Chapter 2: Exam
MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS
1. Americans of the eighteenth 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
2. In the face of a rising tide of economic legislation, the Supreme Court of the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries became more adamant in its defense of
a. economic equality.
b. the police power.
c. laissez-faire capitalism.
d. the general welfare.
3. 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. Contracts
d. Full Faith and Credit
4. The Supreme Court’s decision in ________________ (1819) is widely considered to have had great
influence on economic development in 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
28 Chapter 2: Property Rights and Economic Freedom
5. 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.
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. Contracts
d. Full Faith and Credit
7. 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
8. 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
9. 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
.
10. 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 is true.
11. The ______ movement of the late nineteenth 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
12. 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
13. 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.
14. 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
15. 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
16. 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
17. 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.
18. 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
19. 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.
.
20. 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, and Stone
b. Holmes, Brandeis, Douglas, and Black
c. Sutherland, Van Devanter, McReynolds, and Butler
d. Butler, Sutherland, Hughes, and Stone
21. From the 1890s through the mid-1930s 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
22. 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.
23. Today the Contracts Clause is ______ employed as a limitation on state power.
a. often
b. seldom
c. never
d. always
24. 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
32 Chapter 2: Property Rights and Economic Freedom
25. 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
26. 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
27. _______ 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 merchandise, 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
28. 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 is true.
.
29. 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)
30. 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
31. 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 is true.
32. 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; Fourteenth
b. Fourth; Fourteenth
c. Fifth; Fourteenth
d. Sixth; Fourteenth
34 Chapter 2: Property Rights and Economic Freedom
33. 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 is true.
34. 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 is true.
35. ___________ 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
36. 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)
.
37. 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)
38. 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 is true.
39. 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 is true.
40. The Contracts Clause of the Constitution is found in
a. Article I, Section 9.
b. Article I, Section 10.
c. Article II, Section 9.
d. None of the above is true.
41. The Supreme Court held in _________ that the ex post facto limitation applied only to retroactive
criminal statutes and not to laws affecting properly rights or contractual obligations.
a. Calder v. Bull (1798)
b. Marbury v. Madison (1803)
c. Fletcher v. Peck (1810)
d. None of the above is true.
42. In____________, the Supreme Court invalidated as a violation of the Contracts Clause an act of the
Georgia legislature that rescinded the state’s sale of land to private investors.
a. Calder v. Bull (1798)
b. Marbury v. Madison (1803)
c. Fletcher v. Peck (1810)
d. None of the above is true.
43. Chief Justice John Marshall recorded his only dissenting opinion in which constitutional case?
a. Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1819)
b. Sturges v. Crowninshield (1819)
c. Ogden v. Saunders (1827)
d. None of the above is true.
44. In ____________, the Court held in essence that a corporate charter was a contract, the terms of
which could not be changed materially by the state without violating the Constitution.
a. Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1819)
b. Sturges v. Crowninshield (1819)
c. Ogden v. Saunders (1827)
d. None of the above is true.
45. Justice ______________ dissenting opinion in The Slaughterhouse Cases anticipated the Court’s later
development of the Due Process Clause as the basis for protecting property rights.
a. Thomas M. Cooley’s
b. Samuel F. Miller’s
c. Joseph L. Bradley’s
d. None of the above is true.
46. In______________, the Supreme Court upheld by a 5-to–4 margin the power of a state to regulate the
retail price of milk.
a. Home Building and Loan Association v. Blaisdell (1934)
b. Nebbia v. New York (1934)
c. United States v. Butler (1936)
d. West Coast Hotel Company v. Parrish (1937)
.
47. In ______________, the Supreme Court upheld the Minnesota Mortgage Moratorium Act, finding
that its provisions did not violate the Contracts Clause.
a. Home Building and Loan Association v. Blaisdell (1934)
b. Nebbia v. New York (1934)
c. United States v. Butler (1936)
d. West Coast Hotel Company v. Parrish (1937)
48. In_____________, the Supreme Court, by a 5-to–4 vote, dramatically overruled both the Adkins and
Tipaldo decisions.
a. Home Building and Loan Association v. Blaisdell (1934)
b. Nebbia v. New York (1934)
c. United States v. Butler (1936)
d. West Coast Hotel Company v. Parrish (1937)
49. In__________________, the Court ruled unanimously that states do not violate the Public Use Clause
by adopting a policy for the redistribution of land as a means of reducing high concentration of
ownership.
a. Hawaii Housing Authority v. Midkiff (1984)
b. Keystone Bituminous Coal Association v. DeBenedictis (1987)
c. Nollan v. California Coastal Commission (1987)
d. None of the above is true.
ESSAY QUESTIONS
1. Explain the rise and decline of substantive due process as a barrier to economic regulation.
Include key cases in your discussion.
2. How did the decisions of the Marshall Court facilitate the growth of a national capitalist economy
in the United States?
3. Discuss the constitutional problem of “just takings” as it relates to social and economic
regulation.
4. Trace in broad outline the rise and decline of substantive due process in the field of economic
regulation. What factors contributed to the emergence of “liberty of contract” and related notions
justifying opposition to state and federal economic legislation between the late 1880s and the
mid-1930s? What factors influenced the Court to retreat from its defense of business interests?
5. What does the rise and decline of substantive economic due process indicate about the nature and
limits of judicial review in a constitutional democracy?
6. What are the major arguments who oppose the Court’s ruling in Kelo v. City of New London
(2005)? Describe both the philosophical and constitutional objections to the High Court’s ruling
in this case.
7. How was the Supreme Court conceived of the relationship between equal protection and
economic regulation? In what has the Court sanctioned government regulation to further equal
protection? Discuss relevant case examples.
8. When scholars make mention of “the constitutional revolution of 1937” to what change in the
Court’s behavior are they referring? To what degree was president Roosevelt said to have
influenced this “revolution”?
9. Describe John Locke’s theory of natural rights? What was government’s relationship to these
rights according to Locke and how do they shape his social contract theory?
10. Describe the importance of the Court’s ruling in Fletcher v. Peck (1810). According to Chief
Justice Marshall, what were the important constitutional provisions in the case? To what end did
Marshall rely on natural rights in his opinion?