From the early years of the Republic, America underwent extraordinary economic growth, internal development, and industrialization that forever altered our original mostly rural and agricultural society. As America's wealth and cities grew, so also did public and private corruption, predatory business practices to maximize profit and power, and squalid living conditions for large swaths of the population.
By the late 19th Century, much of the country's commercially sold food was contaminated, adulterated, or outright rancid, the water was commonly unsafe, and household sanitation amounted to throwing food and human waste into the public streets where, at best, open sewers might carry it to the same local waters that provided water for human consumption and seafood. Drugs usually lacked a scientific basis and were usually ineffective and often unsafe.
Businesses though suffered little in the way of national regulation even when the country's public health and safety were directly at stake. Swindled and sickened consumers and injured workers were on their own. Workplaces were often unnecessarily dangerous, with owners protected by a set of legal doctrines known as "the unholy trinity." Railroads were virtually free from regulation for decades, often imposing rates and conditions of carriage that unfairly burdened or cheated customers disfavored by managers or owners. This was normal in businesses of all stripes.
Large scale, routine public corruption protected and enriched private interests. Public appointments and jobs were often sold, even at the federal level. Prostitutes were available for public officials, with cash routinely delivered to Congressional and state legislative offices. In most states, even into the 1960s, legislative sessions were distinguished by nonstop partying for legislators sponsored by lobbyists and interest groups.
Federal regulatory and reform efforts were impeded for decades due to arguments and litigation over various constitutional issues. The creation and operation of civil service was challenged as an infringement of the President's executive authority. The regulation of railroads and other industries and businesses was said to exceed federal power under the Commerce Clause and to transgress an implied right to freedom of contract.
Gradually, these constitutional arguments were defeated and repudiated by the Progressive movement. Most conservative legal scholars today regard that as the correct result, with the doctrines put forward against reformist measures seen as false and a form of judicial activism in themselves. Yet many conservative economists seem ignorant of this and, after a layman's reading of old Supreme Court cases, elaborate arguments that attempt to reinstate long repudiated, unsound constitutional doctrines.
In challenging modern liberalism, many conservatives also rely on arguments and rhetoric that echo Christian fundamentalism. In both instances, sinners are called upon to reject evil and return to virtue and the time-honored doctrines.
In politics, this leads to a conservative constitutional revanchism that invites political futility and electoral disaster. Are Americans really going to vote for those who promise to drop federal regulation of food and drugs and of products and services as unconstitutional? To void federal worker protection and long-established reforms like civil service and federal anti-corruption laws? Or to defund Social Security and Medicare as unconstitutional?
Moreover, as Justice Scalia argued, after about 75 years, Supreme Court decisions acquire political and reliance interests that confer legitimacy in spite of any intellectual errors that they may have. I think that is mostly correct. If so, then arguments against Progressivism should be recognized as mostly historical and cannot soundly be the basis for current political action or constitutional challenge.