by Malcolm Kelsey
The
notion of selective incorporation is the process in which the American courts
have applied portions of the Bill of Rights to the states. Prior to the 1890’s, the Bill of Rights
was held only to apply to the federal government, but under the incorporation
doctrine, most provisions of the Bill of Rights now also apply to the state and
local governments, by virtue of the fourteenth amendment to the
constitution.
Prior to ratification of the
fourteenth amendment and the development of the incorporation doctrine, the
Supreme Court in 1833 held in Barron v.
Baltimore that the Bill of Rights applied only to the federal but not any
of the state governments. Even
years after the ratification of the 14th amendment, the Supreme
Court in the United States v. Cruikshank still
held that the first and second amendment did not apply to state
governments. However, beginning in
the 1920’s, a series of United state court decisions interpreted the fourteenth
amendment to incorporate most portions of the Bill of Rights, making them, for
the first time, enforceable against the state governments.
As
talked about in Gov class, we have mentioned that our government time and time
again acts slow and stagnant. When
it came to the incorporation of the Bill of Right it takes our government,
mainly the Supreme Court, a very long time to apply these portions of the
constitution to the states. It
could be said that the delay of adding the Bill of rights to the constitution
was a way to keep power in the federal governments hands and also keep it so
there was a noticeable balance of power between both state and federal
government. It seems pretty sad
that it took our government all these court cases and years to realize that it
was time to apply the Bill of Rights to the states.
