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To my parents,
Bernard and Bettye Balkin,
who gave me their love
and an education in the law—J.B.
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Editorial Note
PART ONE
INTRODUCTION: BACKGROUND TO THE CONSTITUTION
Chapter 1 The Bank of the United States: A Case Study
Chapter 2 The Constitution in the Early Republic
Chapter 3 Are We a Nation? The Jacksonian Era to the Civil War, 1835-
1865
Chapter 4 From Reconstruction to the New Deal: 1866-1934
PART TWO
CONSTITUTIONAL ADJUDICATION IN THE MODERN WORLD
Chapter 5 The New Deal and the Civil Rights Era
Chapter 6 Federalism, Separation of Powers, and National Security in the
Modern Era
Chapter 7 Race and the Equal Protection Clause
Chapter 8 Sex Equality
Chapter 9 Liberty, Equality, and Fundamental Rights: The Constitution,
the Family, and the Body
Chapter 10 The Constitution in the Modern Welfare State
Table of Justices
Table of Cases
Index
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Editorial Note
PART ONE
INTRODUCTION: BACKGROUND TO THE CONSTITUTION
Note: The “Constitution of Conversation” and the “Constitution of
Settlement”
Chapter 1
The Bank of the United States: A Case Study
I. Early Background
II. The First Bank of the United States
A. Madison’s View [James Madison’s Speech to the House of
Representatives (1791)]
B. The Attorney General’s Opinion
C. Jefferson’s Critique of the Bank
D. Hamilton’s Defense
Alexander Hamilton, Opinion on the Constitutionality of
an Act to Establish a Bank (1791)
Discussion
III. The Second Bank
IV. Judicial Examination of Congress’s Authority to Create the Bank
Note on Reading and Editing Cases
McCulloch v. Maryland [The First Question]
A. The Reaction to McCulloch
B. Marshall’s Methods of Constitutional Interpretation
Note: Uncertainties of Meaning
1. Ambiguity
2. Vagueness
3. Nonliteral Usage
V. The States’ Power to Tax the Bank of the United States
McCulloch v. Maryland [The Second Question]
Discussion
VI. Ohio Dissents
VII. The Demise of the Second Bank
Andrew Jackson, Veto Message (July 10, 1832)
Discussion
Walter Dellinger, Presidential Authority to Decline to
Execute Unconstitutional Statutes (November 2, 1994)
Discussion
Chapter 2
The Constitution in the Early Republic
I. The Constitution During the Washington Administration
II. Early Struggles over State and National Sovereignty: Chisholm v.
Georgia and the Eleventh Amendment
Chisholm v. Georgia
Note: The Eleventh Amendment
III. The Alien and Sedition Acts and the Kentucky and Virginia
Resolutions of 1798
A. The Alien Act of 1798
B. The Sedition Act
1. The Meaning of the First Amendment
2. The Original Understanding
3. The Republican Response
Discussion
C. The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798 and the Doctrine
of Nullification
1. Nullification and Interposition
2. The Nullification Crisis and the “Tariff of Abominations”
Discussion
Note: Judicial Review Before Marbury: The Supreme
Court in Its Early Years
IV. The Election of 1800
V. Early Political Struggles over the Federal Judiciary
A. Stuart v. Laird and the Elimination of the Intermediate Appellate
Judiciary
Stuart v. Laird
Discussion
B. Marbury and Judicial Review of Legislation
Marbury v. Madison
Discussion
C. Limitations on Judicial Power
1. Jurisdiction Stripping
2. Standing
3. Political Questions
D. Judicial Review in a Democratic Polity
1. The Countermajoritarian Difficulty
2. Justifications for Judicial Review
a. Supervising Inter- and Intra-governmental Relations
b. Preserving Fundamental Values
c. Protecting the Integrity of Democratic Processes
3. The Countermajoritarian Difficulty Challenged
a. The Countermajoritarian Features of the Political Branches
b. The “Majoritarian” Aspects of Judicial Review
Note: Judicial “Good Behavior” and Lifetime Tenure
VI. The Louisiana Purchase
Discussion
Note: The “Marshall Court”
Note: Limiting the President’s Power as Commander-in-
Chief
Discussion
VII. The Protection of Property Rights and the Natural Law Tradition
Fletcher v. Peck
Discussion
Note: Natural Law, Vested Rights, and the Written
Constitution: Sources for Judicial Review
1. The Natural Law Tradition in America
2. The Judicial Protection of Vested Rights
Calder v. Bull
Discussion
3. The Explicit Federal Constitutional Protection of
Rights
4. The Ninth Amendment
Note: Is Constitutional Law a Comedy or a Tragedy?
Discussion
VIII. American Indians and the American Political Community
Discussion
IX. Women’s Citizenship in the Antebellum Era
Discussion
X. Regulation of the Interstate Economy
Gibbons v. Ogden
Discussion
Note: Federal Preemption
Arizona v. United States
Note: Language, Purpose, and Meaning
1. Language and Purpose
2. Discovering the Adopters’ Purposes
XI. The “General Welfare”
A. The Spending Clause and Disaster Relief
B. Internal Improvements
James Madison, Veto Message (March 3, 1817)
James K. Polk, Veto Message (December 15, 1847)
Discussion
Chapter 3
Are We a Nation? The Jacksonian Era to the Civil War, 1835-1865
I. Interstate and Foreign Commerce and Personal Mobility
A. The States’ “Police Powers” as a Constraint on the National
Commerce Power
Mayor of the City of New York v. Miln
Discussion
B. The Cooley Accommodation
Cooley v. Board of Wardens
Discussion
Note on Congressional Consent
C. The Privileges and Immunities of State Citizenship and Personal
Mobility Among the States
1. The Privileges and Immunities Clause of Article IV
Corfield v. Coryell
Discussion
2. Interstate Mobility
Crandall v. Nevada
Discussion
II. Slavery
A. The Interstate Slave Trade
Groves v. Slaughter
Note: The United States Mail and American Pluralism
B. Fugitive Slaves
Prigg v. Pennsylvania
Discussion
C. Prelude to Secession
Dred Scott v. Sandford
Discussion
Frederick Douglass, The Constitution of the United States:
Is It Pro-Slavery or Anti-Slavery?
Discussion
D. Judicial Supremacy and Dred Scott: The Lincoln–Douglas Debates
Discussion
III. “And the War Came”: The President as Commander-in-Chief and the
Preservation of the Union
A. The Debate over Secession
1. President James Buchanan Opposes Both Secession and War
2. South Carolina Justifies Its Secession
Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and
Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the
Federal Union (December 24, 1860)
3. Judah Benjamin Defends Secession
4. Jefferson Davis Takes the Helm of the Confederate States of
America
5. Lincoln Responds and Acts
Discussion
Texas v. White
Note: The Confederate Constitution
Discussion
B. The Authority of the President to Repel Attacks on the Union
Prize Cases
Discussion
C. Lincoln and the Suspension of Habeas Corpus
1. Chief Justice Taney on the Exclusive Authority of Congress
Ex parte Merryman
2. The President Asserts Executive Authority
Discussion
D. Lincoln: The Great Emancipator
Note: Former Justice Curtis Dissents
Discussion
Note: “Reverence for Law”
Discussion
Note: The Gettysburg Address as Constitutional
Interpretation
The Gettysburg Address (November 19, 1863)
Discussion
E. The Use of Military Tribunals as an Alternative to Trial by Jury
Ex parte Milligan
Discussion
Chapter 4
From Reconstruction to the New Deal: 1866-1934
I. The Reconstruction Constitution
A. History of the Adoption of the Reconstruction Amendments
1. The Thirteenth Amendment
2. The Civil Rights Act of 1866
3. The Fourteenth Amendment
Senator Jacob Howard, Speech Introducing the Fourteenth
Amendment (May 23, 1866)
Discussion
Note: What the Fourteenth Amendment Did Not Say
Note: The Unusual Procedural History of the Fourteenth
Amendment
Discussion
4. The Fifteenth Amendment
Note: When Did the Civil War End?
B. The Fourteenth Amendment Limited
The Slaughterhouse Cases
Discussion
United States v. Cruikshank
Discussion
Bradwell v. Illinois
Discussion
Note: The “New Departure” and Women’s Place in the
Constitutional Order
Minor v. Happersett
Discussion
Note: The Fourteenth Amendment, Birthright Citizenship,
and American Indians
Note: “The Riddle of Hiram Revels”
Discussion
C. Early Application of the Fourteenth Amendment to Race
Discrimination
Strauder v. West Virginia
Discussion
D. Creation of the State Action Doctrine
The Civil Rights Cases
Discussion
E. Establishment of the “Separate but Equal” Doctrine
Plessy v. Ferguson
Discussion
Charles Black, The Lawfulness of the Segregation
Decisions
Note: The Spirit of Plessy and Black Disenfranchisement
Giles v. Harris
Discussion
II. Creating an “American” Nation
A. American Expansionism, Race, Ethnicity, and the Constitution
Downes v. Bidwell
Discussion
B. Ethnic Diversity and the Constitution: The Case of Chinese
Immigration
Chae Chan Ping v. United States
Discussion
III. The Rise of the Modern Industrial Order and the Protection of
Economic Rights
A. Economic Disorder and Emergency Powers
In re Debs
Discussion
B. The Rise of Due Process Protection Against State Economic
Regulation
C. The Application of the Bill of Rights to the States
Discussion
D. The Heyday of Police Power Jurisprudence, 1890-1934
Lochner v. New York
1. The Idea of Police Power Jurisprudence
2. The Meanings of “Liberty,” “Property,” and “Due Process”
3. The Scope of the Police Power: Permissible and Impermissible
Objectives
4. Burdens of Proof and Questions of Degree
5. Laissez Faire, Lawyers, and Legal Scholarship
6. A Survey of the Court’s Work
Adkins v. Children’s Hospital
E. Freedom of Contract and the Problem of “Involuntary Servitude”
Discussion
IV. Congressional Regulation of Interstate Commerce and of the National
Economy
A. The Commerce Power
Champion v. Ames [The Lottery Case]
Discussion
Hammer v. Dagenhart
Discussion
Note: On “Prisoner’s Dilemmas” and Centralized
Coordination
Note: Binary Oppositions and Congressional Ability to
Invoke Its Power Under the Commerce Clause
B. The Taxing Power
Bailey v. Drexel Furniture Co. (The Child Labor Tax
Case)
C. The Spending Power
Discussion
D. The Treaty Power
Missouri v. Holland
E. The Eleventh Amendment and State Sovereign Immunity
Hans v. Louisiana
Discussion
V. “When a Nation Is at War”: World War I and the First Amendment
Discussion
Note: Further Questions on the Constitution and
“Emergency Power” During Time of War
VI. Constitutional Innovation During the Progressive Period
A. The Sixteenth Amendment
B. The Seventeenth Amendment
C. The Eighteenth Amendment
D. The Nineteenth Amendment
E. Constitutional Limits on Article V?
1. Time Limits
Discussion
2. Are There Substantive Limits to Constitutional Amendment?
PART TWO
CONSTITUTIONAL ADJUDICATION IN THE MODERN WORLD
The Evolution of the Bill of Rights and Its “Incorporation” Against the
States
Chapter 5
The New Deal and the Civil Rights Era
I. The Decline of Judicial Intervention Against Economic Regulation
A. 1934
Home Building & Loan Association v. Blaisdell [The
Minnesota Mortgage Moratorium Case]
Discussion
B. 1935-1937
West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish
C. The Modern Doctrine of Economic Due Process
United States v. Carolene Products Co.
Discussion
Williamson v. Lee Optical Co.
Discussion
D. Modern Contract Clause Doctrine
Discussion
E. Modern Takings Clause Doctrine
Jed Rubenfeld, Usings
Discussion
II. The Creation of the New Deal Settlement and the Relaxation of
Judicial Constraints on Congressional Power
A. 1935-1936—The Supreme Court Confronts Roosevelt over
Federal Power
Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States
Carter v. Carter Coal Co.
Discussion
United States v. Butler
Discussion
Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Fireside Chat” (March 9, 1937)
Discussion
NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp.
Discussion
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Address on Constitution Day,
Washington, D.C. (September 17, 1937)
Discussion
B. The Emergence of Modern Commerce Clause Doctrine
United States v. Darby
Wickard v. Filburn
Discussion
Note: On Constitutional Revolution
C. The Taxing and Spending Power
Steward Machine Company v. Davis
Discussion
III. National Power in the Civil Rights Era
A. The 1960s Civil Rights Legislation: Commerce Power or
Reconstruction Power?
1. The Civil Rights Movement and the Civil Rights Act of 1964
Discussion
2. Congressional Power to Pass the Civil Rights Bill
Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States
Katzenbach v. McClung
Discussion
B. The Reconstruction Power in the Civil Rights Era
Note: The Voting Rights Act of 1965
Lyndon B. Johnson, Special Message to the Congress: The
American Promise (March 15, 1965)
Discussion
South Carolina v. Katzenbach
Katzenbach v. Morgan
Discussion
Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co.
Oregon v. Mitchell
Chapter 6
Federalism, Separation of Powers, and National Security in the Modern Era
I. Judicial Constraints on Congressional Power
A. The Rehnquist and Roberts Courts: Finding Limits on Federal
Power
1. The Commerce Power
United States v. Lopez
Discussion
National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius
[The Health Care Case]
Discussion
United States v. Comstock
Discussion
2. The Taxing Power
National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius
[The Health Care Case]
Discussion
3. The Spending Power
National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius
[The Health Care Case]
Discussion
4. The Treaty Power
Bond v. United States
Discussion
5. The Reconstruction Power
City of Boerne v. Flores
Discussion
Akhil Reed Amar, Intratextualism
United States v. Morrison
Discussion
Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama v. Garrett
Discussion
Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder
Discussion
II. Affirmative Limits on Congressional Regulations of State
Governments
A. From the Hughes Court to the Burger Court: Practically No
Limits?
National League of Cities v. Usery
Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority
Discussion
B. The Rehnquist Court: Finding Affirmative Limits
Gregory v. Ashcroft
Discussion
New York v. United States
Discussion
Saikrishna Bangalore Prakash, Field Office Federalism
Printz v. United States
Discussion
Note: State Sovereign Immunity
Discussion
Note: Cooperative (and Uncooperative) Federalism)
III. Interstate Federalism and the National Economy
A. Dormant Commerce Clause
1. Burdensome Laws: The Development of a Balancing Test
2. Facially Discriminatory Laws: The “Per Se Invalidity” Test
3. The Market Participant Exception
4. General Theories of Dormant Commerce
B. Interstate Privileges and Immunities
IV. The Executive Power of the United States
A. The (Non)Prosecution Power
United States v. Cox
Discussion
United States v. Nixon, President of the United States
Discussion
B. The Appointment Power
In re Sealed Case
Morrison v. Olson
Discussion
Edmond v. United States
Discussion
National Labor Relations Board v. Noel Canning
Discussion
C. The Veto Power
Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Chadha
Discussion
D. The Power of the Sword
1. Emergency Power During Wartime
Executive Order: Directing the Secretary of Commerce to
Take Possession of and Operate the Plants and Facilities
of Certain Steel Companies
Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer
Discussion
Note: The Power to Wage War
2. Executive Detention
Hamdi v. Rumsfeld
Discussion
3. Military Tribunals
4. Habeas Corpus for the Guantanamo Detainees
Boumediene v. Bush
Discussion
5. Torture and Presidential Power
Discussion
6. Targeted Killings
7. Diplomatic Recognition
Zivotofsky v. Kerry
Discussion
E. Presidential Privileges and Immunities
F. Presidential Selection
Note: Presidential Impeachment
Chapter 7
Race and the Equal Protection Clause
I. Brown v. Board of Education and the Constitutional Struggle over
Desegregation
A. Background to the School Desegregation Case
Note: Brown and the Cold War
B. The School Desegregation Case
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas
Bolling v. Sharpe
Discussion
Note: A “Dissent” from Brown
Discussion
Note: Brown and the Original Understanding
Discussion
C. Brown’s Legacy, Fulfilled or Betrayed? Four Decades of School
Desegregation
1. Brown II and “All Deliberate Speed”
Brown v. Board of Education (Brown II)
2. “Massive Resistance” to School Desegregation
3. The Political Branches Respond: 1964-1968
4. The Supreme Court Reasserts Itself
5. Swann and Metropolitan Segregation in the South
6. School Segregation in the North—The Court Confronts the De
Jure/De Facto Distinction
7. The Turning Point—Inter-District Relief
8. An Era of Retrenchment
Missouri v. Jenkins (Jenkins II)
Discussion
II. The Antidiscrimination Principle and the “Suspect Classification”
Standard
A. The Origins of the Suspect Classification Doctrine
1. The Japanese Internment Case
Korematsu v. United States
Discussion
2. The Court Strikes Down Antimiscegenation Statutes
Loving v. Virginia
Discussion
B. The Reach of the Suspect Classification Doctrine
1. Racial Segregation in Prisons
Johnson v. California
2. Family Formation
a. Child Custody Decisions Following Divorce
b. Race-Matching Policies in Adoption
3. Government Collection and Use of Racial Data
Discussion
Note: Four Concepts of “Race”: Status-Based, Formal,
Historical, and Cultural
C. When Is a Decision Made “on the Basis of” Race?
1. Early Cases
Yick Wo v. Hopkins
Ho Ah Kow v. Nunan
2. Brown v. Board of Education and Desegregation
3. The Interplay Between the Fourteenth Amendment and the
Civil Rights Acts
Griggs v. Duke Power Co.
Discussion
4. The Court Separates the Fourteenth Amendment from the Civil
Rights Acts
Washington v. Davis
Village of Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing
Development Corp.
Personnel Administrator of Massachusetts v. Feeney
Discussion
Note: Commentaries on the Intent Standard
Discussion
5. The Future of Disparate Impact Legislation
Ricci v. DeStefano
Discussion
D. Race and the Criminal Justice System
1. The War on Drugs and the Powder Cocaine/Crack Cocaine
Distinction
United States v. Clary
Discussion
2. Administering Death
McCleskey v. Kemp
Discussion
3. Suspect Descriptions
Brown v. City of Oneonta
Discussion
Note: Racial Profiling and the Equal Protection Clause
E. “Preferential” Treatment for Racial Minorities
1. The Central Issues
2. The Early Cases
Regents of the University of California v. Bakke
3. Affirmative Action from Bakke to Croson
4. Affirmative Action in the Rehnquist Court
City of Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co.
Discussion
Adarand Constructors v. Pena
Note: Originalism and Affirmative Action
5. The Court Reaffirms Bakke
Grutter v. Bollinger
Gratz v. Bollinger
Discussion
6. The Roberts Court Interprets Brown in Light of Affirmative
Action
Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School
District No. 1
Discussion
Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin
Discussion
Note: Racial Redistricting and the Equal Protection Clause
F. Citizenship and Alienage Under the Equal Protection Clause
1. The Early Interplay of Race and Alienage
2. Regulation of Aliens by State Governments
Graham v. Richardson
Bernal v. Fainter
Discussion
3. Regulation of Resident Aliens by the Federal Government
Discussion
Chapter 8
Sex Equality
I. The Sex Equality Claims Under the Fourteenth Amendment: Social
Movements and Constitutional Change
A. The Fourteenth Amendment’s First Century
B. Movement Roots of Modern Sex Discrimination Law
Frontiero v. Richardson
Discussion
Note: Reasoning from Race in Frontiero and Beyond
Note: The Equal Rights Amendment
Discussion
Note: The Nineteenth Amendment
II. What Does Intermediate Scrutiny Prohibit?
A. Intermediate Scrutiny, Sex Stereotyping, and Laws Enforcing
Breadwinner/Caregiver Roles
Note: Sex Discrimination and Same-Sex Marriage
Discussion
Note: On Sex, Gender, and Sexual Orientation
B. Intermediate Scrutiny and the Race-Gender Analogy
United States v. Virginia [The VMI Case]
Discussion
Note: Constitutional Interpretation, Originalism, and Sex
Discrimination
Discussion
Note: Intermediate Scrutiny and Single-Sex Education
Note: Affirmative Action and Intermediate Scrutiny
C. Intermediate Scrutiny and Claims of Sex Difference: Pregnancy as
a Justification for Sex-Differentiated Treatment of Men and
Women
Tuan Anh Nguyen v. INS
Discussion
Sessions v. Morales-Santana
Discussion
III. Distinguishing Sex-Based and Sex-Neutral Policies: Evolving
Perspectives on Pregnancy
A. Criteria for Distinguishing Sex-Based and Sex-Neutral Policies
Personnel Administrator of Massachusetts v. Feeney
Discussion
B. Judicial and Legislative Perspectives on Pregnancy and Sex
Equality: Alternative Understandings
1. Classifications on the Basis of Sex and Pregnancy
Discussion
Note: Differing Approaches to Pregnancy Discrimination
Under the Constitution and Federal Civil Rights Law
Note: Abortion and Equal Protection
2. Congress and the Court: Evolving Understandings of
Pregnancy
Nevada Department of Human Resources v. Hibbs
Discussion
IV. Gender in the Military: Constitutional Change Outside the Courts
A. A Brief History of Women in the Military: The Creation and
Erosion of “Combat Exclusion” Rules
B. The End of the Combat Exclusion?
C. Rostker and the Constitutionality of Gender-Based Conscription
Discussion
V. Other Suspect Bases of Classification: Thinking Outside the “Tiers of
Scrutiny” Model
City of Cleburne, Texas v. Cleburne Living Center
Discussion
Note: Accommodation as a Norm—The Americans with
Disabilities Act of 1990
Chapter 9
Liberty, Equality, and Fundamental Rights: The Constitution, the Family,
and the Body
I. Historical Roots of Fundamental Rights Adjudication
A. Doctrinal Antecedents
B. Popular and Philosophical Debate About the Criminalization of
Sex
II. Contemporary Fundamental Rights Adjudication
A. The Contraception Case
Griswold v. Connecticut
Discussion
Note: The Reach of Griswold
Eisenstadt v. Baird
Note: Tradition as a Source of Fundamental Rights
Jack M. Balkin, Tradition, Betrayal, and the Politics of
Deconstruction
Discussion
III. Reproductive Rights and Abortion
A. The Decision in Roe v. Wade
Roe v. Wade
Doe v. Bolton
Discussion
Note: Did Roe Cause the Abortion Conflict?
Discussion
B. Abortion and the Equal Protection Clause
Reva Siegel, Reasoning from the Body: A Historical
Perspective on Abortion Regulation and Questions of
Equal Protection
Discussion
C. Decisions After Roe
Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v.
Casey
Discussion
D. Abortion Restrictions After Casey
Gonzales v. Carhart [Carhart II]
Discussion
Note: Absolute and Incremental Restrictions on Abortion
Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt
Discussion
IV. Sexuality and Sexual Orientation
A. Sexual Orientation: Liberty and Equality
1. The Court’s First Ruling on Laws Criminalizing Sodomy
Bowers v. Hardwick
Discussion
2. Bowers Blunted, But Not Reversed
Romer v. Evans
Discussion
3. Bowers Reversed
Lawrence v. Texas
Discussion
Note: Liberty, Equality, and Lawrence
1. Liberty and/or Equality?
2. Liberty versus Equality: A Queer Perspective
3. Dignity in Lawrence
B. Sexual Orientation: Equal Protection and Heightened Scrutiny
Letter from the Attorney General to Congress on
Litigation Involving the Defense of Marriage Act
(February 23, 2011)
Discussion
C. Same-Sex Marriage
United States v. Windsor
Discussion
Obergefell v. Hodges
Discussion
D. Backlash and Social Movements
The Judicial Backlash Thesis
Skeptics of the Judicial Backlash Thesis
Note: The Right to Die and Other Implied Fundamental
Rights
V. The Constitutional Right of Self-Defense
District of Columbia v. Heller
McDonald v. City of Chicago
Discussion
Chapter 10
The Constitution in the Modern Welfare State
I. Does the Constitution Affirmatively Guarantee Any Welfare Rights?
A. The Rights of Indigents in the Criminal Justice System
B. The Creation of Fundamental Interests Under the Equal Protection
Clause
Harper v. Virginia Bd. of Elections
Discussion
Note: Protecting the Poor Through the Fourteenth
Amendment
C. Minimum Needs Rejected
Dandridge v. Williams
Discussion
D. The Right to Education
1. “Equal Provision” of Public Education
San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez
Discussion
2. Is There a Right to Some Minimal Provision of Educational
Resources?
Plyler v. Doe
Discussion
Note: On the Enforceability of “Positive Rights”
Discussion
E. Does the State Have a “Duty to Rescue”?
DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social
Services
Discussion
Note: State Action in the Age of the Welfare State
II. The Procedural Due Process Protection of Entitlements and Other
Nontraditional Property and Liberty Interests: The Basic Doctrine
A. What Procedural Safeguards Are Due?
Goldberg v. Kelly
Discussion
Note: To What Extent Does Goldberg Rest on Legal
Formality?
III. The Welfare State and Burdens on Interstate Mobility
A. The Right to Travel as a Fundamental Right
Shapiro v. Thompson
B. The Right to Relocate
C. Can the State Give More Welfare to Long-Time Residents Than to
Newcomers?
Discussion
D. Congressional Consent
E. The Court Reconsiders (and Reconceptualizes) Shapiro
Saenz v. Roe
Discussion
IV. Conditioning Spending in the Welfare State — The Problem of
Unconstitutional Conditions
A. Introduction: Rights, Waivers, and Inducements to Change
Behavior
Table of Justices
Table of Cases
Index
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DANCE ON STILTS AT THE GIRLS’ UNYAGO, NIUCHI
I see increasing reason to believe that the view formed some time
back as to the origin of the Makonde bush is the correct one. I have
no doubt that it is not a natural product, but the result of human
occupation. Those parts of the high country where man—as a very
slight amount of practice enables the eye to perceive at once—has not
yet penetrated with axe and hoe, are still occupied by a splendid
timber forest quite able to sustain a comparison with our mixed
forests in Germany. But wherever man has once built his hut or tilled
his field, this horrible bush springs up. Every phase of this process
may be seen in the course of a couple of hours’ walk along the main
road. From the bush to right or left, one hears the sound of the axe—
not from one spot only, but from several directions at once. A few
steps further on, we can see what is taking place. The brush has been
cut down and piled up in heaps to the height of a yard or more,
between which the trunks of the large trees stand up like the last
pillars of a magnificent ruined building. These, too, present a
melancholy spectacle: the destructive Makonde have ringed them—
cut a broad strip of bark all round to ensure their dying off—and also
piled up pyramids of brush round them. Father and son, mother and
son-in-law, are chopping away perseveringly in the background—too
busy, almost, to look round at the white stranger, who usually excites
so much interest. If you pass by the same place a week later, the piles
of brushwood have disappeared and a thick layer of ashes has taken
the place of the green forest. The large trees stretch their
smouldering trunks and branches in dumb accusation to heaven—if
they have not already fallen and been more or less reduced to ashes,
perhaps only showing as a white stripe on the dark ground.
This work of destruction is carried out by the Makonde alike on the
virgin forest and on the bush which has sprung up on sites already
cultivated and deserted. In the second case they are saved the trouble
of burning the large trees, these being entirely absent in the
secondary bush.
After burning this piece of forest ground and loosening it with the
hoe, the native sows his corn and plants his vegetables. All over the
country, he goes in for bed-culture, which requires, and, in fact,
receives, the most careful attention. Weeds are nowhere tolerated in
the south of German East Africa. The crops may fail on the plains,
where droughts are frequent, but never on the plateau with its
abundant rains and heavy dews. Its fortunate inhabitants even have
the satisfaction of seeing the proud Wayao and Wamakua working
for them as labourers, driven by hunger to serve where they were
accustomed to rule.
But the light, sandy soil is soon exhausted, and would yield no
harvest the second year if cultivated twice running. This fact has
been familiar to the native for ages; consequently he provides in
time, and, while his crop is growing, prepares the next plot with axe
and firebrand. Next year he plants this with his various crops and
lets the first piece lie fallow. For a short time it remains waste and
desolate; then nature steps in to repair the destruction wrought by
man; a thousand new growths spring out of the exhausted soil, and
even the old stumps put forth fresh shoots. Next year the new growth
is up to one’s knees, and in a few years more it is that terrible,
impenetrable bush, which maintains its position till the black
occupier of the land has made the round of all the available sites and
come back to his starting point.
The Makonde are, body and soul, so to speak, one with this bush.
According to my Yao informants, indeed, their name means nothing
else but “bush people.” Their own tradition says that they have been
settled up here for a very long time, but to my surprise they laid great
stress on an original immigration. Their old homes were in the
south-east, near Mikindani and the mouth of the Rovuma, whence
their peaceful forefathers were driven by the continual raids of the
Sakalavas from Madagascar and the warlike Shirazis[47] of the coast,
to take refuge on the almost inaccessible plateau. I have studied
African ethnology for twenty years, but the fact that changes of
population in this apparently quiet and peaceable corner of the earth
could have been occasioned by outside enterprises taking place on
the high seas, was completely new to me. It is, no doubt, however,
correct.
The charming tribal legend of the Makonde—besides informing us
of other interesting matters—explains why they have to live in the
thickest of the bush and a long way from the edge of the plateau,
instead of making their permanent homes beside the purling brooks
and springs of the low country.
“The place where the tribe originated is Mahuta, on the southern
side of the plateau towards the Rovuma, where of old time there was
nothing but thick bush. Out of this bush came a man who never
washed himself or shaved his head, and who ate and drank but little.
He went out and made a human figure from the wood of a tree
growing in the open country, which he took home to his abode in the
bush and there set it upright. In the night this image came to life and
was a woman. The man and woman went down together to the
Rovuma to wash themselves. Here the woman gave birth to a still-
born child. They left that place and passed over the high land into the
valley of the Mbemkuru, where the woman had another child, which
was also born dead. Then they returned to the high bush country of
Mahuta, where the third child was born, which lived and grew up. In
course of time, the couple had many more children, and called
themselves Wamatanda. These were the ancestral stock of the
Makonde, also called Wamakonde,[48] i.e., aborigines. Their
forefather, the man from the bush, gave his children the command to
bury their dead upright, in memory of the mother of their race who
was cut out of wood and awoke to life when standing upright. He also
warned them against settling in the valleys and near large streams,
for sickness and death dwelt there. They were to make it a rule to
have their huts at least an hour’s walk from the nearest watering-
place; then their children would thrive and escape illness.”
The explanation of the name Makonde given by my informants is
somewhat different from that contained in the above legend, which I
extract from a little book (small, but packed with information), by
Pater Adams, entitled Lindi und sein Hinterland. Otherwise, my
results agree exactly with the statements of the legend. Washing?
Hapana—there is no such thing. Why should they do so? As it is, the
supply of water scarcely suffices for cooking and drinking; other
people do not wash, so why should the Makonde distinguish himself
by such needless eccentricity? As for shaving the head, the short,
woolly crop scarcely needs it,[49] so the second ancestral precept is
likewise easy enough to follow. Beyond this, however, there is
nothing ridiculous in the ancestor’s advice. I have obtained from
various local artists a fairly large number of figures carved in wood,
ranging from fifteen to twenty-three inches in height, and
representing women belonging to the great group of the Mavia,
Makonde, and Matambwe tribes. The carving is remarkably well
done and renders the female type with great accuracy, especially the
keloid ornamentation, to be described later on. As to the object and
meaning of their works the sculptors either could or (more probably)
would tell me nothing, and I was forced to content myself with the
scanty information vouchsafed by one man, who said that the figures
were merely intended to represent the nembo—the artificial
deformations of pelele, ear-discs, and keloids. The legend recorded
by Pater Adams places these figures in a new light. They must surely
be more than mere dolls; and we may even venture to assume that
they are—though the majority of present-day Makonde are probably
unaware of the fact—representations of the tribal ancestress.
The references in the legend to the descent from Mahuta to the
Rovuma, and to a journey across the highlands into the Mbekuru
valley, undoubtedly indicate the previous history of the tribe, the
travels of the ancestral pair typifying the migrations of their
descendants. The descent to the neighbouring Rovuma valley, with
its extraordinary fertility and great abundance of game, is intelligible
at a glance—but the crossing of the Lukuledi depression, the ascent
to the Rondo Plateau and the descent to the Mbemkuru, also lie
within the bounds of probability, for all these districts have exactly
the same character as the extreme south. Now, however, comes a
point of especial interest for our bacteriological age. The primitive
Makonde did not enjoy their lives in the marshy river-valleys.
Disease raged among them, and many died. It was only after they
had returned to their original home near Mahuta, that the health
conditions of these people improved. We are very apt to think of the
African as a stupid person whose ignorance of nature is only equalled
by his fear of it, and who looks on all mishaps as caused by evil
spirits and malignant natural powers. It is much more correct to
assume in this case that the people very early learnt to distinguish
districts infested with malaria from those where it is absent.
This knowledge is crystallized in the
ancestral warning against settling in the
valleys and near the great waters, the
dwelling-places of disease and death. At the
same time, for security against the hostile
Mavia south of the Rovuma, it was enacted
that every settlement must be not less than a
certain distance from the southern edge of the
plateau. Such in fact is their mode of life at the
present day. It is not such a bad one, and
certainly they are both safer and more
comfortable than the Makua, the recent
intruders from the south, who have made USUAL METHOD OF
good their footing on the western edge of the CLOSING HUT-DOOR
plateau, extending over a fairly wide belt of
country. Neither Makua nor Makonde show in their dwellings
anything of the size and comeliness of the Yao houses in the plain,
especially at Masasi, Chingulungulu and Zuza’s. Jumbe Chauro, a
Makonde hamlet not far from Newala, on the road to Mahuta, is the
most important settlement of the tribe I have yet seen, and has fairly
spacious huts. But how slovenly is their construction compared with
the palatial residences of the elephant-hunters living in the plain.
The roofs are still more untidy than in the general run of huts during
the dry season, the walls show here and there the scanty beginnings
or the lamentable remains of the mud plastering, and the interior is a
veritable dog-kennel; dirt, dust and disorder everywhere. A few huts
only show any attempt at division into rooms, and this consists
merely of very roughly-made bamboo partitions. In one point alone
have I noticed any indication of progress—in the method of fastening
the door. Houses all over the south are secured in a simple but
ingenious manner. The door consists of a set of stout pieces of wood
or bamboo, tied with bark-string to two cross-pieces, and moving in
two grooves round one of the door-posts, so as to open inwards. If
the owner wishes to leave home, he takes two logs as thick as a man’s
upper arm and about a yard long. One of these is placed obliquely
against the middle of the door from the inside, so as to form an angle
of from 60° to 75° with the ground. He then places the second piece
horizontally across the first, pressing it downward with all his might.
It is kept in place by two strong posts planted in the ground a few
inches inside the door. This fastening is absolutely safe, but of course
cannot be applied to both doors at once, otherwise how could the
owner leave or enter his house? I have not yet succeeded in finding
out how the back door is fastened.