Due Process

A One-Vote Oddity

One Vote Denied U.S. Citizens of their Right to Due Process for Fifty-two Years. 

(Continued from page 94)

 

Another justice wrote that the court had overstepped its bounds by limiting the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment. In language that sounds surprising familiar to debates in our own time, Justice Noah Swayne wrote, “Our duty is to execute the law, not to make it.”  His argument continued: 

The protection provided [by the 14^thAmendment] was not intended to be confined to those of any particular race or class, but to embrace equally all races, classes and conditions of men.”⁴⁸

                                                             

Nevertheless, the 5-4 decision of the court held for 52 years. This one decision effectively limited the application of some portions of the Bill of Rights to all of the citizens of theUnited States. Finally in Gitlow v. New York (1925), the Supreme Court reversed itself and ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment secured due process for all of the citizens of the United States.

Presidents, senators, and congressman come and go but a Supreme Court decision lives long past the demise of the men and women who argued it.

What kind of men and women does our country need on the Supreme Court right now in this historical moment?

Think and pray about your answer. Who you vote for will have a part in nominating or giving “advise and consent” to the President on the makeup of the Court. Make sure that your vote is rooted in the importance of the historical moment, in the righteousness of His word and the with an eye to the future.

Footnote:

48. Cited in Lindop, 56