Liberty of Contract - 9781935308393

"This deeply researched and thoughtful study vigorously challenges the enduring myths that distort our understanding of constitutionally protected contractual freedom. Combining legal analysis with attention to the intellectual and political environment, David Mayer offers an insightful reading of the rise and fall of the liberty-of-contract doctrine. For anyone interested in economic rights, this volume is necessary reading."---James W. Ely, Jr.

Vanderbilt University, author of The Guardian of Every Other Right: A Constitutional History of Property Rights

"As students of constitutional history know, the Lochner era(1897-1937) is typically vilified as a time when judges imposed their personal opinions to invalidate laws that regulated the economy. Professor Mayer offers a far more complex and nuanced view of that era as a time when judges often, but not always, invoked a presumption of liberty. He shows that Lochner-era justices protected not only economic but personal rights as well, such as the right of parents to teach their children in a foreign language or to send their children to a private school, whereas anti-Lochner justices like Oliver Wendell Holmes rejected such a presumption. To Know where the modern Court will go, we have to know from where it came, and for that, Professor Mayer's book is invaluable."---Ronald D. Rotunda Chapman University School of Law, author of modern Constitutional Law

"David Mayer has emerged as one of the most insightful constitutional scholars on the scene today. In this superb new book, he rescues the constitutional value of liberty of contract, which was so important to the Framers but has been systematically and wrongly slighted by three generations of biased and seriously deficient scholarship. This book will take its place as one of the most important works on constitutional history in the early 21st century."---Stephen B. Presser Northwestern University School of Law, author of Law and Jurisprudence in American History