Lochner Era etc
Paul Kens, in his book Lochner v. New York: Economic Regulation onTrial, makes the case that Lochner, and the Lochner era of the SupremeCourt, forms the foundation of ideological battles between economics andpersonal liberty and rights. The court found, in that case, that the stateof New York had violated due process and the "right of contract betweenemployers and employees." (Kens, 1998) That was part and parcel of a concept of the legal system Kens saidwas employed to good effect as far as creating an economic powerhouse. The most important function of the American legal system in the nineteenth century was to foster the growth of an ever-expanding national economy. The federal judiciary in the late nineteenth century participated in this project by using the powers that the 14th Amendment gave it to protect the economic rights of American citizens. The most important of these rights was the right to enter freely into contracts. Freedom of contract allowed Americans to use efficiently the various factors of production to create an industrial economy that was t
Certainly, there were fewer large corporations than workingpeople, so it could be assumed that the working people would certainly haveappreciated a limit to how hard they could be worked in the name ofcorporate profits. The liberty of the citizen to do as he likes so long as he does not interfere with the liberty of others to do the same. He cited the myriad other lawsthat: Regulate life in many ways. "Liberals call decisions such as Lochner v. Holmes noted that, in fact,the Court was acting against precedent. The more important ones, the ones it should haveprotected, are those regarding personal liberties. New York--a case whose very name hasbecome synonymous with judicial overreaching. In the Lochner Era, the monied interests fought bitterly againstinstituting an progressive income tax, arguing that the economic health ofthe nation depended on their keeping their money and not supporting thegovernment. Wade, for instance, would not happenagain. Holmes hadwritten of the law in question, regulating work hours, that "reasonable manmight think it a proper measure on the score of health. "(McIntyre, 2003) A Republican lawmaker told the New Yorker magazine in2001 that if the Congress did not pass Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy,"the tax code will destroy democracy, by putting us in a position wheremost voters don't pay for government. In otherwords, it had upheld the state's right to literally invade the bodies ofcitizens, but would not uphold a law preventing the corporations fromabusing workers, which is what it all boiled down to. It is part and parcel of the laissez-faireeconomic interpretation of the Constitution, which is, as it happens, thebasis for the American way of life.
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Acceptance Essays
