{"id":147,"date":"2018-10-18T22:37:56","date_gmt":"2018-10-19T02:37:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/?page_id=147"},"modified":"2025-05-12T11:11:59","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T15:11:59","slug":"twelve-problems-with-substantive-due-process","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/in-print-2\/volume-16-number-2-summer-2018\/twelve-problems-with-substantive-due-process\/","title":{"rendered":"Twelve Problems with Substantive Due Process"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I present twelve quick problems for the idea that \u201cwithout due process of law\u201d in the Fifth or Fourteenth Amendments can be tolerably paraphrased as \u201cunreasonably\u201d:<br \/>\n1. Textually, Magna Carta and its progeny treat \u201cdue process of law\u201d as a restriction on methods of proving accusations.<br \/>\n2. These statutes\u2019 contexts make clear that they limit royal power rather than giving the king a massive power (and duty) to review earlier statutes for reasonableness.<br \/>\n3. The most promising purported early instance of reasonableness review, <em>Dr. Bonham\u2019s Case<\/em>, makes no mention of Magna Carta or its progeny.<br \/>\n4. Blackstone says that, while regrettable, prospectively-adopted and lawfully-imposed disproportionate sentences are consistent with Magna Carta and its progeny.<br \/>\n5. \u201cProcess\u201d in the Sixth Amendment refers to fact-finding writs.<br \/>\n6. No purported instances of antebellum substantive due process adopt a reasonableness reading.<br \/>\n7. Republicans simultaneously condemned slavery as immoral but held that slaves could be \u201clawfully claimed\u201d and fugitives \u201clawfully reclaimed.\u201d<br \/>\n8. Responding to <em>Dred Scott<\/em>, Lincoln explained the Fifth Amendment as a requirement of prospectivity and lawfulness, not an absolute protection for liberty or property.<br \/>\n9. Republicans held that \u201cduly convicted\u201d in the Thirteenth Amendment required conviction by due process of law, but allowed disproportionate, unreasonable sentences.<br \/>\n10. \u201cLaw\u201d in the Privileges or Immunities Clause can be unreasonable or unjust.<br \/>\n11. Reverdy Johnson embraced due process while opposing the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and condemning the Privileges or Immunities Clause as vague and open-ended.<br \/>\n12. The history of citizens-only privileges makes the Privileges or Immunities Clause the only plausible source for a constitutional ban on unreasonable discrimination. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2018\/10\/16-2-Twelve-Problems.pdf\">Keep Reading Twelve Problems with Substantive Due Process<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I present twelve quick problems for the idea that \u201cwithout due process of law\u201d in the Fifth or Fourteenth Amendments can be tolerably paraphrased as \u201cunreasonably\u201d: 1. Textually, Magna Carta [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":129,"featured_media":0,"parent":131,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"abstract.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":"","_tec_slr_enabled":"","_tec_slr_layout":""},"class_list":["post-147","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"ticketed":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/129"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2656,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/147\/revisions\/2656"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}