Republication- Lochner Abroad: Substantive Due Process and Equal Protection in the Federal Republic of Germany

Abstract

[T]here exists some strange misconception of the scope of this [due process] provision. … [I]t would seem, from the character of many of the cases before us, and the arguments made in them, that the clause… is looked upon as a means of bringing to the test of the decision of this court the abstract opinions of every unsuccessful litigant… of the justice of the decision against him, and of the merits of the legislation on which such a decision may be founded.As Justice Miller's famous lament suggests, wishful thinkers have sought since the beginning to find a way of making the United States Supreme Court ultimate censor of the reasonableness of all governmental action. Justice Chase thought he had discovered the magic wand in natural law, Justice Bradley in the Privileges or Immunities Clause, Justice Goldberg in the Ninth Amendment. Miller battled bravely, but he had lent significant support to the enemy with his freewheeling opinion inLoan Association v. Topeka.The fire was kept flickering in dissent and in majority opinions upholding laws against due process and equal protection challenges only because they were reasonable. It burst into full flame inLochner v. New Yorkin 1905, and for the next quarter century the Supreme Court was indeed what Justice Miller had denied it should be: ultimate censor of the reasonableness of all governmental action.