The beginnings of the regulatory state
The rise of substantive due process
Early battles: Regulating the bank octopus State ex rel. Goodsill v. Woodmanse – North Dakota, 1890 (46 N.W. 970); State v. Scougal – South Dakota, 1892 (51 N.W. 858); Blaker v. Hood – Kansas, 1894 (36 P. 1115)
Early battles: workplace laws Low v. Rees Printing Co. – Nebraska, 1894 (59 N.W. 362); State v. Wilson – Kansas, 1899 (58 P. 981); State v. Haun – Kansas, 1899 (59 P. 340); Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad Co. v. Campbell – Kansas, 1900 (59 P. 1051)
| ![]() ![]() ![]() “[U]nder pretense of the exercise of that [police] power the legislature cannot prohibit harmless acts, which do not concern the health, safety, and welfare of society.” – Justice __, in Low “[S]uch legislation infringes upon natural rights and constitutional grants of liberty. It treats the laborer as a ward of the government, and discourages the employment of those talents which lead to success in the fields of commercial enterprise. Persons sui juris need no guardians. Those who seek to put a protector over labor reflect upon the dignity and independence of the wage earner, and deceive him by the promise that legislature can cure all the ills of which he may complain. Such legislation suggests the handiwork of the politician rather than the political economist.” – Justice __, in Haun “[A] strained and artificial construction has been often placed upon this constal provision, especially by the fed cts, for the purpose of bringing within its prohibitive terms much wholesome state legislation.” - Justice Rousseau Burch, in Campbell |
EMPIRE OF LAWS - The Legal History of the 50 American States > 8. GREAT PLAINS LEGAL HISTORY > 8.1 The Great Plains: The Frontier Era (1850-1900) > 8.1.1 Great Plains (1850-1900): Constitutions As Barometers of Social Change > 8.1.2 Great Plains (1850-1900): Civil Rights in the Frontier Great Plains >