Barron v. Baltimore

Barron v. Baltimore

Argued February 11, 1833
Decided February 16, 1833
Full case name John Barron, survivor of John Craig, for the use of Luke Tiernan, Executor of John Craig v. The Mayor and City Council of Baltimore
Citations

32 U.S. 243 (more)

8 L. Ed. 672
Prior history Accepted on writ of error to the Court of Appeals for the Western Shore of the State of Maryland.
Holding
State governments are not bound by the Fifth Amendment's requirement for just compensation in cases of eminent domain.
Court membership
Chief Justice
John Marshall
Case opinions
Majority Marshall, joined by unanimous
Superseded by
U.S. Const. amend. XIV[1]

Barron v. Baltimore, 32 U.S. (7 Pet.) 243 (1833), is a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which helped define the concept of Federalism in the United States in U.S. constitutional law. The Court established a precedent that the United States Bill of Rights could not be applied to state governments.

Background

John Barron and John Craig, who co-owned a profitable wharf in the Baltimore harbor, sued the mayor of Baltimore for damages, claiming that when the city had diverted the flow of streams while engaging in street construction, it had created mounds of sand and earth near his wharf making the water too shallow for most vessels. The trial court awarded Barron damages of $4,500, but the appellate court reversed the ruling.

Opinion of the Court

The Supreme Court decided that the Bill of Rights, specifically the Fifth Amendment's guarantee that government takings of private property for public use require just compensation, are restrictions on the federal government alone. Writing for a unanimous court, Chief Justice John Marshall held that the first ten "amendments contain no expression indicating an intention to apply them to the State governments. This court cannot so apply them." Barron v. Baltimore, 32 U.S. 243, 250.

To demonstrate that Constitutional limits did not apply to states unless expressly stated, Marshall used the example of Article I, Sections 9 and 10:

The third clause (of Section 9), for example, declares that “no bill of attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed.” No language can be more general; yet the demonstration is complete that it applies solely to the government of the United States... the succeeding section, the avowed purpose of which is to restrain state legislation... declares that “no state shall pass any bill of attainder or ex post facto law.” This provision, then, of the ninth section, however comprehensive its language, contains no restriction on state legislation.

Later impact

The case was particularly important in terms of American government because it stated that the freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights did not restrict the state governments.

The decision was initially ignored by the growing abolitionist movement, some of whom maintained that Congress could constitutionally abolish slavery as a method of protecting slaves' rights under the Bill of Rights. It was largely unknown in the 1860s; during a debate in Congress on the Fourteenth Amendment, Senator John Bingham had to read part of Marshall's opinion out loud to the Senate.[2]

Later Supreme Court rulings would return to Barron to reaffirm its central holding, most notably United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1876). However, beginning in the early 20th century, the Supreme Court has used the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (interpreted, however, to have the same meaning as the 5th amendment) to apply most of the Bill of Rights to the states through the process and doctrine of selective incorporation. Therefore, as to most, but not all, provisions of the Bill of Rights, Barron and its progeny have been circumvented, if not actually overruled.

References

  1. ↑ Gitlow v. New York, 268 U.S. 652 (1925).
  2. ↑ Randy E. Barnett (2010). "Whence Comes Section One? The Abolitionist Origins of the Fourteenth Amendment." The Journal of Legal Analysis, Vol. 3, 2011. SSRN 1538862

External links

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