Barron v. Baltimore

32 U.S. 243

Case Year: 1833

Case Ruling: 6-0, Dismissed

Opinion Justice: Marshall

FACTS

In drafting the original version of the Constitution of 1787, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention did not include a bill of rights, believing that such a list was unnecessary. When some delegates clamored for a specification of rights, however, James Madison submitted to the First Congress a list of seventeen articles (amendments), mostly aimed at safeguarding personal freedoms against tyranny by the federal government. In a speech to the House of Representatives, he suggested that “in revising the Constitution, we may throw into that section, which interdicts the abuse of certain powers of the State legislatures, some other provisions of equal, if not greater importance than those already made.” To that end, Madison’s proposed fourteenth amendment said “no State shall violate the equal right of conscience, freedom of the press, or trial by jury in criminal cases.” This article failed to garner congressional approval, so the states never considered it.

Although scholars now agree that Madison viewed this amendment as the most significant among the seventeen he proposed, Congress’s refusal to adopt it may have meant that the Founders never intended for the Bill of Rights to be applied to the states or local governments. Chief Justice John Marshall’s opinion in Barron v. Baltimore (1833), the first case in which the U.S. Supreme Court considered nationalizing the Bill of Rights, supports this conclusion. While reading Barron, note the relative ease with which Marshall reached the conclusion that historical circumstances could not possibly have implied that states were bound by the federal Bill of Rights.

The story of this case begins in Baltimore, Maryland, a city undergoing major economic changes in the early 1800s. Because of its busy harbor, Baltimore was becoming a major hub of economic activity in the United States. Such growth necessitated constant construction and excavation. While entrepreneurs erected new buildings, the city began to repair its badly worn streets.

Most of Baltimore’s residents welcomed the activity, but a group of wharf owners saw problems. They noticed that the city’s street construction altered the flow of streams coming into Baltimore Harbor. This redirection of water, the owners argued in a letter to the city, led to the accumulation of sand and earth near their wharves, causing the surrounding water to become too shallow for large ships. Because their livelihood depended on accommodating these ships, which unloaded goods on the wharves for storage in nearby warehouses, the owners wanted the city to dredge the sand and dirt at its expense.

Baltimore officials paid no heed to the wharf owners, and within five years city construction had ruined the profitability of John Barron and John Craig’s wharf. In 1822 they brought city representatives to county court in Maryland, asking for $20,000 in damages. The court ordered the city to pay them $4,500. When a state appellate court reversed the county court’s decision, a determined Barron appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Barron’s lawyer tried to discuss the specific issue of the wharf, but the justices asked him to confine his argument to constitutional issues. The attorney responded by arguing that the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees that “private property cannot be taken for public use, without just compensation” should apply to states, and not just the federal government. Baltimore’s attorney, Roger Brooke Taney, a future chief justice, must have thought otherwise, but the Court never gave him a chance to speak. As soon as he got up to argue the city’s case, the Court cut him off, apparently having made up its mind.

Writing for a unanimous Court, in one of his last major opinions, Chief Justice Marshall, who previously had shown a propensity to enlarge the powers of national government, sent a clear message to the states on the question of nationalizing the Bill of Rights.

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE MARSHALL DELIVERED THE OPINION OF THE COURT.

The 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. 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 dictated. The people of the United States framed such a government for the United States as they supposed best adapted to their situation, and best calculated to promote their interests. The powers they conferred on this government were to be exercised by itself; and the limitations on power, if expressed in general terms, are naturally, and, we think, necessarily applicable to the government created by the instrument. They are limitations of power granted in the instrument itself; not of distinct governments, framed by different persons and for different purposes.

If these propositions be correct, the fifth amendment must be understood as restraining the power of the general government, not as applicable to the states. In their several constitutions they have imposed such restrictions on their respective governments as their own wisdom suggested; such as they deemed most proper for themselves. It is a subject on which they judge exclusively, and with which others interfere no farther than they are supposed to have a common interest....

Had the people of the several states, or any of them, required changes in their constitutions; had they required additional safeguards to liberty from the apprehended encroachments of their particular governments, the remedy was in their own hands, and would have been applied by themselves. A convention would have been assembled by the discontented state, and the required improvements would have been made by itself. The unwieldy and cumbrous machinery of procuring a recommendation from two-thirds of congress, and the assent of three-fourths of their sister states, could never have occurred to any human being as a mode of doing that which might be effected by the state itself. Had the framers of these amendments intended them to be limitations on the powers of the state governments, they would have imitated the framers of the original constitution, and have expressed that intention. Had congress engaged in the extraordinary occupation of improving the constitutions of the several states by affording the people additional protection from the exercise of power by their own governments in matters which concerned themselves alone, they would have declared this purpose in plain and intelligible language.

But it is universally understood, it is a part of the history of the day, that the great revolution which established the constitution of the United States, was not effected without immense opposition. Serious fears were extensively entertained that those powers which the patriot statesmen, who then watched over the interests of our country, deemed essential to union, and to the attainment of those invaluable objects for which union was sought, might be exercised in a manner dangerous to liberty. In almost every convention by which the constitution was adopted, amendments to guard against the abuse of power were recommended. These amendments demanded security against the apprehended encroachments of the general government--not against those of the local governments. In compliance with a sentiment thus generally expressed, to quiet fears thus extensively entertained, amendments were proposed by the required majority in congress, and adopted by the states. These amendments contain no expression indicating an intention to apply them to the state governments. This court cannot so apply them.

We are of opinion that the provision in the fifth amendment to the constitution, declaring that private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation, is intended solely as a limitation on the exercise of power by the government of the United States, and is not applicable to the legislation of the states. We are therefore of opinion that there is no repugnancy between the several acts of the general assembly of Maryland, given in evidence by the defendants at the trial of this cause, in the court of that state, and the constitution of the United States. This court, therefore, has no jurisdiction of the cause; and it is dismissed....