HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF THE DUE PROCESS

This research paper outlines, summarizes and analyzes the historical evolution of the Due Process Clause(s) of the U.S. Constitution. The interpretations given by the American Supreme Court to these clauses in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments have served significantly to adapt the Constitution to changing conditions. During the first 100 years of the Republic, the Due Process Clause was interpreted narrowly as a procedural safeguard and contributed little to the resolution of the principal jurisprudential problem, the adjustment of the relations between the national and state governments. During the period 1890 to 1937, substantive due process largely in the service of private property and commercial interests and later as a tool for delineating the contours of the welfare state helped define the role of government in the economy. In the 20th century, from the mid-1920s onward and especially during the Court of Chief Justice Earl Warren (1953-1969), the Due Process Clause was used to expand American civil liberties. In more recent years it has been refined to calibrate a new balance between the needs of order and liberty amidst the pressures and shifting landscape of the contemporary era.

The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution (and a part of the Bill of Rights) provides in part: "no person . . . shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law

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procedures by the Fourteenth Amendment. Justice Matthews said 535 that due process should only protect "those fundamental principles of liberty and justice which lie at the base of all our civil and political institutions." The first half of the 20th century saw the first steps taken by the Court to apply the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to strike down state laws which restricted freedom of speech, Gitlow v. People of State of New York, 268 U.S. 652 (1925), freedom of the press, Near v. State of Minnesota, 283 U.S. 697 (1931), free exercise of religion, cases involving flag salutes and limits on religious solicitations by Jehovah's Witnesses, West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943) and Cantwell v. State of Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296 (1940), respectively, the right to marry and to procreate, Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 (1923), and a number of cases dealing with state laws abridging the right to vote. In the area of criminal procedure, the Court began in the 1930s to evolve the fundamental rights doctrine pursuant to which state criminal procedures which fell below minimum standards of fundamental fairness were struck down under the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause,
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Approximate Word count = 4778
Approximate Pages = 19 (250 words per page)

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