How did the Fourteenth Amendment change the way the Supreme Court decided if the protections under the Bill of Rights applied to state laws?
The Fourteenth Amendment played a crucial role in changing the Supreme Court's approach to applying the protections under the Bill of Rights to state laws through a process known as incorporation. Before the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868, the Bill of Rights only applied to actions of the federal government, and the states were generally free to disregard those rights in their own laws.
However, the Fourteenth Amendment, specifically its Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses, significantly altered this dynamic. The relevant clause of the Fourteenth Amendment states: "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."
The due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is particularly significant in this context. It became the key legal avenue through which the Supreme Court started "selectively" incorporating certain provisions of the Bill of Rights to apply to state laws. The Court began recognizing that certain fundamental rights protected by the Constitution were implicitly included within the concept of due process, meaning that they were essential to the fundamental fairness and justice of the legal system.
Through a series of landmark cases, the Supreme Court began selectively incorporating various provisions of the Bill of Rights to state laws, ensuring that individuals' rights were protected from state government actions as well. The incorporation process was not immediate but developed gradually over time, with different provisions being incorporated at different times.
For example, in the case of Gitlow v. New York (1925), the Court held that the First Amendment's protection of freedom of speech and press applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause. It continued to expand this approach in subsequent cases, gradually applying most of the protections in the Bill of Rights to the states.
Therefore, the Fourteenth Amendment brought about a significant change in the Supreme Court's interpretation of the Constitution, allowing for the selective incorporation of the Bill of Rights to state laws through the due process clause. This ultimately expanded protections for individuals against state government infringements on their fundamental rights.