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Yet today we read the article IV clause far more nar-

rowly--as devoted essentially to interstate equal protec-

tion--following a decision by the Supreme Court in 1948

that held that the clause "was designed to insure to a

citizen of State A who ventures into State B the same

privileges which the citizens of State B enjoy."24   That

view has been echoed more recently in an article on the

subject by Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, a conservative

sitting on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth

Circuit: "[T]he Article IV clause itself does not require

a state to recognize any particular right as being funda-

mental; it commands only that having recognized a funda-

mental right, the state must afford it equally to resi-

dents and nonresidents."25   Were we to read the Privileges

or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment that way,

a fundamental question would arise, of course.  For if the

framers of the amendment had meant the clause to accom-

plish no more than could be accomplished under the Equal

Protection Clause, why did they include both clauses in

the amendment?  Equal protection may be implicit in the

idea of "privileges and immunities," but it is hardly the

whole idea, as we shall see.

To appreciate the full scope of the article IV

clause, it is useful to look at the text of the fourth

article of the Articles of Confederation, which guarantees

that all free inhabitants of each state

shall be entitled to all privileges and immuni-

ties of free citizens in the several states; and

the people of each state shall have free ingress

and regress to and from any other state; and

shall enjoy therein all the privileges of trade

and commerce.26

As that text makes clear, at least some rights were

included explicitly under the rubric of "privileges and

immunities," namely, rights of "ingress and regress" and

"the privileges of trade and commerce."  But the privi-

leges and immunities specified are merely illustrative, not

exhaustive; for the free inhabitants of "each" state were

entitled to "all" privileges and immunities of free citi-

zens of the "several" states.  Presumably, free citizens

had many more privileges and immunities.

The language of article IV of the Constitution is

drawn, however, not simply from the Articles of Confedera-

tion but from a long legacy of fundamental governing docu-

ments of the American colonies, dating back to the Charter

of Virginia of 1606,27 all of which afforded legal protec-

tion for "privileges and immunities."  Given that the