Re: "Against Intellectual Property"

"Kevin Grierson" writes:

: The Bill of Rights was originally intended to apply only to the FEDERAL gove
: rnment, not the states, so the founding fathers were probably familiar with r
: estrictions on civil liberties that were much more dramatic than those we see
: today. Hugo Black's campaign to incorporate the Bill of Rights into the 14t
: h Amendment (and thus force the states to comply with them) did not begin unt
: il 1947 (separation of church and state) and did not end until 1969 (double j
: eopardy). In that time, in addition to those rights, the Supreme Court, by i
: ts judicial interpretation of the 14th Amendment, forced the states to accord
: individuals the right to a public trial, the right to freedom from unreasona
: ble searches and seizures, cruel and unusual punishments, counsel to represen
: t them, a speedy trial, and trial by jury in criminal cases. The right that
: Mr. Noring refers to--the right against self-incrimination--was not imposed u
: pon the states until 1964. I daresay none of these developments was anticipa
: ted by the founding fathers, who pretty much left the individual states to do
: as they pleased.

But surely this issue has to do with the intent of those who adopted the fourteenth amendment, and not with what the founding fathers intended. And after all the first provision of the bill of rights that was ``incorporated'' into the 14th amendment was the ``takings clause'' of the fifth amendment. See Chicago, Burlington and Quincy R.R. Co. v. Chicago, 166 U.S. 226 (1896).

--
Peter D. Junger--Case Western Reserve University Law School--Cleveland, OH
 EMAIL: junger@samsara.law.cwru.edu    URL:  http://samsara.law.cwru.edu   
        NOTE: junger[_at_]pdj2-ra.f-remote.cwru.edu no longer exists