Deck 2: Property Rights and Economic Freedom

Question 1

Americans of the 18th century, including those who wrote the Constitution and Bill of Rights, generally accepted the theory of ________________ as expounded by such philosophers as John Locke.

A) natural rights
B) political absolutism
C) utilitarianism
D) primogeniture

Answer 1

A

Question 2

To what extent are private property rights supportive of other rights retained by the people?

Answer 2

Not answer

Question 3

How do courts determine what constitutes "just compensation" in a case of eminent domain?

Answer 3

Not answer

Question 4

In the face of a rising tide of economic legislation, the Supreme Court of the late 19th and early 20th centuries became more adamant in its defense of ______.

A) economic equality
B) the police power
C) laissez-faire capitalism
D) the general welfare

Question 5

Does the concept of "substantive due process" make sense? How does one impart substantive content to the due process clauses of the 5th and 14th Amendments?

Question 6

The ____________ Clause of the Constitution figured prominently in the Supreme Court's protection of property rights during the early part of the nineteenth century.

A) General Welfare
B) Supremacy
C) Contract
D) Full Faith and Credit

Question 7

Are modern court decisions allowing government broad latitude in regulating the economy consistent with the intentions and expectations of the Framers of the Constitution?

Question 8

In Fletcher v. Peck (1810), the Supreme Court invalidated as a violation of the ________ Clause a Georgia law rescinding the state's sale of land to private investors.

A) Commerce
B) Supremacy
C) Contract
D) Full Faith and Credit

Question 9

Constitutional Limitations, written by _________________, was an influential legal treatise published in 1868.

A) Thomas M. Cooley
B) Roscoe Conkling
C) Thomas I. Emerson
D) Stephen J. Field

Question 10

To what extent is the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment, as applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, a limitation on state land use policy?

Question 11

Do laws restricting the development of privately owned wetlands constitute takings of property within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment?

Question 12

In what ways do modern statutes limit the right of private parties to enter into contracts?

Question 13

Compare and Contrast the Marshall and Taney Court's perspectives on the protection of property and business interests.

Question 14

In Sturges v. Crowninshield (1819), the Supreme Court struck down a New York law pertaining to ___________________.

A) eminent domain
B) privatization of public schools
C) bankruptcy
D) social welfare programs

Question 15

Given the pervasive attachment in this society to the values of private property and free enterprise, what degree of judicial scrutiny of economic regulation is necessary? Should questions of economic regulation not be left entirely to the political process?

Question 16

Is the U.S. Constitution inextricably wed to a capitalist economic system?

Question 17

Could the federal government use the power of eminent domain to nationalize industry?

Question 18

How has John Locke's theory of natural rights influenced judicial interpretation in the area of property rights and economic freedom?

Question 19

The Supreme Court's decision in ________________ (1819) is widely considered to have had great influence on economic development in mid-nineteenth century America.

A) Dartmouth College v. Woodward
B) Pollock v. Farmer's Loan and Trust Co.
C) U.S. v. E.C. Knight Co.
D) Chisholm v. Georgia

Question 20

In Adair v. United States (1908), the Supreme Court invalidated on Fifth Amendment due process grounds a federal act outlawing "__________" contracts, under which persons agreed, as a condition of employment, not to join labor unions.

A) yellow dog
B) scab
C) union buster
D) muckraker

Question 21

Which of the following sets of justices dissented in both Nebbia v. New York (1934) and West Coast Hotel v. Parrish (1937)?

A) Holmes, Hughes, Brandeis, Stone
B) Holmes, Brandeis, Douglas, Black
C) Sutherland, VanDevanter, McReynolds, Butler
D) Butler, Sutherland, Hughes, Stone

Question 22

The ______ movement of the late 19th century involved thousands of farmers seeking legislative protection against excessive freight rates charged by railroads and other businesses involved in the distribution of agricultural commodities.

A) Free Silver
B) Granger
C) Cross of Gold
D) Progressive

Question 23

From the 1890's through the mid-1930's the U.S. Supreme Court frequently interpreted the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as a substantive limitation on __________.

A) freedom of speech
B) federal criminal prosecutions
C) economic regulation by the states
D) voting rights

Question 24

In The Slaughterhouse Cases (1873), a narrowly divided Supreme Court upheld a state grant of a monopoly in the slaughtering business in __________.

A) New Orleans, Louisiana
B) Houston, Texas
C) Chicago, Illinois
D) none of the above

Question 25

Beginning in the late 1880s, the Supreme Court used substantive due process, as well as the Commerce Clause, the Tenth Amendment and related constitutional provisions, to protect _______________ from ________________.

A) economic individualism; legislative power
B) public policy; economic individualism
C) economic freedom; individualism
D) the government's police power; Social Darwinism

Question 26

In ____________________ (1937), the Supreme Court upheld a Washington state minimum wage law enacted in 1913.

A) West Coast Hotel v. Parrish
B) Adkins v. Children's Hospital
C) Steward Machine Co. v. Davis
D) Mulford v. Smith

Question 27

During the 1980s, legal theorists such as _________ urged the Supreme Court to resurrect its former commitment to private property and private enterprise.

A) Robert Bork
B) Raoul Berger
C) Richard Epstein
D) Lief Carter

Question 28

In Lochner v. New York (1905), the Supreme Court struck down a state law specifying a maximum sixty-hour work week for _____________.

A) bakery employees
B) coal miners
C) seamstresses
D) factory workers

Question 29

The term __________ rights includes the ownership, acquisition, and use of private property, whereas __________ freedom denotes the cluster of rights associated with private enterprise.

A) property; economic
B) economic; property
C) public; private
D) private; public

Question 30

The power of the government to take private property for a public purpose is known as _____.

A) eminent domain
B) fee simple
C) sovereign immunity
D) corpus juris maximus

Question 31

Today the Contract Clause is ______employed as a limitation on state power.

A) often
B) seldom
C) never
D) always

Question 32

The majority opinion in the Charles River Bridge decision of 1837 was authored by ___________.

A) Chief Justice Taney
B) Chief Justice Marshall
C) Justice Story
D) Justice McLean

Question 33

In Munn v. Illinois (1877), the Supreme Court endorsed and applied the doctrine of ___________.

A) business affected with a public interest
B) liberty of contract
C) natural rights
D) fair return on a fair value

Question 34

Which of the following provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment was used most extensively during the early 1900s as a basis for limiting state economic regulation?

A) Privileges and Immunities Clause
B) Equal Protection Clause
C) Section 5
D) Due Process Clause

Question 35

In Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1886), the Court invalidated a San Francisco ordinance requiring owners of ________ housed in wooden buildings to obtain permission from the Board of Supervisors to continue operating their businesses.

A) laundries
B) bakeries
C) restaurants
D) theaters

Question 36

The Supreme Court held in Calder v. Bull (1798) that the _________ Clause applies only to retroactive criminal statutes and not to laws affecting property rights or contractual obligations.

A) Ex Post Facto
B) Contract
C) Commerce
D) Full Faith and Credit

Question 37

In Muller v. Oregon (1908), attorney _______________ submitted a novel brief presenting extensive sociological and medical data in support of the state's contention that the limitation of working hours was directly related to the promotion of the health and welfare of women.

A) Oliver Wendell Holmes
B) William O. Douglas
C) Learned Hand
D) Louis D. Brandeis

Question 38

In ____________, the Supreme Court refused to extend Contracts Clause protection to a chartered lottery company subsequently prohibited from selling lottery tickets in Mississippi.

A) Charles River Bridge Company v. Warren Bridge Company (1837)
B) Stone v. Mississippi (1880)
C) Home Building and Loan Association v. Blaisdell (1934)
D) none of the above

Question 39

_______ once wrote, "This term ["property"] in its particular application means "that dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in exclusion of every other individual . . . In its larger and juster meaning, it embraces everything to which a man may attach a value and have a right; and which leaves to everyone else the like advantage. In the former sense, a man's land, or merchandize, or money is called his property. In the latter sense, a man has a property in his opinions and the free communication of them."

A) Thomas Jefferson
B) John Adams
C) James Madison
D) Alexander Hamilton

Question 40

In 1882 former Senator _______________, in an argument before the Supreme Court, unveiled his "conspiracy theory" of the Fourteenth Amendment.

A) Charles Tanner
B) Horace Munn
C) Aaron Cooper
D) Roscoe Conkling

Question 41

Liberty of contract is protected by the ________________, whereas the Contracts Clause within the Constitution is found in Article I, Section 10.

A) Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment
B) Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment
C) Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment
D) none of the above

Question 42

In 1897, the ___________ became the first provision of the Bill of Rights to be incorporated into the Fourteenth Amendment and thus made applicable to the states.

A) Just Compensation Clause
B) Contracts Clause
C) right to a jury trial
D) none of the above

Question 43

Justice __________ once wrote, "…The right of eminent domain, that is, the right to take private property for public uses, appertains to every independent government. It requires no constitutional recognition; it is an attribute of sovereignty. The clause found in the Constitutions of the several States providing for just compensation for property taken is a mere limitation upon the exercise of the right. When the use is public, the necessity or expediency of appropriating any particular property is not a subject of judicial cognizance . . ."

A) Hugo Black
B) Louis Brandeis
C) Stephen J. Field
D) Charles Evans Hughes

Question 44

Justice Joseph L. Bradley's dissenting opinion in _____________anticipated the Court's later development of the Due Process Clause as the basis for protecting property rights.

A) The Civil Rights Cases
B) The Slaughterhouse Cases
C) Munn v. Illinois
D) none of the above

Question 45

In _____________, the Supreme Court held that a city had taken private property without just compensation where the city was unwilling to grant a development because the owner refused to dedicate part of the land to a public use.

A) Nollan v. California Coastal Commission (1987)
B) Kelo v. City of New London (2005)
C) PruneYard Shopping Center v. Robins (1980)
D) Dolan v. City of Tigard (1994)

Question 46

In ____________, the Supreme Court held that a Pennsylvania law designed to prevent subsidence damage from coal mining did not on its face violate either the Takings Clause or the Contracts Clause.

A) Hawaii Housing Authority v. Midkiff (1984)
B) Pennsylvania Coal Company v. Mahon (1922)
C) First English Evangelical Lutheran Church v. County of Los Angeles (1987)
D) Keystone Bituminous Coal Association v. DeBenedictis (1987)

Question 47

As a constitutional doctrine, substantive due process lives on in recent Supreme Court decisions recognizing various noneconomic rights under the ______ and _____ Amendments, especially the constitutional right of privacy.

A) Third and Fourteenth
B) Fourth and Fourteenth
C) Fifth and Fourteenth
D) Sixth and Fourteenth

Question 48

The Supreme Court's repudiation of substantive due process as a restriction on the regulation of business was signaled by which two key decisions in 1934?

A) Home Building and Loan Association v. Blaisdell and Morehead v. New York ex rel. Tipaldo
B) Nebbia v. New York and Morehead v. New York ex rel. Tipaldo
C) Home Building and Loan Association v. Blaisdell and Nebbia v. New York
D) Morehead v. New York ex rel. Tipaldo and Carter v. Carter Coal Company

Question 49

In ____________, the Supreme Court, in an opinion by Justice Hugo Black, upheld the validity of a Kansas statute conferring a virtual monopoly on the legal profession to engage in the business of "debt adjusting."

A) Ferguson v. Skrupa (1963)
B) Mulford v. Smith (1939)
C) United States v. Darby (1941)
D) none of the above

Question 50

___________ stated in Pennsylvania Coal Company v. Mahon (1922) that "the general rule [in the area of eminent domain] is that while property may be regulated to a certain extent, if regulation goes too far it will be recognized as a taking."

A) Justice Hugo Black
B) Justice Louis Brandeis
C) Oliver Wendell Holmes
D) Charles Evans Hughes

Question 51

The Supreme Court used _________ to strike down a provision of an Illinois law exempting the American Express Company from the requirement that any firm selling or issuing money orders in the state obtain a license and submit to state regulation in Morey v. Doud (1957).

A) due process
B) equal protection
C) the contracts clause
D) none of the above

Question 52

In _____________, the Court, rejecting a Contracts Clause challenge to a state law regulating natural gas prices, recognized that the prohibition of laws impairing the obligation of contracts must be balanced against a state's "inherent police power to safeguard the vital interests of its people."

A) Allied Structural Steel Company v. Spannaus (1978)
B) United States Trust Company v. New Jersey (1977)
C) Home Building and Loan Association v. Blaisdell (1934)
D) Energy Reserves Group v. Kansas Power & Light (1983)