Law
The Constitutional Protection of Economic Liberties and Substantive Due Process
Quick fact
In the 1905 case Lochner v. New York, the Supreme Court used substantive due process to invalidate a state maximum-hours law for bakers, treating freedom of contract as a protected liberty—a decision later repudiated but still symbolically powerful today.
Why this is interesting
Imagine if a law setting a maximum 60-hour workweek was struck down as unconstitutional. That actually happened for decades. How could the Constitution protect the freedom to work longer hours?