How the Supreme Court Incorporates Morality in the Interpretation of the Law and Enforcement of the Constitution
Introduction
Most legal obligations in the US Supreme Court affirm the incorporation of the moral perspectives in their interpretation of the constitution. This consequently takes forms in which it can enforce the constitutional obligation on the moral subject. It is the government’s power to exercise the moral authority over its individuals and the entire members in a society. However, as put up by scholars and political scholars, there are many differences among members of the moral coalists. For instance, the conservative moralists and their progressive counterparts tend to use various ideological rationales to justify governmental enforcement of morals (Ducat 249). The conservatives tend to speak the traditional language of the judicial restraint in the legal dispensation while the progressive counterparts echo the community value and participatory democracy. In addition, the constitution permits the political structure to impose moral values on citizens.
Moral Cases and the Constitutional Interpretation
The moral aspect of the law examines the good or bad side of the law as defined by the society from which such cases emanate from. The jurisprudence highlights some cases that can be morally wrong yet legal or vice versa (citation). For instance sexual behaviour, drugs and alcohol abuse, women rights abortion and slavery among others. The topic is dependent on society and its foundations as grounded in their constitutions (citation). The US constitutional dispensation has had a long history of amendments on its mandate on moral obligation.
In United States vs. Morrison, the congress clarified the remedial powers when it held that a civil right enacted against in the violence against women act (VAWA) was unconstitutional. The act imposed a civil liability on a private individual who assaulted a woman out of mere gender animus. This implies, according to Morrison, that congress cannot create civil remedy between two individuals for admitted violations of a constitutional right by one of the private individuals.
In 1850, congress again legislated the constitution to enforce slaveholders’ property rights in their slaves and enacted an elaborate enforcement structure, authorized an additional civil remedy, and imposed criminal penalties against anyone whom interfered with slave owners’ right. As noted in the fundamental human rights, slavery and the slave trade is morally wrong. It violates human rights and individual liberties such as freedom from expression, right to life and inherent decency in life (Ducat 69).
The US constitution guarantees that every human being has civil rights and liberties to enjoy life in its fullest. The moral question raised in the civil rights is, if the constitution delegated to the same plenary power to protect the human rights and privileges of slave owners, how can it not have delegated to congress the same plenary power to protect the human rights and equality of all Americans? Congress had to posses the comparable power to protect the human rights and equality of all Americans. The part shows how the farmers of the civil rights act and the 14th amendment acted on these presumptions. This was through enacting the civil rights act of 1886 to enforce the civil rights Act of the United States citizens and by incorporating into civil rights the remedies and enforcement provisions of the fugitive slave acts, particularly the fugitive act of the 1850. Thus, this amendment perpetuated the remedies and enforcement provisions of the fugitive act.
The basis of the argument is that there ought to be separation between the state and the citizen on moral grounds. The government actions reflect on notions of morality. However, as noted by the article and the constitutional outlines, citizens are free to act in their own way and manner as long as it does not interfere with his neighbour’s happiness and the full enjoyment of the rights. This implies that the US Supreme Court should incorporate the morality issue with interpretation from the society perspectives.
In Bowers vs. Hardwick, it highlights the most notorious Supreme Court opinion approving governmental moral regulation of the Georgia homosexual sodomy case. In Bowers, the court specifically endorsed the proposition that a dominant political majority may enforce its moral beliefs through legal sanctions including imprisonment. Consequently, the court rejected the notion that the constitution grants broad protection on moral nonconformity. The bowers majority in this case declared that moral nonconformity is protected, only if it fits into one of the precise categories of fundamental rights previously recognized by the court (Stephens and Scheb 64).
Michael Hardwick, the plaintiff in the case argued that Georgia sodomy statute could not be applied to consensual adult sexual activity occurring in their bedroom of a person’s home. The plaintiff based his claim on the well-established constitutional rights of free association and privacy. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court rejected the plaintiff’s claim, limiting the right intimate association to several specific factual circumstances previously protect by the court: marriage, procreation, traditional family relationships and child rearing. Therefore, according to the Supreme Court, there was no connection between the family, marriage, or procreation on one hand and the homosexual.
There was further attack on the constitutional legitimacy by the very plaintiff. He claimed that the overall framework of the constitution produced a heightened rationality standard that bars the use of amorality to justify government action affecting individual liberty (Stephens and Scheb 78). Hardwick asserted that they ought to have been a rational basis for the law and that there is none in this case other presumed belief of the majority of the electorate in Georgia that homosexual sodomy is immoral and inacceptable. The implication of this statute there is that majority notions of morality are sufficient to render the statutes constitutional. As argued in case, the justice noted that the court would invalidate any constitutional provision that infringes people’s rights. Furthermore, fundamental privacy rights are defended only to existing patterns of moral regulation in juxtaposition to existing patterns of moral regulation.
Sexual Conduct and Other Personal and Lifestyle Deviations
These are imperative areas where the Supreme Court incorporates morality in the interpretation of the law and enforcement of the constitution (Kaplan 71). On the wider scale, the Supreme Court perspective to approve governmental moral laws appears in Bowers v. Hardwick. This case was the Georgia homosexual sodomy case. In this case, the court practically endorsed the proposition that a large majority of the political movement may enforce its moral perceptions through legal sanctions. This may include imprisonment. This implies that the Supreme Court rejected the viewpoint that the constitution offers wider projection of moral nonconformity. A close analysis of the case revealed that Bowers majority declared that moral nonconformity gets its protection only when it is in line with one of the defined levels of fundamental rights initially recognised by the court.
In order to bring out a clear view of the Supreme Court in this case, it is imperative to look at the argument of the plaintiff. In the case, Michael Hardwick was the plaintiff. He argued that the Georgia sodomy statutes were out of context to consensual adult activity happening in the bedroom of an individual’s home. His assertion cannot be overruled since on the one hand, they are on the well-established legal rights of free association and confidentiality. However, the Supreme Court rejected these perspectives, restraining the right of a close relationship to a number of particular realistic conditions initially protected by the Court. These circumstances included marriage, reproduction, customary family links, and rising up children. The Supreme Court established, “No connection between family, marriage, or procreation on the one hand and homosexual activity on the other has been demonstrated (Kaplan 110)”
Hardwick provided a wider argument against the legal authenticity of moral law. He said that the entire perspective of the legal constitution offered a heightened rationality standard that prevents utilization of morality to rationalize government deed influencing personal autonomy. A quote from Justice White’s report about the majority opinion reveals how morality takes precedence in enforcing the constitution, “that there must be a rational basis for the law and that there is none in this case other than the presumed belief of a majority of the electorate in Georgia that homosexual sodomy is immoral and unacceptable (Kaplan 142).”‘ This assertion focuses on the fact that all moral regulation is unlawful. This is because all moral beliefs are intrinsically prejudiced and as a result unfounded.
However, the court responded in this case by denying the plaintiff’s central hypothesis. As opposed to the claim that the prejudiced nature of the moral rights automatically renders such laws unconstitutional, Justice White ruled out that these characteristics of moral laws essentially immunize them from constitutional analysis and limitation. He asserts that the law is always in accordance to the notions of morality. This implies that in case all laws representing fundamentally moral choices are to be authenticated under the Due Process Clause, the courts will be focused. On the wider point of view, Georgia did not require to incline on practical, empirical judgments about public health and safety to prove sodomy statute. The conclusion was that majoritarian perspectives of morality alone were enough to render the law constitutional.
On the contrary, Bowers asserted that a fundamental right exists only if there is no history of regulating a specific type of sexual behaviour. This probably means that the majority perceive that behaviour morally acceptable. In this case, the protection of constitutional privacy is needless (Stephens and Scheb 100). He asserts that in case an individual needed the constitutional right, it was unavailable. However, if the same individual did not require the right because of his behaviour conforming to the majority’s expectations, then the right applied within all capacities. The implication in Bowers’ assertion is that the court has a tendency to approve government activity focused to boost the society’s dominant perspectives and lifestyles. This move has been seen in constitutional privacy opinions since the Supreme Court’s prior articulation of the right.
Ableman v. Booth
In this case, the Supreme Court reaffirmed Congress’s plenary power to enforce constitutional rights. The Supreme Court incorporated morality in the interpretation of the law and enforcement of the constitution in this case. This case focused on the state interposition, nullification of the law, and the sovereignty theory of the constitution associated with the south and secession. By the mid 1850s, most states in the north incorporated these constitutional theories and interposed their power to nullify the Fugitive Slave Act personality liberty laws. On the other hand, majorities sometimes resisted the incorporation and removal of fugitive slaves. Wisconsin Supreme Court offered the most notorious example. In this case, the executive of the state, the legislative and the judicial sections related its citizens in strenuous efforts to nullify federal law in a defiant argument of state sovereignty. In this case, the defied federal powers trying to recapture a slave called Joshua Glover (Kaplan 95).
This incident put the state legal process and law enforcers into open conflict with those of the federal government. Those people who assisted Glover to escape faced prosecution in the US District Court for Wisconsin. One of the defendants, Booth, applied to justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court for an injunction of habeas corpus. This was during his initial arrest for going against the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. The Wisconsin judge issued the injunction and ordered his release from federal detention. He ruled that it was unlawful to hold him because the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was unconstitutional. This move led to an appeal in Supreme Court by The United States Marshal, Stephan A. Ableman. However, the court avowed the decision of the judge. It agreed that the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was illegal (Stephens and Scheb 67).
The authorities had no other way out but to release Booth. This however was not the end of the case since they arrested him again. Booth and John Rycraft faced trial and conviction for violating the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act. His spirited fight for morality made him petition again for a writ of habeas corpus, and the Wisconsin Supreme Court again ordered his release, holding that the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was unconstitutional. A concurrent release of Booth from federal custody caused the federal government to appeal this verdict. The appeal was conducted along with the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s initial verdict, to the United States Supreme Court (Ducat 88). Application of morality within the law and enforcement of the constitution realized in this case emerge when the Wisconsin Supreme Court refusing to endorse the court proceedings to the Supreme Court of the United States. This court denied the federal government’s appellate jurisdiction (Stephens and Scheb 78). The United States Supreme Court, through Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, strongly asserted its appellate authority, changed the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s verdicts, and argued according to the provisions of the constitution about the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. According to the powers bestowed to United States Supreme Court, it had full authority given by the constitution of the United States to change the verdict.
The Supreme Court’s Interpretation of Congress Power to Enforce the Rights of Free Men
To incorporate morality in the interpretation of law and enforcement of the constitutional rights of free men, the Supreme Court relied heavily on the theory of broad implied power. The Taney Court had adopted this model in the McCulloch v. Maryland case as well as the Prigg v. Pennsylvania case. This was a theory of plenary congressional power to enforce the human rights secure by the constitution.As key proponent and Senate floor manager of the Civil Rights Bill, Senator Trumbull used the McCulloch and Prigg theories of legal analysis and designation to explicate how the
The Thirteenth Amendment entrusted plenary authority to Congress to ratify the Civil Rights Bill. He construed the first part of the Thirteenth Amendment while the Prigg Court dealt with the first section of the Fugitive Slave Act (Ducat 93). Notably, the Prigg construed the Fugitive Slave Clause’s negative exclusion against the states from releasing a slave from the service or labor owed to the master as an assurance of an affirmative and total property right of slave owners. This delegated to Congress plenary authority to implement this property right. In the same way, Trumbull construed the Thirteenth Amendment’s section one exclusion against slavery as an affirmative and unconditional certification of freedom. This gave plenary authority to Congress to implement freedom and the natural rights of free men. Trumbull confidently proclaimed that civil rights “are rights which the first clause of the constitutional amendment meant to secure to all; and to prevent the very cavil which (opponents argue], that Congress would not have the power to secure them, the second section of the amendment was added (Dworkin 121)”
Conclusion
The US Supreme Court affirms the incorporation of the moral perspectives in their interpretation of the constitution. This paper looked at some of the Supreme Court Cases that conform to the incorporation of morality in interpretation of the law and enforcement of the constitution. As noted in some examples, the congress clarified the remedial powers when it held that a civil right enacted against in the violence against women act (VAWA) was unconstitutional. Another significant point of discussion was based on the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.
Work Cited:
Dworkin Ronald. Freedom’s Law: The Moral Reading of the American Constitution. New York: Harvard University Press, 1996
Ducat Craig R. Constitutional Interpretation. New York: Cengage Learning, 2008
Ducat Craig R. Constitutional Interpretation: Power of government. New York: Cengage Learning, 2008
Kaplan Morris B. Sexual Justice: Democratic Citizenship and the Politics of Desire. Chicago: Routledge, 1997
Stephens Otis and Scheb John. American Constitutional Law: Civil Rights and Liberties. New York: Cengage Learning, 2011
