Individual Rights and the Police Power of States DECEMBER 01,
1980 by TIBOR R. MACHAN Dr. Machan is the author of Human Rights
and Human Liberties (Nelson Hall, 1975) and is Senior Editor of
Reason magazine. He Is on leave from SUNY Fredonia and teaches
at the University of California–Santa Barbara. Does the legal
system of the United States of America rest, as most people
believe, mainly on the Constitution including the Bill of
Rights? This is what we learn in high school and college. Few of
us pursue a rigorous study of Constitutional law. So we leave
school believing that the Constitution is the legal foundation
of our system. But this is only partly true. The Constitution
was not developed enough initially to enable authorities to cope
right off with the innumerable disputes that can arise in
society. The country grew and complicated problems developed.
The need for complex answers grew as well. One ready source for
obtaining them was English common law. Common law, in simple
terms, is the body of enforc