I'm neither scholar enough nor lawyer enough to know, but I wonder if the Supreme Court has ever considered how government regulation squares with the Fourteenth Amendment.
". . . nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."
Is the right to own a business a constitutional right, inasmuch as a business can be considered property?
If it is, government restrictions against setting up shop might be in question.
This would be a delicate topic for the Court, for if we do consider businesses to be property, then what of the right of a person to open a medical practice -- without training and without license.
My inclination is to say we need training and licensing in medicine, so how would we square this with the Fourteenth Amendment?
Perhaps the Founding Fathers were thinking only of land and physical property when they wrote the Fourteenth Amendment. I do not know. But, inasmuch as businesses can be bought and sold, there is good argument they should fall under the Constitution's protection.
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