Corona Constitution Class:
Incorporation of the Bill of Rights to the States
Corona Constitution Class
Tuesdays, 6:00 pm
AllStar Collision
522 Railroad St., Corona CA
Constitution Class Handout
Instructor: Douglas V. Gibbs
Author, Speaker, Instructor, Radio Host
www.politicalpistachio.com
www.douglasvgibbs.com
www.constitutionassociation.com
Lesson 12, Part II
Incorporation of the Bill of Rights
The Bill of Rights was originally intended to be applied only to the federal government. Even the most ardent opponent to the originalist view of the Constitution concedes that it is commonly understood that originally the Bill of Rights was not intended to apply to the States whatsoever. The text of the U.S. Constitution does not necessarily clearly exhibit that the Bill of Rights was only intended to apply to the federal government, but a deep study of the text of the first ten amendments, and the various writings of the Founding Fathers on the topic, reveals without a doubt that the Bill of Rights was indeed originally intended to only apply to the federal government.
Though even the most ardent opponent of the United States Constitution will admit that the Bill of Rights was originally intended to only apply to the federal government, the rule of inapplicability to the States was abandoned by statists after 1868, when it became argued that the 14th Amendment changed this rule, and served to extend most of the Bill of Rights to the States.
The section of the 14th Amendment that has been interpreted to extend the Bill of Rights to the States comes from the second sentence of Section 1 of the 14th Amendment, which reads:
"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."
Through a series of court rulings, the Supreme Court has changed the Constitution by applying parts of the Bill of Rights to the States. The process over the time period since the ratification of the 14th Amendment which works to apply the Bill of Rights to the States through court rulings and written opinions is called "TheIncorporation of the Bill of Rights."
The Bill of Rights was originally not meant to be a guarantee of individual freedoms at all, but a limitation of federal authority against our God given rights. In other words, the Bill of Rights was not written for the people, but for the federal government as a means of telling the federal government what it cannot do in regards to our unalienable rights.
Why not apply these amendments to the States as well?
The States already had a Bill of Rights in their own State Constitutions (and those that did not have a constitution yet, did include a Bill of Rights later). The Founding Fathers were confident that the people of the States could control their own State officials, and would be involved in their local governments. The people did not fear their local governments acting in a tyrannical manner similar to the potential of a centralized government system. Their fears were of the new and distant central government.
Originally, parts of the first amendments proposed by James Madison did in fact address the States, seeking to limit the State governments with provisions such as, "No state shall violate the equal rights of conscience, or the freedom of the press, or the trial by jury in criminal cases." The parts of the Bill of Rights that sought to be applied to the powers of the States, however, were not approved by Congress, and therefore were not a part of the proposed amendments to the States.
The Bill of Rights was understood, at its ratification, to be a bar on the actions of the federal government. Prior to the incorporation of the Bill of Rights to the States by the courts as based on their interpretation of the 14th Amendment, the Bill of Rights did not apply to the States, and was never intended to be fully applied to the States.
The argument used, despite original intent, that the Bill of Rights must also apply to the States is based more on philosophy, than historical evidence. One of the philosophical standpoints used is that if the specific rights given in the Bill of Rights are based on the more general rights to life, liberty, and property which in turn are considered to be God-given and unalienable, then State governments do not have the authority to infringe on those rights any more than can the federal government.
The argument, however, simply suggests that the Bill of Rights oughtto apply at the State level, not that it originally did.
If the Bill of Rights originally only applied to the Federal Government, and over time has changed to be something that was applicable on the State level through court decisions, the reality is that the Constitution itself has never allowed the Bill of Rights to be applied to the States. The change was done by judicial means, meaning that the Constitution has been changed by judicial activism. The problem, however, is that according to the Constitution, the only way to change the Constitution is through an amendment process. Therefore, the incorporation of the Bill of Rights to the States occurred unconstitutionally.
This returns us to the argument that the 14th Amendment is the source and authority of the incorporation of the Bill of Rights to the States. The Supreme Court's first ruling regarding the scope of the 14th Amendment, and if the amendment enables the Bill of Rights to be applied to the States, was rendered in the Slaughterhouse Cases just five years after the ratification of the 14th Amendment in 1868. A five to four vote by the high court interpreted the Privileges and Immunities Clause to be the authority they needed to enforce The Bill of Rights against the States. Subsequent cases also used the 14th Amendment as an authority for incorporation. During the early twentieth century a number of court cases, using the arguments referencing the 14th Amendment, began selectively incorporating some of the specific provisions of the Bill of Rights while rejecting the incorporation of others.
The courts, through this process of incorporating The Bill of Rights to the States, have changed the Constitution through unconstitutional means, and against original intent. As originally intended, all provisions in the U.S. Constitution apply to the federal government, unless otherwise noted. The Bill of Rights was originally intended to apply only to the federal government, and if we are to remain in line with the original intent of the Founding Fathers, State sovereignty must remain protected by that original intent.
Congressman John A. Bingham of Ohio was the primary author of the first section of the 14th amendment, and it was his personal intention the Bill of Rights be applied to the States as well. His argument was that it was necessary in order to secure the civil rights of the newly appointed slaves. However, most of the representatives during the five months of debate on the floor of Congress argued against incorporating the Bill of Rights to the States, and so when the amendment was agreed upon for proposal, the majority of those involved intended for the 14th Amendment to not influence how the Bill of Rights was applied. In the beginning, the courts ruled that the Amendment did not extend the Bill of Rights to the States. It was after the realization that Black Codes were emerging in the South that the courts decided for the purpose of protecting the civil rights of the emancipated slaves, they would begin to apply parts of the Bill of Rights to the States.
Terms:
Black Codes - Laws put in place in the United States after the Civil War with the effect of limiting the basic human rights and civil liberties of blacks.
Incorporation of the Bill of Rights - The process through court rulings based on the interpretation of the 14th Amendment to apply the Bill of Rights to the States.
Judicial Activism - When judges violate the Separation of Powers through their rulings; when a judge rules legislatively by modifying or striking down a law using the unconstitutional authority of judicial review.
Original Intent - Original meaning of the United States Constitution as intended by the framers during the Federal Convention of 1787, and the subsequent State Ratification Conventions.
Originalist view of the Constitution - View that the Constitution as written should be interpreted in a manner consistent with what was meant by those who drafted and ratified it.
Questions for Discussion:
1. Why is the originalist view of the Constitution so important?
2. How have Statists changed the Constitution through the courts over the last two hundred years?
3. What is the only legal way to change the Constitution?
4. Why is the Bill of Rights not a guarantee of individual freedoms?
5. From where do our rights come from?
6. How did the Black Codes play a part in the incorporation of the Bill of Rights?
Resources:
14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Civil Rights (1868), Our
Documents dot gov: http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=43
Intent of the Fourteenth Amendment was to Protect All Rights (argument
supporting incorporation of the Bill of Rights to the States), Constitution dot org (2000):http://www.constitution.org/col/intent_14th.htm
Joseph Andrews, A Guide for Learning and Teaching The Declaration of
Independence and The U.S. Constitution - Learning from the Original Texts Using Classical Learning Methods of the Founders; San Marcos: The Center for Teaching the Constitution (2010).
Philip B. Kurland and Ralph Lerner, The Founder's Constitution -
Volume Five - Amendments 1-12; Indianapolis: Liberty Fund (1987)
Richard L. Aynes, On Misreading John Bingham and the Fourteenth
Amendment (1993): http://www.constitution.org/lrev/aynes_14th.htm
The Fourteenth Amendment and Incorporation, The Tenth Amendment
Center (2010):http://newyork.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2010/05/the-14th-amendment-and-incorporation/
To Whom Does The Bill Of Rights Apply?, Lew Rockwell dot com
(2005): http://www.lewrockwell.com/browne/browne27.html
What is the Bill of Rights?, About dot com Civil Liberties (argument
supporting incorporation of Bill of Rights to the States:http://civilliberty.about.com/od/historyprofiles/f/what_is_bill.htm
Copyright 2015 Douglas V. Gibbs
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