Privileges and immunities / privileges or immunities
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Privileges and immunities / privileges or immunities constitutional
Basic rights of citizenship that states can't deny to citizens — a much-debated phrase appearing in two different places in the Constitution.
Technical: Art. IV, §2 (the Comity Clause) bars a state from discriminating against out-of-state citizens as to fundamental rights; the Fourteenth Amendment's Privileges or Immunities Clause was narrowly construed in the Slaughter-House Cases, 83 U.S. (16 Wall.) 36 (1873).
Founding-era note: The Art. IV phrase drew on colonial and English notions of the rights of citizens/subjects; its exact founding-era content remains debated.
A dictionary entry is reference: it describes how a term is used. It is not itself binding law. Why that matters →
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