What did Barron v. Baltimore decide about applying of the Bill of Rights?

• A. It restrained only national government, not states and cities.
• B. The Bill of Rights applied to cities but not states.
• C. It restrained both national and state governments.
• D. It did not apply to the First Amendment.

Answer: (A)

Barron v. Baltimore shows that the Bill of Rights originally restrained only the federal government, not state or local governments. In the case, Barron argued that the Fifth Amendment’s protections should apply to actions by Maryland, but the Court held that the Constitution did not bind the states to the Bill of Rights at that time. So the decision maintained that the federal government alone was limited by the Bill of Rights, not the states or cities. It wasn’t until the Fourteenth Amendment and later incorporation cases that many of these rights began to apply to the states, but Barron set the precedent that the original protections did not reach state actions.