Eminent Domain

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Eminent Domain is quite honestly the pink elephant in the room. From the sources that we had to use for the synthesis essay, I would've assumed that this would be an issue that was known to everyone, but as it turns out, most people don't. Today, I want to talk about the clause that makes eminent domain fair - "with payment of compensation". Jesus freaking Christ, this is such a vague clause. The government is literally like, we can take your land, and we decide what just compensation for it is.

 Once upon a time, for over 100 years existed in the U.S. Constitution. It wasn't until 1876 that it was used. That case in which it was used was a huge landmark supreme court case. The provisions of this basically deemed that The court ruled that it is necessary for the government to be able to seize property for its uses, such as creating infrastructure, which ultimately are determined by the legislature and not the judiciary. This essentially gives the government ultimate ownership over all property, because it is not viable for the government to hold out against the refusal of private individuals to appropriate land for government uses.

The outcome of this case lacked rhetoric. it quite plainly stated that the government owns all private property. This is one of the reasons that the United States went through a phase with the Articles of Confederation: the people were scared that the government would be overstepping its powers.

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