The inherent power of a state or government to seize private property has a complicated history that can be traced to the year 1066. William the Conqueror, after his victory at the battle of Hastings, is credited with the first major documented incidence of the exertion of eminent domain. The medieval practice of granting land to landholders and the stratified system of serfdom utilized remained a prominent way of life over the next several centuries. The most famous early recording of the governed restricting the power of eminent domain came in chapter 28 of the Magna Carta, which required payment for expropriations by the government. In the late seventeen hundreds, America’s founding fathers struggled with the question of eminent domain. The resulting compromise gave rise to the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment. This amendment did not empower the government to exercise eminent domain; it only limited the practice to public use. In 1828, the Supreme Court ruled that “public use” can be interpreted to mean “public benefit”. Arguably the Court’s most important decision concerning eminent domain came in 1905 in the case of Clark vs. Nash. In this case, the Court determined that because different regions of the country have different circumstances and situations, the eminent domain power of the states would be unique on a case-by-case basis. This decision created an ambiguous area for interpretation of the Constitutional author’s original intent in writing the Fifth Amendment. In recent years, public outcry against cases such as Kelo vs. City of New London have shown the American public’s dissatisfaction with the broad scope of the power of eminent domain. The Kelo decision, which affirmed the city of New London’s power to acquire private property to sell to a developer for the purpose of raising municipal revenue, shows to what extent the power of eminent domain has been expanded from its primitive origins in modern day England. The negative public reaction led to the Bush executive order of 2006 which limited eminent domain powers when the matter of public interest involves “advancing the economic interest of private parties”, thereby reversing the continuing legal impact of the Kelo decision. In most of the cases pertinent to the development of the scope of eminent domain the Clark decision has played an important role. Today, one of the templates for determining “public benefit” is to observe the special circumstances of the area in question. This aspect of the regulation of the government’s power plays an important role in questions of eminent domain to this day.