Economic Liberties

In this seminar we will examine how American constitutionalism interacts with the government’s attempt to regulate and influence economic relationships. We will study constitutional law under both the U.S. Constitution and various state constitutions. It will primarily be a legal history course, looking at how constitutional law has ebbed and flowed over the centuries in its treatment of economic relationships. We will mostly investigate traditional “economic liberties” such as the right to contracts, right to earn a living, and property rights. But we will also touch on “positive liberties” such as the constitutional obligation for the government to fight monopolies and the right to a basic standard of living. Further, we will look at related topics such as how slavery fit into conceptions of economic liberty and property in the early Republic and how constitutionalism intersects with the regulation of money. Reading will primarily be of caselaw, but we will also read other primary sources as well as some recent scholarship.