John Barron, a co-owner of a highly profitable wharf in Baltimore's harbor, depended on deep water access for large commercial vessels. In the course of public works—diverting streams and grading streets—the City of Baltimore caused substantial deposits of sand and silt to accumulate near the wharf, drastically reducing the water depth and rendering the wharf largely unusable for its intended commercial purposes. Barron sued the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, asserting that the city's actions had effectively taken his property without just compensation, in violation of the Fifth Amendment's Takings Clause. A jury in the state trial court awarded Barron $4,500 in damages. On appeal, the Maryland Court of Appeals reversed. Barron then sought review in the United States Supreme Court, arguing that the Fifth Amendment required compensation for the taking by a municipal (state) authority.
Does the Fifth Amendment's Takings Clause apply to state and local governments so as to require them to provide just compensation when they take private property for public use?
At the time of Barron (1833), the provisions of the federal Bill of Rights restricted only the powers of the national government and did not apply to the states or their political subdivisions. Absent express textual application to the states, federal rights in the first ten amendments did not constrain state action.
No. The Fifth Amendment's Takings Clause does not apply to state and local governments. Because the Bill of Rights limited only the federal government, the Supreme Court lacked a federal question and thus jurisdiction to review the state court's judgment on Fifth Amendment grounds.
Chief Justice Marshall reasoned from text, structure, and history. He emphasized that the Constitution draws careful distinctions when limiting different sovereigns: Article I, Section 9 expressly limits Congress, while Article I, Section 10 specifically restricts the states. Many of the first ten amendments either explicitly reference Congress (e.g., the First Amendment) or, understood in context, were adopted to curb federal—not state—power. Nothing in the Bill of Rights' text indicated an intent to impose its guarantees against the states. The amendments arose from concerns raised during ratification that the new federal government could infringe individual liberties; they were not aimed at state governments, which already were constrained by their own constitutions and political accountability. Given this framing, the Court concluded that the Fifth Amendment imposed no restriction on state or municipal conduct. Consequently, there was no federal constitutional question for the Supreme Court to adjudicate. The Court therefore dismissed the writ of error for want of jurisdiction rather than reaching the merits of Barron's takings claim or the adequacy of compensation.
Barron established the pre–Fourteenth Amendment baseline that the federal Bill of Rights does not apply to the states. This decision shaped 19th-century constitutional law by channeling rights-protection claims against state governments to state constitutions and courts. After the Civil War, the Fourteenth Amendment transformed this landscape, enabling the Supreme Court—beginning in cases like Chicago, Burlington & Quincy R.R. v. Chicago (1897) and Gitlow v. New York (1925)—to apply most Bill of Rights protections to the states through the Due Process Clause. Barron remains pivotal because it explains the original federalism framework and provides context for the later selective incorporation doctrine. For students, it is essential to understanding the historical evolution of individual rights, the limits of federal judicial power in the early republic, and the interpretive methods used by the Marshall Court.
Barron v. Baltimore is a cornerstone of constitutional law, marking the early Court's insistence that the federal Bill of Rights constrained only the national government. The decision reflects a structural understanding of the Constitution's allocation of power and a deference to state sovereignty in the pre–Fourteenth Amendment period. It also underscores the Court's jurisdictional limits when no federal question exists.