How Liberal Judges Wiped Out A Key Clause Of The Constitution (Contract Clause)

mericans who have read our Constitution might recall the words saying that state governments may not “impair the obligation of contracts.” Yet they frequently rewrite or dissolve contracts when doing so is “good politics” – demanding that employers pay current workers more money or face punishment, for example.

Once a star in the Constitution’s plan for liberty and limited state power, the Contract Clause is now almost completely forgotten. Vanderbilt Law School professor James W. Ely, Jr. tells that unhappy story in his book The Contract Clause: A Constitutional History.

“Inserted into the Constitution without extensive debate,” Ely writes, “the Contract Clause was clearly prompted by the sour experience with state debt relief laws during the Post-Revolution Era. It was grounded in the premise that honoring contractual commitments served the public interest by encouraging commerce.”

Unfortunately, like several other key constitutional provisions, the Contract Clause eventually fell victim to judicial interpretations that, by the latter stages of the New Deal, rendered it almost a dead letter. Ely’s book gives the reader a fascinating account of the “roller-coaster ride” of this clause.

The young American nation developed a commercial economy in which the enforceability of contracts for land, goods, and services was crucial. But, as John Marshall observed, the state legislatures were inclined to “break in upon the ordinary intercourse of society, and destroy all confidence between man and man.” In an attempt to stop that, the Constitution’s drafters wrote Article I, Section 10 to read, “No state shall pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts.” (In the same section, states were forbidden to issue paper money or enact ex post facto laws.)

Nothing better illustrates the soft/hard concept than the different treatment of Religious Liberty in the 1st Amendment, and the right to keep and bear arm in the 2A.

The various Christian sects never presented an electoral threat to congressmen since scotus began its jihad against Christians in the 1950s. Ergo, the elimination of public Christianity.

OTOH, while most congressmen would like to ban private guns, they know that any attempt to do so means their electoral death.

Going in a different direction, it is why the 17th Amendment must go. Return the states to the senate and watch the return of the 9th and 10th Amendments.

reinstating the Constitution as written

Point taken but the Constitution does not need reinstatement. The Constitution constituted a country and since nothing occurred to unconstitute the country the constitution doesn’t need reinstatement.

The only thing necessary for the Constitution to function as the founders envisioned is to elect representatives who honor their oath to uphold, defend, and protect it.

To recover our Free Constitutional Republic, we need to drill down to and destroy the modern Leftist perversions that have illegitimately given the feds the unconstitutional tyranny they now exercise.

The four big Leftist perversions of the Constitutional I have identified are

1) the Incorporation Doctrine,
2) the sweeping expansions of the Commerce Clause,
3) the wresting of the Necessary and Proper Clause, and
4) the sweeping expansion of the scope of the Judicial Branch beyond individual cases and controversies

The “Incorporation Doctrine” is the perversion that relates specifically to the first ten amendments. This Leftist doctrine asserts that the 14th Amendment allows the federal government to enforce the first ten amendments (commonly but unadvisedly referred to as the Bill of Rights) against the states.

This counterfeit doctrine is a judicial misapplication of the 14th Amendment giving the feds sweeping powers not contemplated by the ratifiers of the amendment who intended the 14th Amendment to be a post-Civil War Reconstruction Amendment establishing ex-slaves as full citizens, nothing more.

The 14A was originally intended and limited to forbidding state laws segregating former slaves as confirmed in the 1872 Slaughter-House Cases. But in the 1900’s, slowly but surely, SCOTUS, ignoring original intent and precedent, has instead construed the 14A to allow the feds to enforce the first ten amendments and interfere with state laws leading to a parade of horribles like banning prayer and Bible study in state schools, overturning state abortion laws leading to 70+ million abortions, threatening gun rights, interference with state marriage laws, threatening free exercise of religion, etc.

The federal government including SCOTUS is the object, not enforcer, of the prohibitions of the first ten amendments. Constitutionally, the federal government may only act within the limited, enumerated powers delegated to it by the Constitution as confirmed by the first ten amendments.

Reinstate, recover, reinforce - however you want to put it, the Right needs to get the Constitution front and center once again against the feds, who treat most of the Constitution as dead letter.

Electing federal representatives is only one way to do this and may not be the best away. Federal representatives have a bad habit of turning left inside the beltway.

The American People through their states need to become independent once again exercise their constitutional sovereignty and nullify and reject all unconstitutional federal acts.

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