Rights Lost Are Rarely Restored, but There Are Exceptions

Rights lost are rarely restored. Voltaire, father of the French Enlightenment, offered this maxim, which is well grounded in history. Once people lose rights it is difficult to reclaim them; however, there have been many exceptions to this rule in the United States.

Maybe the most significant example of rights lost and then reclaimed is Prohibition and its repeal. Drinking was quite common, and it was a setback for many when the Eighteenth Amendment passed and alcohol was prohibited. The Right to Drink was lost. In the 1930s, the 21st Amendment was passed and prohibition repealed. Rights were restored.

The passage of a Georgia biometrics statute and its repeal represent another case of rights lost and restored. Georgia drivers were required by a 1996 statute to provide fingerprints for a driving license. After a nine-year fight in the legislature, the judiciary, the elections and the public opinion forum, Governor Sonny Perdue helped repeal the statute. Citizens are no longer required to submit fingerprints for a license. Rights lost were restored.

Gun owners lost rights when the Federal Assault Weapons Ban of 1994 was passed. The legal right to own those weapons was lost until the statute's expiration in 2004. Gun owners again could legally own the previously banned guns. Rights were restored.

In the notorious 1986 case of Bowers v. Hardwick, the Supreme Court upheld an archaic statute that criminalized sodomy. A police officer entered Hardwick's home, and arrested him after observing him engaged in homosexual sodomy. To the dismay of privacy advocates, the Supreme Court refused to strike down the statute. This had the effect of taking away Hardwick's effective Right to Privacy that had accrued from the unenforced sodomy statute. In an unusual 2003 case, the Court explicitly overturned Bowers and restored the right to engage in consensual relations in the home. In the Texas case, the Court found that the statute was inconsistent with 14th Amendment, due process. Hardwick and his constituency had their rights restored.

The conclusion to be drawn is simple: In American democracy, people who want a political right badly enough should never stop struggling for it. Even after the right has been lost, it may be restored.