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Articles 1 - 8 of 8
Full-Text Articles in Law
The Ninth Amendment And Individual Rights: A Reply To Professor Mcaffee, Daniel A. Farber
The Ninth Amendment And Individual Rights: A Reply To Professor Mcaffee, Daniel A. Farber
Nevada Law Journal
No abstract provided.
Does The Federal Constitution Incorporate The Declaration Of Independence?, Thomas B. Mcaffee
Does The Federal Constitution Incorporate The Declaration Of Independence?, Thomas B. Mcaffee
Nevada Law Journal
No abstract provided.
Does The Federal Constitution Incorporate The Declaration Of Independence?, Thomas B. Mcaffee
Does The Federal Constitution Incorporate The Declaration Of Independence?, Thomas B. Mcaffee
Scholarly Works
A standard view at the time of the adoption of the Constitution was that “a constitution does not in itself imply any more than a declaration of the relation which the different parts of the government have to each other, but does not imply security for the rights of individuals.” The drafters of the state constitutions had “assumed that government had all power except for specific prohibitions contained in a bill of rights.” When the federal Constitution was transmitted to the states by Congress, Nathaniel Gorham of Massachusetts defended the omission of a bill of rights based on the federal …
Inalienable Rights, Legal Enforceability, And American Constitutions: The Fourteenth Amendment And The Concept Of Unenumerated Rights, Thomas B. Mcaffee
Inalienable Rights, Legal Enforceability, And American Constitutions: The Fourteenth Amendment And The Concept Of Unenumerated Rights, Thomas B. Mcaffee
Scholarly Works
It has become common to believe that those who ratified the Fourteenth Amendment “incorporated” not only the specific guarantees of the federal Bill of Rights, but also the other fundamental rights “retained by the people” in the Ninth Amendment. Even among those who acknowledge that the Ninth Amendment was originally a “federalism” provision that simply “retained” all that had not been granted as “powers” to the federal government are those who contend that, in light of the adoption of similar provisions in the state constitutions, by 1866 this language had become a free-floating affirmation of unenumerated rights. This Article attempts …
The Federal System As Bill Of Rights: Original Understandings, Modern Misreadings, Thomas B. Mcaffee
The Federal System As Bill Of Rights: Original Understandings, Modern Misreadings, Thomas B. Mcaffee
Scholarly Works
In the modern era, we have almost completely lost track of the relationship that the Framers of the United States Constitution perceived between the structure of our federal system and the protection of popular rights. At least two obvious components of this confusion persist. First, as we have come to think of rights almost exclusively in terms of the claims of individuals against the government, we have lost the ability to hear the Framers' voices referring to rights held by the people in their collective capacity, including the rights of the people within each of the sovereign states to be …
A Critical Guide To The Ninth Amendment, Thomas B. Mcaffee
A Critical Guide To The Ninth Amendment, Thomas B. Mcaffee
Scholarly Works
Since the Supreme Court's decision in Griswold v. Connecticut, thousands of law students each year have confronted a confusing debate over the meaning of the Ninth Amendment. Writing for the majority in Griswold, Justice Douglas included the Ninth Amendment among the sources for deriving the “penumbral” right of privacy. More central to this article, in a separate concurrence Justice Goldberg contended that the Amendment provided a basis for the discovery of fundamental human rights beyond those included in the text of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. In response, the dissenting Justices, Stewart and Black, argued that …
The Bill Of Rights, Social Contract Theory, And The Rights “Retained” By The People, Thomas B. Mcaffee
The Bill Of Rights, Social Contract Theory, And The Rights “Retained” By The People, Thomas B. Mcaffee
Scholarly Works
The Ninth Amendment provides that “[t]he enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” There is no question that this Amendment was designed as a savings clause, to ensure that the specification of particular rights would not raise an inference that the Bill of Rights exhausted the rights which the people held as against the newly-created national government. But there is an ongoing debate as to nature of these additional rights retained by the people and as to the sort of claim they might support against the exercise …
Uncommon Law And The Bill Of Rights: The Woes Of Constitutionalizing State Common-Law Torts, Elaine W. Shoben
Uncommon Law And The Bill Of Rights: The Woes Of Constitutionalizing State Common-Law Torts, Elaine W. Shoben
Scholarly Works
During the two-hundred-year history of the Bill of Rights, the Supreme Court occasionally has used those first ten Amendments to constitutionalize state common-law torts. In this essay, Professor Elaine Shoben argues that the Court would be well advised to forgo that practice. Pointing to the Court's experience in constitutionalizing defamation law under the First Amendment, Professor Shoben says when the Court meddles in state tort law, the result is a highly complex and very unsatisfactory body of law. On the Bicentennial of the Bill of Rights, this author recommends that if the Court feels compelled to reform a state common-law …