Not Rex Tut's Tomb, Simply . . .

(Cross-posted at Concurring Opinions)

I am pleased to denote a regain that volition involvement many legal scholars. The Chicago History Museum has a mag that contains Justice Bushrod Washington's notes on Corfield v. Coryell; the 1823 circuit representative that railroad train forth the get-go major interpretation of the Privileges together with Immunities Clause of the Constitution together with was an influential root for around members of the Thirty-Ninth Congress inwards assessing the pregnant of the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

I am currently researching a biography of Justice Washington together with learned that the Chicago History Museum has around relevant materials. The detail that directly drew my attending was a notebook that dates from the 1820s (I involve to produce to a greater extent than locomote to laissez passer on a precise appointment range). The mag contains drafts of letters, legal research, notes well-nigh life at Mount Vernon, together with fossil oil versions of at to the lowest degree 2 of the Justice's Supreme Court opinions. My eyes opened equally broad equally saucers, though, when I saw "Corfield v. Coryell" equally a heading followed past times pages of notes well-nigh the case. (Over on Concurring Opinions, y'all tin laissez passer on the sack run into a motion painting of the get-go of these mag pages.)

What produce these notes order us well-nigh Corfield? One revelation is that Washington's initial reckon amongst abide by to privileges together with immunities was the contrary of what the sentiment ended upward saying. Corfield concerned a claim that a New Bailiwick of Jersey statute barring non-residents from harvesting oysters together with clams inwards pose down waters was unconstitutional, amid other reasons, for violating the Privileges together with Immunities Clause past times making a distinction betwixt pose down residents amongst abide by to a privilege. The Court rejected this argument, final that no privilege was involved. Washington's notes on the case, though, say "I am inclined to cry back that it [in other words, harvesting oysters together with clams] is a privilege inside the pregnant of this article of the Constitution. If it hold out not, together with then the correct to navigate the waters would non be, because they likewise are mutual property, together with nevertheless it would appear to violate this article to brand a police pull forbidding citizens of their pose down to navigate the waters of that state."

Another important insight is that Washington's thinking was shaped past times an 1812 New York case, Livingston v. Van Ingen, in which Chancellor Kent discussed the Privileges together with Immunities Clause briefly. The notes pose down that Washington institute this representative persuasive on the cry for "that the citizen of each State shall inside every other pose down accept equal privileges or rights equally the citizens of such pose down accept the words all privileges of citizens beingness equivalent to equal privileges." The actual sentiment inwards Corfield, though, does non cry the Livingston case at all.

I volition accept to a greater extent than to say equally I locomote through other portions of the journal. I volition likewise cry back well-nigh how to brand this textile available equally widely equally possible without treading on the interests of the Chicago History Museum. Anyone, of course, tin laissez passer on the sack acquire at that topographic point together with await at the journal.