Well, the question makes no sense at all.
I thought it was a good question.
Let me try again.
Before the enactment of the 14th amendment, were there any cases that held that the States had the authority to ignore the Bill of Rights by, for example, establishing religious preferences or by limiting freedoms of speech or assembly? You know, the reasons why this country was founded.
I don't know of a single one, but I haven't searched. I'd be surprised if they existed or that they made up any kind of a recognized doctrine. Unlike you, I admit the possibility that I may be wrong--maybe there are a bunch of these cases I don't know about, but I seriously doubt it.
If my intuition that there were no such cases or doctrine is correct, then what does that do to the soapbox you stand on? Does it mean that the States in the old days respected the BOR and that the right to privacy had to be created when they started to mess with modern notions of freedom, i.e., by criminalizing contraception, peeking into our bedrooms, etc., for example?
I think that is the broad outline of what happened and why the rabid strict constructionists are, well, a little nutty. |
