Protecting Private Property Rights from Regulatory Takings: Hearing Before the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, One Hundred Fourth Congress, First Session, February 10, 1995

Front Cover

From inside the book

Selected pages

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 29 - Government hardly could go on if to some extent values incident to property could not be diminished without paying for every such change in the general law. As long recognized, some values are enjoyed under an implied limitation and must yield to the police power. But obviously the implied limitation must have its limits, or the contract and due process clauses are gone.
Page 97 - We are in danger of forgetting that a strong public desire to improve the public condition is not enough to warrant achieving the desire by a shorter cut than the constitutional way of paying for the change.
Page 23 - So great moreover is the regard of the law for private property, that it will not authorize the least violation of it; no, not even for the general good of the whole community.
Page 23 - All men have certain natural, essential, and inherent rights; among which are the enjoying and defending life and liberty; acquiring, possessing, and protecting property; and, in a word, of seeking and obtaining happiness.
Page 57 - People's livelihoods, possibly even their lives, can be destroyed at the whim of the state. One of the most eloquent commentators on the relationship between freedom and property rights was Noah Webster. The noted American educator and linguist said: Let the people have property and they will have power — a power that will forever be exerted to prevent the restriction of the press, the abolition of trial by jury, or the abridgment of many other privileges.
Page 24 - In vain may it be urged that the good of the individual ought to yield to that of the community, for it would be dangerous to allow any private man, or even any public tribunal, to be the judge of this common good, and to decide whether it be expedient or no. Besides, the public good is in nothing more essentially interested than in the protection of every individual's private rights as modelled by the Municipal Law.
Page 58 - Court, quite simply, has been unable to develop any "set formula" for determining when "justice and fairness" require that economic injuries caused by public action be compensated by the government, rather than remain disproportionately concentrated on a few persons.
Page 24 - Besides, the public good is in nothing more essentially interested, than in the protection of every individual's private rights, as modelled by the municipal law. In this and similar cases the legislature alone can, and indeed frequently does, interpose, and compel the individual to acquiesce.
Page 22 - Indeed, in a free government, almost all other rights would become utterly worthless, if the government possessed an uncontrollable power over the private fortune of every citizen. One of the fundamental objects of every good government must be, the due administration of justice ; and how vain it would be, to speak of such an administration, where all property is subject to the will or caprice of the legislature and the rulers ! § 395.
Page 60 - Responsible fiscal management and fundamental principles of good government require that government decision-makers evaluate carefully the effect of their administrative, regulatory, and legislative actions on constitutionally protected property rights...

Bibliographic information