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Commerce Clause discussion

James972 said:
Iraq and the entire world would be at peace today were it not for liberals preventing us from teaching the world that our way of limited govt is best. INstead you have a world where liberals are killing each other for control of the all powerful liberal governments. Do you understand?
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Teach?


You mean bombing weddings and killing children
 
ElChupacabra said:
If you have to ask the question, you clearly missed the point.
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there is!! the liberal lost again and could not answer question!! Do you embarrass yourself??
 
James972 said:
there is!! the liberal lost again and could not answer question!! Do you embarrass yourself??
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Nope. I'm not sure how you think we're in any position to teach anyone about small government when it's a large government that's the regime changes throughout the world. 2+2= 4. Why does James972 enjoy so much self owning?
 
James972 said:
Obviously they did not....
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Obviously they did

The agree to become part of a bigger country.

The USA is a sovereign state - it is not some confederation like the EU

A sovereign state is not made up of other sovereign states


So, if the rights of the people of the United States as recognized by the Constitution, are not secured to them by the Government, and the people of any State have no other means to redress their grievances except by separating themselves from their oppressors, it is their undoubted natural right to do so.
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You're talking about secession,m and no the Constitution doesn't allow this according to (I think) all constitutional scholars over the years.
The Constitution recognized a potential need for changes to it, so detailed the amendment process. It did not details a process for secession.


Of course an amendment could be passed to allow for secession, but as written it is the view of constitutional scholars and SC justices, the secession is prohibited.


Iraq and the entire world would be at peace today were it not for liberals preventing us from teaching the world that our way of limited govt is best. INstead you have a world where liberals are killing each other for control of the all powerful liberal governments....
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:lamo


When was the last time the USA had a "limited government"
And no, that is not the best form of government - it has never been the best form of government

Small government = abdication from responsibility

And you mean conservatives killing each other. The USA was founded on liberal-democracy principles.
 
Rich2018 said:
Obviously they did

The agree to become part of a bigger country.

The USA is a sovereign state - it is not some confederation like the EU

A sovereign state is not made up of other sovereign states





You're talking about secession,m and no the Constitution doesn't allow this according to (I think) all constitutional scholars over the years.
The Constitution recognized a potential need for changes to it, so detailed the amendment process. It did not details a process for secession.


Of course an amendment could be passed to allow for secession, but as written it is the view of constitutional scholars and SC justices, the secession is prohibited.




:lamo


When was the last time the USA had a "limited government"
And no, that is not the best form of government - it has never been the best form of government

Small government = abdication from responsibility

And you mean conservatives killing each other. The USA was founded on liberal-democracy principles.
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The Constitution is a document establishing and enumerating the powers and restrictions of a Federal government. It has no bearing on the power and rights of the States as the 10th Amendment enumerates and supports the powers enumerated in the Declaration of Independence.
 
KtLaw said:
I wanted to see if anyone could help me get a better understanding of the commerce clause. In Wickard v. Filburn the supreme court ruled that Filburn growing his own wheat affected the commerce clause. Here are a list of questions I am unclear about when it comes to the commerce clause:

  1. Can the commerce clause be used to control what you can and cannot eat/buy?
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  1. yes.

    KtLaw said:
    [*]Can any building receiving natural gas be considered commerce?
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    Yep

    KtLaw said:
    [*]What limits did US v. Lopez really put on the commerce clause?
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    Lopez had nothing to do with the sale of a gun. The gun itself was legally purchased therefore the federal government has no business telling him which part of a state he can carry it in.

    KtLaw said:
    [*]US v. Jones the supreme court ruled a private dwelling doesn’t count as federal commerce, what if someone in the dwelling received federal aid like food stamps, health care, or low income housing/section 8?
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    That would not be commerce.

    KtLaw said:
    [*]What was the original intent of the commerce when created by the founders?
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    To make sure the federal government could arbitrate trade disputes between the various states.

    KtLaw said:
    Did Obama-Care expand the commerce clause with its health care plan?
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    No.

    KtLaw said:
    [*]What really counts as trade within the commerce clause?
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    Anything that is bought sold or produced.
 
Aberration said:
The Constitution is a document establishing and enumerating the powers and restrictions of a Federal government. It has no bearing on the power and rights of the States as the 10th Amendment enumerates and supports the powers enumerated in the Declaration of Independence.
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A federal law seems to restrict to powers of a state to me.
 
Cordelier said:
But since the prefatory clause is there, and since it does give Congress a vested interest, it has to modify the underlying right to some extent... and so the operative effect of that fact should be that any legislation passed by Congress in the exercise of it's powers in the field should be subject to intermediate scrutiny

.
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Part 1.

Interesting and lengthy response, ND... I have no interest in swapping Ph.D theses with you on what should be a topic tangential to this thread
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Yes but at least it is engaging compared to the other slop we read here. Gotta get the intellectually, informed, and challenging arguments when we can.

I will say that I completely dispute the assertion I quoted above. This is complete modern-day revisionist myth-making on the part of the pro-gun lobby. Within the Constitution, any references to the word "militia" are singular... the Constitution countenances no other militia other than the one over which it possesses the power to "organize, arm, and discipline", and it certainly doesn't countenance an armed uprising on the part of a disaffected segment of the population. In fact, it specifically empowers the Congress to call forth "the Militia" to suppress such insurrections.
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I would be inclined to agree except the historical evidence leads me away from your conclusion above.

The individual right to “bear arms” originated in England. The right was born within the context of the crown, particularly Catholic in this context, disarming political dissidents, particularly Protestants, and then using armed men to suppress political opposition. Heller v D.C., see also “The Founders Second Amendment.” The subsequent English Bill of Rights protected the individual right of Protestants to possess arms. Id.

In the 1760s and 70s, Britain made an effort to disarm the colonists they rendered to be the most troublesome. See Heller v D.C. In response, Sam Adams, James Otis, and others responded by invoking the individual right of Protestants to bear arms, and said such a right was rooted in “Nature.” “The Founders Second Amendment.”


Similar sentiment permeated the colonies, as they believed to have an individual right to possess arms in rebuking efforts to disarm them. For instance A New York article of April 1769 said that “t is a natural right which the people have reserved to themselves, confirmed by the Bill of Rights, to keep arms for their own defence.” See Heller vs D.C. William Blackstone mentioned “arms for the defence” as coming with the “natural rights” of “resistance” and “self-preservation.”


Of course, an armed militia, which was a collection of men who already possessed arms, engaged the Red Coats at Lexington and Concord. The armed militia was, in part, defending arms and munitions. The colonies made good use of the armed militia for the tenure of the Revolutionary War, especially in regards to guerrilla warfare. The framers were intimately aware of the effectiveness the armed militia played in the Revolutionary War. The Revolutionary War showed the framers and that generation how effective an armed militia could be at resisting the tyranny of centralized government.


The militia then preceded the existence of the Constitution and the Congress created by it. The Constitution didn’t create the militia. Congress doesn’t create the militia. Those facts support Scalia’s statement, “the militia is assumed by Article I already to be in existence... Congress is given the power to “provide for calling forth the militia,” and the power not to create, but to “organiz[e]” it—and not to organize “a” militia, which is what one would expect if the militia were to be a federal creation, but to organize “the” militia, connoting a body already in existence.” Heller.

From those facts one can reasonably conclude on the basis of them, as Volokh and Scalia did, that the “the Second Amendment ’s prefatory clause announces the purpose for which the right was codified: to prevent elimination of the militias.”



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Cordelier said:
My argument is that if there were no prefatory clause, the answer would be obvious - strict scrutiny must be applied. But since the prefatory clause is there, and since it does give Congress a vested interest, it has to modify the underlying right to some extent... and so the operative effect of that fact should be that any legislation passed by Congress in the exercise of it's powers in the field should be subject to intermediate scrutiny. It's not the strict scrutiny test that an infringement of free speech would demand... and it's not a rational basis test that Commerce clause regulation would demand. It's somewhere in between, which is exactly where the wording of the Second Amendment puts it.
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I noticed in your discourse that you never addressed the usage of the term "well regulated"... no doubt you'll be able to find some NRA-sponsored pseudo-intellectual expert who has devoted his life to the etymology of 18th Century American vocabularies who will dispute my assertion, but I submit that the phrase was used to connote the militia subject to the organization, armed, and disciplined according to the laws Congress deems "necessary and proper" to fulfill it's obligations.
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Even if I adopted your view above, it isn’t fatal to my view. The individual right to bear arms serves the purpose of ensuring an armed militia that Congress can’t abolish, a armed militia Congress can’t create, an armed militia Congress cannot disarm, but an armed militia Congress can regulate in the specific manner expressed by the Constitution.

Was it generally accepted that citizens be free to arm themselves in order to facilitate their militia service? Of course. Was it ever intended such an armed citizenry had the right - at their own discretion - to use those arms against their own Government? Obviously not.
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First, an armed militia was a possible deterrent to the national government becoming tyrannical and/or violating their rights. As Scalia astutely observed in regards to an armed militia Congress couldn’t trample upon. “Third, when the able-bodied men of a nation are trained in arms and organized, they are better able to resist tyranny.”

The framing generation was distrustful and worried a strong, centralized government becoming tyrannical and/or violating their rights. They had no shortage of historical examples to facilitate their fears, the most recent being their experience with the British government. The framing generation had no reservations about an armed militia engaging the British governmental forces to preserve their rights as the British sought to trample them.

None of that suggests or advocates for an armed citizenry to engage in armed conflict for any reason against the government. But the framing generation was well aware there can exist certain circumstances where an armed militia is useful to resisting tyranny, and they certainly believed such a circumstance manifested itself in their struggle against Britain as they made good use of an armed militia to resist the British and break away from Britain.

The Constitution is not a suicide pact. People have an individual right to keep and bear arms... but the inclusion of the prefatory clause, with the direct linkage between "well regulated" and the Congressional power to "organize, arm and discipline" also gives Congress a role in shaping that individual right.
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Maybe in regards to specific weapons to possess for the militia for when it is called into service but not the individual right to bear arms that serves the purpose of there being an armed militia Congress cannot defang by disarming.

But since the prefatory clause is there, and since it does give Congress a vested interest, it has to modify the underlying right to some extent...
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emphasis mine.

No, that doesn’t logically follow. Congress has very specific powers to regulate the militia. The militia is separate and distinct from the individual. There is the individual right to bear arms. It isn’t necessary for Congress to exercise it’s very specific powers in relation to the militia, that the individual right to bear arms must also be subjugated to some Congressional oversight. Congress can regulate the militia as allowed by the Constitution without touching the individual right to bear arms.

The 2nd Amendment individual right to bear arms isn’t “modified” in subjugation of any degree to Congress’s power to regulate the militia. Instead, the individual right to bear arms is to ensure there is an armed militia, regardless of whether Congress exercises its powers in relation to it.

On this basis, strict scrutiny is appropriate, just as it is applied to other rights in the Bill of Rights.


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NotreDame said:
Part 1.



Yes but at least it is engaging compared to the other slop we read here. Gotta get the intellectually, informed, and challenging arguments when we can.
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*LOL* Fair enough... point taken. I was worried about hijacking the thread, but I guess that horse is already out of the barn and running for the sunset by now.



NotreDame said:
I would be inclined to agree except the historical evidence leads me away from your conclusion above.

The individual right to “bear arms” originated in England. The right was born within the context of the crown, particularly Catholic in this context, disarming political dissidents, particularly Protestants, and then using armed men to suppress political opposition. Heller v D.C., see also “The Founders Second Amendment.” The subsequent English Bill of Rights protected the individual right of Protestants to possess arms. Id.

In the 1760s and 70s, Britain made an effort to disarm the colonists they rendered to be the most troublesome. See Heller v D.C. In response, Sam Adams, James Otis, and others responded by invoking the individual right of Protestants to bear arms, and said such a right was rooted in “Nature.” “The Founders Second Amendment.”


Similar sentiment permeated the colonies, as they believed to have an individual right to possess arms in rebuking efforts to disarm them. For instance A New York article of April 1769 said that “t is a natural right which the people have reserved to themselves, confirmed by the Bill of Rights, to keep arms for their own defence.” See Heller vs D.C. William Blackstone mentioned “arms for the defence” as coming with the “natural rights” of “resistance” and “self-preservation.”


Of course, an armed militia, which was a collection of men who already possessed arms, engaged the Red Coats at Lexington and Concord. The armed militia was, in part, defending arms and munitions. The colonies made good use of the armed militia for the tenure of the Revolutionary War, especially in regards to guerrilla warfare. The framers were intimately aware of the effectiveness the armed militia played in the Revolutionary War. The Revolutionary War showed the framers and that generation how effective an armed militia could be at resisting the tyranny of centralized government.


The militia then preceded the existence of the Constitution and the Congress created by it. The Constitution didn’t create the militia. Congress doesn’t create the militia. Those facts support Scalia’s statement, “the militia is assumed by Article I already to be in existence... Congress is given the power to “provide for calling forth the militia,” and the power not to create, but to “organiz[e]” it—and not to organize “a” militia, which is what one would expect if the militia were to be a federal creation, but to organize “the” militia, connoting a body already in existence.” Heller.

From those facts one can reasonably conclude on the basis of them, as Volokh and Scalia did, that the “the Second Amendment ’s prefatory clause announces the purpose for which the right was codified: to prevent elimination of the militias.”



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I don't find fault with any of this, as far as I can see. I've never denied the underlying existence of the individual right.... my only argument is that it is balanced by the Congressional power to "organize, arm, and discipline" the militia (notice there is no power to "disband" it). It's because of this unique (within the Constitution) two-sided existence of the right and the vested interest Congress has in the matter, it's my opinion that any laws restricting the keeping and bearing of arms should be subject to intermediate scrutiny. If the link didn't exist, and it was purely an individual right (ie, there was no prefatory clause), then any laws restricting the right would be subject to the higher standard strict scrutiny.
 
Samwise said:
Did he? What was the quote he cited that prohibits any of the several sovereign states from leaving the union?
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you ought to ask Rich what Justice Story thought of what the second Amendment meant. I don't think Rich would be a fan
 
NotreDame said:
No, that doesn’t logically follow. Congress has very specific powers to regulate the militia. The militia is separate and distinct from the individual. There is the individual right to bear arms. It isn’t necessary for Congress to exercise it’s very specific powers in relation to the militia, that the individual right to bear arms must also be subjugated to some Congressional oversight. Congress can regulate the militia as allowed by the Constitution without touching the individual right to bear arms.

The 2nd Amendment individual right to bear arms isn’t “modified” in subjugation of any degree to Congress’s power to regulate the militia. Instead, the individual right to bear arms is to ensure there is an armed militia, regardless of whether Congress exercises its powers in relation to it.

On this basis, strict scrutiny is appropriate, just as it is applied to other rights in the Bill of Rights.


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Looks like I was jumping the gun in my last post (no pun intended).

I think this point right here is the bone of our contention. I question how specific the limitations are of Congress' power to regulate the militia. The only limitation specified in the militia clause itself is that Congress can't "govern" the militia unless it is called into active duty... but aside from that, the power to "organize, arm, and discipline" it - which exist at all times - seem pretty sweeping to me. When you marry that with the Congressional power to pass the Laws it deems "necessary and proper" to fulfill it's powers, I think that gives Congress an exceptional amount of deference (albeit, not absolute) in the field of gun regulation.

Does an individual right to keep and bear arms exist completely outside the need for a well regulated militia? Yes, I think that's undeniable.... but I also think you have to look outside of the 2nd Amendment to find it. If you marry the 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms with the 4th Amendment right to be secure in their persons, houses, and effects, there's a definite case that a 9th Amendment unenumerated right to keep and bear arms for self defense exists, and any laws inhibiting that would undoubtedly be subject to strict scrutiny.... so there's that, and it's completely outside of the context of the militia. The key here would be for the courts to find a way of distinguishing what constitutes a militia weapon and what constitutes a self-defense weapon and then applying the appropriate level of scrutiny.
 
Rich2018 said:
A federal law seems to restrict to powers of a state to me.
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Huh?

Your argument was because the Constitution alone does not say a State can secede that it can’t. The 10th Amendment alone refutes that. The Declaration of Independence refutes that. Natural rights refute that.
 
Aberration said:
Huh?

Your argument was because the Constitution alone does not say a State can secede that it can’t. The 10th Amendment alone refutes that. The Declaration of Independence refutes that. Natural rights refute that.
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A majority of the States could dissolve the Union; the South was not able to secede. Method matters.
 
Rich2018 said:
It means to regulate as it sees fit.

If it sees communism as the best economic system for the USA, then so be it


There is no evidence that communism wouldn't work in the USA.
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He forgot to mention that communism did not exist anywhere on earth in 1788...
 
TurtleDude said:
until FDR came along, the CC was never used to give the federal government any power over a private citizen acting within his own sovereign state
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That statement is just patently false. As far back as 1824, in Gibbons v. Ogden the Supreme Court has ruled otherwise, and in 1905, in Swift & Co. v. US they extended that conception, upholding application of a statute preventing monopolies, even when the individual actions were wholly within a State. The point, here, being that the use of the Commerce Clause to actions within a State had been addressed LONG before FDR came along, in both statute and case law.
 
I didn't expect to find such extensive disquisitions on the Second Amendment in this thread. Very interesting. Probably the result of Second Amendment fanatics (on both sides) being absent from the discussion.
 
NWRatCon said:
That statement is just patently false. As far back as 1824, in Gibbons v. Ogden the Supreme Court has ruled otherwise, and in 1905, in Swift & Co. v. US they extended that conception, upholding application of a statute preventing monopolies, even when the individual actions were wholly within a State. The point, here, being that the use of the Commerce Clause to actions within a State had been addressed LONG before FDR came along, in both statute and case law.
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Ogden

[FONT=&quot]The power to regulate commerce extends to every species of commercial intercourse between the United States and foreign nations, and among the several States. It does not stop at the external boundary of a State.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]But it does not extend to a commerce which is completely internal.

How is someone owning a firearm commerce? Ogden was about a major business controlling travel

Swift:

Even if the separate elements of such a scheme are lawful, when they are bound together by a common intent as parts of an unlawful scheme to monopolize interstate commerce, the plan may make the parts unlawful.

These cases had nothing to do with private citizens acting solely within their states.

[/FONT]
 
TurtleDude said:
These cases had nothing to do with private citizens acting solely within their states.
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Obviously you are unfamiliar with the facts of the cases, or the understanding of interstate commerce over the centuries, but I expected no better. Nor do I expect anything further. You somehow always manage to make a point of missing the point.
 
NWRatCon said:
Obviously you are unfamiliar with the facts of the cases, or the understanding of interstate commerce over the centuries, but I expected no better. Nor do I expect anything further. You somehow always manage to make a point of missing the point.
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LOL, obviously you think a shipping conglomerate is the same as a farmer growing wheat solely for his own family's use. Cite me to your law review note on this issue and we will proceed. The fact is, using the commerce clause to ban ownership of an individual item was not within any rational concept of interstate commerce.
 
Cordelier said:
....
Does an individual right to keep and bear arms exist completely outside the need for a well regulated militia? Yes, I think that's undeniable.... but I also think you have to look outside of the 2nd Amendment to find it. If you marry the 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms with the 4th Amendment right to be secure in their persons, houses, and effects, there's a definite case that a 9th Amendment unenumerated right to keep and bear arms for self defense exists, and any laws inhibiting that would undoubtedly be subject to strict scrutiny.... so there's that, and it's completely outside of the context of the militia. The key here would be for the courts to find a way of distinguishing what constitutes a militia weapon and what constitutes a self-defense weapon and then applying the appropriate level of scrutiny.
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I tend to follow friend Cordelier's view that the right to keep and bear arms is really resident outside of the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment's acknowledgment was in the context of militias, and has to be read that way. Moreover, the treatment of firearms, and militias, by the States at the time the Amendment was drafted, has to play a role in its interpretation. In other contexts I've provided a good deal of that history, but it is immaterial to the current issue, I think.

I often found Justice Scalia's approach to legislative history to be opportunistic - he carefully avoids history that counters his conclusion and presents a very one-sided view of the record to reach it. That is why I have never found him the intellectual heavyweight his adherents describe. His arguments tend to be swiss-cheese like. Too many of his opinions require intellectual contortions to reach their ends to be persuasive. Heller, in my view, is a good example. There is far more history that demonstrates the expectation of government control over arms (and militias) than the limited history he recounts. Justice Stevens' dissent fills in much of the missing background.

But given my presumption that the right does exist, whether in the Second Amendment or otherwise, the question then becomes how to balance the interests of the governments (federal, State and local) that may impact on that right. There, I think, a reasonable argument can be had on what level of scrutiny, and government intrusion, is appropriate to the ends. That same argument, then, is also appropriate more generally to the Commerce Clause.

I look at both this way: Does the effort by Congress (or a State or local jurisdiction) fall within the ambit of their authority? That, I think, is where many Commerce Clause arguments may falter. Although I have substantive disagreements with our friend turtledude, I acknowledge that there are limitations on the federal authority over the State's purely parochial interests. Gun laws are something that I think, contrary to Heller and McDonald are clearly and historically within the States' ambit, and the 14th Amendment didn't change that. The federal government may also have an enforceable interest as well, whether that is resident in the Commerce Clause or one of its other enumerated powers. But enumerated powers have to be the touchstone for any discussion of federal authority within State boundaries, or without.
 
Aberration said:
Huh?

Your argument was because the Constitution alone does not say a State can secede that it can’t. The 10th Amendment alone refutes that. The Declaration of Independence refutes that. Natural rights refute that.
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No, in the issue of secession, I bow to greater learned opinion....and as far as I'm aware all constitutional scholars agree that the Constitution, as written today, prohibits secession.

I was arguing that US states are not sovereign states. They are part of a larger country/state - known as the USA
Whether the original colonies became sovereign states after the conclusion of the Revolutionary War is a moot point. If ever they had sovereignty, they surrendered it the moment they ratified the US Constitution.

A sovereign state (the USA) is not made up of other sovereign states.
 
NWRatCon said:
I look at both this way: Does the effort by Congress (or a State or local jurisdiction) fall within the ambit of their authority? That, I think, is where many Commerce Clause arguments may falter. Although I have substantive disagreements with our friend turtledude, I acknowledge that there are limitations on the federal authority over the State's purely parochial interests. Gun laws are something that I think, contrary to Heller and McDonald are clearly and historically within the States' ambit, and the 14th Amendment didn't change that. The federal government may also have an enforceable interest as well, whether that is resident in the Commerce Clause or one of its other enumerated powers. But enumerated powers have to be the touchstone for any discussion of federal authority within State boundaries, or without.
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That's an interesting argument - it's definitely got me thinking. One point I'm unclear about, though, is the way you address State and Local Law in relation to Heller and McDonald. Are you saying that you disagree with the incorporation of the 2nd Amendment? Or are you just addressing the application of the Commerce clause to preempt State and Local gun control laws?

As far as Justice Scalia goes, I admired his textualism and the effective way he framed his arguments. One of my favorite past times was reading his opinions and trying to counter his arguments. I probably ended up disagreeing with 9 out of 10 of his opinions, but I'll be damned if I could make a good counter-argument for any more than 3 or 4 of those 9. My favorite Supreme Court Justice of all time, though, is Justice Hugo Black - he shared Scalia's textualism, but not his selective originalism. From Black's perspective, the ratification of the 14th Amendment ought to have automatically incorporated all of the enumerated rights contained within the first eight amendments. Here's an excerpt from his dissent in Adamson v. California, 332 US 46, 70-72 (1947):

The first ten amendments were proposed and adopted largely because of fear that Government might unduly interfere with prized individual liberties. The people wanted and demanded a Bill of Rights written into their Constitution. The amendments embodying the Bill of Rights were intended to curb all branches of the Federal Government in the fields touched by the amendments -- Legislative, Executive, and Judicial. The Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments were pointedly aimed at confining exercise of power by courts and judges within precise boundaries, particularly in the procedure used for the trial of criminal cases. Past history provided strong reasons for the apprehensions which brought these procedural amendments into being and attest the wisdom of their adoption. For the fears of arbitrary court action sprang largely from the past use of courts in the imposition of criminal punishments to suppress speech, press, and religion. Hence, the constitutional limitations of courts' powers were, in the view of the Founders, essential supplements to the First Amendment, which was itself designed to protect the widest scope for all people to believe and to express the most divergent political, religious, and other views.

But these limitations were not expressly imposed upon state court action. In 1833, Barron v. Baltimore, supra, was decided by this Court. It specifically held inapplicable to the states that provision of the Fifth Amendment which declares: "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." In deciding the particular point raised, the Court there said that it could not hold that the first eight amendments applied to the states. This was the controlling constitutional rule when the Fourteenth Amendment was proposed in 1866.

My study of the historical events that culminated in the Fourteenth Amendment, and the expressions of those who sponsored and favored, as well as those who opposed, its submission and passage persuades me that one of the chief objects that the provisions of the Amendment's first section, separately and as a whole, were intended to accomplish was to make the Bill of Rights, applicable to the states. With full knowledge of the import of the Barron decision, the framers and backers of the Fourteenth Amendment proclaimed its purpose to be to overturn the constitutional rule that case had announced. This historical purpose has never received full consideration or exposition in any opinion of this Court interpreting the Amendment.
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