BARRON V. BALTIMORE
In Barron v. City of Baltimore, 32 U.S. (7 Pet.) 243, 8 L.Ed. 672 (U.S. 1833), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the FIFTH AMENDMENT to the U.S. Constitution bound only the federal government and was thus inapplicable to actions taken by state and local governments. In 1868 the states ratified the FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT in part to nullify the Supreme Court’s holding in Barron v. Baltimore. However, it was not until
the twentieth century when the Supreme Court made most of the federal BILL OF RIGHTS applicable to the states.
The case arose when John Barron, owner of
the largest and most profitable wharf in the east-
ern section of Baltimore, Maryland, sued the
city for losses his wharf had allegedly suffered as
a result of silting. When Barron had originally
purchased the wharf, the wharf enjoyed the
deepest waters in the area.However, in 1815 Bal-
timore had undertaken a major plan to renovate
and modernize the city by building embankments, grading roads, and paving streets.
To facilitate this plan, the city began diverting water streams from a range of hills around
the city into the wharf. In the seven years leading up to Barron’s lawsuit, Baltimore experienced a number of violent rainstorms, causing the streams to fill with sand, mud, and earth from the newly graded roads and abutting embankments. The silt eventually poured into Barron’s wharf, making the water so shallow that it was no longer accessible by larger ships. By 1822, the year Barron filed suit, the harbor had lost almost its entire value as a commercial wharf.
At trial in the Baltimore County Courthouse, Barron claimed that the city appropriated
his private property for a public use without providing him just compensation, as he said was required by the Takings Clause of Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The trial court agreed and awarded Barron $4,500 in damages.
The city appealed, and a Maryland appellate court reversed. Barron then petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court by writ of error and review was granted. Chief Justice JOHN MARSHALL delivered the Court’s unanimous opinion.
The sole issue before the Court was whether
the Fifth Amendment to the federal Constitu-
tion applied to actions taken by state and local governmental entities. The federal Constitution “was ordained and established by the people of the United States for themselves, for their own government, and not for the government of the individual states,” Marshall wrote. When the Founding Fathers made an exception to this rule in particular provisions of the U.S. Constitution, Marshall said, they made clear that those provisions were in fact applicable to the states. For example, Marshall observed that section 10 of Article I provides that “No State shall . . . pass any Bill of Attainder.” Yet none of the first Ten Amendments to the U.S. Constitution makes any similar reference to STATE ACTION, Marshall reasoned, evincing the Founding Fathers clear intent to make the Bill of Rights applicable only against the federal government.
“Each state established a constitution for itself, and in that constitution, provided such
limitations and restrictions on the powers of its particular government, as its judgment dic-
tated,” the chief justice continued. If Barron’s property interests were harmed by the city, then he was required to rely on state or local law to vindicate his rights. Neither the Fifth Amendment nor any other provision in the Bill of Rights was applicable to his lawsuit, Marshall concluded, and U.S. Supreme Court lacked jurisdiction to take any further action. Accord-
ingly, Marshall dismissed the suit.
Barron v. Baltimore signaled a retreat from Marshall’s earlier opinions that had expanded
the scope and application of the federal Constitution,
a change that reflected the growing STATES’ RIGHTS movement over the issue of
SLAVERY. Although Barron v. Baltimore was reaffirmed
12 years later in Permoli v. New Orleans,
44 U.S. (3 How.) 589, 11 L.Ed. 739 (1845), the
Union’s victory in the Civil War marked the
beginning of the end for Barron as a valid and
binding precedent.
In 1868 the states ratified the Fourteenth
Amendment, which provides that no state shall
“deprive any person of . . . DUE PROCESS OF LAW
. . . [or] EQUAL PROTECTION of the laws.” During
the Congressional debates, JOHN BINGHAM, a
Republican representative from Ohio and the
primary architect of the Fourteenth Amendment,
argued that enacting the Fourteenth
Amendment was necessary to nullify the
Supreme Court’s holding in Barron v. Baltimore.
Despite Bingham’s stated intentions, the Bill
of Rights was not made applicable to the states
through the doctrine of selective incorporation
until the twentieth century. Under this doctrine,
the Supreme Court has ruled that every protection
contained in the Bill of Rights—except for
the right to bear arms, the right to an indictment
by a GRAND JURY, the right to trial by jury in
civil cases, and the right against quartering soldiers—
must be protected by state governments
under the Equal Protection and Due Process
Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Supreme Court has explained that each
of the incorporated rights is “deeply rooted in
the nation’s history,” and is “fundamental” to the
concept of “ordered liberty” embodied in the
Due Process Clause. Palko v. Connecticut, 302
U.S. 319, 58 S. Ct. 149, 82 L.Ed. 288 (1937). Any
state that denies one of these rights to its residents
violates its duty to provide “equal protection
of the laws” guaranteed to the residents of
every state. States may provide their residents
with more constitutional protection than is
afforded by the U.S. Bill of Rights, but the Fourteenth
Amendment prohibits any state from
providing its residents with less protection.
FURTHER READINGS
Amar, Akhil Reed. 1992. “The Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth
Amendment.” Yale Law Journal 101.
Jenkins, Ray. 1987. “Amendable Constitution Allows for Corrections
of Framer’s Errors.”Los Angeles Daily Journal
(June 4).
