Page "Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution" Paragraph 25

In Barron v. Baltimore ( 1833 ), the Supreme Court ruled that the Bill of Rights did not apply to the states.

While many state constitutions are modeled after the United States Constitution and federal laws, those state constitutions did not necessarily include provisions comparable to the Bill of Rights.

According to Akhil Reed Amar, the framers and early supporters of the Fourteenth Amendment believed that it would ensure that the states would be required to recognize the individual rights the federal government was already required to respect in the Bill of Rights and in other constitutional provisions ; all of these rights were likely understood as falling within the " privileges or immunities " safeguarded by the amendment.

However, in the Slaughter-House Cases ( 1873 ), the Supreme Court ruled that the amendment's Privileges or Immunities Clause was limited to " privileges or immunities " granted to citizens by the federal government by virtue of national citizenship.

The Court further held in the Civil Rights Cases ( 1883 ) that the amendment was limited to " state action " and, therefore, did not authorize the Congress to outlaw racial discrimination on the part of private individuals or organizations.

Neither of these decisions has been overturned and have been specifically reaffirmed several times.