How a 100-Year-old Supreme court case has changed history

Over the past two years what can only be accurately described as the “Covid-19

Pandemic Era” we have seen the rise of the issue of mandating vaccinations. Many

have quickly jumped to a supreme court case that is over a 100-year-old. Jacobson Vs

Massachusetts (1905) where they ruled in favor of Massachusetts, but how did they get

to this decision, have they upheld this ruling for 100+ years, and how will/has this ruling

affected State and National government powers.

The History of Jacobson Vs Massachusetts

Even after 100 years have passed the ruling of supreme court cases is just that

supreme. The court case Jacobson Vs Massachusetts ruled in favor of Massachusetts

but that is not all the came out of this court case. It all started because of small Pastor

by the name of Jacobson and his son refused to get the smallpox vaccine(Hudson).

Claiming that he and his son had previously had bad reactions to other

vaccines(Hudson). He still was fined the 5$(100$today) and thus challenged the case

all the way up to the Supreme Court. Keep in mind that the vaccine mandate was a

statewide mandate and that the national government didn’t or rather couldn’t enforce a

vaccine mandate. The reason for this was simple. The 10th amendment gave all powers

not delegated to the national government to the States themselves(Hudson). The

Supreme court confirmed the power to give the state powers to mandate certain laws

regarding“health, peace, morals, education and good order of the people.” they also

gave a statement regarding the Small Pox Vaccine itself “The state legislature

proceeded upon the theory which recognized vaccination as at least an effective if not

the best-known way in which to meet and suppress the evils of a smallpox epidemic that
imperiled an entire population.”(Hudson) This of course was not the entire ruling. They

did allow a way in which a person can avoid the mandatory vaccination. This concluded

that any such persons who could confirm that vaccines would cause irreversible

damage to one’s health or death(Hudson). In the end, the court ruled that individual

rights must give way to protect the common good and that religion must too give way to

the common good in emergency situations justified by the governing officials. As you

can see in the graph below it shows the time in Boston when the smallpox epidemic

was at its worst(Albert). This shows what they considered to be an emergency situation.

The next questions that came from this court case were does the safety of the public

justified this type of restriction and what would the regulation and reasoning be behind

such a mandate(Hudson). The supreme court answered saying that the Board of Health

would decide whether or not it was necessary for public health(Hudson).

After Effects of the Jacobson V Massachusetts

This Ruling is now over a hundred years old and affected the outcome of

countless supreme court cases. The first part of the court case ruling talks about the

sovereign powers given to the state. Questions left over from the case became, what

were the limits to this power, and what checks and balances were in place to prevent

abuse of this system(Hudson)? The Supreme Court has confirmed that the 14th

Amendment protected individual liberties of all people, which would limit the power the

state had. The Court case of Jacobson had also strengthened the power of both sides

the governments and the people by demanding justification of such laws as mandating

vaccines(Hudson). This allowed the government as long as it could justify the reasoning

behind a certain law which is outlined as ”Under the pressure of great dangers” that a

government may encroach on liberties(Hudson). This was such a vague term that it was

used in the court case Buck V Bell 1927(Hudson). In this court case, the Supreme court

held up a Virginia law to force sterilize people of “feeble-minded” person. The reasoning

behind it was backed by the Jacobson case by using its ruling of allowing the state

governments to deem what is a risk to the public(Hudson). The ideology was that

people who are deemed as having mental defects should not be able to reproduce as

they would have a higher probability of becoming a delinquent and “sap the strength of

the state”(Hudson). This ruling caused over 60,000 sterilizations of mostly poor

American women.

Changes to State Power and the challenging of unjust laws

The overstepping of the state government on health issues started to be rolled

back by the atrocities that WWII and the Nazis produced(Hudson). The idea of more
Human and civil rights started to come to light(Hudson). One of the more prolific cases

in the overstepping of State powers came from the Brown V Board of

Education(Hudson). This court case detailed the desegregation of state schools and

started a movement where people who have been taken advantage of such as Women,

the mentally ill, and prisoners fought against state laws that were treated them

unjustly(Hudson). From this stemmed freedoms from protections against unreasonable

search and seizure, self-incrimination(Hudson).

The effect that one 100-year old Supreme court case ruling is hard to quantify.

The immediate effect of this court case was simple the court deemed that any risk to

public health, only if deemed such a threat and that had a clear path to the solution.

Only then would it take precedence over the liberties, freedom, and religion of

individuals baring that it wouldn’t have a negative health impact or death to such

individuals(Hudson). This court ruling was used to support the ruling in the court case of

Buck V Bell to sterilize over 60,000 women as they were deemed as a danger to the

public if they reproduced(Hudson). This abuse of power led to what is considered a

major fight of state powers vs national goverment powers in the court case Brown V

Board of education(Hudson). Which after the supremer court ruled in favor of Brown,

many outspoken and suppressed groups sought to fix the broken system of state laws

that encroached on their freedoms given to them by the bill of rights(Hudson). All of this

came out of a 100-year old court case.

 Works Cited

Albert, Michael R., et al. “The Last Smallpox Epidemic in Boston and the

Vaccination Controversy, 1901–1903: Nejm.” New England Journal of Medicine, 20 Oct.

2021, https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM200102013440511.

Hudson, David L. Jacobson v. Massachusetts, https://mtsu.edu/first-

amendment/article/1824/jacobson-v-massachusetts.

Mariner, Wendy K, et al. “Jacobson v Massachusetts: It's Not Your Great-Great-

Grandfather's Public Health Law.” American Journal of Public Health, © American

Journal of Public Health 2005, Apr. 2005,

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1449224/#r24.