says, Adamson was charged and convicted in a court of the United States, and was forced to stake the
stand and thereby possibly incriminate himself, this would “infringe [the] defendant’s privilege against
self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment.”
state-level processes, a process which is controlled by his state citizenship:
“Such an assumption [the one above] does not determine appellant’s rights under the
Fourteenth Amendment. It is settled law that the clause of the Fifth Amendment,
protecting a person against being compelled to be a witness against himself, is not made
effective by the Fourteenth Amendment as a protection against state action on the
ground that freedom from testimonial compulsion is a right of national citizenship, or
because it is a personal privilege or immunity secured by the Federal Constitution as
one of the rights of man that are listed in the Bill of Rights.”
Reed justifies his reasoning from what claims is the “unquestioned premise” that the Bill of Rights was
created only to protect individuals from actions from the federal, not the state, governments. Although
the language of the Fourteenth Amendment might have initially seemed to collapse the distinction
between state and national citizenship to provide federal protection from state violation only for those
“elemental privileges and immunities of state citizenship,”
seemed to suggest otherwise, as those “elemental” privileges and immunities were to be protected from
the location of sovereignty that originally granted them – the respective state government of the
individual. Other than Slaughter-House, both Twining v. New Jersey and Palko v. Connecticut also
affirm the notion that the Fourteenth Amendment’s first clause supports the notion that “state and national
citizenship coexist in the same person” (Italics mine).
privileges and immunities that flow from state citizenship; they are, however, not permitted to abridge
those flowing from national citizenship, consistent with Slaughter-House. Moreover, this understanding
70
Ibid., 54. It should be noted that by the Adamson decision in 1947, most of the First amendment provisions,
including freedom of speech, petition and assembly, and free exercise of religion had been incorporated. See Gitlow
v. New York 268 US 652 (1925); Fiske v. Kansas 274 US 380 (1927)
71
332 US 46 at 50
72
Ibid., 50-51
73
Ibid, 51
74
The first clause of the Fourteenth Amendment states, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and
subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No state
shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor
29
Convention