution is a law of
superior obligation, on what ground does the court insist that its judgment
on the meaning of the Constitution is superior to that of the legislature
which has enacted the law? Second, is such a power necessary to uphold the
terms of a written constitution? If so, why do many constitutions deny to
the courts this extraordinary power, or why is such authority frequently
considered as not within the scope of judicial functions? With regard to the
oath in support of the Constitution, all officers, including the members of
the legislature, the judges, and the executive take the same oath. Why does
the oath of the judges give them authority to revise or condemn the
judgments made by coordinate departments?
Why should a legislative act passed in due form, following all the laws of
procedure, be held as never having been passed or ipso facto void? Is it not
presumptuous to assume that the bona fide acts of any one department may be
declared by another to be of no avail? In fact, as indicated by Justice
Gibson, every argument in favor of this doctrine begins by assuming the
whole ground in dispute. The unexpressed reason for the conclusions of Chief
Justice Marshall was that he and his associates of the Federalist Party
distrusted popular assemblies and executives who might be controlled by
public opinion.
Underlying principles, then, on which the American theory of a written
constitution was based are as follows:[14]
First, a distrust of legislative power. It was generally thought, at the
time that American constitutions were formed, that the legislative authority
ought to be restricted and that special precautions should be taken to
protect the people against legislative domination.
Second, the protection of the minority. To protect the minority against the
danger of oppressions by majority rule was another purpose which the
founders of the American government set about to accomplish in the process
of constitution-making. It was thought by Madison and others that the merits
of the federal Constitution lay in the fact that it secured the rights of
the minority against "the superior force of an interested and overbearing
majority."
Third, the protection of property rights. A third principle underlying the
process of constitution-making was the belief that property was a sacred
right, which it was the supreme function of the government to preserve and
protect. Thus the major premise in drafting written instruments as a source
of governmental action was a distrust in legislatures. Popular assemblies
might interfere with the rights of property and contract and might not
respect the liberties of the individual, and the prime object of the
government was to protect such liberties. These assumptions or prevailing
beliefs were predicated to a considerable extent upon the eighteenth-century
notions of natural rights and upon laws of nature which were thought to be
indispensable to the social compact.
The original idea of those who favored the judicial review of legislative
acts seems to have been to preserve the independence of the courts as
against the other departments of government, and to protect these
inalienable personal and property rights.[15] There were at this time
comparatively few limitations on legislative powers even when written
constitutions were adopted. Some of the first state constitutions, like the
present British North America Act of Canada, contained no bills of rights
and few, if any, general phrases from which limitations on legislative
powers might be construed.
The significance of the judicial review of statutes in the United States is
due not only to the increasing tendency to restrain legislative powers by
express restrictions but also to a large extent to the development of the
superior law philosophy as a warrant to secure implied limits on
legislatures and to certain related concepts which have made this power an
effective means of exercising a censorship over legislative acts.[16]
Among the limitations and restrictions used as tests to determine the
validity of legislative acts,[17] resulting from the application of higher
law doctrines are: implied limits on legislative powers growing out of the
nature of the social compact, the fundamental principles of a free
republican government, or the spirit of a written constitution based on
popular sanction; limits designed to protect vested rights; and the
extension of the meaning of the "due process of law" and "equal protection
of the law" phrases from a limitation on executive authority only to a
restriction on legislative powers.[18] These limitations have been enlarged
by giving greater force to the separation of power theory, and by
interpreting the "due process of law" and the "equal protection of the law"
phrases into a general rule of reason to measure the validity of all
legislation.
Written constitutions, containing a separation of power principle and some
express limits on legislative powers, might have been regarded chiefly as
guides to the political departments of the government and to the electorate,
as is customary in Europe. But through the adoption of the practice of
judicial review of legislation, coupled with the development of implied
limitations judicially enforced, written constitutions came to be regarded
as rigid enactments containing superior and immutable laws and principles to
which all legislative acts must be held to conform. From a mere political
guide binding on the conscience of officers the written constitution became
a convenient device by which individuals in the settlement of their private
rights could bring the government itself to the bar of justice and require
it to justify its acts, according to judicially construed standards of
fairness and reasonableness.
Judicial review, then, as originally adopted, would have had relatively
slight influence on the American government and politics, just as is the
case in most foreign countries which have adopted this practice, but for the
development of these implied restrictions arising from a revised version of
natural law theories. The justices extended judicial censorship over
legislative acts and, in effect, adopted Coke's idea of the supremacy of the
courts over the other departments of government in applying the general
doctrine that constitutional grants of power were to be interpreted
according to the maxims of Magna Carta and the principles of the common law,
and that legislatures were limited by superior laws, both express and
implied.[19]
4. Limits on Legislatures resulting from the Nature of the Social Compact
and from the Nature of Free Republican Governments. The classic statement of
the theory that legislative power, independent of written constitutions, was
limited by the principles of republican government and of the social
compact, is found in the opinion of Justice Chase in Calder v. Bull, in
which he said:
I cannot subscribe to the omnipotence of a state
legislature, or that it is absolute and without control;
although its authority should not be expressly restrained by
the Constitution, or fundamental law, of the state. The
nature, and ends of legislative power will limit the exercise
of it. This fundamental principle flows from the very nature
of our free Republican governments, that no man should be
compelled to do what the laws do not require, nor to
refrain from acts which the laws permit. There are acts
which the Federal, or State, Legislature cannot do, without
exceeding their authority. There are certain vital
principles in our free Republican governments, which will
determine and overrule an apparent and flagrant abuse of
legislative power; as to authorize manifest injustice by
positive law; or to take away that security for personal
liberty, or private property, for the protection whereof the
government was established. An Act of the legislature (for I
cannot call it a law) contrary to the great first principles of
the social compact, cannot be considered a rightful
exercise of legislative authority. The obligation of a law in
governments established on express compact, and on
republican principles, must be determined by the nature of
the power, on which it is founded. A few instances will
suffice to explain what I mean. A law that punishes a citizen
for an innocent action, or, in other words, for an act, which,
when done, was in violation of no existing law; a law that
destroys, or impairs, the lawful private contracts of
citizens; a law that makes a man a judge in his own cause;
or a law that takes property from A and gives it to B. It is
against all reason and justice for a people to intrust a
Legislature with such powers; and, therefore, it cannot be
presumed that they have done it. The genius, the nature
and the spirit, of our State Government, amount to a
prohibition of such acts of legislation; and the general
principles of law and reason forbid them. The legislature
may enjoin, permit, forbid, and punish; they may declare
new crimes, and establish rules of conduct for all its citizens
in future cases; they may command what is right, and
prohibit what is wrong; but they cannot change innocence
into guilt; or punish innocence as a crime; or violate the
right of an antecedent lawful private contract; or the
right of private property. To maintain that our Federal, or
State, Legislature possesses such powers, if they had not
been expressly restrained, would, in my opinion, be a
political heresy altogether inadmissible in our free
republican governments.[20]
Justice Chase's emphatic defence of the theory of implied limitations on
legislative powers, resulting from the principles of the social compact and
of the spirit of a free republican government, was an obiter dictum.
However, as often occurs with opinions unnecessary to the disposition of a
controversy, it was a convenient expression of doctrines of superior
principles which future justices of like mind could cite as authority for
placing a curb on legislatures, at times disposed to tamper with existing
contract and property rights. Such a dictum served as a basis not only for a
doctrine favorable to the protection of vested rights, but also for a theory
of "fundamental principles" held by judges to be beyond legislative control.
Judicial construction of theories favorable to the protection of vested
rights against alleged harmful legislative acts, and the subsequent
development of Justice Chase's theory of "fundamental principles," which
judges are charged to protect, will be discussed later.
5. Construction of Limits on Legislatures to protect Vested Rights. A
significant phase of the implied limitations based on higher law ideas, held
to apply to legislative powers in American constitutional law, is the doctrine of the protection of acquired or vested
rights.[21] Though certain limits were suggested to the exercise of
political authority with respect to private property, particularly during
the Middle Ages,[22] the developing theory of legislative omnipotence of
princes or of legislatures supported the view that private property might be
taken freely for the public benefit. Eighteenth century individualism and
the natural rights philosophy that accompanied it again became the basis for
the insistence that state action which invaded private rights had to justify
itself. Thus arose the idea which was asserted in colonial and revolutionary
times that vested rights must be protected, regardless of whether express
enactments or constitutional limitations so required.[23] A not uncommon
opinion at this time was that the sole function of government was to protect
and preserve property rights.[24]
After the federal Constitution was put into operation, this view was
reaffirmed by Justice Paterson, who insisted that "the right of acquiring
and possessing property and having it protected, is one of the natural,
inherent and unalienable rights of man.... The preservation of property,
then, is the primary object of the social compact."[25] The Supreme Court of
North Carolina, also affirming the higher law doctrine, denied the power to
the legislature to dissolve a contract.[26]
When the doctrine of legislative supremacy even over individual rights of
property and contract prevailed, a few courts building upon the common law
maxim that statutes ought not in doubtful cases to be given a retroactive
operation laid down the doctrine as one of prime obligation that, in no
case, was a statute to receive an interpretation which brought it into
conflict with vested rights. So far as a statute did not impair vested
rights, it was good, but so far as it did, it was void, according to the
general principles underlying all constitutions.[27]
Though there are few federal cases in which the doctrine favorable to the
protection of vested rights on the higher law theories was affirmed prior to
1870, Chief Justice Marshall indicated his adherence to the doctrine as
early as 1803, when he observed "the government of the United States has
been emphatically termed a government of laws, and not of men. It will
certainly cease to deserve this high appellation, if the laws furnish no
remedy for the violation of a vested legal right."[28] Later he held that an
act of the legislature of Georgia, granting title to land was, so far as
rights vested under the grant were concerned, a contract which could not be
impaired by a subsequent act.[29] "I do not hesitate to declare," said
Justice Johnson in this case, "that a state does not possess the power of
revoking its own grants. But I do it on a general principle, on the reason
and nature of things; a principle which will impose laws even on the
Deity."[30]
Prior to the date of this decision, leading exponents of Federalist policies
such as James Wilson, Alexander Hamilton, and John Marshall had formulated
as a principle of the party the theory of protecting vested rights of
property and contract, both by express and implied constitutional
limitations. They sponsored an independent judiciary, whose duty, they
argued, was to guard the fundamental law and to check all departments of
government so far as they might attempt to infringe vested rights.[31] The
theory of affording special protection to vested rights and of securing such
protection through limits defined in written constitutions and through
courts whose duty it was to guard these constitutions, was a Federalist
principle which continued in vogue long after the downfall of the Federalist
party.[32] It gained support from the liberal and democratic theories of
inalienable individual rights.
The doctrine that vested rights must be protected against legislative
attacks was greatly facilitated when the Supreme Court, speaking through
Chief Justice Marshall, held that the clause of the federal Constitution
prohibiting a state from impairing the obligation of contracts was intended
to restrain state legislatures from passing any law interfering with
"contracts respecting property, under which some individual could claim a
right to something beneficial to himself." The protection of this clause was
then held to apply to the property of corporations as well as to that of
individuals.[33]
More positive statements of the doctrine of judicial protection to vested
rights against attack by legislatures, independent of constitutional
limitations, was made by Chancellor Kent and Justice Story. When facing the
issue whether a statute could be given retroactive effect, Justice Kent
stated in unequivocal terms the theory of implied limitations on legislative
authority.[34] Basing his opinion squarely upon the natural law philosophy
of European writers such as Grotius, Pufendorf, and Bynkershoek, Chancellor
Kent held that the legislature can take private property for necessary or
useful public uses only when public necessity requires. To render the
exercise of the power valid, a principle of natural equity demands that a
fair compensation must, in all cases, be previously made to the individuals
affected. The limitation, he observed, "is admitted by the soundest
authorities and is adopted by all temperate and civilized governments, from
a deep and universal sense of justice."[35]
About ten years later, Kent reaffirmed these propositions,[36] emphasizing
the principle that the requirement of a public purpose was a true
constitutional limitation susceptible of judicial enforcement, and that
under the power of eminent domain the legislature could not transfer the
property of A to B without A's consent, unless it was clearly for a public
use nor without due compensation.[37] Kent admitted that there was one
limitation upon the general doctrine of the protection of vested rights,
viz., that property may not be used so as to create nuisances or become
dangerous to the peace, health, or comfort of the citizens. He developed,
therefore, the idea of the police power, which, in certain instances, may
override the rights and privileges of individual property[38] owners, but
the right of regulation and the ultimate power of prohibition, Kent
indicated, must be exercised according to principle of reasonableness, for
if the legislature should take private property for uses not clearly public
"such cases would be gross abuses of their discretion and fraudulent attacks
on private right, and the law would be clearly unconstitutional and
void."[38]
Thus Kent added the weight of his opinion as justice and his authority as
commentator to the view, which other justices had rather vaguely suggested,
that vested rights must be protected whether or not laws or constitutional
provisions so required. To the principle of just compensation in the
exercise of the power of eminent domain he added the requirement of public
use as a justification for the exercise of the power. Here were fundamental
principles for placing implied limits on legislatures. When, decades later,
parties imbued with nineteenth-century individualism, and corporations
seeking protection of their interests, brought pressure to bear on courts to
check what appeared to be meddlesome interferences with individual liberties
and property rights, these principles, closely related to the former
theories of natural law, were at hand to support the developing practice of
judicial review of legislative acts.
In the Supreme Court of the United States, Justice Story became the chief
exponent of the doctrine of implied limitations on legislative action, when
he claimed that a grant of title to land by the legislature was irrevocable
upon the principles of natural justice, upon the fundamental laws of every
free government, as well as under the Constitution of the United States.[39]
Subsequently this idea was reiterated in more explicit terms.[40] A number
of other justices, agreeing with Chief Justice Hosmer,[41] in the decades
following 1810, defended the principle of protecting vested rights, and held
that, independent of written constitutions, acts interfering with acquired
rights or impairing the obligation of contracts were void, for a fundamental
principle of right and justice inherent in the nature and spirit of the
social compact restrained and set bounds to the power of legislation, which
the legislature could not pass without exceeding its rightful authority.[42]
The state constitutions frequently did not prohibit the passage of
retroactive laws, but justices claimed such acts were nevertheless inhibited
because they were contrary to "fundamental principles" or "the nature of
free government" or "principles of the social compact" or "principles of
civil liberty" or "natural rights."[43]
The principle of protecting vested rights both by express and implied limits
on legislatures and of making it the duty of courts to hold void legislative
acts interfering with these rights continued to gain adherents after the
party which sponsored it had ceased to be a factor in the political life of
the nation. It was supported by a common belief that there was a higher law
and that there were immutable principles which, if legislatures attempted to
invade, would render their acts nugatory. But this higher law was seldom
resorted to, and courts rarely found it necessary to annul legislative
enactments on this or on other grounds.[44] Changes in political conditions
and in public sentiment combined to render of little avail the weakly
supported theory of protecting vested rights on the grounds of indefinite
superior principles.
6. The Main Purpose of the Establishment of Express and Implied Limits on
Legislative Powers. Constitutional limitations, as originally conceived and
as continued in the growth of American constitutional law, have been
regarded as self-imposed restrictions on the will of the people to check,
confine, and restrict the rule of the majority. Many of the founders of the
government in America agreed with Hamilton and Madison that it was necessary
to check "the overbearing rule of the majority."[45] In their opinion, there
could be neither justice nor stability in any system of government unless
some portion of it were independent of popular control. The Federalist party
under the leadership of Alexander Hamilton became the defender of this
faith. It was, from the beginning, observed Martin Van Buren, "the constant
aim of the late Federalists to select some department in our political
system and make it the depository of power which public sentiment could not
reach nor the people control."[46] The distrust of the capacity of the
masses to govern themselves was an underlying principle of the Federalist
viewpoint. Under no authority did they feel their interests to be safer than
under that which was subject to the judicial power, and in no way could
their policy be more effectively promoted than by taking power from those
departments of the government over which the people had full control in
order to concentrate it in that department over which they had practically
none.[47]
It was to carry out this purpose that the conservatives then and since have
demanded a judicial check on the other departments of government which
should operate under the guise of legal channels and which would prevent
popular control from seriously interfering with the interests desiring
special protection. Thus it became profitable for groups of interests to
combine, whose object was to control and influence the government and at the
same time to check and confine the growth of popular control. Among the
chief objectives of these groups were the following: to restrict the powers
of the state governments; to enlarge those of the national government; to
encourage a feeling of distrust of the capacity of the people to govern
themselves; to control the management of public affairs and to secure
special advantages to favored individuals and classes on the one hand, while
designedly opposing governmental interference in private pursuits of
individuals on the other. There was thus secured that effective combination
described by Fisher Ames of "the lovers of liberty and the owners of
property," supporting a practice whereby the courts were to act as sentinels
over constitutions to preserve vested contracts and property rights and
necessarily "to stay the arm of legislative, executive, or popular
oppression." [48] In the armor of devices to set limits to legislative
action the higher law philosophy was always available when express limits
were inconclusive and inapplicable. And it was called into service at this
time not as a progressive and liberal doctrine but as a conservative and
authoritarian principle.
7. A Reaction from the Federalist Doctrine of Limiting Legislative
Activities. When the Jeffersonian era of the first quarter of the nineteenth
century was followed by the wave of frontier democracy, which characterized
the Jacksonian epoch the general belief in the right of the people to rule
left little room for doctrines of immutable principles or higher laws which
were beyond governmental regulation. For several decades legislatures were
accorded a freedom in dealing with the lives, liberties, and properties of
individuals which would have shocked the founders of the American system of
government and would be regarded as untenable today. The bills of rights of
state constitutions were embellished with high-sounding phrases emblematical
of ideas prevalent in the Declaration of Independence and in other
eighteenth-century charters and documents but in practice little
consideration was given to these general phrases. Thus the insertion of an
elaborate clause requiring that governmental powers be carefully separated
into departments did not interfere with frequent intermingling of powers
among departments; and the provision that no person shall be deprived of
life, liberty, or property without due process of law was seldom used to
restrict political authority in favor of individual privileges. The
sentiment of the time was favorable to the expansion of governmental powers
rather than to a meticulous effort to find checks and limitations.[49]
But in a wave of reckless and extravagant conduct usually approved by the
people the legislatures sponsored all sorts of commercial projects and dealt
so freely with contracts and property rights that similar to the
conservative reaction, which inaugurated the federal system of government
under the Constitution and placed conservative doctrines in the state
constitutions, a second reaction followed calling for new limits to
legislative powers. Again the doctrines of natural rights and of immutable
laws were relied upon to place desired limits on governmental action. The
insistence on theories of popular sovereignty and some dangers believed to
follow from the rule of the people led lawyers and judges to question
whether an act of the legislature could not be declared void even if not in
conflict with some express provision of the constitution, and to seek for
other sanctions for the protection of vested rights through the
interpretation of implied limitations which would prevent too serious a
tampering with property rights.
8. The Return to the Former Natural Law Theories. Hence beginning in the
decade from 1850 to 1860 there was a return to the former doctrine of
natural rights and to the principle of implied limitations on legislatures
resulting from the nature of free government in order to check what then
seemed to be the reckless expenditure of money for the private advantage of
individuals. The courts of Massachusetts recurring to the dictum of Chief
Justice Parker[50] condemned legislative acts confirming conveyances and
proceedings in insolvency for the reason that vested rights were protected
by the inalienable rights, doctrine, and by the separation of powers and the
law of the land provisions of the state constitution.[51]
It was the courts of New York, however, which, building upon the principles
so ably defended by Chancellor Kent and becoming the champions of a new
individualism, led in the revival of the earlier doctrine of protecting
vested rights and of placing special implied limitations on legislative
powers.[52] In 1843 it was held that a statute which had been in force in
the state since 1772, authorizing a private road to be laid out over the
lands of a person, without his consent, was void. The law of land provision
of the state constitution was then held to import, when interferences with
individual rights and privileges were concerned, a trial according to the
course of the common law.[53] Holding void a law for the protection of the
property of married women, the court said, "the people of the state of New
York have never delegated to the legislature the power to divest the vested
rights of property legally acquired by any citizen of the state and transfer
them to another against the will of the owner."[54] This decision was soon
followed by another of even wider application, by which the courts held that
a prohibition act of the legislature of New York was void, because the act
substantially destroyed the property of intoxicating liquors vested in
persons within the state when the act took effect. Both upon the general
ground of implied limitations and upon the concept of due process of law, it
was contended that "when rights have been acquired by the citizen under the
existing laws, there is no power in any branch of the government to take
them away."[55]
The unique character of the reasoning of the New York court in placing
implied limits on the legislature is shown in the fact that similar statutes
in other states with approximately the same constitutional requirements
were, as a rule, held valid.[56]
The doctrine of affording judicial protection to vested rights, independent
of constitutional limitations, was soon to be absorbed in the phrase "due
process of law," commonly found in the state constitutions and introduced
into the Fourteenth Amendment as a requirement of all state legislation
which might interfere with the rights of life, liberty, or property. Its
application was also made more effective by bringing to its support the
principle of the separation of powers.[57] And certain implications of the
doctrine were soon formulated which widened its scope, namely, the
requirement of public use for eminent domain proceedings, and the
requirement of public purpose for taxation. Thus a step was taken of greater
significance than the adoption of written constitutions with certain
specific limitations on legislative powers and the acceptance of the
practice of judicial review of legislation to preserve these constitutions.
Numerous instances of foreign governments with written constitutions and the
correlative practice of judicial review of legislation give ample proof that
either or both of these features may have relatively slight effect in
restricting the scope of governmental powers. The doctrine requiring the
protection of vested rights alone would not have given judicial review its
present scope and significance. It was not until the extension of the
meaning of the term "due process of law," which took place from 1850 to
1890, that the scope and significance of judicial review of legislative
enactments was radically changed.
As a prelude to a general movement to return to the seemingly discredited
natural law theories the Abolitionists prior to the Civil War appealed to
natural rights and a higher law[58] as warranting a disregard of laws and
constitutional provisions. Abraham Lincoln based his argument against
slavery in the debate with Stephen A. Douglas on the dogma of the
Declaration that "all men are created equal" and deduced therefrom that for
one man to enslave another was contrary to the "sacred right of
self-government."[59] The attack on slavery was generally defended on the
principle of the "unalienable rights of all men to equal liberty"[60] -- a
recurrence to the type of natural law conceived as democratic and
progressive.
The tendency which after 1850 sought to protect vested rights against
encroachments by legislative acts or by popular majorities encouraged a
recurrence to the doctrine of inalienable rights and to the theory of higher
laws in order to change the due process of law clause from merely a check on
procedure in criminal matters to a limitation on the general scope of
legislative powers. For nearly twenty years the country was absorbed in the
throes of civil war and the conservative reaction which usually follows in
the wake of wars furnished fruitful ground for the seeds sown in the earlier
decades to take firm root. But another twenty years elapsed before the basis
was firmly laid for the modern revival of natural law ideas in American
constitutional law. These ideas have wrought a profound change in
constitutional concepts. They have followed lines only vaguely or indirectly
drawn during the first hundred years of constitutional development in the
United States. It is necessary to turn, therefore, to the process of
interpreting due process of law as a convenient phrase to convey natural law
ideas.
1. A. W. Spencer, "The Revival of Natural Law," Central Law Journal, LXXX
(May 7, 1915), 347.
2. Cooley, Constitutional Limitations (8th ed., 1927), pp. 341 ff. and
Robert P. Reeder "Constitutional and Extra-Constitutional Restraints," Univ.
of Penna. Law Rev., LXI (May, 1913), 441, 446. See comment of James B.
Thayer, that "it may be remarked here that the doctrine of declaring
legislative acts void as being contrary to the constitution, was probably
helped into existence by a theory which found some favor among our ancestors
at the time of the Revolution, that courts might disregard such acts if they
were contrary to the fundamental maxims of morality, or as it was phrased,
to the laws of nature. Such a doctrine was thought to have been asserted by
English writers, and even by judges at times, but was never acted on. It has
been repeated here, as a matter of speculation, by our earlier judges, and
occasionally by later ones; but in no case within my knowledge has it ever
been enforced where it was the single and necessary ground of the decision,
nor can it be, unless as a revolutionary measure." "The Origin and Scope of
the American Doctrine of Constitutional Law," Harv. Law Rev., VII (October,
1893), 129, 133, reprinted in Thayer, Legal Essays, I, 6, 7.
3. Manley O. Hudson, "Advisory Opinions of National and International
Courts," Harv. Law Rev., XXXVII (June, 1924), 970, 971.
4. Cohen, "Jus Naturale Redidivum," Phil. Rev., XXV (November, 1916), 761.
"Exploded as this notion may seem to us," says Mr. Isaacs, "it is certainly
in keeping with the philosophy of the eighteenth century." "John Marshall on
Contracts, A Study in Early American Juristic Theory," Va. Law Rev., VII
(March, 1921), 413.
For the expression of similar views with the observation that the natural
rights doctrine is academic and belongs to "jurisprudence in the air," see
John E. Keeler, "Survival of the Theory of Natural Rights in Juridical
Decisions," Yale Law Jour., V (October, 1895), 14.
5. "The Law of Nature," Law Quar. Rev., XI (April, 1895), 121.
6. Cf. A. N. Holcombe, The Foundations of the Modern Commonwealth (New York,
1923), p. 438; W. F. Willoughby, The Government of Modern States (New York,
1919), pp. 166-168; W. W. Willoughby, The Nature of the State (New York,
1896), pp. 103 ff.; John W. Burgess, Political Science and Constitutional
Law. I (New York, 1890), 88.
7. T. J. Lawrence, A Handbook of Public International Law (10th ed. by Percy
H. Winfield, 1925), p. 6.
8. John M. Zane, in review of Sir Paul Vinogradoff's Custom and Right, Yale
Law Jour., XXXV (June, 1926), 1026.
9. "The Law of Nature in State and Federal Judicial Decisions," Yale Law
Jour., XXV (June, 1916), 615.
10. There is a field here for much more extensive investigations than have
yet been made; investigations which will effectually expose the common
fallacious contention that natural rights and natural law have long since
ceased to influence American law. Professor Wright is doing original work
along this line in tracing the evolution of these concepts in American
political theory. Cf. supra, pp. 53 n., 55 n.
11. Consult J. B. Thayer, Cases on Constitutional Law, pp. 946 ff., for
extracts from European natural rights philosophers which were cited by
American justices; and my articles "Judicial Review of Legislation in the
United States and the Doctrines of Vested Rights and of Implied Limitations
on Legislatures," Texas Law Rev., II (April, June, 1924), 257, 387 and
"Histories of the Supreme Court written from the Federalist Point of View,"
Southwestern Pol. and Soc. Science Quar., IV (June, 1923), 12.
12. Cf. Ludwig Ehrlich, "Proceedings against the Crown," Oxford Studies in
Social and Legal History VI, (Oxford, 1921), 9.
13. Eakin v. Raub, 12 Sergeant & Rawles 330.
14. Cf. C. G. Haines, The American Doctrine of Judicial Supremacy, pp. 185
ff.
15. Haines, op. cit., pp. 287 ff.
16. "American courts," says Dean Pound, "unrestrained by any doctrine of
Parliamentary supremacy, such as was established in England in 1688, found
themselves opposed to legislatures just as English courts of the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries had been opposed to the Crown. They found in the
books, over and above express constitutional limitations, vague doctrines of
inherent limitations upon every form of law-making and of the intrinsic
invalidity of certain laws. They soon wielded a conceded power over
unconstitutional legislation." "Common Law and Legislation," Harv. Law Rev.,
XXI (April, 1908), 383.
17. In the following pages portions of a series of articles on "Judicial
Review of Legislation in the United States and the Doctrines of Vested
Rights and of Implied Limitations on Legislatures," published in Texas Law
Rev., II (April and June, 1924), 257, 387 and ibid., III (December, 1924),
I, are used by permission of the editors.
18. Upholding the inherent right of local self-government in cities and
towns the Supreme Court of Nebraska referred to the principle that the state
legislative power is unlimited and quoted the language of Von Holst: "This
does not mean, however, that these restrictions must always be expressed in
explicit words. As it is generally admitted that the factors of the federal
government have certain 'implied powers,' so it has never been disputed that
the state legislatures are subject to 'implied restrictions,' that is,
restrictions which must be deduced from certain provisions of the federal,
or state constitution, or that arise from the political nature of the Union,
from the genius of American public institutions," State v. Moores, 55 Neb.
480, 490 (1898).
19. Cooley, Constitutional Limitations, 1, 358. The underlying purpose of
most of these limitations was to place "the just principles of the common
law ... beyond the power of ordinary legislation to change or control them."
Justice Miller in Pumpelly v. Green Bay Co., 13 Wall. 166, 177 (1871); also
Pound, The Spirit of the Common Law (Boston, 1921), p. 25.
In order to see that the limitations of the constitution were observed and
that no arbitrary power was exercised by any department of government
Justice Peck suggested that "the statutes and common law have laid open a
warehouse of ways, means and processes, that the power of the judges may
not, for want of plans, be defeated in upholding constitutional rights."
Bank of State v. Cooper, 2 Yerg. (Tenn.) 599, 612 (1831).
20. 3 Dallas 386-389 (1798). The assertion of limitations imposed by the
social compact may be illustrated by the following cases: Chief Justice
Buchanan in Regents of the University of Maryland v. Williams, 9 Gill & J.
365, 408, 409 (1838), when a charter incorporating the regents of the
university was held a contract and not subject to impairment by a subsequent
legislative act, thought that independent of the provisions of the federal
and state constitutions "there is a fundamental principle of right and
justice, inherent in the nature and spirit of the social compact, (in this
country at least) the character and genius of our government, the causes
from which they sprang, and the purposes for which they were established,
that rises above and restrains and sets bounds to the power of legislation,
which the legislature cannot pass without exceeding its authority. It is
that principle which protects the life, liberty, and property of the citizen
from violation, in the unjust exercise of legislative power." "With those
judges, who assert the omnipotence of the legislature, in all cases, where
the constitution has not interposed an explicit restraint, I cannot agree,"
said Chief Justice Hosmer, in Goshen v. Stonington, 4 Conn. 209, 225 (1822).
It was claimed that an unjust infraction of vested rights must be regarded
as a violation of the social compact and must be considered by the judiciary
as void. Justice Butler, denying the right of the legislature to pass an
unreasonable retrospective law, said: "the power of the legislature in this
respect is not unlimited. They cannot entirely disregard the fundamental
principles of the social compact. Those principles underlie all legislation,
irrespective of constitutional restraints, and if the act in question is a
clear violation of them, it is our duty to hold it abortive and void" Welch
v. Wadsworth, Conn. 30, 149, 155 (1861). Cf. also, Wheeler's Appeal, 45
Conn. 306, 315 (1877).
21. A vested right is commonly defined as a right which has been acquired by
an individual under the law to do certain acts or to possess and use certain
things. See Justice Chase in Calder v. Bull, 3 Dallas 386 (1798). Rights are
regarded as vested when the right to enjoyment, present or prospective has
become the property of some particular person or persons as a present
interest. There is no standard of sacredness for property interests and
vested rights which are beyond legislative encroachment. The term "vested
rights" is regarded as one of convenience to secure certain ends and is
incapable of accurate definition. It is correctly observed that the
underlying idea involved in the attempt of the courts to give content to the
term is political and sociological rather than legal. Yale Law Jour., XXXIV
(January, 1925), 306, 307. Consult this note for examples of rights becoming
vested and of legislative acts held void for impairing vested rights. See
also Edward S. Corwin, "A Basic Doctrine of American Constitutional Law,"
Mich. Law. Rev., XII (February, 1914), 247. "The doctrine of vested rights,"
says Corwin, "represents the first great achievement of the courts after the
establishment of judicial review," and "is the very matrix of constitutional
limitations in this country." Ibid., p. 275, and "The Extension of Judicial
Review in New York: 1783-1905," ibid., XV (February, 1917), 281, 297.
22. The doctrine of according protection to acquired or vested rights was a
feature of mediaeval law and was particularly advocated by the jurists of
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
23. Symsbury Case, Kirby (Conn.) 444, 447 (1785); Ham v. McClaws, 1 Bay (S.
Ca.) 93, 98 (1789), in which a statute prohibiting the importation of slaves
was held not to interfere with vested rights of ownership. The court said:
"It is clear that statutes passed against the plain and obvious principles
of common right and common reason are absolutely null and void as far as
they are calculated to operate against those principles." For an English
case favoring the protection of vested rights, see Couch v. Jeffries, 4
Burrows 2460 (1769). Lord Mansfield's judgment meant only that where at all
possible a statute would be interpreted so as to preserve vested rights.
24. Farrand, Records of the Federal Convention, I, 533-534, 541-542; II,
123.
25. Van Horne's Lessee v. Dorrance, 2 Dall. 304, 310 (1795). After referring
to various provisions of the constitution of Pennsylvania, Justice Paterson
maintained, "it is evident that the right of acquiring and possessing
property, and having it protected, is one of the natural, inherent and
inalienable rights of man.... The legislature therefore had no authority to
make an act divesting one citizen of his freehold, and vesting it in
another, without just compensation. It is inconsistent with the principles
of reason, justice and moral rectitude; it is incompatible with the
comfort, peace and happiness of mankind; it is contrary to the principles of
the social alliance, in every free government; and lastly, it is contrary to
the letter and spirit of the constitution." Ibid., 310.
26. Trustees of the University of North Carolina v. Foy, 2 Hay (N. C.) 310,
312 (1804). It was held that "the property vested in the trustees must
remain for the uses intended for the university, until the judiciary of the
country in the usual and common form pronounces them guilty of such acts as
will, in law, amount to a forfeiture of their rights or a dissolution of
their body." Cf. dissenting opinion of Justice Hall for an argument against
implied protection to vested rights.
27. Elliott's Executor v. Lyell, 3 Call. (Va. 1802), 268; Turpin v. Locket,
6 Call. 113 (1804), especially opinions of Judge Tucker, 155, and of Judge
Roane, 169.
28. Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 163 (1803).
29. Fletcher v. Peck, 6 Cranch 87 (1810). Chief Justice Marshall observed:
"It may well be doubted whether the nature of society and of government does
not prescribe some limits to the legislative power; and, if any be
prescribed, where are they to be found, if the property of an individual
fairly and honestly acquired, may be seized without compensation.... It is,
then, the unanimous opinion of the court, that in this case, the estate
having passed into the hands of a purchaser for a valuable consideration,
without notice, the state of Georgia was restrained, either by general
principles which are common to our free institutions, or by the particular
provisions of the Constitution of the United States, from passing a law
whereby the estate of the plaintiff in the premises so purchased could be
legally impaired." Ibid. 135, 139. For an account of the circumstances
leading to this case, consult Albert J. Beveridge, The Life of John
Marshall, III (Boston, 1919), chap. 10.
For Marshall's views as to the meaning of the phrase "obligation of
contract" as influenced by the eighteenth-century philosophy as to natural
rights, see Ogden v. Saunders, 12 Wheat. 213 (1827). Marshall adverted to
the tact that "the framers of our Constitution were intimately acquainted
with the writings of those wise and learned men, whose treatises on the laws
of nations have guided public opinion in the subjects of obligation and of
contract." Ibid., pp. 353, 354. Nathan Isaacs, "John Marshall on Contracts,"
Va. Law Rev., VII (March, 1921), 411, 421 ff.
30. 6 Cranch 143.
31. "Histories of the Supreme Court of the United States Written from the
Federalist Point of View," Southwestern Pol. and Soc. Sci. Quar., IV (June,
1023), 12.
32. See Hamilton's opinion in The Federalist, No. 78; also Beveridge, op.
cit. III, 568; cf. Hampton L. Carson, "James Wilson and James Iredell: A
Parallel and a Contrast," American Bar Association Journal, VII (March,
1921), 125 ff.; and Wales v. Stetson, 2 Mass. 143, 146 (1806).
33. Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 4 Wheat., 518, 628 (1819).
34. Dash v. Van Kleeck, 7 Johns (N. Y.) 477, 505 (1811); "It is not
pretended that we have any express constitutional provisions on the subject;
nor have we any for numerous other rights dear alike to freedom and justice.
An ex post facto law in the strict technical sense of this term, is usually
understood to apply to criminal cases, and that is the meaning when used in
the Constitution of the United States; yet laws impairing previously
acquired civil rights are equally to be condemned. We have seen that the
cases in the English and the Civil law apply to such rights; and we shall
find, upon further examination, that there is no distinction in principle,
nor any recognized in practice, between a law punishing a person criminally
for a past innocent act, and punishing him civilly by divesting him of a
lawfully acquired right. The distinction consists only in the degree of
oppression and history teaches us that the government which can deliberately
violate the one will soon cease to regard the other." Bracton, Pufendorf,
the mediaeval natural law philosopher, and dicta in a few American decisions
were cited in support of Kent's proposition.
35. Gardner v. Village of Newburgh, 2 Johns. Ch. 162, 166, 167 (1816). Kent
felt bound "to conclude, that a provision for compensation is an
indispensable attendant on the due and constitutional exercise of the power
of depriving an individual of his property." Ibid. 167.
36. "A retrospective statute, affecting and changing vested rights, is very
generally considered, in this country, as founded on unconstitutional
principles, and consequently inoperative and void." Commentaries, I (13th
ed., 1884), 455.
37. Again citing Grotius, Pufendorf, Bynkershoek, and Vattel, Kent
maintained that "a provision for compensation is a necessary attendant on
the due and constitutional exercise of the power of the lawgiver to deprive
an individual of his property without his consent; and this principle in
American constitutional jurisprudence is founded on natural equity, and is
laid down by jurists as an acknowledged principle of universal law." Comm.,
II, 339. Early cases sustaining this principle were cited in a footnote.
Ibid., pp. 339 ff. For the interpretation of public purpose as a limitation
on legislatures in tax and eminent domain proceedings see Part III.
38. Comm., II, 340.
39. Terrett v. Taylor, 9 Cranch 43 (1815), in which Justice Story observed:
"That the legislature can repeal statutes creating private corporations, or
confirming to them property already acquired under the faith of previous
laws, and by such repeal can vest the property of such corporation
exclusively in the state, or dispose of the same to such purposes as they
may please, without the consent or default of the corporators, we are not
prepared to admit; and we think ourselves standing upon the principles of
natural justice, upon the fundamental laws of every free government, upon
the spirit and letter of the Constitution of the United States, and upon the
decisions of most respectable judicial tribunals, in resisting such a
doctrine" Ibid. 52.
40. Wilkinson v Leland, 2 Pet 627, 658 (1829); Justice Story said: "The
fundamental maxims of free government seem to require, that the rights of
personal liberty and private property should be held sacred. At least no
court of justice in this country would be warranted in assuming, that the
power to violate and disregard them; a power so repugnant to the common
principles of justice and civil liberty; lurked under any general grant of
legislative authority, or ought to be implied from any general expressions
of the will of the people ... a different doctrine is utterly inconsistent
with the great and fundamental principle of republican government, and with
the right of citizens to the free enjoyment of their property lawfully
acquired. We know of no case, in which a legislative act to transfer the
property of A to B without his consent, has ever been held a constitutional
exercise of legislative power in any state in the Union. On the contrary, it
has been constantly resisted as inconsistent with just principles by every
judicial tribunal in which it has been attempted to be enforced."
41. Goshen v. Stonington, 4 Conn. 209 (1822).
42. See Bedford v. Shilling, 4 Serg. & R. (Pa) 400, 405 (1818) and comment
of C. J. Parker in Rice v. Parkman, 16 Mass. 326, 330 (1820). Regents v.
Williams, 9 G & J (Md.) 365, 403 ff. (1838).
43. For citation of cases, consult Bryant Smith, "Retroactive Laws and
Vested Rights," Texas Law Rev., V (April, 1927), 231, 237.
44. An exception to the general practice was made by the Supreme Court of
North Carolina when it was held partly on the basis of the law of land
provision that the legislature could not transfer an estate in an office.
Hoke v. Henderson, 4 Dev. 1, 15 (1833); cf. also Jones' Heirs v. Perry,
wherein a private act to sell the land of infants was held void, 10 Yerg.
59, 69 (1836).
45. It is the opinion of Professor Dodd that "most of our legal arrangements
and constitutions, both state and national, were designed to thwart and
defeat democracy." Wm. E. Dodd, "The Struggle for Democracy in the United
States," Int. Jour. of Ethics, XXVIII (July, 1918), 465.
46. Martin Van Buren, Inquiry into the Origin and Course of Political
Parties in the United States, p. 96.
47. Martin Van Buren, op. cit., p. 275.
48. Joseph Story, Miscellaneous Writings, p. 228.
49. The persistence of the natural rights philosophy in the state
constitutions, Professor Becker believes, may be attributed primarily to the
"conventional acceptance of a great tradition," for political leaders
continued to reiterate the dogmas of the Declaration of Independence at a
time when they were almost universally ridiculed as "glittering
generalities." The Declaration of Independence, pp. 240 ff. and S. G. Brown,
Life of Rufus Choate (ed. 1881), pp. 325, 326; see also John C. Calhoun's
"Disquisition on Government." F. L. Paxson observes: "It is evident as one
reads these [state] constitutions that a belief in natural rights found
ready lodgment in the minds of residents along the frontier.... As the
crown, and religion, and property lost favor as the foundations of
government, nature came to be the obvious parent of democracy.... It became
more important to preserve liberty than to get work done; more desirable to
check a possible usurpation than to promote efficiency." History of the
American Frontier, pp 100, 101. Professor Wright believes, however, that the
theories of natural law were more prevalent in eastern communities than on
the frontier. Cf. "American Interpretations of Natural Law," Amer. Pol. Sci.
Rev., XX (August, 1926), 535, 536.
50. Rice v. Parkman, 16 Mass. 326, 330 (1820). Under the general powers of
the legislature to pass reasonable and wholesome laws, C. J. Parker claimed
no one imagines that "the legislature could deprive a citizen of his estate,
or impair any valuable contract in which he might be interested."
51. Sohier v. The Massachusetts General Hospital, in which an act confirming
conveyances was held void "as contrary to the spirit and terms of the
constitution." 3 Cush. 483 (1849); Denny v. Matton, 84 Mass. 361 (1861).
"Every individual," said Justice Fletcher, "has a right, under the
constitution, to be protected in the enjoyment of his property, and no one
can be wholly and entirely deprived of it, by having it taken from him and
transferred to another, without compensation or benefit in any way, by a
special act of legislation." 3 Cush. 493.
52. From 1840 to the Civil War "there were probably more statutes
invalidated in New York on constitutional grounds than in all other states
in the Union combined." Edward S. Corwin, "The Extension of Judicial Review
in New York," Mich. Law Res., XV (February, 1917), 281. A considerable
expansion of judicial review in New York was "due in part to the going into
effect of the constitution of 1846, but in greater part to the conflict
between the conservative principles of the courts and the reform tendencies
of legislation, a conflict which also characterizes the ensuing decade."
Ibid., p. 285.
53. Justice Bronson in Taylor v. Porter, 4 Hill 140, 146 (1843); see also
dissent of Justice Nelson, in which he said "whether the security of the
citizen against such arbitrary legislation ... depends upon this clause of
the constitution, or rests upon the broader and more solid ground of natural
right never delegated by the people to the law-making power, it is
unnecessary now to enquire." Ibid. 149.
54. Justice Mason in White v. White, 5 Barb. 474 (1849); also opinion of
Justice Edwards, 12 N. Y. 202 (1854).
55. Justice Comstock thought the law of the land provision was "intended
expressly to shield private rights from the exercise of arbitrary power."
Ibid., p. 398. Wynehamer v. State of New York, 13 N. Y. 378, 382 ff. and 416
ff. (1856); see also, the earlier opinion of Justice Barculo in Holmes v.
Holmes, in which it was held "beyond the scope of legislative authority to
destroy vested rights of property." 4 Barb. 295, 300 (1848).
56. Cf. State v. Noyes, 10 Foster (N. H.) 279 (1855); Lincoln v. Smith, 27
Vt. 328 (1854); Goddard v. Jacksonville, 15 Ill. 589 (1854); People v.
Gallagher, 3 Gibbs. (Mich) 244 (1856); Fisher v. McGirr, 1 Gray (Mass) 1
(1854); State v. Paul, 5 R. I. 181 (1858) and State v. Keeran, 5 R. I. 497.
For a different conclusion see Beebe v. State, 6 Ind. 501, 508 (1856),
holding the right to manufacture and sell spiritous liquors an inalienable
right which the legislature could not take away. When in 1918 the supreme
court of Indiana reversed this decision, Justice Townsend said: "This court
is bound by the same constitution and has no right to curtail legislative
authority this side of the expressed limitations in it. Nor has this court
power to revolutionize the fundamental law by reading limitations into it."
Schmitt v. F. W. Cook Brewing Co. 187 Ind. 623, 626. Justice Spencer
dissented on the ground that the act violated "the principles of abstract
justice, as they have been developed under our republican institutions."
Ibid., 640 ff. A suggestive discussion of the cases interpreting the
doctrine of vested rights is presented by E S. Corwin in "A Basic Doctrine
of American Constitutional Law," Mich Law Rev., XII (February, 1914), 247,
and "The Doctrine of Due Process of Law before the Civil War," Harv. Law
Rev., XXIV (March and April, 1911), 366, 460.
57. Merrill v. Sherbume, 1 N. H. 199, 204 (1819).
58. "Declaration of Sentiments of the American Anti-Slavery Society in
Philadelphia, 1833," W E Channing, Slavery (ed. 1835), p. 31. "The
Constitution regulates our stewardship. But there is a higher law than the
constitution." Works of William H. Seward, I (Boston, 1884), 66, 74. Ct.
also William Hosmer, The Higher Law in its Relation to Civil Government with
particular Reference to the Fugitive Slave Law (1852). See also opinion of
Chase in his argument relative to the unconstitutionality of the fugitive
slave law in the case of Jones v. Van Zandt. C. E. Merriam, American
Political Theories (New York, 1906), p 212.
59. Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years, II (New York, 1926),
16, 17.
60. Cf. T. V. Smith, "Slavery and the American Doctrine of Equality,"
Southwestern Pol. and Soc. Sci. Quar., VII (March, 1927), 333 ff.
CHAPTER V
NATURAL LAW THEORIES AND DUE PROCESS OF LAW
1. Divergent Views on the Meaning of Due Process of Law. The development of
limitations on legislative powers in American constitutional law has been
greatly modified by the interpretation of the phrase "due process of law"
into a general restriction on legislative powers. As a unique product of
American public law, due process of law has come to be the foundation of a
considerable part of the modern structure of constitutional limitations on
legislative and executive powers, and it is the main provision through which
natural law theories were made a part of current constitutional law.
Reference may only be made here to a few steps in the gradual evolution of
the meaning of the famous phrase "by the law of the land" as inserted in the
thirty-ninth chapter of Magna Carta.[1] It is commonly conceded that the
purpose of the phrase "by the law of the land," which was later transformed
into the more popular form "due process of law," was intended primarily to
insist upon rules of procedure in the administration of criminal justice,
namely, that judgment must precede execution, that a judgment must be
delivered by the accused man's "equals," and that no free man could be
punished except in accordance with the law of England, per legem terrae.
On various occasions the original meaning of the law of the land provision
was extended. Certain authorities read into the phrase the requirement of an
indictment by a jury[2] and the Petition of Right referred to this phrase as
prohibiting the Crown from making arrests without a warrant. But in its
extended form it was primarily intended as a limitation upon the Crown in
the administration of justice, requiring in the apprehension and trial of
criminals a procedure established by law. There are few indications that the
provision was intended to serve as a limitation on the powers of Parliament.
Any intimations that such a limitation was applicable to Parliament were set
at rest when, after 1689, it assumed control, not only over the Crown, but
also over the courts and court procedure. In England, then, prior to the
eighteenth century due process of law had two fairly well recognized
meanings, namely, a method of procedure in criminal trials, and a procedure
following the ancient customary law or one rendered legal by parliamentary
enactment. The latter meaning had almost entirely supplanted the former in
English legal thought when the first American constitutions introduced the
phrase into the fundamental laws of the United States.
The term "the law of the land" was inserted into the Massachusetts
constitution of 1780[3] and soon found its place in a number of other state
constitutions. That the makers of our first constitutions thought of due
process of law primarily as a phrase relating to procedural limitations and
not as a general limitation on legislative powers seems to be indicated by
the facts -- that the term "due process of law" or "the law of the land" was
inserted in the part of the constitution dealing with procedure; that the
protection to be accorded through due process was left in charge of the
legislature; and that, when the due process clause was first presented to
the courts, it was not regarded by them as a limitation on the substantive
powers of the legislature.[4] Legislative violations of due process of law
in colonial times were to be corrected, as they are now in many countries,
by the influence of public opinion.
Due process of law in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the federal
Constitution had little significance as rendering protection either to
liberty or property prior to the decade of 1870.[5] In the states the phrase
was first given the same restricted interpretation and it was held, with
only a few exceptions, not to abridge the general powers of the
legislature.[6]
The interpretation of the origin and meaning of due process of law has led
to a controversy among legal scholars which is far from settled. Some claim
that these words were intended to convey the principle that laws in their
making and enforcement must not be arbitrary and must accord with natural or
substantial justice; in short, must not be contrary to principles of natural
law.[7] Others have contended that they were meant to provide that an
individual should not be interfered with in respect to his private rights
except through a regularly enacted law and formal legal procedure. The first
of these views, though vaguely hinted at on a few occasions from the time of
the promulgation of Magna Carta, was first effectively advanced in the
writings of Sir Edward Coke and some of his followers, and in the opinions
of judges in the United States, who were imbued with the idea that it was
the duty of the courts to set limits to the exercise of legislative powers
and were seeking a justification for such authority. As we have seen, Coke
had little evidence to support his broad claims for the supremacy of the
common law as interpreted by the judges, and the occasional dicta favorable
to his theory have had slight influence on the growth of English law --
separate from the general doctrine of the common law, when statutes did not
provide contrary rules, that principles of reason and justice must be
followed. But just as Coke read into the language of the cases in the
Yearbooks and in the English reports his own political and legal notions, so
his followers, and, especially, legal historians in the United States, who
are interested in defending the practice of the review of legislative acts
by the courts, have built an elaborate superstructure on a small
foundation.[8]
2. Due Process of Law as applied by the Justices of the State Courts prior
to 1870. For the first fifty years after the establishment of the state
governments, the legislatures exercised with but few exceptions a virtual
supremacy over the other departments. The executive was granted few powers,
was denied a veto power, and in other respects was made subordinate to the
other departments. Not only did the legislature create the courts and in
many respects supervise their action, but the judges were frequently
selected and removed by this body; and, in certain instances, the
legislature was made the final court of appeal. It was not unusual,
therefore, for legislatures to decide concrete cases and to dispose of cases
finally by special enactments. Though a few constitutions had provisions for
the separation of governmental powers, the other portions of the
constitutions so mingled the powers -- and the common practice of the time
favored such a mingling -- that the provisions for the separation of powers
had little practical effect. Judicial review of legislation as a check on
these extensive legislative powers, though asserted in occasional cases, had
comparatively little effect on the principle of legislative omnipotence
until toward the middle of the nineteenth century. The state and federal
governments were headed in a direction which, except for a rather marked
change of course, would have led to conditions similar to those prevailing
in England and in Canada. The affirmation of the doctrine of protecting
vested rights had already indicated such a change of course and the
interpretation of the law of the land provisions of the state constitutions
continued the process.[9]
It is not within the purpose of this study to deal with the numerous
judicial decisions which approved the doctrine that the legislatures had
powers as unlimited as the British Parliament, except so far as restricted
by the express provisions of written constitutions. According to this
doctrine the state legislatures had inherently the power to do whatever was
not expressly prohibited by either the federal or state constitutions.[10]
During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries only an occasional
judicial dictum, such as those of Justice Chase in Calder v. Bull,[11] and
of Chief Justice Hosmer in Goshen v. Stonington,[12] denied legislative
omnipotence when express constitutional restrictions were not ignored.
How, then, did the term the "law of the land," or "due process of law," come
to be interpreted and understood as a general limitation on legislative
powers from which extensive implied restrictions have been developed? The
account of this development involves a considerable part of the growth of
constitutional law in state and federal governments. Only certain phases of
this growth can be briefly sketched. The development itself is intimately
connected with the acceptance of the doctrine of judicial review of
legislative acts, which was gradually established as a part of American
constitutional law in the generation from 1780 to 1810. It was the adoption
of the doctrine of judicial review that rendered it possible to give a
different content to the term "due process of law," though little progress
was made in this direction prior to 1850.
A pioneer case, somewhat like Calder v. Bull and Dash v. Van Kleeck[13] in
establishing implied limitations favorable to vested rights, involved a
North Carolina act repealing an earlier grant of lands to the university in
which due process of law was considered as a limitation on legislative
powers.[14]
In declaring this act void, the court defined the law of the land clause of
the bill of rights to mean that no one shall be deprived of his liberty or
property without the intervention of a court of justice, or without a jury.
It was nearly a generation later that the due process clause was again
defined in any effective measure as a general limitation on legislative
powers.[15]
Some ideas later conceived as involved in due process of law were, however,
taking form. In 1814 a Massachusetts court decided that, though the
legislature was given the right by the constitution to suspend the laws,
such suspensions must be general, for it is "manifestly contrary to the
first principles of civil liberty and natural justice, and the spirit of our
constitution and laws, that any one citizen should enjoy privileges and
advantages which are denied to all others under like circumstances."[16] The
concept of equality and generality in the application of the law later held
to be involved in due process of law was here extracted from the section of
the bill of rights limiting the suspension of laws by the legislature. A few
years later Daniel Webster, in arguing the Dartmouth College Case,
attributed the concept of generality in the application of legal rules to
the law of the land provision,[17] and it was not long before this dictum
met with approval in the state courts.[18] The law of the land provision was
called into service also as a device to prevent retrospective
legislation.[19]
Among the concepts regarded as belonging to due process of law none has had
more significant results than the identification with this phrase of the
natural and inalienable rights philosophy which was developed in the
revolutionary times and was crystallized into specific form in the
Declaration of Independence and in the bills of rights of state
constitutions. Thus the law of the land was judicially construed to mean
that no power was delegated to the legislature to invade the great natural
rights of the individual, and that where express limits were lacking implied
checks must be found to protect these natural rights.[20]
As a rule the appeals to due process of law, as a basis for limiting the
powers of the legislature, were quite different from the appeals to the same
ground for protection against arbitrary commitments without a trial or a
jury. In the first instance it was an appeal against the injustice of the
act in the hope that the legislature itself would repeal the act (only
rarely was the suggestion made that such an act was void), whereas in the
second it was expected that the courts would preserve and protect the
individual from an improper commitment or illegal procedure. Formerly
reference to due process of law was similar to the claim now occasionally
made in England that an act would be unconstitutional because contrary to
the well-known and historic political principles of the past.
It remained to give somewhat more definite content to the law of the land or
to due process of law than generality and equality in the operation of the
laws. The developing concept of protecting vested rights on the ground of
implied limitations on legislative powers had already prepared the way for
such a restatement and state justices soon took advantage of the
opportunities afforded.[21] But the concept of due process of law as
involving general limitations on legislative powers and as embodying a
doctrine of natural and inalienable rights beyond governmental authority was
not formulated as an effective check on legislative powers until the middle
of the nineteenth century. It was at this time that the principle was being
formulated by the justices that the state constitutions were not so much
grants of specific powers as limitations on the exercise of general
powers.[22]
The enormous losses entailed in building canals and supporting other
internal improvements had begun to undermine the former confidence in
legislative bodies. By 1856 the courts of New York found the due process of
law clause a convenient term to check what was then regarded as a
legislative movement to interfere with property rights. Holding invalid an
act for the more effectual protection of the property of married women for
the reason that the people never delegated to the legislature the power to
transfer to another the vested rights of property legally acquired by a
citizen, Justice Mason said:
I maintain, therefore, that the security of the citizen against
such arbitrary legislation rests upon the broader and more
solid ground of natural rights, and is not wholly dependent
upon those negatives upon the legislative formerly contained
in the constitution. It can never be admitted as a just
attribute of sovereignty in a government, to take the
property of one citizen and bestow it upon another. The
exercise of such a power is incompatible with the nature and
object of all government and is destructive of the great end
and aim for which government is instituted, and is subversive
of the fundamental principles upon which all free
governments are organized.[23]
Later a distinction was drawn between what was regarded as destruction and
regulation by statute, and the legislature was denied the power to destroy
property rights.[24] And due process of law was held to require procedure
under a pre-existing rule of conduct by which rights were lawfully acquired
and interference with these rights was prevented except by a trial and
judgment according to the procedure of the common law.[25]
Some milestones had been passed in giving new life and vigor to this portion
of "decrepit Magna Carta." The "law of the land" now being changed to the
more common term "due process of law" had in a few instances been applied as
a general limitation on legislative powers. It had been made a device to
retain a portion of the concept of natural and inalienable rights. And it
had been used as a weapon to wage battle against the political liberals or
radicals who were thought to be endangering property rights. So pliable a
concept was likely to be made use of when economic and political conditions
led conservative leaders to make strenuous efforts to place confines about
the legislative domains. But at the opening of the Civil War a mere
beginning had been made in the efforts to give definiteness of content to
due process of law.[26]
3. Cooley's Efforts to extend the Meaning of Due Process of Law. The vague
and indefinite meaning of the term "due process of law" which prevailed
prior to the Civil War was noted by Thomas M. Cooley.[27] After quoting a
few of the cases in which the term was discussed, Cooley fell back on the
general language of Daniel Webster in his argument in the Dartmouth College
Case.[28] In accord with the purpose of the author as stated in his preface,
to establish limitations upon the legislative authority independent of the
specific restrictions imposed by state constitutions,[29] Judge Cooley aimed
to give greater scope to the term "law of the land." For this purpose he
quoted approvingly the rhetorical statement of Justice Johnson, containing
the not uncommon inaccurate rendering of the meaning of the term "law of the
land": "after volumes spoken and written with a view to their exposition,
the good sense of mankind has at length settled down to this: that they were
intended to secure the individual from the arbitrary exercise of the powers
of government unrestrained by the established principles of private right
and distributive justice."[30] Referring to the frequent statements of the
justices that they could refuse to enforce a legislative act only when in
conflict with some express provision of the constitution, Cooley suggests
that "It does not follow, however, that in every case the courts, before
they can set aside a law as invalid, must be able to find in the
constitution some specific inhibition which has been disregarded, or some
express command which has been disobeyed." And then he indicates various
means by which legislative acts may be regarded as invalid, if contrary to
the general spirit, purposes, and principles of constitutional government.
In his volume on Constitutional Limitations and in his work on the Law of
Taxation he gave formulas for construing implied restrictions on
legislatures. Just as Coke interpolated his ideas of limitations on the King
and Parliament into common law decisions, so Cooley injected his own
theories of desirable limits on legislative action into his commentaries on
constitutional law. As the first attempt of an American text writer to
discuss due process of law Judge Cooley's treatise had an immediate effect
upon the decisions of the courts which were encouraged from many quarters to
set greater limits to the exercise of legislative powers.
4. Economic and Legal Bases for a Revival of Natural Law Thinking. The
doctrines of inalienable rights and of fundamental principles beyond
legislative control served a useful purpose in revolutionary times as a
higher law sanction for a revolt against constituted authority. Most
reformers in attacking an established order fall back on a higher law or
superior rules for guidance. These same doctrines suited well the
eighteenth-century laissez faire theories and thus were accepted by many who
with Thomas Jefferson thought "that government best which governed least."
But as a ground for revolution and as a check on all governmental powers
fundamental principles and inalienable rights were slowly being dissipated
by the absorbing tendencies of popular control of all manner of public
affairs characteristic of revolutionary and early state legislatures. It was
then that Alexander Hamilton, John Marshall, and Joseph Story revived the
higher law doctrine to check the legislative onslaughts on property,
contracts, and vested rights generally. The tide of Jacksonian democracy,
which brooked little interference with the voice of the people, narrowed
these incipient checks to a relatively small circle of governmental powers.
But firm believers in the necessity of limiting legislatures, such as
Chancellor Kent and Judge Cooley, soon took up the higher law philosophy for
the protection of vested rights and through judicial decisions as well as
their writings gave credence to this philosophy. It is a significant fact
that Kent and Story, who practically formulated an American common law, lost
no opportunity to advocate the protection of vested rights both
constitutionally and extra-constitutionally. Judge Cooley through his
Constitutional Limitations fostered the same view. Thus a triumvirate of
three great jurists and commentators was added to those conservative leaders
who saw relief from legislative radicalism only in courts strengthened in
their position by the authority to declare legislative acts void and aided
by both express and implied limitations on legislative powers.
Judge Cooley became the most effective advocate of superior principles
limiting all legislation. Reading the signs of the time favoring extensive
checks on what appeared to the conservative classes as unwarranted
interferences by legislatures in personal and private affairs, he laid down
as a dogma based on the higher law philosophy broad principles of implied
limitations on legislatures and executives for the protection of private and
personal rights. The decade in which Cooley's Constitutional Limitations
appeared, marked the confirmation of the practice of according judicial
protection to vested rights against legislative action, and of the
interpretation of implied limitations on legislatures as indispensable
features of American constitutional law.
The extension of the meaning and application of the term "due process of
law" illustrates concretely the effect of changing economic conditions and
political thought upon the courts and judicial opinions. Incipient efforts
to establish implied limits on legislatures through the vested rights
doctrine or through the due process of law clause, for a period of nearly
fifty years, made little headway against the common belief in and practice
of legislative supremacy, and the tendency to extend the scope of
legislative powers. The decades from 1830 to 1850 saw a notable movement in
the direction of the extension of democratic principles. It was in this
decade that many of the restrictions on suffrage were removed, and the
tendency was to adopt universal manhood suffrage. Terms of officers were
shortened, and the executive and judicial positions of the states were in
many instances made elective. The survivors of the old Federalists, who had
originated the vested rights doctrine, with their principles transformed
into a new Federalism, and conservative leaders generally, resisted this
movement towards democracy. Being unable to prevent its spread, they became
confirmed in the belief that some check had to be placed upon the seat of
popular control, the legislature.
Renewed activities on the part of leaders account in a measure at least for
the efforts to revise and extend the meaning of due process of law, from
1830 to 1842. Conservative opinion, however, was unable to place any special
checks upon the democratic movement[31] until after the panic of 1837, and
not then in a serious way until the great extension of the system of
internal improvements often supported by state aid had resulted in many
failures and in the repudiation of the debts of various states. The tendency
of the legislatures to vote the public funds for these private enterprises,
though as a rule supported by a preponderant public sentiment, and
frequently approved by an almost unanimous popular vote, increased the fears
of those who saw only ruin in the progressive principles of democracy;
especially was this true when the business projects failed and involved the
state and local governments in great financial losses. There was as a result
widespread discontent among the propertied classes who now demanded greater
checks upon the rule of the people. A more determined effort was made,
therefore, both by the placing of express limitations on legislatures in new
constitutions and by bringing pressure to bear upon the courts, to secure
checks upon legislative action which might affect private contract or
property rights or to prevent the majority from "an oppressive and reckless
use of power."[32] The doctrine of natural rights and the insistence upon
inherent limitations against arbitrary government, therefore, were again
reasserted, and renewed efforts were made to add to the content and
significance of the term "due process of law" to place some much-desired
limits to the rule of the majority.
In the extension of the meaning of due process of law and in the development
of the doctrine of protecting vested rights, an effective means was devised
to guide and restrict the rule of the majority in the efforts to extend
governmental regulation into the field of social and political affairs. New
and varied applications of the judicial check based on implied restrictions
were soon found to give legal sanction to conservative and reactionary
principles in state and federal governments. These principles, which were
championed by those who wished to check the tendency to regulate economic
and social life, were fostered by the economic doctrine of laissez faire,
the dominant philosophy of a pioneer individualism.[33] To support laissez
faire principles the requirements of public purpose for taxation and public
use for eminent domain were exalted into rigid standards whose application
rested primarily with the judicial conscience. Also, the doctrine that there
are "fundamental principles" beyond legislative authority was revived and
due process of law was applied with even greater latitude so as to render
invalid all governmental acts considered by judges to be unfair or
arbitrary. Continuing this method of interpretation of higher law principles
and adjusting it to meet some of the rapidly changing industrial conditions,
the courts found additional implied limitations upon legislative powers and
completed the main structure of the modern American concept of due process
of law in the period from 1870 to 1895.
Due process of law, then, was being transformed from its customary meaning
in England, where it referred to procedure in accordance with a regularly
enacted law, to a process which the courts regarded as "due" and, therefore,
reasonable, or not unfair -- a modernized version of natural law.
5. Due Process of Law made an Agency for the Maintenance of Reactionary
Tendencies. The appearance of Cooley's Constitutional Limitations along with
certain economic and political conditions about this time marked the
beginning of a new development in American constitutional law. However, the
main lines of this development were foreshadowed in the secure establishment
of the doctrine of judicial review of legislation, in the growing acceptance
of the idea of protecting vested rights under express and implied
constitutional limits, and, in the conversion of the "law of the land"
phrase into a general limitation on legislative powers. But the application
of all of the above principles had resulted in the courts' declaring void
but few laws and had affected to a relatively slight degree the trend of
political affairs. A judicial review of legislation differentiated in any
marked degree from a similar practice in other countries remained in large
part to be developed, though the courts of New York and Massachusetts had
taken some steps toward inaugurating a new point of view. This era was
characterized by renewed applications of the doctrine of protecting vested
rights and of the due process clause as a guarantee of individual rights.
Certain other implied restrictions on legislatures which had been slowly
emerging were now vigorously applied. These restrictions were evolved by
implications from the doctrine of natural and inalienable rights, from the
due process of law clause, and from the requirement that the property of the
individual could be taken under the power of eminent domain only with the
granting of just compensation.
Constitutions were, as a rule, silent as to the taking of property except
under the power of eminent domain and legislatures dealt rather freely with
property rights short of confiscation. But the courts, inclined to discover
additional limits on legislatures, beyond the express provisions of the
written constitutions, originated the doctrine of public purpose as a
requirement for taxation[34] and extended the application of the principle
of public use for eminent domain proceedings, whether constitutions included
this requirement or not.
The financial activities of the states prior to 1830 were quite limited,[35]
but a change came when the states began to embark in commercial enterprises
and particularly in the improvement of the system of transportation by
building canals, and when state indebtedness was very greatly increased. "In
catering to the clamor of the different interests of their respective
states, eighteen of them had authorized the issue of $108,223,808 of stock
in the three and one-half years between 1835 and 1838."[36] After millions
had been spent in building canals and in various other public improvements,
which were expected to bring large returns to the state treasuries, but
which instead involved all of the states in burdensome debts that increasing
taxation failed to meet, the propriety of lending the state's credit to
private corporations and of taxing for this purpose was questioned.[37]
Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and other states incurred debts far beyond
their ability to pay.[38] In 1842, when the panic of 1837 had left the
country in a condition of economic paralysis, constitutional restrictions on
the states' power to borrow money and to lend its credit to private
corporations were adopted, and by 1857 most of the state constitutions
contained such provisions.[39]
But when another wave of prosperity came in the fifties, the way was still
open for the legislatures to authorize cities, counties, and towns upon a
popular vote to lend money to public and private enterprises and another
period of reckless borrowing followed. Money was freely voted and lavishly
spent on such projects as railways, canals, manufactories, banks, and
steamship lines.[40] When the question as to the right of the legislatures
to authorize localities to tax for these purposes was first raised, the
courts generally upheld the legislative power.[41] The panic of 1857 proved
as disastrous to the ventures of the localities as did the panic of 1837 to
the earlier speculative efforts of the states. A reaction followed which
seriously affected American constitutional law. Efforts were begun to place
greater restrictions on legislative authority in the state constitutions and
a persistent sentiment was fostered that the doctrine of implied limitations
ought to be applied to check the expenditure of public money for private or
quasi-public enterprises.[42]
The growth of this sentiment and its reflection in court decisions is
illustrated in the opinion of Chief Justice John F. Dillon of Iowa, who
advocated judicial construction of implied limits on legislatures. When the
act of the legislature authorizing local government units to aid in building
railroads came before the supreme court of Iowa, Chief Justice Dillon,
speaking for the majority of the court, reviewed the history of this
controversy in the states.[43] Referring to a previous decision holding such
an act valid,[44] he said the majority of the court there rendered a wrong
judgment and a most unfortunate mistake was made, for counties and cities
throughout the state, acting under the sanction of that decision, incurred
debts amounting to several millions of dollars, and in many cases, exceeding
their ability to pay. "There is no legislative power," said Judge Dillon,
"to endow municipal corporations with the authority to subscribe to the
stock of a railroad company and to levy a tax to pay therefor."[45]
On the basis of the inalienable rights clause of the bill of rights, the due
process of law and eminent domain provisions of the state constitution,
Chief Justice Dillon declared that the legislature cannot touch the property
of the citizen for a private use even if it does make compensation.[46] He
took occasion to condemn those who enunciated the principle of arbitrary and
despotic powers in legislatures,[47] and argued extensively for the doctrine
that the legislature can tax only for a public purpose.[48]
Justice Cole took issue with the majority of the court in his dissenting
opinion. He denied that the courts had any authority to declare an act of
the legislature void except when in direct conflict with the terms of the
written constitution. The courts of Iowa, in previous cases, he claimed, had
not denied power to the legislature to authorize cities and counties to
appropriate money to railroads but had held instead that the legislature had
not passed a law authorizing their issue. This issue, he continued, had been
before the courts in at least twenty-one other states, and in every instance
the legislative power had been affirmed. "If the views of the majority are
sound," said he, "then it is certainly true that our constitution does not
define the powers of the respective departments of our government, but
leaves them to the necessarily uncertain and ever-changing measurement of
judicial discretion."[49]
Though Judge Dillon's opinion ran counter to the decisions of the highest
courts in more than twenty states and was repudiated as an unsound
constitutional doctrine by the Supreme Court of the United States,[50] he
expressed the confident conviction that the reaction under way would soon
lead to the approval of his views.
The contention that there could be no taxation for a private purpose under
the conditions announced by Judge Dillon was not regarded as a principle of
constitutional interpretation in the early part of the nineteenth
century[51] but the courts were gradually prevailed on to apply a principle
to taxation somewhat similar to that adopted for eminent domain proceedings.
That taxation could be for a public purpose only seems to have been
announced particularly in the railway aid and military bounty cases.[52]
Prior to 1870, the doctrine was generally based, not upon any provision of
the constitution, but upon an extra-constitutional basis, falling back upon
the theory of natural rights and the inherent limitations on
legislatures.[53] Judge Cooley stated as a principle of law the suggestion
by the justices in a few state cases that
Taxation having for its only legitimate object the raising of
money for public purposes, and the proper needs of
government, the exaction of moneys from the citizens for
other purposes is not a proper exercise of this power and
must therefore be unauthorized.... An unlimited power to
make any and everything lawful which the legislature might
see fit to call taxation would be, when plainly stated, an
unlimited power to plunder the citizen.
To check such extortion, Judge Cooley suggested that the courts should
interfere.[54] Citations to and approval of this dogmatic statement soon
appeared in the opinions of the state courts holding that to tax for a
private purpose was not among the powers conferred upon the legislature.[55]
Though Judge Dillon's theory of implied limitations was repudiated in Iowa
and in a number of decisions by the United States Supreme Court, and though
slow progress was made in construing an implied limit on the taxing power by
a public purpose principle, Cooley did not hesitate to put his own theories
into practice. Two years after the appearance of his Constitutional
Limitations, as justice of the supreme court of Michigan, he reiterated the
views of his text. Holding an act of the legislature void which authorized
cities and towns to tax for the purpose of purchasing stock in railway
companies, he wrote:
It is conceded, nevertheless, that there are certain limitations
upon this power, not prescribed in express terms by any
constitutional provision, but inherent in the subject itself,
which attend its exercise under all circumstances, and which
are as inflexible and absolute in their restraints as if directly
imposed in the most positive form of words.[56]
Three fundamental maxims of taxation were laid down as of universal
application, of which public purpose was placed first. It is only when these
maxims are observed, thought Justice Cooley, that "the legislative
department is exercising an authority over the subject which it has received
from the people."[57]
From 1870 to 1880 constitutional provisions were enacted which prevented
cities, counties, and towns from granting aid to private enterprises and
from levying taxes for such purposes.[58] The decision of Justice Cooley
accomplished the object of a constitutional provision against a state
subsidy in Michigan. But the public purpose principle as an implied
limitation had much greater effect on future legislative policies.
Originally defined as a general and universal principle of taxation, Cooley
developed the principle with considerable detail in his work on the Law of
Taxation, which was published in 1879.[59]
"All definitions of taxation," he contended, "imply that it is to be imposed
only for public purposes, and whatever difference of opinion may exist
regarding the admissibility of taxation in particular cases, the fundamental
requirement, that the purpose must be public, will be conceded on all
sides."[60[
The determination in the first instance of what are public purposes devolves
upon the legislative department but the decision of the legislative
department is not conclusive, for "an unlimited power in the legislature to
make any and everything lawful which it might see fit to call taxation,
would, when plainly stated, be an unlimited power to plunder the citizen."
To support this doctrine, Cooley cited a few decisions of the courts of
Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Maine, with his own decision in People v.
Salem and the views of Judge Dillon in Hanson v. Vernon.[61] Then follows an
extensive quotation from the dictum of Justice Miller in the case of Loan
Association v. Topeka.[62]
The change in the attitude of the courts in the process of developing
implied limitations on legislative authority is shown clearly in New York,
where the courts rejected the principle that taxes must be for a public
purpose only,[63] but twenty years later, following the reasoning of
Chancellor Kent and of Judge Cooley, definitely adopted the public purpose
principle as a limitation upon the taxing power of the legislature.[64]
By 1880 the various ramifications of the extensive doctrine of public
purpose as a requirement for taxation were clearly formulated and henceforth
the courts followed Cooley and Dillon and gradually added distinctions which
made of public purpose with respect to taxation one of the most effective
implied limitations on legislative powers.[65]
Constitutions rather generally placed restrictions on the exercise of
eminent domain, such as the requirement of public use and just compensation.
But independent of such constitutional provisions and supplementary thereto
arose a judicially construed limitation on such proceedings.
Chancellor Kent, who was one of the leaders in formulating the doctrine of
protecting vested rights by means of implied restrictions on legislatures,
it was observed, was among the first to state the special limitation as to
the purpose of the power of eminent domain. In the case of Gardner v.
Newburgh,[66] he held that in the absence of a constitutional provision for
the purpose compensation was due the owner for property taken or damaged,
and that the power of eminent domain could be exercised for public purposes
only. Later he confirmed these views in his Commentaries. When New York
adopted the constitution of 1821, a provision requiring just compensation
and a public purpose was inserted as one of the requisites for eminent
domain proceedings.[67]
About a decade later, the New York courts, considering a statute enacted
more than twenty years earlier, were called upon to decide whether property
could be condemned in excess of the amount actually needed for public
purposes. It was observed that "the constitution, by authorizing the
appropriation of private property to public use, impliedly declares that
private property shall not be taken from one and applied to the use of
another. It is in violation of natural right, and if not a violation of the
letter of the constitution, it is of its spirit, and cannot be
supported."[68] Thus the practice of excess condemnation of property beyond
the actual requirements for the public needs was held to be inhibited
through implication from the eminent domain clauses of the state
constitutions.[69] For many years no further attempts were made to authorize
excess condemnation of property and then adverse decisions compelled the
states to resort to the amending process.[70]
Kent's doctrines and the theories of the New York justices had slight effect
upon eminent domain proceedings, prior to 1870. Compensation was confined as
a requirement by the courts to cases of actual taking, including all direct
physical injuries to property,[71] and, in determining the value of the land
actually taken, it was held that elements of special benefit to the part of
the land not taken could be set off against the value of the part taken.[72]
With the return to conservative doctrines which followed the Civil War
courts began to insist that compensation must be given for damages resulting
from a taking as well as for the value of the land actually taken, that it
was improper to set off special benefits to the land not taken, and to
review with careful scrutiny what the legislatures declared to be a public
use.[73]
Cooley again gave effective expression to Kent's views and to the principles
stated somewhat provisionally by some state supreme court justices when he
wrote:
There is no rule or principle known to our system under
which private property can be taken from one man and
transferred to another for the private use and benefit of such
other person, whether by general laws or special enactment.
The purpose must be public, and must have reference to the
needs of the government. No reason of general policy will
be sufficient to protect such transfers where they operate
upon existing vested rights.[74]
This dogmatic statement by one who frankly believed in judicial construction
of implied limitations on legislatures, was soon reflected in the opinions
of state and federal justices.
An implied limitation, thus first formulated by the state courts, was
subsequently adopted by the Supreme Court, when it was held that "the taking
by a state of private property of one person or corporation without the
owner's consent, for private use of another, is not due process of law, and
is a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment."[75] Justice Harlan declared
that the necessity for compensation for property taken for a public use was
"an affirmance of the great doctrine established by the common law for the
protection of private property. It is founded in natural equity, and is laid
down by jurists as a principle of universal law. Indeed, in a free
government, almost all other rights become worthless if the government
possesses the uncontrollable power over the private fortune of the every-day
citizen."[76]
State and federal courts combined in assuming that the constitutional
prohibitions against the taking of private property through eminent domain
proceedings except for public purposes and without just compensation
operated, by necessary implication to prevent the taking of private
property for private use, with or without compensation. And the
limitations thus placed upon eminent domain through the adoption of the
public use principle and its acceptance as one of the features of the due
process clause, added materially to the extent of the vested rights placed
beyond legislative control.[77]
The extensive application of public purpose or public use as a limitation
upon legislative powers, was therefore applied both to taxation and to
eminent domain. As in the case of other implied limitations, the public
purpose doctrine, so far as the federal law is concerned, was absorbed in
the due process of law requirement. In defining the term "due process of
law" in relation to the protection of property rights, Justice Brewer,
following the opinion of Justice Miller,[78] held that "this power to take
private property reaches back of all constitutional provisions; and it seems
to have been considered a settled principle of universal law that the right
to compensation is an incident to the exercise of that power."[79] This
principle is now regarded as one of the fundamental requirements of due
process of law under the Fifth Amendment, though it rests now as it always
has both upon express constitutional provisions and upon an
extra-constitutional basis, or upon limitations growing out "of the
essential nature of all free governments."[80]
When the conservative reaction was at its height numerous express
constitutional restrictions upon the powers of state legislatures to take
private property either by taxation or by eminent domain were adopted.
But to the leaders of this reaction it was more important to have a flexible
standard for the courts to use as a test of the validity of new legislative
projects affecting private rights of property. The doctrines of public use
and public purpose filled a gap in which the former doctrine of protecting
vested rights by construing implied limitations on legislatures and the
interpretation of the concept "due process of law" as a general restriction
on legislative powers had so far failed to give the desired protection.
Foreign countries likewise require, as a rule, that the power of the
expropriation of private property be exercised only for a public use. The
determination of what is for a public use rests with the legislature,
however, and there is generally no review of this determination by the
courts. It is usual also to have the requirement that just compensation be
awarded and the intervention of the judiciary becomes legitimate only when
it comes to fixing the amount of compensation.[81] The French Civil Code[82]
contains a representative provision that no one's property shall be taken
except for a public use, and for a just and preliminary indemnity. In
practice the legislature defines what is for a public use[83] and the
meaning of the term has been considerably extended by a recent act. The
legislature has also limited the powers of the jury or committee of award in
determining the compensation to be awarded.[84]
"The whole learning as to eminent domain," says Justice Riddell, "is of no
interest in Canada. The legislature may, indeed, direct compensation to be
paid; but that is in no sense necessary."[85] But in Canada as in England,
where the legislatures can, if they so choose, take private property without
compensation, such power is very seldom exercised. It was the result of a
long period of the growth of legal ideas and of a combination of
extraordinary economic and political conditions that turned American
constitutional law in this field along lines different from the prevailing
practice of the world.
The federal Constitution and a number of early state constitutions were
formed and put into effect on the wave of a conservative reaction from the
radical and democratic doctrines of the revolutionary period.[86] When the
Federalist party became the leader of this conservative movement it
championed the doctrine of judicial review of legislative enactments, the
theory of protecting vested rights both by express and implied limitations
on legislatures, and the principle of placing implied limitations on
legislatures to protect individual rights and to preserve minority
privileges as against the dangers of majority rule. The wave of Jeffersonian
democracy removed some of the restrictions which were in process of
formation under Federalist auspices and others were either eliminated or
modified when the frontier democracy of the West triumphed in the
inauguration of the Jacksonian era.[87] But the conservative spirit as
fostered by such men as Alexander Hamilton, John Marshall, Joseph Story,
Chancellor Kent, and Daniel Webster, never ceased to have a powerful and
directive influence on American political affairs. From 1830 to 1850, when
democratic and liberal principles and practices seemed to be dominant in
American life, a new federalism and a new conservatism were in their
formative stage. It was at this time that a few justices revived the natural
law doctrines of European political philosophers and the higher law notions
of the Declaration of Independence and of the bills of rights of state
constitutions. Following leaders who advocated implied limits on legislative
powers, such as Coke, Kent, and Story, these judges, originally through
dicta, prepared a program for modern conservative policies and reactionary
tendencies, fostered, as was the earlier movement, on the conviction that
majority rule is dangerous and that representative assemblies are not to be
trusted. Not until the results of democratic rule along economic and
financial lines had turned out disastrously in the panics of 1837 and 1857
and in a continuous process of wasteful and extravagant expenditures which
the electorate had, as a rule, approved, did the exponents of the second
conservative reaction secure much of a following. When the unsettled
economic conditions and the high prices of the Civil War period, combined
with the speculative movement that followed, brought another disastrous
panic in 1873, public sentiment was prepared, not only to place more
definite express constitutional restrictions on legislatures, but also to
accept the now well-formulated doctrine of judicially construed implied
limitations on legislative powers,[88] favorable to individual privileges
and to property rights.
It was the background of inalienable rights which was used to sanction
Justice Cooley's dictum soon to be adopted as a fundamental principle of
constitutional interpretation, namely, "that there are on all sides definite
limitations which circumscribe the legislative authority, aside from the
specific restrictions which the people impose by their constitutions."
Justices Dillon, Miller, and Cooley gave credence to the belief that implied
limits must be placed on legislatures in respect to the control over
property and contracts and that the sanction for these limits may, if
necessary, be founded on the inalienable rights clause of the bill of
rights. There is a noteworthy similarity between the reasoning of these
justices and that of Justice Chase in Calder v. Bull when he first advocated
the doctrine of implied limitations based upon natural rights and upon the
principles of a free republican government. But suggestions were already at
hand to direct the natural rights thinking into other channels and to give
to it a semblance of constitutional sanctity in the emerging meaning of "due
process of law." Before the transition was made there was a recurrence to
the principles of the Declaration of Independence as a sanction for natural
rights which were inalienable.
The Supreme Court of the United States in a gradual change of opinion from
1873 to 1895 led the conservative movement, and through its prestige gave it
an added impetus in the state courts. When the peculiar economic and
political conditions of the United States were favorable to the laissez
faire and individualistic theories of Adam Smith and Ricardo which were
prevalent in England and in America in the eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries, Justices Field and Peckham, inclined toward democratic political
principles, joined with the proponents of conservative policies, such as
Justices Brewer and Harlan, to establish even greater limits on the role of
legislative action than the most extreme advocates of the principles of the
original Federalism could have imagined.[89] It is necessary then to
consider the adoption of the principles of conservatism and reaction by the
federal courts and the further extension of these principles by the state
courts.[90]
1. For a more extensive account see W. S. McKechnie, Magna Carta (New York,
1915); C. H. McIlwain, "Due Process of Law in Magna Carta," Columbia Law
Review, XIV (January, 1914), 27; Rodney L. Mott, Due Process of Law
(Indianapolis, 1926); Malden, Magna Carta Commemoration Essays (London,
1917).
2. Coke's Institutes, II, 45-50; McIlwain, The Sigh Court of Parliament and
its Supremacy, pp. 31 ff.; Justice Curtis in Murray's Lessee v. Hoboken Land
and Improvement Co., 18 How. 272, 276 (1855). For exaggerated claims
regarding the significance of Magna Carta as a fundamental law designed to
secure justice to all, consult Mott, op. cit., chap. 3.
3. "No subject shall be arrested, imprisoned, despoiled, or deprived of his
property, immunities or privileges, put out of the protection of the law,
exiled, or deprived of his life, liberty, or property but by the judgment
of his peers or the law of the land." Declaration of Rights, art. XII.
4. Cf. Edward S. Corwin, "The Doctrine of Due Process of Law before the
Civil War," Harvard Law Review, XXIV (March, 1911), 366, 370 ff. Story in
his Commentaries on the Constitution, published in 1833, gave the current
interpretation of the phrase "due process" that it "affirms the right of
trial according to the process and proceedings of the common law." Sec.
1789.
5. Charles M. Hough, "Due Process of Law -- Today," Harv. Law Rev., XXXII
(January, 1919), 218, 222 ff. Justice Hough says: "That all men of that day
had no conception of due process, other than a summary description of a
fairly tried action at law, is not asserted, but I do submit that reports
before the Civil War yield small evidence that there was any professional
conviction that it was more than that"; see also Francis W. Bird, "The
Evolution of Due Process of Law in the Decisions of the United States
Supreme Court," Col. Law Rev., XIII (January, 1913), 37, 44 ff.
6. State v. -- , 1 Hay. (N. Car.) 29, 31 (1794); per legem terrae. Attorney
General Haywood argued, was not intended "to restrain the legislature from
making the law of the land, but a declaration only that the people are to be
governed by no other than the law of the land." Cf. also Mayo v. Wilson, 1
N. H. 53 (1817), in which Chief Justice Richardson held that an arrest
without warrant had always been considered due process of law in England and
that "the makers of the constitution having adopted a phrase from Magna
Carta, the meaning of which in that instrument was so well known, must have
intended to have used it in the same sense in which it has always been
understood to have been used there." 56, 57. For a different interpretation
see argument in Trustees of the University v. Foy, 1 Murphy (N. Car., 1805)
58, 73 and opinion of Judge Locke.
7. Referring to the moral and emotional values of Magna Carta which appealed
to the popular imagination, McKechnie finds that "fortified as it had been
by the veneration of ages, it became a strongly entrenched position that the
enemies of arbitrary government could safely hold." "Magna Carta
(1215-1915)," Malden, Commemoration Essays, pp. 20, 21. See also Sir Paul
Vinogradoff, "Magna Carta Chapter 39," Commemoration Essays, p. 85; C. H.
McIlwain, "Due Process of Law in Magna Carta," Col. Law Rev., XIV (January,
1914), 26; G. B. Adams, Origin of the English Constitution (New Haven,
1920), pp. 242 ff.
8. Starting with the assumption that somewhat of the divine essence was
breathed into "due process of law" and that there is here involved
"phraseology of the purest gold mined under the stress of heated
constitutional crises, refined by the fire of violent revolutions, proved
by the acid test of centuries of struggle," a recent author sets out to
prove that due process of law was always designed to keep government from
straying into paths of arbitrariness and injustice. Thus imbued with the
will to believe, he finds, contrary to the weight of evidence and to the
mature judgments of both English and American scholars, that the phrase "the
law of the land" was from the beginning intended as a restraint on the
legislature as well as on the executive power, that a considerable number of
acts were declared void in England because contrary to Magna Carta as the
fundamental law, and that there was "a steady stream of dicta that statutes
which were contrary to common right and reason, the law of nature or the
common law were unenforceable." Mott, op. cit., pp. 42-48, 123, 135, 142,
143.
It is surprising to find how few precedents of this kind investigators have
discovered and these were given undue weight by those who desired to find
legal limits on royal authority. But Dr. Mott, feeling sure that Englishmen
prior to the American Revolution were well aware and confident that due
process of law was designed to prevent arbitrary governmental action, is
surprised to discover that no discussion of this device to keep government
in the paths of reason and of justice is to be found in the Federal
Convention at Philadelphia or in the debates on the constitution in the
states. Madison is credited with the assertion that due process of law as
inserted in the Fifth Amendment of the federal Constitution was intended to
limit the legislature but nearly a hundred years elapsed before this was
accepted by the courts. Again there was very little discussion of the
meaning of due process of law when this clause was inserted in the
Fourteenth Amendment as an extra guarantee to render effective the phrase
"equal protection of the laws." Since no one knew what due process of law
meant, it is concluded that it must have been intended to protect all
liberties. Ibid., p. 165.
The majority of text writers, it is noted, followed Justice Story in
defining due process of law as a protection to the criminal from arbitrary
arrest and imprisonment. With the exception of the opinions of Pomeroy and
Cooley in 1868, until the beginning of the twentieth century, authors dealt
only with the procedural phases of due process of law. Cooley is credited
with emphasizing the application of due process of law to taxation in 1876.
With such slow recognition of the significance of this term by statesmen,
text writers, and the public generally, how has due process of law come to
take a central place in American constitutional law? It was the "uncanny
intuition" of the justices in state and federal courts, we are told, which
discovered a new rôle for due process of law. Searching for "the inherent
elements of justice" applicable to all situations the judges extracted from
the vague terms of written charters a "latent and unsuspected" meaning which
conservatives and reactionaries alike were seeking -- an effective device to
check popular lawmaking and to resist arbitrary administrative procedure.
But even the justices were dilatory in finding the hidden meaning of due
process of law. Only a few of the state justices ventured to suggest
implications of the term beyond its well-known procedural implications.
9. A. N. Holcombe, State Government in the United States (New York, 1916),
pp. 47 ff.
10. For a suggestive analysis of the inconsistent positions taken by the
justices on this issue, consult Robert P. Reeder, "Constitutional and
Extra-Constitutional Restraints," University of Pennsylvania Law Review, LXI
(May, 1913), 441.
11. 3 Dallas 398 (1798).
12. 4 Conn. 209 (1822).
13. 7 Johns. 477 (1811).
14. North Carolina v. Foy, 2 Hay 310, 312; 5 N. Car. 57, 63 (1804). To the
contention that the law of the land clause of the bill of rights did not
impose restrictions on the legislature, Justice Locke replied: "It is
evident the framers of the Constitution intended the provision as a
restraint upon some branch of the government, either the executive,
legislative, or judicial. To suppose it applicable to the executive would be
absurd on account of the limited powers conferred on that officer; and from
the subjects enumerated in that clause, no danger could be apprehended from
the executive department, that being entrusted with the exercise of no
powers by which the principles thereby intended to be secured could be
affected. To apply it to the judiciary would, if possible, be still more
idle, if the legislature can make the 'law of the land.' For the judiciary
are only to expound and enforce the law, and have no discretionary powers
enabling them to judge of the propriety or impropriety of laws.
They are bound, whether agreeable to their ideas of justice or not, to carry
into effect the acts of the legislature as far as they are binding or do not
contravene the Constitution. If, then, this clause is applicable to the
legislature alone, and was intended as a restraint on their acts (and to
presume otherwise is to render this article a dead letter), let us next
inquire what will be the operation which this clause will or ought to have
on the present question. It seems to us to warrant a belief that members of
a corporation as well as individuals shall not be so deprived of their
liberties or properties, unless by a trial by jury in a court of justice,
according to the known and established rules of decision derived from the
common law and such acts of the legislature as are consistent with the
Constitution."
Due process of law was held to require, for the transfer of a freehold, a
trial by jury in Bowman v. Middleton, 1 Bay (S. Car.) 252 (1792), and an act
of the North Carolina legislature was held void for attempting to prevent a
judicial settlement of property rights. Bayard v. Singleton, 1 Martin 48
(1787).
See comments of Justice Waties by way of dictum giving a similar
interpretation of lex terrae and suggesting that this phrase was intended
"to become an effectual bar to the innovations of the legislature." Zylstra
v. Corporation of Charleston, 1 Bay 382, 392 (1794).
15. For more than thirty years after due process of law was introduced into
the state constitutions there were few cases interpreting the phrase and no
attempt to define it. See Mott, op. cit., p. 192.
16. Holden v. James, 11 Mass. 396, 405.
17. Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 4 Wheat. 518, 581 (1819). Webster
observed:
"By the law of the land is most clearly intended the general law; a law
which hears before it condemns, which proceeds upon inquiry, and renders
judgment only after trial. The meaning is, that every citizen shall hold his
life, liberty, property, and immunities, under the protection of the general
rules which govern society. Everything which may pass under the form of an
enactment, is not, therefore, to be considered the law of the land."
18. In Bank of State v. Cooper, Justice Green said: "Constitutions are only
intended to secure the rights of the minorities.... If the law be general in
its operation, affecting all alike, the minority are safe, because the
majority, who make the law, are operated on by it equally with the others."
2 Yerg. (Tenn.) 509, 605, 606 (1831). See also Jones' Heirs v. Perry, 10
Yerg. 58, 71, 72 (1836). For dicta in early cases to the effect that due
process of law was intended to limit legislative action, see Mott, op. cit.,
pp. 192 ff.
Chief Justice Skinner, holding void an act releasing a debtor imprisoned on
execution, said: "An act conferring upon any one citizen privileges to the
prejudice of another, and which is not applicable to others, in like
circumstances ... does not enter into the idea of municipal law, having no
relation to the community in general." Ward v. Barnard, 1 Aikens (Vt.) 120,
128 (1825). See reference to the fact that many acts of this kind had been
passed by the legislature and had been enforced without protests. Justice
Catron, in upholding a special act of the legislature prescribing the mode
by which holders of notes might on refusal to pay same recover judgment,
referred to the law of the land as requiring "a general public law, equally
binding upon every member of the community under similar circumstances." Van
Zandt v. Waddell, 2 Yerg. (Tenn.) 260, 270, 271 (1829); also. Wally v.
Kennedy, 2 Yerg. 554, 557 (1831) and Dale "Implied Limitations upon
Legislative Powers," American Bar Association Reports, XXIV (1901), 294,
315-319.
19. Hoke v. Henderson, 15 N. Car. 1, 15 (1833); also comments of Justice
Peck in Officer v. Young, 5 Yerg. 320, 321 (1833).
20. Bank of State v. Cooper, 2 Yerg. 599, 603 (1831). "There are," said
Justice Green, "eternal principles of justice which no government has a
right to disregard. It does not follow, therefore, because there may be no
restriction in the constitution prohibiting a particular act of the
legislature, that such act is therefore constitutional. Some acts, although
not expressly forbidden, may be against the plain and obvious dictates of
reason. 'The common law,' says Lord Coke [8 Coke, 118], 'adjudgeth a statute
so far void.'"
The Alabama court, holding void an act prescribing for public officers and
attorneys an oath against duelling, said that the declaration of rights was
the governing and controlling feature of the constitution and all powers of
the legislature were to be expounded and their operation extended or
restrained with reference to it. Quoting the provision of the bill of
rights that "This enumeration of certain rights shall not be construed to
deny or disparage others retained by the people; and to guard against any
encroachment on the rights retained, or any transgression of the high powers
herein delegated, we declare, that every thing in this article is excepted
out of the general powers of government, and shall forever remain inviolate,
and that all laws contrary thereto are void," Justice Ormond claimed that by
this language the courts were authorized to declare void any act which was
repugnant to natural justice and equity. Hence, "any act of the legislature
which violates any of these asserted rights, or which intrenches on any of
these great principles of civil liberty, or the inherent rights of man,
though not enumerated, shall be void." In re Dorsey, 7 Porter (Ala.) 293,
377, 378 (1838). Due process of law was intended "as a safeguard against the
encroachment upon these inherent rights of the people by Congress or the
state legislatures." Justice Dickerson in State v. Doherty, 60 Me. 504, 509
(1872).
21. The "law of the land" means "the common law and the statute law existing
in this state at the adoption of our constitution. Altogether they
constitute the body of law, prescribing the course of justice to which a
free man is to be considered amenable, in all time to come." Justice O'Neall
in State v. Simons, 2 Spears 761, 767 (1844); also Justice Bronson in Taylor
v. Porter, 4 Hill 140, 146 (1843).
22. Justice Gilchrist in Concord R. R. Co. v. Greeley, 17 N. H. 47, 54
(1845); see also Sill v. Coming, 15 N. Y. 297, 303 (1857).
23. White v. White, 5 Barb. 474, 484, 485 (1849).
24. Wynehamer v. New York, 13 N. Y. 378 (1856), Justice Comstock, profiting
by the opinions of Chief Justice Bronson in Taylor v. Porter and Chief
Justice Ruffin in Hoke v. Henderson, said: "The better and larger definition
of due process of law is, that it means law in its regular course of
administration through courts of justice.... It is plain, therefore, both
upon principle and authority, that these constitutional safeguards, in all
cases, require a judicial investigation, not to be governed by a law
specially enacted to take away and destroy existing rights, but confined to
the question whether, under the pre-existing rule of conduct, the right in
controversy has been lawfully acquired and is lawfully possessed." Ibid.,
395. See dissenting opinions of Justices T. A. Johnson, Wright, and
Mitchell, who objected to setting limits to legislative power "upon any
fanciful theory of higher law or first principles of natural right outside
of the constitution." Ibid., 453.
25. Taylor v. Porter, 4 Hill 140 (1843); Wynehamer 11. State, 13 N. Y. 378
(1856). When the legislature of Pennsylvania passed an act to order a sale
of property contrary to the terms of a will, the supreme court held the act
invalid. Referring to the "law of the land" provision, Justice Coulter said,
"these clauses address themselves to the common sense of the people, and
ought not to be filed away by legal subtleties. They have their foundations
in natural justice; and, without their pervading efficacy, other rights
would be useless.... If property is subject to the caprice of an annual
assemblage of legislators acting tumultuously, and without rule or
precedent, and without hearing the party, stability in property will cease,
and justice be at an end." Ervin's Appeal, 16 Penn. St. 256, 263 (1851).
26. Cf. dictum of Justice Jenkins that the principle of implied limitations
was applicable in the interpretation of legislative powers under the
Southern Confederacy. Jeffers v. Fair, 33 Ga. 347, 367 (1862).
27. Cf. the first edition of his work on Constitutional Limitations (1868),
p. 353.
28. Cf supra, p 112.
29. The avowed object of rendering aid in the development of implied
limitations on legislatures was frankly stated by Cooley in the preface to
the first edition: "In these pages the author has faithfully endeavored to
state the law as it has been settled by the authorities, rather than to
present his own views. At the same time he will not attempt to deny -- what
will probably be sufficiently apparent -- that he has written in full
sympathy with all those restraints which the caution of the fathers has
imposed upon the exercise of the powers of government, and with greater
faith in the checks and balances of our republican system, and in correct
conclusions by the general public sentiment, than in a judicious, prudent,
and just exercise of unbridled authority by any one man or body of men,
whether sitting as a legislature or as a court. In this sympathy and faith
he has written of jury trial and the other safeguards to personal liberty,
of liberty of the press, and of vested rights; and he has also endeavored to
point out that there are on all sides definite limitations which
circumscribe the legislative authority, aside from the specific restrictions
which the people impose by their constitutions," Constitutional Limitations
(1st ed.), p. iv. (Italics by the writer.)
30. Bank of Columbia v. Oakley, 4 Wheat. 235, 244 (1819).
31. "The wishes and opinions of the minority must yield to those of the
majority," said Chief Justice Marshall in Talbot v. Dent, 9 B. Mon. (Ky.)
526, 537 (1849) Cf. for similar opinions Goddin v. Crump, etc., 8 Leigh
(Va.) 120 (1837), and the City of Bridgeport v. Housatonic Railroad Co., 15
Conn. 475 (1843).
32. C. J. Bigelow in Hood v. Lynn, 1 Allen (Mass.) 103, 104 (1861). A
representative example of this method of reasoning was the frank declaration
of Justice Butler, who in reviewing a retrospective law and finding no
inhibition in the constitution on this type of enactment said: "But the
power of the legislature in this respect is not unlimited. They cannot
entirely disregard the fundamental principles of the social compact. Those
principles underlie all legislation, irrespective of constitutional
restraints, and if the act in question is a clear violation of them, it is
our duty to hold it abortive and void." Though the act in question was
upheld, the dictum in Goshen v. Stonington was approved as the settled
doctrine of the court. Welch v. Wadsworth, 30 Conn. 149, 155 (1861).
33. The supreme court of Maine, requested to give an advisory opinion
whether the legislature could pass laws enabling towns, by gifts of money,
to assist individuals or corporations to engage in manufacturing, answered
in the negative. Among the provisions of the constitution cited to sustain
this conclusion were: the natural rights clause of the declaration of
rights, the eminent domain provision, and the law of the land restriction.
As these provisions did not directly inhibit such an act the justices
throughout their opinion indicated their adherence to the doctrine that "the
less the state interferes with industry, the less it directs and selects the
channels of enterprise, the better." It is this philosophy underlying the
reasoning of judges which has frequently prevented local communities from
engaging in quasi-public enterprises. In re Opinion of Justices, 58 Me. 590,
598 (1871).
34. After the middle of the nineteenth century justices continued to hold
that due-process of law had no relation to the power of taxation. People v.
Brooklyn, 4 N. Y. 419, 423 (1857); Johnson v. Stark, 24 Ill. 75, 86 (1860);
People 11. Smith, 21 N. Y. 595, 598, 599 (1860). For additional citations
see Mott, op. cit., p. 438.
35. Horace Secrist, An Economic Analysis of the Constitutional Restrictions
upon Public Expenditures (University of Wisconsin, Economics and Political
Science Series), VIII, 13.
36. Ibid., p. 21. Cf. J. B. McMaster, History of the People of the United
States, XI, 92, as to the wild speculation in railroad securities from 1834
to 1837.
37. Secrist, op. cit., p. 28.
38. McMaster, op. cit., 34.
39. Ibid., p 54.
40. McMaster, op cit., VIII, 285 ff.
41. See Stein v. Mayor, Aldermen, etc. of Mobile, 24 Ala. 501 (1854);
Dubuque Co. v. Dubuque and Pacific Ry. Co., 4 Greene (Ia.) 1 (1853); Gelpcke
v. City of Dubuque, 1 Wall. 175 (1863); Town of Guilford v. Supervisors of
Chenango Co., 13 N. Y. 143 (1855); Sharpless v. Mayor of Philadelphia, 21
Pa. St. 147 (1853); Lawson v. The Milwaukee and Northern Ry. Co., 30 Wis.
597 (1872); Commissioners of Leavenworth Co. 11. Miller, 7 Kan. 479 (1871),
and dissent of Justice Brewer in State v. Nemaha Co., 7 Kan. 542 (1871); and
extensive list of cases cited in 20 Mich. 465. Cf. also Railroad Co. v.
County of Otoe, 16 Wall. 667 (1872) and Township of Pine Grove v Talcott, 19
Wall. 666 (1873).
42. Evidence of this sentiment appears in the observations of the justices
in Iowa in holding invalid a legislative act amending a city charter so as
to include for purposes of taxation a large tract of farm land. There must
be, said the court, some limits to the power to tax, and as a basis for
these limits the distinction was suggested between a just tax and that which
is palpably not a tax. Morford v. Unger, 8 Ia. 82, 91 (1859). Justice Leonard
thought, in rendering a similar decision, that from the eminent domain
provision "we may safely imply the constitutional prohibition against the
arbitrary taking of private property for private use without any
compensation." Wells v. City of Weston, 22 Mo. 385, 388 (1856).
43. Hanson v. Vemon, 27 Ia. 28 (1869).
44. Dubuque County v. Dubuque and Pacific Ry. Co., 4 Greene 1 (1853). For
cases reviewing this decision, see State, etc. v. Wapello Co., 13 Ia. 388
(1862) and McClure v. Owen, 26 Ia. 243 (1868).
45. Ibid., 33, 34.
46. Hanson v. Vemon, 27 Ia. 28, 43. See also Bankhead v. Brown, 25 Ia. 540,
545 (1868), where Chief Justice Dillon, reviewing proceedings to establish a
private road, maintained that the constitutional limitation against taking
private property for public use without just compensation "prohibits by
implication, the taking of private property for any private use whatever,
without the consent of the owner."
47. Cf. Eakin v. Raub, 12 Serg. & R. (Penna.) 344 (1825), dissenting opinion
of Justice Gibson; and Sharpless Case, 21 Penna. St. 147 (1853).
48. 27 Ia. 46 ff. See also opinions of Justice Wright and Justice Beck.
"There is," said Justice Beck, "as it were, back of the written
constitution, an unwritten constitution, if I may use the expression, which
guarantees and well protects all the absolute rights of the people." Ibid.,
73. See reversal of this case, Stewart v. Supervisors of Polk Co., 30 Ia. 9
(1870), after the legislature had re-enacted the former law with certain
changes.
49. Hanson v. Vernon, 27 Ia. 28 ff. For list of cases in other states, see
ibid., 81. In the first edition of his work on Municipal Corporations,
published in 1872, Judge Dillon admitted that "a long and almost unbroken
line of judicial decisions in the courts of most of the states has
established the principle that, in the absence of special restrictive
constitutional provisions, it is competent for the legislature to authorize
a municipal or public corporation to aid ... the construction of railways."
Citing his own opinion in Hanson v. Vernon, and that of Cooley in People v.
Salem, he observed, "the judgments affirming the existence of the power have
generally met with strong judicial dissent and with much professional
disapproval, and experience has demonstrated that the exercise of it has
been productive of bad results." Secs. 104, 105. Cf. note summarizing the
conclusions of numerous decisions. In the preface to this work Dillon
indicates his disapproval of the doctrines embodied in decisions favoring
such powers in the legislatures. See Whiting v. Sheboygan and Fond du Lac
Railway Co., 25 Wis. 167 (1869-70), where Chief Justice Dixon, holding a
similar statute void, cited and approved the reasoning of Dillon. For
decision contra, cf. Lawson v. Milwaukee and Northern Railway Co., 30 Wis.
597 (1872).
50. Gelpcke v. City of Dubuqne, 1 Wall. 175 (1864).
51. Sharpless v. Mayor of Philadelphia, 21 Pa. St. 147 (1853); Dubuque
County v. Dubuque & Pac Ry. Co., 4 Greene (Ia.) 1 (1853).
52. Cases upholding the legislative power to authorize taxation to pay
bounties to soldiers: Taylor v. Thompson, 42 Ill. 9 (1866); Freeland v.
Hastings, 10 Allen 570 (1865); Speer v. School Directors, etc. of
Blairsvflle, 50 Pa. St. 150 (1865); but see Tyson v. School Directors of
Halifax Township, 51 Pa. St. 9 (1865), where the court held an extreme
exercise of such power void because it was not legislation at all. Cases
denying such power to legislatures: Mead v. Acton, 139 Mass. 341 (1885);
State v. Tappan, 29 Wis. 664 (1872).
53. Howard Lee McBain, "Taxation for a Private Purpose," Political Science
Quarterly, XXIX (June, 1914), 185, 197 ff. Taxation for a private purpose
was held invalid in Curtis v Whipple, 24 Wis. 350 (1869).
54. Constitutional Limitations (1868), pp. 487, 488.
55. Opinion of Justices, 58 Me. 590 (1871); People v. Batchellor, 53 N. Y.
128 (1873). For a unique application of this doctrine see opinion of Justice
Brewer holding invalid a statute providing relief for fanners whose crops
had been destroyed, by means of a secured loan for the purchase of grain for
seed and feed. Permanent and fundamental principles were held to prevent an
act to meet a serious emergency. 14 Kan. 418 (1875).
56. People v. Salem, 20 Mich. 452, 473 (1870). For favorable comment on this
decision by Judge Dillon, see American Law Register, IX (N. S., August,
1870), 501.
57. Ibid., pp. 474, 475. The Supreme Court of the United States rejected the
reasoning of Cooley under the language of the constitution of Michigan.
Township of Pine Grove v. Talcott, 19 Wall. 566 (1873). But Cooley adhered
to his former opinion in People v. State Treasurer, 23 Mich. 499 (1871) and
in Thomas 11. City of Port Huron, 27 Mich. 320 (1873).
58. For example, an amendment adopted in Pennsylvania in 1857 provided that
"the legislature shall not authorize any county, city, borough, township, or
incorporated district, by virtue of a vote of its citizens or otherwise, to
become a stockholder in any company, association, or corporation, or obtain
money for, or loan credit to, any corporation, association, institution or
party." Art. xi, sec. 7.
59. Cf. 4th ed. by Nichols (Chicago, 1924), 4 vols.
60. Cooley, Law of Taxation (1st ed.), p 67. In this volume Cooley affirmed
adherence to the doctrine of implied limitations by asserting that "as to
constitutional declarations of individual rights, many of the most important
principles of government are usually not declared at all, but simply taken
for granted," and such limitations, he thought, "are equally imperative
whether declared or not." Page 41, note.
61. Cooley, op. cit., pp. 67, 68.
62. 20 Wall. 655, 663, 664 (1874). This comment of Justice Miller is
frequently cited in support of the theory of implied limitations on
legislatures: "The theory of our governments, state and national, is opposed
to the deposit of unlimited power anywhere. The executive, the legislative,
and the judicial branches of these governments are all of limited and
defined powers. There are limitations on such power which grow out of the
essential nature of all free governments, implied reservations of individual
rights, without which the social compact could not exist, and which are
respected by all governments entitled to the name.... To lay with one hand
the power of the government on the property of the citizen, and with the
other to bestow it on favored individuals to aid private enterprises and
build up private fortunes, is none the less robbery because it is done under
the forms of law and is called taxation This is not legislation It is a
decree under legislative forms."
63. Guilford v Supervisors, 18 Barb. 615 (1854) and 13 N. Y. 143 (1856). In
this case the law of the land and the eminent domain provisions were held to
have no application to taxation. See legislative authorization of a tax to
pay a private debt, Thomas v. Leland, 24 Wend. 65 (1840). But for contrary
opinion see comment of Chancellor Walworth in Cochran v. Van Surlay, 20
Wend. 364, 373 (1838).
64. Weismer v. Village of Douglas, 64 N. Y. 92 (1876).
65. The supreme court of Maine would not allow the legislature to assist
individuals or corporations to carry on manufactories. Opinion of Justices,
58 Me. 590 (1871); Allen v. Jay, 60 Me. 124 (1872). A Massachusetts court
held void an act authorizing the city of Boston to issue bonds and lend the
proceeds to owners of lands and buildings destroyed by fire, Lowell v.
Boston, 111 Mass. 454 (1873); cf. also Mead v. Acton, 139 Mass. 341 (1885);
and Opinion of Justices, 211 Mass. 624 (1912). An Illinois court refused to
permit a levy of a tax to develop the natural advantages of a city for
manufacturing purposes, Mather v. City of Ottawa, 114 Ill. 659 (1885).
Referring to the prohibitions on cities in the raising of taxes to aid
manufacturing establishments, Justice Riddell says: "We do it every day and
in most, if not all, of the cities and in many of the towns and even the
villages of Ontario." Constitution of Canada (New Haven, 1917), p. 139.
66. 2 Johns. 162, 167 (1816).
67. See Coates v. Mayor of the City of New York, 7 Cow. 585, 589 (1827),
referring to requirements of public use and just compensation as based on
principles of natural justice.
68. Matter of Albany street, 11 Wend. 149, 151 (1834). See also one year
later, Varick v. Smith, 5 Paige 137, 159 (1834), in which it was contended
that the exercise of the power of eminent domain for other than a public use
would be an infringement upon the spirit of the constitution, and therefore
not within the general powers delegated by the people to the legislature.
Cf. McBain, "Taxation for a Private Purpose," Pol. Sci. Quar., XXIX, 187, n,
for the halting steps by which New York courts arrived at the public use
doctrine as derived from the due process of law and eminent domain
provisions of the state constitution.
69. Cf. also Dunn v. City Council of Charleston, Harper's Law Repts. 189
(1824) holding that the law of the land provision prevents a taking of more
property than is required for a public improvement, and Emery v. Conner, 3
N. Y. 511 (1850).
70. R. E. Cushman, Excess Condemnation (New York, 1917), chap. 7, and Frank
B. Williams, The Law of City Planning and Zoning (New York, 1922), chap. 3.
For a good brief account of the law of excess and zone condemnation in
Europe see ibid., chap. 2.
71. Wm. E. Britton, "Constitutional Changes in Eminent Domain in Illinois,"
Illinois Law Bulletin, II (April, 1920), 479. Cf. also Wilbur Larremore,
"Incidental Damage to Personal Property in Condemnation Proceedings," Col.
Law Rev. XI (February, 1911), 147. See Sedgwick, Constitutional Law, (2d
ed.), pp. 456 ff. and Lewis, Eminent Domain, vol. I (3d ed.), sec. 66.
72. State v. Evans, 3 Ill. 208 (1840).
73. Lewis, op. cit., chap. 7.
74. Constitutional Limitations (1868), p. 357. See also Lebanon School
District v. Lebanon Female Seminary, 12 Atl. 857, 859 (1888); Justice Cooley
in Detroit v. Detroit and Howell P. R. Co., 43 Mich. 140, 147 (1880); People
v. O'Brien, 111 N. Y. 1 (1888).
75. Mo. Pac. Ry. Co. v. Nebraska, 164 U. S. 403 (1896).
76. Chicago, B. & Q. Ry. Co. v. Chicago, 166 U. S. 226 (1897).
77. "Only a few of the state constitutions in terms prohibit the taking of
property for private use. All courts, however, agree in holding that this
cannot be done. Different courts find different reasons for this
conclusion, some putting it on the ground of an implied prohibition in the
eminent domain provisions of the constitution, some on the ground that it
would be contrary to the provision that no person shall be deprived of his
property except by the law of the land; others, on the ground that it would
be subversive of the fundamental principles of free government, or contrary
to the spirit of the constitution." Lewis, op. cit., I, p. 250, and
footnotes for extensive citation of cases.
78. Pumpelly v. Green Bay Co., 13 Wall. 166, 177, 178 (1871).
79. Monongahela Navigation Co. v. United States, 148 U. S. 312, 324 (1892).
Justice Brewer thought the Fourteenth Amendment was intended to protect
"those rights of person and property which by the Declaration of
Independence were affirmed to be inalienable rights."
80. Cf. McBain, Pol. Sci. Quar., XXIX, pp. 200, 201. With regard to the
requirement of public purpose for taxation "a careful reading of the
numerous cases," says Professor McBain, "in which this doctrine has been
announced impels the conclusion that none of them have progressed very far
in the direction of finding constitutional basis for the doctrine either in
express provision or reasonable implication." Ibid., 199.
81. Paul Errera, Traité de droit public belge, pp. 358 ff. See Constitution
of Belgium (1831), art. XI.
82. Art. 545. Cf. Baudry-Lacantinerie and Chauveau, Traité théorique et
pratique de droit civil (3d ed.), VI, 161.
83. Cf. Laws of May 3, 1841, July 27, 1870, and November 6, 1918; Williams,
op. cit., pp. 68 ff.
84. Léon Duguit, Traité de droit constitutionnel (2d ed.), III, 358, 360.
85. Constitution of Canada, p. 131 and "The Constitutions of the United
States and Canada, Canadian Law Times, XXXII (1912), 849.
86. Cf. Charles E. Merriam, American Political Theories (New York, 1906),
chaps. 2 and 3. The contrast between the radical principles of the
Revolution and the doctrines of the first conservative reaction is shown in
the differences between the Pennsylvania constitution of 1776 drawn chiefly
by Franklin and Bryan and the constitution of 1790 prepared by the leaders
who helped secure the adoption of the federal Constitution.
87. Merriam, op. cit., chaps. 4 and 5.
88. It is worthy of note that the leading American text writers of the
middle of the nineteenth century, such as Kent, Story, Cooley, Dillon, and
Sedgwick (Constitutional Law), were, as a rule, advocates of the doctrine
that there must be implied limits on legislative powers on the basis of
higher law theories.
89. "The influences which produced the restrictions on debt also resulted in
the introduction of a philosophy of laissez faire, public debt and state
activity were condemned together." Secrist, op. cit., p. 8.
90. The point of view of conservative thinkers of the day was clearly
defined by Justice Brewer in a dissenting opinion in State v. Nemaha County,
7 Kan. 549, 555, 556 (1871). "Looking at the provisions of the bills of
rights," said Justice Brewer, "as restrictions upon an otherwise absolute
supremacy in the legislature -- they seem little more than 'glittering
generalities.' But when we regard them as conditions upon which legislative
power is granted -- as the foundation principles upon which all legislative
actions must be based, and a disregard of such action, void, they become
substantial, prominent, vital.... The habit of regarding the legislature as
inherently omnipotent, and looking to see what express restrictions the
Constitution has placed on its action, is dangerous, and tends to error.
Rather regarding first those essential truths, those axioms of civil and
political liberty upon which all free governments are founded, and secondly
those statements of principles in the bill of rights upon which this
governmental structure is reared, we may properly then inquire what powers
the words of the Constitution, the terms of the grant, convey."
PART III
THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT AND NATURAL LAW
THEORIES
CHAPTER VI
THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT TO THE FEDERAL
CONSTITUTION AND DUE PROCESS OF LAW[1]
PRIOR to the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, which has been styled an
"American Magna Carta," due process of law was of little significance in
American constitutional law. For about three quarters of a century after the
introduction of the term into the first state constitutions, it was seldom
used as a basis for the protection of either personal or property rights.
Few legislative enactments were held invalid as contravening due process of
law, and some of the most important efforts to define the phrase were made
in dicta in cases upholding the validity of the laws attacked. On the whole,
the interpretation of the phrase "due process of law" or "the law of the
land" prior to 1870 had placed on legislatures few restrictions which were
not merely procedural in character, and had merely suggested ideas or
principles which under a different environment were soon to be received
favorably.
Though the Fifth Amendment provided that "no person shall ... be deprived of
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law," the federal courts
were seldom called on to protect either personal privileges or property
rights under this provision. And when such an attempt was made it usually
resulted in failure for the litigant.[2]
When the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted in 1868, with the proviso that no
state shall "deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due
process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws," a serious problem in constitutional interpretation
arose. While the amendment was in the process of formulation in Congress
there were some among the radical Republican group who wanted to change the
whole plan of the federal government, as provided in the Constitution, and
to place a supervisory authority over all state powers in the hands of the
national authorities. The original draft of the amendment was worded so as
to accomplish this object. John A. Bingham, Member of the House of
Representatives, who is credited with the drafting of the original due
process of law clause, said it was his object to render the principles and
restrictions of the Bill of Rights of the federal Constitution applicable to
the acts of the states. Conservative Republicans opposed such a change, and
the original resolution was dropped and one couched in vague and general
terms which proved acceptable to both the radical and the conservative wings
of the Republican party, was submitted to the states for adoption.[3] There
was considerable fear that section one of the amendment contained the germ
of a policy which would mean ultimately a complete change in the relations
between the nation and the states. On this ground some Republicans and
nearly all of the Democrats opposed the adoption of the amendment.[4] By
counting the reconstructed states, forcibly put under Republican control,
the amendment was finally declared adopted with its meaning and intent very
much in doubt. In the controversies over the adoption very little
consideration was given to the significance of section one, the only portion
which has had any noticeable effect upon the relations of the federal and
the state governments.[5]
1. Period of Restricted Interpretation. Congress immediately set about
through enforcement legislation to protect negro voters, to re-enact the
Civil Rights Bill, and to place all violations of these measures under
federal control. But when an issue involving the interpretation of the
amendment came before the Supreme Court, it was decided by a close vote to
reject the radical view favoring a complete change in the federal system,
and the court adopted the conservative opinion of both Democrats and
Republicans -- that the amendment was designed primarily to protect the
negro race in their newly acquired rights and privileges.[6] With this
exception the states, it was thought, were left as free to regulate their
affairs as they were before the Civil War. Thus interpreted, "due process of
law" and the "equal protection of the laws" would have had little effect on
the normal field of state functions. But four members of the court
dissented, and Justice Field in his dissent expressed the view that it was
the intention of the Fourteenth Amendment to "protect the citizens of the
United States against the deprivation of their common rights by state
legislation."[7] Here was a suggestion favorable to special interests
desiring protection, and counsel were not slow to urge upon the court that
the new amendments were intended to place the whole jurisprudence of the
country under the protection of the Supreme Court.[8] The majority of the
justices, however, saw no reason for taking such a significant step, and
chose rather to adhere to the time-honored interpretation of due process of
law. The effect of this and similar decisions[9] was to leave relatively
little power to enforce the amendment in the hands of Congress, and to
transfer its definition and application primarily to the courts. And for ten
years the federal courts consistently discouraged litigation under the
amendment -- so much so that only nine cases were considered in a decade.
This attitude may have been due in part to the fear that Congress, which had
overridden both the executive and the courts in carrying out its
reconstruction policies, would unduly interfere with the powers of the
states. From 1877 to 1885 twenty-six additional cases were adjudicated under
this amendment, making a total of thirty-five cases in sixteen years.
Considering the fact that a considerable number of these cases were either
unimportant or trivial, it seemed that the adoption of the Fourteenth
Amendment had affected but slightly the powers of the states as they existed
prior to the Civil War.[10]
Justice Miller thought that the just compensation principle of the Fifth
Amendment was not comprehended under the Fourteenth Amendment. It seemed to
him
not a little remarkable, that while this provision has been in
the Constitution of the United States, as a restraint upon the
authority of the federal government, for nearly a century, and
while, during all that time, the manner in which the powers of
that government have been exercised have been watched
with jealousy, and subjected to the most rigid criticism in all
its branches, this special limitation upon its powers has rarely
been invoked in the judicial forum or the more enlarged
theater of public discussion. But while it has been a part of
the Constitution as a restraint upon the powers of the states,
only a very few years, the docket of this court is crowded
with cases in which we are asked to hold that state courts
and state legislatures have deprived their own citizens of life,
liberty or property, without due process of law. There is
here abundant evidence that there exists some strange
misconception of this provision as found in the Fourteenth
Amendment. In fact, it would seem, from the character of
many of the cases before us, and the arguments made in
them, that the clause under consideration is looked upon as
a means of bringing to the attention or the decision of this
court the abstract opinion of every unsuccessful litigant in the
state courts, or jury of the decision against him, and of the
merits of the legislation upon which such decisions may be
founded.[11]
When an attempt was made to secure protection under the due process clause
from legislative regulation of private business the court again refused to
accept the extended application of due process of law.[12]
When the argument was presented that the owner of property is entitled to a
reasonable compensation for its use, even though it be clothed with a public
interest, and that what is reasonable is a judicial and not a legislative
question, the answer was given by the court that the practice has been
otherwise.[13]
That this power might be abused, it was admitted, but for protection against
abuses by legislatures, the court replied, "the people must resort to the
polls, not to the courts."[14] The controlling fact was held to be the power
to regulate at all. If that existed the right to establish the maximum
charge as one of the means of regulation was implied. In short, the issue
was regarded as a political question, and was referred to the political
departments of the government. A dissenting opinion by Justices Field and
Strong emphasized the importance of judicial determination of questions of
this nature. The majority opinion was condemned as "subversive of the rights
of private property, heretofore believed to be protected by constitutional
guarantees against legislative interference."[15]
Thus far the federal courts had refused to limit the power of taxation by an
implied public purpose doctrine or by the due process of law clause, to
restrict the legislative regulation of private callings, even to the extent
of permitting the creation of an exclusive monopoly, or to prevent the
fixing, without judicial recourse, of the maximum charge for the use of
property affected with a public interest.[16]
2. Economic and Political Pressure brings about a Change in Supreme Court
Decisions. But the conservative policies which had grown into favor and had
met with judicial approval in the states, were reflected in a reversal of
the position of the Supreme Court, which gradually made the minority views
in the Slaughter-House and the Granger Cases the majority opinion of the
court. The persistent appeal to the court by counsel, representing interests
desiring protection under the Fourteenth Amendment and under other clauses
of the Constitution, ultimately had the desired result.[17] Some marked
changes in economic and social conditions, and political developments
arising therefrom, prepared the way for a change of opinion on the meaning
of the vague phrases of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Civil War brought on something in the nature of an industrial revolution
in the United States. When foreign intercourse was almost entirely cut off,
the growth of domestic industries was greatly increased. The movement once
begun, and encouraged by a high protective tariff, a phenomenal growth of
manufactures took place from 1870 to 1900. The opening up of extensive areas
in the West, begun before the issues of the Civil War overshadowed
everything else, was accelerated by the Homestead Act and by the building of
transcontinental railways through lavish grants of land by state and federal
governments, and through generous financial aid in other ways. The wave of
commercial expansion that followed the war, augmented by high protective
duties, offered rare opportunities for masters of finance and captains of
industry, which were taken advantage of in the consolidation of the railways
into great systems, and often in wrecking their finances by outrageous
manipulations, and in the beginnings of concentration and integration of
small units in the field of manufactures. As the capitalists grew in number,
and their interests increased in importance, they sought not only to control
legislative assemblies in order to secure special favors but also, in
certain other respects, to curtail their activities.[18]
At the same time that such a marked commercial expansion was under way and
the process of consolidation and integration was going on, certain movements
originating mostly in the West and the South aimed to check this
development, and to bring many of the business practices involved under
regulation by law. The early eighties saw "everywhere increasing inclination
to translate social yearnings into statutes that interfered with the also
fast-increasing class who wished to be let alone because they were well able
to take care of themselves under a static common law."[19] The Granger
Movement, populism, and the beginning of the regulation of industry on
behalf of labor, gave what seemed to many ominous warnings of a dangerous
trend toward state socialism. Thus there arose a clearly drawn controversy
between the leaders of industry, commerce, and finance, and the forces
favoring public regulation and control.
The rush of immigration to the West and the commercial enterprises involved
in opening up large sections of new land, gave to the frontier and to the
philosophy accompanying frontier conditions a dominance in American public
life. Large corporations and industrial enterprises, amply able to take care
of themselves, began to advocate a policy of hands off by the government,
and this policy accorded well with the interests of those who were pushing
the frontier farther to the West. A combination of conservative leaders in
both leading parties was organized to contest all forms of regulation of
business interests by the public. As Hamilton and Madison thought when the
federal Constitution was being formed, that it was necessary to take steps
to check the activities of "overbearing majorities," so Judge Dillon
expressed the opinion of a dominant class in the latter part of the
nineteenth century when he said, "We cannot fail to see that what is now to
be feared and guarded against is the despotism of the many -- of the
majority."[20] A solid front faced the seemingly radical regulative
tendencies growing in the South and the West. The line was clearly drawn
between the conservatives, combined now with the augmented followers of the
laissez faire policy, and the radical leaders of the movement favoring
public regulation of public service enterprises and legislative control of
industrial conditions, regarded as harmful both to the laborers and to the
general public. Justice Holmes had in mind this controversy when he referred
to conditions which
led people who no longer hope to control the legislatures to
look to the courts as expounders of the Constitutions, and
that in some courts new principles have been discovered
outside the bodies of those instruments, which may be
generalized into acceptance of the economic doctrines which
prevailed about fifty years ago, and a wholesale prohibition
of what a tribunal of lawyers does not think about right. I
cannot but believe that if the training of lawyers led them
habitually to consider more definitely and explicitly the social
advantages on which the rule they lay down must be
justified, they sometimes would hesitate where now they are
confident, and see that really they were taking sides upon
debatable and often burning questions.[21]
It was the drawing of a well-defined issue between conservative and, at
times, reactionary forces which now opposed public regulation of business
interests, public and private, and the liberal or radical leaders who were
committed to regulative and restrictive policies that finally brought
pressure to bear on the Supreme Court sufficient to secure a reversal of its
interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment.[22]
Speaking of the growth of litigation under due process of law as the product
of two generations, Justice Hough remarks:
"To me the reasons seem to have no very close relation to
the law or its professors; but to rest on the social and
material changes which have within the years indicated
transformed this country from an agricultural to a
manufacturing community, and its population so largely from
rural to urban."[23]
Reference was made previously to an apparent change of position when Justice
Miller defended the public purpose criterion in taxation as the basis for
well-defined implied limits on state legislatures. The conclusion was
reached that there can be no lawful tax which is not levied for a public
purpose, and that the determination of what is a public purpose is
ultimately for the courts.[24] That the majority of the court was changing
the grounds on which judicial review of legislation was formerly exercised
was asserted in a dissent by Justice Clifford.[25] The Supreme Court,
however, was not as yet inclined to accept, as a general limitation
applicable to the taxing power of the federal and state governments, the
public purpose doctrine of Justices Cooley and Dillon with all of its
implications.
3. Reversal of the Former Opinions on the Meaning of Due Process of Law. A
change of opinion relative to the meaning of the due process of law clause
of the Fourteenth Amendment, which has extended its scope into many phases
of federal and state law, was indicated primarily in cases relating to the
state regulation of public utilities, in those involving the concept of the
liberty of contract or liberty of calling, and in the interpretation of due
process of law into a broad rule of reason to test the validity of many
controversial state enactments.
(a) Due Process of Law applied to the Procedure in the Regulation of Public
Utilities. Signs of the changing attitude of the justices of the Supreme
Court relative to the legislative control over public utilities appeared
when Chief Justice Waite in upholding the right of legislatures to regulate
railway charges said:
It is not to be inferred that this power of limitation or
regulation by the state is itself without limit. This power to
regulate is not the power to destroy, and limitation is not the
equivalent of confiscation ... the state cannot ... do that
which in law amounts to a taking of private property for
public use without just compensation, or without due
process of law.[26]
Justice Gray, who joined with the majority in the Munn Case, had changed his
opinion in a decade sufficiently to approve Waite's dictum "as a general
rule of law," but doubted whether the court would, under any circumstances,
have the power to hold a state rate act void on the ground that it was
unreasonable.[27] And as late as 1892 the court again expressed doubt
whether it could hold that a rate fixed by the legislature was
unreasonable.[28]
But the doubt and uncertainty prevailing for some time was in a large part
removed when in the epoch-making Minnesota Rate Case the Supreme Court held
that rate regulation, although primarily legislative in character, was
subject to judicial review under the due process of law clause. Declaring
invalid the Minnesota Act of 1887, providing that the rates established by a
railroad and warehouse commission shall be final and conclusive as to what
are equal and reasonable charges, and that there could be no judicial
inquiry on the question of reasonableness, Justice Blatchford, extending
Chief Justice Waite's dictum, said:
The question of the reasonableness of a rate of charge for
transportation by a railroad company, involving as it does
the element of reasonableness both as regards the company
and as regards the public, is eminently a question for judicial
investigation, requiring due process of law for its
determination.[29]
Justice Bradley, with whom concurred Justices Gray and Lamar, asserted that
the majority opinion of the court practically overruled Munn v. Illinois and
other railroad cases decided by the court, and commented as follows:
But it is said that all charges should be reasonable, and that
none but reasonable charges should be exacted; and it is
urged that what is a reasonable charge is a judicial question.
On the contrary, it is preeminently a legislative one, involving
considerations of policy as well as of remuneration; and is
usually determined by the legislature by fixing a maximum of
charges.... If this maximum is not exceeded, the courts
cannot interfere.... Thus, the legislature either fixes the
charges at rates which it deems reasonable; or merely
declares that they shall be reasonable; and it is only in the
latter case, where reasonableness is left open, that the courts
have jurisdiction of the subject.[30]
A decision which made the courts the final arbiters in the regulation of
rates, Justice Bradley thought, was an assumption of an authority on the
part of the judiciary which it had no right to make. To the repeated
arguments that such a power in the hands of legislatures was dangerous and
that implied limits on legislatures were essential to preserve and protect
property rights, Justice Bradley replied, defending the principles of
democratic control of public affairs:
It may be that our legislatures are invested with too much
power, open, as they are, to influences so dangerous to the
interests of individuals, corporations and society. But such is
the constitution of our republican form of government; and
we are bound to abide by it until it can be corrected in a
legitimate way. If our legislatures become too arbitrary in the
exercise of their powers, the people always have a remedy
in their hands; they may at any time restrain them by
constitutional limitations. But so long as they remain invested
with the powers, that ordinarily belong to the legislative
branch of government they are entitled to exercise those
powers, amongst which, in my judgment, is that of the
regulation of railroads and other public means of
intercommunication, and the burdens and charges which
those who own them are authorized to impose upon the
public.[31]
The original purpose of the due process of law clause was to protect the
weak and the oppressed but when the Supreme Court decided that corporations
were entitled to the protection of the Fourteenth Amendment and that foreign
corporations could not be deprived of their property arbitrarily,[32] the
way was opened for organizations of capital to contest before the Supreme
Court such laws as they regarded unwise or detrimental to their interests.
Comparatively few cases have arisen under the amendment to protect personal
or individual rights and instead it has become the bulwark for the
protection of the privileges and interests of large corporations. Where
states reserved in their constitutions the right of the legislature to
alter, amend, or repeal at will corporate franchises, the Supreme Court
intervened to insist that the power of alteration and amendment is not
without limit. The alterations must be reasonable and they must not take the
property of the company without just compensation.[33] Such a holding has
amounted to the practical proposition that legislatures may amend corporate
charters to the advantage of the incorporators but not to their detriment.
As a result of this change in the attitude of the court, and the extension
of due process of law as a standard applicable to rate regulation and the
reasonableness of measures for public control, a large field of public
powers, namely, the manifold regulations of state legislatures and
administrative commissions, in their effort to control public utilities, has
become subject to the continuous critical scrutiny of the courts,[34] often
primarily concerned with preserving the property rights of the utilities.
Judicial review by this extension of the application of due process of law
has entered a new field, and has placed numerous restrictions and
obstructions in the way of effective regulation of public utilities by
states and other local bodies. Such review manifestly was not inherent in
any constitutional provision or a necessary concomitant of constitutional
interpretation as first understood and applied in state and federal
governments. It came as a result of the fear of democratic control and of
popular participation in the regulation of public utilities and of the
belief that private property could be made safe only with extensive
limitations on legislatures rendered effective by courts through judicial
review of legislative and administrative findings.
While the court was gradually changing its position on the review of
legislative and administrative procedure in rate-making and in the
regulative power exercised by states over corporations and public utilities,
members of the court imbued with the frontier philosophy of individualism,
or sympathetic with conservative doctrines were establishing a standard by
construction to pass on the fairness or expediency of labor legislation.
Justice Field had suggested in the Slaughter-House Cases that in his opinion
the Fourteenth Amendment was intended to protect all citizens of the United
States in their "common rights," and it was in the definition of these
"common rights" that the theories of the Declaration of Independence and of
the eighteenth-century natural rights were again applied.[35]
(b) Due Process of Law and Liberty of Contract. As an advocate of the
natural rights ideas of the revolutionary period Justice Field became the
mouthpiece for the judicial protection of the fundamental rights which
belong to man "as a free man and a free citizen."[36] At the first available
opportunities Justice Field gave a careful exposition of his views as to the
nature of these fundamental rights, as follows:
As in our intercourse with our fellow-men certain principles
of morality are assumed to exist, without which society
would be impossible, so certain inherent rights lie at the
foundation of all action, and upon a recognition of them
alone can free institutions be maintained. These inherent
rights have never been more happily expressed than in the
Declaration of Independence, that new evangel of liberty to
the people; "We hold these truths to be self-evident" -- that
is, so plain that their truth is recognized upon their mere
statement -- "that all men are endowed" -- not by edicts of
Emperors, or decrees of Parliament, or acts of Congress,
but "by their Creator with certain inalienable rights" -- that
is, rights which cannot be bartered away or given away, or
taken away except in punishment of crime -- "and that
among these, are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,
and to secure these" -- not grant them, but secure them --
"governments are instituted among men, deriving their just
powers from the consent of the governed."
Among these inalienable rights, as proclaimed in that great
document, is the right of men to pursue their happiness, by
which is meant the right to pursue any lawful business or
vocation, in any manner not inconsistent with the equal rights
of others, which may increase their prosperity or develop
their faculties, so as to give to them their highest enjoyment.
The common business and callings of life, the ordinary
trades and pursuits, which are innocuous in themselves, and
have been followed in all communities from time
immemorial, must, therefore, be free in this country to all
alike upon the same conditions. The right to pursue them,
without let or hindrance, except that which is applied to all
persons of the same age, sex, and condition, is a
distinguishing privilege of citizens of the United States, and
an essential element of that freedom which they claim as
their birthright.
It has been well said that "the property which every man has
in his own labor, as it is the original foundation of all other
property, so it is the most sacred and inviolable. The
patrimony of the poor man lies in the strength and dexterity
of his own hand, and to hinder his employing his strength
and dexterity in what manner he thinks proper, without
injury to his neighbor, is a plain violation of this most sacred
property. It is a manifest encroachment upon the just liberty
both of the workman and of those who might be disposed to
employ him. As it hinders the one from working at what he
thinks proper, so it hinders the others from employing whom
they think proper." Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, Bk. I,
chap. 10.[37]
The Fourteenth Amendment, in declaring that no state "shall
deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due
process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction
the equal protection of the laws," undoubtedly intended not
only that there should be no arbitrary deprivation of life or
liberty, or arbitrary spoliation of property, but that equal
protection and security should be given to all under like
circumstances in the enjoyment of their personal and civil
rights; that all persons should be equally entitled to pursue
their happiness and acquire and enjoy property; that they
should have like access to the courts of the country for the
protection of their persons and property, the prevention and
redress of wrongs, and the enforcement of contracts; that no
impediment should be interposed to the pursuits of any one
except as applied to the same pursuits by others under like
circumstances; that no greater burdens should be laid upon
one than are laid upon others in the same calling and
condition, and that in the administration of criminal justice no
different or higher punishment should be imposed upon one
than such as is prescribed to all for like offenses.[38]
These dicta, along with some similar remarks of other justices, introduced
into American law the concept of liberty of contract and of calling. This
concept, which is one of the by-products of natural law thinking, had its
origin in mediaeval times and was accepted in France and in England as one
of the principles of the economic policy of laissez faire. The principle was
accepted and applied by the state courts to check the increased efforts of
legislatures to regulate wage contracts and labor conditions.[39]
It was merely necessary to translate these dicta into concrete terms and to
use them in rendering the judgments of the Supreme Court.[40] This was done
by Justice Peckham when he asserted that, "in the privilege of pursuing an
ordinary calling or trade, and of acquiring, holding and selling property
must be embraced the right to make all proper contracts in relation
thereto,"[41] and with extensions beyond Field's broad terms, by Justices
Harlan[42] and Pitney.[43]
Thus, beginning in a series of dicta, a doctrine of liberty of contract was
developed as a phase of the Fourteenth Amendment and was gradually accepted
and interpreted by the majority of the Supreme Court to embody the natural
and inalienable rights doctrine of the Declaration of Independence. The
terms of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments were thereby given an
interpretation which placed new limits on legislative powers for the state
and federal governments.[44] Advocates of the "new liberties" soon
formulated what they called a fundamental principle, namely, that the term
"liberty" as used in the Declaration of Independence and as extracted from
the general language "due process of law" in written constitutions meant not
only for the individual freedom from servitude and restraint, but also
freedom to use his powers and faculties, and to pursue such vocation or
calling as he may choose, subject only to the restraints necessary to
protect the common welfare.[45]
The adoption by the courts of the principle of judicial review of public
utility regulations as a requirement for the due process clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment, combined with an incorporation therewith of a
considerable part of Chancellor Kent's vested rights doctrine,[46] which the
judiciary were specially charged to apply, and the interpretation of the
amendment to include the natural rights theories of the Declaration of
Independence went a long way toward construing the Fourteenth Amendment as
radical Republican leaders had desired, so as to exercise national
supervision over the control of civil rights -- an interpretation which the
court itself had repeatedly rejected.[47] But with all of these ideas
combined in the due process clause a mere beginning was made to develop in
the constitutional law of the United States a formidable Naturrecht or
natural law, which was to be fostered into a new lease of life by combining
the phrases "due process of law" and the "equal protection of the laws."
These have been united to assure the broadest kind of protection for the
fundamental rights of the individual and for the assurance that there can be
no arbitrary interference with personal liberty. Thereby a theory of the
protection of human rights glorified by the common law courts was
consecrated into a constitutional doctrine and characterized as democratic.
1. "Our constitutional liberty during the last thirty years, with
comparatively few exceptions, may be said to be but little more than a
commentary on the Fourteenth Amendment, which indeed nationalized the whole
sphere of civil liberty. This great amendment to the Federal Constitution
has done more than any other cause to protect our civil rights from
invasion, to strengthen the bonds of the Union, to make us truly a nation,
and to assure the perpetuity of our institutions" William D. Guthrie,
Lectures on the Fourteenth Article of Amendment to the Constitution of the
United States, (Boston, 1898), pp. 1, 2.
2. Cf. Murray's Lessee v. Hoboken Land and Improvement Co., 18 How. 272
(1855). Due process the court held to be a restraint on the legislative as
well as the executive and judicial powers of government and a process of law
which is not otherwise forbidden, and which can be shown to have had the
sanction of settled usage both in England and in this country. Cf. also
Hurtado v. California, 110 U. S. 516, 528 (1883), and Holden v. Hardy, 169
U. S. 366, 390 (1898). For incidental reference to the Fourteenth Amendment,
see United States v. Harris, 106 U. S. 629 (1883); see also Yick Wo v.
Hopkins, 118 U. S. 356. Cases in which federal acts have been held void as
violating due process of law are: Adair v. U. S., 208 U. S. 161 (1908);
United States v. Cohen Grocery Co , 255 U. S. 81 (1921); Adkins v.
Children's Hospital, 261 U. S. 525 (1923); Untermeyer v. Anderson, 276 U. S.
440 (1928).
3. Horace E. Flack, The Adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, chaps. 1 and
2. Dr. Flack concludes that Congress had the following objects in view in
submitting to the states the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment:
1. To make the Bill of Rights (the first eight amendments)
binding upon, or applicable to, the states.
2. To give validity to the Civil Rights Bill.
3. To declare who were citizens of the United States. See
pp. 92 ff. It must not be forgotten, however, that it was a
Congress dominated by the bitter war spirit and led by the
radical Reconstruction leaders of the Republican party
which was responsible for the amendment, and, that a large
part of the legislation enacted and of the policies fostered by
these leaders was repudiated when something approaching
normal political conditions was restored.
4. Cf. B. B. Kendrick, The Journal of the Joint Committee of Fifteen on
Reconstruction, 39th Congress, 1865-1867, Columbia University Studies in
History, Economics and Public Law, vol. LXII. "The line of Democratic
hostility in the nation and the states was absolutely unbroken" James G.
Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, pp. 308-310.
5. Flack, op. cit., p. 208. "The Fourteenth [Amendment] was a straight party
measure, due to the distrust of the states solely in respect of their
possible treatment of the negro. The sufficient proof of party spirit is
that in all the legislatures of all the states exactly one Democrat voted
for it." Charles M. Hough, "Due Process of Law -- Today," Harvard Law Review,
XXXII (January, 1919), 220.
6. The Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. 36 (1872). See Edward S. Corwin "The
Supreme Court and the Fourteenth Amendment," Michigan Law Review, VII (June,
1909), 643.
7. 16 Wall. 89.
8. Murdock v. Memphis, 20 Wall. 590, 599 (1874).
9. See United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542 (1875). But Chief Justice
Waite threw out the suggestion that the Fourteenth Amendment "furnishes an
additional guaranty against any encroachment by the states upon the
fundamental rights which belong to every citizen as a member of society."
Ibid., 554.
10. Prior to 1883 "appeals to due process of law in the federal courts were
rare, and (barring the negro cases) never successful, except on the
procedural side." Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U. S. 714 (1877) is called a
"monument" of the latter type of decision. Cf. Hough, op. cit., p. 218.
11. Davidson v. New Orleans, 96 U. S. 97, 103-104 (1877). It was in this
case in which Justice Miller, refusing to define due process of law, said:
"There is wisdom, we think, in the ascertaining of the intent and
application of such an important phrase in the federal Constitution, by the
gradual process of inclusion and exclusion, as the cases presented shall
require." Ibid., 104.
Referring to the above observation of Justice Miller in 1885, Justice Field
remarked that after the lapse of eight years, it may be repeated with an
expression of increased surprise at the continued misconception of the
purpose of this provision." Missouri Pacific Railway v. Humes, 115 U. S.
512, 520 (1885). For a change in the position of the court see opinion of
Justice Gray in Missouri Pacific Railway v. Nebraska, 164 U. S. 403, 417
(1896). A requirement that a company lease its property to a private party
was held to be a taking of property and a denial of due process of law.
Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Ry. Co. v. Chicago, 166 U. S. 226, 233, 241
(1896). Henceforth it was regarded as settled that a state might not under
the due process provision take private property for public use without just
compensation.
12. Munn v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113 (1876) and the Granger Cases, 94 U. S.
155, 164, 179, 180. See Buck, The Granger Movement, chaps. 4-6. For similar
decisions approving the regulative power of the states see Bradwell v. The
State, 16 Wall. 130 (1872); Bartemeyer v. Iowa, 18 Wall. 129 (1873); United
States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542 (1875); Hurtado v. California, 110 U. S.
516 (1883); Barbier 11. Connolly, 113 U. S. 27 (1884); and Powell v.
Pennsylvania, 127 U. S. 678 (1887). See, however, Justice Field's opinion on
the broad implications of the Fourteenth Amendment, 113 U. S. 31.
13. Munn v. Illinois, 94 U.S. 133, 134. At common law, in the absence of
legislation, a public utility was bound to charge no more than a reasonable
rate and in case of complaint it was for a court to decide whether the rate
was reasonable. But if Parliament fixed a schedule of rates no court could
inquire into the question of reasonableness. The remedy in such case lay in
an appeal to Parliament or to the voters, not to the courts. Gerard C.
Henderson, "Railway Valuation and the Courts," Harv. Law Rev., XXXIII (May,
1920), 904.
14. 94 U.S. 134.
15. Ibid., 136. In Stone v. Wisconsin, it was again maintained by the
minority that the court's decision that a corporation charter was subject
to alterations or repeal by the state legislature was wrong, and that it
will "justify the legislature in fixing the prices of all articles and the
compensation for all services. It sanctions intermeddling with all business
and pursuits and property in the community, leaving the use and enjoyment of
property to be regulated according to the discretion of the legislature." 94
U. S. 181, 186 (1876).
16. The decisions in the Granger Cases Judge Hough remarks "seemed to put
all complaints of corporate regulation of service and charges out of court,
if an appeal under the due-process clause was ventured against a state; the
still continuing dissents of Justice Field seemed most unorthodox. The
remarks in another judgment, that due process was usually what the state
ordained, seemed to clinch the matter." Harv. Law Rev., XXXII, 226 and
Walker v. Sauvinet, 92 U. S. 90 (1875).
17. See argument of Joseph H Choate in Pollock v Farmers' Loan & Trust Co.,
157 U S. 429, 532, 534 (1895): "I believe there are private rights of
property here to be protected; that we have a right to come to this court
and ask for this protection, and that this court has a right, without asking
leave of the attorney general or any counsel, to hear our plea. The act of
Congress which we are impugning before you is communistic in its purpose and
tendencies and is defended here upon principles as communistic, socialistic
-- what shall I call them -- populistic as ever have been addressed to any
political assembly in this world.... I have thought that one of the
fundamental objects of all civilized governments was the preservation of the
rights of private property. I have thought it was the very keystone in the
arch upon which all civilized government rests and that this once abandoned,
everything was at stake and in danger."
18. S. J. Buck, The Granger Movement (Cambridge, 1913), pp. 13 ff.
19. Hough, op. cit., p. 227.
20. The Laws and Jurisprudence of England and America, pp. 204-205.
21. Collected Legal Papers (New York, 1920), p. 184 and Harv. Law Rev., X
(March, 1897), 456, 467.
22. "Conservative and liberal schools of interpretation not only instantly
appeared at bar, but in the court, and along party lines, in a way not
usually recognized." Hough, op. cit., p. 225. "The Granger legislation
aroused bitter political passions and grave fears among those who believed
the welfare of the country depended upon the security of property. In case
after case, as it came before the Supreme Court, the leaders of the bar
appealed to the court not to leave the vast interests of private
stockholders at the mercy of radical state legislatures. To have withstood
this appeal would have been utterly inconsistent with the individualistic
spirit which pervaded American jurisprudence in the latter part of the
nineteenth century. Some method must be devised by which courts could check
the assaults of western legislatures upon established property rights."
Henderson, op. cit., p. 905. See also Hough, op. cit., p. 227.
23. Hough, op. cit., p. 222.
24. Loan Association v. Topeka, 20 Wall. 655, 662, 663 (1874). See comment
of Justice Miller in Davidson v. New Orleans, "that because of the fact that
the Loan Association Case came to the federal courts because of the
character of the parties, the justices felt free to enforce general
principles of constitutional law." 96 U. S. 97, 105 (1877).
When the contention was made that unjust and oppressive taxation by the
states should be prevented, the Supreme Court held that the Constitution was
not intended to furnish a corrective for every abuse of power which may be
committed by the state governments and could not afford relief between a
state and its citizens against taxation, however unjust, oppressive, or
onerous. Kirtland v. Hotchkiss, 100 U. S. 491, 498 (1879). But eleven years
later, speaking again through Justice Harlan, an unwise exercise of the
power of levying special assessments was held invalid on the general ground
that "the power of the legislature in these matters is not unlimited."
Norwood v. Baker, 172 U. S. 268, 278 (1898). For a modification of the
judgment in this case see French v. Barber Asphalt Pav. Co, 181 U. S. 324
(1901). Justices Harlan, White, and McKenna dissented.
25. "Courts cannot nullify an act of the state legislature," said Justice
Clifford, "on the vague ground that they think it opposed to a general
latent spirit supposed to pervade or underlie the Constitution, where
neither the terms nor the implications of the instrument disclose any such
restriction. Such a power is denied to the courts, because to concede it
would be to make the courts sovereign over both the Constitution and the
people, and convert the government into a judicial despotism.... Unwise laws
and such as are highly inexpedient and unjust are frequently passed by the
legislative bodies, but there is no power vested in a circuit court, nor in
this court to determine that any law passed by a state legislature is void
if it is not repugnant to their own constitution nor the Constitution of the
United States." 20 Wall. 669, 670.
26. Stone v. Farmers' Loan and Trust Co., 116 U. S. 307, 331 (1885). "It is
now settled in this court," said the Chief Justice, "that a state has power
to limit the amount of charges by railroad companies for the transportation
of persons and property within its own jurisdiction, unless restrained by
some contract in the charter, or unless what is done amounts to a regulation
of foreign or interstate commerce." Ibid., 325. Justices Harlan and Field
dissented on the ground that the state act was void in so far as it
authorized a commission rather than a court to determine finally the fair
return on the value of a railroad. For a similar suggestion see Spring
Valley Water Works v. Schottler, 110 U. S. 347, 354 (1883). See opinion of
Justice Harlan in Ruggles v. Illinois, 108 U. S. 526, 535 (1883) for an
effort to place the basis for the judicial review of rate regulation on the
contract clause and on the principles announced by Chief Justice Marshall in
the Dartmouth College Case. Using this decision as a basis the railroads
denied the right of the states or of the nation to regulate them. Buck, The
Granger Movement, p. 12.
27. Dow v. Beidleman, 125 U. S. 680, 686, 691 (1888). A state law in this
case which fixed a maximum of three cents a mile for a railway charge for
carrying passengers was held not to deny these corporations due process of
law. Justice Gray, who joined the dissenters in Chicago, Milwaukee and St.
Paul Ry. Co. v. Minnesota, 134 U. S. 418 (1890), had shifted his position
completely and was with the majority in Smyth v. Ames, 169 U. S. 466 (1898).
28. Budd v. New York, 143 U. S. 517, 548 (1892); cf. Henderson, op. cit.,
pp. 904 ff.
29. Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Ry. Co. v. Minnesota, 134 U. S. 418, 458
(1889); through the opinions of Justice Brewer in Reagan v. Farmers' Loan
and Trust Co., 154 U. S. 362, 397 (1894) and of Justice Harlan in Smyth v.
Ames, 169 U. S. 466, 523 ff. (1898), the change in position was completed.
Under the Fourteenth Amendment it has since been repeatedly held that "the
rates must be sufficient to cover reasonable operating expenses, plus a
proper allowance for depreciation, plus a fair return upon the value of the
property; in short, there must be a reasonable judgment having its basis in
the proper consideration of all relevant facts." R. L. Hale, "Rate Making
and the Revision of the Property Concept," Columbia Law Review XXII (March,
1922), 209.
For the opinions of Justice Brewer as Circuit Justice supporting an
extensive judicial review to protect the vested rights of utility
corporations, see Ames v. Union Pac. Ry. Co., 64 Fed. 163, 176 (1894) and
National Waterworks Co. v. Kansas City, 62 Fed. 853, 864 ff. (1804). See
also Justice Brewer's opinion holding invalid an act of Congress which
abolished the tolls charged by a private company on river traffic with an
express provision that the value of the franchise was not to be included in
the condemnation proceedings. A franchise, he said, "is a vested right. The
state has power to grant it. It may retake it, as it may other private
property, for public use, upon the payment of just compensation ... but it
can no more take the franchise which the state has given than it can any
private property belonging to the individual." Monongahela Navigation Co. v.
United States, 148 U. S. 312, 341 (1893).
30. 134 U. S. 418, 462 (1889).
31. 134 U. S., 466.
32. Cf. Opinion of Justice Field in the Santa Clara Railroad Tax Case, 9
Sawyer 165, 210, and of Justice Harlan in Santa Clara County v. Southern
Pacific Railroad Co., 118 U. S. 394 (1886); also Justice Field in Pembina
Mining Co. v. Pennsylvania, 125 U. S. 181, 188 (1888) and Minneapolis and St
Louis Ry. Co. v. Beckwith, 129 U. S. 26, 28 (1889) Also Henderson, The
Position of Foreign Corporations in American Constitutional Law, chap. 9.
That a foreign corporation was entitled to the equal protection of the laws
was held, also, in Pembina Mining Case, infra, and Southern Railway Co. v.
Greene, 216 U. S. 400, 412 (1910).
Mr. Smith claims by rendering the inhibitions of the Fourteenth Amendment
applicable to corporations the Constitution of the United States was amended
"by the act of the judiciary alone." "We approach now," he asserted, "a
Revolution in our form of government accomplished by the Supreme Court of
the United States, so startling that it seems almost incredible, and this
Revolution was completed so silently that it has passed almost unnoticed
even by the careful historians of the Constitution and of the Court." F.
Dumont Smith, "Decisive Battles of Constitutional Law," American Bar
Association Journal, X (July, 1924), 505, and The Constitution: Its Story
and Battles (Los Angeles, 1926), p. 359.
33. Justice Swayne in Shields v. Ohio, 95 U. S. 319, 325 (1877).
34. For about thirty years "we have had every species of state action
productive of permanent loss to vested rights, or limiting business
liberty, put to the acid test of due process in the Supreme Court." Hough,
op. cit., p. 229. The decisions as to public utility rates and regulations
are regarded as "extraordinary in the extent of the power which they place
in the hands of the courts, and in the way in which they tie the hands of
the state legislatures in respect to subjects over which it has always been
considered they had absolute control ... the will of the people in this, as
in other respects, is expressed through the acts of their representatives in
the legislature. The opinion that the reasonableness of an act is not a
legislative but a judicial question substitutes the will of the judges for
the will of the people. Mr. Justice Bradley clearly foresaw this, and deeply
regretted the inevitable conflict between the courts and the legislature."
"The Judicial Record of Justice Bradley," William Draper Lewis in The
Miscellaneous Writings of Joseph P. Bradley (1902), p. 25. "After the
Chicago Case," says Justice Hough, "legislators were arraigned before the
bar and courts passed judgment not, mark you, on the justice or wisdom, but
on the reason, of what they had done." Harv. Law Rev., XXXII, 228. For an
analysis of the shifting of Supreme Court justices in defining the terms
"liberty" and "property" from the standpoint of an economist, consult John
R. Commons, Legal Foundations of Capitalism (New York, 1924), especially
chap. 9.
For review of the decisions of public utility commissions by the federal
courts in order to make sure that the decisions are "fair" and
"reasonable," consult John Dickinson, Administrative Justice and the
Supremacy of the Law in the United States (Cambridge, 1927), chap. 6.
35. Justice Field, in holding void a personal judgment rendered by a state
court in an action in personam against a non-resident upon whom no personal
service was made, defined due process of law so as to include a portion of
the concept of natural law: "They then mean a course of legal proceedings
according to those rules and principles which have been established in our
system of jurisprudence for the protection and enforcement of private
rights. To give such proceedings any validity, there must be a tribunal
competent by its constitution -- that is, by the law of its creation: to
pass upon the subject-matter of the suit; and, if that involves merely a
determination of the personal liability of the defendant, he must be brought
within its protection by service of process within the state, or his
voluntary appearance." Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U. S. 714, 733 (1877). For an
approval of this interpretation, see opinion of Justice Gray in Scott v.
McNeal, 154 U. S. 34, 46 (1894).
36. See dissent in Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. 36, 95 (1872); also
opinion of Justice Brewer in Monongahela Navigation Co. v. United States,
148 U. S. 312, 324 (1892). Justice Brewer regarded the Declaration of
Independence as the cornerstone of the federal Constitution. Cf. address,
Yale Law School, June, 1891, on "Protection to Private Property from Public
Attack."
37. Butchers' Union Co. v. Crescent City Co., 111 U. S. 746, 756 (1883).
This opinion, though it was not in accord with the majority views of the
Supreme Court, had an extensive influence on the state courts -- "It
produced a reactionary line of decisions in New York on liberty to pursue
one's calling, and through these cases its echoes are still ringing in the
books." Pound, "Liberty of Contract," Yale Law Journal, XVIII (May, 1909),
454, 470.
38. Barbier v. Connolly, 113 U. S. 27, 31 (1885).
39. Cf. the recognition of liberty of contract as an inalienable right of a
citizen by Justice Brewer in Frisbie v. United States, 157 U. S. 160, 165
(1894). The main guaranty of private rights against unjust legislation is
found in the due process clause, according to Justice Andrews. As protected
under this clause Justice Andrews thought "the right to life includes the
right of the individual to his body ... the right to liberty, the right to
exercise his faculties and to follow a lawful avocation for the support of
life; the right of property, the right to acquire power and enjoy it in any
way consistent with the equal rights of others and the just exactions and
demands of the state." Bertholf v. O'Reilly, 74 N. Y. 509, 515 (1878). See
also Godcharles v. Wigeman, 113 Pa. St. 431, 6 Atl. 354 (1886); Millett v.
People, 117 Ill. 294, 7 N. E. 631 (1886); Braceville Coal Co. v. People, 147
Ill. 66, 35, N. E. 62 (1893); State v. Loomis, 115 Mo. 307, 22 S. W. 350
(1892); State v. Norton, 5 Ohio N. P. R. 183 (1898); State v. Goodwill, 33
W. Va. 179, 10 S. E. 285, 863 (1889); in re House Bill, 21 Col. Rep. 27
(1895); Ritchie v. People, 155 Ill. 98, 104 ff. (1895); and People v.
Williams, 189 N. Y. 131 (1907).
For summary of decisions developing the doctrine of liberty of contract from
1890-99, cf. Pound, "Liberty of Contract," Yale Law Jour., XXIII, 472 ff.
and G. G. Groat, "Economic Wage and Legal Wage," Ibid., XXXIII (March,
1924), 488, 494. The application of this concept by the Supreme Court in
invalidating a Minimum Wage Act for the District of Columbia, in Adkins v.
Children's Hospital, 261 U. S. 525 (1923), will be considered later.
According to Louis D. Brandeis, "Courts continued to ignore newly arisen
needs. They have applied complacently eighteenth century conceptions of
liberty of the individual and of the sacredness of private property ...
where statutes giving expression to the new social spirit were clearly
constitutional, judges, imbued with the relentless spirit of individualism,
often construed them away." Illinois Law Review, X (February, 1916), 461,
464. Though some of the illiberal decisions relating to labor contracts have
been reversed, the liberty of contract doctrine still stands as a bar to
progressive measures in the field of labor legislation. Cf. Ritchie v.
Wayman, 244 Ill. 509 (1910) and People v. Charles Schweinler Press, 214 N.
Y. 395 (1915).
40. The concept of liberty of contract which was formulated by Justice
Field, and developed in a series of state decisions, was thus defined by
Justice Shope in the Braceville Coal Company case: "The fundamental
principle upon which liberty is based, in free and enlightened government,
is equality under the law of the land. It has accordingly been everywhere
held, that liberty, as that term is used in the constitution, means not
only freedom of the citizen from servitude and restraint, but, indeed, to
embrace the right of every man to be free in the use of his powers and
faculties, and to adopt and pursue such avocation or calling as he may
choose, subject only to the restraints necessary to secure the common
welfare. 147 Ill. 66, 71 (1893). In most cases the language of Justice Field
was used, with variations to suit the circumstances of the case.
41. Allgeyer v. Louisiana, 165 U. S. 578, 591 (1897).
42. "The right of a person to sell his labor upon such terms as he deems
proper is, in its essence, the same as the right of the purchaser of labor
to prescribe the conditions upon which he will accept such labor from the
person offering to sell it. So the right of the employé to quit the service
of the employer, for whatever reason, is the same as the right of the
employer, for whatever reason to dispense with the services of such employé.
It was the legal right of the defendant, Adair, -- however unwise such a
course might have been, -- to discharge Coppage because of his being a
member of a labor organization, as it was the legal right of Coppage, if he
saw fit to do so, -- however unwise such a course on his part might have
been, -- to quit the service in which he was engaged, because the defendant
employed some persons who were not members of a labor organization In all
such particulars the employer and the employe have equality of right, and
any legislation that disturbs that equality is an arbitrary interference
with the liberty of contract which no government can legally justify in a
free land," Adair v. United States, 208 U. S. 161, 174-175 (1908).
43. "Included in the right of personal liberty and the right of private
property -- partaking of the nature of each -- is the right to make
contracts for the acquisition of property. Chief among such contracts is
that of personal employment, by which labor and other services are exchanged
for money or other forms of property. If this right be struck down or
arbitrarily interfered with, there is a substantial impairment of liberty in
the long established constitutional sense. The right is as essential to the
laborer as to the capitalist, to the poor as to the rich; for the vast
majority of persons have no other honest way to begin to acquire property,
save by working for money." Coppage v. Kansas, 236 U. S. 1, 14 (1915).
44. Commenting on the fact that the due process clauses of the Fifth and
Fourteenth Amendments were rarely invoked as an aid to protect private
rights or referred to by justices prior to 1880, Mr. Willis says: "Finally,
with the case of Davidson v. New Orleans, 96 U. S. 97 (1878), and a long
line of cases following it. Coke's doctrine of a supreme fundamental law was
merged in the doctrine of due process of law, and legislation has since then
been set aside because not due process of law but not because in violation
of some supreme fundamental law." Hugh Evander Willis, "Due Process of Law
under the United States Constitution," University of Pennsylvania Law
Review, LXXIV (February, 1926), 331, 335.
45. In considering the application of a woman to practice law, Justice
Hackney claimed: "There is a law higher in this country, and one better
suited to the rights and liberties of the American citizens, the natural
right to gain a livelihood by intelligence, honesty and industry in the
arts, the sciences, the professions, or other vocations" and the exclusion
from such practice was held to interfere with inalienable rights, citing
Justice Field in Cummings v. Missouri, 4 Wallace 277, 321. In re Leach, 134
Ind 665, 668 (1893).
46. In 1896 and 1897 it was held that due process of law was a limitation on
the power of eminent domain. Fallbrook Irrigation District v. Bradley, 164
U. S. 113 (1896); Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Ry. Co. v. Chicago, 166 U.
S. 226 (1896).
47. Instead of the judges having discovered new meanings for due process of
law, Dr. Mott claims they have merely appropriated portions of a general
residual meaning. Mott, Due Process of Law, p. 590. From this viewpoint an
unappropriated portion of this concept will always be available to keep
legislators in the straight and narrow paths which judges lay out.
CHAPTER VII
THE DEVELOPMENT OF A GENERAL RULE OF REASON TO
DETERMINE THE VALIDITY OF LEGISLATIVE ACTS
TO GIVE due process of law a more effective scope as a criterion to measure
the validity of new legislative projects, the justices who were exponents of
conservative principles and laissez faire policies adopted the dicta of a
few authorities on Magna Carta and of several state justices that this
phrase was designed to prevent all governmental acts arbitrary in their
nature and to preserve the fundamental principles of a free republican
government. The application of a rule of reason or a rule of expediency as a
primary standard to evaluate the propriety of legislation was accomplished
by making due process of law an inhibition against arbitrary legislative or
administrative acts, against any interference with the fundamental rights of
the individual, and against social and economic legislation which was
regarded unreasonable or discriminatory.
1. Arbitrary Legislative and Administrative Acts are Void. Locke is credited
with suggesting the idea that exercising governmental powers in an arbitrary
manner is unconstitutional.[1] The suggestion of this idea, however, may be
traced to opinions rather common in ancient and mediaeval times. The claims
that certain clauses of Magna Carta were intended to check all forms of
arbitrary political authority,[2] had few supporters in England, as we have
seen, but was repudiated by all parties prior to the time that the American
colonies set up new governments.
Early in the nineteenth century the belief had been expressed in the United
States that the law of the land provision was intended to remove arbitrary
power from every branch of the government.[3] One justice declared that "the
framers of the constitution never dreamed of permitting the exercise of
arbitrary power in any department of government."[4] The suggestion that due
process of law was intended to secure the individual from the arbitrary
exercise of the powers of government[5] and that the security of a citizen
against arbitrary legislation rested upon the broader and more solid ground
of natural rights, and was not wholly dependent on those negatives upon the
legislative power contained in the constitution,[6] gave an indication of
possible future interpretations of due process of law. But there were few
occasions to consider these comments or to apply them concretely[7] until a
similar doctrine was adopted by the Supreme Court of the United States, and
made a part of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Justices
Bradley and Field were among the first to suggest the notion that the
Fourteenth Amendment was intended to be an inhibition against arbitrary
legislative and administrative acts.[8] They pleaded for an extensive
application of the requirement of due process of law to all state acts, and
suggested that if such acts were "arbitrary, oppressive, and unjust," they
might be declared not to be in accord with due process of law.[9]
When judges insisted that "under our institutions, arbitrary power over
another's lawful pursuits is not vested in any man nor in any tribunal,"[10]
due process of law, applied in England only as a guard against executive
usurpation, was destined to become in the United States a bulwark against
arbitrary legislation.[11] This new standard for legislative acts was
applied when it was determined that the validity of statutes was not to be
tested in the federal courts unless "they are clearly inconsistent with some
power granted to the general government or with some right secured by that
instrument or unless they are purely arbitrary in their nature."[12]
The phrase "equal protection of the laws," though not in the Fifth Amendment
of the federal Constitution, and not, as a rule, in the state constitutions,
had been interpreted as a requirement for legislative and executive acts by
certain justices in state and federal courts prior to 1879.[13] It was used
without any clear indication as to the purpose of the phrase in the draft of
the Fourteenth Amendment which was finally adopted, and the courts were
loath to apply its vague content to concrete cases until there was a
determined effort on the part of certain justices to incorporate the natural
rights philosophy and the doctrine of equality of the Declaration of
Independence into the Fourteenth Amendment, in order to condemn acts which
the judges regarded as arbitrary or unreasonable.[14] The movement to
declare void acts judicially construed as arbitrary[15] found the equal
protection clause a supplement to what would otherwise have been construed
as a requirement of due process of law. That due process would ultimately
have been interpreted as involving the equal protection principle is shown
by the fact that statutes regarded as conferring undue favors, class
privileges, or discrimination are seldom attacked on the equal protection
clause alone, but also as a denial of due process of law.
Due process of law and equal protection of the laws, then, combined were
being construed with wide enough scope to prevent all legislative and
administrative acts which the justices regarded as arbitrary and, like
certain other implied limits on legislatures, the equal protection principle
was made an essential part of the concept of due process of law.[16] Hence
acts which were not general in their application to a particular class were
held not to be in accord with the due process and equal protection phrases
of the Fourteenth Amendment.[17]
"The due process clause requires," said Chief Justice Taft,
that every man shall have the protection of his day in court,
and the benefit of the general law, a law which hears before
it condemns, which proceeds not arbitrarily or capriciously
but upon inquiry, and renders judgment only after trial, so
that every citizen shall hold his life, liberty, property and
immunities under the protection of the general rules which
govern society.[18]
And Justice Holmes believes that state acts interfering with liberty should
be held valid unless "a rational and fair man" would admit that they
necessarily infringe "fundamental principles as they have been understood by
the traditions of our people and our law."[19] But where is the rational and
fair man, what are the fundamental principles, and how are the traditions of
the people to be discovered? Since when has the sole custody of these
principles and traditions been assigned to the judges?
The way in which judges made limitations applicable to legislative action is
admirably shown in one of Cooley's dicta:
The bills of rights in the American constitutions forbid that
parties shall be deprived of property except by the law of
the land; but if the prohibition had been omitted, a legislative
enactment to pass one man's property over to another
would nevertheless be void. If the act proceeded upon the
assumption that such other person was justly entitled to the
estate, and therefore it was transferred, it would be void,
because judicial in its nature; and if it proceeded without
reasons, it would be equally void, as neither legislative nor
judicial but a mere arbitrary fiat.[20]
Those who defend the application of judicial standards for the justness or
fairness of legislative action claim that it is the only way that unjust
interference, not called for by the public needs, with private property and
personal liberty can be effectively prevented. But what are unjust
interferences with private property, and do these not depend upon changing
times and conditions which may be perceived by legislators as well as by
judges? And who shall determine what the public needs demand, the
representatives of the people or arbiters who have assumed the rôle of
umpires?[21]
2. Acts Contrary to Fundamental Rights are Void.[22] Among the ideas which
have supplemented other phases of the elastic term "due process of law," in
limiting legislative functions, is the doctrine that there are immutable
fundamental rights or principles which no governmental authorities may
invade.
Notions of natural law and of fundamental natural rights, as we have noted,
were among the dominant notions of the leaders of the American Revolution
and of the framers of the first written constitutions in the United States.
Governments, it was believed, were instituted primarily to preserve these
rights. And it was taken for granted that legislative enactments which
contravened such rights were void, though ideas as to how to prevent such
legislative acts or to assure protection to the people against illegal
procedure under them were often indefinite. The assertion by the courts of
the right to review the constitutionality of legislative acts and to become
the special guardians of the written instruments containing assertions of
natural rights gave a new turn to the legal applications of the fundamental
rights philosophy.
It was in connection with the interpretation of the privileges and
immunities guaranteed to the citizens of the several states by the federal
Constitution that the doctrine of fundamental rights was early announced.
Justice Washington said:
"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." Though it was regarded as difficult to
enumerate these fundamental privileges a few were
suggested, such as the enjoyment of life and of liberty, the
right to acquire and possess property of every kind, and to
pursue and obtain happiness and safety, subject to such
restraints as the government may prescribe for the general
good.[23] "Standing upon the principles of natural justice,
upon the fundamental laws of every free government, upon
the spirit and letter of the Constitution of the United States,"
Justice Story held invalid a state legislative act which
attempted to interfere with the vested property rights of a
corporation.[24] The rather common belief in fundamental
rights also received his sanction when he called attention to
the "fundamental maxims of free government," which
required that the rights of personal liberty and private
property should be held sacred.[25]
When the doctrines of the Federalists and of conservative thinkers generally
lost ground and were repudiated by all departments of the government,
including the judiciary, in favor of popular theories of political control,
little was heard for several decades of immutable fundamental rights in
state or federal courts.[26]
The doctrine was reaffirmed after the Civil War by Justice Chase[27] and
then by Justice Miller, who insisted that there are rights in every free
government beyond the control of the state and that there are limitations
which grow out of the essential nature of all free governments, "implied
reservations of individual rights, without which the social compact could
not exist, and which are respected by all governments entitled to the
name."[28] All men, thought Justice Field, have certain inalienable rights;
among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; in the pursuit
of happiness all avocations, all honors, all positions, are alike open to
everyone; and in the protection of these rights are all equal before the
law.[29]
The eighteenth-century notion of fundamental rights beyond the realm of
government interference and the concept of inalienable rights as formulated
in the Declaration of Independence which, it was thought, governments were
designed to protect, have now been incorporated by means of judicial
construction as essential elements of due process of law and as necessary
principles of the American system of government.[30]
Few lawyers or judges were as frank as Justice Harlan who was among those
applying natural law ideas, when he said: "the courts have rarely, if ever,
felt themselves so restrained by technical rules that they could not find
some remedy, consistent with the law, for acts, whether done by government
or by individual persons, that violated natural justice or were hostile to
the fundamental principles devised for the protection of the essential
rights of property."[31]
Justice Moody was similarly frank when he preferred to rest the decision
regarding exemption from self-incrimination on broader ground than the
strict language of the Constitution and raised the query, "Is it a
fundamental principle of liberty and justice which inheres in the very idea
of free government and is the inalienable right of a citizen of such a
government? If it is, and is of a nature that pertains to process of law,
this court has declared it to be essential to due process of law."[32]
Despite these apparent applications of principles of reason, or of natural
law and natural justice in the opinions of the justices and of the marked
change in the meaning of due process of law, the assertion is repeated
consistently that judges in the decision of cases have nothing to do with
the wisdom, justice, or expediency of legislative acts.[33]
3. Police Regulations must be Reasonable. The extensive limitations which
were inserted in the state constitutions and the implied limitations
developed by the courts placed many restrictions upon the authority of the
states and rendered it difficult to meet the public needs and requirements.
Hence the doctrine of the police power was conceived as a kind of
safety-valve through which the necessary authority for the protection of the
public order, public morals, and public health might be authorized despite
these restrictions.[34] But the exercise of such powers, it was eventually
held, was subject to the requirements of due process of law and equal
protection of the laws and the general necessity of reasonableness. American
courts, following the English practice, held that the by-laws of a municipal
corporation, unless expressly authorized by a legislative act, must be
reasonable, and must not be inconsistent with the general principles of the
common law, particularly those having relation to the liberty of the
individual or the rights of private property.[35] This meant that ordinances
might be held void which were deemed unfair, oppressive, or discriminatory.
State legislatures, also, in their efforts to regulate social and industrial
conditions were held subject to the requirement that "under the mere guise
of police regulations personal rights, and property rights cannot be
arbitrarily invaded, and the determination of the legislature is not final
or conclusive."[36] It was also held for the courts to decide whether a
regulation had in fact some relation to the public health, whether it was
appropriate, and adapted to the end aimed at.[37]
The federal justices, who first refused to interfere with the police powers
of the state under the due process provision, were prevailed upon to adopt
the dictum of the New York court,[38] that the power to regulate is not the
power to destroy,[39] and to render this dictum applicable to all types of
social legislation. A rule of reason test for police regulations extensive
in its scope was also formulated by Justice Peckham.[40]
A state law, therefore, might be held void when enacted to protect the
public health, the public morals, or the public safety if it had "no real or
substantial relation to those objects, or is, beyond all question, a plain,
palpable invasion of rights secured by the fundamental law."[41]
The criteria by which the Supreme Court determines whether a state act is a
legitimate exercise of the police power are:
1. The object of the legislation must be permissible.
2. The means must have a substantial relation to the end.
3. Fundamental rights must not be infringed.
4. The effect of the enforcement of the law must not be
arbitrary, unreasonable, or oppressive.[42]
Thus it will be seen that the courts may adopt Locke's dictum and hold that
an act which appears to them unwise is not within the scope of legislative
action. Or they may conclude that the ways and means adopted by the
legislature are not appropriate to accomplish the object intended. If an act
meets these tests it may run afoul of the fundamental rights of the
individual and what are fundamental rights has never been determined.
Finally, it must meet the test of reasonableness, which is the most
difficult of all requirements, for who knows what will appear reasonable to
the judicial mind?[43] It is not surprising then for the conclusion to be
reached, after a thorough analysis of the attempts to apply the criterion of
due process of law to cases arising under the police power, that the
opinions of the Supreme Court "have confused rather than clarified the
subject and that from such attempts have come no rules, standards, or
principles capable of certain applications to concrete cases."[44]
The criteria upon which the court proceeds in such cases, it is observed,
are largely subjective and depend upon the personal, political, and economic
opinions of the justices. The terms "arbitrary," "unreasonable," and
"oppressive" are not defined in the written law and can be applied only "in
the light of the judges' own mental processes."[45] It is here that the
silence of the Constitution speaks in a voice tuned only to judicial ears.
The situation resulting from the application of the general language of the
Fourteenth Amendment to state legislation on social and industrial matters
is thus summarized by Mr. Nesbitt:
The difficulty with what I have chosen to call the categorical
view of the due process of law requirement as applied to
legislation, dealing with social and economic changes, is that
it extols bare authority at the expense of experience; that it
results in the deductive application of general principles to
precise facts often without any accommodation to the
particular situation out of which the legislation has arisen;
that it tends to limit the content of the clauses to a fixed,
unconditional meaning, precluding all flexibility in their
application; that it construes the due process of law clauses
not so much as broad guarantees of "relatively fundamental
rights" as the regulations of a code, as arbitrary abstract
principles rather than organic rules; and that it excludes
consideration of public opinion as a fact to be taken into
account in determining the reasonableness of legislation, thus
making the opinion of the court as fixed by judicial
experience the measure of the limit of the legislative function.
The standard of reasonableness which it would apply is
remote and traditional.[46]
There is involved in much of the reasoning of the judges in the cases under
the police power an assumption of inherent superiority of the wisdom and
judgments of justices over the judgments of members of the other departments
of government. The legislature, it is asserted, cannot invade the rights of
person or property, under the guise of a police regulation when it is not
such in fact. It is insisted also that it is the province of the judiciary
to determine when personal or property rights have been invaded and whether
a measure is appropriate for the desired object.[47] Constitutions do not
define police regulations which do or do not invade personal or property
rights nor do they give any indication as to the appropriate objects of such
regulations. Police power as a constitutional concept is a judge-made
concept arising from the assumption that legislatures are disposed to
fritter away constitutional inhibitions and that it is the duty of judges to
prevent such legislative depredations. The term "police power" was hit upon
as a convenient phrase for the courts to determine whether a legislative act
which interfered with private rights was reasonable enough to have judicial
approval.
What the whole matter amounts to, we are told, is: "There must be some sort
of reasonable balance between the degree of interference with private rights
and the public benefit which may be expected to flow from that
interference."[48] What is a "reasonable balance," and who is in the best
position to decide this question -- a judge or a legislator -- probably a
judge if the chief object is to preserve private rights, and a legislator if
the public interest and convenience is to be given superior weight?
4. Results of the Extension of the Meaning of Due Process of Law. With
judicial review of legislative enactments applied via due process of law to
the main lines of public regulation of business and economic conditions, it
was not long before the Fourteenth Amendment took its place as the foremost
feature of the federal Constitution, so far as the limitations on the powers
of the states are concerned. Whereas for the first twenty years after the
adoption of the amendment about one case per year on the average arose under
its provisions, it was not long before thirty or more cases were adjudicated
in the same period. In such important fields of state power as eminent
domain, taxation, public utility regulation, and the police power, state and
local acts had been attacked before the Supreme Court in more than six
hundred cases to the year 1910.[49]
To 1910 according to the table of Collins the following questions had been
raised under the Fourteenth Amendment:
Eminent domain .................. 27 cases
Taxation ........................... 144 "
Matters of procedure ........ 146 "
Police power .................... 302 "
Most of the cases which have arisen under this amendment have been decided
since 1896. From 1900 to 1913 there were four hundred and nine opinions or
about thirty one per year. Out of a total of more than six hundred cases
only twenty-eight dealt with the rights of the negro race for whose
protection the amendment was primarily enacted. More than half of the cases
have come to the court on appeals of public utility interests and other
corporate organizations asking protection from the acts of the legislatures
and administrative agencies of the states.[50] Though the amendment was
enacted primarily as a charter of liberty for the negro race it has been
used to a great extent by corporations, public and private, to resist the
efforts toward public regulation and to check the exercise of state
authority through eminent domain, taxation, and the police power.[51]
As a result of such a series of decisions, quasi-legislative in character,
the prohibitions involved in due process of law were held applicable to
substantive law as well as to legal procedure, to executive, administrative,
and judicial acts as well as to legislation, and to corporations as well as
to natural persons.[52] Writing in 1919, Judge Hough believed that "the
direct appeal of property to due process of law had for the most part
failed.... The indirect appeal through liberty is still going on.... But it
is dying, and the courts, when invoked today under the due-process clause,
are doing little more than easing the patient's later days."[53] That this
prediction is not being fulfilled is shown by the fact that since 1920 more
acts in the field of social and economic legislation have been invalidated
under the due process clause than were set aside from 1868 to 1920.[54]
Phrased in percentages this means that from 1868 to 1912
the Court held against the legislature in a very little more than
six per cent of the cases; from 1913 to 1920 in a little more
than seven per cent of the cases; while since 1920 the Court
has held against the legislature in twenty-eight per cent of the
cases. And if we go behind the decisions and look at the
votes of the individual judges in each case, we will find the
same startling increase in the number of opinions adverse to
the validity of legislation under the due process clauses. In
the period up to 1921 the judicial vote was cast
approximately ninety per cent in favor of the various statutes
considered, and only ten per cent against. Since then,
however, the favorable vote has shrunk to about sixty-nine
per cent and the adverse vote grown to thirty-one per
cent.[55]
Evidently the justices regard with increasing seriousness their assumed duty
to guide political action in a safe course so as to avoid the dangers of
economic or social radicalism.
5. Some Examples of Higher Law Concepts in Recent Supreme Court Decisions.
The doctrine of liberty of contract, an inalienable-right product, is now
construed as involved in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. This doctrine
was applied in a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States by
holding invalid the Minimum Wage Act passed by Congress for the District of
Columbia.[56] Justice Sutherland, rendering the opinion of the court, held
that the right to contract about one's affairs is a part of the liberty of
the individual protected by the Fifth Amendment. Quoting with approval the
much criticized opinion of Justice Peckham in the case of Lochner v. New
York,[57] he concluded that the Act of Congress was
simply and exclusively a price-fixing law, confined to adult
women -- who are legally as capable of contracting for
themselves as men. It forbids two parties having lawful
capacity -- under penalties as to the employer -- to freely
contract with one another in respect of the price for which
that one shall render services to the other in a purely private
employment where both are willing, perhaps anxious, to
agree.[58]
The standard for the guidance of the board under the act was regarded so
vague as to be impossible of practical application. It took into account the
necessities of only one party to the contract and it fixed an arbitrary wage
payment and thus interfered with economic laissez faire; altogether the act,
Justice Sutherland declared, was "clearly the product of a naked, arbitrary
exercise of power."[59]
Chief Justice Taft, dissenting, with whom concurred Justice Sanford, took
issue with the contention that there is, in many instances, a substantial
equality as between employer and employee. He admitted that the policy of a
compulsory minimum wage is one on which there is much dispute but he thought
it was "not the function of this court to hold congressional acts invalid
simply because they are passed to carry out economic views which the Court
believes to be unwise or unsound."[60] The principle of the limitation of
liberty of contract was recognized by the court in the regulation of wages
and labor conditions under the police power and it seemed difficult to
understand the difference between regulating the manner and time of payment
of wages or fixing maximum hours of labor and the fixing of a minimum
wage.[61]
In his opinion the Lochner Case was overruled and he expressed surprise at
the attempt of the majority justices to quote the case as a precedent. The
intimation that the controlling effect of earlier opinions had been weakened
by the Nineteenth Amendment was answered by the statement that this
amendment did not change the differences between men and women recognized by
Congress in the passage of this act.
Justice Holmes also dissented and observed that:
Notwithstanding the deference due to the prevailing
judgment of the Court, the power of Congress seems
absolutely free from doubt. The end, to remove conditions
leading to ill health, immorality, and the deterioration of the
race, no one would deny to be within the scope of
constitutional legislation. The means are the means that have
the approval of Congress, of many states, and of those
governments from which we have learned our greatest
lessons. When so many intelligent persons, who have
studied the matter more than any of us can, have thought
that the means are effective and are worth the price, it seems
to me impossible to deny that the belief reasonably may be
held by reasonable men....
The earlier decisions upon the same words in the Fourteenth
Amendment began within our memory, and went no farther
than an unpretentious assertion of the liberty to follow the
ordinary callings. Later that innocuous generality was
expanded into the dogma, liberty of contract. Contract is not
specially mentioned in the text that we have to construe. It is
merely an example of doing what you want to do, embodied
in the word liberty. But pretty much all law consists in
forbidding men to do some things that they want to do, and
contract is no more exempt from law than other acts.[62]
The opinions of Justice Van Orsdel of the District of Columbia Court and
Justice Sutherland illustrate the attenuated methods of reasoning involved
in declaring void legislative acts under the phrase "due process of
law."[63] They likewise illustrate the process of judicial interpretation by
which implied limitations on legislative powers are extracted from the
general language of constitutions. It is the method of reasoning which first
discovered a doctrine of vested rights which might be preserved whether or
not constitutions gave such a protection, which found inherent limitations
on legislatures to protect property rights through the terms "public
purpose" and "public use," and which, lacking any express provision, fell
back on the spirit of the constitution or the general principles of free
government to condemn, as Justice Holmes suggests, what "a tribunal of
lawyers does not think about right."[64] Both justices assume certain
fundamental principles and then by what appears to them as "indubitable
demonstration" they conclude that the acts are arbitrary, unreasonable, and
necessarily void -- as contrary to due process of law. Here is an
application of the old natural rights and natural law philosophy, combined
with the mechanical concept of the functions of the court. That there is no
clear dividing line between arbitrary restraint and reasonable regulation;
that the determination of the dividing line is largely one of policy on
which the judgment of the legislature with the full facts before it ought to
be relatively sound, or can be readily changed, if found unsound; and that a
court is overstepping the bounds of its legitimate authority to pass on the
wisdom or folly of the economic policy of wage legislation, did not make any
difference to the justices imbued with the doctrine of fundamental
principles or of a modern Naturrecht.
Conceived in the spirit of individualism and laissez faire characteristic of
the pioneer conditions which prevailed in a large part of the country more
than a generation ago, the concept of liberty of contract as an absolute
right is ill suited to the industrial conditions now prevailing in many
American communities.[65] If there is any field in which the precept should
prevail that law is a progressive science, that rights are subject to
restrictions and limitations as the social interest may require, and that
the determination as to what restrictions are on the whole wise and salutary
belongs primarily to the legislature, it is the growing field of the
necessary regulations and adjustments in the wage contract. A minimum wage
law may or may not be wise from the economic or social viewpoint. But the
best way to determine its wisdom or unwisdom would appear to be to give it a
trial under terms and conditions laid down by a legislative body which could
change those conditions, if the act proved unwise after a fair trial. For
the court to prevent such experimentation, with the care, foresight, and
experience manifested in the enactment and administration of labor laws,
under an attenuated view of due process of law, protecting liberty and
property, is to place too heavy a burden upon the judiciary and to throttle
the avenue of advance for government to meet the growing needs of modern
economic and industrial society.
When the bakers resisted the enforcement of a Nebraska statute providing for
standard sizes for loaves of bread with an allowance for an excess over the
specified standards, as unnecessary, unreasonable, and arbitrary, the
Supreme Court held, Justice Butler rendering the opinion, that the state may
not "under the guise of protecting the public arbitrarily interfere with
private business or prohibit lawful occupations or impose unreasonable and
unnecessary restrictions upon them." The provisions of an act must have, he
demanded, a reasonable relation to the protection desired to be
accomplished.[66] Regarding the act as essentially unreasonable and
arbitrary it was held void as contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment.
Justice Brandeis, dissenting, stated the problem of the application of the
rule of reason in such cases as follows:
With the wisdom of the legislation we have, of course, no
concern. But, under the due process clause as construed,
we must determine whether the prohibition of excess
weights can reasonably be deemed necessary; whether the
prohibition can reasonably be deemed an appropriate means
of preventing short weights and incidental unfair practices;
and whether compliance with the limitation prescribed can
reasonably be deemed practicable. The determination of
these questions involves an enquiry into facts. Unless we
know the facts on which the legislators may have acted, we
cannot decide whether they were (or whether their measures
are) unreasonable, arbitrary, or capricious.[67]
After an extensive summary of evidence showing the practical necessity of
the prohibition of excess weights as a means of preventing short weights, he
concluded:
The evidence contained in the record in this case is,
however, ample to sustain the validity of the statute. There is
in the record some evidence in conflict with it. The
legislature and the lower courts have, doubtless, considered
that. But with this conflicting evidence we have no concern.
It is not our province to weigh evidence. Put at its highest,
our function is to determine, in the light of all facts which
may enrich our knowledge and enlarge our understanding,
whether the measure, enacted in the exercise of an
unquestioned police power and of a character inherently
unobjectionable, transcends the bounds of reason. That is,
whether the provision as applied is so clearly arbitrary or
capricious that legislators acting reasonably could not have
believed it to be necessary or appropriate for the public
welfare.
To decide, as a fact, that the prohibition of excess weights
"is not necessary for the protection of the purchasers against
imposition and fraud by short weights"; that it "is not
calculated to effectuate that purpose"; and that it "subjects
bakers and sellers of bread" to heavy burdens, is, in my
opinion, an exercise of the powers of a super-legislature --
not the performance of the constitutional function of judicial
review.[68]
Again the majority of the court, as in the Minimum Wage Case, refused to
accept the judgment of the legislature on the facts and then condemned the
policy determined by the legislative body to deal with the facts.
The vacillation and uncertainty involved in according a general power of
review over state acts to judges who are likely to be unfamiliar with the
local conditions which prompted the acts are shown in many recent cases.
There are cases in which the judges indicate a disposition to place the
burden of proof upon those who attack state statutes and to defer to the
judgment of state authorities, legislative and judicial.[69] When this
tendency was beginning to be considered as a rule of law,[70] the justices
again showed an inclination to resort primarily to their own judgments of
facts and local conditions. The refusal to give special consideration to
local conditions, is indicated in the New York Theater Ticket Case.[71]
The New York legislature passed a law to remedy notorious abuses in the
resale of theater tickets, because in its judgment the matter was of
sufficient public interest to warrant public regulation. But the Supreme
Court declared the law void on the ground that the act was an unwarranted
interference with a private business. "The mere declaration by the
legislature," said Justice Sutherland, "that a particular kind of property
or business is affected with a public interest is not conclusive upon the
question of the validity of the regulation. The matter is one which is
always open to judicial inquiry."[72]
Justice Holmes, who has expressed more frequently and insistently than
any other justice the view that the justices have substituted their views of
public policy for those of the legislature, said in a dissenting opinion,
I think the proper course is to recognize that a state
legislature can do whatever it sees fit to do unless it is
restrained by some express prohibition in the Constitution of
the United States or of the State, and that courts should be
careful not to extend such prohibitions beyond their obvious
meaning by reading into them conceptions of public policy
that the particular court may happen to entertain.... I am far
from saying that I think this particular law a wise and rational
provision. That is not my affair. But if the people of the State
of New York speaking their authorized voice say they want
it, I see nothing in the Constitution of the United States to
prevent their having their will.[73]
Reasonable as this opinion may seem, the majority of the Supreme Court have
declared otherwise. Again, when Minnesota attempted to prohibit buyers of
dairy products from discriminating between localities, the majority of the
Supreme Court refused to accept the legislative determination of facts and
held the law invalid as an unwarranted interference with freedom of
contract.[74]
The way in which the Supreme Court makes law in interpreting the Fourteenth
Amendment is illustrated in the gradual inclusion of the first eight
amendments, which were held to apply only to federal law and procedure,[75]
as a part of the Fourteenth Amendment -- and hence as limitations on state
laws and procedure. Subsequent to the Barron Case it was held frequently
that the provisions of the Bill of Rights of the federal Constitution were
not applicable to state action. This opinion was reaffirmed in recent
decisions when it was asserted that "neither the Fourteenth Amendment nor
any other provision of the Constitution of the United States imposes upon
the states any restriction about freedom of speech."[76] But three years
later Justice Sanford, upholding the validity of the New York Criminal
Anarchy Law, said:
"We may and do assume that freedom of speech and of the
press -- which are protected by the First Amendment from
abridgement by Congress -- are among the fundamental
personal rights and liberties protected by the due process
clause of the Fourteenth Amendment from impairment by
the States."[77]
Repeated efforts to secure protection from the federal courts in such
matters as state interferences with the right of suffrage, the right of
assembly, the right to bear arms, the right of impartial trial, the right
against cruel and unusual punishment, the right against compulsory
self-incrimination[78] were given little countenance prior to 1925. In 1925
it is assumed without argument or discussion that the fundamental rights and
liberties of the first eight amendments are protected by the due process
clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. "Despite arguments to the contrary which
had seemed to me persuasive," said Justice Brandeis,
it is settled that the due process clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment applies to matters of substantive law as well as
to matters of procedure. Thus all fundamental rights
comprised within the term liberty are protected by the
federal Constitution from invasion by the states. The right of
free speech, the right to teach, and the right of assembly are,
of course, fundamental rights.[79]
Justice Stone, speaking of the holding of the Supreme Court that the Sherman
Anti-Trust Law prohibits only such restraints upon interstate commerce as
are unreasonable, says: "Reasonableness is not a concept of definite and
unchanging content. Its meaning necessarily varies in the different fields
of the law, because it is used as a convenient summary of the dominant
considerations which control in the application of legal doctrines." And
recognizing the uncertainty of the test of reasonableness as a legal
concept, he continues:
Moreover, in the absence of express legislation requiring it,
we should hesitate to adopt a construction making the
difference between legal and illegal conduct in the field of
business relations depend upon so uncertain a test as
whether prices are reasonable -- a determination which can
be satisfactorily made only after a complete survey of our
economic organization and a choice between rival
philosophies.[80]
If such complete economic surveys had been made would a ten-hour bakeshop
law, or a minimum wage law as well as a number of other state and federal
acts have been declared void?
When the Fourteenth Amendment was construed to prohibit state legislative
and administrative acts which were deemed arbitrary, to prevent any
interference with fundamental rights, to require that all state and local
police regulations must be reasonable, and the justices determined that it
was their duty to examine the facts on which state legislative and
administrative policies were based as well as the ends to be accomplished by
regulation, a change in the American system of government was effected, the
results of which are only beginning to be realized. The change has its roots
in the political and legal thinking of earlier periods but few could have
surmised what a significant turn in political practice was to follow from a
slow and silent revolution in constitutional interpretation.[81]
1. See F. W. Maitland, "An Historical Sketch of Liberty and Equality" in
Collected Papers (ed. by H. A. L. Fisher, Cambridge, 1911), I, 80, 83.
2. Cf. Mott, Due Process of Law, chaps. 3 and 4.
3. For use of the terms "arbitrary" or "unreasonable" in passing on the
validity of legislative acts in the United States, consult Robert P.
Reeder, "Is Unreasonable Legislation Unconstitutional";" University of
Pennsylvania Law Review, LXII (January, 1914), 191.
4. See comments of Attorney General Haywood in State v. -- 29, 30 (N. C.,
1794) and of Justice Peck in State v. Cooper, 2 Yerg. (Tenn., 1831) 599,
611. The law of the land provision, Justice Nott thought, was intended "in
some way or other, to operate as a check upon the exercise of arbitrary
power." Dunn v. City Council of Charleston, Harper's Law Reports. 189, 199
(1824). Chief Justice Gibson in Norman v. Heist, 5 W. & S. (Pa., 1843) 171,
173 claimed that the design of the convention which framed the state
constitution was to exclude arbitrary power from every branch of the
government. The exercise of a governmental power which is arbitrary is void,
according to Justice Campbell, dissenting in Sears v. Cottrell, 5 Mich. 251,
281 (1858).
5. Justice Johnson in Bank of Columbia v. Okely, 4 Wheat. 234, 244 (1819).
This dictum of Justice Johnson was cited and approved by Justice Gray in
Scott v. McNeal in denying to a state court the right to sell property for
the payment of debts without notice to a party absent from the state for
seven years. 154 U. S. 34, 45 (1893).
6. Justice Mason in White v. White, 5 Barb. 474, 484 (1849).
7. See, however, Chief Justice Hines in Barbour v. Louisville Board of
Trade, 82 Ky. 645, 648 (1885).
8. "The principal, if not the sole, purpose of its [the Fourteenth
Amendment] prohibitions is to prevent any arbitrary invasion by state
authority of the rights of persons and property." Justice Field, dissenting
in Butchers' Union v. Crescent City Co., 111 U. S. 746, 759 (1883).
9. Justice Bradley, concurring in Davidson v. New Orleans, 96 U. S. 97, 107
(1877).
10. Justice Field in ex parte Wall., 107 U. S. 265, 303 (1882). And again,
he asserted, the Fourteenth Amendment undoubtedly intended that there should
be "no arbitrary deprivation of life or liberty, or arbitrary spoliation of
property," and that equal protection and security should be given to all
under like circumstances in the enjoyment of their personal and civil
rights. Barbier v. Connolly, 113 U. S. 27, 31 (1885). Cf. also Stuart v.
Palmer, 74 N. Y. 183, 190 (1878), in which a New York justice regarded the
due process clause as a limitation upon the arbitrary exercise of
legislative powers. "The legislature may not, under the guise of protecting
the public interests, arbitrarily interfere with private business, or impose
unusual and unnecessary restrictions upon lawful occupations." Justice Brown
in Lawton v. Steele, 152 U. S. 133, 137 (1894).
11. Hurtado v. California, 110 U. S. 516, 532 (1884). Beginning with
Davidson v. New Orleans, 96 U. S. 97 (1878), Mr. Willis asserts, Coke's
doctrine of a fundamental law superior to all legislation was made a part of
due process of law. Hugh Evander Willis, "Due Process of Law under the
United States Constitution," Univ. of Pa. Law Rev., LXXIV (February, 1926),
331, 335. For applications of the new interpretation see Chicago, Milwaukee
and St. Paul Ry. Co. v. Minnesota, 134 U. S. 418 (1890); Allgeyer v.
Louisiana, 165 U. S. 578 (1897); and Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S. 45
(1905).
12. Justice Harlan in Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Ry. Co. v. Chicago, 166
U. S. 226, 234 (1896), and Chicago, Rock Island & Pac. Ry. Co. v. Arkansas,
219 U. S. 453, 465 (1910).
13. Cf. Holden v. James, 11 Mass. 396, 405 (1814) and supra, p. 111.
14. Opinions of Justices Field in Barbier v. Connolly, 113 U. S. 27, 32
(1885), and Matthews in Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U. S. 356, 369, 370 (1886).
Said Justice Matthews: "When we consider the nature and the theory of our
institutions of government, the principles upon which they are supposed to
rest, and review the history of their development, we are constrained to
conclude that they do not mean to leave room for the play and action of
purely personal and arbitrary power." Chief Justice Fuller confirmed the
rights of the states to deal with criminals within their borders provided no
person or class of persons was denied equal and impartial justice and
provided state procedure did not subject "the individual to the arbitrary
exercise of the powers of government unrestrained by the established
principles of private right and distributive justice." Leeper v. Texas, 139
U. S. 462, 468 (1890).
15. The term "arbitrary" is vague enough in its connotations to give the
widest latitude for a judicial censorship. It may mean acts not governed by
any fixed rules, or which are capricious, unfair, absolute, despotic,
tyrannical, or irresponsible. It is obvious that personal and partisan
inclinations will have great weight in determining whether legislative
enactments come within one of these indefinite categories.
16. Upholding a New York law providing for capital punishment by
electrocution, Chief Justice Fuller said that the Fourteenth Amendment
required that the action of the states be "exerted within the limits of
those fundamental principles of liberty and justice which lie at the base of
all our civil and political institutions. Undoubtedly the amendment forbids
any arbitrary deprivation of life, liberty, or property, and secures equal
protection to all under like circumstances in the enjoyment of their
rights." In re Kemmler, 136 U. S. 436, 448 (1889). See also Justice Moody in
Twining v. New Jersey, 211 U. S. 78, 100 (1908).
17. Classification "must always rest upon some difference which bears a
reasonable and just relation to the act in respect to which classification
is proposed, and can never be made arbitrarily and without any such basis...
but arbitrary selection can never be justified by calling it
classification." Justice Harlan in Connolly v. Union Sewer Pipe Co., 184 U.
S. 540, 560 (1902), citing the opinion of Justice Brewer in Gulf, Colorado
and Santa Fé Railway v. Ellis, 165 U. S. 150, 155, 159 (1896). Cf., also,
Justice Day in Southern Ry. Co. v. Greene, 216 U. S. 400, 417 (1909). For
state cases declaring arbitrary police regulations void, cf. Mott, op cit.,
p. 338.
18. Truax v. Corrigan, 257 U. S. 312, 332 (1924). Mr. Reeder suggests that
the practice of declaring legislative acts void because unreasonable, may be
regarded as more nearly related to the old idea of natural justice than to
the due process of law provision Op. cit., p. 200.
19. Dissenting opinion in Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S. 45, 76 (1904).
20. Cooley, Constitutional Limitations (8th ed., 1927), pp. 356, 357. If no
other grounds can be discovered to prohibit legislative action, the people
have reserved the power to themselves. Whether an act is or is not arbitrary
depends upon the conditions prevailing at the time. Justice Pound in People
v. La Fetra, 230 N. Y. 429, 444 ff.; 130 N. E. 601 (1921); Justice Holmes in
Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U. S. 393, 413 (1922); and Emergency
Rent Cases -- Block v. Hirsch, 256 U. S. 135 (1921) and Levy Leasing Co. v.
Siegel, 258 U. S. 242 (1922).
21. See Reeder, op. cit., pp. 191, 192, for cases in which the Supreme Court
has suggested that action would violate the due process of law provision, if
unreasonable or arbitrary, and in which the court has intimated that it will
pass on the necessity or desirability of legislative or administrative
action.
Referring to the claim that an order of the Interstate Commerce Commission
based upon its findings of fact was conclusive, Justice Lamar said: "A
finding without evidence is arbitrary and baseless.... Such authority,
however beneficently exercised in one case could be injuriously exerted in
another, is inconsistent with rational justice, and comes under the
Constitution's condemnation of all arbitrary exercise of power." Int. Com.
Comm. v. Louisville & Nashville R. R., 227 U. S. 88, 91 (1912).
"The purpose of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is
to secure every person within the State's jurisdiction against intentional
and arbitrary discrimination." Chief Justice Tatt in Sioux City Bridge v.
Dakota County, 260 U. S. 441, 445 (1922), or state procedure in assessments
for local improvements must not be "palpably arbitrary or a plain abuse."
Justice Holmes in Gast Realty Co. v. Schneider Granite Co., 240 U. S. 55, 58
(1915).
Judgments obtained by fraud or without service are not erroneous and not
voidable but "upon principles of natural justice, and under the due process
clause of the Fourteenth Amendment are absolutely void." Justice Lamar in
Simon v. Southern Ry. Co., 236 U. S. 115, 122 (1915). [Italics by the
author.]
22. For an analysis of cases affirming the doctrine of fundamental rights
and of the incorporation of this doctrine in the due process of law clause,
see Francis W. Bird, "The Evolution of Due Process of Law in the Decisions
of the United States Supreme Court," Columbia Law Review, XIII (January,
1913), 37.
23. Corfield v. Coryell, 4 Wash. C. C. 371, 380-382 (1823), Fed. Cas. No.
3230.
24. Terrett v. Taylor, 9 Cranch, 43, 51 (1815); see reference to "republican
principles" by Justice Chase in Calder v. Bull, 3 Dallas, 388 (1798).
25. Wilkinson v. Leland, 2 Pet. 627, 657 (1829); for extract from Story's
opinion cf. supra, p 94.
26. Occasional references may, of course, be found to what Daniel Webster,
in arguing the Dartmouth College Case, called "the great principles of
republican liberty and of the social compact," or to the "eternal principles
of justice which no government has a right to disregard." Justice Green in
Bank of State v. Cooper, 2 Yerg. 599, 603 (1831). "There is a fundamental
principle of right and justice, inherent in the nature and spirit of the
social compact... that rises above and restrains and sets bounds to the
power of legislation," said Chief Justice Buchanan in Regents v. Williams, 9
G. & J. 365, 408 (1838). Cooley thought certain "fundamental rights" when
inserted in a constitution operated as a limitation on the legislature
without any express provisions. Constitutional Limitations (1st ed., 1868),
and People v. Hurlbut, 24 Mich. 44, 97-98 (1871).
27. "There are, undoubtedly, fundamental principles of morality and justice
which no legislature is at liberty to disregard." License Tax Cases, 5 Wall.
462, 469 (1866).
28. Loan Association v. Topeka, 20 Wall. 655, 663 (1874); see also Justice
Harlan in Madisonville T. Co. v. St. Bernard M. Co., 196 U. S. 239, 251, 252
(1904); and Justice Brown in Holden v. Hardy, 169 U. S. 366, 389 (1898),
wherein "certain immutable principles of justice" are declared to "inhere in
the very idea of a free government"; and Benson v. Mayer, 10 Barb. 223, 245
(1850), in which reference was made to "the great principles of Eternal
Justice, which lie at the foundation of all free governments." To Justice
Swayne they are the "conservative principles which lie at the foundation of
all free government," St. Louis v. The Ferry Co., 11 Wall. 423, 429 (1870);
and to the Wisconsin Supreme Court they are "a part of the inherent rights
which governments under our conception are established to conserve,"
Nunnemacher v. State, 129 Wis. 190, 197-202 (1907). See also Justice
Knowlton in Commonwealth v. Perry, 155 Mass. 117, 121 (1891), and Justice
Deemer in State v. Barker, 116 Ia. 96, 105 (1902).
29. Cummings v. Missouri, 4 Wall. 277, 321 (1886). The Fourteenth Amendment,
according to Justice Field, "was intended to give practical effect to the
Declaration of 1776 of inalienable rights which are the gift of the Creator,
which the law does not confer, but only recognizes." Slaughter-House Cases,
16 Wall. 36, 105 (1872). Agreeing with this opinion, Justice Harlan said
that since the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, "the privileges and
immunities specified in the first ten amendments as belonging to the people
of the United States are equally protected by the constitution." Dissent in
Maxwell v. Dow, 176 U. S. 581, 616 (1899). And again he said, "I go further
and hold that the privileges of free speech and of free press, belonging to
every citizen of the United States, constitute essential parts of every
man's liberty, and are protected against violation by that clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment forbidding any state to deprive any person of his
liberty, without due process of law." Patterson v. Colorado, 205 U. S. 454,
456 (1906). Compare this view with the majority opinion of Justice Sanford
in Gitlow v. New York, 268 U. S. 652 (1925); cf. infra, p. 193. Speaking
through one of the champions of individualism, the Supreme Court held on
another occasion that the Fourteenth Amendment "simply furnishes an
additional guaranty against any encroachment by the states upon the
fundamental rights which belong to every citizen as a member of society."
Chief Justice Waite in United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542, 554
(1875); see reference to "immutable principles of liberty and justice" in
Hurtado v. California, 110 U. S. 516, 535 (1884), also Justice Day in Watson
v. Maryland, 218 U. S. 173, 177 (1910). For comment as to the way in which
the pursuit of the immutable principles of justice in connection with the
concept of due process of law leads into the "fields of speculation
cultivated by writers on the law of nature and the nebulous natural rights
of man," see L. P. McGehee, Due Process of Law, pp. 38, 57 ff.
30. For a summary of citations that the fundamental rights of the citizen
are inviolable, cf. Robert P. Reeder, "Constitutional and
Extra-Constitutional Restraints," Univ. of Pa. Law Rev., LXI (May, 1913),
441, 452. The emerging concept of liberty of contract was soon to be grouped
with the undefined fundamental rights. "No proposition is now more firmly
settled," thought Justice Rapallo, "than that it is one of the fundamental
rights and privileges of every American citizen to adopt and follow such
lawful industrial pursuit, not injurious to the community, as he may see
fit." People v. Marx, 99 N. Y. 377, 386 (1885). "There are certain
fundamental rights of every citizen which are recognized in the organic law
of all our tree American states. A statute which violates any of these
rights is unconstitutional and void even though the enactment of it is not
expressly forbidden.... The right to acquire, possess, and protect property
includes the right to make reasonable contracts, which shall be under the
protection of law." Commonwealth v. Perry, 155 Mass. 117, 125 (1891). The
federal courts can only interfere when fundamental rights guaranteed by the
federal Constitution are violated, Justice McKenna in Ballard v. Hunter, 204
U. S. 241, 262 (1907); Justice Day in Rogers v. Peck, 199 U. S. 423, 434
(1905), and in Franklin v. South Carolina, 218 U. S. 161, 164, 165 (1910);
"the limit of the full control which the state has in the proceedings of its
courts both in civil and criminal cases, is subject only to the
qualification that such procedure must not work a denial of fundamental
rights or conflict with specific and applicable provisions of the federal
Constitution." Justice Peckham in West v. Louisiana, 104 U. S. 258, 263
(1904); see also Waters-Pierce Oil Co. v. Texas, 212 U. S. 86, 107 (1009).
Legislative acts, according to Chief Justice Taft, are not due process which
are not in accord with the fundamental principle of equality of application
of the law. Truax v. Corrigan, 257 U. S. 312, 332 (1921). Judge Dillon
thought the value of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment
consisted primarily "in the great fundamental principles of right and
justice, which it embodies and makes part of the organic law of the nation."
The Laws and Jurisprudence of England and America (1894), pp. 208-212. "The
great fundamental rights," said Judge Dillon," guaranteed by [American]
constitutions are life, liberty, contracts and property." Ibid., p 203. One
can readily discover that judicial construction had an extraordinarily
large share in giving this sort of a content to the meaning of the
Fourteenth Amendment.
31. Monongahela B. Co. v. United States, 216 U. S. 177, 195 (1910).
32. Twining v. New Jersey, 211 U. S. 78, 106 (1908). "We cannot interfere
[with a judgment of a state court] unless the judgment amounts to mere
arbitrary or capricious exercise of power, or is in clear conflict with
those fundamental principles which have been established in our systems of
jurisprudence for the protection and enforcement of private rights." Justice
McReynolds in American Ry. Express Co. v. Kentucky, 273 U. S. 269, 273
(1927).
33. For an extensive list of citations that the Supreme Court has no right
to inquire into the wisdom or justice of the acts of the federal or state
governments, see Robert P. Reeder, "Constitutional and Extra-Constitutional
Restraints," Univ. of Pa. Law Rev., LXI (May, 1913), 441, 446, 456.
Regarding the statements of justices relating to inalienable rights,
fundamental rights, and rights which grow out of the essential nature of
free governments, Mr. Reeder thinks "it is sufficient to say that the
premises upon which they are based have been abandoned by thoughtful men for
over a century, [and] that those statements are against the vast weight of
direct authority." For another summary of judicial opinions that courts may
not pass on the justice or expediency of legislative acts, consult Cooley,
Constitutional Limitations (8th ed.), I, 341 ff.
34. Cooley, Constitutional Limitations (8th ed.), chap. 21; also Freund, The
Police Power: Public Policy and Constitutional Rights (Chicago, 1904),
especially chap. 1.
35. Dillon, Municipal Corporations (5th ed.), sec. 589.
36. Justice Earle, in re Jacobs, 98 N. Y. 98, no (1885). Due process of law,
as a limitation on the police power of the federal government, was suggested
by Chief Justice Taney in Dred Scott v. Stanford, 19 How. 393, 450 (1856)
and referred to in several dissenting opinions but was consistently
repudiated by the federal justices. Justice Field expressed the prevailing
sentiment when he declared that the Fourteenth Amendment was not "designed
to interfere with the power of the state, sometimes termed its police
power." Barbier v. Connolly, 113 U. S. 27, 31 (1885). For reference to
additional cases, see Mott, op. cit., pp. 334, 335.
37. Justice Peckham in People v. Gibson, 109 N. Y. 389, 400 ff. (1888). Cf.
as to the definition of the term "liberty," citing chiefly Justice Field's
opinions in the Supreme Court and Justice Andrews' opinion in Bertholf v.
O'Reilly, 74 N. Y. 509 (1878); in re Jacobs, supra; and People v. Marx, 99
N. Y. 377 (1885).
38. Wynehamer v. State of New York, 13 N. Y. 378, 392 ff. (1856).
39. Chief Justice Waite in Stone v. Farmers' Loan and Trust Co., 116 U. S.
307, 331 (1886) and Justice Brewer in Reagan v. Farmers' Loan and Trust Co.,
154 U. S. 362, 397 (1893).
40. Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S. 45, 56 (1898).
41. Referring to the decision of the Supreme Court in Yick Wo v. Hopkins,
118 U. S. 356 (1885) in which a municipal ordinance was held void because
its administration was regarded as arbitrary and discriminatory, Justice
Brown said: "While this was the case of a municipal ordinance, a like
principle has been held to apply to acts of a state legislature passed in
the exercise of the police power." Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U. S. 537, 550
(1895). See also Justice Peckham in Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Ry. Co.
v. Smith, 173 U. S. 684, 689 (1899), and in W. M. & P. R. R. Co. v.
Jacobsen, 179 U. S. 287, 297 (1900). The police power is subject to judicial
review and property rights cannot be wrongfully destroyed by arbitrary
enactments. Justice Day in Dobbins v. Los Angeles, 195 U. S. 223, 236
(1904). Cf. also Justice Harlan in Jacobsen v. Massachusetts, 197 U. S. 11,
31 (1904); cases cited to sustain this view are Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S.
623, 661 (1887); Minnesota v. Barber, 136 U. S. 313, 320 (1889); Atkin v.
Kansas, 191 U. S. 207, 223 (1903). "The principle involved in these
decisions," said Justice Hughes, "is that where the legislative action is
arbitrary and has no reasonable relation to a purpose which it is competent
for government to effect, the legislature transcends the limits of its
power." Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Ry. Co. v. McGuire, 219 U. S. 549, 569
(1910).
The general result is that specific provisions of constitutions are likely
to be enforced literally but indefinite provisions such as due process of
law and the equal protection of the laws will be applied so as to prohibit
governmental acts which are considered as against natural justice.
No proceeding may be declared invalid "unless in conflict with some special
inhibitions of the Constitution, or against natural justice." Justice Brewer
in Arndt v. Griggs, 134 U. S. 316, 321 (1890). "Under the Fourteenth
Amendment, the legislature is bound to provide a method for the assessment
and collection of taxes that shall not be inconsistent with natural
justice." Justice Brown in Turpin v. Lemon, 187 U. S. 51, 60 (1902).
42. "A police measure must fairly tend to accomplish the purpose of its
enactment, and must not go beyond the reasonable demands of the occasion."
Cooley, Constitutional Limitations (8th ed.), II, 1231.
43. Thomas Reed Powell, "The Judiciality of Minimum Wage Legislation,"
Harvard Law Review, XXXVII (March, 1924), 545.
44. Ray A. Brown, "Due Process of Law, Police Power, and the Supreme Court,"
Harv. Law Rev., XL (May, 1927), 943, 966.
45. Brown, op. cit., p. 956. President Goodnow quotes Professor Seager's
conclusion that "the question of the constitutionality of a restrictive
labor law is inseparably connected with the question of the wisdom of such a
law." And then he adds:
"What the courts actually do in cases in which they declare a law of this
sort unconstitutional, is to substitute their ideas of wisdom for those of
the legislature, although they continually say that this is not the case."
Social Reform and the Constitution (New York, 1911), p. 247, and Henry R.
Seager, "The Attitude of American Courts toward Restrictive Labor
Legislation," Political Science Quarterly, XIX (December 1904), 589.
46 James L. Nesbitt, "Due Process of Law and Opinion," Col. Law Rev., XXVI
(January, 1926), 22, 27. The categorical view of due process of law, Mr.
Nesbitt thinks, is best illustrated in the majority opinion in the Minimum
Wage Case, Adkins v. Children's Hospital, 261 U. S. 525 (1923). When the
Supreme Court, under the due process clause, performs "the function of
umpiring the contest between competing social forces" Mr. Nesbitt finds that
three attitudes are in evidence: first, an abstract standard to determine
the line between reasonable regulation and arbitrary restraint, e. g.,
Justice Sutherland's opinion in the Minimum Wage Case; second, a personal
standard of the court, such as that of Chief Justice Taft and Justice
Sanford in the same case; and third, a standard of what others have declared
reasonable; see Justice Holmes in dissent, Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S.
45, 76 (1898).
47. Legislatures may use only such means as are reasonably designed to deal
with existing conditions, Herlihy v. Donahue, 52 Mont. 601, 610, 161 Pac.
164 (1916); also Mott, op. cit., p. 539. On the way in which the "silence of
the original Constitution utters restraints," see T. R. Powell, "Due Process
Tests of State Taxation," Univ. of Pa. Law Rev., LXXIV (March, 1926), 423,
573.
48. Mott, op. cit., p. 539.
49. Charles Wallace Collins, The Fourteenth Amendment and the States
(Boston, 1912), p. 183. See also summary of Judge Hough in Harv. Law Rev.,
XXXII (January, 1919), 229, where it is noted that from 1868 to the 1910
term of the Supreme Court there were more than four hundred cases
interpreting due process of law alone and less than one hundred before 1883.
From 1890 to 1900 there were one hundred and ninety-seven appeals under the
recent cases relating to corporations, with public service companies
predominating.
50. See Collins, op. cit., p. 183.
51. The Supreme Court, says Professor Commons, has legislated by definition:
"It changed the meaning of due process of law and thus amended the federal
and every state constitution. It changed the meaning of property and liberty
as used in the Fourteenth Amendment and thus took over from the states the
final determination of what was due process of law in the regulation of
property and business." Legal Foundations of Capitalism, p. 355. The change
in the court's interpretation of the term "due process of law," Mr. Willis
thinks, was brought about "through the efforts of corporations; through a
change in the personnel of the bench, and through the personal activity of
Justice Field, who always championed this doctrine and who strangely, in
writing an opinion for the Supreme Court, cited his own opinion while a
circuit judge as the opinion of the Supreme Court." Minneapolis Ry. Co. v.
Beckwith, 129 U. S. 26 (1898); "Due Process of Law under the United States
Constitution," Univ. of Pa. Law Rev., LXXIV, 337; and County of San Mateo v.
Southern Pacific Ry. Co., 13 Fed. 722 (1882).
52. Willis, Univ. of Pa. Law Rev., LXXIV, 338. Mr. Willis claims that by
attacking all forms of state legislation before the Supreme Court
corporations are attempting to undermine our dual form of government. Ibid.,
p. 342. The Fourteenth Amendment, in the judgment of Mr. Coffins, was to be
a charter of liberty for human rights, but it operates today to protect
primarily the rights of property. It has become the Magna Carta of organized
capital. It "gives to the federal government undefined and illimitable
control over every phase of state activity. It throws into the hands of the
Supreme Court of the United States more power over the states than does all
the rest of the Constitution combined." Collins, op. cit., pp. 146 ff.
53. "Due Process of Law -- Today," Harv. Law Rev., XXXII, 218, 233. For
similar judgments regarding the decline of significance of this phrase,
consult Charles Warren, "The Progressiveness of the United States Supreme
Court," Col. Law Rev., XIII (April, 1913), 294, and Robert E. Cushman, "The
Social and Economic Interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment," Michigan
Law Review, XX (May, 1922), 737, 757 ff.
54. Ray A. Brown, op. cit., pp. 943 ff.
55. Ibid., pp. 944, 945.
56. Adkins v. Children's Hospital, 261 U. S. 525 (1923). The committees of
both Houses of Congress unanimously recommended the legislation, House Rep.
No. 571 and Senate Rep. No. 562, 65th Congress, 2d Session. The House of
Representatives passed the bill without opposition, and only twelve votes
were recorded against it in the Senate, vol. LVI, Cong. Rec., Pt. 9, pp.
8875 ff.; Pt. 10, pp. 10278 ff.; Pt. 12, pp. 604 ff. In the consideration of
this case some extracts are used from an editorial note by the writer in
Texas Law Review, II (December, 1923), 99.
57. 198 U. S. 45 (1904), It is a well-known fact that in the attempts of the
federal courts to define due process of law there has been much wavering and
uncertainty, and dissenting opinions have been prevalent. The court seldom
reverses itself in the interpretation of due process -- it explains,
distinguishes, or modifies. The effect is often a reversal in whole or in
part. The uncertainties and misapprehensions are apparent in the general
impression of the bench and bar that the majority opinion in the Lochner
Case had been overruled, and that the court had adopted the minority views
of Justice Holmes and the reiteration of the majority views in that case by
Justice Sutherland, rendering the opinion in Adkins v. Children's Hospital.
See Fletcher Dobyns, "Justice Holmes and the Fourteenth Amendment," Illinois
Law Review, XIII (June, 1918), 71, 92, and Cardozo, The Nature of the
Judicial Process (New Haven, 1922), p. 79.
58. 261 U. S. 554, 555. Referring to Justice Sutherland's views on the
freedom of contract in the Minimum Wage Case, Powell remarks, "It represents
his personal views of desirable governmental policy. Those views are shared
by many others, but they are not written into the Constitution of the United
States except as judges from time to time have inscribed them there." "The
Judiciality of Minimum Wage Legislation," Harv. Law Rev., XXXVII (March,
1924), 545, 555, 556.
59. 261 U. S. 559.
60. Ibid., 562.
61. See Holden v. Hardy, 169 U. S. 336 (1897), limiting employment of
workmen in mines to eight hours per day; Patterson v. The Eudora, 190 U. S.
169 (1903), prohibiting masters from paying seamen in advance; Muller v.
Oregon, 208 U. S. 412 (1908), limiting hours of labor of women employed in
laundries to ten hours per day; Riley v. Massachusetts, 232 U. S. 671
(1914), limiting employment of women in manufacturing establishments to ten
hours per day, or not more than fifty-six hours per week; Erie Railway Co.
v. Williams, 233 U. S. 685 (1914), prohibiting employers from paying
employees less often than semi-monthly; Bosley v. McLaughlin, 236 U. S. 385
(1915), limiting employment of women for more than eight hours per day, or
more than forty-eight hours per week in certain designated employments;
Bunting v. Oregon, 243 U. S. 426 (1917), forbidding employment of anyone in
mill or factory for more than ten hours per day.
62. 261 U. S. 567, 568.
63. On the effect of the personal influences in the decisions of the Supreme
Court on labor cases, see Powell, "The Constitutional Issue in Minimum Wage
Legislation," Minnesota Law Review, vol. II (December, 1917). The reasoning
of the court in the Adkins Case led to a judgment against the validity of
the Arizona Minimum Wage Act and to a condemnation of other meliorative
acts. See ex parte Smith 223 Pac. 971 (1924).
64. Collected Legal Papers, p. 184.
65. "Though neither the doctrine of individualism nor of laissez faire is
contained in the language of the constitution, they permeate many judicial
opinions interpreting the constitution." Powell, "The Constitutional Issue
in Minimum Wage Legislation," Minn. Law Rev., II, 11. For a different
interpretation see Brown, ibid., I (June, 1917), 471.
66. Burns Baking Company v. Bryan, 264 U. S. 505, 513 (1923).
67. Ibid., 519, 520.
68. 264 U. S. 533, 534.
69. "One who assails the classification [made by a state legislature] must
carry the burden of showing that it does not rest upon any reasonable basis,
but is essentially arbitrary." Justice Sanford in Whitney v. California, 274
U. S. 357 (1927) citing Lindsley v. Natural Carbonic Gas Co., 220 U. S. 62,
78, 79 (1910).
70. Mott, op. cit., pp. 562 ff.
71. Tyson and Bro. United Theater Ticket Offices v. Banton; 273 U. S. 418
(1927). Referring to the failure of the justices to give due weight to the
evidence before the legislature in the case of Lochner v. New York, 198 U.
S. 45 (1905), Sir Frederick Pollock believes that "the legal weakness of
this reasoning, if we may say so, is that no credit seems to be given to the
state legislature for knowing its own business and it is treated like an
inferior court which has to find affirmative proof of its competence. How
can the Supreme Court at Washington have conclusive judicial knowledge of
the conditions affecting bakeries in New York? If it has not such knowledge
as matter of fact, can it be matter of law that no conditions can be
reasonably supposed to exist which would make such an enactment, not
necessarily wise or expedient (for no one attributes to any court, state or
federal, a general jurisdiction to review legislation on the merits) but
constitutional?" "The New York Labour Law and the Fourteenth Amendment," Law
Quarterly Review, XXI (July, 1905), 212.
72. Tyson and Bro. United Theater Ticket Offices 11. Banton, 273 U. S. 418
(1927). As authority for this view, Wolff Co. v. Industrial Court, 262 U. S.
522, 536 (1922) was cited.
73. 273 U. S., 433, 434.
74. Fairmont Creamery Co. v. Minnesota, 274 U. S. 1 (1927).
75. Barron v. Baltimore, 7 Pet 243 (1833). See comment of Chief Justice
Waite in 1876 that "it is now too late to question the correctness of this
construction," and citation of cases, Harv. Law Rev., XXXIX (February,
1926), 436.
76. Prudential Insurance Co. v. Cheek, 259 U. S. 530, 538, 543 (1922);
Patterson v. Colorado, 205 U. S. 454 (1907).
For the claim that it was the intention of the framers of the Fourteenth
Amendment that the rights and privileges of the first eight amendments
should be the "secure possession of every citizen" of the United States,
beyond the power of any state to abridge," see Guthrie, Lectures on the
Fourteenth Article of Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, p.
61.
77. New York v. Gitlow, 268 U. S. 652, 666 (1925). Justice Sanford said that
the court did not regard the statement quoted above from the Prudential
Insurance Cases as "determinative," but he does not refer to the other cases
in which similar opinions were rendered.
78. See Minor v. Happersett, 21 Wall. 162 (1874), 1; United States v.
Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542 (1875); in re Kemmler, 136 U. S. 436 (1890);
Twining v. New Jersey, 211 U. S. 78 (1908).
79. Whitney v. California, 274 U. S. 357 (1927).
80. United States v. Trenton Potteries Co., 273 U. S. 392 (1927). For
applications of the concept of reasonableness in passing on the validity of
combinations in restraint of trade, consult U. S. v. Trans-Missouri Freight
Association, 166 U. S. 290 (1896); Northern Securities Co. v. United States,
193 U. S. 197 (1903); Standard Oil Co. v. United States, 221 U. S. 1 (1910);
United States v. American Tobacco Co., 211 U. S. 106 (1910).
"It is submitted that up to the present time very little can be learned as
to the meaning of due process of law from the decisions of the Supreme Court
as to what in its judgment is reasonable and what unreasonable. They neither
give us a rule of law nor a definition." Willis, Univ. of Pa. Law Rev.,
LXXIV, 338, 339. See comment how the Supreme Court, in finding a new meaning
for due process of law, made some new constitutional law. P. 339.
81. For comments on one phase of this revolution, see F. Dumont Smith,
"Decisive Battles of Constitutional Law," American Bar Association Journal,
X, 505, and The Constitution: Its Story and Battles, chap. 15.
CHAPTER VIII
NATURAL LAW DOCTRINES AID IN CHANGING THE BASIS
FOR JUDICIAL REVIEW OF LEGISLATIVE ACTS
BEGINNING with the dominance of the Federalist Party over the political
affairs of the country after the inauguration of the federal Constitution in
1789, a tradition was established which insisted that the continuance of
federalism and its control over political affairs was essential to the
political peace and order of the country, and that anti-federalism tended in
the direction of chaos and ruin. This tradition was fostered in large part
through the business and commercial interests over which Hamilton and his
successors held sway. For the greater part of the nineteenth century the
successors of the Federalist Party preserved the doctrine that peace and
order depended upon their control and insisted that the turning over of the
government to their opponents would bring ruin and disruption to the
country.
To prevent an excess of democracy and the disorders supposed to accompany
the people's management of public affairs there was an insistence that one
department of government must not be directly influenced by temporary public
opinion, and it was determined to make the judiciary such a stabilizing
power.[1]
Under the leadership of such men as Chief Justice Marshall, Justice Joseph
Story, and Daniel Webster, it came to be an accepted view that nationalist,
conservative, and commercialist views of American law and politics were
looked upon as sound statesmanship and opposite views were identified with
ruin and disunion. The Republican Party, which became the successor of the
old Federalist and Whig Parties, accepted and fostered the conservative and
capitalist traditions championed by the old Federalist Party. After the
program was inaugurated of applying the resources of the government to
economic development through a liberal land policy, which gave an impetus to
the settlement of the frontier, through subsidies and land grants to
railways, which gave settlers access to world markets, and through
protective duties, which were designed to build up home industries, the
party adopted the principles and practices of the coalition between the
commercial and capitalist interests which were characteristic of the
policies of Alexander Hamilton. Hence the party leaders again asserted the
former contention that their control of the country alone could preserve
peace and order.
As the Democratic Party was disrupted through the realignments resulting
from the Civil War it was easy to maintain the position that the turning
over of the government to this party would, as was charged against the
anti-federalists many decades earlier, lead the people in the direction of
political disorder and ruin. The old doctrine is continued in the
oft-repeated claim that the decisions of John Marshall "remain the charter
of courts of justice in the modern republican world: the world of law and
constitutional government. They speak order, power, progress and peace. Had
a contrary conception of civil institutions prevailed, could anything else
have followed than weakness and strife, decay and chaos?"[2] It has become
one of the axioms of American political philosophy that "to maintain the
principle that there is a limit in republican government to the power of the
majority to make laws is one of the most valuable functions the courts have
to perform."[3]
1. Conservative Doctrines and Judicial Review of Legislation. The battle cry
of those who believe in conservative doctrines is that every effort must be
made to place limits upon the despotism of the majority.[4] No device is
better designed to accomplish this end than the practice of the judicial
review of legislative acts with a written constitution as an express guide
and with a broad rule of reason as a supplementary weapon of defence. And a
principle of government which was identified with one of the great parties
of American political development has been espoused by the leaders of both
major parties.
The conservative reaction, which, among other things, secured the judicial
application of the doctrine of inherent limits on legislative powers and
left its impress upon the Fourteenth Amendment to such an extent as to bring
a change in the federal Constitution greater than all amendments and
interpretations made since 1789, was not the result of any one group,
division, or class of the American people. Like the medley of interests
which combined to make and to secure the adoption of the Constitution, a
rather unusual combination of individuals, groups, and interests joined
forces to bring about a radical change in the adjustment of relations
between the nation and the states. A peculiar set of circumstances,
economic, political, social, and philosophic, gave color to dominant modes
of thinking which affected all, including the justices in state and federal
courts. Certain ideas were fostered and became the stock in trade of the
politicians and of the legal fraternity. It is not surprising, therefore, to
find the state and federal justices about the same time giving form and
utterance to the peculiar concept of "liberty of contract" and to various
doctrines of economic individualism. These ideas were prevalent and the
semi-political views of the justices, meeting a responsive chord in public
sentiment, as a rule, were received with popular approval. The change in the
interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment, whereby a content was declared
involved therein which the majority of the Supreme Court had repeatedly held
was not intended in its adoption, was the result of the reasoning of many
justices, though a few of this number bore the brunt of the controversy
which turned the tide toward a broad judicial review of legislation.
Three justices seem to have determined, in large part, the trend of the
opinions of the Supreme Court, in the cases changing the meaning and content
of the term "due process of law" and in ushering in a period characterized
as a "carnival of unconstitutionality, which perhaps was at its height
between 1890 and 1910."[5] They were Justices Field, Harlan, and Brewer.
Certain peculiarities and characteristics of these justices made a distinct
impression upon this unique feature of modern American constitutional law.
Foremost of this group is Justice Field.
He had, we are told, a quality of intellect which led him on all occasions
to seek for fundamental and universal principles.[6] His creative power,
exhibited in a marked degree in his legislative career, was also
characteristic of his decisions on the bench.[7] His experience in a
frontier community, as well as his training in early life, developed a
philosophy of individualism in which he was disposed to encourage in every
way individual self-exertion, and to object to measures attempting to
regulate economic life.[8] It was this philosophy that led Justice Field to
object strongly to any exercise of governmental power which to him seemed
arbitrary,[9] and that impelled him to insist that the Fourteenth Amendment
was designed to prevent arbitrary governmental acts.[10] More consistently
than any other justice, he opposed the inclination of the justices of the
Supreme Court not to give the broadest meaning and application to the due
process and equal protection phrases of the Fourteenth Amendment. He was the
spokesman of the court in some of the leading cases in which the
interpretation of the amendment was changed, and continued on the bench
until the reversal of the Slaughter-House Case and similar cases was
accomplished, and until the amendment was interpreted as at least a negative
protection to any interference with civil or political rights.[11]
Justice Harlan, like Justice Field, was influenced considerably by the
philosophy and experience of the frontier, and he, too, was individualistic
in much of his thinking. He was regarded as a "militant justice," and was
strongly nationalistic in his political theories.[12] Inclined to emphasize
the theory of natural rights he was readily disposed to adopt the doctrine
of fundamental rights which the justices of the Supreme Court were slowly
developing in connection with the interpretation of the due process clause.
He had supposed, he said, that the intention of the people of the United
States was to prevent the deprivation of any legal right in violation of the
fundamental principles inhering in due process of law,[13] objected to any
interference with private property rights,[14] and joined, as a rule,
Justice Field in protesting against the regulative measures of the state
legislatures. He agreed with Justice Field that Congress and the courts
ought to be authorized to exercise a national control over civil rights.[15]
No greater exponent of the individualistic philosophy of this period was
appointed to the Supreme Court than Justice Brewer.[16] In decisions while
on the circuit court, and in his opinions and influence on the Supreme
Bench, he availed himself of every opportunity to defend the extreme
individualistic doctrines which prevailed at this time. His point of view
was expressed quite freely in an address delivered before the graduating
class of the Yale Law School in June, 1891, on "Protection to Private
Property from Public Attack." Referring to the Declaration of Independence
and the bills of rights of state constitutions, Justice Brewer said, "they
equally affirm that sacredness of life, of liberty, and of property, are
rights, inalienable rights, anteceding human government, and its only sure
foundation, given not by man to man, but granted by the Almighty to
everyone, something which he has by virtue of his manhood, which he may not
surrender and of which he may not be deprived." To Justice Brewer, the
Declaration of Independence was the cornerstone of the federal
Constitution.[17]
Justice Brewer also asserted in his address that "the demands of absolute
and eternal justice prevent that any private property legally acquired or
legally held should be subordinated or destroyed in the interests of public
health, morals, or welfare without compensation." The destruction of
property rights, he thought, might be as effectively accomplished by the
regulation of charges, or by the regulation of the use to which property may
be put as by the direct destruction of the property itself. Referring to the
controversy before the Supreme Court, which resulted in the reversal of the
case of Munn v. Illinois, he approved Justice Blatchford's opinion for
reversal with the comment that it "will ever remain the strong and
unconquerable fortress in a long struggle between individual rights and
public greed. I rejoice to have been permitted to put one stone into that
fortress." He approved the doctrine of Chancellor Kent and of Justice Cooley
that legislatures may not disturb vested rights, whether constitutional
provisions prohibit such acts or not, and regretted that the Fourteenth
Amendment had not been interpreted more favorably in the direction of
protecting property rights. The frontier individualistic philosophy of
Justices Field and Harlan had an able defender in Justice Brewer.
Appointed to the court after the change in the interpretation of the
Fourteenth Amendment was under way, Justice Peckham was well suited to
become one of the leading exponents of the conservative and individualistic
thinking of Justices Field, Harlan, and Brewer. As a member of the Court of
Appeals of New York, Justice Peckham not only approved the doctrine of
Justice Field that the due process clause comprehended the inalienable
rights referred to in the Declaration of Independence but he also indicated
his inclination to join the ranks of the laissez faire school and to look
with disapproval on the increasing tendency to regulate economic conditions.
When placing the stamp of disapproval on a state law prohibiting the giving
of a gift or reward with the sale of an article of food, Justice Peckham
said:
It is evidently of that kind which has been so frequent of late,
a kind which is meant to protect some class in the
community against the fair, free, and full competition of some
other class, the members of the former class thinking it
impossible to hold their own against such competition, and
therefore flying to the legislature to secure some enactment
which shall operate favorably to them or unfavorably to their
competitors in the commercial, agricultural, manufacturing or
producing field.[18]
The natural inclination here expressed to hold the legislative power within
"reasonable" limits qualified Justice Peckham to become the spokesman for
the majority in Lochner v. New York and to assert that
it must, of course, be conceded that there is a limit to the
valid exercise of the police power of the state. In every case
that comes before this court, therefore, where legislation of
this character is concerned and where the protection of the
federal Constitution is sought, the question necessarily arises:
Is this a fair, reasonable and appropriate exercise of the
police power of the state or is it an unreasonable,
unnecessary and arbitrary interference with the right of the
individual to his personal liberty?[19]
And on this ground it was held that a particular limitation of the hours of
labor did not come within the police power.[20]
Since the controversy which resulted in changing the meaning of the due
process clause was an issue primarily between the liberal or radical groups
and those imbued with the principles and philosophies of individualism and
of conservatism, the ordinary partisan affiliations of the justices did not
have a controlling influence in bringing about the change. The majority of
the justices who gave a narrow interpretation to the amendment in the decade
from 1870 to 1880 were Democrats, a number of whom, as supporters of the
Union, had joined the Republican Party. It was Justice Miller, however, a
Republican, and an intense partisan who usually supported federalist
doctrines, who rendered the opinion of the majority in the Slaughter-House
Case; and it was Justice Field, a Democrat, who gave the minority opinion
and pleaded for a broad interpretation of the amendment. Justice Bradley, a
Republican, protested strongly against judicial review of the legislative
power of rate-making and of public utility regulation. And the effective
shift favorable to judicial review of the regulation of public utilities in
the Minnesota Rate Case of 1889 was accomplished with three Republicans and
three Democrats forming the majority and two Republicans and one Democrat
the minority. Though the majority of the justices from 1870 to 1900 were
Republicans, Democrats joined with Republicans in many decisions extending
the general terms of written constitutions and in construing implied limits
on legislatures. The truth of the matter is that, except for some of the
differences between the parties left over from Civil War times and the
tariff controversy, leading Democrats and Republicans looked at political
matters from similar viewpoints. The parties seldom took sides on the vital
issues of the day, and, as a rule, their leaders joined in helping to bring
about a covert but effective revolution in federal and state constitutional
interpretation.
The federalism of Marshall, Kent, Story, Cooley, and Dillon suggested ideas
and formulated principles for a political conservatism which American
constitutions were presumed to foster. It remained for the justices of the
Supreme Court, aided by a group of assertive state justices, to turn these
ideas into the channels of a new conservatism and to complete a structure of
constitutional limitations and inhibitions the mere outlines of which had
been previously sketched. The vested rights doctrine and the implied
limitations originally considered as necessary for the protection of such
rights took on a new form and were rounded out and extended by giving new
meaning and content to the contract clause, to the just compensation
principle for eminent domain proceedings, to the public purpose requirement
for taxation, and to due process of law rendered applicable to all forms of
legislative and administrative action, and particularly in so far as
property rights might be affected.
In New York the total number of acts or parts thereof invalidated from 1783
to 1905 was three hundred and sixty-three. From 1860 to 1905 the number was
two hundred and ninety-seven and more than one third of this number was
declared void in the decade from 1891 to 1900.[21] Massachusetts courts used
their powers sparingly to review and invalidate acts, only fifty-three acts
or parts thereof being set aside to 1915. Ten of these were held void prior
to 1860 and fifteen in the decade 1891 to 1900.[22]
But more important than the marked increase in the statutes invalidated in
the latter part of the nineteenth century is the basic reason for such a
change. Professor Corwin attributes the extension of judicial review in New
York to the increase in the legislative product, the greater detail of
constitutional provisions, and the development of constitutional doctrine,
but he concludes that "the heart and soul of constitutional limitations in
New York, thanks especially to Chancellor Kent, has been the doctrine of
vested rights" and that the New York courts did constructive work in
utilizing the "due process of law" clause as "a safe vehicle for the
doctrine of vested rights."[23] Nearly one half of the statutes invalidated
in Massachusetts was held in violation of due process of law or other
provisions of the constitution which were construed as favorable to the
protection of vested rights.[24] Evidently the justices had strayed a long
way from the landmarks established in early precedents supporting the power
of judicial review of legislative enactments.[25]
The obvious results of all the implied limitations and correlative ones,
which have amplified and extended the scope of judicial review of
legislation, and the extraordinary expansion of due process of law into a
general limitation applicable to the entire realm of legislation and
administration led to a construction by judicial interpretation of a broad
rule of reason as a standard to test the fairness and reasonableness of
legislative enactments, and incidentally to consider the wisdom or
expediency of many governmental acts. The justices, however, continued to
render lip service to the adage that courts had nothing to do with the
wisdom or policy of legislation, their sole duty being to apply the express
language of written constitutions. But express constitutional limitations
with such vague terms as "due process of law" gave justices a roving
commission to disapprove such measures as seemed to them to change too
abruptly some regulation affecting the existing social or political order,
or to presage too radical tendencies, and to seek refuge for such
disapproval behind the indefinite language of express constitutional
terms.[26]
It is not so much, then, the original language or intent of written
constitutions that is responsible for the unique character of the practice
of judicial review of legislative acts in the United States, as compared
with a similar practice in foreign countries. It is the judge-made
constitutional doctrines supported by the conservative groups of the country
and fostered by the extreme individualism of leaders of industry and finance
who, while busily engaged in securing governmental favors, were solicitous
to make sure that popular assemblies might not be permitted to regulate too
freely their property or contract rights.
It is coming to be better understood today than formerly that methods of
thinking fostered by the common law, supported by the capitalists and
industrial leaders of the country, and applied by conservative-minded
judges, rather than constitutional provisions have given the peculiar trend
to judicial review of legislation in the United States. Though foreign
critics of the American system of government have frequently pointed out
this fact, none has recognized it more clearly or dealt with it so
convincingly as Professor Edouard Lambert, of the University of Lyons. In a
recent volume dealing with certain phases of the problem of judicial review
of legislation, he contrasts the early period of the exercise of this power
by American courts -- when the object was to control the competency of the
legislature to deal with certain subjects, and not the way in which the
legislature had dealt with the subjects -- and the modern practice of
judicial review through which due process has been interpreted to form a new
Magna Carta "built piece by piece by the judges to protect the free play of
individual energies against the arbitrary manifestations of popular
sovereignty."[27]
In the twentieth century, Professor Lambert observes, the American judiciary
is in possession of a power which permits it to exercise an energetic
tutelage over the legislature, and to check the progress of legislation.
This tutelage, he finds, is exercised in passing on the reasonableness of
legislative measures, a well-known rule of reason now applied extensively by
federal and state courts; and second, the criterion of expediency by which
the courts pass on the economic value or political desirability of
legislative measures. In the application of these principles, Professor
Lambert thinks that American courts applying the conservative principles of
the common law hold legislative activities within well-defined bounds. This
practice of the courts, he believes, has had the result to erect a political
judiciary against a political legislature, and often in conflict with it on
the most irritating questions of a changing political and economic order. It
is not surprising to find, then, that it operates to the detriment of the
popularity and confidence ordinarily belonging to courts of justice.[28] The
justices having taken sides on some of the fiercely contested political
issues could expect nothing less than that their decisions would involve the
courts in the maelstrom of party politics.
What is arbitrary and what is beneficent must be decided by common sense
applied to a concrete set of facts.[29] But what criteria except their own
consciences, have judges to guide them, as to what acts are unreasonable,
unfair, discriminatory, outrageous, capricious, and shocking to the moral
sense of mankind?" Is it surprising that the judgments of the individual
justices differ widely as to the application of such vague and indefinite
terms, that dissenting opinions are prevalent, that the courts frequently
shift their positions, and that a feeling of uncertainty prevails as to the
application of the rule of reason or the higher law philosophy supposed to
be comprehended in the Fourteenth Amendment?
When legislation carefully formulated to deal with the complications and
adjustments of the social order and to remedy some of the insistent evils of
present industrial conditions is declared of no effect by a divided court,
against the earnest and caustic protests of the minority justices, in the
application of subjective criteria which constitute no standards at all, it
is not strange that confidence in the judiciary is weakened, and that the
leaders who are seeking to regulate more effectively the economic conditions
which are deemed detrimental to human welfare are disposed to protest
against the unwarranted powers assumed by the judges. "Here is the whole
story behind the failure of all formulae connected with 'due process' and
all the meaningless and circular statements as to what acts are and what are
not 'due process.' In determining whether an act has a substantial and
rational or reasonable relation to the enumerated matters, the court has in
mind the background of 'fundamental principles' which are beyond the reach
of any legislative power."[30] But is it not natural to expect that those
for whom the oracles expound the "fundamental principles" should believe
that the voice of the numen is not always correctly understood and that in
the process of exposition some of the power once thought to belong to the
people or to their representatives has been silently and surely
dissipated?[31]
2. Underlying Purpose of the Revival of the Natural Law Philosophy in
American Constitutional Law. American constitutions were drafted when there
was a deep-seated conviction that the people could not be trusted and that
well-defined checks must be placed upon the rule of the people. It was under
these conditions that the courts with strong popular approval asserted the
right, which they held to be implied from the language of the written
constitution, to declare void legislative acts deemed to be in conflict with
the written fundamental law. A growing distrust for legislative assemblies
encouraged the courts not only to hold invalid acts regarded as contrary to
the express language of the written constitutions, but to construe implied
limitations supposed to be derived from the doctrine of natural and
inalienable rights and from the notion of fundamental individual rights.
Again the courts were encouraged and supported in a continuous line of
decisions, mostly rendered since the Civil War, to place other implied
limits on legislative powers in addition to the varied list of express
limitations added by vote of the people. By extending judicial review of
legislation through the developing doctrine of protecting vested rights,
through the change in the meaning of due process of law, to render it a
general limitation on legislative powers, and through giving new force and
meaning to the separation of power theory,[32] the courts have gradually
assumed a general right of censorship over legislation to see that it is not
arbitrary or unfair and that it does not violate any of the judicially
construed "fundamental principles" of the social order. A mild and
relatively unimportant practice of judicial review of legislation for nearly
a century has during the last few decades loomed up as the controlling
feature of the American system of constitutional government.
The judicial power to declare laws unconstitutional gradually introduced a
new concept of due process by expanding what the courts had been inclined to
regard as the inherent limitations on legislative powers. The doctrine of
inherent limitations on legislatures had been applied at first to the
protection of vested rights. It was a different matter to insist in the name
of due process of law upon an immunity of individual action from legislative
control.
It was such Justices as Field, Harlan, Brewer, and Peckham in the federal
courts and Justices Edwards, Comstock, and Denio in the state courts, the
champions of a revived eighteenth-century individualism, of the policy of
economic laissez faire, and of conservative political tendencies, who gave
the natural rights or modern higher law doctrine the peculiar trend which
now marks the process of constitutional interpretation in state and federal
courts.[33] As upholders of individualistic and laissez faire doctrines in
an age of unceasing legislative activities the courts were made censors of
economic and social legislation under the higher law doctrine of American
constitutional law -- the rule of reason.
Being rather insecure as a basis for legislative limitations, the former
doctrine held a precarious place in American constitutional law, especially
when the tendencies were in the direction of the extension of popular
control over all agencies of government. When, however, this doctrine was
absorbed in the general phrases "due process of law," "equal protection of
the laws," "public purpose for taxation," "public use for eminent domain,"
and "reasonableness," it was given the semblance of express constitutional
sanction. Henceforth judges and lawyers could confidently assert that courts
no longer passed upon the wisdom or expediency of legislative acts. They
merely applied in a mechanical way, it was insisted, the express words of
the constitution which by "indubitable demonstration" compelled the laying
of the axe at the root of legislative power. This change in basis has not
affected the character of the higher law doctrine which constitutes today
the central feature of American constitutional law. A new law of nature and
a new rule of reason were in process of development. Instead, however, of
serving as in Roman and in mediaeval times, as an agency for the
liberalization of the law, as an ideal toward which law was approximating,
it became the weapon of a fixed, immutable order which was designed to serve
as a check on progressive or radical measures, and to restrict within
well-defined limits the liberalizing tendencies which were characteristic of
an age of extensive lawmaking.[34]
The repeated assertions, then, by lawyers and judges in the United States
that the right to hold laws invalid because they are unwise or unjust, or
because they run counter to natural and inalienable rights, have never been
applied to concrete cases, may readily be explained.
Before the extensive implications of due process of law and other similar
phrases had been discovered, it was not uncommon for justices to refer to
fundamental principles or natural rights as a basis to invalidate acts.
Before the Civil War, when, on the whole, relatively few acts were held void
by the courts, certain of the decisions invalidating acts were based
definitely upon the doctrine of fundamental rights, the principles of free
government, or other implied limitations related in a sense to the higher
law philosophy. Sometimes constitutional provisions were held applicable;
other times there seemed to be little inclination to seek for appropriate
constitutional sanction other than the general clauses in the bills of
rights.[35] But the reason why it is claimed that the courts have not been
passing upon the wisdom or unwisdom of acts under a natural rights doctrine
is due to the fact that the due process clause was interpreted to include
and embody such a doctrine. From that time on, instead of referring to these
general limitations as inherent in all governments, or to the older theories
of natural law, the courts began to refer to "due process of law," "equal
protection of the laws," and other general terms interpreted to include
natural and inalienable rights.
When it is contended, then, that the courts do not pass upon the wisdom or
unwisdom, policy or impolicy, the reasonableness or unreasonableness of
legislative acts it merely means that in the determination of whether an act
is or is not due process of law there is involved the full content of the
old doctrine of natural and inalienable rights, of the principles of the
social compact, and of the former dogmas of free republican governments, all
of which involved questions of political expediency.[36] Having brought the
straggling and insecure phrases of "natural law" or "natural justice" and of
the "fixed principles of republican governments" into due process of law it
was confidently asserted that all decisions of the courts dealing with the
validity of legislative acts were based upon the express provisions of
written constitutions.[37]
The conclusion of the matter seems to be that beginning with the
eighteenth-century notions of natural rights and of limiting and dividing
powers, the states of the American union turned in the direction of
unrestricted powers in the hands of the legislative bodies, and then adopted
the policy of placing larger and more effective limits upon legislatures.
The reason for this can be found largely in the belief that legislatures had
unduly interfered with property rights and in the fear that property and
contracts were not safe unless many restrictions were imposed upon
representative bodies.
The courts, having invaded the legislative domain by the interpretation of
the general terms of the Fifth and the Fourteenth Amendments, in determining
whether legislation is in effect wise, expedient, or reasonable in its
object, we are now advised that it is futile to criticize what has been
done. It is asserted to be a "question of purely academic interest" whether
the court's version of due process of law was historically correct.[38] The
only profitable study is declared to be when and under what circumstances
does the amendment serve as a restriction on the states. Though the meaning
now given to due process of law requires the courts to deal with problems of
legislative policy it is thought to be idle "to criticize the courts for
invading the field of policy in deciding 'due process' cases. There is
nothing else that they can do as long as the doctrine prevails that these
clauses limit the subject matter of legislation. This might as well be
frankly recognized by all concerned."[39]
Such legal pessimism is indefensible. It is equivalent to saying that when
judges choose to take from the people their right of self-government with no
express sanction for such action, there is no remedy but servile submission.
It is possible to amend the Fourteenth Amendment and if the trend of the
past thirty years continues, sufficient groups and interests will be
confined by its limitations to create a sentiment which will render its
alteration possible. Whether such a radical step be desirable or not, the
bringing of constant pressure on the court through all the available avenues
of public opinion may secure a reversal of some decisions which have proved
most obnoxious. It does not seem impossible to secure on the federal bench
judges whose training and experience, according with the prevailing
sentiment of the community, may decide that the historic theory of the
separation of powers is still valid and applies to judges as well as to
other officers, and hence, that matters of social, economic, and political
policy belong of right to the legislative branch of the government. Due
process of law might then be retained in somewhat of its original meaning as
a limitation on procedural matters. If, as Professor Powell observes, the
vital matter in the interpretation of the due process clause of the
Constitution is not one of economics, of law, or of public policy, but of
the arbiters who ultimately decide cases,[40] is it not time that more
attention be given to the selection of the arbiters and to the influencing
of their work as final interpreters of the fundamental law? As the repeal of
the Fourteenth Amendment is a remote contingency, the concentration of
public attention in the direction of confining judges to their normal
function of deciding cases involving private rights in accordance with
previously determined legislative policies, rather than of determining the
wisdom or expediency of public policies, seems the only practical procedure.
Though it offers small hope of immediate relief for those who chafe under
the restrictions which now interfere with advances along the lines of social
and industrial reconstruction, at least it gives an objective for the
present to take issue with the supporters of the status quo and the juristic
pessimism which they espouse.[41]
3. Types of Natural Law applied in the United States. During the nineteenth
century natural law theories were applied in the United States by different
groups for a variety of purposes. There were occasional references to the
divine sources of law and to natural laws emanating therefrom which were
binding upon all men. In the early decades of the nineteenth century the
justices frequently made use of natural law as a liberalizing and creative
concept similar to its use in Roman times and in the later mediaeval
periods. But its use was creative only in the sense that it facilitated the
borrowing of legal precepts from European legal systems. Conceived as a body
of rational principles of which actual legal rules were only declaratory,
the natural law philosophy, Dean Pound thinks, "was at its best when courts
were called on to utilize the peculiar social and political institutions of
pioneer America in developing and supplementing the legal materials afforded
by the English common law, the Continental treatises on commercial law, and
comparative law."[42] When an attempt was made to put judicial decisions in
the fields of international law or of constitutional law into a
philosophical mold, the law of nature theories of Grotius, of Pufendorf, of
Vattel, or of Burlamaqui were given a meaning suitable to the legal and
political conditions of the time. At times natural law as a basis of natural
rights might be identified with the rights and duties of an abstract man in
a state of nature or perchance with the immemorial common law rights as
formulated by Coke and Blackstone. It might also serve to modify a rigorous
rule of the formal law. "The American variant of natural law was especially
an outgrowth of the review of legislative acts by the courts and the efforts
of the justices to deduce general principles of constitutional law from the
social compact, from the nature of free government, or from the fundamental
and inalienable rights of the individual."[43]
In the hands of American judges natural law ideas were a favorite refuge for
giving sanction to the negative and restrictive ideas of the eighteenth
century that governmental functions should be confined to a narrow sphere.
They formed the background for the American doctrine of civil liberty, the
chief purpose of which is to safeguard individual rights and to place
restrictions on political action to accomplish this end. A legal philosophy
was fostered, the chief aim of which was to support the existing order or to
recur to the past for standards to test the validity of new forms of
legislation. This philosophy assisted in forming what foreign critics have
called "the straight jacket" into which the powers of government had to fit
or be denied validity.
These natural laws negative and destructive in effect acquired by the end of
the nineteenth century a stamp of inexorability. They placed certain legal
phenomena beyond the realm of conscious human control and bred a philosophy
of juristic pessimism, which accords well with the practices and beliefs of
those who seek protection but not interference with their "private" affairs.
They became obstacles to the growth and improvement of the law.
American constitutional law is saturated with natural law ideas. The old law
of nature was crystallized into certain standard formulae in the bills of
rights in state and federal constitutions and then was given renewed vigor
in the construction of the general phrases which were made a part of the
fundamental law. Formerly when the statute, code, legal procedure, or some
formal rule in the administration of the law proved to be arbitrary and
unreasonable the law of nature was appealed to as an ideal law to require a
modification of the harsh or unfair rule or to have it set aside as void.
The new law of nature formulated by the justices in American courts affirmed
certain standards of reasonable and fair conduct on the part of government
officers which were presumed to be fixed in the fundamental written law
through such terms as "due process of law" and "the equal protection of the
laws." When legislators and executives undertook to enact or enforce rules
or laws to ameliorate some of the inequities or inequalities in the existing
economic or social order, to regulate conduct in the interest of classes
which are deemed to require special protection, or to regulate and restrict
uses of property in what is deemed to be the public interest, the justices
scanned these acts to see whether they were within the confines of
reasonable and fair conduct as were supposed to be rendered fixed and
unalterable in the written constitution.[44]
As a matter of fact, then, natural law flourishes in the United States
despite the insistence from many quarters that it belongs in the realm of
exploded vagaries.[45] But judges and courts are applying an historical
Naturrecht derived from the principles and precedents of the common law and
modified by the individualist natural law of the eighteenth century.[46]
Insistent efforts are made to deny the use of general principles or
standards based on natural law reasoning and fictions are used to conceal
the process. It is futile, however, to refuse to face the facts, and "to
hide from ourselves the general principles which we do in fact follow, and
to delude ourselves into the belief that we have no philosophy."[47]
4. Natural Law Theories as a Sanction for American Political and Legal
Conservatism. It is obvious that natural law thinking of various types has
played a significant rôle in the growth of private and public law in the
United States. There have been in this growth new applications of the
principles of fair conduct for a fiduciary, of reasonable conduct in the law
of negligence, of fair competition in business transactions, and of fair
value and reasonable return in public utility control. And in public law the
use of natural law theories for various purposes has been continuous from
colonial times to the present day. Conceived in the spirit of democracy and
liberalism, these theories gave sanction to those who attacked the existing
legal order and who through revolution gained the independence of the
American states. Throughout the early periods of American history the
natural law doctrines were employed mainly for idealistic, progressive, and
revolutionary purposes.
But the first stage in this development had not passed when similar
doctrines were approved in order to set limits to governmental action for
ends that were conservative, aristocratic, and authoritarian. As the
idealistic and progressive uses of natural law have declined the
conservative and aristocratic uses have been extended. And it is in the
review of legislation by the courts that the conservative, authoritarian
type of natural law has been fostered. The most significant applications of
such higher law ideas have arisen when the courts have become the
constitutional censors of the acts of legislative and executive action,
whether of federal or state agencies.[48]
It is customary to assert that it is a sheer mis-statement to say that
American courts in exercising judicial review of legislation assume a
supervisory power over the legislative and executive branches of the
government.[49] Such an observation had a modicum of accuracy when the
courts held few acts invalid and then only because they were regarded in
conflict with some clear and well-understood terms of a written fundamental
law. Such is the review exercised as a rule over legislation by the Canadian
courts and the Privy Council for Canada and by the Australian courts. It is
a different matter when the courts use phrases such as due process of law,
equal protection of the laws, fair return and reasonable rates for use of
property, acts not arbitrary or capricious or designed to shock the sense of
mankind as grounds for review of legislation. These phrases, applied as they
usually are to a complicated state of facts and used to test the validity of
some act regulating economic or social relationships, take judicial review
out of the inexorable and mechanical realm in which decisions follow
indubitable logic. The reasoning regarding judicial review, which Hamilton
and Marshall attempted to put on a plane of dry logic, fails either to
justify or to explain the practice when based on indefinable general
phrases.[50]
An analysis of the different provisions of written constitutions shows that
the courts have a variety of types of provisions to interpret. Some
provisions, such as that all political power resides in the people, are
political in character and cannot be tested by ordinary legal criteria. When
the legislature is inhibited from passing bills of attainder or ex post
facto laws or from interfering with individual rights by abolishing trial by
jury in criminal cases there are available to judges for guidance in
applying these provisions fairly definite legal precepts. But these
semi-political provisions and the clauses relating to criminal trials have a
relatively minor place in modern constitutional interpretation by the courts
of the United States. For it is rather legal conceptions derived from the
constitutions by interpretation such as the police power, liberty of
contract and of calling, and the general requirement that no one shall be
deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law which now
furnish the most important bases for the review of the validity of
legislative acts. And here judges have no legal rules to guide them. Passing
as they often do in these cases on the reasonableness of social legislation
they are essentially dealing with legislative questions -- not with a
mechanical legal technique.
The problem of what ought to be law, what is reasonable, arbitrary, or fair,
really is an exercise of veto power. As a matter of fact, the mechanical,
necessitous doctrine which became a tradition in the early period of
American constitutional law does not apply to the invalidating of acts on
the ground of lack of fairness or reasonableness under the Fifth and
Fourteenth Amendments of the federal Constitution or under similar
provisions of the state constitutions.
The acute controversies on the interpretation of the federal Constitution
for the last fifty years have arisen out of the interstate commerce and due
process of law clauses. It has been repeatedly pointed out that the
judgments of the court along these lines are primarily judgments on facts
and only secondarily on the law. Concepts like "liberty" and "due process"
are too indefinite to solve issues. They derive meaning only if referred to
human facts.[51] "Here is where the great practical evil of the doctrine of
immutable and necessary antecedent rules comes in," according to John Dewey,
"it sanctifies the old; adherence to it in practice constantly widens the
gap between current social conditions and the principles used by the courts.
The effect is to breed irritation, disrespect for law, together with virtual
alliance between the judiciary and entrenched interests that correspond most
nearly to the conditions under which the rules of law were previously laid
down."[52]
Only the misinformed or extreme partisans claim any longer that there was
any necessity in the adoption of a written constitution, as John Marshall
insisted, for courts to review the validity of legislative acts. Partisan
feelings and self-interest also account for the failure to admit that much
the more important phases of judicial review of legislation in the United
States are the result of judge-made limitations designed to give legal
sanction to conservative tendencies of the time. It is not surprising then
to find conservative leaders insistent on the maintenance and extension of
the powers of the courts. "There are today," said Justice Brewer before the
New York State Bar Association,
ten thousand millions of dollars invested in railroad property,
whose owners in this country number less than two million
persons. Can it be that whether this immense sum shall earn
a dollar or bring the slightest recompense to those who have
invested perhaps their all in that business and are thus aiding
in the development of the country, depends wholly upon the
whim and greed of the great majority of sixty millions who
do not own a dollar! I say that so long as constitutional
guarantees lift on American soil their buttresses and
bulwarks against wrong, and so long as the American
judiciary breathes the free air of courage it cannot.... What
then is to be done? My reply is, strengthen the judiciary.
Not only have the courts construed constitutional guarantees to protect the
property interests of corporations but in an epoch-making decision the
Supreme Court of the United States has also held that legislative and
administrative agencies in regulating public utilities and in fixing rates
must be subject to review by the courts on both the law and the facts in
order that governmental action affecting utility properties may not be
unreasonable and that their properties may not be confiscated. Such a
decision has placed upon the courts ultimately the examination of the
intricate processes of the valuation of public utilities, the determination
of what is a fair value of the property for rate making, what is a fair
return on this valuation, and what is reasonable regulation. Thus great
questions of legislative policy as to the regulation of utilities are
carried to the courts and what the ultimate methods of regulation may be are
determined by the standards which the justices lay down. Since courts are
better qualified to protect property rights than to preserve individual
privileges and the public good, the owners of public utilities have been
encouraged to defy the authority of the government.
In recognition of the influence of personal and individual factors in the
legislative activity of judges such standards as fair return, reasonable
care, and due diligence are applied in England by administrative boards or
by courts with a jury passing judgment on the facts. The English people have
never accorded to judges the authority to determine the validity of
legislative acts no matter how fundamental the rights of the individual
which might be invaded. There is in this regard a striking difference
between the practice of the English and of the American courts.
Because of the natural conservatism and the class bias of judges the English
people have surrounded judicial legislation with definite limitations and
have invariably preserved the corrective power of Parliament. The reasons
for these checks on the legislative powers of the courts are thus expressed
by two English commentators:
The courts or the judges, when acting as legislators, are, of
course, influenced by beliefs and feelings of their time, and
are guided to a considerable extent by the dominant current
of public opinion; Eldon and Kenyon belonged to the era of
old Toryism as distinctly as Denman, Campbell, Erle and
Bramwell belonged to the age of Benthamite liberalism. But
whilst our tribunals, or the judges of whom they are
composed, are swayed by the prevailing beliefs of a
particular time, they are also guided by professional opinions
and ways of thinking which are to a certain extent
independent of and possibly opposed to the general tone of
public opinion. The judges are the heads of the legal
profession. They are advanced in life. They are for the most
part persons of a conservative disposition. They are in no
way dependent for their emoluments, dignity, or reputation
upon the favor of the electors, or even of ministers who
represent in the long run the wishes of the electorate. They
are more likely to be biased by professional habits and
feeling than by the popular sentiment of the hour. Hence,
judicial legislation will often be marked by certain
characteristics rarely found in acts of Parliament.[53]
The habits you are trained in, the people with whom you
mix, lead to your having a certain class of ideas of such a
nature that, when you have to deal with other ideas, you do
not give as sound and accurate judgment as you would wish.
This is one of the great difficulties at present with Labour.
Labour says: "Where are your impartial Judges? They all
move in the same circle as the employers and they are all
educated and nursed in the same ideas as the employers.
How can a labour man or a trade unionist get impartial
justice?" It is very difficult sometimes to be sure that you
have put yourself into a thoroughly impartial position
between two disputants, one of your own class and one not
of your class.[54]
When due process of law and the equal protection of the laws are under
interpretation the determination of the issues involved depend "in large
part upon the composition of the court of last resort at the particular time
when the issue comes before it."[55]
Governments were in process of formation in the United States when
eighteenth-century ideas of checking and dividing powers were uppermost in
political thought. John Randolph thought it was necessary to base
governments on the doctrine of original sin and the natural depravity of the
human race and to devise restraints accordingly.[56] From such a philosophy
there was evolved the dictum that what was desired was a "government of laws
and not men" -- or in English phraseology the supremacy of the laws.
Professor Dicey regarded the supremacy or rule of law as a characteristic of
the English constitution and explained that "it means, in the first place,
the absolute supremacy or predominance of regular law as opposed to the
influence of arbitrary power and excludes the existence of arbitrariness, of
prerogative, or even of wide discretionary authority on the part of the
government."[57] That there is a decline in the recognition accorded to the
rule of law, Dicey recognizes.[58] Coincident with this change in the
English legal system there is a noteworthy effort to foster the sanctity of
this rule as the central principle of constitutional government in the
United States.
The doctrine of judicial review of legislative enactments is regarded as a
practical and effective device to extend the rule of law. It has become part
of the creed of those who desire to apply the rule of law to all spheres of
government or to limit the omnipotent sovereign by a higher law either of a
fixed and immutable kind or of a variable content. If Lord Acton is correct
in the assertion that "the great question is to discover not what
governments prescribe but what they ought to prescribe," jurists are likely
to turn to the American practice of judicial review of legislative acts as a
practical means of enforcing the principles of a variable natural law,
though few will favor the adoption of such a practice if a natural law of an
eighteenth-century type is to be applied by justices who regard the
principles of this law as immutable.
Denying that they are applying anything but the express terms of written
constitutions the justices of higher courts in the United States have in
effect created a super-constitution, a superior law which in certain
respects is regarded as unchangeable by the people themselves. Safely
intrenched as the sole interpreters of this super-constitution they have
determined what is wise or unwise for the representatives of the people to
undertake in the realm of political experiment.[59] When a type of political
action is not liked it may readily be condemned as capricious or arbitrary
or unreasonable.
The warnings of the great constitutional lawyer, James Bradley Thayer,
however, may well cause us to ponder on the tendency to lean too heavily on
the courts.
Great and, indeed, inestimable, as are the advantages in a
popular government of this conservative influence, -- the
power of the judiciary to disregard unconstitutional
legislation, -- it should be remembered that the exercise of
it, even when unavoidable, is always attended with a serious
evil, namely the correction of legislative mistakes comes
from the outside, and the people lose the political
experience, and the moral education and stimulus that come
from fighting the question out in an ordinary way, and
correcting their own errors. If the decision in Munn v.
Illinois, and in the "Granger Cases," twenty-five years ago,
and in the "Legal Tender Cases," nearly thirty years ago,
had been different; and the legislation there in question,
thought by many to be unconstitutional and by many more to
be ill advised, had been set aside, we should have been
saved some trouble and some harm. But I venture to think
that the good which came to the country and its people from
the vigorous thinking that had to be done in the political
debates that followed, from the infiltration through every part
of the population of sound ideas and sentiments, from the
rousing into activity of opposing elements, the enlargement
of ideas, the strengthening of moral fibre, and the growth of
political experience which came out of it all, -- that all this
far more than outweighed any evil which ever flowed from
the refusal of the court to interfere with the work of the
legislature.
The tendency of a common and easy resort to this great
function, now lamentably too common, is to dwarf the
political capacity of the people, and to deaden its sense of
moral responsibility. It is no light thing to do that.
What can be done? It is the courts that can do most to cure
the evil; and the opportunity is a very great one. Let them
resolutely adhere to first principles. Let them consider how
narrow is the function which the constitutions have conferred
on them, -- the office merely of deciding litigated cases;
how large, therefore, is the duty entrusted to others, and
above all to the legislature. It is that body which is charged,
primarily, with the duty of judging of the constitutionality of
its work. The constitutions generally give them no authority
to call upon a court for advice; they must decide for
themselves, and the courts may never be able to say a word.
Such a body, charged, in every State, with almost all the
legislative power of the people, is entitled to the most entire
and real respect; is entitled, as among all rationally
permissible opinions as to what the Constitution allows, to
its own choice. Courts, as has often been said, are not to
think of the legislators, but of the legislature, -- the great,
continuous body itself, abstracted from all the transitory
individuals who may happen to hold its power. It is this
majestic representative of the people whose action is in
question, a coordinate department of the government,
charged with the greatest functions, and invested, in
contemplation of law, with whatsoever wisdom, virtue, and
knowledge the exercise of such functions requires.
To set aside the acts of such a body, representing in its own
field, which is the highest of all, the ultimate sovereign,
should be a solemn, unusual, and painful act. Something is
wrong when it can be other than that. And if it be true that
the holders of legislative power are careless of evil, the
constitutional duty of the court remains wholly untouched; it
cannot rightly undertake to protect the people by attempting
a function not its own. On the other hand, by adhering to its
own place a court may help, as nothing else can, to fix the
spot where responsibility rests, viz., on the careless and
reckless legislators, and to bring down on that precise
locality the thunderbolt of popular condemnation. The
judiciary, today, in dealing with the acts of co-ordinate
legislatures, owes to the country no greater or clearer duty
than that of keeping its hands off these acts whenever it is
possible to do it. That will powerfully help to bring the
people and their representatives to a sense of their own
responsibility.[60]
Under no system, Thayer thinks, can the courts go far to save the people
from ruin. We are much too apt to think of the judicial power of
disregarding acts of the other departments as our only protection against
oppression and ruin. But it is remarkable how small a part this played in
any of the debates on the federal Constitution. The chief protections were a
wide suffrage, short terms of office, a double legislative chamber, and the
so-called executive veto.[61]
The judges have insisted that when in doubt the courts should interpret
constitutional provisions favorable to legislative powers. If this principle
had been followed there would have been scant foundation for the
construction of implied limitations on legislatures; and due process of law
would have had slight effect on substantive legislative powers. Numerous
opinions of the Supreme Court give indisputable evidence that the Fourteenth
Amendment need not have been interpreted so as to greatly narrow the field
of state legislation. A continuous line of dissents by the justices of the
court in due process cases indicates that on a fair interpretation of the
language of the amendment the states might have been allowed much greater
freedom in the realm of social and economic legislation. The distinction is
sometimes not clearly recognized that the construction of an implied power
doctrine by which constitutional provisions are adapted to new conditions is
justifiable as a principle of legal growth, whereas the interpretation of a
doctrine of implied limitations as a means to retard and confine legal
development is indefensible.
Though the religious and metaphysical concepts of natural law, since the
eighteenth century, have had relatively slight influence in the growth of
law in the United States, natural law as an ideal has been a not
insignificant factor in the minds of judges and legislators as they were
molding into a system the legal materials at hand so as to meet the social,
economic, and political conditions of the day. And at the time that the
theories of the Positivist School of jurisprudence were prevailing, which
denied the potency of any natural law ideas, a pragmatic trend in American
legal philosophy was giving a new turn to the application of natural law
theories. When, through the prevalence of pioneer ideas and ideals,
governments were made more democratic and were gradually encouraged to
extend their control over many heretofore unregulated phases of economic
life restraints were sought to place restrictions on the zealous activities
of popularly elected representative bodies. It was then that the moral
obligation to govern reasonably and justly was translated into legal
phraseology by means of the old common law precept -- due process of law.
But instead of conceiving the moral duty to govern reasonably as an ideal to
which law was expected to conform in meeting the needs of a growing
community as conditions changed, it was thought of as a standard to protect
the interests of certain classes. Due process of law was to accord justice
not as required by the varying conditions of an increasingly complex
economic life but justice designed to make more secure the property or other
interests of those intrenched in power. By requiring certain formal criteria
for all legislative and administrative action the status quo economically
would not be too rudely or radically disturbed. Social and economic
conditions might be regulated within limited areas as long as due care was
taken to leave certain classes of property rights undisturbed. Due process
of law became the weapon for the application of a class reason and a class
justice.[62]
Building on the foundations of Wilson, Hamilton, Marshall, and Webster,
Justices Chase, Kent, Story, Cooley, with the aid of other justices in state
and federal courts, constructed a check which the conservative classes were
demanding. In applying Marshall's notable dictum that this was "a government
of laws and not of men" a criterion was evolved by which judges exercised a
selective process as to what were, in their judgment, properly called "laws"
and in this selective process the courts had in mind "a background of
fundamental principles" which are beyond the reach of any legislative
power.[63]
The modern American theories of natural law embodied as integral parts of
constitutional due process of law and equal protection of the laws are
essentially theories in terms of "the self-interest of the socially and
economically dominant class." Former theories, which were used to good
advantage when the English common law and the principles of Continental law
were adapted to the conditions of pioneer rural American conditions, have
become obstacles to change, devices to sanctify the existing legal order,
and sanctions for the maintenance of the status quo in the regulations of
economic and social conditions.[64]
APPENDIX
The avowed use of reasonableness and other concepts related to natural law
by the Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States in a single year
(October term, 1924) demonstrates the prominent place such ideas have
acquired in federal constitutional interpretation.
The fee fixed by a state act is arbitrary and the number of shares is not a
reasonable basis for the classification of foreign corporations for the
determination of an annual fee.[65]
There is no suggestion of a flagrant abuse or purely arbitrary exercise of
taxing power.
The Court will review a case only-when there is a question of law or when
action under a law is "clearly arbitrary or capricious."[66]
An assessment is not inherently arbitrary -- no unreasonable result.[67]
State assessments are valid unless "palpably arbitrary or a plain abuse of
power" or result in a "manifest and unreasonable discrimination."[68]
The action of a state utility commission must not pass beyond the bounds of
what is reasonable and suitable.[69]
The order of a utility commission is not "inherently arbitrary." [70]
An award of the Secretary of the Interior is held not "arbitrary or
capricious or fraudulent or an abuse of discretion."[71]
An order of a utility commission is held "arbitrary" and "capricious."[72]
The Fourth Amendment condemns unreasonable searches and seizures. A search
of an automobile for probable cause is held reasonable.[73]
The method of classification adopted in the Federal Income Tax is held not
"merely arbitrary and capricious."[74]
There is not an unreasonable interference with the liberty of contract.[75]
Classification for state taxation is held reasonable and valid when it does
not result in flagrant and palpable inequalities.[76]
A power exercised by Congress must be reasonably adapted to the effective
exercise of delegated powers.[77]
A provision was not so "unreasonable as to be a purely arbitrary mandate."
[78]
An inference allowed by law is held not "fanciful, arbitrary or
unreasonable."[79]
A rule of a utility commission is declared arbitrary and unjust. Utility
rates if unreasonable need not be confiscatory to be invalid.[80]
The court will give relief for arbitrary, unreasonable, and unlawful
interference with business and property and unreasonable interference with
the liberty of parents and guardians in bringing up children.[81]
There was no evidence of arbitrary or unfair action .[82]
State acts are unconstitutional only when they are arbitrary or unreasonable
attempts to exercise authority vested in the state. A statute is not an
arbitrary or unreasonable exercise of police power.[83]
Claims of unreasonable and arbitrary action, hostile discrimination, or
purely arbitrary exercise of power were made in numerous other cases passed
on by the court.
October Term, 1924
Total cases under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments 45 cases
A. Denial of due process of law under the Fourteenth Amendment
distributed as follows: 27 cases
State act or part of act held valid 8
State act or part of act held invalid 3
State administrative proceeding or order held valid 11 (relief
denied 1)
State administrative proceeding or order held invalid 3
Judicial proceedings held valid 1
Denial of equal protection of laws 1
B. Denial of due process of law under the Fifth Amendment
distributed as follows: 16 cases
Act of Congress held valid 4
Act of Congress held invalid 0
Administrative proceedings held valid 7
Administrative proceedings held invalid 3
Judicial proceedings held valid 2
Decisions based on other provisions of Constitution (due
process of law incidental) 2 cases
C. Grounds for appeal under due process provisions
1. Attempt to protect personal rights
Proceedings Proceedings
Valid Invalid
Fourteenth 7 3
Amendment
Fifth 7 2
Amendment
Individuals are granted relief in 5 cases
2. Corporations attack tax proceedings 11
Corporations attack public utility regulations 7
Corporations secure relief in 10 cases
1. A. J. Beveridge, The Life of John Marshall, III, 109.
2. F. N. Thorpe, "Hamilton's Ideas in Marshall's Decisions," Boston
University Law Review, I (1921), 9.
3. Edward Q. Keasbey, "The Courts and New Social Questions," Maryland State
Bar Association Proceedings (1911), p 105.
4. Dillon, Laws and Jurisprudence of England and America, p 204.
5. Pound, "The Growth of Administrative Justice," Wisconsin Law Review, II
(January, 1924), 327.
6. George C. Gorham, Biographical Notice of Stephen J. Field, p. 63.
7. Gorham, op. cit., p. 64.
8. Felix Frankfurter, "Twenty Years of Mr. Justice Holmes' Constitutional
Opinions," Harvard Law Review, XXXVI (June, 1923), 909; Pound, "Liberty of
Contract," Yale Law Journal, XVIII (May, 1909), 454, 470; and The Spirit of
The Common Law, p. 49.
9. Ex parte Wall, 107 U. S. 265 (1882).
10. Bartemeyer v. Iowa, 18 Wall. 129 (1873).
11. An able associate of Justice Field during the short term he served on
the court was Justice Strong. He not only joined Field in his dissents
condemning the legislative power to control property rights, but also became
an advocate of the federalist doctrine favorable to the protection of vested
rights, which, he claimed, "no matter how they arise, they are all equally
sacred, equally beyond the reach of legislative interference." Sinking Fund
Cases, 99 U. S. 700 (1878).
12. F. B. Clark, The Constitutional Doctrines of Justice Harlan, Johns
Hopkins University Studies, XXXIII (Baltimore, 1915), 4, 15.
13. Taylor v. Beckham, 178 U. S. 548, 601 (1899), and Clark, op. cit., p.
75. "The doctrine of legislative absolutism is foreign to free government as
it exists in this country," thought Justice Harlan. Ibid., p 609.
14. Norwood v. Baker, 172 U. S. 269 (1898).
15. Clark, op. cit., p. 144.
16. Justice Hough comments on the changing personnel at this time which
brought to the court in Justice Brewer "a powerful reinforcement of the
school of Field." Harv. Law Rev., XXXII, 228.
17. Obviously this was not thought to be the case with those who drafted the
instrument, or those who directed political affairs when it was put into
operation. Nor was this belief prevalent among the federalist leaders who
controlled the government during the fifty odd years that this party was in
power in one or more branches of the federal government. It remained for the
period after the Civil War, and for such defenders of the individualistic
faith as Justices Field and Brewer, to discover that the Declaration was the
cornerstone of the Constitution. See Carl Becker, The Declaration of
Independence (New York, 1922).
18. People v. Gillson, 109 N. Y. 389, 398, 399 (1888).
19. 198 U. S. 45 (1904).
20. For approval of the doctrine of this case see the opinion of Justice
Sutherland in Adkins v. Children's Hospital, 261 U. S. 525 (1922).
21. See Edward S. Corwin, "The Extension of Judicial Review in New York,"
Michigan Law Review, XV (February, 1917), 285.
22. James M. Rosenthal, "Massachusetts Acts and Resolves Declared
Unconstitutional by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts,"
Massachusetts Law Quarterly, I (August, 1916), 303 ff.
23. Corwin, op. cit., pp. 303, 304.
24. Rosenthal, op. cit., p. 317.
25. Justice Woodward commented on the caution of the courts prior to the
Civil War in exercising the right to invalidate acts in Pennsylvania as
follows: "For nearly fifty years of our political existence under the
Constitution of 1790, no act of assembly was set aside for
unconstitutionality; judges claimed the power, and said they would exercise
it in clear cases, but in all that period no case arose which in their
judgment, was clear enough to justify the exercise of the power; and it is
well known that that great light of this bench so recently extinguished
[Chief Justice Gibson] stood opposed for many years to the existence of any
such power. Since the Constitution of 1838 was adopted several acts of
assembly have been declared unconstitutional, but they were all clear
cases." Sharpless v. Mayor of Philadelphia, 21 Penna. St. 148, 183 (1853).
26. Dr. Mott thinks the courts regard the Fourteenth Amendment as "a
constitutional ideal." Due Process of Law, p. 360. This is equivalent to the
view that the amendment is used to write into the fundamental law the ideals
which the justices believe ought to prevail. According to Justice Holmes due
process of law ought not to become "a pedagogical requirement of the
impracticable." Dominion Hotel v. Arizona, 249 U. S. 265, 268 (1918).
27. Le gouvernment des juges et la lutte centre la legislation sociale aux
États-Unis (Paris, 1921), pp. 32, 33, 41; also pp. 220, 221. See also,
Edouard Lambert and Halfred C. Brown, La lutte judiciaire du capital et du
travail organisés aux États-Unis (1924).
According to Professor Powell the "law of constitutional due process is
therefore as much judge-made law as any common law is judge-made law." "The
Judiciality of Minimum Wage Legislation," Harv. Law Rev., XXXVII, 545, 546.
28. Lambert, op. cit., pp. 53, 55, 60.
29. Cuthbert W. Pound, "Constitutional Aspects of Administrative Law," in
The Growth of American Administrative Law (St. Louis, 1923), p. 103.
30. A. M. Kales, "'Due Process,' the Inarticulate Major Premise and the
Adamson Act," Yale Law Jour., XXVI (May, 1917), 519.
31. According to Stephen Leacock, "American democracy, having by its
degradation of the legislature repudiated its first born child has set up
for itself the Mystic Worship of Judicial Interpretation." "The Limitations
of Federal Government," American Political Science Association Proceedings
(1908), p. 51.
32. Warren H. Pillsbury, "Administrative Tribunals," Harv. Law Rev., XXXVI
(February and March, 1923), 405, 583.
33. For laissez faire theories, see People v. Coler, 166 N.Y. 1, 16-18,
23-25 (1901), and Ives v. South Buffalo Ry. Co., 201 N.Y. 271, 285-287,
203-295 (1911). The right to take property by will was held to be an
absolute and inherent right in Nunnemacher v. State, 129 Wis. 190, 198, 203
(1907); and the right of privacy was considered as "derived from natural
law" by Justice Cobb in Pavesich v. Life Ins. Co., 122 Ga. 190, 194 (1905).
34. Speaking of the dangers of socialism and communism, Mr. Guthrie says,"
Much is to be dreaded and guarded against in the despotism of the majority
wielding and abusing the power of legislation, and ignorantly or
intentionally undermining the foundations of the Constitution itself ... the
Fourteenth Amendment is the bulwark on which we place our reliance."
Lectures on the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United
States, pp. 30, 31. He admonishes the lawyers "to realize their duty to
teach people in season and out of season to value and respect individual
liberty and the rights of property." Ibid., p. 32.
35. For a summary of leading decisions, see "The Law of Nature in State and
Federal Judicial Decisions," Yale Law Jour., XXV (June, 1916), 617.
36. In declaring a law unconstitutional, a court must necessarily cover the
same ground which has already been covered by the legislative department in
deciding upon the propriety of the enactment. Cooley, Constitutional
Limitations (8th ed), I, 334.
37. "The Justices of the United States Supreme Court have taken counsel
together regarding the present political tendencies, so far as they seem to
the Justices to menace the Constitution, and have determined that upon the
Supreme Court rests the burden of standing between the Constitution and
popular passion." Quoted by Richard Olney, in "Discrimination against Union
Labor -- Legal?" American Law Review, XLII (March-April, 1908), 161; sec. 43
Cong. Rec. Pt. I, 20-22, message of President Roosevelt.
The change in the meaning of the terms "liberty" and "property" as used in
the Constitution from the narrow implications of physical liberty and
property to economic liberty, was "the reflection in the minds of the judges
of the business revolution which followed the extension of markets and the
political revolution that liberated the slaves." John R. Commons, Legal
Foundations of Capitalism, p. 283.
38. Ray A. Brown, "Due Process of Law, Police Power, and the Supreme Court,"
Harv. Law Rev., XL (May, 1927), 947. Cf. emergence of the court's doctrine
through Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. 36 (1872); Bartemeyer v. Iowa, 18
Wall. 129 (1873); Missouri Pacific Ry. v. Humes, 115 U. S. 512 (1885), and
Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623 (1887).
39. Henry Rottschaefer, "The Field of Governmental Price Control," Yale Law
Jour., XXXV (February, 1926), 438.
40. Thomas Reed Powell, op. cit., p. 545.
41. The real object at present of the due process clauses of the federal
Constitution is to enable the Supreme Court to determine whether acts of
Congress or of the state legislatures are reasonable. Cf. Willis, op. cit.,
pp. 338, 339. Mr. Willis suggests an addition to the Fourteenth Amendment to
the effect that the due process clause shall not be interpreted to include
matters of substantive law. Ibid., pp. 343, 344.
42. "The Theory of Judicial Decision," Harv. Law Rev., XXXVI (May, 1923),
808.
43. Cf. Pound, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Law (New Haven, 1922),
pp. 50-52.
44. "The objection to this view is that the court must judge by a standard
of fairness that is not, and could not be, definitely expressed in the
Constitution. This, of course, is the fundamental difficulty in all due
process cases. Groping for some standards, the courts are tempted to revert
to the old language of natural rights, as though such rights were an
over-law above the Constitution itself." Note on the case of Moore v.
Dempsey, Harv. Law Rev., XXXVII (December, 1923), 250.
"No state can make or enforce any laws which shall, upon proper proceedings,
be deemed unreasonable by a majority of the Supreme Court ... the rule of
reason alone governs. What are fair profits, what are excessive taxes, what
are proper health laws, what is confiscation and what discrimination; --
these are questions which cannot be answered in the abstract, nor can they
be adequately defined by precedents." Collins, The Fourteenth Amendment and
the States, p. 109.
45. "All nineteenth century theories of judicial decision," says Dean Pound,
"in one way or another grow out of the natural law thinking of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries." "The Theory of Judicial Decision,"
Harv. Law Rev., XXXVI (May, 1923), 802.
46. Cf. Pound, The Spirit of the Common Law, p. 37. "With us the basis of
all deduction is the classical common law -- the English decisions and
authorities of the seventeenth, eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth
centuries. Our jurists have made of this a very Naturrecht. They have asked
us to test all new situations and new doctrines by it.... More than this,
through the power of courts over unconstitutional legislation and the
doctrine that our bills of right are declaratory, courts have forced it upon
modern social legislation." Pound, in Harv. Law Rev., XXIV (June, 1911),
601.
47. M. R. Cohen in Introduction to Pierre de Tourtoulon, Philosophy in the
Development of Law, trans. by Martha Read, Modern Legal Philosophy Series,
XIII (New York, 1922), 24.
48. "The influence of the conception of natural rights on legal development
in the United States has been to support the position of a reactionary,
dominant, propertied class." James Mickel Williams, The Foundations of
Social Science (New York, 1920), p. 245.
49. John H. Clarke, "Judicial Power to Declare Legislation
Unconstitutional," American Bar Association Journal, IX (November, 1923),
691.
50. For the claim that logic alone guides judges in reviewing the validity
of legislative acts see opinion of Justice White, that "no instance is
afforded from the foundation of the government where an act, which was
within a power conferred, was declared to be repugnant to the Constitution,
because it appeared to the judicial mind that the particular exertion of
constitutional power was either unwise or unjust." McCray v. United States,
195 U. S. 27, 54 (1904). "August as are the functions of the Supreme Court,"
says John W. Davis, "surely they do not go one step beyond the
administration of justice to individual litigants." "Present Day Problems,"
Amer. Bar Assoc. Jour., IX (September, 1923), 557.
51. Cf. Felix Frankfurter, "A Note on Advisory Opinions," Harv. Law Rev.,
XXXVII (June, 1924), 1002, and especially list of cases turning on facts;
also Henry Wolf Biklé, "Judicial Determination of Questions of Fact
affecting Constitutional Validity of Legislative Action," Harv. Law Rev.,
XXXVIII (November, 1924), 6.
52. "Logical Method and Law," Cornell Law Quarterly, X (December, 1924), 26.
53. A. V. Dicey, Lectures on the Relation between Law and Public Opinion in
England during the Nineteenth Century (New York, 1905), pp. 361, 362.
54. Lord Justice Scrutton, "The Work of the Commercial Courts," Cambridge
Law Journal, I, 6, 8. For the opinion that the House of Lords as a supreme
judicial body is "in entire good faith, the unconscious servant of a single
class in the community," see Harold J. Laski, "Judicial Review of Social
Policy in England," Harv. Law Rev., XXXIX (May, 1926), 848.
55. Powell, Harv. Law Rev., XXXVII, p. 546. Combating the doctrine that the
judges should be made the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions,
Jefferson wrote: "This is a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which
would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest
as other men and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for
party, for power and the privilege of their corps. Their maxim is 'boni
judicis est ampliare jurisdictionem,' and their power the more dangerous as
they are in office for life, and not responsible, as the other functionaries
are, to the elective control." To William Charles Jarvis, Sept. 28, 1820;
also to William Johnson, June 12, 1823.
56. Cf. 10th Cong., 1st Sess. (Nov. 13, 1807), Jefferson also observed: "In
questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but
bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution."
57. A. V. Dicey, Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution
(8th ed., London, 1915), p. 198.
58. Ibid., Introduction, pp. xxxvi ff.
59. "The American democracy in political and social matters is made to
accord strictly with extreme conservatism and considers its foundation at
the same time as an eternal divine moral and legal order." Ernst Troeltsch,
Naturrecht und Humanitat in der Weltpolitik (Berlin, 1923), p. 6.
60. Thayer's Marshall, pp. 103, 110, and Legal Essays (Boston, 1908), pp.
39-41.
61. Ibid., p. 64; Legal Essays, pp. 11-12. For weaknesses of Marshall's
reasoning in the Marbury Case, consult Thayer, Legal Essays, p. 15.
62. Speaking of the theories which justices have read into the Fourteenth
Amendment, Dean Pound says, "A theory that legislators and courts are but
the mouthpieces through which the dominant class makes its will effective, a
theory of law in terms of the self-interest of the socially and economically
dominant class, a theory that the jurist may do no more than observe and
record the phenomena of the transitional stage of hopeless conflict while
one class is gaming the upper hand at the expense of its predecessors in the
economic and social order -- such a theory is more threatening to the
general security than any of the recent modifications and adaptations of the
atomistic individualism of the eighteenth century of which recent
legislation has been so fearful." Harv. Law Rev., XXXVI (May, 1923), 824.
See also G. C. Henderson, The Position of Foreign Corporations in American
Constitutional Law (Cambridge, 1918), p. 163.
63. A. M. Kales, op. cit., p. 526.
Referring to the decisions of the Supreme Court in the Hitchman and Coppage
Cases, Professor John R. Commons says, "It is the judge who believes in the
law and custom of business and not the judge who believes in the law and
custom of labor, that decides." And, he notes, it is not logic but beliefs
which are the determining factors in such decisions. Op. cit., p. 298.
64. Cf. Pound, "The Theory of Judicial Decision," Harv. Law Rev., XXXVI
(May, 1923), 808, 824.
65. Airway Electric Appliance Corporation v. Day, 266 U. S. 71.
66. Missouri Pacific R. R. v. Road Dist., 266 U. S. 187; Silberschein v.
United States, 266 U. S. 221.
67. Bass, Ratcliff and Gretton Ltd. v. State Tax Commission, 266 U. S. 271.
68. Kansas City Southern R. R. et al. v. Road Improvement Dist., 266 U. S.
379.
69. Michigan Public Utilities Commission v. Duke, 266 U. S. 570.
70. Fort Smith Light and Traction Co. v. Bourland, 267 U. S. 330.
71. Work v. Rives, 267 U. S. 175.
72. Ohio Utility Co. v. Public Utilities Commission, 267 U. S. 359.
73. Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132.
74. Barclay and Co. v. Edwards, 267 U. S. 442.
75. Yeiser v. Bysart, 267 U. S. 540.
76. Stebbins and Hurley v. Riley, 268 U. S. 137.
77. Linder v. United States, 268 U. S. 5.
78. Yee Hem v. United States, 268 U. S. 178.
79. North Laramie Land Co. v. Hoffman, 268 U. S. 276.
80. Banton v. Belt Line Ry., 268 U. S. 413.
81. Pierce v. Society of the Sisters, 268 U. S. 510.
82. Maple Flooring Manufacturers Association v. United States, 268 U. S.
563.
83. Gitlow v. People of New York, 268 U. S. 652.
PART IV
THE REVIVAL OF DROIT NATUREL, NATURRECHT, AND
SUPERIOR LAW DOCTRINES IN THE JURISTIC PHILOSOPHY
OF EUROPEAN WRITERS
CHAPTER IX
THE BACKGROUND FOR RECENT THEORIES OF NATURAL
LAW AND THE GERMAN DOCTRINE OF A RECHTSSTAAT
1. Continuance of Natural Law Theories in Europe. A brief resume of the
stages in the evolution of higher law concepts has shown that for centuries
after the Reformation natural law theories, as expounded in the
authoritative works of the time, were commonly accepted as the basis of law
both public and private. When positivists' theories of law were gaining
ground over mediaeval conceptions the American and French Revolutions gave
an impetus to another version of the natural law theories and to the
rechristened dogma of the natural and inalienable rights of man, which it
was the prime duty of the state to protect. But the reaction which followed
these revolutions tended to discredit the idea of natural rights both in
Europe and in America. During the middle of the nineteenth century there was
a decline in the emphasis placed on natural law thinking and on the
importance attributed to higher law concepts. Throughout the nineteenth
century ideas of higher law, however, had many supporters in Europe among
jurists and statesmen.
Modern theories of law were greatly influenced by the contributions to
philosophy of two German thinkers, Kant and Hegel. Kant sought to discover
principles which were above all codes and legislative enactments and to
furnish a criterion to estimate the validity of all legal rules.[1] Though
Kant, like Rousseau, predicated certain limits to the powers of the state he
also ended by conceding practically limitless power in the ruling forces of
the state. His categorical imperative -- "Act on a maxim which thou canst
will to be law universal" -- involved a combination of the idea of personal
duty and of universal law. The state he conceived as a formula whereby the
authority of the general will is made consistent with the perfect freedom of
the individual will. It is only by means of a social contract after the
pattern of Rousseau that such legal legerdemain can be consummated. But
Kant's individualism prevented him from going to the limit of Rousseau in
subordinating the individual will to that of organized society.
To Hegel the individual finds his existence in the state. The individual is
free only by merging his will with that of the state. He rejected entirely
the American and French doctrines of natural and inalienable rights. Liberty
can be realized only through the state.[2] Like Rousseau and Kant, Hegel
claimed that the individual has rights in the true sense only when they come
from the state. While the philosophy of Rousseau, of Kant, and of Hegel
tended in the direction of absolute authority in the state there were
noteworthy lines of legal thought leading in the opposite direction.
Among the political thinkers of the early nineteenth century who sought to
secure guaranteed juridical limitations upon the sovereignty of the state
was Benjamin Constant, who claimed that sovereignty exists only in a limited
and relative manner. At the point where the independence of the individual
begins, he asserted, the jurisdiction of sovereignty ends.[3] He defended
the natural and indefeasible rights of the individual which form the basis
of the juridical limitations on sovereignty. "I maintain," he said, "that
individuals have rights and that these rights are independent of social
authority, which cannot curtail them without becoming guilty of
usurpation."[4] He believed that the individual had a right to refuse to
obey a law contrary to the incontestable rights and pointed the way to a
supreme court whose duty it should be to preserve these rights and to
prevent the public powers from encroaching on them.[5]
After the completion of the Code Napoleon a school of legal philosophers
again recurred to the earlier natural law notions. The rules elaborated in
the codes were thought to be derived from man's nature and were regarded as
independent of observation and experience. These natural laws were
considered universal and invariable and positive laws to be valid should
emanate from them.[6]
Among the leading natural law exponents in the nineteenth century were Karl
Christian F. Krause who conceived of law as a postulate of reason and based
his philosophy of law and justice essentially upon the doctrine of natural
law,[7] and Heinrich Ahrens, who accepted the philosophy of law of Krause
and gave it wide circulation throughout Europe. His leading work,[8]
originally published in French and German, passed through many editions and
became the authoritative textbook of a modernized version of the ancient
doctrine. To Ahrens the philosophy of law and natural law are
interchangeable terms and comprise the science which analyzes the first
principles of law as conceived by reason. This science is based on the
belief common to humanity, that principles of justice exist independent of
law and of positive institutions, suitable for adaptation to all of the
changes to which human nature is susceptible. Ahrens distinguished between
the will of the legislature (mens legis) and the reason of the law (ratio
legis) which renders law in accord with the eternal principles of the true
and the good. These higher or natural principles of law, he thought, are
deduced from the nature and destiny of man.[9] The principles of the French
Revolution developed in these works gradually introduced natural law ideas
into the standard treatises and commentaries on French law.[10] Dalloz gives
an extensive account of the natural rights which are regarded as belonging
to man as an individual.[11] To Laurent "a right [droit] is anterior to a
law; it is based on the nature of men and of civil societies... there is an
eternal law [droit], an expression of absolute justice. This law or right
[droit] reveals itself to the human conscience, in a measure as man
approaches divine perfection. This law is progressive as are all
manifestations of the human spirit. It tends continuously to realize
absolute truth. It is necessary for the legislature to follow the progress
which is made through the general conscience of man."[12]
Catholic or Traditionalist leaders repudiated the natural rights theories
of the Revolution but predicated a higher law of another type. Saint Martin,
De Maistre, De Bonald, Ballanche, and Lamennais set in opposition to the
Declaration of the Rights of Man a Declaration of the Rights of God.[13] For
these leaders of the Theocratic School political authority emanates from God
and not from a mythical state of nature or from inherent qualities of the
individual. To the rights of man De Bonald opposed as superior and paramount
the rights of God and to the sovereignty of reason he opposed the
sovereignty of faith.[14] The reconciliation of man to the ways of God was
made under the directing influence of nature or natural rights as belonging
to the individual, which appealed to the Traditionalists for they directed
their attacks against eighteenth-century individualism and the doctrines of
the Declaration of Rights. That there is no sovereignty is also the
underlying principle of Royer-Collard's political theory.[15] In order to
limit the powers of the state and in order to preserve individual liberty he
regarded it necessary to discard the concept of sovereignty. Guizot, who
supported the doctrine of limitations upon the state based on a higher law,
was a follower of Royer-Collard.[16] In fact, Victor Cousin, Royer-Collard,
and Guizot appealed to reason as a basis to support aristocracy and the rule
of the wisest.[17] Since the Traditionalists made religion the basis of
political stability and the following of the laws of God the first requisite
for the rulers and the people in a well-ordered society, their doctrines
were quite acceptable to a large group in French society which has always
been influential in political circles. The modern revival of the
Traditionalist type of thinking, which will be considered in a later
section, justifies the comment of Laski that "the authoritarian tradition is
far from dead."[18]
Except for the Catholic Schools there were few in France during the middle
of the nineteenth century who publicly supported the theories of natural
rights, which held such a prominent place during the French Revolution. In
the latter part of the century A. Boistel, Beudant, and Henri Michel tried
to revive interest again in the former ideas of individual natural rights.
Boistel used the philosophy of law, the law of reason, and the law of nature
as approximately interchangeable terms.[19] Natural law or the droit
rationnel was defined as "the group of rules which in the light of reason
ought to be sanctioned by an exterior constraint." He regarded the principle
at the basis of law which justifies its maintenance as "the inviolability of
human personality."[20] From this individualistic principle he sought to
develop an entire legal system.[21] This point of view led to an
overemphasis on the individual moral personality and to a depreciation of
the social and collective influences in the development of the law.[22]
Beudant, returning to the Declaration of Rights of 1789 and to the former
schools of natural law, "based law upon reason, opposed individual rights to
the state, and even exaggerated that opposition by seeing in every case of
state intervention a restriction of individual rights."[23] Human rights,
he thought, exist before the law and they are above the laws.[24]
After a survey of the political and economic thought of France during the
nineteenth century in which one of the dominant ideas was the reaction
against the individualistic philosophy of the French Revolution, Michel
defends the essential doctrines of the individualistic school. He believes
there is "an individualism based on the living sentiment and the dignity of
the human person" which is at the very foundation of the social and
political order.[25] State action, he thinks, must continuously be
subordinated to the rights of the individual. "Individualism, as we
conceive it, is alone capable of furnishing a rational foundation for the
philosophy of law as well as for political liberty and for the sovereignty
of the people."[26] Michel contended that not only was the state obligated
not to interfere with the natural rights of man but it was also its duty to
render positive services in the way of furnishing work, assistance, and
instruction.
Boistel, Beudant, Michel, and other legal philosophers aimed to turn legal
thinking again either to the natural law theories of St. Thomas, transformed
to meet the conditions of nineteenth-century Europe, or to the inherent
rights of man which, according to the Declarations, were above and beyond
the sphere of state authority. But these efforts to restore higher law ideas
to a measure of their former prestige and influence were not generally
approved owing to the dominance of the Positivist concepts both in legal
theory and in political practice. The attempts to turn legal thinking in the
channels of natural rights as conceived by the leaders of the French
Revolution and to emphasize again the rights of the individual proved futile
at a time when political and economic thought was beginning to be dominated
by a social point of view. It remained for a modern school of jurists to
adapt the natural law concepts to radically different economic and social
conditions.
By the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the modern era the
efforts to revive natural law thinking interested so many jurists and legal
philosophers in Europe that a revival of this mode of thinking has become a
phase of a national and an international movement. The nature of this
movement can best be comprehended through the presentation of some of the
salient views of representative thinkers belonging to the new school. Though
the representatives selected differ widely in their approaches to the
problem and formulate divergent phases of the necessity of a return to
higher law theories, they have elements in common which make it appropriate
to consider their contributions to this phase of legal thought.
2. German Doctrine of a Rechtsstaat. The inspiration for some of the most
suggestive higher law theories of modern times may be found in the thorough
and stimulating investigations of Otto Gierke. Not only have his works
furnished a clue for an attack on the absolute theories of sovereignty in
Europe but also they have given an impetus to a new school of political
theorists, the Pluralists, who deny the unity, inclusive, and thoroughgoing
supremacy of political sovereigns.
Gierke, as previously noted, analyzed distinctly the mediaeval doctrine as
to the relations of law and the state. The state, according to the
mediaevalists, was not based on law but on moral necessity; its aim was the
promotion of human welfare and the realization of law was one of the
appropriate means to this end.[27] The state and the law were of equal rank
and one did not depend upon the other. A distinction was made between the
natural laws, which were above the state, and the positive laws, which could
in no way bind the sovereign.[28] And there was everywhere a tendency to set
limits to the growing powers of sovereignty. These limits might be ascribed
to the overruling natural law, to vague theoretical limits arising from the
necessity of the consent of the community, or to the insistent claims for a
recognition of rights by smaller groups within the confines of the state.
With this background Gierke was led to regard it as "impossible to make the
state logically prior to law [Recht] or to make law logically prior to the
state, since each exists in, for and by the other."[29] Though today the
state is a lawmaking authority, it does not become, Gierke asserted, either
the final source of law or a unique organ for its making. The real source of
law is to be found in the common feelings or sentiments of the people. And
while it is the chief function of the state to express in law the juridical
conscience of the people other organs than the state participate in the
lawmaking process.[30] A philosophic basis was established for a
Rechtsstaat, or a state founded on justice, which has received the support
of some of the foremost jurists of Germany.[31]
Though modern natural law theories are advocated for extremely divergent
purposes and in strikingly varied forms, the influence of Gierke's views may
readily be discovered in many of the recent attempts to revive the higher
law philosophy.
3. Current Views Relating to Natural Law in Germany. Despite the espousal of
natural law theories by prominent German jurists and philosophers during the
eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries, the influence of Kant, Hegel, and
Von Ihering combined with the growing sentiment of nationalism turned legal
thought in a direction which fostered state omnipotence and led to the
repudiation of every type of higher law philosophy. Hence, most contemporary
German legal philosophers have rejected the system of natural law and have
asserted that law is derived exclusively from the state. "It is without
doubt a great advance of modern philosophy of law, as distinguished from the
earlier law of nature," observed Ihering, "that it has recognized and
forcibly emphasized the dependence of law upon the state."[32] To Ihering
the state is society exercising coercion and law is the policy of force; or
in the principles of Treitschke: "Der Staat ist Macht."[33]
Joseph Kohler from a different standpoint joined the critics of natural law
concepts. Natural law, which had protected the nations against the caprice
of princes and the papal power and had upheld the demands of what was
reasonable in the face of what had become historical, since Hugo Grotius, he
thought, has done scarcely more than to serve as the basis for an emerging
international law. "At the beginning, natural law may have had significance
as a protection against arbitrary rule, but this it soon lost, at least in
Germany and France, and became instead the hobby of well-meaning absolutism
which undertook to maintain natural law by setting its foot on the neck of
the nation and trying to force it to be good, just, and happy."[34] On the
other hand, the patriots of the French Revolution made use of it in
unfurling the banner of rebellion. There is, he maintains, no eternal law --
the law that is suitable for one period is not so for another.
Ehrlich also criticizes the Naturrecht philosophy as invariably resulting
in an individualistic jurisprudence. There is, he insists, no individual
right -- every right is a social right.[35]
The prevailing German doctrine, which is based on the repudiation of natural
law and of inalienable rights, results in the denial that constitutions are
laws and that such written enactments[36] have any superior validity. At
best it accords limits to the powers of the state based on self-denying
ordinances or auto-limitations which rest for their enforcement with the
consciences of those who control the destinies of the state.[37] Hence, the
Naturrecht philosophy, though frequently defended by German jurists, was
vigorously attacked by the Positivists and by the Sociological School of
jurisprudence. It is significant, however, that in the wake of a thorough
repudiation of the natural rights theories German legal thinkers are again
leading the movement for a revival of natural law.[38]
At the same time that legal philosophers and jurists of continental Europe
regard the eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century notions of fixed and
immutable natural or higher laws as repudiated, there has arisen a juristic
movement which may be termed "a revival of juridical idealism" which is
bringing to the forefront again the doctrine of natural law. One of the
best-known exponents of this juridical idealism, Rudolf Stammler, gave the
clue to the new movement when he insisted that he was not an advocate of a
fixed and immutable natural law but of "a natural law with a variable
content."[39] Stammler believes that law comes before the state and that the
state is a creature of law.[40]
In setting for himself the problem of finding the "just law" or "richtige
Recht" Stammler repudiates the a priori principles of the old natural law
and instead aims to determine a formal criterion by which law may be
evaluated. The concept of just law is based on a fundamental characteristic
of the social order, namely, a feeling for right or a longing for
justice.[41] Stammler, as a follower of Kant, sought to formulate by pure
reason "a formal method of general validity." Though he recognized that
purely formal law may for the time being prevail over "fundamentally just
law" in due course such formal law must be tested by and subordinated to the
higher conception of "richtige Recht."[42] Hence, he turned to what he
regards as a "fundamentally and eternally true idea of natural law, which
implies a content in agreement with the nature of law rather than with the
nature of man."[43]
It is interesting to note that Stammler's theory of just law has nothing to
do with the validity of any particular law. "Just law" is to be used for the
interpretation of legal rules only when the legislature grants such
authority. To allow judges or other officers to refuse to enforce laws
because they consider them as unjust, Stammler thinks, would substitute the
arbitrary will of a few individuals for the regular and orderly authority of
established legal rules.[44] Geny, who regards Stammler as the foremost
legal philosopher of modern Germany, believes that the great defect of his
speculations lies in the failure to relate "richtige Recht" to the positive
law of a given country.[45] His efforts seemed to be exhausted in making
distinctions and in laying down criteria. What appears to many to show the
utter impracticability of his theorizing is to be found in the observation
that "the principles of just law do not contain in their idea and form
anything of the specific content of positive law." [46]
That there is a law in agreement with nature or reason and which should
remain once and for all absolutely just, Stammler denies. But he advocates a
law of nature which may serve as a formal criterion or standard to test the
justice of a given law and insists that the standard or criterion is not a
law; by it primarily legal concepts are judged and characterized as just or
unjust. "Just law, like the law of nature, is a law or laws with specific
legal content which is in accord with the standard. It is then objectively
just, but not absolutely just; for the moment the circumstances change, the
same legal content will no longer be in accord with the standard and hence
will cease to be just."[47]
Efforts to direct attention again to the Naturrecht philosophy in Germany
have received their chief support either from those who belong to schools
imbued with religious or metaphysical speculations or from those who are
seeking a basis for a new international law outside of conventional legal
rules. Each of these tendencies will be considered in subsequent sections.
The modern revival of natural law philosophy is frequently advocated in
France and it will be of interest to give a condensed account of the views
of a few representative French authorities.
1. Metaphysik der Silten: Metaphysische Anfangsgrunde der Rechtslehre (2d
ed., 1798). Kant's legal doctrines may be found in The Philosophy of Law, An
Exposition of the Fundamental Principles of Jurisprudence as the Science of
Right, trans. by W. Hastie (Edinburgh, 1887). Cf. also Duguit, "The Law and
the State," Harvard Law Review, XXXI (November, 1917), 40 ff., and Michel,
L'ldée de l'état, pp. 49 ff.
2. Hegel's Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, oder Naturrecht und
Staatswissenchaft im Grundrisse (1821); Hegel's Philosophy of Right, trans.
by S. W. Dyde (London, 1896). Hegel's theories of the state, sovereignty,
and law were well designed to support a monarchy of the Prussian type.
Duguit, op. cit., pp. 57 ff.
3. Cours de politique constitutionelle, 4 vols. (Paris, 1819), I, 177, 306;
Michel, op. cit., pp. 299 ff.
4. Cf. Duguit, op. cit., pp. 105 ff.
5. Duguit speaks of Constant's doctrine on this point as "the French
classical doctrine." For the advocacy of a similar doctrine by a German
writer, consult Gerber, Grundzuge des deutschen Staatsrechts (3d ed., 1880).
Duguit, op. cit., pp. 119 ff.
For a defence of the rule of reason as a superior legal principle, consult
Victor Cousin, Cours d'histoire de la philosophie morale au 18e siècle
(1839).
6. Progress of Continental Law in the Nineteenth Century, Continental Legal
History Series, p. 26.
7. See his Grundlage des Naturrechts, oder philosophischer Grundriss des
Ideals des Rechts (Jena, 1803), and Abriss des Systems der Philosophie des
Rechts oder des Naturrechts (Göttingen, 1828).
8. Cours de droit naturel ou de philosophie du droit (Brussels, 1836-39). M.
Roder was also a disciple of Krause; see his Grundzuge des Naturrechts und
der Rechtsphilosophie (2d ed., 1860).
Josef Kohler thinks that books like those of Ahrens, Krause, and Röder "are
not even worth enumerating; they are products of utter banality and poverty
of ideas." Philosophy of Law, p. 25. This harsh judgment, like similar
judgments of Kohler, does not do justice to the influence of these men on
legal thought.
9. Ahrens, op. cit., I, (6th ed., Leipzig, 1868), 1 ff., 96 ff.; II, 1 ff.,
146.
10. For a consideration of natural rights sanctioned by the Code Napoleon,
consult Duguit, Les transformations du droit privé (Paris, 1912).
11. See Répertoire de legislation de doctrine et de jurisprudence, XIX (new
ed., 1852), 11 ff., and Supplement, VI (Paris, 1890), 425 ff.
12. F. Laurent, Principes de droit civil (5th ed., 1893), I, pp. 50, 51.
Pothier used natural law to supplement and modify Roman law rules as to
contracts in laying the basis for a principle of modern Continental European
law, that deliberate promises, being morally binding, were legally binding.
Traité des obligations, Pt. I, chap. 1. Cited in Pound, Law and Morals, pp.
91, 92.
13. See De Bonald, Discours préliminaire a la legislation primitive; also
Theories du pouvoir politique et rellgieux dans la société civile (1796),
and Essai analytique sur des lois naturelles de l'ordre social (1817).
Harold J. Laski, Authority in the Modern State (New Haven, 1919), chap. 2
and chap. 3 on Lamennais. Joseph De Maistre, Considerations sur la France
(1796); Essai sur le principe générateur des constitutions politiques et des
autres institutions humaines (1810). For summary of the theocratic theories
in the reaction against the political philosophy of the French Revolution,
consult Michel, op. cit., pp. 99 ff., and Harold J. Laski, "De Maistre and
Bismarck," in Studies in the Problem of Sovereignty (New Haven, 1917).
14. Laski, Authority in the Modern State, p. 130.
15. Laski, Authority in the Modern State, chap. 4; Michel, op. cit., pp.
200-209.
16. Michel, op. cit., pp. 203 ff.
17. Cf. Alfred Fouillee, Idée moderns du droit, trans. in Modern French
Legal Philosophy, Modern Legal Philosophy Series, VII (Boston, 1916), 152.
18. Laski, Authority in the Modern State, p. 167.
19. A. Boistel, Cours de philosophie du droit I (Paris, 1899), 1. The
original work based on the principles formulated by Rosmini was issued in
1870.
20. Ibid., pp 72 ff.
21. Geny criticizes Boistel's work as based on artificial reasoning to
which the author attaches objective validity. It has the result, he thinks,
"to give an assured place only to a small number of general ideas, derived
from a very exalted sphere, but scarcely capable from these alone to lead to
anything else than an inspiration of justice." Francois Geny, Science el
technique en droit privé positif (Paris, 1915), II, 292-294.
22. Cf. M. Hauriou, "Philosophie du droit et science sociale," Revue du
droit public, XII (1899), 462.
23. Charmont, La Renascence du droit naturel (Paris and Montpellier, 1910).
24. Cf. his work on Le droit individuel et l'état.
25. Michel, op. cit., p. 628. "The idea of the sublime dignity of the human
person is what the eighteenth century has bequeathed to us." Ibid., pp. 60,
644.
26. Michel, op. cit., p. 630.
27. Gierke, Political Theories of the Middle Ages, p. 74.
28. Ibid., p. 78.
29. Gierke, op. cit., Maitland's Introduction, p. xliii.
30. There is between law and the State [says Gierke] a reciprocal
penetration of a particularly close and intimate nature. The law is innate
in the State. Law is no more begotten by the State than the State is
begotten by law. But, although each has its own reasons for being, each is
developed by the other.... Today the State acts as an organ in the formation
of law. But for that reason the State does not become either the ultimate
source of law or the sole organ in its formation. The ultimate source of law
resides rather in the common consciousness of the social being. The common
belief that something is right needs, for its external realization,
materialization by a social expression, as for instance, in a rule of law
... not infrequently this expression takes place through and by means of the
State, which has for its principal role the shaping of the juridical
consciousness of the people in the form of law. But social organisms other
than the State can formulate law.... Juridical life and the life of the
State are two independent sides of social life. While power is a rational
condition of the State because a State without omnipotence is not a State,
it is immaterial, so far as the notion of law is concerned, that there
exists for it means of external power; for law without power and without
action always remains law. Gierke, "Die Grundbegriffe des Staatsrechts und
die neuester Staatstheorien," Zeitschrift für die gesammte
Staafswissenschaft, p. 306; quoted by Duguit, op. cit., pp. 159, 160. Cf.
comments by Gierke in Zeitschrift fur die gesammte Staatswissenschaft
(Tubingen, 1874), p. 179.
31. See also Gierke, Johannes Althusius und die Entwickelung der
naturrechtlichen Staatstheorien (3d ed., Breslau, 1913), chap. 6.
32. Der Zweck im Recht (1877), trans. in part in Law as a Means to an End.
Modern Legal Philosophy Series, V (Boston, 1913), 178. For a criticism of
the eighteenth-century natural rights theories, see L. von Savigny, "Das
Naturrechtsproblem und die Methode seiner Lösung," Jahrbuch fur
Gesetzgebung, Vervaltung und Volkswirtschaft im Deutschen Reich, G.
Schmoller, XXX, 407-417.
33. Treitschke, Politik (Berlin und Leipzig, 1890-1900). Cf. Duguit, op.
cit., pp. 126 ff.
34. Kohler, Lehrbuch der Rechtsphilosophie, trans. as Philosophy of Law in
Modern Legal Philosophy Series, XII (Boston, 1914), 5, 6, 10.
35. Eugene Ehrlich, Grundlegung der Soziologie des Rechts (Leipzig, 1913),
P. 34; "Es gibt kein Individualrecht, jedes Recht ist ein Sozialrecht. Das
Leben kennt den Menschen als einem aus dem zusammenhange gerissenen
einzelnen und einzigen nicht, und auch dem Recht ist ein solches Wesen
fremd."
36. This is the doctrine which Hauriou styles the "brigandage juridique" in
"Le droit naturel et l'allemagne," Le Correspondant, CCLXXH (September 25,
1918), 913.
37. Ihering, Der Zweck im Recht (1880), pp. 318, 344, and Law as a Means to
an End, pp. 267, 314; Jellinek, Allgemeine Staatslehre (1900), pp. 303, 330
ff.
38. Erich Jung, Das Problem des naturlichen Rechts (Leipzig, 1912); Alfred
Manigk, Wo stehen wir heute sum Naturrecht? (Berlin-Grunewald, 1926).
39. Cf. Stammler, Wirtschaft und Recht (2d ed.), pp. 165, 176, 181, 456;
Theorie der Rechtswissenschaft (Halle, 1911), pp. 124 ff.; Die Lehre von dem
Richtigen Rechte, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1902-07), I, pp. 93 ff., 196 ff. The last
of these volumes has been translated in the Modern Legal Philosophy Series
under the title, The Theory of Justice (New York, 1926).
40. "Fundamental Tendencies in Modern Jurisprudence," Michigan Law Review,
XXI (April, 1923), 623, 765.
41. The Theory of Justice, pp. 22, 116.
42. See F. Geny, "Critical System of Stammler," in The Theory of Justice,
pp. 508 ff.
43. Ibid., p. 516.
44. The Theory of Justice, pp. 81, 511 ff.
45. Ibid., p. 548.
46. Ibid., p. 211; and Alfred Manigk, Die Idee des Naturrechts (Berlin und
Leipzig, 1926).
47. Isaac Husik, "The Legal Philosophy of Rudolf Stammler," Columbia Law
Review, XXIV (April, 1924), 373, 387, 388, and Stammler, Mich. Law Rev.,
XXI, 638. Says Stammler, "absolute validity is possessed by the system of
pure forms, by which alone the intellectual life in general can be
methodically ordered." Illustrations of the pure form of legal speculation
are "the notion of law" and "the idea of law." For an analysis of the
theories of Kohler and Stammler, consult William Ernest Hocking, Present
Status of the Philosophy of Law and of Rights (New Haven, 1926), p. 30.
CHAPTER X
FRENCH THEORIES RELATING TO SUPERIOR LAW
HIGHER LAW DOCTRINES OF KRABBE
1. Views of Saleilles and Charmont. One of the French jurists who aided
materially in the development of the legal and philosophical bases for a
revival of natural law was R. Saleilles.[1] Saleilles refers to one of the
objects of the Historical School of jurists which was designed "to set aside
forever what was called the chimera of natural law founded on reason" or of
anything permanent and immutable in the nature of man which might become an
object of law. Not only was it their purpose to reject the classical
conception of natural law but also to discredit all references to general
principles or to juridical constructions which were thought to smack of
natural law or of metaphysical connotations. The tendency on all sides was
to turn in the direction of a "practical empiricism" which Saleilles
regarded as deceptive and disturbing to the conscience. Following some of
the tendencies of the thought of Savigny jurists were inclined to limit the
function of the judge and to deny that in his decisions he had any concern
with concepts of the rational, equitable, or just. Similarly they aimed to
limit the legislator to a considerable degree to the interpretation of
pre-existing customs only -- customs which might be discovered, noted, and
translated into legal formulae. Hence in the minds of such jurists natural
law had been discarded to its last consequences, to the three degrees of
juridical function: legislative, scientific, and judicial.
In the face of the dogmas of the Historical School and of the dominance of
the tendencies toward practical empiricism Saleilles sought to discover
evidences of the application of the old ideas of natural law appearing under
new or concealed forms. Noting the hurried and confused processes in the
ordinary making and applying of law in which the use of natural law ideas is
likely to be slight, he says: "Recent theorists no longer think of an ideal
or natural type of law applicable to all civilized peoples." But the general
lines of a new natural law are to be discovered in the realm where the
scholar, the legislator, and the judge evaluate first what the law is and
then indicate the rules which ought to apply, following the principles of
abstract reason. It is in this process that the judge, through his
independence and his large powers of interpretation, participates actively
in lawmaking.
How can it be believed in fact if not in law [observes
Saleilles] when the text is doubtful, that the judge will not
allow himself to be guided, even if unconsciously, by his
rationalising tendencies, even when legislation has not made
it a prescribed duty as is the case for example in Art. 7 of
the Austrian Civil Code? When all the arguments, as was
said formerly, are exhausted, as well as deductive reasons,
analogy, juridical construction, the Austrian Code makes it
obligatory for the Judge to decide according to natural law;
the latter thus acquires a subsidiary value. The modern judge
will not wait, undoubtedly, until all the arsenal of logical
processes has been exhausted to obey what was wont to be
called the light of reason. It is really then that the question of
natural law assumes a practical importance of the first
order.[2]
In the judgment of M. Geny, the jurist is expected "to have the right to
orient himself and to direct his interpretation toward a future postulate
which is dictated to him by his conscience and by his reason." Saleilles,
following Geny's point of view (in speaking of a revival of natural law),
has in mind principles "deduced from abstract reason and from philosophical
intuition." It is not a question, he says,
of the principles which are at the source of a legal rule itself
but of simple processes of juridical technique, necessary to
establish harmony in a legislative system, in order to
coordinate the scattered parts and to allow the interested
parties to guide themselves, in the applications which they
make of the law, by reasonings which can give them a
degree of certainty. It is a question of putting the provisions
of the law or of a group of laws in harmony with the whole,
and then to deduce, with this aim in view, certain directory
rules implied by concrete solutions of the text. In this way
the scattered findings are gathered under a certain number of
abstract principles, which will be used as a point of
departure for new developments and which the law can
adopt in relation to questions not previously provided for.[3]
Bierling's analysis is then followed, which distinguishes between principles
of juridical technique which have no bases in absolute truth and principles
of a philosophical character which have objective validity and may be used
as a rational means to test legal rules. And attention is directed to the
emphasis on a revived natural law in the works of Geny, Duguit, L. von
Savigny, and Stammler. The failure of the Historical School to recognize the
creative force of reason and the guiding influence of principles is regarded
as in part responsible for a reaction from the tenets of the school which
has taken jurists in the direction of Stammler's "natural law with a
variable content." Stammler recognizes the existence and the legitimacy of
this natural law of a variable content, which does not pretend to be
absolute and immutable, but which nevertheless has its place in the
successive stages of historical evolution.[4]
Recognizing that there is a revived natural law and that it is the duty of
the judge to make use of such a law in guiding his interpretations[5]
Saleilles sees a danger in that a judge is likely to be influenced by his
individual conceptions and his decisions may become subjective and
arbitrary. Hence if natural law is to find its place as a factor for
rendering justice some objective grounds for its applications must be found.
The objective criteria are to be found, he thinks, in the development of
doctrines and principles which, when tested by the facts and conditions of
the time, are well enough recognized to be accepted as a consensus of
current opinion.
Great caution is to be taken in selecting these objective bases for
Saleilles thinks the judge in applying principles of jurisprudence should
exercise unusual care in introducing new ideas into his decisions "unless it
is a question of the application of one of the natural laws -- which are
supposed to be conceived instinctively by whoever expresses accurately the
collective conscience of a time."[6] And he observes:
That which must be placed in the foreground, and the point
on which I am in complete agreement with M. Geny, is that
the judge must accept as the basis of his methods of
interpretation the idea and the conviction that there is an
individual justice existing objectively, which ought to be in
accord with the social justice of which the law is for him the
imperative expression; that, as a result, if he has the duty to
guide the changing interpretation of a law, outside of his
formal texts, he must take for a guide this absolute
conviction of the idea of justice in its adaptation to the
exigencies of the social order.
But what concrete conceptions shall he form of this idea of
justice and how between two possible solutions shall he
objectively decide which one will correspond to this idea,
applicable to the historic conditions of the time, I mean to
the conception of justice which one should adopt in the
historical milieu of a given time and under the social
conditions which it presents. Will he find in his conscience
solely from the innate idea of natural law of which all the
partisans of ideal law speak, a definite and precise answer
such as all the judges, supposedly equally impartial, equally
devoid of any personal bias, would themselves give? It is
only necessary to present the question in order to see that
considering the conditions in the progress of humanity and
the complexity of diverse clashing interests, the relationships
of which are often necessarily reversed by the law of history,
this objectivity is impossible even in an ideal sense. The
answer would be given by the subjectivism of each whether
political, economic, philosophical or religious. We find
ourselves face to face with the worst dangers of what we
have sometimes called, not without a certain irony, judicial
equity.
The judge has the right to make a concrete application of the
ideas of absolute justice that an ideal of abstract natural right
can suggest to him, only if these conceptions have already
found an objectivity exterior to him and susceptible to a
juridical command; only if, by some experimental method,
analogous with the process of legal verification which is his
first duty, the judge finds, outside of himself, some elements
of a juridical command imperative, which he only needs to
note and apply, in order to remain within his function, which
is, in other words, to ascertain the law and to declare that it
be respected.[7]
... But again in cases where the judge should find, at any rate
in actuality, no support in the law, where he would be the
first to recognize this new principle of ideal justice which has
not yet become accepted as substantive law and to make a
concrete application of it, thereby paving the way for the
legislator, in such cases it is from the juridical conscience of
the collective body that he will have to borrow its elements;
and in this regard I could only repeat what I have elsewhere
said -- consequently I content myself with merely a
reference -- about the juridical value accorded to sound
customs and the conception of them the judge must form
wherever the law forces him to take them into account in
order to pass upon the validity of private acts. It would
appear that in such cases it is the law itself which yields
before natural law, prompting the judge, as it does, to have
recourse to the latter. It would indeed seem so, if one has in
mind a natural law in process of evolution having objective
bases in the popular conscience; the contrary would appear
true if one saw in it an invariable moral formula; or, at the
least, assuming it could vary, if it was used as an ideal, it
would be the personal and purely subjective system of him
whose duty it is to make its application, that is to say, of the
judge himself.[8]
These objective criteria, Saleilles believes, can be formed only by means of
legislative analogy, the collective juridical conscience, and comparative
law, by which the interpretations of judges may be guided. In this process
the work of legal scholars in what the French call the development of
"juridical doctrines" has a large place and the judge's function would be a
restricted one, for
when general opinion, under the form it takes and under
which it adapts itself gradually to the economic and social
changes of a period, becomes unanimous as to certain
concepts of justice, and when this conception is such, I have
said elsewhere, that those to whom it is presented are ready
to recognize its worth, the judge has the right to make of
himself the organ, not blind and purely passive, of this
inorganic sentiment of the collective conscience, but the
interpreter who becomes saturated with its inspiration in
order to adapt it to the legal juridical order of which he is the
guardian and the defender. He has not the authority to
substitute at one stroke one ideal system for another; but his
mission is to draw inspiration from it, when he is sure of his
ground, in order to infuse it into his interpretation of the
general characteristics of the law, and to make of the conflict
of the systems, when these become opposed in the abstract,
a workable system of justice, which in the domain of the
concrete guarantees acquired rights, giving satisfaction at the
same time to new rights which claim recognition.[9]
The safest and scientifically the most satisfactory method of discovering
these objective bases for a revived natural law, Saleilles claims, is
through comparative law whereby the ideals of the jurists are put to the
test by legislators and judges. In the practical juridical applications may
be found their permanent and enduring qualities, at least, for the
particular time and place. It is in this connection that Saleilles gives a
warning, if too large powers are accorded to the judges in applying
principles of justice, that there is grave danger that personal and
political views, not having objective validity in the juridical conscience,
may be applied as if they were immanent truths. Thus comparative law because
it brings together different juristic concepts of natural law and reduces
them to concrete formulae of juridical application is hailed as a method of
establishing a common law of humanity. Though natural law will always serve
in an auxiliary and supplementary rôle in any national system of law it is,
however, regarded as the chief source of guidance for scientific judicial
evolution.
Charmont credits the school of natural law and of natural rights with the
laying of the foundation of modern constitutional law, with the
determination of the basic principles of private and public international
law, and with certain contributions to the amelioration of criminal
laws.[10]
According to Charmont, "natural law, as the old school conceived it was
universal, immutable; for all questions of positive law it offered the ideal
solution, satisfying in every respect; and the human reason could and should
find this solution."[11] Positive law, then, was conceived as contingent and
imperfect; natural law as the ideal, the absolute. The new view considers
natural law as variable and not incompatible with the law of evolution. It
has, in the words of Stammler, a "variable content." In conclusion, says
Charmont,
the idea of natural law, then, is differently conceived from
the way it formerly was. It rests upon another foundation,
and at the same time it undergoes certain transformations. It
reconciles itself with the idea of evolution, with the idea of
utility. It loses its absolute and immutable character; it
possesses only a variable content. It takes account of the
interdependence of the individual and of the community. It
thus tends to bring into accord the individual conscience and
external law instead of setting them into opposition. In this
transformation juridical idealism is not weakened; on the
other hand it has been consolidated and enlarged.[12]
Though Charmont is an advocate of the modern theory of natural law, he
conceives the theory as a sort of an ideal standard for juristic
philosophers and legal thinkers and not as a formal rule of law to be
followed literally by the courts and the judges. In reviewing Geny's theory
of free legal decision, Charmont indicates the weakness in the former
attempts to apply the theory of natural law. "The idea of a right conceived
by reason," he says, leads "logically to the rule of formal law, to an
exaggeration of the element of legality. Law is formulated and sovereign
reason; it can and it should foresee and decide all things. The sole
function of the judge is to assure its application."[13] And, he continues,
the traditional doctrine that the legislator settles everything in
relation to a phase of legal relations and that the judge's sole
business is to discover the legislative will has incontestable
advantages. It strengthens the interpreter in making him the
mouthpiece of the law; it satisfies the demands of our
classical spirit and it seems to give great stability to our legal
doctrines. But as against these advantages, it is necessary to
note inconveniences.
We are bound at the moment the law is made. The law,
which is regarded sufficient to itself, is isolated from the
other sciences and loses all contact with life. The respect of
the interpreter for texts is only a vain appearance, for he
himself in reality creates the principles which, in order to gain
for them a semblance of authority, he ascribes to the
lawgiver. These so-called principles which are only
subjective conceptions are developed so as to become
tyrannical, embarrassing science and forming an obstacle to
progress.[14]
Charmont thus recognizes some of the difficulties and gives the basis for
the criticisms which have resulted in the application by American justices
of the so-called rule of reason as a standard to test the validity of
legislative acts. The decision of a judge, thinks Charmont, "who acts as a
law-maker will always appear individual, arbitrary, and partial; it will not
have the authority of law."[15]
A French authority, whose works are better known than those of Charmont,
also seeks to discover a new juridical idealism in which the ideal of the
epoch supplants the absolute ideal. Demogue conceives natural law as an
ideal concept rather than as a rule of positive law -- as a law to be sought
in the struggle to secure harmonious adjustments of social life. He aims to
find an ideal law in the presence of certain facts, historical, economic,
and political, which appear as a result of the investigations of social
science and from the aspirations of humanity.[16]
2. Views of Duguit and Hauriou. Though Léon Duguit was one of the foremost
critics of natural rights theories, he was one of the ablest advocates in
France of the principle that there is a law superior to the state.
Originally presented in his L'Etat, le droit objectif et la loi positive,
which appeared in 1901, Duguit's doctrines were amplified and developed
since this date. He repudiates the notion that rights may be based on the
"high dignity of the human being"[17] and rejects the implications of the
theories of Ihering, Laband, and Jellinek that law is comprised solely of
rules established by society with the coercion of the state behind them.
Duguit sets out to demonstrate that law can be anterior and exterior to the
state. Those who recognize a law beyond the realm of state action find the
origin of this law in a deity, or in the individual, or in society.
Rejecting a religious and metaphysical basis for a superior law, and
discarding the philosophy of individual rights, Duguit turns to the social
basis for a law exterior to the state. He finds the origin of those superior
rules of law in certain norms which condition man's living in society and
which form the basis of other norms sanctioned and enforced by the
state.[18]
"We believe firmly," says Duguit, "that there is a rule of law above the
individual and the state, above the rulers and the ruled; a rule which is
compulsory on one and on the other; and we hold that if there is such a
thing as sovereignty of the state, it is juridically limited by this rule of
law."[19] He denies, however, that there are subjective individual rights or
natural rights which furnish a basis for these superior laws. The postulate
of individual natural rights involves, he thinks, two contradictions -- the
sovereignty of the state and the autonomy of the individual. An individual
right superior to the state is considered as a pure hypothesis and not a
reality. It implies a social contract at the origin of society which is
deemed a manifest contradiction.[20] Rights, it is maintained, can arise
only from social conditions. They may be acquired only through membership in
a society.
To Duguit the basis of law is not subjective but objective and is based on
the facts of social solidarity.[21] Conformity to this solidarity is not a
rule of ethics but a rule of law. In accordance with these views Duguit
opposes the doctrine of unlimited powers of the state or the doctrine of
self-limitation of sovereign powers which is, he thinks, a form of
omnipotence in disguise. If there are limits on the powers of the state
there can be no sovereignty and if the doctrine of sovereignty prevails
there can be no limits to state action. The German doctrine of
auto-limitation[22] is regarded as a farce, since the unlimited sovereign
who agrees to limits may break his agreement at any time with impunity.[23]
Therefore, he becomes a defender of the theory of the separation of powers
which has prevailed in America and of the practice of American courts in
reviewing legislative enactments in order to annul acts which are regarded
as contrary to the provisions of written constitutions, or to implied
limitations interpreted as inhibiting arbitrary acts. Judicial review of
legislative enactments, Duguit believes, follows logically from the theory
of the separation of powers.
The philosophy of Duguit is of such interest and significance that brief
extracts from his recent work, Traité de droit constitutionnel, will present
more effectively his advocacy of a superior law (droit) to which all valid
positive laws must conform.[24] Presenting the dominant idea of the entire
treatise Duguit says:
The older I become, the more I study and search into the
problem of the law [droit], the more I am convinced that
law is not a creation of the state, that it exists independent of
the state, that the notion of law is altogether independent of
the notion of the state and that the rule of law [la règle de
droit] governs the state as it governs individuals. It will be
seen later that this work is dominated by this idea that the
state is limited in its action by the rule of law, that this ought
to be the case, that it cannot be otherwise, and that the
social order would be impossible if it were not so. Now, this
would be impossible if law were an exclusive creation of the
state or the rule of law existed only when an economic or
social rule is formulated or accepted by the state.[25]
The characteristic ideas in relation to this higher law are more explicitly
developed in sections dealing with laws regarded as contrary to right.[26]
I call contrary to right every formal law which contains a
command contrary, either to a principle of superior right,
such as is recognized by the collective conscience of the
people ... or to a provision written in the declaration of
rights, or whether finally to a provision of a rigid
constitutional law, in the countries, such as France and the
United States, which have adopted such a hierarchy of laws.
To facilitate the exposition I would qualify simply as an
unconstitutional law every law contrary to a superior
principle of right, written or not in a law superior to the
ordinary law, declaration of rights, or rigid constitutional law.
In a word, I use the expression "unconstitutional law," as a
synonym of a law contrary to a superior law [droit] written
or unwritten.
From what I have said ... it follows that the legislator as a
matter of fact does not have the power to create law, that he
can only establish and announce constructive rules in order
to put them into effect. The logical consequence of this is
that a law which is contrary to objective right or which does
not have for its end to put into effect a rule of law [droit]
and to assure its execution is a law without value, a law
without executive force.
But one discerns with difficulty the practical means to
repress a violation of a law by the legislature. Since the
legislature is charged with the duty to formulate the law and
to assure its sanction, one can scarcely understand how
there can be organized against it a system designed to
repress the violations of law committed by it. As will be seen
a little farther on, the devices which have been established in
France toward this end have proven ineffective. On the
other hand, although it is not impossible to accomplish this
end in any country, the establishment of a similar
organization has been considered only in the countries which
recognize the distinction of two or more categories of law in
hierarchical form as the United States or as France, where
we have three categories of law: the declarations of rights
which formulate the superior principles of right or law which
cannot be transgressed either by the ordinary legislature or
by the constituent legislative body and the constitutional laws
which the ordinary legislature can neither modify nor
abrogate. In a country such as England, which does not
recognize the distinction between constitutional laws and
ordinary laws, one never has occasion to think of an organ
authorized to test the conformity of laws with right. Besides
in England public opinion is the best guarantee against
arbitrary legislative acts.
Whether there is or is not in a country an organ authorized
to determine the conformity of laws with objective right and
to declare of no effect the laws contrary to such right one
need not hesitate to accept all of the consequences of the
preceding proposition and to say that to refuse obedience to
a law contrary to right is perfectly legitimate. It is the
principle of resistance to oppression affirmed distinctly by
the declaration of rights of 1789 (Art. 2) as one of the
natural, inalienable, and imprescriptible rights of man and by
the declaration of rights of 1793 in the well-known Articles
33 to 35. When one advocates this proposition he is in
general classed as an anarchist, because it is claimed no
society would be possible if all of the citizens could refuse to
obey laws under the pretext that they are contrary to right. I
reply that there are laws to which no one would think of
refusing obedience because they formulate or carry into
effect a rule of right which is contested by no one. And the
affirmation of the right of resistance to oppression is the best
guarantee against the arbitrary power of the legislature which
would endeavor hereafter, to make only those laws which
would be given an almost unanimous acceptance.[27]
That there is a higher law to which all governmental acts must conform
whether a constitution be rigid or flexible is Duguit's main thesis. Even in
England, he finds, where the omnipotence of Parliament is considered as an
essential principle there are superior rules which the conscience of the
English people themselves would not permit to be violated by Parliament. The
existence of rigid constitutional laws superior to ordinary laws then is
regarded, not as the foundation of limits to the legislative powers, but
only a positive guarantee, of the restrictive rules which necessarily bind
the legislature of the state.
Duguit regards it necessary to go a little further and to say that
every state which recognizes the principle of its
subordination to law, which recognizes that there are laws
which cannot be enacted in order to respect this principle
completely, ought to create a high court having every
possible guarantee of independence and of ability and being
authorized to annul laws contrary to right, or following a
formula less general and less exact, which would be
competent to pass on the constitutionality of laws and to
annul unconstitutional laws.[28]
Such high and extraordinary powers, Duguit thinks, ought not to be entrusted
to an organ established and controlled on a political basis and because of
the political influences dominating French courts he doubts whether they
should be accorded such powers.
After describing certain devices in French constitutions to establish
special courts to deal with acts regarded as contrary to the constitution
and some recent unsuccessful attempts to revive the plan of a constitutional
court Duguit defends the American doctrine as to the review of legislative
enactments:
If there is no reason to establish a supreme court before
which recourse could be taken tending to have a law held
void on the ground of unconstitutionality ought we not to
grant courts the authority to consider the constitutionality of
a law attacked before them and to refuse to apply it if they
judge it unconstitutional? In considering the question
theoretically, taking into consideration the nature of positive
legislation and the difficulties which arise in practice one
must reply affirmatively. The courts ought above all to apply
the law -- that is to say, to decide in conformity with the
law all questions of right which are presented to them. They
are bound by the law evidently, by all laws in force in a
given country, by the ordinary laws without doubt, but also
and for greater reason by the superior laws written or
unwritten, particularly by the rules inscribed in the
declaration of rights and in the constitutional laws. In a
country where there exists such a hierarchy of laws it is
incontestably logical that in a case of a contradiction
between an inferior and a superior law it is the latter which
the courts ought to apply, as a result of which on the same
ground they refuse to apply the inferior law. If there is a
contradiction between an ordinary law on the one part and a
constitutional law or the declaration of rights on the other,
the court ought not to apply the ordinary law. Moreover, if
there is a contradiction between a constitutional law and a
provision of the declaration of rights the court ought to apply
the latter and to refuse to apply the former.
Theoretically, then, every person ought to be permitted to
contest before any court a law as unconstitutional, that is to
say, to be permitted to claim that the law invoked against
him cannot be applied by the court because it is contrary to
a superior law [droit] written or unwritten, to which the
ordinary legislature is subordinated.[29]
This doctrine follows, in Duguit's judgment, as a matter of course from a
written constitution with a theory of a separation of powers. Referring to
the provisions which have been interpreted as preventing the French courts
from passing on the validity of legislative acts, Duguit believes the
doctrine and jurisprudence of the French courts on this matter are clearly
wrong. These texts, in his opinion, were only an application of the
principle of the separation of powers and this implies that the judges can
consider the constitutionality of laws and refuse to apply all
unconstitutional laws. Referring to doubts expressed in the first edition of
his treatise that courts might consider the validity of legislative acts,
Duguit says:
I was in error and today I accept without hesitation the
solution which has been accepted and followed by the
eminent jurists which I have indicated. It appears to me
evident that it is a necessary and logical consequence of the
hierarchy of laws. I consider, moreover, that among the
texts of French positive law there is none which is opposed
to the recognition of this power as belonging to French
courts. On the contrary, as I have said above, the texts
which establish the principle of the separation of powers
give them this authority implicitly. I may add that a country in
which one does not recognize this authority as belonging to
the courts cannot directly be said to be under the regime of
law. This system has always been practiced in the United
States. Certain inconveniences without doubt have been
presented in its application, and the Americans are the first
to recognize them. These inconveniences, however, prove
rather that the difficulty lies in the manner of the practical
application of the principle by the American courts and their
method of appointment rather than in the system itself. After
all, the advantages are much superior to the inconveniences
and this is sufficient to require its application in our
country.[30]
After summarizing some of the difficulties and inconveniences in the
application of the American system of the judicial review of legislative
acts discovered by Professor Lambert,[31] Duguit concludes:
Whatever may be thought of political tendencies which may
have appeared in the jurisprudence of the American
Supreme Court, there is in the power which American
courts have to consider the constitutionality of laws an
institution highly protective of individual liberty against
arbitrary legislation. I have been able to assure myself that
some of the ablest and most independent Americans retain a
profound attachment for this institution and that the prestige
of the Supreme Court is not growing less in the public spirit.
There are some who speak of government by judges. The
expression is applied by certain American authors and it is
the title which Lambert gives to his work. It is not exact.
One cannot say that in America the courts of justice, even
the Supreme Court, are truly associated with the
government. One cannot even say that they exercise in a
true sense control over Congress, or that they can exercise a
sort of veto of laws passed by this chamber. These take all
their force from the vote of Congress and the promulgation
by the President, which alone can exercise a suspensive
veto. The Supreme Court following the expression of
Larnaude does not pass upon, to speak accurately, the
process of the making of a law. It gives a decision to a
particular litigant, but this decision requires that the court
decide on the constitutionality of the law. Evidently, the
constitutionality is considered in this large sense; and the
Supreme Court ought not to be blamed, on the contrary, for
refusing to apply not only the laws which violate a written
rule of the constitution but also a fundamental principle of
American law. It recognizes and sanctions a superior law
[droit] of which I have often affirmed the existence, which
imposes itself on every legislator and of which, to their
honor, American jurists are unanimous in recognizing the
existence and force.[32]
The doctrine that the positive rules and enactments of the state cannot
interfere with the rights which are pre-existent to all social organization
-- certain absolute rights which are superior to the law itself, because
they are inseparable from human personality -- is supported by different
groups of French thinkers.[33] Many agree with Duguit that whenever a law
violates a rule of right it should be regarded as an act of oppression and
be resisted as such. Law is, then, conceived not as a creation of the
legislature; it exists in and of itself.
The rule of right gives to positive law its imperative force.[34] Whenever a
law conforms to a rule of right it is valid and should be carried into
effect; whenever it is opposed to such a rule its enforcement should be
resisted, and particularly so when it infringes in a serious way upon the
rights of the individual. To establish and preserve such rights it is
necessary to maintain the doctrine of limits upon sovereign powers. A number
of writers on public law in France believe that the only effective guarantee
for individual rights can be established through the judicial control over
legislative and administrative acts which do not conform to the higher law
or rule of right.[35] Certain principles formulated in the Declaration of
Rights of 1789 are, therefore, considered as immutable and pre-existent to
all social organization, and any enactments contrary thereto are necessarily
unconstitutional.[36] To protect individual rights and to give validity to
the written provisions of the constitution it is regarded as necessary to
have an unconstitutional law declared inapplicable. In the judgment of M.
Wohlgemuth,
this remedy can best be accorded by the courts and this
form of judicial control ought logically to follow from the
nature of the laws relating to individual rights.... In refusing to
apply such a law, the judge does not exercise political
power, but confines himself to the interpretation of the law,
just as he does each day, in the application of ordinary laws
... individual rights are each day menaced by laws contrary
to the rule of right and contrary to the principle of social
solidarity. These laws do not have the force of law, if they
have not in themselves certain imperative qualities. It is
logical as we have insisted for the judge to refuse to apply
them. This is one of the established features of democratic
government.[37]
"We believe, with L. Duguit, that there exists a rule of law [droit]
anterior and superior to the state, -- a rule of law founded on solidarity
and on justice. It is from this rule of law that are derived objective law
and subjective rights."[38] According to Guillemon this is not an
ideological principle but an enforceable limit on the exercise of state
powers. "From this idea that the state is bound and limited by law follows
naturally this other idea, that in the case of a violation of law [droit],
by the state, the subjects have the duty not to obey the illegal acts and
even to rebel against the state."[39] The criminal code is silent as to the
effect of the resistance by an individual to an illegal act of an
officer.[40] Guillemon believes that impliedly the article requires passive
obedience. Referring to the comments of Esmein that the principles of the
French Declarations of Rights have no constitutional significance today in
France,[41] Guillemon claims that they have a "super-constitutional"
significance. There are in France, he asserts, three categories of laws:
(a) Super-constitutional laws.
(b) Constitutional laws.
(c) Ordinary laws.
The super-constitutional laws pertain chiefly to the principles of the
Declaration of Rights, which are beyond change by the ordinary processes of
legislation or constitutional amendment.[42]
When such individual rights are violated Guillemon thinks the courts ought
to grant a remedy by checking the illegal act.[43]
Duguit's repudiation of the concepts of natural law, of the personality of
the state, and of national sovereignty is criticised by many French jurists
as running counter to the almost universally accepted basis of French legal
thought.[44] Accepting the individualistic basis for natural law Professor
Gavet notes how the conceptions of this school have been misinterpreted and
then condemned. He finds the development of natural law in the progressive
evolution of sentiments of law and justice among men. "We remain," he says,
"believers in the natural and imprescriptible rights of man and, therefore,
in the law of nations."[45]
A member of the Positivist School of jurisprudence summarizes as follows the
propositions implied in Duguit's writings:
1. That the state is no longer sovereign.
2. That the doctrine of the unity of the state is inconsistent
with modern associational tendencies.
3. That in legal no less than in political theory law is justified
by reference to the end which it serves.
4. That there is a droit objectif superior to all governments
and legally binding them.
5. That the rulers are under a legal duty to govern well, but
have no legal right to govern.
Justice Brown criticizes these propositions in turn and claims Duguit's
droit objectif is merely the concept of natural law socialized, and that the
basis of his legal thought involves "a hopeless confusion of legal and moral
ideas." Though most Positivists in France and elsewhere unhesitatingly
reject the main tenets of Duguit's legal philosophy, his writings have had a
profound effect on all current legal thought.[46]
Geny thinks that Duguit in effect turned again to the essential idea of
natural law only under a new form,[47] and that seemingly repudiating the
metaphysical approach to the law he constructed a system essentially founded
on vague metaphysical hypotheses. Referring to Duguit's principle of social
solidarity Saleilles calls it a "principle of natural law after all"
according to the accepted terminology of this phrase.[48]
However one may classify the règle de droit it is one of the most
interesting and important forms of higher law philosophy which are affecting
European political and legal thinking.
M. Hauriou is among those in France who defends the doctrine of a higher law
above ordinary written enactments and constitutions. He speaks in defence of
this doctrine under the title superlégalité constitutionnelle. "It is an
error," he thinks,
to believe that the superlégalité constitutionnelle
comprehends only that which is written in the constitution; it
comprehends equally other things, as for example, all of the
fundamental principles of organization, that is, all the
principles of the individualistic order which are at the basis
of the state and the political principles on which governments
are founded ... these principles constitute a sort of légitimité
constitutionnelle, and which have force over and above
even the written constitution.
Despite the failure of the constitution of 1875 to include a bill of rights,
Hauriou says:
the principles of our public liberties are not in the written
constitution; this is certain, but they are, however, in the
superlégalité constitutionnelle, for they are part of the
légitimité constitutionnelle, which is above the written
constitution itself.... This is very important, for it signifies that
no one's liberty can be completely suppressed either directly
or indirectly by the establishment of the state monopoly.[49]
Other principles can also be ranged in the category of
légitimité constitutionnelle; the principles of equality and
of publicity in taxation, and the principle of the separation of
powers between the administrative and judicial
authorities.[50]
It is quite necessary, Hauriou concludes, to substitute for the narrow
conception of the written constitutional law that of a superlégalité, which
allows an addition to the constitutional text of all the fundamental
principles of the state understood as forming a légitimité. Hauriou
practically agrees with Duguit in supporting the doctrine of a law superior
to the state and also the principle that the courts should review
legislative acts to test their conformity with the terms of written
constitutions. In a limited manner Hauriou and Duguit take the judiciary out
of its normal and classical position and set it up as the power of ultimate
sovereignty.[51] With certain reservations they approve the American
doctrine of judicial supremacy.
3. Higher Law Doctrines of Krabbe. H. Krabbe, the Dutch juristic
philosopher, discarding an omni-competent sovereign which is the basis and
source of law, defends the proposition that positive law is valid only by
virtue of the fact that it incorporates the principles of right (Recht).[52]
The principles of right are then traced to what Krabbe regards as the
feeling or sentiment of the people. In contrast with a sovereign who alone
can make law he formulates a theory of the sovereignty of law.[53]
There is [according to Krabbe] only one source of law, --
the feeling or sense of right which resides in man and has a
place in his conscious life, like all the other tendencies that
give rise to judgments of value. Upon this all law is based,
whether it be positive law, customary law, or the unwritten
law in general. A statute which does not rest upon this
foundation is not law. It lacks validity even though it be
obeyed voluntarily or by compulsion. It must be recognized,
therefore, that there may be provisions of positive law which
lack real legal quality.
The legislative organ runs the risk of enacting rules which
lack the quality of law either because the organization of the
legislature is defective or because it mistakes what the
people's sense of right demands. On the other hand, it may
happen even more easily that what is embodied in a statute
ceases to be law and so is no longer valid because it has lost
the basis of its binding force. In such a case compulsion, --
the punishment or legal judgment which disobedience to the
statute entails, -- is irrelevant. Constraint is justified by the
necessity of maintaining the law but it can never bestow legal
quality upon a rule which lacks it. Mere force, whether
organized as in the state or unorganized as in an insurrection
or revolution, can never give to a rule that ethical element
which belongs essentially to a rule of law. On the contrary,
constraint can gain an ethical quality only when used in the
service of law. Thus the rule must have the definite character
of law and can derive this only from the feeling or sense of
right which is rooted by nature in the human mind.[54]
There is, in the opinion of Krabbe, only one ruling power -- the power of
law. Along with other modern juristic writers he predicates an ethical and
moral basis for law. We are convinced, he says, "that in basing the validity
of law upon the sense of right we stand upon the firm foundation of fact, --
only by establishing the authority of law in this manner, moreover, can full
account be taken of the ethical character of law."[55]
Finding that there is no place for a sovereign in modern society and that
law may not be traced to any such source, Krabbe seeks a basis of law which
is regarded as better fitted to the views of modern social life.
His theory involves an insistence on the ethical foundations and emotional
sanctions for law, on the theory that the real source of law is in the
"sense for right" or "feeling for right." The spiritual sense of man is
regarded as the support of law and legal thinking. The intellect, it is
claimed, must lose its primacy in the development of law; feminine
emotionalism must offset masculine intellectualism.[56] The so-called sense
of right, it is contended, has binding force, and rules not based on it are
not law. The inherent obligatory authority arising therefrom is due to its
emanation from an absolute, or from what is conceived as universally valid
standards of right and of law. These valid standards are built on a uniform
standard of right which exists in each individual, though the idea or the
expression of the sense of right may be obscured by unfavorable
circumstances.[57]
In order to secure unity from a diversity of opinions as to the "sense of
right" superior sanction and validity is attached to the opinion of the
majority. That "rule is to be obeyed which has quantitatively the highest
value." In order to render feasible the rule of the majority it is contended
that the majority sense of right must be conceded to be better for the
minority than their own interpretation. There is an emphatic denial of
supremacy or of superior power through organization. This is indicated in
the dictum "no power on earth can control the action of the sense of right."
There is then no authority other than the law. Law is defined as the
judgment of the community on the rightness or wrongness of conduct.
In comparing the theories of Duguit and Krabbe it is apparent that both
reject eighteenth-century natural rights theories and the absolute
sovereignty theory, as bases of law and of legal principles. Both claim that
the legal foundation which is described is developed from facts and a
logical interpretation of social phenomena. Each in turn condemns the
Positivist's theory of the state with its accompanying legal dialectics.
Both believe in the superiority or "sovereignty" of rules of right (droit or
Recht).
Krabbe does not clearly dispose of implications which result from the
enactment of positive laws which lack true legal validity, such as the
attitude of the individual toward a positive legal rule which does not
conform to the sense of right or the duty of officers toward a statute
contrary to popular conceptions of right. Apparently the author regards
the feeling or sense of right as an ideal or standard toward which actual
laws may only approximate. Though he does not advocate explicitly a
doctrine of natural law he finds the source and sanction of all positive laws
in a higher law doctrine which has certain similarities with the theories of
natural law and of inalienable rights. This theory, however, differs in the
source and foundation of these rights, tracing them directly to the people,
rather than to any immutable and absolute standards to which man's legal
concepts must conform.
Discarding the concept of sovereignty for the state in the field of private
law and basing all law on the sense or feeling for right Krabbe predicates a
similar foundation for international law.[58] The difference between
national and international law results chiefly from the fact that the latter
is applicable to a larger domain and that in the international realm the
sense of right is immature.[59]
1. "École historique et droit naturel d'après quelques ouvrages récents,"
Revue trimestrielle de droit civil (1902), pp. 80-112. For Saleilles' views
regarding the lights of the individual and of social groups, consult De la
personnalité juridique (Paris, 1910), and Georges Davy, Le droit,
l'idéalisme et l'expérience (Paris, 1922), pp. 5 ff.
2. "École historique et droit naturel," par M. le Professeur Saleilles,
Revue trimestrielle de droit civil (1902), No. I, éditée par la Société du
Recueil Sirey, Paris, pp. 84, 85. I am indebted to the Société du Recueil
Sirey for permission to use translations of parts of this article.
3. Saleilles, op. cit., p. 87.
4. Saleilles notes that Geny wishes the judge to go directly, without
indirectness, fictions, or equivocations to the only realities which exist
outside of the text, to the inspirations of the idea of justice, which at
once takes him into the realm of natural law.
5. There is, says Saleilles, "a juridical and social order in which the
solution, entirely opposed to the one given formerly as the immanent
expression of justice, is going to appear as incarnating in its turn the
natural law of the times." Op. cit., p. 98.
6. Saleilles, op. cit., pp. 101 ff.
7. Saleilles, op. cit., pp. 105, 106.
8. Ibid., p. 108.
9. Saleilles, op. cit., pp. 108, 109.
10. J. Charmont, La renaissance du droit naturel (Montpellier, 1910), p.
167, and Modern French Legal Philosophy, pp. 106 ff. The natural law school,
Charmont claims, was founded by Hugo Grotius, 1583-1645; Pufendorf, 1632-94;
and Burlamaqui, 1694-1748. Cf. Charmont op. cit., pp. 10 ff., for a brief
summary of the theories of the different schools of natural law or natural
rights.
11. Op. cit., pp. 6, 54.
12. Op. cit., pp. 217, 218.
13. Ibid., p. 174, and Modern French Legal Philosophy, p. 112.
14. Op. cit., pp. 175, 176; Modern French Legal Philosophy, pp. 113, 114.
15. Saleilles, op. cit., p. 189; Modern French Legal Philosophy, p. 123.
16. Les notions fondamentales du droit privé, trans. in part in Modern
French Legal Philosophy (Boston, 1916); see p. 345, and especially pp. 370
ff.
17. "The affirmation that man because he is man, taken isolated and by
himself, separated from other men, in the state of nature, as they said in
the eighteenth century, is endowed with certain rights, peculiar to his
nature as man -- this affirmation is purely gratuitous; it cannot be
supported by any direct proof. It is a purely metaphysical proposition with
respect to the nature, or, as the schoolmen used to say, the essence, of the
human being. This affirmation might suffice in a period of metaphysical
belief, but it is purely a verbal expression -- nothing more -- in a
positivist and scientific epoch like ours. It can satisfy a believer, but it
is void of all scientific and positive value." Duguit, "The Law and The
State," Harvard Law Review, XXXI (November, 1917), 23.
18. See Traité de droit constitutionnel (2d ed.), I, 11 ff. The chief works
of Duguit, all of which have a common purpose, are: L'État, le droit
objectif et la loi positive (Paris, 1901); L'État, les gouvernants et les
agents (Paris, 1903); Manuel de droit constitutionnel: Théorie générale de
l'état-organisation politique (Paris, 1907; 4th ed. 1923); Le droit social,
le droit individuel et les transformations de l'état (Paris, 1908; 3d ed.
1924); Traité de droit constitutionnel (2 vols., Paris, 1911, 2d ed., 5
vols., 1921-25); Les transformations générales de droit privé depuis le Code
Napoléon (Paris, 1912); Les transformations de droit public (Paris, 1913);
Souveraineté et liberté (Paris, 1922).
For a summary of Duguit's doctrines, see Roger Bonnard, "La doctrine de
Duguit sur le droit et l'état," Revue Internationale de la théorie du droit,
1 (1926-27), 18 ff.
19. Duguit, L'État, le droit objectif et la loi positive, p. 12, and Modern
French Legal Philosophy, pp. 246-248; also "The Law and The State," Harv.
Law Rev., XXXI (November, 1917), 23.
20. Cf., for Duguit's views in opposition to subjective natural rights,
L'État, le droit objectif et la loi positive; Traité de droit
constitutionnel, 1, 9-13; Le droit social, le droit individuel et les
transformations de l'état (2d ed.), pp. 3-5, 10-17; Transformations
générales du droit privé, pp. 9-15; Revue du droit public, XXIV (1907), 419.
21. Traité de droit constitutionnel, I, 22 ff. For the contention that
except for some surface differences Duguit is stating old doctrines akin to
the Natural Rights School, see Charmont, La renaissance du droit naturel, p.
98, and Modern French Legal Philosophy, p. 131. On the other hand, Duguit
insists that a profound difference separates his conception of a rule of
society which he calls a rule of right from the former conception of natural
rights. See Le droit social, le droit individuel et la transformation de
l'état (Paris, 1911), pp. 6-9.
22. See Ihering's Der Zweck im Recht and trans. in Modern Legal Philosophy,
vol. V; Jellinek's System der subjektiven offentlichen Rechte and Allgemeine
Staatslehre (1900). Cf. Duguit, "La doctrine allemande de l'auto-limitation
de l'état," Revue du droit public, XXVI (1919), 161.
23. "The Law and the State," Harv. Law Rev., XXI (November, 1917), pp. 123
ff. For Duguit's criticisms of the dogma of sovereignty, see Traité de droit
constitutionnel, I, 408 ff.
24. These extracts have been translated and reprinted with the permission of
Professor Duguit and of M. de Boccard, editor of his works.
25. Duguit, Traité de droit constitutionnel (2d ed.), I, 33.
26. Ibid, III, 659 ff. Duguit claims if there is no rule of law (règle de
droit) above the powers of the state there is no public law and Treitschke's
characterization "Der Staat ist Macht" is an unescapable truth. "The Law and
the State," Harv. Law Rev., XXXI (November, 1917), 6.
27. Traité de droit constitutionnel, III, 661.
28. Ibid., p. 664.
29. Traité de droit constitutionnel, III pp. 667, 668.
30. Ibid., pp. 673, 674. Cf. Beauregard, Monde économique (November
seventeenth, 1894), p. 505; Jèze, "Du contrôle des délibérations des
assemblées délibérantes," Revue générale d'administration (1895), p. 411;
Signorel, "Du contrôle judiciaire des actes du pouvoir législatif," Revue
politique et parlementaire (June, 1904), p. 526.
31. Edouard Lambert, Le gouvernement des juges et la lutte contre la
législation sociale aux États-Unis (Paris, 1921).
32. Traité de droit constitutionnel, III, pp. 678, 679. "The American
solution creates in a singular manner a positive sanction for enforcement of
the obligation resting upon the legislature, namely, to respect the superior
principles of right [le droit supérieur] imposed upon it." Duguit, "The Law
and the State," Harv. Law Rev., XXXI (November, 1917), 18.
33. Edouard Lambert, op. cit., Introduction and chap. 11; Wohlgemuth, Des
droits individuels et de leur garantie judiciaire specialement contre le
pouvoir législatif.
34. Wohlgemuth, op. cit., pp. 22-23. To M. Wohlgemuth, "every act which does
not carry into effect a rule of right and which creates a pretended rule of
positive law, is theoretically an arbitrary act, without force, and no one
is bound by it." Ibid., p. 20. Cf. also H. Berthélemy, "Le fondement de
l'authorité politique," Revue du droit public, XXXII (1915), 663, 664.
35. Ibid., pp. 95 ff.; Hauriou, "Conseil d'état (August 7, 1909)," Sirey
(1909), III, 145; Jèze, in Revue générale d'administration, II (1895), 241,
and Revue du droit public, XXIX (1912), 140; Albert Angleys, Des garanties
contre l'arbitraire du pouvoir législatif, par l'intervention du pouvoir
judiciaire (Chambery, 1910); Henri Desfougères, Le contrôle judiciaire de la
constitutionnalité des lois (Paris, 1910).
36. Ibid., p. 144, and Jules Coumoul, Traité du pouvoir judiciaire de son
role constitutionnel et de sa réforme organique (Paris, 1911), pp. 214, 215.
37. Wohlgemuth, op. cit., pp. 149, 150, 156; see also Angleys, op. cit., Pt.
IV, and Desfougeres, op. cit., pp. 115 ff.
38. Pierre Guillemon, De la rébellion et de la résistance aux actes illégaux
(Thesis, Bordeaux, 1921), pp. 6, 71 ff.
39. Guillemon, op. cit., p. 8.
40. Cf. art. 209.
41. Esmein, Droit constitutionnel (5th ed), p. 492.
42. Guillemon, op. cit., pp. 10, 11. Cf. art. 11 of Declaration of Rights of
1793 to which a super-constitutional value is attributed.
43. See Guillemon, op. cit., p. 12, and the following: Duguit, Manuel de
droit constitutionnel, pp. 304-307; Reglade, La coutume en droit public
interne, p. 263; and G. Jèze in Revue générale d'administration, II (1895),
411. Cf. also extract from Duguit, Traité de droit constitutionnel, II, 13,
14, in which he speaks of the Declaration of Rights as
"super-constitutional" law.
Harold J. Laski notes that M. Berthélemy, a French authority on
administrative law, adopts Duguit's methods and conclusions, whereas M.
Hauriou, another French publicist, seems to reach not very different
results. "A whole school of the more brilliant younger jurists, M. Maxime
Leroy, M. Georges Cahen, M. Paul-Boncour," he observes, "are clearly
influenced at every stage of their work by M. Duguit's speculations. In
England and America its influence is already being felt." "A Note on M.
Duguit," Harv. Law Rev., XXXI (November, 1917), 188. Cf. M. Hauriou, "Les
idées de M. Duguit," Recueil de législation de Toulouse (1911), pp. 6 ff.,
and H. Berthélemy, "Le fondement de l'autorité politique," Revue du droit
public, XXXII (1915), 663.
44. Gaston Gavet, "Individualism and Realism," Yale Law Journal, XXIX (March
and April, 1920), 523, 643. Esmein calls Duguit's doctrine "chimère
anarchiste," Éléments de droit constitutionnel (4th ed.), p. 40. To Hauriou,
Duguit is an "anarchiste de la chaire," Revue du droit public, XVII (1902),
348, 353, and Michaud regards his theory as "anarchistic and incompatible
with social necessities," Théorie de la personnalité morale, I, 52. Malberg
relegates Duguit's rule of law to the realm of ideal justice or of morality
and denies that it has a juridical basis. Théorie de l'état, I, 212.
45. Gavet, op. cit., pp. 529, 530.
46. W. Jethro Brown, "The Jurisprudence of M. Duguit," Law Quarterly Review,
XXXII (April, 1916), 168, 172, 179-181.
47. Science et technique en droit privé positif, II, 191, 252, 262-264, and
IV, 159 ff.; for similar conclusions, see M. Deslandres, Revue du droit
public, XXV (1908), 10; J. Charmont, La renaissance du droit naturel (Paris,
1910), pp. 198, 199; and W. Y. Elliott, "The Metaphysics of Duguit's
Pragmatic Conception of Law," Political Science Quarterly, XXXVII (December,
1922), 637.
48. Gaston Jèze objects to Duguit's deductions because, as he sees it, he
fails to distinguish between "le droit positif" and "le droit naturel." Les
principes généraux du droit administratif (3d ed., Paris, 1925), p. 33.
Duguit replies to his critics in the Traité de droit constitutionnel, I, 17,
35, 59, 397, 497, and II, 68.
49. Droit constitutionnel (Paris, 1923), p. 298; also by same author, Précis
élémentaire de droit constitutionnel (Paris, 1925), pp. 81 ff.
50. In the United States, Hauriou believes, that where the control of the
constitutionality of laws is confided to the judges, they have progressively
developed "the absolute legitimacy of the individualistic principles of the
ancient Anglo-Saxon common law." Précis élémentaire de droit
constitutionnel, p. 82.
51. Principes de droit public (2d ed., Paris, 1916), pp. 31 ff., and Précis
de droit administratif et de droit public (9th ed., Paris, 1919), p. 996.
52. Die Lehre der Rechtes-souveränität (1906), and Die moderne Staatsidee
(1919); the latter has been translated in The Modern Idea of the State, with
an Introduction by George H. Sabine and Walter J. Shepard (New York, 1922).
53. The Modern Idea of the State, pp. 8, 9, 39 ff. Cf. also W. W.
Willoughby, "The Juristic Theories of Krabbe," American Political Science
Review, XX (August, 1926), 509. We find in Krabbe as in Duguit, says
Willoughby, the same mistaken idea, "that an inquiry into the idealistic or
utilitarian validity of law, as determined by its substantive provisions and
the purposes sought to be achieved by its enforcement, has a relevancy to,
and that its conclusions can affect, the validity and usefulness of the
purely formalistic concepts which the positive or analytical jurist
employs."
54. Krabbe, The Modern Idea of the State, pp. 47, 48. Krabbe insists that
"the whole legal system under which people live finds the basis of its
authority, its binding force, and its effectiveness in the operation of the
feeling or sense of right." Ibid., p. 126.
55. Ibid., p. 49.
56. Krabbe, The Modern Idea of the State, p. 197.
57. Ibid., p. 88.
58. Cf. Krabbe, The Modern Idea of the State, chap. 10.
59. Ibid, p. 247; cf. also Edwin M. Borchard, "Political Theory and
International Law" in C. E. Merriam and H. E. Barnes, A History of Political
Theories, Recent Times (New York, 1924), pp. 130, 131.
For a criticism of the views of Krabbe by a modern exponent of the
Positivist or Analytical School, see Willoughby, op. cit., pp. 520 ff.
CHAPTER XI
REVIVAL OF NATURAL LAW IN METAPHYSICAL AND
THEOLOGICAL SPECULATIONS;
NATURAL LAW THEORIES AND INTERNATIONAL LAW
THE modern revival of natural law theories is the result of a variety of
tendencies in legal, political, and moral thinking. Jurists of the most
diverse points of view, inclinations, and interests join in the advocacy of
higher law theories. One of the foremost movements in modern thought which
is bringing natural law out of its seeming state of disrepute is connected
with renewed efforts to seek the sources and sanctions for legal rules in
religious and metaphysical speculations. Taking as a standard the mediaeval
concepts of natural law, when jurisprudence was a branch of theology, and
following the metaphysical analyses of Thomas Aquinas in. relation to law,
modern juristic writers, mainly adherents of the Catholic faith, aim to
restore natural law again to its position of primacy in the political and
legal world. In fact, certain phases of the Thomist system, namely, that
natural law was "nothing else than the rational creature's participation in
the eternal law" and that it comprised rules of conduct essentially
prescribed by the Creator, have never ceased to be one of the main tenets of
thought among jurists interested in theological speculations. During the
nineteenth century, when the natural rights philosophy was repudiated by
politicians and by certain jurists the ancient theories, as molded under
mediaeval influences, continued to receive careful analysis, exposition, and
defence by Catholic writers.[1]
We can make no greater mistake [says Dean Pound], than to suppose that the
speculations of the metaphysical jurists were without practical effect upon
the law. We should be put on our guard, if by nothing else, by the wealth of
literature from this standpoint in the first three quarters of the century.
When a popular exposition thereof, such as Ahrens' Cours de droit naturel,
could go through twenty-four editions in seven languages between 1837 and
1892, men must have been finding satisfaction in the metaphysical theory of
law in more lands than one.[2]
1. Natural Law Doctrines of Del Vecchio. There are evidences of a return to
natural law theories in most of the European nations but in none is the
tendency more marked than in Italy, where the Catholic or Traditionalist
School has had a prominent position in legal thought.[3] Among the many
Italian advocates of the theories of natural law Professor Georgio del
Vecchio of the University of Rome is a leader among an active group who aim
to turn juristic philosophy in the direction of higher law ideas. Del
Vecchio insists that there must be in jurisprudence an element not derivable
from experience and he conceives a natural law based upon the common
elements in man's nature.[4] The war against natural law concepts, unless it
aims merely to correct errors and omissions, he regards as unjust and
irrational. To him the conception of absolute justice is one of the
fundamental needs of the human mind. Says del Vecchio:
Natural law exists, therefore, as a system of the highest
truths, not sensible but rational, and is, then, independent of
the existence of common institutions in all nations ... the idea
of natural law, which has withstood the attacks of skeptics
and empiricists of past times will resist those of modern
positivists, and will guide humanity in the future.[5]
Del Vecchio conceives as a universal element in the law what he calls its
logical form (Forma dat esse rei). This logical form is a metaphysical and
an a priori essence of the law. On the basis of these norms certain
principles of law are regarded as deducible a priori from human nature.[6]
Natural law is not, then, merely rationalized law; it constitutes "a special
order of juridical rules founded upon a definite criterion." In predicating
these universal norms of legal reasoning Del Vecchio suggests a
philosophical basis similar to the fundamental principles and the abstract
rule of reason permeating much of American constitutional law.[7]
Del Vecchio explains in detail the prevalence, in the Italian system of law
and in other legal systems based essentially on Roman ideas, of principles
of law or of basic notions which condition all legal thinking.
Besides the multitude of special laws and of the decisions
relating to particular cases and to definitely determined
relations, there exists in our legislation [he says] notably in
the Constitution and in part also in the preliminary provisions
of the Civil Code or in other laws, positive affirmations of a
general character which reflect in a measure more or less
large, the rational elaborations concerning the law
accomplished by the preceding schools of philosophy.[8]
Permeating the Code, legislative acts, and the interpretations of the judges
are the applications of such natural law concepts as the principle of
equality before the law, the respect for persons or individuality, the right
of privacy, the right to use one's faculties, and the right of property.[9]
The peculiar results derived from the applications of these concepts, it is
claimed, can by no means be understood by reference alone to the formal
provisions of the laws. But rather,
there are, among all peoples, some fundamental convictions
regarding modes and aims of conduct, which represent the
common exigencies of human nature, displayed according to
the degree of their development, and in relation to certain
elements of outward fact. Such convictions determine
generally all the forms under which life shows itself, and
accordingly the juridical system among others, although they
are not found written in the provisions of any code.[10]
The historical basis of right arises, Del Vecchio believes, from the
exigencies and aspirations of individual consciences. But it is not an
entirely variable concept, rather a form of right, which, "analogous to that
of morality, does not depend on facts, but rather tends to control them;
whence neither can it be limited by the institutions actually in vigor, of
whatever kind they may be; rather it sets its affirmations naturally beyond
these, and sometimes against them."[11]
When the rules of positive law come into conflict with the principles of
natural law, Del Vecchio asserts, it is the duty of the judge to apply the
positive rules. In such a case the principles of natural law, in his
judgment, remain alive and active and in the end will be recognized by the
positive law.[12] Formal rules and maxims contrary to reason may be imposed
temporarily but in the end equity, reason, and good faith will prevail
despite formal prescriptions to the contrary.
The following extracts will indicate Del Vecchio's point of view in his
effort to revive interest in natural law principles of a metaphysical type,
somewhat similar to the Kantian hypotheses.
The idea of the natural right [law] is truly one of those which
accompanies humanity in the course of its history; and
though some schools, as it has happened very often,
especially in our day, try to exclude it or to ignore it, the idea
is affirmed powerfully once more in life. Consequently, it is
rationally incorrect to try to discard it, and it is still more so
when it is a question of interpreting a legislative system,
under the dominance of this idea. Of this we have the proof,
not so much in the preparatory works of which we would
not want to exaggerate the importance from the standpoint
of interpretation, as from the fact that our legislation
concerning private law, is derived for the greater part from
the Roman law, entirely developed about the idea of
naturalis ratio, and that concerning public law, from the
constitutional systems of England and of France which have
for their fundamental bases a Bill of Rights and a Declaration
of Rights, real and typical expressions of jus naturae.
Whatever judgment the interpreter wishes to make from his
point of view on this great doctrinal tradition, and on its
actual significance, which is by many signs shown to be
inexhaustible, one cannot, however, deny that this doctrinal
tradition had a real existence and a vigorous efficacy at a
time which corresponds to the formation of our present legal
system. Hence the necessity of not neglecting its study and
running the risk of refusing to understand the real and exact
significance of the system.
This study, which integrates that of the particular norms to
which we have already alluded, constitutes also a check as
well as an aid for individual thought in the reconstruction of
the law now in force. It facilitates above all the seeking for
origins concerning this part of the general principles of law
which the legislator had the opportunity of recognizing and
of formulating, without, however, giving them a complete
and definite expression; also, this study makes easier the
seeking for the principles which are not formulated, but
which nevertheless actually exist in the system, where they
are buried, so to speak, under the mass of particular norms,
which are derived more or less from the application of these
rules. The tie which exists between the general theories of
law that prevail in the thought of a given period, and in the
legal provisions which, in the same period, are organized
and drawn up, can be discovered more or less direct, and
more or less easy. Such a tie must exist, if it be true that the
world of civil affairs has been made by men, and
consequently these principles must be found in our human
mind; in other words, if the human mind gives birth to the
law as a phenomenon and as an idea. It is easy to
understand, therefore, that the work of the interpreter, when
he tries to comprehend and to integrate a system determined
by history, cannot be wholly evolved from within, that is,
arbitrarily and individually; it cannot consist in the affirmation
of a natural right "which each one shapes for himself
according to his individual whim," against which the logic of
the jurist would have good reason to protest. The
appropriate support and assurance, in our quest for
principles, are given us by the entire general theories which
envelop the law and which are not the artificial work of an
individual thinker, but which correspond to a strong and true
scientific tradition intimately linked in the genesis of the laws
actually applied. And this consideration which is necessary
to give to the doctrinal traditions does not prevent the
elaboration of the ulterior elements which compose the
whole; on the contrary, it facilitates their interpretation, in the
sense that it indicates, by means of principles already
assured, the direction in accordance with which their
progress and ulterior development should move.[13]
The school of natural law intended and intends essentially to
uphold the non-arbitrary character of the law, that is to say,
the existence of a necessary relationship between the
intrinsic substance of things and between the rules of law
which are connected with them.
Even the principle upon which we are all particularly agreed,
the principle of the innate and absolute right of the individual,
agrees with this fundamental tendency; by this principle, in
fact, one affirms that the true nature of man implies an
element of transcendentalism, a faculty which cannot be
suppressed, and which is consequently inalienable, to
dominate the order of phenomena and to find in itself its own
determination, in a word, to affirm the autonomy of the
human being. The law cannot fail to recognize such a fact,
nor refuse to take from it all the consequences and
applications which are in its wake.
According to the same criterion the way is open for the
research of law corresponding to each kind of juridical
reality, in so far as it contains relations between individuals.
This inquiry, which is accomplished by means of the reason
("ex ratiocinatione animi tranquili"), as Thomasius said, has
its normal period of comparison in the positive juridical rules
which represent already, in fact, an attempt at a solution of
the same problem. Numerous cases, and especially when it
is a question of recognizing purely logical necessities of the
immediate exigencies of our being, and of conditions of
natural law, or of the naturalis ratio, manifest themselves,
in a given moment, as elements of the positive law and form
precisely its substratum, a substratum which is retained, and
which is transmitted, through the changes of positive law.
That, for example, no one can transfer to any one else more
right than he himself enjoys; that it is legal to oppose strength
and that, consequently, every one has the privilege to defend
himself against any aggressions; that, in all matters, the
advantage must belong to the one who has been
inconvenienced; that no one can enrich himself unjustly at the
expense of others. All these criteria, and many others that
are similar to them, come from the natural juridical reason
and have been in a sense already stated by the Roman
jurists. They indicate the formative principles of the laws
actually in force today, whether these laws express these
principles precisely, or whether they are regarded as implied
in the form of maxims, the disappearance of which would
cause many particular legal provisions to lose all of their
meaning.
The necessity of having recourse to such criteria and, in
general, to the natural juridical reason, is kept very active
and very urgent by the incomplete nature which inevitably
belongs to the positive law; it is so urgent, indeed, that one
could not avoid such a recourse even if an expressed
reference to general principles similar to the one offered by
Art. 3 of the preliminary provisions of the Italian Civil Code,
were lacking, as it happens in other systems (for instance, in
the Code Napoleon and in the German Civil Code). This
fundamental exigency which inspires the theories of natural
law and which is called, in a wider sense, "equity," a
consideration of all the elements of reality necessary to
determine the equilibrium in the transactions between two
persons, cannot be repudiated by positive legislation. This
legislation itself, after having attempted to supply what is
necessary in a measure for such an exigency, must admit
finally that it is directly applied through the conscience alone
of the judge, in all cases not determined by precise rules, nor
likely to be determined by them, at least by analogy. It is
noteworthy that, in certain cases, the legislator himself
abstains deliberately from fixing a rule and acknowledges
that he has recourse to this criterion of natural reason, which
is presupposed as the intrinsic basis of law.[14]
The ancient adherents to doctrines of jus naturale, Del Vecchio thinks, were
wrong in so far as they attempted to identify natural law with the laws
common to different peoples and hence the reaction of the empiricists
resulted in an over-emphasis on the historic variability of law. This
conflict, it is thought, is obviated by conceiving a series of positive laws
as
unified by the tendency toward the development of natural
law. This tendency, grasped by the mind a priori as an
absolute and universal necessity, superior and anterior to
any application in experience, develops through a long and
laborious historical evolution. This should not be taken to
mean that natural law begins to be true or becomes law only
at the moment when it is recognized and actualized (for this
would throw us into the old error); the additional positive
recognition does not result in value or truth, but is, at the
most, a consequence or result of its value or truth.
Observance or non-observance per se, as facts of the
empirical order, do not affect the intrinsic significance of the
principle, which is essentially transcendental, and which is
self-sufficient in its sphere regardless of its unrecognition or
violation in fact.[15]
It is difficult for one trained in Anglo-American legal ideas and traditions
to appreciate or understand the point of view of Del Vecchio. But it is a
point of view through which alone much of the legal thinking of Continental
European nations becomes intelligible. Though the traditionalist or
metaphysical approaches to an understanding of the law have had little vogue
in England and in America, these legal systems have been far from free from
metaphysical or transcendental legal notions.
Among the many modern exponents of religious and metaphysical theories of
natural law only a few can be briefly mentioned. A summary of some of the
views of a few representatives of this school may suggest the
characteristics of the higher law philosophy in its religious and
metaphysical garbs.
2. Theological Interpretation of Natural Law by Victor Cathrein. One of the
special advocates of the religious and metaphysical approach to natural law
is Cathrein.[16] Cathrein classifies the opponents of the natural law
philosophy in three groups: first, The Evolutionists, comprised of
pantheistic monists such as Paulsen, Wundt, Kohler, and Berolzheimer, or of
materialists such as Darwin and Spencer, or the economic determinists such
as Marx and Engels -- all of whom deny the existence of concepts or
principles of general and immutable value; second, The Empiricists, such as
Binding and Merkel, who recognize concepts and general principles but
pretend to discover them through the sole avenue of pure experience and
comparison; and, third, Formal a priorism of the kind of Stammler, who,
following the inspiration of Kant, wishes to bring back the immutable
essence of law in a pure form, exclusive of all predetermined content.[17]
Cathrein contends, in opposition to these tendencies, that every science and
notably juridical science implies the necessity of concepts and general
principles, in reality recognized by all, even by those who pretend to deny
their existence.[18] Referring to the point of view of Savigny and of the
Historical School that the real source of law is to be found in the spirit
or conviction of the people Cathrein claims that if one denies that there
are general principles of law controlling the actions of men, one is led in
a sort of circle to a supreme source of law in a "general consensus of
right," the "convictions of the people," or custom.[19] And these sources do
not in fact carry one to the real origins of law, for natural law is "the
indispensable foundation of positive law, since without it, one cannot
conceive of any regular authority or of any legal protection, of which the
state is the necessary instrument."[20]
Law is an essential part of the moral order to Cathrein and from the
concepts of the moral order juridical systems are evolved. Tracing the
ultimate sources of law to divine origins he embodies much of his analyses
in obtuse theological and supernatural notions which have tended to
discredit the work among jurists inclined to view their field scientifically
and practically.[21]
The position of Cathrein as to natural law may be summarized as follows:
There is a law of nature which governs the life of man, whether it is
discovered and followed or whether man attempts to defy it; God is the
primary source of this natural law and its secondary source is in its
revelation of its principles to man; all human enactments to be valid are
merely declaratory of this law.[22] This natural law (Recht) is the
indispensable foundation of positive law. It is universal and immutable.
Though its rules may be discovered by reason, they do not arise from reason
but from the superior will of the Creator.[23]
Contrasting the modern German political-historical thinking with the
characteristics of West-European and American political thinking, Ernst
Troeltsch finds two lines of thought dominant in Western Europe -- one
progressive, democratic, and revolutionary; the other conservative,
aristocratic, and authoritative -- both based upon the Ancient and Christian
ideas of an eternal-divine natural law. These ideas involve doctrines of the
homogeneity of human beings, of the uniform destiny of humanity, and an
abstraction of equality among men. Though many Germans, Catholics and
Lutherans alike, follow the conservative, aristocratic, authoritative
tradition, there is a new school which supports a religious-aesthetic ideal
placing the emphasis upon the individual human intellect as a positive and
creative force. In opposition to the rule of reason in the creation of the
state and doctrines of equality and homogeneity among men, these modern
German thinkers would found social and political organizations on
individualistic and pluralistic hypotheses. In this romantic ideology
natural law, whether progressive or conservative, has little place.[24]
3. Metaphysical Doctrines of Geny. Based only partially on religious and
doctrinal grounds a more effective exposition and defence of natural law
principles from the metaphysical standpoint are to be found in the writings
of Francois Geny.
Geny, who like Duguit ranks as one of the foremost jurists of France, has
been laboring many years to have his countrymen value more highly the
superior law concepts, which he conceives as the source and sanction of
positive law. The former rationalist type of natural law, Geny thinks,
suffers from an "aridness of analysis" and needs to be supplemented by "the
pliant and rich fecundity of intuition."[25] In fact Geny, along with others
of the Metaphysical School, gives much emphasis to the rôle of intuition, or
what is termed "intuitive understanding," in the determination of the
ultimate purposes and the end of the law. Man, considered as he is, living
amidst nature and society, finds himself, according to Geny, surrounded by
an ensemble of "necessary relations which are derived from the nature of
things." These arise from the physical, psychological, moral, social, as
well as the metaphysical or transcendent factors which control and confine
human actions. From these factors arise natural laws, some of which are
transcendent to all experience. Man can acquire a knowledge of these
transcendent rules and can be guided by them, though he cannot successfully
resist them. To Geny these natural laws have a distinct relation to the
religious and moral life of man.[26] The fundamental problem of the jurist,
no matter under what forms it maybe disguised, Geny thinks, is "the eternal
problem of natural law [droit]. And while the doctrines of natural law have
taken various forms, some of which continue to hold sway today, one no
longer pretends to build through reason an ideal system of law, eternal and
immutable, which is equally applicable to all times and all countries."[27]
Though Geny recognizes a theoretical supremacy of natural law and suggests
that in the case of an absolute conflict natural law must be superior to the
written law he realizes the impracticability of this conclusion,[28] and he says, "I believe for myself, that plain good sense,
elementary observation, and universal testimony, acknowledging the primary
necessity of order and recognizing that order can be established only by a
rule emanating from an effective authority, suffice amply to justify to the
reason the legitimate preeminence of the written positive law."[29] The main
obstacle, he thinks, which prevents the maintenance of the principles of
natural law when they come into conflict with the positive written law is
that these principles of natural law, however firm their basis, consist only
of general directions of conduct. They are too abstract and too evanescent
for the concrete circumstances of social life, especially when they clash
with the definite judgments of formal authorities. It is his belief that
this vagueness can in part be overcome by bills of rights in written
constitutions wherein are expressed the essential principles of immutable
natural law. This expedient, however, is regarded as unsatisfactory, for
either the written constitution becomes over-rigid and an obstacle to
legitimate progress[30] or it loses its rigor in an indefinitiveness that
discredits the value of a written instrument.[31]
In his judgment, however, a rigid constitution judiciously used and broadly
interpreted might be useful, if it could be given an effective sanction and
if its precepts could be placed beyond the reach of ordinary law. Hence some
method must be found to temper practically "the brutal power of the written
laws, in order to stop their action or impair their results every time that
they attempt to interfere with justice, to slight the objective factors of
the social life, or to pass beyond the injunctions or prohibitions of
natural law."[32]
Among the devices to temper arbitrariness in the enforcing of the law Geny
commends the "exception d'inconstitutionnalité," the declaring of a law
invalid by the judiciary, which he believes could be adopted, in a measure
at least, without contradicting any essential principle of French public
law. On the contrary it is his judgment that such authority wielded by
judges would serve to assure a guarantee of the indispensable application of
the principles of public law.[33] Admitting the difficulties and the
weaknesses of the American plan of judicial review of legislative enactments
to test their validity, which has led critics to speak of it as a
"government by judges," Geny concludes that the organization of the
judiciary in France and the traditions of the country would prevent such
excesses and that it would be in "perfect harmony with the essential bases
of the French constitution" to adopt a similar plan. To those who claim that
the existing courts of France would be unequal to the responsibilities of so
great a power and that a special court should be created for this purpose,
Geny replies that such a proposal is wholly unnecessary and that from every
standpoint the matter could be left to the jurisdiction of the regularly
established tribunals.[34]
Where no effective means are provided to check arbitrary authority on the
part of the government Geny regards the right of resistance as legitimate,
but the right must be surrounded by some obvious limitations in the
direction of maintaining the individual rights of man. Admitting that when a
conflict arises between positive law and natural law, positive law must
prevail, he aims to modify the rigor of the strict enforcement of the
written law and to suggest remedies whereby the flagrant injustice of its
provisions may be prevented. In his judgment every possible device should be
provided to check abusive applications of the law, which may lead, if not
prevented, to forcible resistance.
To keep governmental agencies within reasonable bounds Geny says he agrees
with Duguit and Hauriou that it is necessary to establish superior
principles of law and right as a restraint on the majorities who make the
law.[35] As he sees it, concepts of justice must be sought which represent
"a higher reality existing outside of ourselves."
It is necessary, Geny believes, to find the source of the law in natural
law, which has developed from ancient times and has persisted in spite of
all opposition and criticisms.[36] He thinks it is not, as is often
suggested, a means of supplying omissions in positive legal rules but the
very foundation upon which positive rules rise and develop.
Speaking of the necessity of natural law, Geny says:
The problem of the existence of natural law remains today
as always, the center of gravity of the positive juridical
system. And, whether one acknowledges it or not, one
perceives it underlying all the efforts which are pursued, in
order to realize in an effective manner a better and more
complete justice among men. On what bases would the state
be established, which preserves in all its powers the positive
rules of the social order, and from whence are the powers
derived which form it, whether from a simple fact or from a
group of principles. Those who make the law, the
legislators, are they free to create this law to their liking,
following their ideas, their interests, their passions or rather
ought they to conform to a superior norm dominating all
subjective impressions? Those who engage in the work of
positive law, as administrators, those who interpret or apply
it, in the capacity of judges, are they bound by this form, by
the text of the law; ought they not to look beyond this, to
penetrate to the sources, intimate and substantial, from
whence they are derived, and those who obey the law, who
ought to observe its precepts, to avoid its penalties, are
these obligated to submit without recourse to its injunctions?
Can they not understand, discuss, criticise the established
rules, I mean not only as electors but as subjects; and do
they not have the right to interpret, to modify, to transform
the existing law, indeed, in extreme cases to rebel against it;
this implies that they appeal to aspirations defying by their
nature the variations of particular legal formulas? And, in the
international domain also, where would the necessary rules
be found to establish the relations between states, if there is
no place for the reality of precepts, outside of the above
positive rules, which are here always small and
precarious.[37]
On the whole, Geny has presented a thorough and suggestive analysis of
natural law, with a leaning toward the religious and metaphysical points of
view.[38] He differs from Cathrein, however, in that he presents and
criticizes the views of other natural law philosophers and attempts
throughout to make practical applications of his theories.
The metaphysical types of natural law of Del Vecchio and of Geny, though
differing in certain respects from the realistic approach to higher law by
Duguit, have some characteristics in common with the rule of law (règle de
droit). The higher laws to which all human civil enactments must conform are
traced to different sources, the methods of their discovery vary, but
substantially the same results follow. Legal norms which may be discovered
by the reason or by the intuition of men stand above and guide the entire
process of law-making and law enforcement. It is the duty of legislators,
judges, and administrators to seek these norms and conform their
interpretations to their superior directive force.[39]
4. Natural Law Theories and International Law. A significant phase of the
revival of natural law in Europe is apparent in the efforts to find an
enduring basis for international law. Realizing the insecurity of
international rules and agreements based solely on treaties, conventions, or
a general consensus among the rulers of existing states there is a tendency
to recur to general and universal principles of justice as discovered and
interpreted through reason according to the methods of Gentilis, Grotius,
and Pufendorf. Scholars and jurists are again raising the question whether
in the international field, at least, there does not exist a natural or
objective law, independent of the will of any state or group of states, and
whether the action of states in this field is not limited to ascertaining
and giving sanction to this natural law. This phase of the revival of
natural law theories has so many ramifications that it is quite impossible
to deal with it adequately in this treatise. Some representative opinions
maybe cited to indicate one of the noteworthy trends in the efforts to
establish international law on a more secure foundation.
The trend of thought today regarding the relation of natural law theories to
the growth of international law is indicated in a symposium of views by
well-known authorities on public law. The following questionnaire was
submitted to a representative group of teachers and jurists:
Is the theory of natural law in relation to the law of nations,
jus naturae et gentium, as advanced by Grotius, and
developed in the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, in force today? -- That is to say, ought
international and national courts as well as courts of
arbitration to follow the principles of this theory, to interpret
and to complete positive international law, in order to
establish an accord of views among states?
In case of an affirmative reply to the question proposed
above, is it the law of morality which forms the basis of the
practical application of said theory or is it the objective
solidarity of the interests of each of the states carefully
considered? Or what other formula would be preferred?
The answers to the queries show a wide diversity of opinions. Most of the
replies, referring chiefly to the first query, may be classified under a few
groups.[40] One group would discard natural law theories entirely because
they "tend to confuse thought and to encourage loose and vague
conceptions."[41] Principles of natural law, according to this view, are
valid only when accepted by the nations as a part of the customary
international law.[42] Another group regard natural law useful to assist
justices and arbitrators, when interpreting existing rules of law and when
there are deficiencies and uncertainties in the rules of international law
applicable to controversies. Some in this group would prefer the use of the
phrase "principles of equity" or "principles of morals and justice" to the
term "natural law."[43]
Others favor the use of natural law not only to interpret but also to
supplement positive international law.[44] Among this group Gustav Radbruch,
German Minister of Justice, thinks international justices should have
authority similar to the Swiss judges to fill gaps when written rules are
inapplicable, and when necessary to use natural law as a guide. In fact,
this authority is regarded as more necessary in international affairs
because of the grave dangers arising from legal uncertainties and from
unsatisfactory decisions. "The fact is of the greatest importance that even
today natural law is not dead, is not a repudiated idea," he asserts,
but a reality which is active in a powerful way. Ernst
Troeltsch has shown in a way that cannot be forgotten how
the ideas of natural law and of humanity are powerful
influences in the Western-European and American, as well
as in the Catholic world of thought, and that a new approach
for the German historical-organical-positive school to the
natural law theory is desirable and inevitable.
If in international legal agreements, reference is made to the
"highest fundamental principles of international politics," or to
the "international moral law," or to the "fundamental
principles of justice and humanity which cannot be
renounced" as to something that is evident, what is really
meant is the legal principles comprised in natural law. Not as
a necessity of reason but as a forceful fact of history, a form
of appearance of "approved teachings and traditions," these
natural legal methods of thinking have to serve as a guiding
star for the further development of international law just as
they were decisive for its formation. But one is not allowed
to regard these ideas of natural law as an arsenal from which
the legal thoughts of international law can be taken as a
finished product, but rather as an atmosphere in which such
legal thoughts are formed. To make it clearer one may call
this atmosphere with another word, "civilization."[45]
Eugen Schiffer, German Minister of Justice, also insists that there is a
place for natural law in the development of international law:
I have, to be sure, the heretical point of view, that is, that in
the classification of the different elements of the
administration of justice, the personality of the judge is
foremost, the formulation of a method, comes second, and
the positive law, last. An able judge almost always manages
to get along with a defective method and an insufficient
positive law; and, even if he has available a good method, he
will mostly obviate the lack or the faults of the law at hand.
On the other hand, the best formal law is of no use, if it is
paralyzed in its realization by an unfit method, or if it is put
into the hands of an unqualified judge.... Therefore, I have
no doubt about it that a high international court will not be
stranded by the lack of actual law which it has to administer,
it will rather be its main task and its greatest worth to guide
the wavering materials of international agreements and of
legal international practices by a usus fori, and to bring them
from the sphere of occasional actions of a political character
to the level of firm and constant legal norms.
Naturally I would not have it understood that the question of
actual law is not of farreaching importance for the highest
courts. Furthermore I do not overlook the difficulties which
are the result of the composition of these courts, with the
political, cultural, and social points of view of their members
who come from the most different fields of law, for the
production of a common positive legal basis. Therefore, the
question of the necessity of such a basis is absolutely
justified, and, through the nature of international law, the
positive parts of which have been badly diminished and
shaken by the last world events, the problem of subsidiary
law becomes very urgent. To my mind only the fundamental
principles of natural law can be taken into consideration for
such a law. I, at least, do not know any other law that could
fill the gaps of positive international law. But these
fundamental principles of natural law I would neither
measure with the rule of international solidarity of interest
nor with the scale of the recognized subjective interests of
the states.[46]
Professor Louis Le Fur of the University of Paris answered these questions
in the affirmative and his views may well be quoted as indicative of a point
of view gaming adherents in Continental Europe.[47]
"The theory of jus naturae et gentium of Grotius," Le Fur observes,
is none other than the application to international relations of
the traditional theory which is very old, since it goes back far
beyond Christianity, and which distinguishes between the
law laid down by men, the positive law, and a law anterior
and superior to the will of man. In the century in which
Grotius wrote, there was at times hesitation to apply to the
sovereign state the principles of law, whether for reasons of
pure abstract logic drawn from the nature of sovereignty, or
for political considerations similar to those which inspired
Machiavelli; as soon as the state was involved, which is
always the case in international law, it appears that the
question of law was no longer considered as it was when
individuals were concerned. Now, the state is only a group
of men governed by men; it can through its governors deny
morality and law and be motivated only by its interests, that
is to say, practically speaking, by its strength; but if the state
recognizes juridical and moral rules, the bases of these rules
cannot be different from the bases of those which apply to
individuals. This is the truth of which Grotius caught a
glimpse, but very often with less clearness than his
predecessors of the Spanish school, such as Vittoria or
Suarez; when applied to international law, it appears as the
ultimate consequence of this truth established by experience
that man is what has been called a "juridical being," a being
whose characteristic it is to be ruled by law.[48]
Le Fur thinks that man, being gifted with reason and a moral sense or
conscience, and having social tendencies, possesses certain juridical
characteristics which grow out of his life as a social being and from his
own nature. When these rules acquire a sanction to compel obedience to them
they become laws. Those are in error, he says, who confuse the state and the
law and who consider the former a necessary condition of the latter. The
state, he claims, cannot make law arbitrarily. The nature of human beings
must be taken into account and their characteristics as beings gifted with
reason and with a moral sense.[49] This, in his judgment,
is the profound truth which has been expressed, under
diverse names, by the wisdom of all the ages; if one has
been able to speak of a philosophia perennis, there is in
regard to essential principles a jus perenne which controls
legal phenomena with more clearness. These diverse names
signify none else than natural, or rational, or objective law,
all these terms expressing the same truth, which is that law,
the rule of life in society, the only life possible for man, is not
an arbitrary creation of man. No being formulates for himself
the laws which govern his life. Whatever the form of
government of a people, be it monarchical or democratic,
those who govern can do no more than recognize the law,
deduce it from facts interpreted by the reason, and
harmonize it with the circumstances of time and environment.
For, although immutable in its fundamental nature -- which
is no other than a moral principle, the idea of justice, itself
the soul of law -- the law is very variable, on the contrary,
in its application since, according to the degree of
civilization, the circumstances of life in society are apt to
vary quite considerably, from a three-fold point of view, that
is an economic, an intellectual, and a moral point of view,
and these three are far from always keeping abreast.[50]
Conceiving natural law in the role of an ideal law, which is regarded as the
traditional use of the term, Le Fur finds that there is no question about
its place in a legal system. "To deny that there can be no other law than
the positive law under pretext, for example, that there can be no law
without a sanction, and that the positive law is the only law which has a
sanction, -- is," he maintains, "to assert that the positive law is
necessarily what it ought to be, and is to withdraw in this respect all law
from criticism."[51] He continues:
From what precedes it follows that all juridical relations must
be conceived in two ways, or, if preferred, that there exist
two kinds of law: a rational or natural law, with a moral
basis, which is in itself an abstract truth as are all natural
laws, existing objectively, as the latter, but unsuspected by
men as long as it was not deduced by the effort of the
human mind -- and a positive law by which those who
govern attempt to make it effective, both having as an end
the common good of the group to be governed, be it a
patriarchal family, a tribe, a city, or a state.[52]
In his opinion, just as there are limits which a state must recognize in its
relations with individuals, so there are limits which bind states in their
international dealings. Hence
one is under the necessity either to deny international law, to
admit that the nations live in a pre-juridical state, without
objective or conventional rules which bind them, war, the
expression of the right of the strongest, being the only
solution in conflicts -- or to recognize the existence of a
natural or objective international law, which is not a pure
form covering any sort of content, but rather a just and
useful law, corresponding to the common good, and the
common good is here that of the entire international
community. Exactly as in the case of internal law, it is not
arbitrary human wills, but really an historical, economical,
and moral complex, which conditions international law.[53]
Just as in the case of private law, arbitral courts and international
tribunals must be guided, he thinks, not only by the interests of the states
involved but also by principles of justice and of natural equity which are
the background of all positive enactments. And, just as a national judge is
authorized to make a rule where the written law is defective, international
judges, when a pre-existing rule is lacking, must to a limited extent
perform the functions of an international legislature.[54]
The natural law to be applied by these judges is not of an immutable kind
according to the eighteenth-century model nor of a variable type such as
Stammler describes but a form of the concept with both permanent and
variable characteristics.[55]
"With regard to international law," says Sir Frederick Pollock, "it is
notorious that all authorities down to the end of the eighteenth century,
and almost all outside of England to this day, have treated it as a body of
doctrine derived from and justified by the Law of Nature."[56] "Here as
elsewhere," he suggests, "we must apply the principle of Aristotle, and deem
that to be reasonable, which appears so to competent persons. There must be
a competent and prevalent consent, and the best evidence of such consent is
constant and deliberative usage."[57] There are those in England as
elsewhere who vision a Magna Carta for the field of international relations
which shall set the world on the path of legality rather than that of force
to settle disputes between nations and which shall limit the scope of the
arbitrary powers of sovereigns.[58]
Though little progress has been made in formulating the rules and principles
of natural law applicable to international relations it is a common belief
that in the drafting and the interpretation of an international code
modernized versions of the law of nature or law of reason will have a
directive influence.[59]
5. Theories of Natural Law Prevalent in Europe. In the extensive use which
was made of the natural law philosophy in Continental European legal
thinking since the eighteenth century there are apparent a variety of types
of superior law theories. The inheritance of the Middle Ages furnished a
form of higher law concept in the nature of law fundamental which was
designed to keep rulers within recognized legal channels. Not only was there
a foundation for a resistance to arbitrary rule which gave sanction to the
leaders of rebellion and revolution but there was in this concept an
ever-present criterion for judges and administrators to hold in check
over-zealous officials. Such a higher law philosophy was supported by the
continuance of the eighteenth-century theories of natural rights which
result from notions either of the laws of God or of qualities inherent in
the individual. The nineteenth-century concept of civil liberty -- a realm
within which the individual is secure from political interference -- which
emerges into a doctrine of limited government under constitutional
sanctions, owes much to this form of the natural law philosophy.
The theologians and those influenced by the philosophy of the church,
conceived natural law after the model of Thomas Aquinas, as an emanation
from God. Its principles, which were eternal and universal, might be
discovered through reason and revelation. Religion, morality, and politics
were therefore only different phases of the same basic ideas. Civil
enactments which failed to conform with the religious and moral standards
revealed by the Church were denied validity.
Some jurists who no longer emphasized the religious background found for
natural law a priori and metaphysical bases. They conceived a logical form
or juridical norm to which all valid civil enactments must conform. Such a
norm was in its essence universal -- an ideal becoming objective and
directive as it conditioned all the processes of law-making and law
enforcement. Not discoverable in any existing legal rules, it was inherent
as a formal principle in all such rules which were just and valid.
As speculation on legal matters was fostered by the universities and courses
in the philosophy of law were offered, natural law and the philosophy of law
were thought of as identical. Thus natural law became synonymous with a
series of ideal moral and legal principles which might be commented upon
extensively. The philosophical mold into which natural law thinking was cast
in the early nineteenth century gave it a wide currency in intellectual
circles and brought it increasingly into contempt among politicians and
practical lawyers. Certain treatises appearing at this time not only aimed
to combine natural law and the philosophy of law but also to explain both of
these in the light of religious and moral principles. Political practices
and legal rules were put to the test of standards derived from this curious
compound of speculations. No wonder that the very name of "natural law"
became anathema among those who were seeking a scientific basis for social
phenomena.
At all times natural law has been considered as a body of principles or
doctrines, sufficiently well known and approved to be used by judges in
molding the law to suit concrete cases or in filling gaps in the written
rules as applicable to controversies. And at the same time it has been
regarded as a body of doctrines or ideas available for jurists and legal
writers as a standard for the criticism of existing laws and decisions, in
the development of what Continental jurists call the jurisprudence and the
doctrines of the law. In such a rôle natural law comprises a series of
subjective and objective standards which may be used to determine the
justice or reasonableness of legal rules. To some, these standards are
universal and immutable. Sociological jurists, on the other hand, find in
the natural law with a variable content standards adapted to the times and
conditions which measure the reasonableness or justice of the rules enforced
in a given society.
The political thought of the Middle Ages was affected by the ideas of
government based on popular consent, of natural rights belonging to the
individual, and of theories of contract as a basis of civil society. From
such ideas arose a belief in higher laws which result from the common
feelings and sentiments of the people. Concepts of law and of rights were
traced to this popular source. The Historical School of jurists, though
repudiating earlier doctrines of natural law, merely paved the way for
another type of higher law doctrine -- one arising from the settled customs
and traditions of the people.
The adherents of natural law fall into three main groups. First, those who
place superior laws of a fixed, immutable character, usually religious or
ethical in origin, over and above all the acts and rules of mankind.
Following the Absolutists in their approach to philosophical problems they
look upon lawmakers and judges as seekers "among divine sources for
pre-existing truth."[60] The inexorable rules of natural law may be
discovered or not, but failure to abide by them will, in the course of time,
result disastrously. Some of the theories of natural rights also predicated
an immutable order with eternal laws, but rights and laws were among the
inherent qualities of man in such an order. These rights, too, were to be
discovered and applied but not changed. It is interesting to see how the
absolutist concepts of natural law and natural rights keep recurring in
legal thought whether founded on religious sanctions or on the inherent
qualities of man.
The second group of thinkers undertake to find the underlying principles
of law in the customs and the social life of man, or in the interests and
duties of man as a human being. Recently theorists with this approach
have sought the fundamental legal rules in community sentiment, the feeling
for right (Rechtsgefühl), or in the concept of social solidarity. With a
slight turn in emphasis this method of finding natural law leads to a "natural
law with a variable content." Viewing higher law notions in a broad sense
this group comprises some of the foremost analysts of legal phenomena
on the Continent of Europe.[61]
Natural law as an idealistic, progressive, and critical concept is what the
third group is expounding. Interested in the philosophy of the law, they
seek "the rational element which enters into the complex product of the
legislation of every nation.... In practice, it is still often called by the
name 'natural law,' which is opposed to the term 'positive law.' ... It is
the ideal of the positive law, the type which the lawmaker ought to realize,
and almost always pretends to realize."[62] When, as with Stammler, the
philosophy of law becomes the theory of propositions about law which have
universal validity, one is in the field of natural law ideas.[63]
In European political thought it is the ideal, progressive, and critical
function of natural law which is uppermost. Whatever its sources or
sanctions maybe the chief proponents of higher law ideas are not engaged in
a search for final legal rules to which all mankind must yield obedience.
They are directing their efforts to the discovery of fundamental principles,
of directing norms, or of established standards by which the reasonableness
or justice of legal rules may be measured. The absolutist, dogmatic concepts
of natural law have been largely replaced by those characterized as
"idealistic criticism."
It is, therefore, in the realm of jurisprudence and in the development of
legal doctrines that natural law thinking prevails in European legal
thought. Its functions are to guide, to criticize, and to measure the law as
made by legislators and applied by judges so as to keep it in reasonable and
just channels. The natural law concepts, then, whether used by judges or
commentators are, to a large extent, as they were with the Roman jurists,
creative forces in an epoch of progressive law-making.
1. See Tancrède Rothe, Traité de droit naturel théorique et appliqué, 6
vols. (Paris, 1885-1912). Rothe's work indicates in its incomplete form the
inclusive features of natural law as conceived by certain Catholic writers.
Among the subjects considered in the six volumes of the treatise are: the
definition and nature of law and the state; the duties of men towards others
and towards God; the relations of the individual to government; marital
relations, the family and education; social and individual services,
including the conditions and the rights relating to labor; and the rights of
corporate organizations of labor and capital. A theological school composed
of Protestants and Papal representatives led a reaction against the autonomy
of the reason in religious, moral, and legal matters. For a defence of a
metaphysical basis for natural law and for the philosophy of law, see
Boistel, Cours de philosophie da droit (1899), Appendix.
Vareilles-Sommières, Dean of the faculty of law of Lille, in his Les
principes fondamentaux du droit (Paris, 1889), divides the laws which are
directly divine into natural laws and positive divine laws: "the natural
laws are those which result as necessary consequences and as [forcement]
willed by God, from the nature which he has given to us, and which manifest
themselves to our reason alone....
The natural laws are universal and immutable since they are the necessary
result of the nature of man and of those beings with whom he is in
relation." Pages 20 ff.
Cf. also Theodor Meyer, Institutiones iuris naturalis, 2 vols. (1886-90).
2. Interpretations of Legal History, p. 33.
3. Vico frequently referred to the idea of a law of nature. He was one of
the first to insist that it was not a fixed but a progressive law -- "a law
varying with the stage of growth reached by a given community." Cf. G. de
Montemayor, Storia del diritto naturale (Naples, 1911), especially chap. 11;
Croce, The Philosophy of Vico, trans. by Collingwood (London, 1913);
Benvenuto Donati, Domat e Vico, ossia del sistema del diritto universale
(Macerata, 1923).
4. I presupposti filosofici della nozione del diritto (1905); Il concetto
del diritto (1906); Il concetto della natura e il principio del diritto
(1908), translated under the title The Formal Bases of Law in Comparative
Legal Philosophy Series, X (Boston, 1914); cf. chap. 3.
5. The Formal Bases of Law, p. 18.
6. Ibid., pp. 76 ff., 258, 321, 333. For citations to Italian articles and
works defending natural law, see ibid., p. 19.
7. See H. J. Randall, "An Italian Exposition of the Law of Nature," Law
Quarterly Review, XXXIII (April, 1917), 161.
8. "Sui principi generali del diritto," reprint from Archivio Guiridico,
XXXV, 4th ser., vol. I, fasc. 1, pp. 21 ff. I am indebted to Professor Del
Vecchio for reprints of several of his articles and lectures on natural law.
He has kindly consented to the use of translations of portions of his "Sui
principi generali del diritto."
9. Del Vecchio, op. cit., pp. 34-42.
10. Georgio Del Vecchio, "Positive Right," Law Magazine and Review, XXXVIII
(May, 1913), 297.
11. Del Vecchio, "Positive Right," op cit., p. 306. Positive right is that
which at any given moment effectively governs the life of a people and hence
is not restricted to rules established by statute.
12. The Formal Bases of Law, pp. 52 ff.
13. "Sui principi generali del diritto," pp. 23-25, or "Les principes
généraux du droit," trans. into French by E. Demontes with a Preface by R.
Demogue (Paris, 1925), p. 25, or "Die Grundprinzipien des Rechts," trans. by
Albert Hellwig, pp. 24-26.
14. "Sui principi generali del diritto," pp. 47-49; "Les principes généraux
du droit," pp. 50-52.
15. The Formal Bases of Law, p. 326. For other recent Italian
interpretations of natural law, consult G. Brunetti, "Il diritto naturale
nella legislazione civile," Rivista del diritto commerciale, XX (1922), Nos.
8-9, and M. Cordovani, "Il diritto naturale nella moderna cultura italiana,"
Rivista internazionale di filosofia del diritto, IV (1924), No 2.
16. V. Cathrein, Recht, Naturrecht und positive Recht, Eine kritische
Untersuchung der Grundbegriffe der Rechtsordnung (2d ed., 1909). Geny speaks
of this work as "imbued with the pure tradition of the Catholic Church,"
Science et technique en droit privé positif, II, 295; see also G. Platon,
Pour le droit naturel -- Apropos du livre de M. Hauriou; Les principes du
droit public (Paris, 1911).
17. Op. cit., pp. 14 ff., and Geny, op. cit., II, 301.
18. Op. cit., pp. 16-41, and Geny, II, 302. For approval of Cathrein's views
by Geny, see II, 307 ff. Cf. also Gutberlet, Ethik und Naturrecht (3d ed.,
1901).
19. Op. cit., pp. 145 ff.
20. Ibid., pp. 252, 253.
21. Geny thinks supernatural theorizing is not an essential part of
Cathrein's work and he refers to Boistel and Cathrein as modern
representatives of the classical conception of natural law. Op. cit., II,
350.
22. For a similar method of analysis, see James Lorimer, The Institutes of
Law: A treatise of the Principles of Jurisprudence as Determined by Nature
(2d ed., London, 1880).
A modernized form of the version of natural law of St. Thomas is in The
Catholic Encyclopaedia, where natural law is regarded as comprised of three
constituents:
first, a discriminating norm, which is of the essence of human nature
itself as a reflection of the divine nature; second, a binding norm, which
is evidenced in the divine authority requiring that individuals live in
accordance with the first norm; and third, a manifesting norm, which is the
result of the efforts of reason to determine the moral qualities of actions
as limited by the first norm.
23. Op. cit., pp. 222 ff.; Geny, op. cit., pp. 314 ff.
24. Ernst Troeltsch, Naturrecht und Humanitat in der Weltpolitik (Berlin,
1923).
25. Op. cit., I, 16. He agrees with Phillipson that "as in science,
metaphysical entities are being more and more imported, so in the sphere of
law will those principles of natural law come to be more and more
emphasized, through the ineradicable promptings of the intuitive
consciousness of men and of states." Great Jurists of the World, p. 343.
26. Op. cit., pp. 43, 44.
27. Ibid., II, 10, 12.
28. Op. cit., IV, 72 ff.
29. Ibid., p. 78.
30. Cf. criticisms by Edouard Lambert on the practice of interpreting the
general and vague phrases of written constitutions in the United States in
Le gouvernement des juges et la lutte contre la législation sociale aux
États-Unis (Paris, 1921).
31. Geny, op. cit., IV, 87.
32. Ibid., pp. 81 ff.
33. Ibid., IV, 91.
34. Ibid., pp. 101, 102.
35. Geny, op. cit., IV, 137 ff.
36 Ibid., II, 312 ff.
37. Ibid., IV, 213, 214. Saleilles remarks on Geny's concepts of natural law
that he does not maintain that for a given institution there is a body of
rules which possesses at least rational existence and which can be
formulated into absolute truths; he does not maintain that on a given point
any solution can appear in its concrete expression as a formula of natural
law; he only contends that in the formulation of a judicial or legal rule
judges and legislators have the right and the duty to be guided by ideas of
justice, principles of reason, and axioms of equity, the philosophical forms
of which would be the expression of immutable and intangible truths for all
civilized peoples, "École historique et droit naturel," Revue trimestrielle
de droit civil, I (1902), 87 ff.
38. Reviewing Geny's last volume of the Science et technique en droit privé
positif, E. H. Perreau calls this the work of a true Benedictine "Le conflit
du droit naturel et de la loi positive," Revue General du droit, XLIX
(1925), 27.
39. Malberg consigns these so-called rules of natural or divine law to the
moral or political realm and concludes that "it is a capital error of the
jurists that they persist in supporting the doctrine of 'natural law,' an
error from which it would be desirable to free the science of law for a long
time." To Malberg a rule of law in the true sense can proceed only from the
state, which by its superior force can give it a sanction. Contribution à la
théorie générale de l'état, I (Paris, 1920), 237.
40. "Jus naturae et gentium; Eine Umfrage zum Gedächtnis des Hugo Grotius"
in Niemeyers Zeitschrift für Internationales Recht, XXXIV (1925), 113-189.
41. Comments of Philip Marshall Brown, ibid., pp. 116-118.
42. See Niemeyers Zeitschrift für Internationales Recht, XXXIV, opinions of
Fritz Fleiner, University of Zurich, pp. 121, 122; Friedrich Giese,
University of Frankfort, p. 141; Eduard His, University of Zurich, pp.
142-144; Sir T. Erskine Holland, Oxford University, pp. 144, 145; Christian
Meurer, University of Würzburg, p. 160; Karl Neumeyer, University of
Munchen, p. 161; Karl Strupp, University of Frankfort, pp. 173, 174;
Heinrich Triepel, University of Berlin, pp. 187, 188.
43. To this group belong Charles Dupuis, Institute of International Law,
Paris, ibid., pp. 120, 121; Walter Burckhardt, University of Berne, pp. 118,
119; Alexander Pearce Higgins, Cambridge University, p. 142; George
Kleinfeller, University of Kiel, p. 150. Recognizing that the prevailing
view among English authorities on international law is that of the
Positivist School, Professor Higgins says "appeals are, however, made to the
underlying principles of the Law of Nature under the name of Reason or
Justice when a test is sought for existing rules, or as a means of
suggesting new rules to fill the gaps in the law which modern conditions
disclose." Ibid., p. 142.
44. Rudolf Laun, University of Hamburg, ibid., 150-152; T. de Louter,
University of Utrecht, 152; Joseph Mausbach, University of Münster, 152-160;
Otto Opet, University of Kiel, 161, 162; Robert Piloty, University of
Würzburg, 163, 164; Nicholas S. Politis, University of Paris, 165; Louis Le
Fur, University of Paris, 122-140; Edgard Roubard de Card, University of
Toulouse, 168, 169; André Weisz, University of Paris, 189.
45. Niemeyers Zeitschrift für Internationales Recht, XXXIV, 166 ff.; cf.
Ernst Troeltsch, op. cit.
46. Niemeyers Zeitschrift fur Internationales Recht, XXXIV, 169-171. Duguit
finds a real basis for international law in certain international norms
exterior to the action of any individual state, which must form the basis
for valid joint action in the form of legal rules of conduct. Traité de
droit constitutionnel (2d ed.) I, 99 ff.
47. Niemeyers Zeitschrift fur Internationales Recht, pp. 122-140. See also,
"Le droit naturel ou objectif s'étend-il aux rapports intemationaux,"
reprint from Revue de droit international et de législation comparée (1925).
Le Fur states that he uses the terms "natural law" (droit) and "objective
law" interchangeably and that "the second expression has gained general
approval today in all countries; but the first one is the traditional
expression, and the idea which it expresses rests on a very just basis, if
one frees it from the errors which became incorporated in it during the
eighteenth century (where, rather than a natural law, one speaks of a law of
nature, having in mind a supposed state of primitive nature which would be a
state of isolation). Nothing therefore keeps us from reclaiming this
expression, once it is freed from the purely adventitious errors which had
found their way into it, and this is, in fact, what every one is inclined to
do today." Ibid., p. 60.
Portions of this article have been translated and are included herewith by
the special permission of Professor Le Fur. See also, by the same author,
"Le droit naturel et le droit rationnel ou scientifique: leur rôle dans la
formation du droit international," Revue de droit international (July,
August, and September, 1927); and "La théorie du droit naturel depuis le
XVIIIe siècle et la doctrine moderne" (Paris, 1928)
48. Le Fur, Revue de droit international et de législation comparée (1925),
pp 61, 62.
49. Le Fur, Revue de droit international et de législation comparée (1925),
p. 62.
50. Ibid., p. 64.
51. Le Fur, Revue de droit international et de législation comparée (1925),
p. 66.
52. Ibid., p. 67.
53. Ibid., p. 68.
54. Ibid , pp. 78, 79. An attempt has been made in France as well as in
other countries, to base international law on the individualistic doctrine
of the origin of law. It is called the theory of the fundamental rights of
states. Just as an individual is regarded as having certain inherent rights,
so states, it is asserted, have fundamental natural rights which must be
respected by all other states. There exist, it is claimed, among the states
fundamental, primitive, and absolute rights, rights which belong to every
state in its relations with other states. Among some of the rights mentioned
are independence, equality, respect, and international commerce. A. Pillet,
"Recherches sur les droits fondamentaux des états," Revue générale de droit
international public, V (1898), 66, 236; VI (1899), 503. For an American
version of such fundamental rights, consult James Brown Scott, "The American
Institute of International Law: Its Declaration of the Rights and Duties of
Nations" (1916), and comments by Elihu Root in American Journal of
International Law, X (1916), 211.
55. Cf. "Le droit naturel, le droit rationnel ou scientifique," op. cit., p.
37.
56. Essays in the Law, p. 63.
57. Ibid., pp. 63, 64. Cf. opinion of the English law officers (including
Lord Mansfield) in the case of the Silesian Loan, that the law of nations is
founded upon justice, equity, convenience, and the reason of the thing and
confirmed by long usage." Holliday's Life of William Earl of Mansfield
(London, 1797), p. 428.
58. W. S. McKechnie, "Magna Carta (1215-1915)," Malden, Magna Carta
Commemoration Essays, pp. 22, 23.
59. Lord Russell remarks on the employment of the natural law method in
modern international law, "International Law and Arbitration," American Bar
Association Reports, XIX, 253, 268.
60. James C. Carter, Province of the Written and Unwritten Law, p. 9.
61. "The Latin group and the German group (which we shall combine here for
brevity under the name of 'continental') admit the existence of law beyond
the sphere of positive law; that is to say, they accept the existence of
jural relations, although these relations may not have been validated by the
legislator. Formerly these factual relations were evolved out of human
nature (natural law); today they are predicated on conscience and public
opinion which furnish the elements necessary for their support." Alejandro
Alvarez, "New Conception and New Bases of Legal Philosophy," Wigmore
Celebration Legal Essays (Chicago, 1919), pp. 29, 30.
62. Boistel, op. cit., secs. 1, 2. "The natural-law school seeks an
absolute, ideal law, natural law ... by the side of which positive law has
only secondary importance. The modern philosophy of law recognizes that
there is only one law, the positive law, but it seeks its ideal side and its
enduring idea." Berolzheimer, System der Rechts- und Wirtschaftsphilosophie,
II, 17.
63. Cf. Zeitschrift fur Rechtsphilosophie, I, 4.
PART V
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE REVIVAL OF HIGHER LAW
CONCEPTS IN THE PUBLIC LAW OF EUROPE AND OF
AMERICA
CHAPTER XII
OBJECTIVES IN THE MODERN REVIVAL OF NATURAL LAW
THINKING
THOUGH no effort has been made to review any but a few of the many
indications of the revival of natural law theories or of other types of
higher law notions, sufficient evidence has been given to show that the
return to these concepts, as criteria to measure the justice or validity of
civil enactments, is more than a casual phase of current legal thought. Many
factors are combining to bring to the fore again some of the ideas involved
in the ancient doctrines of natural law. With widely differing purposes in
view and with varying approaches to the fundamental and permanent principles
of the law, legal philosophers, jurists, and judges, in applying concrete
formulae of written charters, codes, or statutes, are wont to turn to
modernized versions of the law of nature or of its counterpart, the law of
reason.[1] It is obvious of course that there are many thinkers in all
countries who deny that there is such a thing as natural law with anything
more than moral import, and who doubt the possibility of any such thing as a
true philosophy of law. This point of view is so well known and is so
general in legal thought that it seems unnecessary to elaborate on it in a
treatise the object of which is primarily to indicate the significance of
opposite opinions.
Among some of the prevailing tendencies in legal thinking which are giving
an impetus to the revival of higher law theories are: first, the efforts to
introduce in a more direct way ethical concepts into the law; second, the
attempts to formulate ideal or philosophical standards to measure positive
laws; third, the establishment of criteria for judges and administrators
when they act as legislators; fourth, a justification for limits on the
sovereignty of states. Each of these modern applications of natural law
concepts deserves brief consideration.
1. Natural Law as a Device to introduce Ethical Concepts into the Law. It is
apparent that natural law thinking has served many purposes in the process
of the evolution of legal systems. None of these purposes has been more
constant and influential than the effort to infuse ethical concepts into the
practical application of the law by means of natural law principles. Every
stage in legal evolution bears witness to the close relation between law and
morals and not infrequently the law of nature served as a convenient
connecting link. A reference to the stages of legal history previously
outlined will indicate some of the obvious relations between these concepts.
In primitive legal systems law and religion were inseparably combined. As
law and religion came to be distinguished, law remained organically
associated with morals and ethics. It was customary for the Greeks and the
Romans to identify jurisprudence with inquiries as to the right and the just
by nature and there was no disposition to separate law and morals. The
identification of the legal with the moral prevailing at this time and the
combination of both in the natural law concepts gave a turn to legal
speculation which has influenced the growth of the law in many of its
subsequent stages.[2]
During the Middle Ages law was merely a branch of theology and was
necessarily associated with moral and ethical thinking. With the Reformation
came one of the first efforts to separate jurisprudence and theology, but
even then law was considered as intimately connected with moral ideas. And
this connection continued until the beginning of the nineteenth century.
Kant broke away from the ideas of natural law prevalent in the eighteenth
century, but he conceived of natural law in the form of eternal and
immutable principles as standards to guide the processes of law making and
law-enforcement.[3] The cycle through which man has passed in working out
the relations of law and ethics is characterized by Dean Pound as the
"ethical-philosophical natural law" of the Romans, the
"authoritative-theological natural law" of the Middle Ages, the
"rational-ethical natural law" of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
the "metaphysical natural law" of Kant, to the repudiation of all theories
of natural law by the Analytical School. Thus, he observes,
the cycle is complete. We are back to the state as the
unchallengeable authority behind legal precepts. The state
takes the place of Jehovah handing the tablets of the law to
Moses, or Manu dictating the sacred law, or the Sun-god
handing the code to Hammurabi. Law is law by convention
and enactment -- the proposition, plausibly maintained by
sophists, which led Greek philosophers to seek some basis
that made a stronger appeal to men to uphold the legal order
and the security of social institutions.[4]
The historical school of jurists and the exponents of the positivist
theories of jurisprudence sought a complete separation of law and morals.
The ethical and moral ideas of earlier times which were translated into
effective legal norms were to be replaced either by customs and principles
of action which emanated from the sentiments of the people of a given time
and locality,[5] or rules of action formulated by a political sovereign
which became intrinsically just by the acceptance and promulgation of the
state.[6] Analytical jurisprudence, especially as defined in England and in
America, carried to the extreme the attempt to separate ethics and law.
Exponents of this school believed that the great gain which jurisprudence
made during the last century was the recognition of the truth that the law
of the state is not an ideal, but something which actually exists. Law, they
maintained, is not that which is in accordance with religion or nature or
morality; it is not that which ought to be, but that which is. Justice
Holmes expressed the prevailing sentiment among analytical jurists when he
favored banishing from the law every word of moral significance and
suggested that in so doing "we should lose the fossil records of a good deal
of history and the majesty got from ethical associations, but by ridding
ourselves of an unnecessary confusion we should gain very much in the
clearness of our thought."[7]
As a matter of fact the point of view of the analytical jurists did not
result in banishing the ethical and moral elements in the administration of
justice but only attempted to conceal the process with "dogmatic
fictions."[8] Ethical concepts seemingly excluded from the judicial
processes were extensively used by English and American judges in molding
the ancient rules and principles of the common law to meet new conditions
and in the application of standards in which the moral and ethical elements
played a not insignificant part.[9] Though the followers of John Austin,
such as J. G. Holland, still insist that in England law and morals must be
distinctly separated, the following statement will suffice to show the
contrast between the profession and the practice in emphasizing the judge's
function in translating into law the customary ideas of ethical conduct:
It is the peculiar characteristic of the English system, and of
systems derived from it, that the judges, though historically
and technically the servants of the state, and bound to
enforce its commands, have almost from the first also played
the important part of educating the community in the ethics
of social conduct. And in that part they have drawn their
inspiration, not from abstract and possibly, unpractical
ideals, but, by an almost imperceptible process of
abstraction and development, from the solutions arrived at
by the better members of the community of the many
problems of practical life. This is, I think, the inward
meaning of their frequent appeals to the example of the
"reasonable man," that favorite objective standard of the
English judge. With unwearying patience, ingenuity, and
unsparing labor, our judges have, if I may so put it, woven
into the national, that is, the political life of the community
that instinct of justice, that respect for ethical considerations,
which, if it be not presumptuous for an Englishman to say so,
is one of the most conspicuous as well as one of the most
honorable and abiding features of the English character.[10]
The disposition to consider the close relationships of law and ethics even
in countries where the analytical or positivist theory has prevailed is
indicated in the opinion of a great English justice. After defining law in
the ordinary sense as rules of conduct laid down by the sovereign will of
the state and enforced by the sanction of compulsion, Lord Haldane observes:
Law, however, imports something more than this. As I have
already remarked its full significance cannot be understood
apart from the history and spirit of the nation whose law it is.
Moreover, it has a real relation to the obligations even of
conscience, as well as to something else which I shall
presently refer to as the general will of society. In short, if its
full significance is to be appreciated, larger conceptions than
those of the mere lawyer are essential; conceptions which
come to us from the moralist and the sociologist, and
without which we cannot see fully how the genesis of law
has come about. That is where writers like Bentham and
Austin are deficient. One cannot read a great book like the
"Esprit des Lois" without seeing that Montesquieu had a
deeper insight than Bentham or Austin, and that he had
already grasped a truth which, in Great Britain at all events,
was to be forgotten for a time.[11]
He then refers to rules of conduct which, so far as the citizen is
concerned, are regulated only to a small extent by law and legality on the
one hand, and by the dictates of individual conscience on the other (a field
which corresponds to the German Sittlichkeit) the system of habitual or
customary conduct, ethical rather than legal, which embraces all those
obligations of the citizen which it is "bad form" or "not the thing" to
disregard. In this field the guide to which the citizen mostly looks is the
standard recognized by the community, an illustration of "a sanction which
is sufficient to compel observance of a rule without any question of the
application of force. This kind of sanction may be of a highly compelling
quality." Attention is then directed to the gradual evolution of an
international Sittlichkeit which promises a sanction for international
obligations not yet fully recognized by formal laws and treaties.[12] Many
others who approach the law from the analytical or positivist point of view
agree with Judge Dillon that "ethical considerations can no more be excluded
from the administration of justice than any one can exclude the vital air
from his room and live."
The Philosophical Schools of jurists, on the other hand, have always
emphasized the close relations between law and morals, and hence have found
as a rule a place for natural law theories. Legal philosophy on the
Continent is often closely related to metaphysical and theological thinking
wherein law, morals, and religion are inseparably associated. Even when
legal philosophers have succeeded in divorcing law from its former
metaphysical and theological bearings they have conceived of an ethical
basis for all law.[13] Thus Stammler and Kohler, as well as Duguit, Krabbe,
and Del Vecchio, subsume an ethical basis for the rules of right or
principles of justice to which all true law must conform.
The different schools of jurists, it is claimed, were looking at distinct
elements of what is called law. The analytical jurist turned his attention
almost exclusively to the fixed body of rules applied by the official organs
of the state. The historical jurist placed uppermost the mass of traditional
ideas and customs from which actual legal rules are derived. The
philosophical jurist emphasized a third element, the social and ethical
ideas which are involved in legal rules and by means of which the law is
being constantly remolded. "The philosophical jurist," says Dean Pound,
has called this third element "natural law" and has given us a
theory of all law on the basis thereof. The historical jurist has
called the second element "custom" and has given us a
theory of all law on that basis. The analytical jurist has
sought to treat the second and third elements as but sources
from which legal precepts are made, but which themselves
are no part of the law, and so has given us a theory of law
exclusively in terms of the first element.[14]
The historical jurists, with their emphasis upon the customs and conventions
of the people and upon the process of finding the law through a search among
such customs and conventions, were superseded by the school of analytical
jurisprudence which directed its attention primarily to statutes and to the
interpretation of law by the courts. Coincident with the rise of the
Analytical School came the era of prolific law-making when most legal
thinking was turned into the channels of the verification of facts, of
experimental methods of trial and error, and of an examination for legal
purposes of a minutiae of data. Thus with the triumph of the latter school
emphasis was directed from rules, principles, and universal formulae to a
congeries of facts and conditions to which law was to be made to conform.
The search for principles was tabooed as was also, in certain quarters, the
study of comparative law. What was thought to be necessary was to discover
from the mass of data available what legal corrective was desired and then
to have the sovereign make a rule accordingly which ipso facto became the
law for the time being until changed by the same sovereign. That the
analytical jurists over-emphasized the passing and conventional and failed
to take due account of certain other vital factors in evaluating the legal
process became more apparent as this point of view was formulated into a
recognized system of jurisprudence. The extreme theories of this school have
augmented the reaction which is leading jurists again to turn their
attention to principles and to rules which are of more than passing
moment,[15] and to the necessity of establishing closer relations between
ethics and law.
2. Natural Law as an Ideal or Philosophical Standard. Beginning at least
with the Greeks and the Romans natural law was thought of as an ideal or
philosophical standard toward which temporary enactments or ordinary civil
laws were to approximate. Similar use was made of the concept during the
Middle Ages. And it is an ideal standard to which appeal may be made when
other sources failed to give justice that judges and jurists frequently
referred to natural law, natural justice, and natural rights. There are
times, as in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when natural law as
an ideal was subordinated to certain fixed and immutable conceptions of law
and right, but these were only temporary deviations from the main purpose of
natural law ideas. For centuries law was liberalized chiefly "by a juristic
doctrine that all legal institutions and all legal rules were to be measured
by reason and that nothing could stand in law that could not maintain itself
in reason."[16] The use of natural law as a standard to guide law in its
progressive development is again receiving serious consideration. Law must
take its bearings from the ethical standards of justice. This gives rise to
certain requirements, as, for example, equality before the law, which
involves the idea of fair play. Speaking of the attempts to put in
opposition to positive law, the law of nature in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, Sir Paul Vinogradoff suggests that "unless I am much
mistaken we witness another wave of this kind in our own time."[17] During
ancient and mediaeval times, he observes, two purposes of natural law were
gradually evolved, one in which it served a theoretic foundation for
axiomatic truths from which a rational system of positive law could be
derived. According to this purpose existing legal rules were accepted as
manifestations of permanent legal principles. On the other hand, the concept
was used as a critical standard to distinguish between reasonable and
unreasonable rules. It was used by Rousseau and Kant to serve as a
philosophical basis for revolutionary ideas. Modern exponents of the law of
nature, such as Charmont, Saleilles, and Stammler recur to natural law as a
critical standard. The new natural law is regarded as a pervasive method by
the help of which rules of law are to be criticized and estimated. Thus the
evolution of natural law has been influenced by the tendency toward the
scientific treatment of social life in distinction from the rationalistic
individualism of the eighteenth century. The problem today is regarded as
one of ascertaining certain standards of social value, and in this process
the new natural law takes a prominent place, not as a fixed and immutable
standard as of the eighteenth century, but as a standard which changes to
suit the conditions of various races and divergent times and conditions.
There is a better appreciation today of the fact that in certain divisions
of the law there are few rules and that judicial decisions are based chiefly
on standards and degrees.[18] The application of such phrases as those of
"fair conduct" in the case of a fiduciary, "due care" in the law of
negligence, "good faith" and "fair competition" in business transactions,
"reasonable facilities" in furnishing public utility services, "fair return"
on property invested in a business, and, "due process of law" in depriving
an individual of life, liberty, and property are well-known illustrations of
the method of determining rights on the basis of standards rather than
rules. In cases involving such concepts the judge must form his own standard
and measure the degree of agreement or variation of conduct with the
standard. "He must balance all his ingredients, his philosophy, his logic,
his analogies, his history, his customs, his sense of right, and all the
rest, and, adding a little here and taking out a little there, must
determine, as wisely as he can, which weight shall tip the scales."[19] Some
of these standards found their way into the law through the frank
recognition of natural law theories.[20] And there are abundant indications
that natural law methods of thinking are conditioning their application in
various branches of modern law.
Instead of seeking a law of absolute significance, modern jurists find in
natural law an ideal with changing content which furnishes a standard to
test what is theoretically and practically just under certain given
conditions.[21] This natural law is regarded as "an idealized ethical custom
and an ideal picture of the end of law, painted, it may be, with reference
to the institutions and ethical customs of the time and place, which may
serve as an instrument of shaping and developing legal materials and of
drawing in and fashioning materials from outside of law."[22]
We are witnessing, then, the rehabilitation of natural law theories, not as
a formal part of positive law, but as conceptions wielding influence on the
opinions of judges and legislators.[23]
Some modern commentators on French law admit that from the standpoint of
philosophy the jurists have always distinguished natural law from positive
law but they join the critics in denying the practical efficacy of natural
law theories. Referring to the contention that natural laws consist of rules
which emanate directly from God and form the source and sanction of all
civil enactments and quoting French authors who deny the existence of such a
priori rules, G. Baudry-Lacantinerie and M. Houques-Fouciade observe
that this latter notion of natural law appears to us the only
one admissible and it is to this which we would turn if it were
absolutely necessary to make a place in juridical science for
the idea of such a law. Natural law comprises then all of the
rules consecrated or not by positive law, for the observance
of which in a given society, it will be desirable that man be
restrained by the means of exterior coercion. It will be, then,
according to the changes in current opinion, susceptible of
variation in the time and place, with the constitution itself of
the society envisaged. But the name "rational law," or even
theoretic or ideal law, appears to us better than the term
"natural," which is affected often by the metaphysical
conception associated with it. In other terms this law would
be, as we see it, perfect law in opposition to necessarily
imperfect law established by positive legislation. This
approaches very nearly to the view of M. Huc, who defines
natural law as "the law such as it ought to be according to
the improvements recognized necessary and possible."[24]
Throughout legal history certain periods have been characterized by emphasis
upon particular phases of the growth of the law. There were times when law
was thought of primarily as an ideal of reason and of truth whether its
source was conceived to be divine or human. Law to be real, effective, and
in any sense permanent, had to accord, in a measure at least, with these
ideas or ideals. At other times law was conceived largely as a growth. Law
was thought to be the creation of the national consciousness or of the
spirit of the people. Evidences of it were to be found in the customary
habits of the people. And at such times it was regarded as the sole duty of
the state to discover and enforce these customary rules. Law has also been
considered as the will of a determinate group in any political society -- in
an ultimate sense the will of a sovereign. From this point of view it was
authority or force not truth or justice which made law. There has been an
age-long antagonism between the advocates of law as an emanation from
authority or force and law as an embodiment of truth and justice. Political
thought has varied as one or the other of these conceptions prevailed.
During the past century there has been an increasing tendency to revert to
the force theory as a basis for law. But the work of the supposed omnipotent
sovereigns has failed to meet with popular approval and has turned public
activities too frequently into the direction of discord and strife to
receive anything like universal assent. Once more the seers and the prophets
are inclined to assert that law is not force, nor is it merely growth from
customary habits, but it is right reason, as discovered from the nature of
man himself, and that law to be in accord with reason must be found by
rational processes based on the experience of man in his social
relationships.[25] Thus we are called upon to return to the ancient
landmarks -- to natural law as an ideal standard as conceived by the Greeks
and Romans. The law as idea is again to take a foremost place in the
lawmaking processes. But law as force and law as growth from customary
conduct may be used as supplementary concepts. "Logic, and history, and
custom, and utility, and the accepted standards of right conduct," it is now
affirmed, "are the forces which singly or in combination shape the progress
of the law."[26]
Vinogradoff suggests that what is needed in contrast with the analytical
jurisprudence of the Austinian type or of the older Naturrecht or historical
type is a "synthetic jurisprudence" which takes into consideration the
various factors which contribute to the making and enforcement of a rule of
law.[27] And the Austinian School was not able to discard law as idea or the
concepts of natural law. In fact, the Analytical School, though formally
repudiating natural law, has been influenced at all times by an anonymous
natural law in the form of ethical views as to what is fair and just.
Positivists do not in fact deny that moral ideas influence the law; they
merely contend that ethical rules of conduct are not law until they receive
the approval of the lawmaking or law-enforcing agents of the sovereign.
Ethical views are always "streaming into the law through all the human
agencies that are connected with it, judges and jurists as well as legislature
and public opinion. Indeed the body of the law could not maintain itself if
it did not conform in large measure to the prevailing sense of justice."[28]
When an estimate is made of the elements of a legal system the laws and the
decisions of a given period are found to be transitory. Conditions arise
which constantly require new rules and regulations. The element which
endures in the system is the professional ideals of the legal order -- a
body of philosophical, political, and ethical ideals as to the purpose of
the law.[29] To understand a legal system it is more important to discover
and evaluate these ideals than minutely to analyze the rules of positive
law. For the ideals which are set as the goal not only determine the trend
of legal development but also result in the formulation of new legal rules
and standards. The antipathy to legislation which is a fundamental principle
of the common law,[30] applied in an environment where ideals of government
limited in behalf of individual liberty, and of a philosophy of economic and
political laissez faire prevailed, gives a clue to many features of American
constitutional law. The doctrine of implied limitations on legislatures and
the extension of the meaning of due process of law may be traced to legal
attitudes compounded from such ideals and accentuated by their application
to pioneer conditions.
3. Higher Laws to guide Judges as Legislators. Modern exponents of natural
law theories reject the mechanical notion of the place and function of the
judge whereby he is expected merely to seek and apply predetermined rules
and is not permitted to mold the law in the course of his application of
these rules. They believe that whether legal traditions admit it openly or
conceal the practice judges necessarily take a prominent part in the
lawmaking process as they adapt legal rules to the unusual conditions of
concrete cases. They maintain that "the judge who would think and act
rightly in his function of rendering judgment must be able, as far as
inelastic provisions of the statute do not prevent him, to discover in the
law and make effective that which he himself, if placed in the situation of
the parties, would feel right and just."[31]
In countries where the civil law prevails the question as to the practice of
free legal decision arises in connection with the requirement that the
judges render a decision as to the rights of the parties when no code
provision or statutory rule is applicable. The French Civil Code makes it
compulsory that the judge decide the issue under such circumstances[32] and
other nations have followed the French practice. Modern codes in Continental
Europe make the duty of judges in this regard more specific, as may be seen
in the Swiss, Austrian, and Italian systems.[33]
Though the instances may be infrequent when the judge lacks guidance from
the statute or the code and is called upon in his capacity as judge to act
as a legislator, the principle is well established in European countries
that when occasion arises he should not shirk the responsibility. It is then
that he is to be guided by the customary conduct of reasonable men.[34] The
statute for the Permanent Court of International Justice also authorizes the
justices to apply "the general principles of law recognized by civilized
nations" along with international conventions, international custom,
judicial decisions, and the teachings of publicists.[35]
In Anglo-American jurisdictions the conflict between the mechanical theory
and the theory of free legal decision has been waged over the relation of
the judges to public policy and over the nature and scope of judicial
legislation. Those who support the mechanical theory hold that it is not the
function of the judge to make or to change the law.[36] This theory refuses
to recognize anything but formulated legal rules and the facts and the
circumstances of a specific case. The advocates of mechanistic ideas in the
United States have become the supporters of the eighteenth-century dictum
that the ideal to seek is "a government of laws and not of men" and they
deprecate the tendency to depart from definite legal rules in the
administration of justice. They see grave dangers in the theory of free
legal decision and oppose the modern tendencies to increase the range of
discretion of judges. They believe that the human element is an undependable
thing in administering justice and that little discretion should be given to
the judges and even then carefully defined limits should be placed on its
exercise. The judge is lauded who aims to arrive by a rigidly mathematical
process at the "inherently and necessarily just."[37]
The common law system is largely a product of judge-made law.[38] And, as we
have seen, concepts of the law of reason or law of nature have had a large
place in the development of various branches of the common law.[39] The
fiction that the judges find the law and apply it in a mechanical or
slot-machine fashion cannot have been taken seriously by the judges and must
have been recognized as having a thin veneer of truth by those not versed in
legal lore. At least the proponents of the fiction are becoming less and
their avowal of the automaton function of the judge is not so insistent. But
more significant is the frank recognition of the duty of judges in common
law jurisdictions to assist in the lawmaking processes. "The system of law
making by judicial decisions which supply the rule for transactions closed
before the decision was announced," Justice Cardozo thinks,
would be indeed intolerable in its hardship and oppression if
natural law, in the sense in which I have used the term, did
not supply the main rule of judgment to the judge when
precedent and custom fail or are displaced. Acquiescence in
such a method has its basis in the belief that when the law
has left the situation uncovered by any pre-existing rule,
there is nothing to do except to have some impartial arbiter
declare what fair and reasonable men, mindful of the habits
of life of the community, and of the standards of justice and
fair dealing prevalent among them, ought in such
circumstances to do, with no rules except those of custom
and conscience to regulate their conduct.[40]
While there are many opportunities for the influence of personality and of
individual views on economics and social policy in the realm of private law
through the development of the common law and through the interpretation of
statutes, there is a much larger range for free legal decision in the main
branches of public law. And this range has been greatly extended in American
constitutional law where wide latitude has been assumed in the
interpretation of such doctrines as implied limitations on legislatures, due
process of law, vested rights free from legislative interference, equal
protection of the laws, and the phrases "the nature of republican
government" and "the spirit of the constitution."[41] Moreover, the judges,
in interpreting the provisions of American constitutions, formerly had no
guidance from precedents or established rules and, directed by their own
reason, they reached conclusions largely controlled by the influences,
opinions, and prejudices to which the justices had been subjected.[42]
President Roosevelt in December, 1908, observed:
The chief law makers in our country may be, and often are,
the judges, because they are the final seat of authority. Every
time they interpret contract, property, vested rights, due
process of law, liberty, they necessarily enact into law parts
of a system of social philosophy; and since such
interpretation is fundamental, they give direction to all law
making. The decisions of the courts on economic and social
questions depend upon their economic and social
philosophy.[43]
In the terms of the theory of free legal decision, the law is, as a justice
of the Supreme Court aptly called it, "a progressive science" in which it is
the duty of judges to foster and direct the process of growth. And it is the
business of judges by so-called "constructive decisions" to see that the law
is made to accord with that somewhat uncertain and elusive thing known as
"the prevailing morality or strong and preponderant opinion."[44] In this
view it becomes the function of the judges to legislate and to be guided by
public policy -- in fact, to see that the law accords with the dominant
social and political doctrines.
The result in a large number of cases cannot be reached, it is contended, by
a strict and logical application of a constitutional text, but instead the
courts must decide upon the basis of external facts of which judicial notice
is taken. Much depends on the extent to which such facts are recognized and
considered. Moreover, where the words of the Constitution, such as "due
process of law" have no technical significance and the judges must seek a
conclusion without definite guidance, "the meaning given to such words is
necessarily influenced by all that makes up in any fundamental way the
thoughts of those who are to find the meaning."[45]
In many cases arising in public law in the United States justices are called
upon to apply indefinite terms which have political and economic
significance and it is here that the personal element or free decision
chiefly enters. Evidences of personal opinions are particularly found when
courts deal with such matters as the reasonableness of building regulations,
public utility regulations, the wholesomeness of foods, public purpose for
taxation, and public use for eminent domain. In an extensive review of some
of these cases Professor Barnett observes, "there is certainly no principle
of law whatever to be found in this mass of contradictions. In fact, courts
simply deem it proper to review legislative decisions in the case of some
statutes, and improper to do so in case of others."[46]
It is evident that free legal decision plays an important rôle in the
decisions of judges applying the general terms of written constitutions. At
no point has free decision been more frequently called into service than in
the interpretation of the phrases "due process of law" and "equal protection
of the laws," whereby much of the old natural rights philosophy has been
injected into the Constitution. And remarkable consequences have resulted
from the enlargement of the meaning of these terms by decisions which had
the effect of constitutional amendments. For fundamental social policies
have been formulated by the judges and have been declared to be a part of
the fundamental law, hence impossible to change except through the difficult
process of amendment. Whenever judges attempt to measure the standards of
justice of positive laws or to fill the gaps in enacted law they turn to
doctrines of natural right or natural law or to general principles of right
for which objective validity is claimed.
Referring to the interesting theories of the law of nature, and the tendency
of the Analytical School of jurists to discredit such ideas, Justice Cardozo
says,
recent juristic thought has given it a new currency, though in
a form so profoundly altered that the old theory survives in
little more than name. The law of nature is no longer
conceived of as something static and eternal. It does not
override human or positive law. It is the stuff out of which
human or positive law is to be woven, when other sources
fail.[47]
As he views the trend of the times, the exponents of the new natural law and
of the modern philosophy of law are joining in the efforts to discover the
elements of the just in and beyond the positive law.[48] Justice Cardozo
maintains he is not
concerned to vindicate the accuracy of the nomenclature by
which the dictates of reason and conscience which the judge
is under a duty to obey, are given the name of law before he
has embodied them in a judgment and set the imprimatur of
the law upon them. I shall not be troubled if we say with
Austin and Holland and Gray and many others that till then
they are moral precepts, and nothing more. Such verbal
disputations do not greatly interest me. What really matters
is this, that the judge is under a duty, within the limits of his
power of innovation, to maintain a relation between law and
morals, between the precepts of jurisprudence and those of
reason and good conscience.[49]
In the opinion of Sir Frederick Pollock natural law will have a large and
dominant part in the development of whole branches of modern law, as for
example, in the efforts of legislatures and courts to restrict unfair
methods of competition and unfair restraints of trade. Speaking of the
misconception of the law of nature which was current in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries, Pollock says,
the law of nature is not competent to resolve specific
problems offhand. Neither, for that matter, are the general
principles of any other science. The law of nature is not the
chaos of individual opinions but the tradition of universal
reason confirmed by the general custom of civilized
mankind.... Natural justice founded in reason is verified by
the use of just men, is recognized and applied by judicial
authorities no less than the rules of international law, which
ultimately rest on the same ground.[50]
If it is the customary morality of right-minded men and women which the
judges are to enforce, natural law standards as conceived by them and as
developed by the scholars and commentators, will serve as an invaluable
guide.[51]
4. Higher Law Theories as a Basis for Limits on State Sovereignty. The
revival of theories of natural law or of natural rights is receiving aid
from divergent currents of political and social life. Among these currents
one which tends to place limits on the omni-competence of the state and to
discredit the traditional theories of state sovereignty leads directly
towards theories of higher laws. For centuries political rulers and certain
schools of jurists looked upon the state as the exclusive lawmaking agency
and the dictum of Hobbes that no law made by the state can be unjust[52] was
generally accepted despite the continuous undercurrents in opposition.
Theories of state omni-competence and of the absolutist dogmas of
sovereignty which came in their wake evolved from conditions which were
unfavorable to the support of limits on public authorities.[53]
The extremes in theory and practice to which the adherents of state
omni-competence went have brought a reaction in a well-defined trend of
political thinking. "The notion of sovereignty must be expunged from
political theory,"[54] says one of the foremost opponents of the traditional
dogmas of state sovereignty.
Most opponents of the doctrine of state sovereignty contend that no such an
independent and supreme power exists in any political society; that the
unity and all-inclusiveness claimed for this power is, in fact, broken by
the divided allegiance which men give to the various social groups to which
they belong; that state authority applies to only a small part of human
conduct, and that this authority is subject to certain definite limitations,
even within this restricted field.[55]
Critics of former theories of sovereignty appear to be seeking certain
fundamental principles as the basis of political obligation. Whether the
source and sanction of political control be sought in a sovereign, in some
kind of general will or social force, or simply in the rule of the majority,
there is an insistent demand for some criterion to pass on the efficacy or
validity of political acts. Such criteria were found formerly in the theory
of natural rights and in the theory of a social compact.[56]
The recent extraordinary enlargement of state functions requires that the
sovereign, if there be such, in many of its activities must be subjected to
certain rules of law. At the same time a similar growth of international
rules and practices requires further limitations on the sovereign, according
to other legal rules. From the standpoint of those interested in the growth
of international law the traditional theory of sovereignty is condemned as a
political dogma no longer in harmony with the facts of international life
and "incompatible with the existence of a society of states governed by a
recognized and generally observed system of international law."[57] If the
sovereign be made subject to a developing body of rules of law in both
private and public law, the theory of an absolute sovereign has ceased to
have its former all-inclusiveness. Older theories of sovereignty which still
retain feudal and monarchic characteristics are apparently in need of
revision. "A certain tendency to discredit the state is now abroad. The
forces which combine to spread this tendency are various. There is the old
doctrine of natural rights, which lies behind most of the contemporary
movements that advocate resistance to the authorities of the state."[58]
According to Duguit the notion of sovereignty is merely a survival of the
conception of the princely state. "By denying the personality of the state,
the sovereignty," he claims, "we disengage ourselves from a valueless and
meaningless anthropomorphism and we reject absolutely all the remaining
balance of the feudal and princely conception of the state."[59]
Following a period of emphasis upon law as an emanation from a sovereign
authority and upon rights as created by such an authority there is a
reversion again to the inherent rights of the individual and to the
necessity of the protection of these rights. This recurrence to the natural
rights of the individual renders it imperative once more to seek limits to
the competency of the political powers of the state or to find ways of
placing restrictions on the presumed sovereignty of the state. Two
well-known English political thinkers, who approach the matter from
different points of view, may be referred to as indicating in their works
the intention to revive interest in natural rights. "I have," Mr. Laski
urges, "rights which are inherent in me as a member of society; and I judge
the state, as the fundamental instrument of society, by the manner in which
it seeks to secure for me the substance of those rights.... Rights, in this
sense, are the groundwork of the state. They are the quality which gives to
the exercise of its power a moral penumbra. And they are natural rights in
the sense that they are necessary to the good life."[60] Laski believes that
a creative view of politics begins in a proper theory of rights. He outlines
a functional theory whereby the individual as a person has rights which the
state does not create but must recognize in order that the individual may
realize his best self. Among the inherent rights of the individual which it
is the duty of the state to preserve and protect, he enumerates the right to
work, the right to be paid an adequate wage, and to have reasonable hours of
work, the right to an education, and the right to participate in the
functions of government.
To give vitality to these views it is necessary to insist that there are
limits to the exercise of public authority and hence he believes any working
theory of the state must concern itself with the efforts to devise limits
upon those who exercise powers. The modern concept of an unlimited and
relatively absolute sovereign is therefore incompatible with the
preservation of these natural rights and in his judgment the concept should
be discarded.[61]
Dealing with the same problem from the standpoint of jurisprudence rather
than political theory, Sir Paul Vinogradoff raises the inquiry whether
"certain fundamental rights and claims ought not to be treated as inherent
in the nature of a freeman and a citizen."[62] Showing that to a
considerable extent the appeal to natural and imprescriptible rights was
made in the eighteenth century in the struggle for freedom of conscience
against state absolutism in religious matters, Vinogradoff affirms: "It is
of great importance to ascertain that there are claims of right which flow
naturally from the conception of human personality as a free agent and as
entitled in normal circumstances to certain legal guarantees of the
realization of welfare."[63]
Even the great advocate in France of the supremacy of the state, M. Esmein,
admitted that the individual had rights anterior and superior to those of
the state, which must be respected by the state. As an essential element of
constitutional law this principle forbids the sovereign from interfering
with individual rights and requires it to take the necessary steps to
preserve such rights.[64]
Formerly international law recognized states as sovereign and subject only
to those limitations to which they had consented. Now, it is contended,
international law must be reconstructed on a new basis.[65] Advocates of
this reconstruction discard at the outset the concept of the state with its
absolute sovereignty, as a metaphysical abstraction. The old law of nations
which was regarded as nothing more than regulations between states is to be
replaced by a new law conceived as existing above states. "The final triumph
of the new conception of international law will be assured," thinks N.
Politis, "because of the irremediable ruin which results from the other
fundamental principle of the classical doctrine, that of sovereignty."[66]
The concept of sovereignty is held to be inadmissible and the state is
regarded as not invested with absolute power but as charged with a social
mission which requires that its actions be controlled by rules of law
(droit). One of the most direct attacks on the older concepts of sovereignty
is made in the interest of the establishment of a secure basis for
international law.[67]
5. Limits on the Power to amend Constitutions in America due to Fundamental
Principles and Rights. A renewal of efforts to revive a type of higher law
philosophy is found in the attempts in American political thinking to place
certain limits on the power of the people to amend written constitutions.
Amending procedure in the United States was left largely to political
control and direction until toward the close of the nineteenth century.
Judicial control over the process of amending state constitutions was
asserted only once prior to 1880.[68] The next few decades witnessed not
only an increasing exercise of the right of judicial control over amendments
but also the gradual emergence of a distinction between amendments and
additions. Justice Story had suggested the notion of inherent limits on the
power of amendment under the federal Constitution when, referring to the
adoption of the Constitution by the people, he said: "The Union which is
perfected by means of it is indissoluble through any steps contemplated by,
or admissible under, its provisions or on the principles on which it is
based, and can only be overthrown by physical force effecting a
revolution."[69] Following this view it was not infrequently asserted that
no amendment could be made which would lead to the destruction of either the
Union or the states, or that amendments interfering with the sovereignty
either of the states or the nation would be void. Justice Cooley, the
foremost advocate of the doctrine of implied limitations on legislatures in
order to protect vested rights, believed that there are certain inherent
limitations -- principles which underlie the federal Constitution and which
prevent its radical amendment. Amendments, he insisted, "cannot be
revolutionary; they must be harmonious with the body of the instrument."[70]
But in a practical, concrete way little significance was attached to this
idea until the extension of judicial review of legislative enactments
provided a convenient method to apply limitations to the amending
process.[71] Thus it became customary to assert that amendments were invalid
which contravened the general principles of free republican government, that
interfered with the natural rights of life and liberty, or that took away
fundamental rights of either the nation or the states.
The attempt to apply the doctrine that there are limits to the amending
power under the federal Constitution have arisen primarily in the enactment
and interpretation of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth
Amendments[72] and have acquired greater significance in the movement to
hold ineffective the Eighteenth Amendment. The attack on the Civil War
Amendments on this ground have not been so persistent and vigorous because
these amendments were regarded mainly, in their original purpose, as
declaratory of the natural rights of man.[73]
In the briefs on the cases before the Supreme Court attacking the validity
of the Eighteenth Amendment a special effort was made to revive Story's
notion of implied limits on the amending power by arguments based upon the
nature of the federal system.[74] Elihu Root argued that "any amendment
which impairs or tends directly to destroy the right and power of the
several states and of local self-government should be held void as in
conflict with the intent and spirit of implied limitations of the federal
Constitution adopted by the people of the United States."[75] It was also
claimed that certain principles of the Constitution are unamendable and as
an example due process of law was cited as a matter so vital to free
government that it may not be destroyed. The Supreme Court substantially
rejected all of the arguments presented in favor of such limitations, but
the issue has not been dropped in federal constitutional law and the
advocates of these doctrines have turned to the states where a more fruitful
field is open for the application of implied limits on legislative and
constituent powers.
A significant attempt is being made to revive interest in the philosophy and
dogmas of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in support of the view
that indubitable private rights must be preserved, anything in laws or
constitutions to the contrary notwithstanding. Mr. Abbot, defender of this
return to natural and inalienable rights, asserts "the indisputable truth is
that there are rights which no government can lawfully invade. The man who
does not believe in them does not understand the difference between right
and wrong, does not understand human nature, and does not learn from
experience." He thinks the protection of these inalienable and reserved
rights is to be preserved under the inexpugnable law of the land, or due
process clause. There is, he insists, no power resident anywhere in the
Union which can overturn this constitutional principle. "There are," he
comments, "a number of constitutive principles of private right which have
been so wrought into the fabric of our institutions that they cannot be
abrogated." Among these indubitable rights he suggests the use of the
natural powers in the pursuit of happiness as long as they do not thereby
injure others, and the right of hearing when a man's liberties are at stake;
and he concludes that "we find in this country, at least, it is held to be
axiomatic, that there are limitations to the power of all government and if
so, there are limitations to the power of amending the Constitution of the
United States."[76]
The doctrine of higher law or of fundamental principles as a basis for
limits to be applied to the amending procedure of the federal Constitution
is seldom advocated. American legal thought more commonly follows the
doctrine that there are no inalienable rights, that legal rights exist only
through law, and that such a thing as a right in any legal sense against the
sovereign political authority is unthinkable. From this viewpoint unlimited
sovereignty resides only in the people.[77] It is well to recognize,
however, that the doctrine of limitations on the power of the people to
amend constitutions is much more commonly accepted than is ordinarily
believed, that it is a factor not to be ignored in constitutional
interpretation, and that when ostensibly repudiated as a legal doctrine it
has found its way in judicial decisions in covert processes of legal
reasoning.[78]
With the extraordinary growth of the functions of government during the last
century, and with a corresponding increase in the number of public officials
who are engaged in carrying on these functions, has come a confirmed
conviction that some limits must be set to the activities of these
functionaries. Jefferson's observation that many despots in a legislative
assembly are more to be feared than one has not ceased to gain converts as
governments have become increasingly popular in origins and sanctions.[79]
It was to be expected that laissez faire exponents of the eighteenth and
early nineteenth centuries would seek to limit governmental functions, to
divide public powers, and to favor a refined system of checks and balances.
It is more difficult to understand why the advocates of popular government
and of the extensions of its functions along all lines should at the same
time be concerned with fixing limits to the exercise of these functions.
This effort to define the field within which the public officers are
permitted to function has two significant phases -- one designed to keep
officers near to and responsive to public sentiment and to guard certain
personal rights and privileges from official encroachment, and another, a
direct result of former laissez faire theories, which is designed to prevent
the public from invading the individual and corporate rights and privileges
of property and contract. The latter forms the basis for the protection of
acquired or vested rights. The first of these phases is exemplified
especially in the growing tendency to formulate as a part of the public
fundamental law bills or charters of individual rights which are regarded in
varying degrees as inviolable. In this respect the Declaration of
Independence, the bills of rights in the state and federal constitutions of
the United States, and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man began a
movement which has influenced greatly the entire process of the development
of constitutional law.
The other phase of the movement, the disposition to use higher law ideas to
protect acquired or vested rights was a gradual development in connection
with the emergence of constitutional government. It has had a unique
application in the "United States where property owners and corporate
organizations have been accorded greater privileges than in any other
country. These privileges are protected by an independent judiciary
upholding the limitations of a written constitution and of higher laws above
the constitution.[80]
6. Concluding Comments. Duguit would have all law conform to an objective
right,[81] and other Frenchmen plead for the renaissance of natural law, now
a term conceived as involving fundamental principles changing in content and
significance with each generation.[82] Krabbe would have all law conform to
the community sense of the feeling for right.[83] The gap is not so great
after all between the broad rule of reason applied by American justices
permitting only those things which do not "shock men's sense of right" and
the concepts of higher law now prevalent on the continent of Europe. But it
is a different matter for a rule of reason, an objective right, or a feeling
for right to form the basis of legal reasoning of justices or of the
observations of legal philosophers instead of a more or less mechanical
measure to test the validity of legislation. The United States is
practically alone in placing super-censors over its legislative chambers
with often nothing more than the elusive rule of reason as a standard.[84]
Throughout the evolution of the law there has always been a disposition to
seek for law in sources external to man and his lawmaking and law-enforcing
agencies. If the law itself is not regarded as originating in such external
sources there has been an urgent desire to discover standards outside of the
law, or as a significant part of it, to evaluate its justice and fairness in
determining the legal relations among men.[85] Law is comprised not alone of
rules but of principles, conceptions, and standards. And from the standpoint
of the unity, continuity, and permanence of the law the principles,
conceptions, and standards are more important than the rules.[86] It is in
the former that the ideas involved in the phrase "natural law" are always in
evidence. When the principle is announced that one person is not to be
enriched unjustly at the expense of another, what is unjust enrichment and
by what criterion will such conduct be judged? Similarly, when legislatures
and courts lay down the principle that business competition shall not be
conducted unfairly, what is the standard by which competition is declared
unfair? If unfair competition is anything else than what Judge Hough called
the selling of goods by means that "shock judicial sensibilities,"[87] how
is the line determined between what does and does not shock judicial
sensibilities? What criteria are involved in judgments which insist that the
conduct of a fiduciary shall be fair, that public utilities shall receive a
fair return upon a reasonable valuation of their property, or that
regulations affecting such utilities must be reasonable? The ultimate
standard of what is reasonable or fair is the judicial conscience. But what
are the controlling factors which turn the scales of justice? Evidently
judges, in forming moral judgments on conduct as to whether it is fair or
reasonable, are guided by common sense and intuition based on experience.
The rule of reason which they are constantly applying has a close
resemblance to the ancient and mediaeval concepts of the law of nature,
which were accepted as guiding factors of the English common law in its
"rules of reason."
It is contended that advocates of theories of natural law usually try to
defend certain special interests and that they make their own personal views
the test of the validity of legal precepts. Writers have not infrequently
aimed to project into the realm of universal laws their own personal and
subjective sentiments and it has been difficult to draw a line between such
subjective views and the presumed objective rules to which recurrence is
usually made as having general validity. It is the subjective phases of
natural law theories which are often emphasized to the discredit of all such
theorizing.[88] Though there are many indications in natural law thinking of
frank or covert appeals to higher laws for the sake of expediency, such
instances by no means comprise all of the cases in which superior law
concepts are employed.
Natural law theories seem to be conceived and applied for diverse reasons by
the absolutists, by the individualists, by the pragmatists, and by those
whose legal thinking is inarticulate and subconscious.
From the time men put their thoughts into definite written form there were
some who sought the essential and the real qualities of man's social life in
external sources, such as God or nature. From this external source come
certain absolute ideas or standards which can be comprehended by human
thought. Those who find it convenient and comforting to anchor their
thinking in concepts of an absolute are likely to conceive as a part of such
an absolute certain of the directive principles of social control by means
of law. The search for absolute ideas in connection with law as in the field
of religion may be inspired by quite divergent motives. But the religious
and metaphysical approaches to philosophy frequently lead in the direction
of a natural law with absolute connotations.
Starting with an assumption that men lived originally in a state of nature
which was governed by the laws of nature, the individualists found a basis
for law and rights in the inherent qualities which belonged to men as
individuals and as social beings. Doctrines of freedom and equality and of
rights to live, possess property, and enjoy certain privileges unmolested
were supposed to flow from the conditions of birth and habitation in an
environment subject to the laws of nature.
In the United States, where the individualistic viewpoint has been a
dominant factor of political and social life, the doctrine of equality has
resulted in three claims: that all men ought to be equal before the law,
ought to have equal privileges of participation in political affairs, and
ought to have equal opportunities. Though these claims have come far from
practical realization, they have affected all phases of social and political
life and have been reflected in numerous statutes and judicial decisions.
The pronouncement in the Fourteenth Amendment that no person shall be denied
the equal protection of the laws is the fruition of more than a century of
equalitarian theories and of higher law ideas which accompanied them.[89]
The pragmatists' approach to natural law needs little comment. Lawmaker or
judge, finding the formal rules of the law unjust in their applications,
appealed to a higher law of reason or of nature as his guide to secure a
more rational and equitable result. Or, perchance, a group of individuals
chafing under the dominion of men guided by laws or personal whims sought in
the laws of nature a sanction for resistance to the established order and
ultimately for rebellion. Thus the anarchists turned to natural law to
sanction opposition to all forms of political authority at the same time
that individuals and corporations sought support for the protection of their
vested interests in the same law. The fact that natural law ideas can be
turned to so many different uses weakens their efficacy when urged for any
specific purpose.
The most difficult of all phases of the natural law philosophy to understand
and evaluate is its inarticulate and unconscious or subconscious use.[90] As in the development of the common law, the thinking of
lawyers and judges may be saturated with an unexpressed and unexplained
philosophy which is none other than natural law. Or American judges
revolting against the indefinite and vague terms "natural law" and "natural
justice", may find a haven in due process of law, which is little else than
a natural law given constitutional sanction -- with the same vagueness and
uncertainty inherent in the standard phrases. The assumptions, the
principles, and the philosophies with which legal controversies and the
devices for their settlement are approached are often more significant than
the formal rules available for application.[91] In such assumptions,
principles, or philosophies, one or more of the natural law theories is
likely to lurk beneath the formal expressions and to determine partially at
least the trend of legal judgments. It is the unexpressed and undefined
natural law notions which may serve as a potent weapon to liberalize the
law, as was the case with the evolution of English equity, or it may serve
as a more sinister weapon when it is championed as a means of sustaining the
legal status quo.
Along with the attitude of certain minds to search for ideals and to think
in terms of universals there is the related habit of human thought to
translate familiar and accepted ideas into the necessary and natural.[92]
And another tendency of the human mind which leads in the direction of
natural law theories is suggested in some remarks of Justice Holmes.
Speaking of "The Lantern-Bearers" of Robert Louis Stevenson, in which he
shows how in their hearts all men are idealists, Holmes says: "The same laws
are found everywhere, and everything is connected with everything else; and
if this is so, there is nothing mean, and nothing in which may not be seen
the universal law."[93]
The claim that natural law theorists are merely assuming universal or
general validity for their own subjective ideas of justice and rights by no
means accounts for the assumptions, preconceived notions, or principles
which have been associated with the natural law concept. Law in its generic
sense is conceived as "the sense of justice taking form in peoples and
races" and in the formation of men's ideas of justice there are some rules
and principles which are thought to have universal validity.[94] It matters
little whether these principles result from the instinctive, romantic, or
religious sentiments of the people, or from the dominant juristic
conceptions of a community such as the Anglo-Saxon fundamental principles of
justice, or the principles which lie at the basis of free government, or
from the free decision of justices applying the ethics and juristic ideas of
certain classes -- there is for any time and place a uniformity in the
application of these principles which gives them a singular permanence and
definiteness. It makes a great difference in the results for the development
of the law whether these principles or norms are treated as relative and
variable or absolute and unchangeable;[95] whether they are applied by
judges and legislators in a formalistic and mechanical way as determinate
norms for the measurement of conduct or are used to test existing rules of
law by standards of fairness and justice, which are constantly being
subjected to critical analysis and modification by the legal profession; and
whether they are employed as a means of legal growth or of the maintenance
of a sanctified legal order.
1. "It is not an accident that something very like a resurrection of natural
law is going on the world over" Roscoe Pound, in Harvard Law Review, XXV
(December, 1911), 162; also Sir Paul Vinogradoff, Common Sense in Law, p.
246.
2. Roscoe Pound, Law and Morals (2d ed. Chapel Hill, 1926), Lecture I, "The
Historical View." Dean Pound has dealt so fully with the relations of law
and morals in this series of lectures that only a summary of certain phases
of this relation need be considered.
3. Cf. Kant, Metaphysische Anfangsgrunde der Rechtslehre (1797).
4. Pound, op. cit., pp. 12-14.
5. Pound claims that the historical jurist merely indicated a new basis for
natural law in insisting on universal ideal principles to which positive law
must conform. Op. cit., p. 21.
6. John C. Gray, The Nature and Sources of the Law (2d ed ), p. 94.
7. Collected Legal Papers (New York, 1920), p. 179.
8. Pound, op. cit., pp. 56, 57.
9. See illustrations of the close relations of law and morals in Pound, op.
cit., Lecture II, "The Analytical View."
10. Edward Jenks, "The Function of Law in Society," Society of Comparative
Legislation and International Law, 3d ser., vol. V, Pt. IV (1923), pp. 176,
177.
11. Lord Haldane, "Higher Nationality: A Study in Law and Ethics," American
Bar Association Reports, XXXVIII (1913), 402, 403.
12. Lord Haldane, op. cit., pp. 403-405, 413. Sitte generally refers to
custom -- Sittlichkeit implies custom and a habit of mind and action.
13. Pound, op. cit., p. 103. Coleman Phillipson suggests that "natural law,
in spite of its being frequently maligned and scoffed at, will continue to
hold the minds of men as long as men remain psychologists and moralists."
Great Jurists of the World, p. 306
14. Op. cit., pp. 23-25.
15. Evidences of the new point of view are at hand even in countries where
the Analytical School has been strongest, such as the movement in the United
States directed by the American Law Institute to extract principles of law
from the welter of statutes and decisions and the efforts now participated
in by all of the leading countries to secure a codification of international
law.
16. Pound, The Spirit of the Common Law, p. 81.
17. Sir Paul Vinogradoff, "Legal Standards and Ideals," Michigan Law Review,
XXXIII (November, 1924), 1 ff. For reference by the same writer to the
revival of a modified conception of the law of nature as one of the
significant currents of thought in jurisprudence, see Historical
Jurisprudence, I, 144, 145.
18. Benjamin N. Cardozo, The Nature of the Judicial Process (New Haven,
1922), pp. 161, 162.
19. Cardozo, op. cit., p. 162.
20. See Pound, Law and Morals, p. 60.
21. Stammler, Wirthschaft und Recht (2d. ed.), p. 181, and Lehre von dem
Richtigen Recht (Berlin, 1902), pp. 116-121; Saleilles, "L'École historique
et droit naturel," Revue trimestrielle de droit civil, I, 80, 98; R.
Demogue, Notions fondamentales du droit privé, p. 22.
Vinogradoff characterized this phase of natural law thinking as follows:
"The law of nature is an appeal from Caesar to a better informed Caesar. It
is an appeal by society at large, or by the best spirits of a given society,
not against single decisions or rules, but against entire systems of
positive law. Legislators are called in to amend law by separate statutes;
judges may do a great deal in amending the law by decisions in individual
cases, but the wisdom of legislators and equity of judges are by themselves
powerless against systems, because they start from the recognition of the
authority of positive law in general. And yet law, being a human
institution, ages not only in its single rules and doctrines, but in its
national and historical setting, and the call for purification and reform
may become more and more pressing with every generation. Public opinion,
then, turns from reality to ideals. Speculation arises as to the essentials
of law as conceived in the light of justice. Of course these conceptions of
justice are themselves historical, but they are drawn not from the
complicated compromises of positive law but from the simpler and more
scientific teaching of philosophical doctrine. Thus the contents of the law
of nature vary with the ages, but their aim is constant; it is justice; and
though this species of law operates not in positive enactments, but in the
minds of men, it is needless to urge that he who obtains command over minds
will in the end master their institutions." Common Sense in Law, pp. 244,
245. See also, by the same author, "Reason and Conscience in Sixteenth
Century Jurisprudence," Law Quarterly Review, XXIV (October, 1908), 379.
22. Pound, Law and Morals, p. 113.
23. Vinogradoff, Common Sense in Law, pp. 235 ff., and Central Law Journal,
LXXX (May, 1915), 346.
24. Traité théorique et pratique de droit civil, I (3d ed., 1907), 5.
25. Cf. Joseph H. Drake in editorial preface to Del Vecchio, Formal Bases of
Law, P. 28.
26. Cardozo, op cit., p. 112.
27. Custom and Right (Cambridge, 1925), pp. 12, 13.
28. M. R. Cohen, "Jus Naturale Redivivum," Philosophical Review, XXV, 761,
762.
29. Pound, "The Theory of Judicial Decision," Harv. Law Rev., XXXVI (April,
1923), 661.
30. Idem., "Common Law and Legislation," Harv. Law Rev., XXI (April, 1908),
403.
31. Gmelin, The Science of Legal Method (Boston, 1917), p. 89; for a
thorough discussion of the function of the judge as a lawmaker, see other
selections in this volume. Cf. also my article on "General Observations on
the Effects of Personal, Political, and Economic Influences in the Decisions
of Judges," Illinois Law Review, XVII (June, 1922), 96. In the following
pages a few extracts are used from this article.
32. Art. 4 of the Civil Code provides that "le juge qui refuse de juger sous
prétexte du silence, de l'obscurité ou de l'insuffisance de la loi, pourra
être poursuivi comme coupable de déni de justice."
33. The pertinent provisions of these codes are:
The statute governs all matters within the letter or the spirit
of any of its mandates. In default of an applicable statute, the
judge is to pronounce judgment according to the customary
law, and in default of a custom, according to the rules which
he would establish if he were to assume the part of a
legislator. He is to draw his inspiration, however, from the
solutions consecrated by the doctrine of the learned and the
jurisprudence of the courts. Swiss Civil Code, art. 1.
Should the case, however, remain doubtful, it shall be
decided in accordance with the law of nature and with due
regard to the circumstances of the case diligently collected
and thoroughly considered. Austrian Civil Code
Introduction, secs. 6-8.
When a case, however, remains doubtful, one ought to
decide according to the general principles of law, taking into
account all of the circumstances of the controversy. Italian
Civil Code, 1866, sec. 3.
In discussing the language of the Italian code the question arose whether to
use the phrase "following the principles of natural law" or "following
general principles of law."
Other phrases suggested were "principles of reason," "principles of equity,"
"principles of natural equity," "principles of natural reason." The general
principles of law were referred to as those rules which reason deduces from
the nature of things and from their reciprocal relations. Giorgio Del
Vecchio, Sui principi generali del diritto (Modena, 1921), pp. 9, 10.
34. See Cardozo, op. cit., p. 106.
When positive laws are silent or vague Stephen suggests that judges may
decide "according to the natural reason of the thing"; Geny would have them
render judgment according to the "nature of positive things"; and Pollock
would have them follow the "ideal standard of scientific fitness and
harmony."
The will of the state, expressed in decision and judgment, says Gmelin, is
to bring about a just determination by means of the subjective sense of
justice inherent in the judge, guided by an effective weighing of the
interests of the parties in the light of the opinions prevailing among the
community regarding transactions like those in question. And Geny recommends
that, on the one hand, we are to interrogate reason and conscience, to
discover in our inmost nature, the very basis of justice; on the other, we
are to address ourselves to social phenomena, to ascertain the laws of their
harmony and the principles of order which they exact. Sociological Method,
trans. Modern Legal Philosophy Series, IX, 131. Geny, Méthode
d'interprétation et sources en droit privé positif, II, 92.
35. Cf. art. 38 and Procès-verbaux of the Proceedings of the Advisory
Committee of Jurists, pp. 281 ff. These principles were not formulated or
defined but were thought to be founded on "the fundamental law of justice
and injustice deeply engraved on the heart of every human being and which is
given its highest and most authoritative expression in the legal conscience
of civilized nations." M. le Baron Descamps, Procès-verbaux, pp. 310, 311.
36. According to Elihu Root the appeal to courts in the matter of social
reform rests upon a misconception of the true function of a court. It is
not within the judge's function or within his power to enlarge or improve or
change law. The Independent, LXXII (April 4, 1912), 704; James Coolidge
Carter, Law: Its Origin, Growth and Function (New York, 1907), pp. 172, 173.
For opposite view, see John F. Dillon, The Law and Jurisprudence of England
and America, p. 267.
37. E. V. Abbot, Justice and the Modern Law, pp 10 ff.
38. A. V. Dicey, Lecture on "Judicial Legislation," in Lectures on the
Relation between Law and Public Opinion in England during the Nineteenth
Century (London, 1926), pp. 359, 360.
39. Supra, pp. 39 ff.
40. Op. cit., pp. 142, 143.
41. Justice Cardozo thinks that in the field of constitutional law in the
United States the method of free decision is dominant today. Op. cit., p.
17. Agreeing with this view Judge Bruce says, "we are governed by our judges
and not by our legislatures.... It is our judges who formulate our public
policies and our basic law." The American Judge (New York, 1924), pp. 6-8.
42. W. D. Coles, "Politics and the Supreme Court of the United States,"
American Law Review, XXVII (March-April, 1893), 189, 190.
43. Emphasizing the same thought at a dinner to Justice Harlan after
twenty-five years' service on the Supreme Bench, President Roosevelt said:
"For the judges of the Supreme Court of the land must be not only great
jurists, but they must be great constructive statesmen, and the truth of
what I say is illustrated by every study of American statesmanship, for in
not one serious study of American political life will it be possible to
omit the immense part played by the Supreme Court in the creation, not
merely the modification, of the great policies through and by means of which
the country has moved on to her present position." Amer. Law Rev., XXXVII
(January-February, 1903), 93.
44. Noble State Bank v. Haskell, 219 U. S. 104, 111 (1911).
45. W. F. Dodd, "The Problem of State Constitutional Construction," Columbia
Law Review, XX (June, 1920), 636.
46. James D. Barnett, "External Evidence of the Constitutionality of
Statutes," Amer. Law Rev., LVIII (January-February, 1924), 88.
47. Op. cit., pp. 131, 132.
48. Cardozo, op. cit., p. 132, and Berolzheimer, System der Rechts- und
Wirtschaftsphilosophie, II, 27.
49. Cardozo, op. cit., p. 133.
50. Review of Professor Brown's International Society: Its Nature and
Interests, Law Quar. Rev., XXXIX (1923). "The best and most rational portion
of English law is in the main judge-made law. Our judges have always shown,
and still show, a really marvelous capacity for developing the principles of
the unwritten law, and applying them to the solution of questions raised by
novel circumstances." Pollock, Law Quar. Rev., IX (April, 1893), 106.
"The besetting danger of modern law," to Pollock, "is the tendency of
complex facts and minute legislation to leave no room for natural growth,
and to choke out the life of principles under a weight of dead matter which
posterity may think no better than a rubbish heap." The Expansion of the
Common Law, p. 8.
51. Cardozo, op. cit., p. 106. "Another significant current of thought
connected with the evolutionist movement in jurisprudence may be seen in the
revival of a modified conception of the law of nature -- not in the
rationalist sense, of course, but in that of a striving toward ideals. If,
as Ihering put it, law has not only to register actual rules and to explain
their origin, but also aim at the solution of social problems, it is not
wrong or presumptuous to reflect on the general principles which in the
present state of civilization we ought to accept as the guiding lights for
legislators and reformers, and as the critical tests for approving or
disapproving existing rules of positive law." Vinogradoff, Historical
Jurisprudence, I, 144, 145.
52. Leviathan, chap. 30. For a similar view see John Austin, Lectures on
Jurisprudence or The Philosophy of Positive Law (5th ed., London, 1885), pp.
268 ff.
53. A short summary may be found in F. W. Coker, "Pluralistic Theories and
the Attack upon State Sovereignty," in A History of Political Theories:
Recent Times, edited by Charles E. Merriam and H. E. Barnes (New York,
1924), pp. 81 ff.
54. H. Krabbe, The Modern Idea of the State, trans. by George H. Sabine and
Walter J. Shepard (New York, 1922), p. 35. See also A. D. Lindsay, "The
State in Recent Political Theory," Political Quarterly, I (February, 1914),
128-145.
55. Coker, op. cit., p. 89, and Louis Le Fur, "La souveraineté et le droit,"
Revue du droit public, XXV (1908), 389.
Among the critics of the prevailing doctrines of sovereignty, see Léon
Duguit, Law in the Modern State (New York, 1919); H. Krabbe, The Modern Idea
of the State (New York, 1922); Harold J. Laski, Problem of Sovereignty (New
Haven, 1917); Authority in the Modern State (New Haven, 1919); The
Foundations of Sovereignty and Other Essays (New York, 1921); and Ernest
Barker, "The Superstition of the State," London Times Literary Supplement
(July, 1918), p. 329.
56. "When we turn to history for evidence of the cultural tradition of the
state and of its relation to law, we find the overwhelming weight of
authority opposed to the absolutistic view of sovereignty and of the State
and denying the alleged independence of both from the limitations embodied
in the conception of law." E. M. Borchard, Yale Law Journal, XXXVI, 1039.
57. See Harv. Law Rev., XXXVI (February, 1923), 495; James W. Garner,
"Limitations on Sovereignty in International Relations," American Political
Science Review, XIX (February, 1925), 1; and E. M. Borchard, "Political
Theory and International Law," in A History of Political Theories: Recent
Times (New York, 1924), p. 120.
58. W. Y. Elliot, "Sovereign State or Sovereign Group," Amer. Pol. Sci.
Rev., XIX (August, 1925), 482.
Geny, an advocate of the doctrine of natural rights, regards sovereignty as
a postulate which is contrary to the facts and conditions of social life.
Science et technique en droit privé positif, I, 75.
Surveying the recent progress of political thought in continental Europe,
Vinogradoff suggests that "in modern Europe itself there is a marked
recurrence of the view that the state is subject to the authority of a
higher law. This recurrence may be traced to the wide-spread discontent with
the policies of modern states in championing the interests of economic
imperialism. The theory culminates in the assertion that it is society
which creates law and not the state. Society creates law by developing and
applying certain propositions conceived as reasonable and just. In this
respect it is not reason as given by Providence and not reason given once
for all by human nature, but reason conceived by public opinion and public
morality at a particular time." "The Juridical Nature of the State," Mich.
Law Rev., XXXIII (December, 1924), 138-142.
59 Duguit, Traité de droit constitutionnel, vol. I, chap. 5.
60. A Grammar of Politics (New Haven, 1925), pp. 39, 40.
61. See especially op. cit., chaps. 2 and 3.
62. "The Foundations of a Theory of Rights," Yale Law Jour., XXXIV
(November, 1924), 64.
63. Ibid., p. 67. "As a general conclusion," Vinogradoff asserts, "it may be
said that the will of the state is not the one factor in building up Right
and Law in human society. There is a second factor of equal importance --
the consciousness of men as to their rights. In practice Law appears as a
shifting compromise between these two factors." Ibid., p. 69. At another
time, he defends the main proposition of Duguit's political philosophy in
these words: "The attempt to define the nature of the state in juridical
terms is not a quibble of the lawyers. It is an obvious consequence of the
view that state and government in a civilized country, in spite of their
might have to conform to a rule of law, and that the more closely their
functions are subjected to the application of ordinary legal rules and
methods, the better will be the guarantees against oppression, corruption
and arbitrary measures." Historical Jurisprudence, I, 92.
64. Esmein, Droit constitutionnel (Barthélemy's ed., 1915), pp. 29, 30; also
Duguit, "The Law and the State," Harv. Law Rev., XXXI, 38.
An exponent of the theory that the concept of sovereignty should be
abandoned is Charles Benoist. For a summary of his views see Duguit, "The
Law and the State," op. cit., pp. 171 ff. Benoist became the advocate of a
measure to establish in France a supreme court whose duty it should be to
uphold the constitution and to prevent violations thereof by the legislative
and executive powers. Journal officiel, documents parlementaires, Chambre
1903, session ordinaire, pp. 95, 99.
65. N. Politis, "Les limitations de la souveraineté," Revue de Paris, XXXIII
(March, 1926), 7. Politis is an advocate of the views espoused by Duguit. He
also regards the state as bound by rules of law.
66. Ibid., p. 9.
67. N. Politis, "Le problème des limitations de la souveraineté et la
théorie de l'abus des droits dans les rapports intemationaux," Académie de
droit international, VI (1925), 1-121; also Goicochea, El problema de las
limitaciones de la soberanía en el derecho público contemporáneo (Madrid,
1923).
68. Collier v. Frierson, 24 Ala. 100 (1854), holding that the procedure
defined in the constitution not having been strictly followed, an amendment
approved by the people was invalid. Cf. W. F. Dodd, "Amending the Federal
Constitution," Yale Law Jour., XXX (February, 1921), 321.
69. Story on the Constitution (5th ed by Cooley), I, 223.
70. T. M. Cooley, "Power to Amend the Federal Constitution," Michigan Law
Journal (April, 1893). For Cooley's comments on natural rights see ibid.
(June, 1894).
71. State ex. rel. Halliburton v. Roach, 230 Mo. 408, 130 S. W. 689 (1910),
initiative petition to submit to the people an amendment to the state
constitution was held not to be an amendment but a statutory enactment. The
court passed upon the legal sufficiency of a petition to amend the
constitution. See dissent of Justice Woodson.
72. See Judge M. F. Morris, "The Fifteenth Amendment to the Federal
Constitution," North American Review, CLXXXIX (January, 1909), 82. In the
opinion of Judge Morris a distinction must be made between an addition and
an amendment to the Constitution. An addition, he suggests, requires the
unanimous consent of the states. Ibid., p. 85.
73. Justin Dupratt White, "Is There an Eighteenth Amendment?" Cornell Law
Quarterly, V (January, 1920), 113.
Mr. White contends that, on the general theories assumed as a basis for the
American system of government, intra-state prohibition cannot be the subject
of a valid constitutional amendment, that the consent of the people of all
of the states is necessary for such a change, or that such consent must be
given through conventions called for this purpose in the states. Certain
amendments such as those seeking to reorganize state governments or to
interfere with their vital powers are regarded as improper. All of the
amendments to the federal Constitution prior to the Eighteenth are thought
to be "assertive of those fundamental rights which are the foundation of a
republican form of government." The dictum of Chief Justice Chase in Texas
v. White, 7 Wall. 700, 725 (1868), that "the Constitution in all of its
provisions looks to an indestructible union of indestructible states" is
taken to mean that the federal character of the Union cannot be changed
except by revolution.
74. Cf. Briefs in the case of Rhode Island v. Palmer, pp. 29, 66, and in the
Kentucky Distilleries and Warehouse Co. v. Gregory, 41, and Dodd, op. cit.,
pp. 330 ff.
75. Brief in case of Feigenspan v. Bodine, p. 64. For argument favoring
limitations on the federal amending power see George Ticknor Curtis,
Constitutional History of the United States, II, 160. See George D. Skinner,
"Intrinsic Limitations on the Power of Constitutional Amendment," Mich. Law
Rev., XVIII (January, 1920), 213. Mr. Skinner insists that the Ninth and
Tenth Amendments are unamendable -- that "the essential form and character
of the government being determined by the location and distribution of
powers cannot be changed." Also W. L. Marbury, "The Limitations upon the
Amending Power," Harv. Law Rev., XXXIII (December, 1919), 223. Mr. Marbury
claims that the power to amend does not include the power to destroy the
Constitution nor does it include the power to enact ordinary legislation.
William L. Frierson replied to Mr. Marbury, Harv. Law Rev., XXXIII (March,
1920), 659.
76. E. V. Abbot, "Inalienable Rights and the Eighteenth Amendment," Col. Law
Rev., XX (February, 1920), 183 ff. See also Henry Wynans Jessup, The Bill of
Rights and its Destruction by Alleged Due Process of Law (Chicago, 1927).
77. For the generally accepted theory of American lawyers, see D. O.
McGovney, "Is the Eighteenth Amendment Void because of its Contents?" Col.
Law Rev., XX (May, 1920), 449.
78. See People v. Western Union Co., 70 Col. 90 (1921), and People v. Marx,
70 Col. 100 (1921), for an interesting application of the limits on the
power of the people to amend state constitutions A defence of our natural
and inherent rights for whose security and preservation our government was
instituted, is made by Max Schoetz, "Natural and Inherent Rights protected
by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments of the Constitution of the United
States," Marquette Law Review, VII (1922-23), 154.
79. A bill of rights, Jefferson observed, "is what the people are entitled
to against every government on earth, general or particular." Letter to
Madison. Dec. 20, 1781.
80. "The whole American political and social system is based on industrial
property right, far more completely than has ever been the case in any
European country." A. T. Hadley, Undercurrents in American Politics (New
Haven, 1915), p. 33. See especially the chapter in this volume on "The
Constitutional Position of the Property Owner."
81. Traité de droit constitutionnel, 1, 16. "It is above all in the
atmosphere of American life," says Mr. Laski, "that the broad accuracy of M.
Duguit's interpretation finds its most striking evidence. The whole
background of American constitutionalism is a belief in the supremacy of
reason." "A Note on M. Duguit," Harv. Law Rev. XXXI (November, 1917), 192.
82. Charmont, La Renaissance du droit naturel and Modern French Legal
Philosophy in Modern Legal Philosophy Series, pp. 106 ff.
83. The Modern Idea of the State, chap. 3.
84. "The test of reasonableness is, of course, one that it is seldom easy
to apply in a court of law. For it always raises issues which in their
nature are ultimately questions of opinion, and it tempts the judge to
believe that he is simply finding the law when in fact he is really testing
and rejecting other men's views by the light of his own. In arriving at the
meaning of this conception, it is therefore urgent for the judge to be
certain that he has surveyed the whole ground." Harold J. Laski, "Judicial
Review of Social Policy in England: A Study of Roberts v. Hopwood et al."
Harv. Law Rev., XXXIX (May, 1926), 832, 842. See (1925) A. C. 578.
"Reasonableness then means not a view arrived at by men who, having taken
steps to inform themselves of the facts relevant to a decision, arrive at a
considered view, but what the courts think they should have come to hold;
and they (local councils) will have to pay out of their personal fortune for
acting upon a faith different from that of the House of Lords." Ibid., p.
845.
85. "'Objective law,' 'social solidarity,' man's 'sense of right,' like
'natural law' which has dominated men's thinking and molded legislative and
judge-made law, are value-standards which embody an implicit dogmatism
transcending experience and expressing both an ideal and the quest for and
supposed need of perfection and the absolute." Borchard, Yale Law Jour.,
XXXVI, 1091.
86. Pound, "The Administrative Application of Legal Standards," Amer. Bar
Assn. Reports, XLIV, 445.
87. Steiff v. Bing, 215 Fed. 204, 206 (1914).
88. Pound, Law and Morals (2d ed.,), pp. 90, 91; Pollock, Essays in the Law,
p. 47.
89. T. V. Smith, "Notes on the American Doctrine of Equality," International
Journal of Ethics, XXXV, 164, 377; XXXVI, 31.
90. Cf. Cardozo, op. cit., p. 167.
91. "Implicit in every decision where the question is, so to speak, at
large," says Justice Cardozo, "is a philosophy of the origin and aim of
law, -- the philosophy which, however veiled, is in truth the final arbiter
... neither lawyer nor judge, pressing forward along one line or retreating
along another, is conscious at all times that it is philosophy which is
impelling him to the front or driving him to the rear." It is in a
situation of this kind that "the personality of the judge, his taste, his
training or his bent of mind, may prove the controlling factor." Harv. Law
Rev., XXXVII (1923), 282; see also The Nature of the Judicial Process, pp.
71, 90.
92. "The jurists who believe in natural law seem to me to be in that naïve
state of mind that accepts what has been familiar and accepted by them and
their neighbors as something that must be accepted by all men everywhere."
Holmes, Collected Legal Papers (New York, 1920), p. 312. "Men in general are
inclined to regard the habitual and the simple as identical with the
necessary, and the natural." N. M. Korkunov, General Theory of Law, trans.
by W. G. Hastings, p. 135.
93. Collected Legal Papers, p. 159. Justice Holmes finds that the jurists'
search for criteria of universal validity usually under the guise of
natural law is the result of a demand for the superlative which is common to
all men. Ibid., p. 310.
94. "Does not the interpretation of the will of the legislature," inquires
Geny, "imply an incessant comparison of the formulae or principles which
express an ideal of justice and of reason, -- formulae which are outside of
and above the law. These superior principles of an immanent right [droit]
play a decisive role in the interpretation of positive laws." Méthode
d'interprétation et sources en droit privé positif (2d ed., Paris, 1919), I,
43 ff.
95. "The sanctification of ready-made antecedent universal principles as
methods of thinking is the chief obstacle to the kind of thinking which is
the indispensable prerequisite of steady, secure and intelligent social
reforms in general and social advance by means of law in particular." John
Dewey, "Logical Method and Law," Corn. Law Quar., X (December, 1924), 27.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
THE bibliography comprises a selected list of books and articles which are
regarded of interest in the evolution of ideas relating to natural law.[1]
As the consideration of natural law in many legal treatises is inseparable
from the treatment of the philosophy of law, certain works are included
which deal primarily with legal philosophy and incidentally consider natural
law. Similarly natural law and the law of nations since the time of Grotius
frequently have been treated together, and titles are included in which
consideration of natural law is incidental to an analysis of international
law. The discussion or exposition of natural law is to be found in so many
treatises and under such diverse headings that it is quite impossible to
give a complete and comprehensive list of titles relating to the subject. As
a rule works which deal primarily with natural laws in the physical sense or
with ethics and morality as separated from legal ideas are excluded. Many of
the works on natural law appeared in numerous reprints and were translated
into foreign languages. Obviously these reprints and translations could not
be included in a selected bibliography.
I am indebted to Mr. John T. Vance, Law Librarian of the Library of Congress
for the privilege of checking a list of about six hundred titles relating to
natural law in its varied ramifications and to the Librarians of the Harvard
Law Library for assistance in using the incomparable resources of that
library. For a guide to foreign titles I received aid from the Catalogue de
la Bibliothèque du Palais de Paix,The Hague, 1916 and 1922.
Abbot, Everett V. Justice and the modern law. Boston and New York, 1913.
-- "Inalienable rights and the eighteenth amendment," Columbia Law Review,
XX (February, 1920), 183.
Abicht, Johann Heinrich. Kurze darstellung des natur- und völkerrechts zum
gebrauch bei vorlesungen. Bayreuth, 1795.
-- Neues system eines aus der menschheit entwickelten naturrechts. Erlangen,
1792.
Achenwall, Gottfried. Prolegomena ius naturae. Göttingen, 1758-74.
Acollas, Émile. Introduction à l'étude du droit. 1885.
-- L'idée du droit. 2d ed. 1889.
Acquisto, B. d'. Corso di diritto naturale o filosofia del diritto. 2a. ed.
Palermo, 1856.
Affolter, A. Naturgesetze und rechtgesetze. München, 1904.
-- "Cathrein: Recht, naturrecht und positives recht" (rezension),
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Ahrens, Henri. Cours de droit naturel, ou de philosophie du droit complété
dans les principales matières, par des aperçus historiques et politiques.
Paris, 1838. 8e éd. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1892.
-- Naturrecht oder philosophie des rechts und des staates, auf dem grunde
des ethischen zusammenhanges von recht und kultur. óte, durchaus neu
bearbeitete, durch die staatslehre und die principien des völker rechts
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Alengry, Franck, ed. La déclaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen.
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Aquilanti, F. Filosofia del diritto. Roma, 1916.
(Aquinas, St. Thomas). Institutiones juris naturalis seu philosophiae
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1906.
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Audisio, Gulielmus. Iuris naturae et gentium privati et publici fundamenta.
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Barbeyrac (J.). Éléments du droit naturel, par Burlamaqui; et devoirs de
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1709.
Baroli, Pietro. Diritto naturale privato e pubblico. Cremona, 1837.
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Becker, Carl. The Declaration of Independence: A study in the history of
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Beneke, F. E. Grundlinien des naturrechts, der politik und der philosophie.
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Bentham, Jeremy. Principles of morals and legislation. 1780.
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Beudant, Charles. Le droit individuel et l'état; introduction à l'étude du
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1. For a bibliography of works on natural law to the middle of the
nineteenth century, consult Hermann Theoderick Schletter, Handbuch der
juristischen literatur (Grimma, 1843), pp. 315 ff.
TABLE OF CASES
Adair v. United States, 208 U. S. 161, 144, 163.
Adkins v. Children's Hospital, 261 U. S. 525, 144, 162, 181, 185-189, 203.
Airway Electric Appliance Corporation v. Day, 266 U. S. 71, 232.
Allen v. Jay, 60 Me. 124, 131.
Allgeyer v. Louisiana, 165 U. S. 578, 163, 168.
American Ry. Express Co. v. F. S. Royster Guano Co., 273 U. S. 274, 176.
Ames v. Union Pac. Ry. Co., 64 Fed. 165, 156.
Arndt v. Griggs, 134 U. S. 316, 179.
Atkin v. Kansas, 191 U. S. 207, 179.
Ballard v. Hunter, 204 U. S. 241, 175.
Bank of Columbia v. Okley, 4 Wheat. 235, 117, 167.
Bank of State v. Cooper, 2 Yerg. (Tenn.) 599, 85, 112, 113, 167, 174.
Bankhead v. Brown, 25 Ia. 540, 125.
Banton v. Belt Line Ry., 268 U. S. 413, 233.
Barbier v. Connolly, 113 U. S. 27, 148, 161, 168, 169, 178.
Barbour v. Louisville Board of Trade, 82 Ky. 645, 167.
Barclay and Co. v. Edwards, 267 U. S. 442, 233.
Barron v. Baltimore, 7 Pet. 243, 193.
Bartemeyer v. Iowa, 18 Wall. 129, 148, 200, 214.
Bass, Ratcliff and Gretton Ltd. v. State Tax Commission, 266 U. S. 271, 232.
Bayard v. Singleton, 1 Martin 42, 111.
Bedford v. Shilling, 4 Serg. & R. (Pa.) 400, 95.
Beebe v. State, 6 Ind. 501, 101.
Benson v. Mayor, 10 Barb. 223, 174.
Bertholf v. O'Reilly, 74 N. Y. 516, 162, 178.
Block v. Hirsch, 256 U. S. 135, 171.
Bonham's Case, 8 Co. Rep. 107a, 8 Co. 113b and Brownl., 255, 33, 35.
Bosley v. McLaughlin, 236 U. S. 385, 187.
Bowman v. Middleton, 1 Bay (S. Ca.) 252, 111.
Braceville Coal Co. v. People, 147 Ill. 66, 162, 163.
Bradford Corporation v. Ferrand (1902), 2 Ch. 655, 42.
Bradwell v. State, 16 Wall. 130, 148.
Buchanan v. Rucker, 1 Camp. 63, 41.
Budd v. New York, 143 U. S. 517, 155.
Bunting v. Oregon, 243 U. S. 426, 187.
Bums Baking Company v. Bryan, 264 U. S. 504, 190, 191.
Butchers' Union Co. v. Crescent City Co., 111 U. S. 746, 161, 168.
Calder v. Bull, 3 Dallas, 386, 86-88, 110, 138, 173.
Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132, 233.
Chester v. Bateson (1920), 1 K. B. 829, 41.
Chicago, Burlington & Quincy R. R. Co. v. McGuire, 219 U. S. 549, 179.
Chicago, Burlington & Quincy R. R. Co. v. Chicago, 166 U. S. 226, 134, 147,
148, 164, 169.
Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Co. v. Minnesota, 134 U. S. 418, 155,
168, 204.
Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Ry. Co. v. Arkansas, 219 U. S. 453, 169.
City of Bridgeport v. Housatonic Railroad Co., 15 Conn. 475, 120.
City of London v. Wood, 12 Modern 669, 34.
Coates v. Mayor of the City of New York, 7 Cow. 585, 131.
Cochran v. Van Surlay, 20 Wend. 364, 130.
Collier v. Frierson, 24 Ala. 100, 337.
Commissioners of Leavenworth Co. v. Miller, 7 Kan. 479, 124.
Commonwealth v. Perry, 155 Mass. 117, 174, 175.
Concord R. R. v. Greely, 17 N. H. 47, 114.
Connolly v. Union Sewer Pipe Co., 184 U. S. 540, 170.
Cook v. Ottawa Univ., 14 Kan. 418, 128.
Coppage v. Kansas, 236 U. S. 1, 163.
Corfield v. Coryell, 4 Wash. C. C. 371, Fed. Cas. No. 3230, 173.
Couch v. Jeffries, 4 Burrows 2460, 89.
County of San Mateo v. Southern Pacific Ry. Co., 13 Fed. 722, 184.
Crawley v. Isaacs, 16 L. T. R. 529, 42.
Cummings v. Missouri, 4 Wall. 277, 164, 174.
Curtis Admr. v. Whipple, 24 Wis. 350, 127.
Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 4 Wheat. 518, 91, 92, 112, 116, 174.
Dash v. Van Kleek, 7 Johns (N. Y.) 477, 92, 110.
Davidson v. New Orleans, 96 U. S. 97, 147, 153, 164, 168.
Day v. Savadge, Hobart 85, 34.
Denny v. Mattoon, 84 Mass. 361, 99.
Detroit v. Detroit and Howell P. R. Co., 43 Mich. 140, 133.
Dobbins v. Los Angeles, 195 U. S. 223, 179.
Dominion Hotel v. Arizona, 249 U. S. 265, 207.
Dow v. Beidleman, 125 U. S. 680, 155.
Dred Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. 393, 178.
Dubuque County v. Dubuque and Pacific Ry. Co., 4 Greene (Ia.) 1, 124, 125,
127.
Dunn v. City Council of Charleston, Harper's Law Repts. 189, 132, 167.
Eakin v. Raub, 12 Serg. & R. 330, 81, 126.
Elliott's Executor v. Lyell, 3 Call. 234, 90.
Embury v. Conner, 3 N. Y. 511, 132.
Erie Railroad Co. v. Williams, 233 U. S. 685, 187.
Erwin's Appeal, 16 Pa. St. 256, 115.
Ex parte Smith, 223 Pac. 971, 188.
Ex parte Wall., 107 U. S. 265, 168, 200.
Fairmont Creamery Co. v. Minnesota, 274 U. S. 1, 193.
Fallbrook Irrigation District v. Bradley, 164 U. S. 112, 164.
Fisher v. McGirr, 1 Gray (Mass.) 101.
Fletcher v. Peck, 6 Cranch 87, 90.
Fort Smith Light and Traction Co. v. Bourland, 267 U. S. 330, 232.
Franklin v. South Carolina, 218 U. S. 161, 176.
Freeland v. Hastings, 10 Allen (Mass.) 570, 127.
Freeman v. Jeffries, L. R. 4 Ex. 189, 42.
French v. Barber Asphalt Pav. Co., 181 U. S. 324, 153.
Frisbie v. United States, 157 U. S. 160, 162.
Gardner v. Village of Newburgh, 2 Johns Ch. 162, 92, 131.
Gast Realty Co. v. Schneider Granite Co., 240 U. S. 55, 172.
Gelpeke v. City of Dubuque, 1 Wall. 175, 124, 127.
Gitlow v. New York, 268 U. S. 652, 175, 193, 234.
Godcharles v. Wigeman, 113 Pa. St. 431, 162.
Goddard v. Jacksonville, 15 Ill. 589, 101.
Goddin v. Crump, etc., 8 Leigh (Va.) 120, 120.
Goshen v. Stonington, 4 Conn. 209, 87, 94, 110, 120.
Granger Cases, 94 U. S. 155, 148, 149, 227.
Guilford v. Supervisors, 18 Barb. 615, 130.
Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fé Railway v. Ellis, 165 U. S. 150, 170.
Ham v. McClaws, 1 Bay (S, Ca.) 93, 89.
Hanson v. Vernon, 27 Ia. 28, 125, 126, 130.
Herlihy v. Donohue, 52 Mont. 601, 181.
Hoke v. Henderson, 4 Dev. 1, or 15 N. Ca. 1, 95, 112, 115.
Holden v. Hardy, 169 U. S. 366, 144, 174, 186.
Holden v. James, 11 Mass. 396, 111, 169.
Holmes v. Holmes, 4 Barb. 295, 101.
Hood v. Lynn, 1 Allen (Mass.) 103, 120.
Hurtado v. California, 110 U. S. 516, 144, 148, 168, 175.
In re Dorsey, 7 Porter (Ala.) 293, 113.
In re House Bill, 21 Colo. Rep. 27, 162.
In re Jacobs, 98 N. Y. 98, 178.
In re Kemmler, 136 U. S. 436, 170, 194.
In re Leach, 134 Ind. 665, 164.
In re Opinion of Justices, 58 Me. 590, 121, 128, 131.
Interstate Commerce Comm. v. Louisville & Nashville R. R. Co., 227 U. S. 88,
172.
Ives v. South Buffalo Ry. Co., 201 N. Y. 271, 211.
Jacobsen v. Massachusetts, 197 U. S. 11, 179.
Jeffers v. Fair, 33 Ga. 347, 116.
Johnson v. Clark (1908), 1 Ch. 303, 42.
Johnson v. County of Stark, 24 Ill. 75, 123.
Jones' Heirs v. Perry, 10 Yerg. (Tenn.) 59, 95, 112.
Kansas City Southern Ry. Co., et al. v. Road Improvement Dist., 266 U. S.
379, 232.
Kentucky Distilleries and Warehouse Co. v. Gregory, 253 U. S. 350, 339.
Kirtland v. Hotchkiss, 100 U. S. 491, 153.
Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Ry. Co. v. Smith, 173 U. S. 684, 179.
Lawson v. Milwaukee and Northern Railway Co., 30 Wis. 597, 124, 127.
Lawton v. Steele, 152 U. S. 133, 168.
Lebanon School District v. Lebanon Female Seminary, 12 Atl. 857, 133.
Leeper v. Texas, 139 U. S. 462, 169.
Legal Tender Cases, 12 Wall. 457, 227.
Levy Leasing Co. v. Siegel, 258 U. S. 242, 171.
License Tax Cases, 5 Wall. 462, 174.
Lincoln v. Smith, 27 Vt. 328, 101.
Linder v. United States, 268 U. S. 5, 233.
Lindsley v. Natural Carbonic Gas Co., 220 U. S. 62, 191.
Loan Association v. Topeka, 20 Wall. 655, 130, 153, 174.
Local Government Board v. Arlidge (1913), 1 K. B. 463; (1914), 1 K. B. 160;
(1915), A. C. 120, 41.
Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S. 45, 168, 171, 178, 185, 185, 187, 191, 203.
Lowell v. Boston, 111 Mass. 454, 131.
McClure v. Owen, 26 Ia. 243, 125.
McCray v. United States, 195 U. S. 27, 221.
Madisonville Traction Co. v. St. Barnard Mining Co., 196 U. S. 239, 174.
Maple Flooring Manufacturers' Association v. United States, 268 U. S. 563,
233.
Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 81, 90.
Master v. Miller, 4 T. R. 320, 42.
Mather v. City of Ottawa, 114, Ill. 659, 131.
Matter of Albany Street, 11 Wend. 149, 132.
Maxwell v. Dow, 176 U. S. 581, 175.
Mayo v. Wilson, 1 N. H. 53, 106.
Mead v. Acton, 139 Mass. 341, 127, 131.
Merrill v. Sherbume, 1 N. H. 199, 101.
Michigan Public Utilities Commission v. Duke, 266 U. S. 570, 232.
Millett v. People, 117 Ill. 294, 162.
Minneapolis St. Louis R. R. Co. v. Beckwith, 129 U. S. 26, 157, 183.
Minnesota v. Barber, 136 U. S. 313, 179.
Minor v. Happersett, 21 Wall. 162, 194.
Mirehouse v. Rennell, 1 Cl. & F. 527, 42.
Missouri Pacific Railway Co. v. Humes, 115 U. S. 512, 147, 214.
Missouri Pacific Railway Co. v. Nebraska, 164 U. S. 403, 133, 147.
Missouri Pacific Railroad Co. v. Road Dist., 266 U. S. 187, 232.
Monongahela Bridge Co. v. United States, 216 U. S. 177, 176, 211.
Monongahela Navigation Co. v. United States, 148 U. S. 312, 135, 156, 160,
176.
Moore v. Dempsey, 261 U. S. 86, 218.
Morford v. Unger, 8 Ia. 82, 125.
Moses v. Macferlen, 2 Burr. 1005, 42.
Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623, 179, 214.
Muller v. Oregon, 208 U. S. 412, 187.
Munn v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113, 148, 202, 227.
Murdock v. Memphis, 20 Wall. 590, 146.
Murray's Lessee v. Hoboken Land and Improvement Co., 18 How. 272, 105, 143.
National Waterworks Co. v. Kansas City, 62 Fed. 853, 156.
Needier v. Bishop of Winchester, Hob. 220.
Noble State Bank v. Haskell, 219 U. S. 104, 328.
Norman v. Heist, 5 W. & S. 171, 167.
North Laramie Land Co. v. Hoffman, 268 U. S. 276, 233.
Northern Securities Co. v. United States, 193 U. S. 197, 195.
Norwood v. Baker, 172 U. S. 269, 153, 201.
Nunnemacher v. State, 129 Wis. 190, 174, 211.
Ochsenbein v. Papelier, L. R. 8 Ch. 695, 42.
Officer v. Young, 5 Yerg. (Tenn.) 320, 112.
Ogden v. Saunders, 12 Wheat. 213, 90.
Ohio Utilities Co. v. Public Utilities Commission, 267 U. S. 359, 233.
Opinion of Justices, 211 Mass. 624, 131.
Patterson v. Colorado, 205 U. S. 454, 175, 193.
Patterson v. The Eudora, 190 U. S. 169, 186.
Pavesich v. Life Ins. Co., 122 Ga. 190, 211.
Pembina Mining Co. v. Pennsylvania, 125 U. S. 181, 157.
Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U. S. 714, 147, 160.
Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U. S. 393, 171.
People v. Batchellor, 53 N. Y. 128, 128.
People v. Brooklyn, 4 N. Y. 419, 123.
People v. Charles Schweinler Press, 214 N. Y. 395, 162.
People v. Coler, 166 N. Y. 1, 211.
People v. Gallagher, 3 Gibbs. (Mich.) 244, 101.
People v. Gillson, 109 N. Y. 389, 178, 203.
People v. Hurlbut, 24 Mich. 44, 174.
People v. La Fetra, 230 N. Y. 429, 171.
People v. Marx, 99 N. Y. 377, 175, 178.
People v. Max, 70 Colo. 100, 341.
People v. O'Brien, 111 N. Y. 1, 133.
People v. Salem, 20 Mich. 452, 126, 128, 130.
People v. Smith, 21 N. Y. 595, 123.
People v. State Treasurer, 23 Mich. 499, 129.
People v. Western Union Co., 70 Colo. 90, 341.
People v. Williams, 189 N. Y. 131, 162.
Pierce v. Society of the Sisters, 268 U. S. 510, 233.
Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U. S. 537, 179.
Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co., 157 U. S. 429, 149, 150.
Powell v. Pennsylvania, 127 U. S. 678, 148.
Prudential Insurance Co. v. Cheek, 259 U. S. 530, 193.
Pumpelly v. Green Bay Co., 13 Wall. 166, 85, 134.
Railroad Co. v. County of Otoe, 16 Wall. 667, 124.
Reagan v. Farmers' Loan and Trust Co., 154 U. S. 362, 155, 178.
Regents of the University of Maryland v. Williams, 9 G. & J. 365, 87, 95,
174.
Rex v. Local Government Board (1914), 1 K. B. 160, 41.
Rhode Island v. Palmer, 253 U. S. 350, 339.
Rice v. Parkman, 16 Mass. 326, 95, 99.
Riley v. Massachusetts, 232 U. S. 671, 187.
Ritchie v. People, 155 Ill. 98, 162.
Ritchie v. Wayman, 244 Ill. 509, 162.
Rogers v. Peck, 199 U. S. 425, 175.
Ruggles v. Illinois, 108 U. S. 526, 155.
St. Louis v. The Ferry Co., 11 Wall. 423, 174.
San Mateo County v. Southern Pacific Ry. Co., 13 Fed. 722, 184.
Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Co., 118 U. S. 394, 157.
Santa Clara Railroad Tax Case, 9 Sawyer, 165, 157.
Schibsby v. Westenholz, L. R. 6 Q. B. 155, 41.
Schmitt v. F. W. Cook Brewing Co., 187 Ind. 623, 101.
Scott v. McNeal, 154 U. S. 34, 160, 167.
Scott v. Scott (1913), C. 417, 41.
Sears v. Cottrell, 5 Mich. 250, 167.
Sharpless v. Mayor of Philadelphia, 21 Pa. St. 147, 124, 126, 127, 206.
Shields v. Ohio, 95 U. S. 319, 158.
Silberschein v. United States, 266 U. S. 221, 232.
Sill v. Coming, 15 N. Y. 297, 114.
Simon v. Southern Ry. Co., 236 U. S. 115, 172.
Sinking Fund Cases, 99 U. S. 700, 200.
Sioux City Bridge v. Dakota County, 260 U. S. 441, 172.
Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. 36, 145, 146, 149, 160, 175, 200, 204, 214.
Smyth v. Ames, 169 U. S. 466, 155, 156.
Sohier v. Massachusetts General Hospital, 3 Cush. 483, 99.
Southern Railway Co. v. Greene, 216 U. S. 400, 157, 170.
Speer v. School Directors, etc. of Blairsville, 50 Pa. St. 150, 127.
Spring Valley Water Works v. Schottler, 110 U. S. 347, 154.
Standard Oil Co. v. United States, 221 U. S. 1, 195.
State v. — , 1 Hay. (N. Ca.) 28, 106, 167.
State v. Barker, 116 Ia. 96, 174.
State v. Doherty, 60 Me. 504, 113.
State v. Evans, 3 Ill. 208, 133.
State v. Goodwill, 33 W. Va. 179, 162.
State v. Keeran, 5 R. I. 497, 101.
State v. Loomis, 115 Mo. 307, 162.
State v. Moores, 55 Neb. 480, 84.
State v. Nemaha County, 7 Kan. 542, 124, 139.
State v. Norton, 5 Ohio N. P. R. 183, 162.
State v. Noyes, 10 Foster (N. H.) 279, 101.
State v. Paul, 5 R. I. 185, 101.
State v. Simons, 2 Spears 761, 114.
State v. Tappan, 29 Wis. 664, 127.
State, etc. v. Wapello Co., 13 Ia. 388, 125.
State ex rel. Halliburton v. Roach, 230 Mo. 408, 338.
Stebbins and Hurley v. Riley, 268 U. S. 137, 233.
Stein v. Mayor, Aldermen, etc. of Mobile, 24 Ala. 591, 124.
Stewart v. Supervisors of Polk Co., 30 Ia. 9, 126, 130.
Stone v. Farmers' Loan and Trust Co., 116 U. S. 307, 154, 178
Stone v. Wisconsin, 94 U. S. 181, 149.
Stuart v. Palmer, 74 N. Y. 183, 168. Symsbury Case, Kirby (Conn.) 444, 89.
Talbot v. Dent, 9 B. Mon. (Ky.) 526, 120.
Taylor v. Beckham, 178 U. S. 548, 201.
Taylor v. Porter, 4 Hill 140, 100, 114, 115.
Taylor v. Thompson, 42 Ill. 9, 127.
Terrett v. Taylor, 9 Cranch 43, 94, 173.
Thomas v. City of Port Huron, 27 Mich. 320, 129.
Thomas v. Leland, 24 Wend. 65, 130.
Texas v. White, 7 Wall. 700, 338.
Town of Guilford v. Supervisors of Chenango Co., 13 N. Y. 143, 124.
Township of Pine Grove v. Talcott, 19 Wall. 666, 124, 129.
Tregor's Case, Y. B. Pasch, 8 Edw. Ill.; Fitzherbert, Annuities 41, 34.
Truax v. Corrigan, 257 U. S. 312, 170, 176.
Trustees of the University of North Carolina v. Foy, 2 Hay (N. Ca.) 310, 89,
106, 110.
Turpin v. Lemon, 187 U. S. 51, 179.
Turpin v. Locket, 6 Call. 113, 90.
Twining v. New Jersey, 211 U. S. 78, 170, 176, 194.
Tyson and Bro. United Theatre Ticket Offices v. Banton, 273 U. S. 418, 191,
192.
Tyson v. School Directors of Halifax Township, 51 Pa. St. 9, 127.
United States v. American Tobacco Co., 221 U. S. 106, 195.
United States v. Cohen Grocery Co., 255 U. S. 81, 144.
United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542, 146, 148, 175, 194.
United States v. Harris, 106 U. S. 629, 144.
United States v. Trans-Missouri Freight Association, 166 U. S. 290, 195.
United States v. Trenton Potteries Co., 273 U. S. 392, 195.
Untermeyer v. Anderson, 276 U. S. 440, 144.
Van Home's Lessee v. Dorrance, 2 Dall. 304, 89.
Van Zandt v. Waddell, 2 Yerg. (Tenn.) 260, 112.
Varick v. Smith, 5 Paige 137, 132.
Wales v. Stetson, 2 Mass. 143, 91.
Walker v. Sauvinet, 92 U. S. 90, 149.
Wally's Heirs v. Kennedy, 2 Yerg. (Tenn.) 554, 112.
Ward v. Bamard, 1 Aikens (Vt.) 120, 112.
Waters-Pierce Oil Co. v. Texas, 212 U. S. 86, 176.
Watson v. Maryland, 218 U. S. 173, 175.
Weismer v. Village of Douglas, 64 N. Y. 92, 130.
Welch v. Wadsworth, 30 Conn. 149, 87, 120.
Wells v. City of Weston, 22 Mo. 385, 125.
West v. Louisiana, 194 U. S. 258, 176.
Wheeler's Appeal from Probate, 45 Conn. 306, 87.
White v. White, 5 Barb. 474, 100, 115, 167.
Whiting v. Sheboygan and Fond du Lac Railroad Co., 25 Wis. 167, 126.
Whitney v. California, 274 U. S. 357, 191, 194.
Wilkinson v. Leland, 2 Pet. 627, 94, 173.
Wisconsin, Minnesota & Pacific R. R. Co. v. Jacobsen, 179 U. S. 287, 179.
Wolff Co. v. Industrial Court, 262 U. S. 522, 192.
Work v. Rives, 267 U. S. 175, 232.
Wynehamer v. State of New York, 13 N. Y. 378, 100, 115, 178.
Yee Hem v. United States, 268 U. S. 178, 233.
Yeiser v. Dysart, 267 U. S. 540, 233.
Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U. S. 356, 144, 169, 178.
Zylstra v. Corporation of Charleston, 1 Bay 382, 111.
INDEX
Abbot, E. V., on natural rights, 339-340
Adams, John, on natural rights, 54
Adams, Samuel, on natural rights, 54
Ahrens, Heinrich, on natural law, 239-240
Althusius, on distinction between king and tyrant, 16
Anglo-Americans, legal points of view of, 44-47
Appendix, on natural law phrases used by Supreme Court, 232-234
Aquinas, Thomas, on natural law, 13, 14, 278
Arbitrary acts, held void by courts, 166-172
Aristotle, on distinction between fundamental and ordinary laws, 6, 7;
dualism of, 6, 7, 23
Austin, John, opposition to natural rights, 71
Bacon, Sir Francis, on law of nature, 35
Baudry-Lacantinerie, G., on natural law, 320
Becker, Carl, on anti-natural rights' doctrine, 66
Bentham, on natural law doctrines, 68
Beudant, on natural rights, 243
Bill of rights, in British North America Act, 83
Bingham, John A., draft of due process of law clause by, 144
Blackstone, Sir William, on natural law in Commentaries, 38, 39, 56, 57
Blatchford, Justice, on judicial review of rate regulation, 155
Bodin, Jean, theory of sovereignty of, 20, 21, 60
Boistel, on natural law, 242, 243
Bossuet, advocate of force theory, 61
Bracton, use of Roman concepts of natural law, 32, 33
Bradley, Justice, on judicial review of rate regulation, 156, 157, 204
Brandeis, Justice, on rule of reason, 190, 191; on fundamental rights, 194
Brewer, Justice, on protection of property rights, 134, 135; on natural
justice, 176; conservative doctrines in Supreme Court decisions and, 201,
202; on duty of courts to protect property, 223
Brown, Justice, on Duguit's theories, 272
Brown, Ray A., on cases under due process clause, 184, 185
Butler, Justice, on rule of reason, 190
Canon law, natural law in, 13
Cardozo, Benjamin N., on natural law theories, 70; on use of natural law,
326; on modern law of nature, 329, 330
Carlyle, R. W. and A. J., on concept of jus naturale, 11, 13
Cathrein, Victor, on natural law, 286-288
Charmont, Joseph, on natural law, 258-260
Chase, Justice Salmon P., on immutable fundamental rights, 174
Chase, Justice Samuel, higher law ideas, 86, 87, 110, 138
Cicero, on law of nature, 9, 10
Clifford, Justice, on legislative supremacy, 153, 154
Coke, Sir Edward, on doctrine of superior principles of right and justice,
33, 56, 57; opinion in Bonham's Case, 33-35; on Magna Carta as fundamental
law, 37, 38; on due process of law, 107
Cole, Justice, on judicial review, 126
Collins, Charles W., cases under Fourteenth Amendment, 183
Comte, Auguste, on natural rights, 69
Conservatism, in Supreme Court decisions, 137-139
Constant, Benjamin, on limitations upon sovereignty, 238, 239
Constitutions, limits on power to amend, 336-342
Cooley, Thomas M., on meaning of due process of law, 116, 117; on implied
limitations on legislatures, 116n, 138; Constitutional Limitations cited,
116, 117, 118, 119; Law of Taxation cited, 117, 129; on superior law
principles, 118, 119; on public purpose as principle in taxation, 127-130;
on public purpose as requirement for exercise of eminent domain, 133; on
bills of rights, 171; on limits on amending power, 337
Corwin, Edward S., on judicial review in New York, 205, 206
Dalloz, summary of natural rights in, 240, 241
Declaration of Independence, natural rights' doctrine in, 54; Constitution
and, 201
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, 63-65
Demogue, R., on natural law, 260
Dewey, John, on immutable rules, 222, 223
Dicey, A. V., on judicial legislation, 224, 225; on supremacy of law, 226
Dickinson, Thomas, on recognition of rights by charters, 54, 55
Digest and Institutes, natural law in, 10, 11
Dillon, John F., on implied limits on legislatures, 125-127, 138; on
necessity of checks upon majority, 151
Due process of law, different meanings of, 104-107; in English law, 104,
105; in Massachusetts constitution, 105; in Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments,
106; applied by state justices, 108-116; concepts involved in, 113, 114;
economic conditions and, 119-122; reactionary tendencies and, 122-139;
Fourteenth Amendment and, 143-165; as applied to regulation of public
utilities, 154-159; general rule of reason and, 166-195; fundamental rights
and, 172-177; police regulations and, 177-182; extension of meaning of, 182,
185 Duguit, Léon, on theories of natural law, 260-273
Ehrlich, Eugen, on natural law, 248
Eminent domain, public purpose limitation for, 131-134; limitations on
exercise of, in foreign countries, 135, 136
Esmein, M., on natural rights, 335
Federalists, the, aims of, 96, 97; on limiting legislative activities, 97-99
Field, Justice, on interpretation of Fourteenth Amendment, 146, 148; on
fundamental rights, 160, 161; on inalienable rights, 174; conservative
doctrines in Supreme Court decisions and, 199, 200.
Fourteenth Amendment, due process of law and, 143-165; restricted
interpretation of, 145-149; change in interpretation of, due to economic and
political pressure, 149-154; summary of decisions under, for 1924, 234
French parlements, guardians of fundamental laws, 62, 63
Fundamental law, English doctrines of, 29-39
Fundamental rights, acts contravening, are void, 172-177
Gaius, on natural law, 10
Gavet, Gaston, on natural rights, 271
Geny, Francois, on Stammler's theories, 250; on natural law, 288-293
Gibson, Justice, on reasoning of Marshall, 81, 82
Gierke, Otto, on higher law theories, 244-246
Gray. Justice, on judicial review of rate regulation, 155
Grotius, Hugo, doctrines of natural law of, 18, 19; on state of nature, 51,
52; doctrines of, cited, 92
Guillemon, Pierre, on higher laws, 270- 271
Guizot, F. P., on higher law, 59
Haldane, Lord, on relation of moral ideas to law, 313, 314
Harlan, Justice, on requirement for compensation in eminent domain
proceedings, 133, 134; conservative doctrines in Supreme Court decisions
and, 200, 201
Hauriou, M., on superior law doctrines, 273, 274
Hegel, G. W. F., on natural rights, 69; theories of law of, 237, 238
Henry, Patrick, on natural rights, 54
Higher law theories, in mediaeval thought, 14, 15; in England, 29-48; as
basis for review of legislative acts by courts, 80-85; in recent Supreme
Court decisions, 185-193; limits on state sovereignty and, 331-336
Higher laws, as guide to legislators, 323-331
Hobbes, Thomas, distinction between ius naturale and lex naturalis, 21
Holdsworth, William E., on Magna Carta, 30; on equity and law of reason, 32;
on political functions exercised by courts, 33; on Coke's dicta in Bonham's
Case, 35; on supremacy of parliament, 35, 37, 38
Holland, J. G., on supremacy of parliament, 34n, 37, 38
Holmes, Justice, on conservative attitude of lawyers, 152; on due process of
law, 171; dissent in Minimum Wage Case, 187; on legislative supremacy, 192
Hosmer, Chief Justice, on protecting vested rights, 94, 95; on implied
limits on legislatures, 110
Hough, Justice, on litigation under due process of law, 153, 184
Houques-Fouciade, M., on natural law, 320
Ihering, Rudolf von, on higher law philosophy, 246, 247
Inalienable rights, American theories of, 52-56
International law, natural law theories in, 294-302
Isadore of Seville, on natural law, 12, 13
Jefferson, Thomas, use of natural rights' doctrine, 54, 57; natural rights'
theories of, discredited, 65
Jenks, Edward, on Magna Carta, 30
John of Salisbury, on distinction between king and tyrant, 16
Johnson, Justice, on higher law, 90, 91; on due process of law, 116, 117
Judicial review of legislation, rate regulation and, 154-160; conservative
doctrines and, 198-210; in New York, 205, 206; in Massachusetts, 205, 206
Kant, Immanuel, theories of law of, 237, 238
Kent, Chancellor, on implied limitations on legislatures, 92-94; on public
purpose requirement for eminent domain, 131
Kohler, Joseph, on natural law, 247
Krabbe, H., higher law doctrines of, 274-277
Krause, F., on natural law, 239
Laissez faire theories, checks on governmental powers and, 118;
individualism and, 121, 122; liberty of contract and, 162; arbitrary wage
payment interfered with economic, 186; doctrine of liberty of contract and,
189; Justice Peckham's defense of, 203
Lambert, Edouard, on judicial review in United States, 207, 208
Laski, Harold J., on natural rights, 334, 335
Laurent, on law of nature, 240, 241
Le Fur, Louis, on natural law, 297-300
Legislative supremacy, in state governments, 108, 109
Legislatures, purpose of implied limits on, 95-97
Liberty of contract, as phase of due process of law, 160-164
Lincoln, Abraham, on natural rights, 102
Locke, John, on law of nature, 22, 23; on arbitrary acts of government, 166
McIlwain, C. H., on fundamental laws in England, 29, 31
McKechnie, William S., on Magna Carta, 30, 37
Magna Carta, referred to as fundamental and immutable, 29, 30; law
interpreted according to maxims of, 85; "law of land" phrase in, 104, 105;
Fourteenth Amendment called American, 143
Maitland, F. W., on law of nature in development of equity, 32n
Marshall, John, on judicial review, 81, 82; conservative legal theories of,
196, 197
Mason, Justice, on natural rights, 114, 115
Michel, Henri, on natural rights, 243
Middle Ages, natural law in, 12-17
Miller, Justice, on implied limitations on legislatures, 130, 138, 153; on
interpretation of Fourteenth Amendment, 147; on immutable fundamental
rights, 174
Moody, Justice, on inalienable rights, 176
Mott, Rodney L., on due process of law, 107n, 108n
Natural law, Graeco-Roman concepts of, 4-12, 24-27; German current views on,
246-251; metaphysical and theological types of, 278-293; ethical concepts
and, 310-316; Dean Pound on types of, 311, 315; philosophical standards and,
316-323
Natural law concepts, denial of the application of, 75-77
Natural law ideas, types of, in ancient and mediaeval times, 24-27; in
English law, 43, 44; American, 57-59, 216-219
Natural law theories, ancient and mediaeval, 3-27; in English judicial
decisions, 39-43; in relation to natural rights, 49-52; American, 52-59;
French, 59-65; in American law, 77-80; return to, 99-103; due process of law
and, 104-139; economic and legal bases for, 117-122; judicial review of
legislative acts and, 196-234; purpose of, in American constitutional law,
210-216; American political and legal conservatism and, 210-232; continuance
of, in Europe, 237-244; German doctrine of a Rechtsstaat and, 244-251,
European, 302-306; objectives in, 309-336; main types of, 345-349
Natural rights, decline of theories of, 65-72; ideas on, in colonial times,
78-80
Nesbitt, James L., on due process of law, 180-181
Otis, James, on natural rights, 54
Paine, Thomas, on natural rights, 54, 57
Paterson, Justice, on natural rights, 89
Peckham, Justice, on rule of reason, 178; conservative doctrines of, in
Supreme Court decisions, 202, 203
Permanent Court of International Justice, general principles of law and,
324, 325
Physiocrats, theories of natural rights of, 60, 61
Pike, L. O., on Magna Carta, 30
Plucknett, Theodore, F. T., on English fundamental ideas, 31
Police regulations, reasonableness of, 177-182
Pollock, Sir Frederick, on supremacy of parliament, 34n, 37, 38; on natural
law doctrines in English law, 39-41; on law of nature, 301, 330
Pound, Roscoe, on metaphysical jurists, 279; on types of natural law, 311,
315
Powell, Thomas Reed, on interpretation
Pufendorf, Samuel, on law of nature, 22; on state of nature, 51, 52;
doctrines of, cited, 92
Quesnay, on higher law, 60
Radbruch, Gustav, on natural law, 296
Ranke, on natural rights, 69
Reasonableness, standards of, for valid customs, 15; Justice Stone on
doctrines of, in Anti-Trust Cases, 194, 195; as standard in judicial review
of legislation. 166-195; use of in recent Supreme Court decisions, 232-234
Rechtsstaat, German doctrine of, 244-246
Reformation, theories of natural law and, 17-24
Renan, on natural rights, 69
Riddell, Justice, on eminent domain proceedings in Canada, 136
Roman praetors, ideas of natural justice of, 7, 8
Roosevelt, Theodore, on judicial law-making, 327
Root, Elihu, on limitations on amending power, 339
Rule of reason, due process of law and, 166-195; in recent Supreme Court
decisions, 232-234
Saleilles, Raymond, on natural law, 252-258; on Duguit's theories, 272
Salmond, John W., on differences between English and Continental points of
view, 46, 47; on natural law, 76
Sanford, Justice, on interpretation of Fourteenth Amendment, 193
Savigny, on natural rights, 69, 70
Schiffer, Eugen, on natural law, 296, 297
Seneca, on doctrine of equality, 19, 55
Social compact theory, 86, 87
Social-Utilitarians, repudiation of natural rights' theory by, 68
Sophists, legal theories of, 5, 6
Sophocles, idea of higher laws of, 5
Sovereignty, in Greek thought, 7; higher law theories and limits on, 331-
336
Stammler, Rudolf, on natural law, 248-250
Stoics, concepts of natural law of, 7-10
Stone, Justice, on doctrine of reasonableness in Anti-Trust Cases, 194-195
Story, Justice, on implied limitations on legislatures, 94, 95, 173;
conservative legal theories and, 196, 197; on limits on amending power, 337
Strong, Justice, on interpretation of Fourteenth Amendment, 148
Super-constitution, created by courts, 227
Sutherland, Justice, on meaning of due process of law, 185, 186, 192
Taft, Chief Justice, on meaning of due process of law, 170; dissent in
Minimum Wage Case, 186
Thayer, James Bradley, on judicial review, 227-229
Troeltsch, Ernst, on natural law, 288
Ulpian, on types of natural law, 10, 11
Van Buren, Martin, on Federalist policies, 96
Vattel, on law of nature, 50-52
Vecchio, Georgio del, on natural law, 279-286
Vested rights, limits on legislatures to protect, 88-95; Marshall on
preserving, 90, 91; Kent on preserving, 92-94; Story on preserving, 94, 95;
Hosmer on preserving, 94, 95; New York courts, on preserving, 99-101
Vinogradoff, Sir Paul, on interpretation of Magna Carta, 30; on modern
revival of natural law, 317-319; on natural rights, 335
Waite, Chief Justice, on judicial review of rate regulation, 155 of due
process of law, 215, 216
Washington, Justice, on fundamental rights, 173
Webster, Daniel, on due process of law, 112, 116; conservative legal
theories and, 106, 197
William of Ockham, classification of natural law by, 17
Wilson, James, on law of nature, 55
Wohlgemuth, M., on higher laws, 269, 270
Wolff, Frederick von, on natural law, 50; on state of nature, 51, 52
Wright, B. F., on American theory of natural rights, 67, 68
Zane, John M., on natural law school, 77 Zeno, on natural law, 8, 9
