Barron v. Baltimore

Barron v. Baltimore, 7 Pet. (32 U.S.) 243 (1833), argued 11 Feb. 1833, decided 16 Feb. 1833 by vote of 7 to 0; Marshall for the Court. A wharf owner sued the city of Baltimore for economic loss occasioned by the city's diversion of streams, which lowered the water level around his wharves. He claimed that the city took his property without just compensation in violation of the Fifth Amendment. This presented the question whether the Fifth Amendment restrained the states. After surveying the history of the Bill of Rights, Chief Justice John Marshall concluded that the first ten amendments restrained only the federal government, thus requiring Americans to look to state constitutions for protection of their civil and political liberties. The opinion marked a retreat from Marshall's earlier nationalism, one impelled by the changing composition of the Court and the growth of states' rights sentiment. The Court reaffirmed the holding of Barron in Permott v. New Orleans (1845).

With the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, the application of the Bill of Rights to the states again became an issue. In Hurtado v. California (1884), the Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment was a limit on state power. Not until the twentieth century incorporation cases, beginning with Gitlow v. New York (1925) did Barron lose its authoritative status. Today almost all of the guarantees of the Bill of Rights have been incorporated as restraints on the states.

See also Incorporation Doctrine; State Constitutions and Individual Rights; State Sovereignty and States' Rights.

David J. Bodenhamer