If the founders were truly concerned that later generations not be wrongfully prejudiced by earlier generations, we would expect that concern to be evidenced in additional constitutional provisions, supplemental to the Preamble. We would expect the framers to have anticipated some of the most likely occasions for generational over-reaching and to have drafted appropriate stipulations to protect posterity's interests. These expectations are satisfied by provisions such as those prohibiting "titles of nobility." f234
The framers included these prohibitions in Article I, sections 9 and 10 because they recognized that nobility,
as an institution of hereditary privilege,f235
posed conspicuous issues of generational sovereignty. In Common Sense, Thomas Paine had identified the hereditary
transmission of the English monarchy as "an insult and an imposition on posterity."f236
Many early state constitutional provisions conjoined bans on nobility with wider bans on hereditary privilege.
f237
The framers understood that grants of nobility, along with other perpetual or hereditary privileges, do worse
than limit later generations' right to govern themselves as they see fit. They also threaten later generations'
right to inhabit an egalitarian society. This is because perpetual or hereditary grants necessarily favor certain
individuals and families of the distant future while comparatively disadvantaging others. Such awards violate
the egalitarianism which rests at the core of the nation's founding: the conviction that "all men are created
equal." f238 Each perpetual
privilege bestowed deprives future citizens of their right to be born onto a level social playing field, where
public benefits and resources are distributed impartially, according to demonstrated merit or need.
The anti-nobility provisions represent an interesting and unusual approach to the problem of inequality. While
most of the federal constitutional doctrine which has been developed to address disparate treatment by government
has concentrated on uneven distributions of dis-advantages, f239
the anti-nobility provisions focus on the unequal award of privileges and advantages ("titles").
The ramifications of a constitutional provision which concerns itself primarily with benefits, as opposed to
burdens, are potentially enormous. f240
Considering the potential scope of these ramifications, the scarcity of legal scholarship and jurisprudence dealing with the anti-nobility provisions is striking.f241 An overwhelming majority of legal scholars and judges seem to have assumed that the provisions are no more than quaint historic relics. Granted, the assumption is not difficult to understand. Modern public officials do not go by honorifics such as 'Prince,' 'Baron,' or 'Duke,' and there is no apparent demand for such designations in the near future.
However, whether or not the ancient labels of nobility have fallen into disuse or not is not really the relevant question. It seems unlikely that the framers' intent in including the provisions was simply to eradicate a set of labels. We would disrespect the framers by assuming that they were obsessed with forms and labels, and indifferent to substance. Consider: if Congress were to create an hereditary executive with the rights and prerogatives of a king and to employ the identifier "president" in the place of "king," would anyone imagine that such a scheme avoided constitutional censure? Of course not.
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