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Robert Bork's commentary about Incorporation
Some have argued that selective incorporation lays the groundwork for [[Judicial Supremacy]].<ref>[http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/dec/12/our-two-bills-of-rights/ Our ‘two’ Bills of Rights]</ref> The bill of rights is not supposed to protect the federal government from the states and the people, it is supposed to protect the people and the states from the federal government.
Some have argued that selective incorporation lays the groundwork for [[Judicial Supremacy]].<ref>[http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/dec/12/our-two-bills-of-rights/ Our ‘two’ Bills of Rights]</ref> The bill of rights is not supposed to protect the federal government from the states and the people, it is supposed to protect the people and the states from the federal government.
==Controversy==
Since its inception, the doctrine of incorporation has been a controversial one.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=_kPfBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA142 Moral Controversies in American Politics]</ref> Originalists and some historians note that the Bill of Rights was originally designed to only limit the Federal government, wheras the states have their own Bills of Rights outlining their own limitations. [[Judge Bork]] notes in his book ''The Tempting of America'' that the statesmen in the mid 1800s who framed the 14th amendment did not have in mind for that amendment what the courts have done since. He wrote:<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=jWbkvFhJStoC&pg=PA181 The Tempting of America], by Robert H. Bork, pages 181-183</ref>
<blockquote>(It is not) easy to imagine the northern states, victorious in a Civil War that lead to the fourteenth amendment, should have decided to turn over to the federal courts not only the protection of the rights of freed slaves but an unlimited power to frustrate the will of the Northern states themselves. The only significant exercise of judicial review in the past century had been Dred Scott, a decision hated in the North and one hardly likely to encourage the notion that courts should be given carte blanche to set aside legislative acts. ... Had any such radical departure from the American method of governance been intended, had courts been intended to supplant legislatures, there would be more than a shred of evidence to that effect. That proposal would have provoked an enormous debate and public discussion.</blockquote>
He concludes by writing:
<blockquote>We know there is no evidence that the ratifiers imagined they were handing ultimate governance to the courts. We know that a constitutional revolution of that magnitude would have provoked widespread and heated (to put it mildly) discussion but there is no record of any such discussion. The rather sweeping mandate must be judged counterfeit.</blockquote>
==Bibliography==
==Bibliography==
* Young America's Foundation "''Nationalizing criminal procedure: the doctrine of incorporation and the threat to federalism : a handbook for the 1983-84 scholastic debate topic''", (1983)
* Young America's Foundation "''Nationalizing criminal procedure: the doctrine of incorporation and the threat to federalism : a handbook for the 1983-84 scholastic debate topic''", (1983)
* Bork, Robert H. ''The Tempting of America'', (1990)
==References==
==References==