Barron v. Baltimore

From Freepedia

Barron v. Baltimore, 32 U.S. 243 (1833) was an important United States Supreme Court case. John Barron owned a profitable wharf in the Baltimore harbor. As Baltimore grew, sand accumulated in harbor making the waters shallower and restricting his business. He sued the city to recover a portion of his financial losses. The effect of the Court's decision in this case was that the freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, specifically the right against government taking property without compensation, are restrictions on the federal government alone, and that state governments are not necessarily bound by them. This decision concerned the Fifth Amendment only: some legal scholars feel that the Court's decision in this matter was too broad, and that the justices did not truly intend state governments to be exempted from the entire Bill of Rights. However, Supreme Court cases from the early 20th century onward have interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment to apply the Bill of Rights to the states. These cases include: Gitlow v. New York, 268 U.S. 652 (1925), Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U.S. 25 (1949), and Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963).