When a smallpox outbreak swept through the town of Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1903, Rev. Henning Jacobson refused to comply with Massachusetts’ compulsory vaccination law. The victim of a botched vaccination in his childhood, Jacobson was fined $5 under the law and appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, claiming that this law was a violation of his rights under the Fourteenth Amendment.

Was Massachusetts’ compulsory vaccination law a violation of individual liberty? Prof. Josh Blackman of the South Texas College of Law Houston explores the limitations of state police powers and public health in Jacobson v. Massachusetts.

 

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As always, the Federalist Society takes no position on particular legal or public policy issues. All expressions of opinion are those of the speaker.

 

Learn more about Josh Blackman:
https://www.stcl.edu/about-us/faculty/josh-blackman/

Follow Josh Blackman on Twitter: @JoshMBlackman
https://twitter.com/JoshMBlackman

 

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Related Links & Differing Views:

The First Amendment Encyclopedia: “Jacobson v. Massachusetts (1905)”
https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1824/jacobson-v-massachusetts

American Journal of Public Health: “Jacobson v. Massachusetts at 100: Police Power and Civil Liberties in Tension”
https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/AJPH.2004.055152

Harvard Law Review: “Towards a Twenty-First-Century Jacobson v. Massachusetts”
https://cdn.harvardlawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/pdfs/a_twenty-first-century_jacobson_v_massachusetts.pdf

“The Long Shadow of Jacobson v. Massachusetts: Epidemics, Fundamental Rights, and the Courts”
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3635740

Reason: “Jacobson v. Massachusetts did not uphold the state’s power to mandate vaccinations.”
https://reason.com/volokh/2020/11/24/jacobson-v-massachusetts-did-not-uphold-the-states-power-to-mandate-vaccinations/#:~:text=A%201905%20Supreme%20Court%20opinion,to%20pay%20a%20%245%20fine