What is the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment?

The Takings Clause is the final clause of the Fifth Amendment: "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." It does not forbid the government from acquiring private property — through eminent domain, the government can take land or other property for public purposes such as roads, schools, or utilities — but it conditions that power on payment of "just compensation," generally understood as the property's fair market value, enough to leave the owner in roughly the same financial position as before the taking. The clause covers more than direct physical seizure of land. Courts have also recognized "regulatory takings," where a government regulation restricts the use of property so severely that it functions like a taking even though title never changes hands; the leading case here is Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon (1922), where Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote that "if regulation goes too far it will be recognized as a taking." The clause's most controversial modern application came in Kelo v. City of New London (2005), where the Supreme Court held 5-4 that a city could transfer condemned private homes to a private developer as part of an economic redevelopment plan, ruling that "public use" could be satisfied by a broader public benefit rather than requiring the government or the public to directly use the seized land itself. The decision provoked a sharp public backlash — many states responded by passing their own laws narrowing eminent domain power beyond what the federal Constitution requires, making Kelo one of the rare Supreme Court rulings that triggered widespread state-level legislative pushback rather than settling the issue.