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America and the Incorporation of the Bill of Rights


This case struck an early blow against the incorporation of the Bill of Rights to the states, as it set the precedent that states would not be held to it in the same way that the federal government would. Barron v Baltimore would be referred to in future Supreme Court cases as rationale behind verdicts that centered on the states not being held to the Bill of Rights in the same manner as the federal government.
             While today most states are held to the Bill of Rights, there was some debate regarding on how we should get here. Some were in favor of total incorporation, while others preferred selective incorporation. Was it through selective or total incorporation? The first section of the Fourteenth Amendment states .
             "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. " .
             The language of that section seemingly incorporates the Bill of Rights as a whole to the states, however at the time it was written many people argued against that. And while the Fourteenth Amendment very well may have been meant as a declaration of total incorporation of the Bill of Rights, it did not exactly work out that way. Most of the amendments in the Bill of Rights wound up having to go through the Supreme Court individually as a form of selective incorporation. .
             The Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868, over thirty years after Barron v Baltimore, and it seemingly went directly against the precedent set in that case. And that came to the Supreme Court in 1873 in the form of the Slaughter House Cases.


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