Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/14pdf/13-7120_p86b.pdf
Page Number: 29

Cite as:  576 U. S. ____ (2015) 

11 

THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment 

2 
Although vagueness concerns played a role in the strict
construction of penal statutes from early on, there is little 
indication  that  anyone  before  the  late  19th  century  be-
lieved  that  courts  had  the  power  under  the  Due  Process 
Clauses  to  nullify  statutes  on  that  ground.    Instead,  our 
modern  vagueness  doctrine  materialized  after  the  rise  of 
substantive due process.  Following the ratification of the 
Fourteenth  Amendment,  corporations  began  to  use  that
Amendment’s  Due Process Clause to challenge state laws 
that  attached  penalties  to  unauthorized  commercial  con-
duct. 
In  addition  to  claiming  that  these  laws  violated
their  substantive  due  process  rights,  these  litigants  be-
gan—with  some  success—to  contend  that  such  laws  were 
unconstitutionally  indefinite.    In  one  case,  a  railroad 
company  challenged  a  Tennessee  law  authorizing  penal-
ties against any railroad that demanded “more than a just 
and  reasonable  compensation”  or  engaged  in  “unjust  and 
unreasonable  discrimination”  in  setting  its  rates.    Louis-
ville  &  Nashville  R. Co.  v.  Railroad  Comm’n  of  Tenn.,  19 
F.  679,  690  (CC  MD  Tenn.  1884)  (internal  quotation
marks  deleted).  Without  specifying  the  constitutional 
authority for its holding, the Circuit Court concluded that
“[n]o citizen . . . can be constitutionally subjected to penal-
ties  and  despoiled  of  his  property,  in  a  criminal  or  quasi
criminal proceeding, under and by force of such indefinite 

—————— 

individuals’ ” without providing guidance as to which individuals it was 
referring.    Commonwealth  v.  Bank  of  Pennsylvania,  3  Watts  &  Serg. 
173,  177  (1842).    Concluding  that  it  had  “seldom,  if  ever,  found  the 
language  of  legislation  so  devoid  of  certainty,”  the  court  withdrew  the 
case.  Ibid.; see also Drake v. Drake, 15 N. C. 110, 115 (1833) (“Whether
a statute be a public or a private one, if the terms in which it is couched 
be so vague as to convey no definite meaning to those whose duty it is 
to execute it, either ministerially or judicially, it is necessarily inopera-
tive”).    This  practice  is  distinct  from  our  modern  vagueness  doctrine,
which applies to laws that are intelligible but vague.