Privileges or Immunities Clause
Encyclopedia
The Privileges or Immunities Clause is Amendment XIV, Section 1, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution
. It states:
Along with the rest of the Fourteenth Amendment
, this clause became part of the Constitution on July 9, 1868.
of Ohio. Bingham's main inspiration, at least for his initial prototype of this Clause, was the Privileges and Immunities Clause
in Article Four
of the original unamended Constitution, which provided: "The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States."
On February 3 of 1866, the Joint Committee on Reconstruction
(also known as the "Joint Committee of Fifteen") voted in favor of a draft constitutional amendment proposed by Bingham. The draft constitutional amendment provided:
This language closely tracked the existing language in the Privileges and Immunities Clause. On February 28 of 1866, Bingham expressed his opinion that this draft language would give Congress power to "secure to the citizens of each State all the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States in the several States," and he added that, "The proposition pending before the House is simply a proposition to arm the Congress…with the power to enforce the bill of rights as it stands in the constitution today. It hath that extent—no more….If the State laws do not interfere, those immunities follow under the Constitution.”
Subsequently, on April 28 of 1866, the Joint Committee of Fifteen voted in favor of a second draft proposed by Congressman Bingham, which would ultimately be adopted into the Constitution. The Joint Committee no longer tracked the existing language in Article Four
as the Committee had previously done. On May 10 of 1866, in the closing debate on the House floor, Bingham explained:
The Fourteenth Amendment
was approved by the House later that day. The Senate subsequently added a sentence granting birthright citizenship on June 8, 1866. Congress then gave final approval to the Privileges or Immunities Clause when the House proposed the Fourteenth Amendment to the states for ratification on June 13 of 1866. It became part of the Constitution in July 1868.
to the United States Constitution
is unique among constitutional provisions in that some scholars believe it was substantially read out of the Constitution in a 5-4 decision of the Supreme Court
in the Slaughter-House Cases of 1873. The Clause has remained virtually dormant since, but in 2010 this clause was the basis for the fifth and deciding vote in the case of McDonald v. Chicago
, regarding application of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution
to the states.
The Privileges or Immunities Clause was perhaps originally intended to incorporate
the first eight amendments of the Bill of Rights
against the state governments, while also incorporating other constitutional rights against the state governments (e.g. the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus
). However, that incorporation has instead been achieved mostly by means of the Due Process Clause
of the Fourteenth Amendment, which has been used by a series of Supreme Court decisions such as Gitlow v. New York
and Duncan v. Louisiana
to incorporate the First
, Second
(due process was relied upon by four of the five justices voting for incorporation), Fourth
, Fifth
, Sixth
, and Eighth
Amendment rights and protections as privileges of residents of the States. The Third
and Seventh
Amendments have not (yet) been recognized as extending to State governments.
In the Slaughter-House Cases the court recognized two types of citizenship. The rights citizens have by being citizens of the United States are covered under the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the 14th Amendment, while the rights citizens have by being citizens of a state fall under the Privileges and Immunities Clause
of Article Four
.
The Court in Slaughter-House did not prevent application of the Bill of Rights to the states via the Privileges or Immunities Clause, but rather addressed whether a state monopoly statute violated the natural right of a person to do business and engage in his trade or vocation. In other words, no provision of the Bill of Rights was at issue in that case, nor any other right that followed under the Constitution.
In obiter dicta, Justice Miller's
opinion in Slaughter-House went so far as to acknowledge that the privileges or immunities of a citizen of the United States include at least some rights listed in the first eight amendments: "The right to peaceably assemble and petition for redress of grievances ... are rights of the citizen guaranteed by the Federal Constitution."
Legal scholars disagree about the precise meaning of the Privileges or Immunities Clause, although there are some aspects that are less controversial than others. William Van Alstyne
has characterized the coverage of the Privileges or Immunities Clause this way:
If a citizen of Washington D.C. has a particular constitutional immunity, then, according to Van Alstyne, the Fourteenth Amendment extends that immunity to all citizens of all the states.
Roger Pilon
of the Cato Institute
has said that the meaning of the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment depends upon the meaning of its counterpart in Article IV: the Privileges and Immunities Clause. Pilon further urges that the Article IV Clause should be reinterpreted as protecting a wide variety of natural rights, despite "its more recent history of interpretation or enforcement."
On the other hand, Kurt Lash of the University of Illinois College of Law has argued that, at the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, the privileges and immunities of "citizens of the United States" as referred to in the Fourteenth Amendment were understood as a class distinct from the privileges and immunities of "Citizens in the several States" as referred to in Article IV. Under this interpretation of the Privileges or Immunities Clause as an "antebellum term of art," Slaughter-House is consistent with the original meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Like Roger Pilon, some of the framers of the Privileges or Immunities Clause anticipated that it could protect (from state infringement) a broad range of rights far exceeding what had been enumerated in the Bill of Rights. However, as Pilon notes, that was often because of their interpretation of the Privileges and Immunities Clause in the original unamended Constitution. Regarding that interpretation of the older clause, Justice Clarence Thomas
has noted that the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment realized the Supreme Court had not yet "undertaken to define either the nature or extent of the privileges and immunities" in the original unamended Constitution. The framers of the Fourteenth Amendment left that matter of interpretation in the hands of the judiciary.
In the 1947 case of Adamson v. California
, Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black
argued in his dissent that the framers intended the Privileges or Immunities Clause to apply the Bill of Rights against the states. Black argued that the framers' intent should control the Court's interpretation of the 14th Amendment, and he attached a lengthy appendix that quoted extensively from John Bingham's congressional statements. However, Black's position on the Privileges or Immunities Clause fell one vote short of a majority in the Adamson case.
In the 2010 case of McDonald v. Chicago
, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas
, while concurring with the majority in declaring the Second Amendment applicable to state and local governments, declared he reached the same conclusion only through the Privileges or Immunities Clause. Since no other justice, either in majority or dissent, attempted to question his rationale, this is considered by some as a revival of the Privileges or Immunities Clause.
Due Process Clause. Although constitutional scholars such as Raoul Berger
have raised this question, an answer has been detailed by Yale Law Professor Akhil Amar. According to Amar, the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment wanted to extend the due process right not only to citizens, but to all other persons as well, which required a separate Due Process Clause. Although the Fifth Amendment refers to "persons" and not "citizens" within its text, it would only be incorporated by the Privileges or Immunities Clause as to citizens.
Amar's argument would preclude extension of enumerated rights to non-citizens via the Equal Protection Clause. An alternative rationale for explicitly including the Due Process Clause in the Fourteenth Amendment is that the Privileges or Immunities Clause only forbids states from making or enforcing laws, and therefore does not bar states from harming people outside the legal process.
Another redundancy issue is posed by an interpretation of the Privileges or Immunities Clause that views it as simply a guarantee of equality. Proponents of that interpretation acknowledge that, "The natural response to this approach is to say that ... any equality-based reading of the clause is redundant because the Equal Protection Clause
provides the necessary ground and more."
of the original unamended Constitution. However, the right to travel has additional components, such as the right to take up residence and become a citizen of a different state. The Fourteenth Amendment's Citizenship Clause
addresses residency: "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."
In the 1999 case of Saenz v. Roe
, Justice Stevens
, writing for the majority, said that the "right to travel" also has a component protected by the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment:
Justice Miller had written in the Slaughter-House Cases that the right to become a citizen of a state by residing in the state "is conferred by the very article under consideration."
United States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
. It states:
Along with the rest of the Fourteenth Amendment
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments.Its Citizenship Clause provides a broad definition of citizenship that overruled the Dred Scott v...
, this clause became part of the Constitution on July 9, 1868.
Drafting and adoption
The primary author of the Privileges or Immunities Clause was Congressman John BinghamJohn Bingham
John Armor Bingham was a Republican congressman from Ohio, America, judge advocate in the trial of the Abraham Lincoln assassination and a prosecutor in the impeachment trials of Andrew Johnson...
of Ohio. Bingham's main inspiration, at least for his initial prototype of this Clause, was the Privileges and Immunities Clause
Privileges and Immunities Clause
The Privileges and Immunities Clause prevents a state from treating citizens of other states in a discriminatory manner...
in Article Four
Article Four of the United States Constitution
Article Four of the United States Constitution relates to the states. The article outlines the duties states have to each other, as well as those the federal government has to the states...
of the original unamended Constitution, which provided: "The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States."
On February 3 of 1866, the Joint Committee on Reconstruction
United States Congress Joint Committee on Reconstruction
The Joint Committee on Reconstruction, also known as the Joint Committee of Fifteen, was a joint committee of the United States Congress that played a major role in Reconstruction in the wake of the American Civil War...
(also known as the "Joint Committee of Fifteen") voted in favor of a draft constitutional amendment proposed by Bingham. The draft constitutional amendment provided:
This language closely tracked the existing language in the Privileges and Immunities Clause. On February 28 of 1866, Bingham expressed his opinion that this draft language would give Congress power to "secure to the citizens of each State all the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States in the several States," and he added that, "The proposition pending before the House is simply a proposition to arm the Congress…with the power to enforce the bill of rights as it stands in the constitution today. It hath that extent—no more….If the State laws do not interfere, those immunities follow under the Constitution.”
Subsequently, on April 28 of 1866, the Joint Committee of Fifteen voted in favor of a second draft proposed by Congressman Bingham, which would ultimately be adopted into the Constitution. The Joint Committee no longer tracked the existing language in Article Four
Article Four of the United States Constitution
Article Four of the United States Constitution relates to the states. The article outlines the duties states have to each other, as well as those the federal government has to the states...
as the Committee had previously done. On May 10 of 1866, in the closing debate on the House floor, Bingham explained:
The Fourteenth Amendment
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments.Its Citizenship Clause provides a broad definition of citizenship that overruled the Dred Scott v...
was approved by the House later that day. The Senate subsequently added a sentence granting birthright citizenship on June 8, 1866. Congress then gave final approval to the Privileges or Immunities Clause when the House proposed the Fourteenth Amendment to the states for ratification on June 13 of 1866. It became part of the Constitution in July 1868.
Interpretation
This provision of the Fourteenth AmendmentFourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments.Its Citizenship Clause provides a broad definition of citizenship that overruled the Dred Scott v...
to the United States Constitution
United States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
is unique among constitutional provisions in that some scholars believe it was substantially read out of the Constitution in a 5-4 decision of the Supreme Court
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
in the Slaughter-House Cases of 1873. The Clause has remained virtually dormant since, but in 2010 this clause was the basis for the fifth and deciding vote in the case of McDonald v. Chicago
McDonald v. Chicago
McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U.S. 3025, 130 S.Ct. 3020 , was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States that determined whether the Second Amendment applies to the individual states...
, regarding application of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution
Second Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution is the part of the United States Bill of Rights that protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms. It was adopted on December 15, 1791, along with the rest of the Bill of Rights.In 2008 and 2010, the Supreme Court issued two Second...
to the states.
The Privileges or Immunities Clause was perhaps originally intended to incorporate
Incorporation (Bill of Rights)
The incorporation of the Bill of Rights is the process by which American courts have applied portions of the U.S. Bill of Rights to the states. Prior to the 1890s, the Bill of Rights was held only to apply to the federal government...
the first eight amendments of the Bill of Rights
United States Bill of Rights
The Bill of Rights is the collective name for the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution. These limitations serve to protect the natural rights of liberty and property. They guarantee a number of personal freedoms, limit the government's power in judicial and other proceedings, and...
against the state governments, while also incorporating other constitutional rights against the state governments (e.g. the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus
Habeas corpus
is a writ, or legal action, through which a prisoner can be released from unlawful detention. The remedy can be sought by the prisoner or by another person coming to his aid. Habeas corpus originated in the English legal system, but it is now available in many nations...
). However, that incorporation has instead been achieved mostly by means of the Due Process Clause
Due process
Due process is the legal code that the state must venerate all of the legal rights that are owed to a person under the principle. Due process balances the power of the state law of the land and thus protects individual persons from it...
of the Fourteenth Amendment, which has been used by a series of Supreme Court decisions such as Gitlow v. New York
Gitlow v. New York
Gitlow v. New York, , was a decision by the United States Supreme Court, which ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution had extended the reach of certain provisions of the First Amendment—specifically the provisions protecting freedom of speech and freedom of the...
and Duncan v. Louisiana
Duncan v. Louisiana
Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145 , was a significant United States Supreme Court decision which incorporated the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial and applied it to the states.-Background of the case:...
to incorporate the First
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...
, Second
Second Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution is the part of the United States Bill of Rights that protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms. It was adopted on December 15, 1791, along with the rest of the Bill of Rights.In 2008 and 2010, the Supreme Court issued two Second...
(due process was relied upon by four of the five justices voting for incorporation), Fourth
Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution is the part of the Bill of Rights which guards against unreasonable searches and seizures, along with requiring any warrant to be judicially sanctioned and supported by probable cause...
, Fifth
Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which is part of the Bill of Rights, protects against abuse of government authority in a legal procedure. Its guarantees stem from English common law which traces back to the Magna Carta in 1215...
, Sixth
Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution is the part of the United States Bill of Rights which sets forth rights related to criminal prosecutions...
, and Eighth
Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution is the part of the United States Bill of Rights which prohibits the federal government from imposing excessive bail, excessive fines or cruel and unusual punishments. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that this amendment's Cruel and Unusual...
Amendment rights and protections as privileges of residents of the States. The Third
Third Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Third Amendment to the United States Constitution is a part of the United States Bill of Rights. It was introduced on September 5, 1789, and then three quarters of the states ratified this as well as 9 other amendments on December 15, 1791. It prohibits, in peacetime, the quartering of...
and Seventh
Seventh Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Seventh Amendment to the United States Constitution, which was ratified as part of the Bill of Rights, codifies the right to a jury trial in certain civil cases. However, in some civil cases, the Supreme Court has not incorporated the right to a jury trial to the states in the fashion which...
Amendments have not (yet) been recognized as extending to State governments.
In the Slaughter-House Cases the court recognized two types of citizenship. The rights citizens have by being citizens of the United States are covered under the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the 14th Amendment, while the rights citizens have by being citizens of a state fall under the Privileges and Immunities Clause
Privileges and Immunities Clause
The Privileges and Immunities Clause prevents a state from treating citizens of other states in a discriminatory manner...
of Article Four
Article Four of the United States Constitution
Article Four of the United States Constitution relates to the states. The article outlines the duties states have to each other, as well as those the federal government has to the states...
.
The Court in Slaughter-House did not prevent application of the Bill of Rights to the states via the Privileges or Immunities Clause, but rather addressed whether a state monopoly statute violated the natural right of a person to do business and engage in his trade or vocation. In other words, no provision of the Bill of Rights was at issue in that case, nor any other right that followed under the Constitution.
In obiter dicta, Justice Miller's
Samuel Freeman Miller
Samuel Freeman Miller was an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1862–1890. He was a physician and lawyer.-Early life and education:...
opinion in Slaughter-House went so far as to acknowledge that the privileges or immunities of a citizen of the United States include at least some rights listed in the first eight amendments: "The right to peaceably assemble and petition for redress of grievances ... are rights of the citizen guaranteed by the Federal Constitution."
Legal scholars disagree about the precise meaning of the Privileges or Immunities Clause, although there are some aspects that are less controversial than others. William Van Alstyne
William Van Alstyne
William Warner Van Alstyne is an American lawyer, law professor, and constitutional law scholar. He currently holds the named position of Lee Professor of Law at William and Mary Law School....
has characterized the coverage of the Privileges or Immunities Clause this way:
If a citizen of Washington D.C. has a particular constitutional immunity, then, according to Van Alstyne, the Fourteenth Amendment extends that immunity to all citizens of all the states.
Roger Pilon
Roger Pilon
Roger Pilon is Vice President for Legal Affairs for the Cato Institute, and an American libertarian legal theorist. In particular, he has developed a libertarian version of the rights theory of his teacher, noted philosopher Alan Gewirth...
of the Cato Institute
Cato Institute
The Cato Institute is a libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1977 by Edward H. Crane, who remains president and CEO, and Charles Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the conglomerate Koch Industries, Inc., the largest privately held...
has said that the meaning of the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment depends upon the meaning of its counterpart in Article IV: the Privileges and Immunities Clause. Pilon further urges that the Article IV Clause should be reinterpreted as protecting a wide variety of natural rights, despite "its more recent history of interpretation or enforcement."
On the other hand, Kurt Lash of the University of Illinois College of Law has argued that, at the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, the privileges and immunities of "citizens of the United States" as referred to in the Fourteenth Amendment were understood as a class distinct from the privileges and immunities of "Citizens in the several States" as referred to in Article IV. Under this interpretation of the Privileges or Immunities Clause as an "antebellum term of art," Slaughter-House is consistent with the original meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Like Roger Pilon, some of the framers of the Privileges or Immunities Clause anticipated that it could protect (from state infringement) a broad range of rights far exceeding what had been enumerated in the Bill of Rights. However, as Pilon notes, that was often because of their interpretation of the Privileges and Immunities Clause in the original unamended Constitution. Regarding that interpretation of the older clause, Justice Clarence Thomas
Clarence Thomas
Clarence Thomas is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Succeeding Thurgood Marshall, Thomas is the second African American to serve on the Court....
has noted that the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment realized the Supreme Court had not yet "undertaken to define either the nature or extent of the privileges and immunities" in the original unamended Constitution. The framers of the Fourteenth Amendment left that matter of interpretation in the hands of the judiciary.
In the 1947 case of Adamson v. California
Adamson v. California
Adamson v. California, 332 U.S. 46 was a United States Supreme Court case regarding the incorporation of the Fifth Amendment of the Bill of Rights. Its decision is part of a long line of cases that eventually led to the Selective Incorporation Doctrine.-Background:In Adamson v...
, Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black
Hugo Black
Hugo Lafayette Black was an American politician and jurist. A member of the Democratic Party, Black represented Alabama in the United States Senate from 1927 to 1937, and served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1937 to 1971. Black was nominated to the Supreme...
argued in his dissent that the framers intended the Privileges or Immunities Clause to apply the Bill of Rights against the states. Black argued that the framers' intent should control the Court's interpretation of the 14th Amendment, and he attached a lengthy appendix that quoted extensively from John Bingham's congressional statements. However, Black's position on the Privileges or Immunities Clause fell one vote short of a majority in the Adamson case.
In the 2010 case of McDonald v. Chicago
McDonald v. Chicago
McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U.S. 3025, 130 S.Ct. 3020 , was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States that determined whether the Second Amendment applies to the individual states...
, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas
Clarence Thomas
Clarence Thomas is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Succeeding Thurgood Marshall, Thomas is the second African American to serve on the Court....
, while concurring with the majority in declaring the Second Amendment applicable to state and local governments, declared he reached the same conclusion only through the Privileges or Immunities Clause. Since no other justice, either in majority or dissent, attempted to question his rationale, this is considered by some as a revival of the Privileges or Immunities Clause.
Redundancy issues
One of the arguments against interpreting the Privileges or Immunities Clause as a requirement that the states comply with the Bill of Rights has been that such an interpretation would render the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment redundant, due to the Fifth Amendment'sFifth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which is part of the Bill of Rights, protects against abuse of government authority in a legal procedure. Its guarantees stem from English common law which traces back to the Magna Carta in 1215...
Due Process Clause. Although constitutional scholars such as Raoul Berger
Raoul Berger
Raoul Berger was an attorney and professor at The University of California at Berkeley and Harvard University School of Law. While at Harvard, he was the Charles Warren Senior Fellow in American Legal History....
have raised this question, an answer has been detailed by Yale Law Professor Akhil Amar. According to Amar, the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment wanted to extend the due process right not only to citizens, but to all other persons as well, which required a separate Due Process Clause. Although the Fifth Amendment refers to "persons" and not "citizens" within its text, it would only be incorporated by the Privileges or Immunities Clause as to citizens.
Amar's argument would preclude extension of enumerated rights to non-citizens via the Equal Protection Clause. An alternative rationale for explicitly including the Due Process Clause in the Fourteenth Amendment is that the Privileges or Immunities Clause only forbids states from making or enforcing laws, and therefore does not bar states from harming people outside the legal process.
Another redundancy issue is posed by an interpretation of the Privileges or Immunities Clause that views it as simply a guarantee of equality. Proponents of that interpretation acknowledge that, "The natural response to this approach is to say that ... any equality-based reading of the clause is redundant because the Equal Protection Clause
Equal Protection Clause
The Equal Protection Clause, part of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, provides that "no state shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws"...
provides the necessary ground and more."
Right to travel
The right to travel from one state to another was already protected by the Privileges and Immunities ClausePrivileges and Immunities Clause
The Privileges and Immunities Clause prevents a state from treating citizens of other states in a discriminatory manner...
of the original unamended Constitution. However, the right to travel has additional components, such as the right to take up residence and become a citizen of a different state. The Fourteenth Amendment's Citizenship Clause
Citizenship Clause
The Citizenship Clause refers to the first sentence of Section 1 in the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. This clause represented Congress's reversal of that portion of the Dred Scott v...
addresses residency: "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."
In the 1999 case of Saenz v. Roe
Saenz v. Roe
Sáenz v. Roe, 526 U.S. 489 , was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States discussed whether there is a constitutional right to travel from one state to another.-Background:...
, Justice Stevens
John Paul Stevens
John Paul Stevens served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from December 19, 1975 until his retirement on June 29, 2010. At the time of his retirement, he was the oldest member of the Court and the third-longest serving justice in the Court's history...
, writing for the majority, said that the "right to travel" also has a component protected by the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment:
Justice Miller had written in the Slaughter-House Cases that the right to become a citizen of a state by residing in the state "is conferred by the very article under consideration."