Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/14pdf/14-556_3204.pdf
Page Number: 83.0

6 

OBERGEFELL v. HODGES 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

decisions interpreting these provisions between the found-
ing  and  the  ratification  of  the  Fourteenth  Amendment
almost uniformly construed the word “liberty” to refer only 
to freedom from physical restraint.  See Warren, The New 
“Liberty”  Under  the  Fourteenth  Amendment,  39  Harv.
L. Rev. 431, 441–445 (1926).  Even one case that has been 
identified as a possible exception to that view merely used 
broad  language  about  liberty  in  the  context  of  a  habeas
corpus  proceeding—a  proceeding  classically  associated 
with obtaining freedom from physical restraint.  Cf. id., at 
444–445. 

In enacting the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause, 
the Framers similarly chose to employ the “life, liberty, or
property”  formulation,  though  they  otherwise  deviated 
substantially  from  the  States’  use  of  Magna  Carta’s  lan-
guage in the Clause.  See Shattuck, The True Meaning of 
the  Term  “Liberty”  in  Those  Clauses  in  the  Federal  and
State  Constitutions  Which  Protect  “Life,  Liberty,  and
Property,” 4 Harv. L. Rev. 365, 382 (1890).  When read in 
light  of  the  history  of  that  formulation,  it  is  hard  to  see 
how  the  “liberty”  protected  by  the  Clause  could  be  inter-
preted  to  include  anything  broader  than  freedom  from 
physical  restraint.  That  was  the  consistent  usage  of  the
time when “liberty” was paired with “life” and “property.”
See id., at 375.  And that usage avoids rendering superflu-
ous those protections for “life” and “property.”

If  the  Fifth  Amendment  uses  “liberty”  in  this  narrow 
sense,  then  the  Fourteenth  Amendment  likely  does  as
well.  See  Hurtado  v.  California,  110  U. S.  516,  534–535 
(1884). 
Indeed,  this  Court  has  previously  commented,
“The  conclusion  is  . . .  irresistible,  that  when  the  same 
phrase  was  employed  in  the  Fourteenth  Amendment  [as
was  used  in  the  Fifth  Amendment],  it  was  used  in  the 
same  sense  and  with  no  greater  extent.”    Ibid.  And  this 

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N. H. Const., pt. I, Art. XV (1784), in 4 id., at 2455.