Originally the Due process clause in the 14th amendment only applied to the government around the early 1900s, it was extended to private contracts and has progressively moved to protecting individual from any entities.
From it: "[w]ithout doubt...denotes not merely freedom from bodily restraint but also the right of the individual to contract, to engage in any of the common occupations of life, to acquire useful knowledge, to marry, establish a home and bring up children, to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience, and generally to enjoy those privileges long recognized at common law as essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men."
|