Kurt Lash: The Privileges or Immunities Clause and Unenumerated Rights
I generally don’t feature other writers on my blog, but I’m making an exception for University of Richmond law school professor Kurt Lash, who came to my (qualified) defense in a recent essay on Law & Liberty. Lash’s essay, entitled “The Privileges or Immunities Clause and Unenumerated Rights,” replied to another Law & Liberty article, by Mike Rappaport, which responded to a piece I wrote on American Greatness. (I will reply to Rappaport separately.)
Lash says, in part, that “Mark Pulliam is quite right to object to efforts to reverse Slaughterhouse and read the Privileges or Immunities Clause as authorizing judicial construction and enforcement of unenumerated rights. The Clause does nothing more than protect the enumerated rights of national citizenship, rights enumerated in the Constitution.” Lash believes, contrary to Raoul Berger and some other scholars, that the P or I clause was intended to incorporate the first eight amendments of the Bill of Rights, but since the Court already did that under the due process clause, I will not quarrel about it.
Thank you, Professor Lash!
