Economic Liberties and the Presumption of Constitutionality

Abstract

The framers of the American Constitution believed that a core function of government is the protection of private property rights. Early in the deliberations of the Philadelphia convention, James Madison urged that “[t]he primary objects of civil society are the security of property and public safety.”¹ Alexander Hamilton said that “one great objt. Of Govt. Is personal protection and the security of Property.”² Everyone else who spoke on the subject concurred, with the exception of James Wilson who “could not agree that property was the sole or the primary object of Governt. & Society,” rather it was “[t]he cultivation & improvement of the human mind was the most noble object.”³ But even Wilson did not disagree that protection of property was an important governmental function.⁴