Looking for Rights in All the Wrong Places

Abstract

Looking for Rights in All the Wrong Places On January 15 th , 1870, Illinois's third constitutional convention had been underway for just over a year, and an experienced coal miner named George Snowden wrote a letter to one of its delegates. In it, he explained that his poor health had prevented him from writing sooner, but that in reading a newspaper account of the constitutional convention, he was moved to communicate with its members. He wrote "as a miner, I thought it but proper that the miner's interest ought to be considered in that convention. I do not know that it is right in a legal sense, but I know it will do no harm for you to consider what the miners ought to have as their rights-either in the convention or in the legislature." i He went on to detail the protections that the miners "ought to have as their rights," listing specific regulations like requirements for ventilation and escapement shafts in coal mines, the mandatory presence of mining inspectors, and laws compelling mine owners to pay damages to injured miners. Snowden might well have been pleased by the outcome. ii The new state constitution established the duty of the state legislature to enact several of the safety regulations he listed, and thereby obligated government to protect the state's miners from the dangerous conditions in which they were forced to work. iii Illinois's miners had, in fact, been organized to demand this kind of protection for some time, but had not been able to secure the protective regulations they sought from the state's legislature. After a decade of trying, they turned to the state's constitutional convention, where they successfully secured this constitutional right to governmental protection from the particularly dangerous features of work in the mines. Of course, when most people think about America's constitutional rights, they do not think about miners or about Illinois law. Instead, they think about the U.S. Constitution, its Bill of Rights, and the Supreme Court opinions that have shaped its meaning. Studies of the federal Constitution and the changes in its meaning have dominated discussions about American constitutional law. As a result, most accounts of American constitutional rights describe these rights as limitations on the scope of government. American rights, we are often told, protect their bearers from tyrannical government by forcing government to restrain itself from intervening in social and economic life. They do not mandate more government or offer protection from threats that do not stem directly from government itself. While other nations have constitutional rights to an active, welfarist state, often known as positive rights, constitutional rights in the United States are often thought to protect people from government alone, not to mandate that government protect them from other sorts of dangers. In other words, America is widely believed to be exceptional in its lack of positive constitutional rights and its exclusive devotion to negative ones. But how accurate is this conception? A...

Mandala Desenlerinden İslami Süslemelere Dairesel Örüntüler ve Çağdaş Sanata Yansımaları

“…Q'ero yerlilerinin inanç sisteminde paraşüt formu güneşi sembolize eder. Buradan yola çıkarak sanatçı dünyanın süper gücü konumundaki Amerika, And kültürü gelenekleri ve mandala desenlerinin sembolik işlevleri arasında bağlantı kurmuştur (Zackin, 2004a).…”

Constitutional rights and education: An international comparative study

“…As it may be seen, in most cases the coefficients are non-significant, confirming our findings when using the aggregate index. Constitutional rights and educational inputs: As noted, some authors have argued that in countries that grant a constitutional status to the right to education, legislatures will be required to provide higher funding to that sector; it is expected that through that channel the quality of education would improve (Zackin, 2013). In order to investigate the relationship between the strength of social constitutional rights and productive educational inputs we calculated the (partial) correlation coefficients between four such inputs -pupil-teacher ratio, percentage of teachers with teaching certificate, percentage of schools with libraries, and percentage of students in private schools -and the constitutional rights index.…”

Constitutional Rights and Education: An International Comparative Study

“…The coefficient of the constitutional rights variable continues to be negative, and in many of the regressions is not significant. Constitutional rights and educational inputs: As noted, some authors have argued that in countries that grant a constitutional status to the right to education, legislatures will be required to provide higher funding to that sector; it is expected that through that channel the quality of education would improve (Zackin, 2013). In order to investigate the relationship between the strength of social constitutional rights and productive educational inputs in Table 7 we present partial correlation coefficients between four such inputs -pupil-teacher ratio, percentage of teachers with teaching certificate, percentage of schools with libraries, and percentage of students in private schools --, and the constitutional rights index; t-statistics are provided in parentheses.…”