“The term ‘eminent domain’ is said to have originated with Grotius, the seventeenth century legal scholar. Grotius believed that the state possessed the power to take or destroy property for the benefit of the social unit, but he believed that when the state so acted, it was obligated to compensate the injured property owner for his losses. Blackstone, too, believed that society had no general power to take the private property of landowners, except on the payment of a reasonable price. The just compensation clause of the fifth amendment to the Constitution was built upon this concept of a moral obligation to pay for governmental interference with private property…. No provision for the power of eminent domain appears in the federal Constitution. The Supreme Court, however, has said that the power of eminent domain is an incident of federal sovereignty and an ‘offspring of political necessity.’ The Court has also noted that the fifth amendment’s limitation on taking private property is a tacit recognition that the power to take private property exists.” John E. Nowak & Ronald D. Rotunda, Constitutional Law § 11.11, at 424–25 (4th ed. 1991) (quoting Bauman v. Ross, 167 U.S. 548, 574, 17 S.Ct. 966, 976 (1897)).
eminent domain
eminent domain. The inherent power of a governmental entity to take privately owned property, esp. land, and convert it to public use, subject to reasonable compensation for the taking. — Also (rarely) termed compulsory purchase; (in Scots law) compulsory surrender. See CONDEMNATION(2); EXPROPRIATION; TAKING(2). [Cases: Eminent Domain 1, 69. C.J.S. Eminent Domain §§ 2–3, 71–72, 198–199.]
