Rights and Liberties

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 14^th 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.