The Return of George Sutherland

This treatise seeks to restore the jurisprudence of the late Justice of the US Supreme Court George Sutherland - a jurisprudence anchored in the understanding of natural rights. The doctrine of natural rights has become controversial at the present time, while Sutherland has been widely maligned and screened from historical memory. He is remembered today as one of the "four horsemen" who resisted Roosevelt and the New Deal; but his leadership in the cause of voting rights for women has been forgotten. Both liberal and conservative jurists now deride Sutherland, yet both groups continue to draw upon his writings. Liberals took to Sutherland for a jurisprudence that protected "privacy" against the rule of majorities, as in matters concerning abortion or gay rights. However, both liberals and conservatives deny the premises of natural rights that provided the ground, and coherence, of Sutherland's teaching. The author of this study contends that Sutherland can supply what is missing in both conservative and liberal jurisprudence.