Guided by the original understanding of those who ratified the Constitution and the Reconstruction Amendments, the High Court has overruled Roe v. Wade, ended the use of race in higher education, and recognized the individual right to own firearms. In District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) and McDonald v. City of Chicago (2012), Justice Antonin Scalia in the former case and Justice Samuel Alito in the latter one may have looked to natural rights theory, but they did so only to understand the historical context that gives meaning to words such as “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms.” But the Supreme Court erred when it declared in the Slaughterhouse Cases that the Privileges or Immunities Clause had almost no meaning, which opened the door for later courts to create substantive due process and expand the meaning of equal protection to fill the gap.
Author: The American Mind
Published at: 2025-12-06 22:17:21
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