514
Rehnquist, C. J., dissenting
vidual's right to become a citizen indirectly affect his calculus in deciding whether to exercise his right to travel in the first place, but such an attenuated and uncertain relationship is no ground for folding one right into the other.
No doubt the Court has, in the past 30 years, essentially conflated the right to travel with the right to equal state citizenship in striking down durational residence requirements similar to the one challenged here. See, e. g., Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U. S. 618 (1969) (striking down 1-year residence before receiving any welfare benefit); Dunn v. Blum-stein, 405 U. S. 330 (1972) (striking down 1-year residence before receiving the right to vote in state elections); Maricopa County, 415 U. S., at 280-283 (striking down 1-year county residence before receiving entitlement to nonemergency hospitalization or emergency care). These cases marked a sharp departure from the Court's prior right-to-travel cases because in none of them was travel itself prohibited. See id., at 254-255 ("Whatever its ultimate scope . . . the right to travel was involved in only a limited sense in Shapiro"); Shapiro, supra, at 671-672 (Harlan, J., dissenting).
Instead, the Court in these cases held that restricting the provision of welfare benefits, votes, or certain medical beneto suggest some which own their existence to the Federal government, its National character, its Constitution, or its laws.
"One of these is well described in the case of Crandall v. Nevada[, 6 Wall. 35 (1868)]. It is said to be the right of the citizen of this great country, protected by implied guarantees of its Constitution, 'to come to the seat of government to assert any claim he may have upon that government, to transact any business he may have with it, to seek its protection, to share its offices, to engage in administering its functions. He has the right of free access to its seaports, through which all operations of foreign commerce are conducted, to the subtreasuries, land offices, and courts of justice in the several States.' And quoting from the language of Chief Justice Taney in another case, it is said 'that for all the great purposes for which the Federal government was established, we are one people, with one common country, we are all citizens of the United States;' and it is, as such citizens, that their rights are supported in this court in Crandall v. Nevada." 16 Wall., at 79 (footnote omitted).
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