More Thoughts on Coming and Going

Here is a little research into the right to come and go, the right to travel. It is a right that we seldom think about or consider.

Where is the right to travel here and about for whatever reason expressed in the Constitution?

No where is the right expressed.

Now, the Articles of Confederation in Article IV provide that “the people of each State shall have free ingress and regress to and from any other State.” That’s it. That’s the last time the right was enumerated. But, of course, it is an imputed right as its denial abridges, harms other rights. The right is so elementary that it was conceived and is from the beginning understood to naturally accompanying the U.S. Constitution. The right follows from the Constitution. “The right to travel is self-evident and no force of expression adds to its truth.” (Note: paraphased from Chief Justice Marshall).

So this right to travel is a privilege and immunity. It is first addressed first in Article IV, Section 2 of the Constitution. “The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens of the several States.”

A strong motivation to form the United States was to facilitate commercial intercourse and with it intellectual, cultural, scientific, social and political interests are served by free movement.

If a State obstructs the free intercourse of people, goods or ideas, then the forces, the bonds of the country, the union, are impaired or perhaps threatened. A liberty interest cannot be taken away without due process of law includes liberty of speech, press, assembly, religion, and also liberty of movement.