Saenz v. Roe, 526 U.S. 489, 13 (1999)

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Cite as: 526 U. S. 489 (1999)

Opinion of the Court

instrumentalities of interstate commerce within the State of Georgia.' " Id., at 757. Given that § 11450.03 imposed no obstacle to respondents' entry into California, we think the State is correct when it argues that the statute does not directly impair the exercise of the right to free interstate movement. For the purposes of this case, therefore, we need not identify the source of that particular right in the text of the Constitution. The right of "free ingress and regress to and from" neighboring States, which was expressly mentioned in the text of the Articles of Confederation,13 may

simply have been "conceived from the beginning to be a necessary concomitant of the stronger Union the Constitution created." Id., at 758.

The second component of the right to travel is, however, expressly protected by the text of the Constitution. The first sentence of Article IV, § 2, provides:

"The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States."

Thus, by virtue of a person's state citizenship, a citizen of one State who travels in other States, intending to return home at the end of his journey, is entitled to enjoy the "Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States" that he visits.14 This provision removes "from the citizens of each State the disabilities of alienage in the other States." Paul v. Virginia, 8 Wall. 168, 180 (1869) ("[W]ithout some

13 "The 4th article, respecting the [sic] extending the rights of the Citizens of each State, throughout the United States . . . is formed exactly upon the principles of the 4th article of the present Confederation." 3 Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, p. 112 (M. Farrand ed. 1966). Article IV of the Articles of Confederation provided that "the people of each State shall have free ingress and regress to and from any other State."

14 Corfield v. Coryell, 6 F. Cas. 546 (No. 3,230) (CCED Pa. 1823) (Washington, J., on circuit) ("fundamental" rights protected by the Privileges and Immunities Clause include "the right of a citizen of one state to pass through, or to reside in any other state").

501

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