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U.S. Supreme Court Says No License Necessary To Drive Automobile On Public Roads

Posted by Jeffrey Phillips | Jul 21, 2015 |

U.S. SUPREME COURT AND OTHER HIGH COURT CITATIONS PROVING THAT NO LICENSE IS NECESSARY FOR NORMAL USE OF AN AUTOMOBILE ON COMMON WAYS

“The right of a citizen to travel upon the public highways and to transport his property thereon, by horsedrawn carriage, wagon, or automobile, is not a mere privilege which may be permitted or prohibited at will, but a common right which he has under his right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Under this constitutional guaranty one may, therefore, under normal conditions, travel at his inclination along the public highways or in public places, and while conducting himself in an orderly and decent manner, neither interfering with nor disturbing another’s rights, he will be protected, not only in his person, but in his safe conduct.”

Thompson v.Smith, 154 SE 579, 11 American Jurisprudence, Constitutional Law, section 329, page 1135 “The right of the Citizen to travel upon the public highways and to transport his property thereon, in the ordinary course of life and business, is a common right which he has under the right to enjoy life and liberty, to acquire and possess property, and to pursue happiness and safety. It includes the right, in so doing, to use the ordinary and usual conveyances of the day, and under the existing modes of travel, includes the right to drive a horse drawn carriage or wagon thereon or to operate an automobile thereon, for the usual and ordinary purpose of life and business.” –

Thompson vs. Smith, supra.; Teche Lines vs. Danforth, Miss., 12 S.2d 784 “… the right of the citizen to drive on a public street with freedom from police interference… is a fundamental constitutional right” -White, 97 Cal.App.3d.141, 158 Cal.Rptr. 562, 566-67 (1979) “citizens have a right to drive upon the public streets of the District of Columbia or any other city absent a constitutionally sound reason for limiting their access.”

Caneisha Mills v. D.C. 2009 “The use of the automobile as a necessary adjunct to the earning of a livelihood in modern life requires us in the interest of realism to conclude that the RIGHT to use an automobile on the public highways partakes of the nature of a liberty within the meaning of the Constitutional guarantees. . .”

Berberian v. Lussier (1958) 139 A2d 869, 872, See also: Schecter v. Killingsworth, 380 P.2d 136, 140; 93 Ariz. 273 (1963). “The right to operate a motor vehicle [an automobile] upon the public streets and highways is not a mere privilege. It is a right of liberty, the enjoyment of which is protected by the guarantees of the federal and state constitutions.”

Adams v. City of Pocatello, 416 P.2d 46, 48; 91 Idaho 99 (1966). “A traveler has an equal right to employ an automobile as a means of transportation and to occupy the public highways with other vehicles in common use.”

Campbell v. Walker, 78 Atl. 601, 603, 2 Boyce (Del.) 41. “The owner of an automobile has the same right as the owner of other vehicles to use the highway,* * * A traveler on foot has the same right to the use of the public highways as an automobile or any other vehicle.”

Simeone v. Lindsay, 65 Atl. 778, 779; Hannigan v. Wright, 63 Atl. 234, 236. “The RIGHT of the citizen to DRIVE on the public street with freedom from police interference, unless he is engaged in suspicious conduct associated in some manner with criminality is a FUNDAMENTAL CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT which must be protected by the courts.” People v. Horton 14 Cal. App. 3rd 667 (1971) “The right to make use of an automobile as a vehicle of travel long the highways of the state, is no longer an open question. The owners thereof have the same rights in the roads and streets as the drivers of horses or those riding a bicycle or traveling in some other vehicle.”

House v. Cramer, 112 N.W. 3; 134 Iowa 374; Farnsworth v. Tampa Electric Co. 57 So. 233, 237, 62 Fla. 166. “The automobile may be used with safety to others users of the highway, and in its proper use upon the highways there is an equal right with the users of other vehicles properly upon the highways. The law recognizes such right of use upon general principles.

Brinkman v Pacholike, 84 N.E. 762, 764, 41 Ind. App. 662, 666. “The law does not denounce motor carriages, as such, on public ways. They have an equal right with other vehicles in common use to occupy the streets and roads. It is improper to say that the driver of the horse has rights in the roads superior to the driver of the automobile. Both have the right to use the easement.”

Indiana Springs Co. v. Brown, 165 Ind. 465, 468. U.S. Supreme Court says No License Necessary To Drive Automobile On Public Highways/Streets No License Is Necessary Copy and Share Freely YHVH.name 2 2 “A highway is a public way open and free to any one who has occasion to pass along it on foot or with any kind of vehicle.” Schlesinger v. City of Atlanta, 129 S.E. 861, 867, 161 Ga. 148, 159;

Holland v. Shackelford, 137 S.E. 2d 298, 304, 220 Ga. 104; Stavola v. Palmer, 73 A.2d 831, 838, 136 Conn. 670 “There can be no question of the right of automobile owners to occupy and use the public streets of cities, or highways in the rural districts.” Liebrecht v. Crandall, 126 N.W. 69, 110 Minn. 454, 456 “The word ‘automobile’ connotes a pleasure vehicle designed for the transportation of persons on highways.”

-American Mutual Liability Ins. Co., vs. Chaput, 60 A.2d 118, 120; 95 NH 200 Motor Vehicle: 18 USC Part 1 Chapter 2 section 31 definitions: “(6) Motor vehicle. – The term “motor vehicle” means every description of carriage or other contrivance propelled or drawn by mechanical power and used for commercial purposes on the highways…” 10) The term “used for commercial purposes” means the carriage of persons or property for any fare, fee, rate, charge or other consideration, or directly or indirectly in connection with any business, or other undertaking intended for profit. “A motor vehicle or automobile for hire is a motor vehicle, other than an automobile stage, used for the transportation of persons for which remuneration is received.”

-International Motor Transit Co. vs. Seattle, 251 P. 120 The term ‘motor vehicle’ is different and broader than the word ‘automobile.’”

-City of Dayton vs. DeBrosse, 23 NE.2d 647, 650; 62 Ohio App. 232 “Thus self-driven vehicles are classified according to the use to which they are put rather than according to the means by which they are propelled” – Ex Parte Hoffert, 148 NW 20 ”

The Supreme Court, in Arthur v. Morgan, 112 U.S. 495, 5 S.Ct. 241, 28 L.Ed. 825, held that carriages were properly classified as household effects, and we see no reason that automobiles should not be similarly disposed of.”

Hillhouse v United States, 152 F. 163, 164 (2nd Cir. 1907). “…a citizen has the right to travel upon the public highways and to transport his property thereon…” State vs. Johnson, 243 P. 1073; Cummins vs. Homes, 155 P. 171; Packard vs. Banton, 44 S.Ct. 256; Hadfield vs. Lundin, 98 Wash 516, Willis vs. Buck, 263 P. l 982;

Barney vs. Board of Railroad Commissioners, 17 P.2d 82 “The use of the highways for the purpose of travel and transportation is not a mere privilege, but a common and fundamental Right of which the public and the individual cannot be rightfully deprived.”

Chicago Motor Coach vs. Chicago, 169 NE 22; Ligare vs. Chicago, 28 NE 934; Boon vs. Clark, 214 SSW 607; 25 Am.Jur. (1st) Highways Sect.163 “the right of the Citizen to travel upon the highway and to transport his property thereon in the ordinary course of life and business… is the usual and ordinary right of the Citizen, a right common to all.” –

Ex Parte Dickey, (Dickey vs. Davis), 85 SE 781 “Every Citizen has an unalienable RIGHT to make use of the public highways of the state; every Citizen has full freedom to travel from place to place in the enjoyment of life and liberty.” People v. Nothaus, 147 Colo. 210. “No State government entity has the power to allow or deny passage on the highways, byways, nor waterways… transporting his vehicles and personal property for either recreation or business, but by being subject only to local regulation i.e., safety, caution, traffic lights, speed limits, etc. Travel is not a privilege requiring licensing, vehicle registration, or forced insurances.”

Chicago Coach Co. v. City of Chicago, 337 Ill. 200, 169 N.E. 22. “Traffic infractions are not a crime.” People v. Battle “Persons faced with an unconstitutional licensing law which purports to require a license as a prerequisite to exercise of right… may ignore the law and engage with impunity in exercise of such right.”

Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham 394 U.S. 147 (1969). U.S. Supreme Court says No License Necessary To Drive Automobile On Public Highways/Streets No License Is Necessary Copy and Share Freely YHVH.name 3 “The word ‘operator’ shall not include any person who solely transports his own property and who transports no persons or property for hire or compensation.”

Statutes at Large California Chapter 412 p.83 “Highways are for the use of the traveling public, and all have the right to use them in a reasonable and proper manner; the use thereof is an inalienable right of every citizen.” Escobedo v. State 35 C2d 870 in 8 Cal Jur 3d p.27 “RIGHT — A legal RIGHT, a constitutional RIGHT means a RIGHT protected by the law, by the constitution, but government does not create the idea of RIGHT or original RIGHTS; it acknowledges them. . . “ Bouvier’s Law Dictionary, 1914, p. 2961. “Those who have the right to do something cannot be licensed for what they already have right to do as such license would be meaningless.”

City of Chicago v Collins 51 NE 907, 910. “A license means leave to do a thing which the licensor could prevent.” Blatz Brewing Co. v. Collins, 160 P.2d 37, 39; 69 Cal. A. 2d 639. “The object of a license is to confer a right or power, which does not exist without it.”

Payne v. Massey (19__) 196 SW 2nd 493, 145 Tex 273. “The court makes it clear that a license relates to qualifications to engage in profession, business, trade or calling; thus, when merely traveling without compensation or profit, outside of business enterprise or adventure with the corporate state, no license is required of the natural individual traveling for personal business, pleasure and transportation.”

Wingfield v. Fielder 2d Ca. 3d 213 (1972). “If [state] officials construe a vague statute unconstitutionally, the citizen may take them at their word, and act on the assumption that the statute is void.” –

Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham 394 U.S. 147 (1969). “With regard particularly to the U.S. Constitution, it is elementary that a Right secured or protected by that document cannot be overthrown or impaired by any state police authority.” Donnolly vs. Union Sewer Pipe Co., 184 US 540; Lafarier vs. Grand Trunk R.R. Co., 24 A. 848; O’Neil vs. Providence Amusement Co., 108 A. 887. “The right to travel (called the right of free ingress to other states, and egress from them) is so fundamental that it appears in the Articles of Confederation, which governed our society before the Constitution.”

(Paul v. Virginia). “[T]he right to travel freely from State to State … is a right broadly assertable against private interference as well as governmental action. Like the right of association, it is a virtually unconditional personal right, guaranteed by the Constitution to us all.” (U.S. Supreme Court,

Shapiro v. Thompson). EDGERTON, Chief Judge: “Iron curtains have no place in a free world. …’Undoubtedly the right of locomotion, the right to remove from one place to another according to inclination, is an attribute of personal liberty, and the right, ordinarily, of free transit from or through the territory of any State is a right secured by the Constitution.’

Williams v. Fears, 179 U.S. 270, 274, 21 S.Ct. 128, 45 L.Ed. 186. “Our nation has thrived on the principle that, outside areas of plainly harmful conduct, every American is left to shape his own life as he thinks best, do what he pleases, go where he pleases.” Id., at 197.

Kent vs. Dulles see Vestal, Freedom of Movement, 41 Iowa L.Rev. 6, 13—14. “The validity of restrictions on the freedom of movement of particular individuals, both substantively and procedurally, is precisely the sort of matter that is the peculiar domain of the courts.” Comment, 61 Yale L.J. at page 187. “a person detained for an investigatory stop can be questioned but is “not obliged to answer, answers may not be compelled, and refusal to answer furnishes no basis for an arrest.”Justice White, Hiibel “Automobiles have the right to use the highways of the State on an equal footing with other vehicles.”

Cumberland Telephone. & Telegraph Co. v Yeiser 141 Kentucy 15. “Each citizen has the absolute right to choose for himself the mode of conveyance he desires, whether it be by wagon or carriage, by horse, motor or electric car, or by bicycle, or astride of a horse, subject to the sole condition that he will observe all those requirements that are known as the law of the road.”

Swift v City of Topeka, 43 U.S. Supreme Court says No License Necessary To Drive Automobile On Public Highways/Streets No License Is Necessary Copy and Share Freely YHVH.name 4 Kansas 671, 674. The Supreme Court said in U.S. v Mersky (1960) 361 U.S. 431: An administrative regulation, of course, is not a “statute.” A traveler on foot has the same right to use of the public highway as an automobile or any other vehicle.

Cecchi v. Lindsay, 75 Atl. 376, 377, 1 Boyce (Del.) 185. Automotive vehicles are lawful means of conveyance and have equal rights upon the streets with horses and carriages.

Chicago Coach Co. v. City of Chicago, 337 Ill. 200, 205; See also: Christy v. Elliot, 216 Ill. 31; Ward v. Meredith, 202 Ill. 66; Shinkle v. McCullough, 116 Ky. 960; Butler v. Cabe, 116 Ark. 26, 28-29. …automobiles are lawful vehicles and have equal rights on the highways with horses and carriages. Daily v. Maxwell, 133 S.W. 351, 354.

Matson v. Dawson, 178 N.W. 2d 588, 591. A farmer has the same right to the use of the highways of the state, whether on foot or in a motor vehicle, as any other citizen.

Draffin v. Massey, 92 S.E.2d 38, 42. Persons may lawfully ride in automobiles, as they may lawfully ride on bicycles. Doherty v. Ayer, 83 N.E. 677, 197 Mass. 241, 246;

Molway v. City of Chicago, 88 N.E. 485, 486, 239 Ill. 486; Smiley v. East St. Louis Ry. Co., 100 N.E. 157, 158. “A soldier’s personal automobile is part of his ‘household goods[.]’

U.S. v Bomar, C.A.5(Tex.), 8 F.3d 226, 235” 19A Words and Phrases – Permanent Edition (West) pocket part 94. “[I]t is a jury question whether … an automobile … is a motor vehicle[.]”

United States v Johnson, 718 F.2d 1317, 1324 (5th Cir. 1983). Other right to use an automobile cases: –

EDWARDS VS. CALIFORNIA, 314 U.S. 160 –

TWINING VS NEW JERSEY, 211 U.S. 78 – WILLIAMS VS. FEARS, 179 U.S. 270, AT 274 – CRANDALL VS. NEVADA, 6 WALL. 35, AT 43-44 – THE PASSENGER CASES, 7 HOWARD 287, AT 492 – U.S. VS. GUEST, 383 U.S. 745, AT 757-758 (1966) –

GRIFFIN VS. BRECKENRIDGE, 403 U.S. 88, AT 105-106 (1971) – CALIFANO VS. TORRES, 435 U.S. 1, AT 4, note 6 –

SHAPIRO VS. THOMPSON, 394 U.S. 618 (1969) – CALIFANO VS. AZNAVORIAN, 439 U.S. 170, AT 176 (1978) Look the above citations up in American Jurisprudence. Some citations may be paraphrased.

This article first appeared on SomeNextLevelShit.com and was authored by Jeffrey Phillips.

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The “Right to Travel”

By: Rob Natelson | Published on: May 14, 2020 | Categories: 14th Amendment , Constitution , Privileges and Immunities Clause

During the COVID-19 epidemic, state and local governments have restricted greatly the freedom of citizens to travel from one place to another. As I have  pointed out , many of these restrictions violate modern constitutional law.  The Supreme Court characterizes the right to travel as  fundamental . That means that even infringements imposed for “compelling governmental purposes” must be “narrowly tailored.” Government COVID restrictions frequently are over-broad or otherwise not adequately targeted at the problem they purport to address.

The Supreme Court cases enunciating a right to travel involve movement from state to state. The cases arose when a person moved from State X to State Y and State Y discriminated against him or her in some way. The Court invalidates the discrimination by saying that State Y violated the person’s right to travel.

If there is a constitutionally-recognized right to travel among states, then  a fortiori  it includes a right to travel within one’s own state. After all, you can’t get to another state without moving first within your own. Moreover, moving locally seems to be an even more basic right than moving elsewhere. Not surprisingly, in 2002 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit  ruled that  the right to travel includes in-state movement.

Most people would recognize “freedom of locomotion” as an inherent, natural right of free people. But, of course, not every natural right is given specific protection by the Constitution. There is no specifically constitutional right to eat Chinese food or wear the hat of one’s choice. Nor does the Constitution mention a right to travel. So is it a  constitutional  as well as a  natural  right? I think the honest answer is “no.”

The Constitution was never designed to be a document to cure every human problem. But many writers seem to think it has to be, and they have struggled to find the right to travel among its provisions.

For example, some claim the right derives from the  Privileges and Immunities Clause  of Article IV. That provision bans certain kinds of discrimination by states against outsiders. It does not apply to the federal government.

However,  copious evidence —which commentators have largely ignored—tells us that when the Constitution was adopted, the terms “privileges” and “immunities” did not refer to natural rights such as freedom of locomotion. Rather, they were technical legal terms that represented alternative ways of referring to  entitlements  created by civil government. Notable privileges and immunities included formal procedures for transferring property, access to state courts, trial by jury, and the writ of habeas corpus (which the Constitution specifically calls a “privilege”). The Constitution’s Privileges or Immunities Clause focused on entitlements rather than natural rights.

Commentators frequently cite a statement by a single Supreme Court justice suggesting that the Privileges and Immunities Clause did include natural rights. But that statement was not relevant to the issues in the case under decision, and it was not issued by the full court. And the case in which it appeared,  Corfield v. Coryell  (1823), was decided more than three decades  after  the Constitution was ratified. Moreover, if you read the statement thoughtfully, you see that it is  so obviously inaccurate  you can’t rely on it without abandoning your critical faculties.

There is also this important fact: The Articles of Confederation included a right to travel immediately after its privileges and immunities clause. But  the framers of the Constitution removed it!  Here is the language of the Articles:

“The . . . the free inhabitants of each of these States . . . shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities 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, subject to the same duties, impositions, and restrictions as the inhabitants thereof respectively . . .”

Here is the language in the Constitution:

“The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.”

An obvious reason the Constitution’s framers dropped the right to travel was that the Constitution, unlike the Articles, granted Congress authority over interstate trade. The Federal Congress would be able to eliminate state barriers to free movement in ways the Confederation Congress could not.

Can a right to travel be found in other parts of the Constitution? Some commentators cite the Due Process Clause of the 5th amendment (which applies to the federal government) and the Due Process Cause of the 14th amendment (which applies to the states).

The phrase “due process of law” was a 1354 re-formulation of the “law of the land” clause in Magna Carta (1215). Its sole purpose was to stop arbitrary government legal proceedings. Despite the Supreme Court’s lame efforts to read substantive rights into “due process,” historically the phrase means only this: When the government proceeds against you criminally or civilly it must follow established procedures and not make up the rules as it goes along. In other words, the due process clauses are really just  protections against unfair government retroactivity.

Another possible source of the right to travel is the  Equal Protection Clause  of the 14th amendment. This is better grounded: The “State X/StateY” hypothetical case above really is an Equal Protection Clause case. It makes sense to apply the Equal Protection Clause to prevent states from discriminating senselessly against their newer citizens. But granting such protection is not the same as creating a self-contained “right to travel.” It also does nothing to protect the right against the federal government.

Finally, there are those who argue that travel is a “privilege or immunity” of “citizens of the United States,” thereby protected by the  Privileges or Immunities Clause of the 14th amendment .

Constitutional commentators of all political stripes love the idea of using the Privileges or Immunities Clause to prevent the states from treading on favorite constitutional rights. (Many libertarians support the concept, oblivious to the fact that the more broadly you read the Privileges or Immunities Clause the more powerful Congress becomes, because of the enforcement rule in Section 5 of the 14th amendment.)

Those commentators have struggled mightily to show that the Privileges or Immunities Clause protects natural rights. They loathe the 1873  Supreme Court opinion , subscribed to by justices with personal knowledge of the framing and ratification of the 14th amendment, that interpreted the Clause more narrowly.

The flood of words purporting to prove that “privileges or immunities” includes “natural rights” masks the weaknesses of the case. You don’t have to navigate far into that flood to spy some of those weaknesses: One commentator says “privileges or immunities” comprise only the content of the Bill of Rights. Another says they include unenumerated rights. For one commentator “the privileges or immunities of citizens” include property rights. For another, they include abortion. For yet another, they encompass both—or neither.  Additionally, the commentators produce little evidence about the views of the ultimate authorities: the ratifying state legislatures. Instead they discuss what one or two members of Congress said, or a remark made years after the amendment was ratified, or the gibberish from  Corfield v. Coryell .

Now, as we have seen, in the original Constitution the terms “privileges” and “immunities” mean entitlements. Without strong evidence to the contrary, it makes sense to apply the same meaning in the 14th amendment because:

• When the same word (and here, almost the same phrase) appears several times in a document, it is presumed to mean the same thing,
• the state legislatures that ratified the 14th amendment were familiar with that presumption, and
• that interpretation serves what everyone admits was the core purpose of the 14th amendment: to protect entitlements created by federal law—such as equal access to public institutions and accommodations—against state interference.

Now, let me be clear: I would love for there to be a constitutional right to travel. But honesty compels me to admit that the one the courts apply is probably a judicial fiction.

The  Constitution does not always agree with me.  Nor are my personal preferences always constitutional law.

Tags: 14th Amendment , Corfield v Coryell , Privileges and Immunities , Right to Travel

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You are here: Home » Personal Growth » Why the Freedom to Travel Matters

Why the Freedom to Travel Matters

Last Updated on December 17, 2019 by Audrey Scott

Earlier this year, we collaborated with the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) on a three-part series entitled Travel as a Force for Good . In connection with this campaign we have been invited to explore what “Freedom to Travel” means to us. As we did, we reaffirmed that the right to travel is not only important to us as individuals, but also to the communities we visit, and to the world and our shared humanity. Here’s why.

After having traveled together to over 90 countries during the last fifteen years, we are often asked, “What’s the greatest lesson you’ve learned?”

Deep breath.

I feel as though my attempt to answer each time is never really up to the task of honoring the experience. The evidence stacks up almost too high, even for a single outing. My travels leave such deep imprints in and on me that I must on occasion deliberately take time to unpack those lessons, much as I might my luggage upon concluding a trip.

Nowadays, we have the opportunity to embark on journeys that were not too long ago unthinkable. The opportunities to explore the world — to feel and experience and comprehend it — are so vastly different and more broadly accessible than even just a generation or two ago. As modern transportation has placed us within a day or two of most of the world’s destinations, we stand at a moment in the history of travel that speaks to a remarkable privilege – one that is almost too easy to take for granted.

Still, our attention is captured, our sense of mystery engaged. Travel is thrilling.

If we look at it right, travel can be viewed as the ultimate act of appreciation.

Like running one’s hands through the soil of a robust garden at the harvest, travel is a vein of appreciation that seeks to know what’s at the root of our existence, of our being human — together.

24 Reasons Why the Freedom to Travel Matters

1. enables us to better understand ourselves, our world, and our place in it..

Note: You can stop here if you like. The rest is “the how.”

2. Helps transform our fears into curiosity.

Travel is the ideal laboratory to question and test all the assumptions that underlie your fears, so that you may emerge with new conclusions and evolve not only your thinking, but also who you believe you are.

3. Expands the boundaries of what you thought was possible – not only for you, but also for others.

Travel helps us press the edges of our perceived limitations, so that we may re-imagine them and continue to reach beyond.

4. Spurs us all to be storytellers.

Travel provides a platform to tell your story and to hear the stories of others, then return home and tell a new story, a shared story.

5. Cultivates a sense of awe, curiosity, and respect.

It does this in light of all the grandness and beauty, natural and man-made — around us, on the road…and at home .

6. Reaffirms that in all of life’s struggles, we are never alone.

Travel and you will realize that whatever physical, emotional, and financial challenges you face, there’s someone halfway around the world that struggles similarly.

7. Evolves our perspective, helps us see things in a new way.

Travel not only shifts our thinking about the places we visit, but it can also help us carry back a spirit of innovation into our daily lives, personally and professionally.

8. Reveals the unexpected, if we open ourselves up for it.

For as much as we all construct our itineraries, our innermost secret hope is that we will find something new, something we never could have planned. Travel often delivers.

9. Enables us to accumulate experiential wisdom .

It’s one thing to read about a place, it’s another to walk its streets, eat its food, and engage with its people. Travel is among the most effective forms of experiential learning there is.

10. Develops humility. That is, humble-ness.

The larger the world, the smaller your place in it. Fortunately, this re-sizing of self is also simultaneously paired with a sense of how great our individual impact on the lives of others can be.

11. Allows us to let go , open up, and embrace uncertainty.

When everything around you is changing at pace, as it often the case on the road, sometimes the best choice – the only choice — is to accept it, to surrender to uncertainty, and simply be present amidst all that swirls around you.

12. Bends stereotypes to the point of breaking.

Travel helps unpack prevailing narratives about others and ourselves. In TED parlance, travel can aid a departure from the “ single story ”, to many stories and multiple threads.

13. Builds empathy .

Travel continually exposes you to people and contexts much different than your own. Listening to, understanding and connecting with the feelings, thoughts, and stories of others helps to strengthen your empathy muscle.

14. Helps bind us to our history, our arc.

The experience of travel reinforces that although we may appear very different from one another, we often are working towards a common goal of making a life for ourselves and seeking a better life for those who will follow us long after we are gone. This relationship ties us to our past, binds us to our present, and links us to our future.

15. Re-shapes “other” into “us”.

Fear of another is easy, and frankly it’s often understandable. Travel helps to swap that fear with memories of people you’ve met in the flesh. When this happens countries are no longer shapes on a map or hotspots on the breaking news, but instead are places filled with stories of someone who invited you in for tea, wrote you a poem , guided you when you were lost, or helped you see life in a different light.

16. Serves as a platform to explore adventure in all its dimensions.

Whether this is physical (e.g., climbing a mountain), emotional (doing something new that frightens you) or even psychological (re-imaging borders and barriers).

17. Cultivates your independence while revealing our greater interdependence.

Whether you travel solo, with your family or in a group, travel flexes the “get out there” independence muscle. At the same time, the experience of travel tells us that we need one another to get there and to enable those personal victories.

18. Connects us directly and firsthand to the environment and our impact on it.

Ride water currents to glaciers halfway around the world that are retreating, and you begin to understand that your actions at home do have an impact worldwide.

19. Empowers you to determine how and where you spend your tourism money.

Mindful purchases and spending choices in line with your values really can make a genuine positive impact on the local communities you visit .

20. Contributes significantly to economic growth and local job development.

In 2014, the tourism industry was estimated at $7.6 trillion (yes, you read that correctly) in annual revenue; it employed over 277 million people worldwide (Source: WTTC ). That represents almost 10% of total worldwide revenue, and 1 in 11 workers around the globe. Behind these staggering statistics, which are only expected to grow, are people : mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, all trying to make their way to better support their families.

21. Demonstrates that everyone has something valuable to share, something to give.

Sometimes, it takes a visitor from the outside – wide eyes and all – to show us that what we sometimes take for granted in our daily lives is special, too. Next time: watch someone making the local bread or tortillas. Travel can serve as a remarkable platform of cultural pride and self-esteem.

22. Exposes our similarities, highlights our differences and reinforces our shared humanity.

Travel exposes us to others, others to us, and each of us to one another – and uncovers the diversity of being and experience that defines what it means to be human.

23. Catalyzes a feeling of inter-connectedness and greater community.

When we go outside our front door, we find that we are part of a local community. Similarly, when we travel, we find that we are members of a worldwide community. This awareness binds us to care and to take responsibility for our own — that is, the world’s — well being.

24. Reinforces that the more we seek to understand each other, the less likely we are to turn on one another.

Travel may not ultimately deliver world peace, but it certainly can help.

The Significance of Travel “Freedom”

So yes, it strikes us that travel is powerful, impactful, remarkable. But what’s so important about the “freedom” part?

Not everyone has the same freedom to travel. Audrey and I carry American passports , providing us with arguably some of the greatest flexibility of movement of any passport in the world. Without our privilege, we would not be able to do a lot of what we do, in the way that we do it.

Yet the freedom and right to travel can be restricted in various directions.

So what can we do?

We can act on whatever right we do have, and we can do so mindfully , pairing our freedom to travel with the responsibility to do so in a way that benefits everyone . We can help lay a foundation for others and make the case for a greater freedom to travel.

Travel is the act of movement. As you take your next step, your journey moves forward, and so it will for others, and ultimately for our planet.

Now it's your turn. What does “Freedom to Travel” mean to you?

About Daniel Noll

29 thoughts on “why the freedom to travel matters”.

Amazing Experiences you have shared.

Do not listen to the others, it is your life so go traveling if that is what you want. The same with me, everyone says I’m crazy but at the same time everyone gets jealous I do what I want.

Great Post Daniel

Thanks, Surabhi. We were fortunate for our experiences.

I listen to others. But it depends on what they say, whether or not I choose to act on their words.

As for being crazy — they way I see it, if you are doing something that brings you satisfaction and you are being decent to others while doing it, have at it!

100% yes to all 24 reasons to travel.

As you so beautifully stated when we travel with an open mind and heart, we see the other in ourselves and ourselves in the other. We appreciate more deeply the world around us, our place in it, impact upon it and how we are all interdependent. Fears fall away as we realize our similarities, loneliness dissipates because we are never truly alone and perspective shifts or is put into focus about our own challenges in this thing called life.

And as a Cause-Focused Storyteller, it provides so much heart and humanity and understanding; every person, every encounter is an opportunity to listen and learn and love just a little more.

Thank you Dan and Audrey for continued encouragement to put one foot in front of the other on this journey. You inspire me and so many others with your hearts, kindness and eloquence. Big hugs from my heart to yours and happy travels! HUG!

Thanks, Kristin. Beautiful thoughts as well. I really love this: every encounter is an opportunity to listen and learn and love just a little more. Sometimes that’s difficult to see and to feel that sometimes. However, I find that when we do, it’s usually worth it.

What an inspiring read! Exactly how I feel, although I have yet to wander…working on it : ) Thank you, Daniel!

Thank you for stopping by, Liza and taking the time to comment. Although you say you’ve yet to wander, it sounds like you have the spirit!

I completely agree. I’m an American too, and I’ve noticed that many of us have an “Ameri-centric” view of the world. A lot of Americans just can’t fathom that laws, norms, cultural systems can be different in other parts of the world. I believe that traveling helps you see the world outside of this closed perspective.

Also, as someone who lives for half of the year in the Middle of Nowhere, USA, traveling and seeing how people live in different parts of the world helps me cope better here.

Thanks for sharing your experience and perspective, Michelle. Perhaps, coming from a country that has historically held such influence in the world culturally, geopolitically, etc. — it’s easy for some Americans to see the world through a bit of a constricted lens. Good for you, though, for seizing on the opportunity to witness the variety of laws, norms and systems out there. As the world becomes more globalized, I suspect we’re going to have to better understand it in order to better operate in it, for our own survival individually and as a country.

Interesting, too, that your taste of the outside helps you manage better when you are back home. That’s a great lesson to take away!

Excellent list of reasons. Ultimately, freedom to travel matters because it gives the traveler the opportunity to become a more accomplished and compassionate human being.

The subject has come up often in my travels, when talking to people in poorer countries who have told me “I’d love to visit your country, and other countries, like you do”. And it is impossible not to feel privileged to have such an opportunity that is denied to billions of people around the world.

Agreed, Fernando, Travel is a unique platform for personal development and for evolving our compassion towards one another.

Your observation interacting with people across the world resonates as well. I suppose the first step on the road of privilege is to be aware that one is on it.

Hi Daniel, Thanks for such a great post. I love the humanistic and down to earth approach. What an education we receive when we move through this world.

Reflecting on a lot of our past travels reveals a lot. It’s so easy to get bogged down on what’s next especially in travel. We’re unwinding a long honeymoon and are still finding lots of revelations as we slowly “get off the road.” I personally realized that travels been a great way to unlearn my “education.”

Compassion, humility, awareness, courage, interconnectedness with others, animals, and our environment. I love that these came out in this post as our privilege and freedom in travel. I love the idea of endless possibilities not just in travel but in our daily walk. Each time we step out of our door we muster up courage to discover ourselves and this world.

I wholeheartedly agree with all 24 points. #2 hit me and you could write an entire blog post on how fear is deconstructed and curiosity sets in. We have this paranoia and fear of the unknown and instead of being child-like and poke things we run away. Travel helps us overcome that.

Thanks Daniel, for the love on this post and the insight. Will be sharing this on Twitter and Facebook.

Love from the Philippines, Mark

Thank you, Mark. So many thought-provoking ideas in what you’ve written here. It’s so true that although we find that the act of traveling itself is rewarding, allowing ourselves time for the lessons to sink in is crucial to deepening the value. Thank you so much for reminding us of that.

Unlearning one’s education — I like that concept, too. Sometimes we have to unspool what we’ve accumulated in our heads so we can reorder it and also make room for something new. This connects nicely with fear deconstruction. A lot of unlearning for many of us to be done there.

Thanks again for such a thoughtful comment — it has me thinking about quite a few topics that could use some expansion, and a few new twists to pursue too.

Thanks for the response. We just watched your Ted Talk tonight over dinner and absolutely loved it! Bet that was exciting for yall! The Kilimanjaro and the Georgia market story really hit us. We’ve snooped on your blog for sometime but now really wanna be part of the conversation so adding in our thoughts when we get the chance. Keep it up guys, you and Audrey are both really encouraging!

This is one of the most well written articles on travel I’ve read, thank you for sharing your thoughts!! I just got back from a solo trip to Turkey and before leaving I got alot of comments about traveling alone there. “Aren’t you scared?” or “Isn’t that dangerous?” are common questions I heard, even from seasoned travellers. But I had a most wonderful trip filled with delicious food, fun adventures and amazing history and am left wanting more. I have a huge advantage since I am American and speak English, although, anywhere I go, I learn enough of the local language to get by. At times travelling solo is challenging , but I wouldn’t change any of my experiences as it has made me see the world in a new way. Thank you again for the article, you have a new fan in me. 🙂

Thanks for sharing your experience, Laurie! Great to see you here. I really enjoy personal stories like yours that expose the apprehensions of veterans as well as beginners. Glad to hear that the “travel payoff” consists not only of great experiences, but also a shift in perspective.

Great article! I think we take it for granted also having American passports and having the freedom to travel. Often we’ve had to pay for many visa’s but it’s helped us to respect the countries we’ve visited because of it! Freedom to travel is meeting new friends oftentimes for us. It’s the freedom to interact and create memories!

Thank you for joining the discussion, Alyssa. We understand having to pay for visas, as we’ve had to purchase our share. But to your point, it does reinforce the appreciation of our privilege. Having said that, we’re hoping one day that visa fees ought to be reduced or eliminated so that everyone — travelers and citizens alike — can share in the benefit of travel…and enjoy the freedom to interact that you speak of.

Beautiful words by wonderful people, as always. I hope you two never stop traveling, and never stop sharing these lessons with the world around you.

Thanks for your continued kind words and support, Stephen! We really appreciate it.

Love the article! As for me, the freedom to travel is the ultimate goal. Traveling is a very humbling experience as you mentioned, which I think is true for a reason. When you’re humbled, your approach to a new destination allows you to respect the local culture, and allows you to be present – putting you in a position to soak up and enjoy the place that you’re visiting.

Thanks for stopping by and sharing your experiences, Marina!

You make a lot of great points. I think one of the most important is turning fear into understanding. Our news media portrays most of the world as dangerous and hostile, but I’ve experienced great kindness, generosity and safety in the Middle East, China, India and parts of Africa and South America. When you get out and explore, you see that people are just people and that the politicians and the power players are the ones who often turn us against each other.

Aside from that, travel is just fun. Having the freedom to visit other countries is something we should all have.

True all that, Jeff. Travel reinforces that we’re all human. Your comment reminds me specifically of a previous discussion regarding the Danger Map of traveling the world. Thanks again for sharing your experience.

Beautiful and thoughtful post, as usual. This has been on my mind lately as I recently returned from Iran (thanks for inspiring that trip with G Adventures!) As you well know, the visa process for Americans to get to Iran is a huge pain – I got mine with 1 hour to spare before the embassy closed for a long weekend, 36 hours before my flight to Tehran. But as stressful as that experience was, it reminded me how lucky I am that this was the FIRST TIME in 18 years of travel that I’d had to go through something like that to get a visa – and it was still relatively easy and painless. No proof of income, no one trying to ensure I wasn’t going to stay in Iran illegally. Just an application, some money and a 10-minute interview. My G Adventures CEO, on the other hand, has to apply for an expensive visa to go almost anywhere in the world. We are similar in age, education, income and desire to experience as much of the world as we can – but his freedom is greatly curtailed by his passport. His hope is that one day the world will be “borderless” so that we are all free to go where we choose. (Of course, then there are those that do not have the economic freedom to travel but that’s a whole other issue…)

Mary, so glad to hear of your trip to Iran and that you had a good experience there. And yes, travel to places like that do provide so much perspective in terms of travel privilege. As you said, even though the visa to Iran was a bureaucratic process it wasn’t the same process that most people in the world need to go through to just go on a simple vacation. Thanks for your thoughtful comment!

Wow! I’m so glad going through the article. My friends always tease me saying I’m mad since my aim is to explore as many new destinations as I can in the given lifetime. Now I know it’s a treat to my soul.

This is such wonderful post and I was nodding all the time while reading it. I totally agree with you and your points. Travel makes us better persons and broadens our horizons but it is not so easy for me because my country is still not EU member so it can be difficult to get visa for many countries. So far I visited most of European countries, for most of them I needed visa. I would like to see Asia or South Africa but for the time being it would be too complicated. You can really consider yourself lucky to have American passport

Thank you, Maja. We do. Good luck as you continue to make your way.

The most painful thing is no one pays attention to travel freedom. Most 3rd world countries don’t have this privilege. And even for a basic tourism, they have to go through an intense process and basically an interrogation to get a visa, which can be denied at the whim of the visa officer who is interrogating the applicant. This is not right.

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• Commercial Law
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• Liberty Of Abode And The Right To Travel | Constitutional Rights

by  RALB Law

In this article, we shall delve on the constitutional rights of a person with respect to his liberty of abode and right to travel. When we usually talk about our freedom, it is usually the liberty to go from one place to another that is usually being talked about; the right to travel.

We, as free people, have the right to go where we want, of course, with certain limitations. As it follows, we also have the right to choose our own residence and to leave said space whenever we like. It is the most common indication of our liberty, of our freedom. More than anything, the liberty of abode and travel seems to be more than just a right but is also a privilege.

The liberty of abode and travel is enshrined in the Bill of Rights of the 1987 Constitution :

Section 6. The liberty of abode and of changing the same within the limits prescribed by law shall not be impaired except upon lawful order of the court. Neither shall the right to travel be impaired except in the interest of national security, public safety, or public health, as may be provided by law. (( Section 6, Article III, 1987 Constitution ))

The said right to choose one’s own residence and the right to travel are guaranteed in, and by, the supreme law of the land, the Constitution. It is safeguarded by the virtue of the due process clause and said Section 6 highlights the necessity of their importance in our society.

But that is not often the case. In other tyrannical states or circumstances, a person may not choose his own residence. Worse, he does not get any at all or he will be forced to move away from his residence. In times of war, the right to travel may be halted or one may be moved from a place without his consent.

Hence, the Constitution has enforced full protection of said rights for its citizens.

When can the right to travel be restricted?

As with all the other rights, said liberty of abode and travel are with certain limitations. Pursuant to said Section 6 of the Bill of Rights, the liberty of abode can be limited upon lawful order of the court and said right to travel to protect the interest of national security, public safety, or public health, as may be provided by law.

One of the common exemptions in the liberty of abode and the right to travel is a person in custody of the law or a person that is facing charges that may be restrained by authority or a court.

A lessee who has not been paying his monthly dues may be ejected from his residence by not fulfilling his contractual obligations.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the liberty of abode and travel was affected. People who were infected cannot go to their own residence and must be admitted to quarantine facilities to not contaminate the other people in the household. Also, domestic and international travels had been regulated given the circumstances.

Those that have comorbidities and of young age are not permitted to travel due to the travel restrictions imposed by the government. The government has the power to limit the exercise of these rights if it is for the interest of national security, public safety, or public health, as may be provided by law.

In Yap vs. Court of Appeals,(( G.R. No. 141529, June 6, 2001 )) the Supreme Court said that “the right to change abode and travel within the Philippines, being invoked by petitioner, are not absolute rights. Section 6, Article III of the 1987 Constitution states: (( Ibid. ))

The liberty of abode and of changing the same within the limits prescribed by law shall not be impaired except upon lawful order of the court. Neither shall the right to travel be impaired except in the interest of national security, public safety, or public health, as may be provided by law.” (( Ibid. ))

In Genuino vs. De Lima,(( G.R. No. 197930, April 17, 2018 )) the Supreme Court said that the right to travel is part of the “liberty” of which a citizen cannot be deprived without due process of law. It is part and parcel of the guarantee of freedom of movement that the Constitution affords its citizens. Liberty under the foregoing clause includes the right to choose one’s residence, to leave it whenever he pleases and to travel wherever he wills. (( Ibid. ))

Thus, Zacarias Villavicencio vs. Justo Lucban,(( G.R. No. L-14639, March 25, 1919 )) the Court held illegal the action of the Mayor of Manila in expelling women who were known prostitutes and sending them to Davao in order to eradicate vices and immoral activities proliferated by the said subjects. It was held that regardless of the mayor’s laudable intentions, no person may compel another to change his residence without being expressly authorized by law or regulation. (( Ibid. ))

It is apparent that the right to travel is not absolute. There are constitutional, statutory and inherent limitations regulating the right to travel.

In Silverio vs. Court of Appeals,(( G.R. No. 94284, April 8, 1991 )) the Court elucidated, thus:

Article III, Section 6 of the 1987 Constitution should be interpreted to mean that while the liberty of travel may be impaired even without Court Order, the appropriate executive officers or administrative authorities are not armed with arbitrary discretion to impose limitations. They can impose limits only on the basis of “national security, public safety, or public health” and “as may be provided by law,” a limitive phrase which did not appear in the 1973 text (The Constitution, Bernas, Joaquin G.,S.J., Vol. I, First Edition, 1987, p. 263). Apparently, the phraseology in the 1987 Constitution was a reaction to the ban on international travel imposed under the previous regime when there was a Travel Processing Center, which issued certificates of eligibility to travel upon application of an interested party. (( Ibid. ))

In addition to the pronouncements in Genuino vs. De Lima,(( Supra. )) the Court also said that:

Clearly, under the provision, there are only three considerations that may permit a restriction on the right to travel: national security, public safety or public health. As a further requirement, there must be an explicit provision of statutory law or the Rules of Court providing for the impairment. The requirement for a legislative enactment was purposely added to prevent inordinate restraints on the person’s right to travel by administrative officials who may be tempted to wield authority under the guise of national security, public safety or public health. This is in keeping with the principle that ours is a government of laws and not of men and also with the canon that provisions of law limiting the enjoyment of liberty should be construed against the government and in favor of the individual. (( Ibid. ))

Statutory Limitations on the Right to Travel

In Leave Division, OCA vs. Heusdens ,(( A.M. No. P-11-2927, December 13, 2011 )) a case stemmed from the leave application for foreign travel sent through mail by Heusdens (respondent). Records disclose that the Employees Leave Division of OCA received respondent’s leave application for foreign travel but Huesdens left for abroad without waiting for the result of her application.(( Ibid. ))

It turned out that no travel authority was issued in her favor because she was not cleared of all her accountabilities as evidenced by the Supreme Court Certificate of Clearance. The OCA recommended the disapproval of respondent’s leave application.(( Ibid. ))

It further advised that respondent be directed to make a written explanation of her failure to secure authority to travel abroad in violation of OCA Circular No. 49-2003. Chief Justice Puno approved the OCA recommendation. Eventually, OCA filed an administrative complaint against Heusdens. Subsequently, it arrived at the Supreme Court.(( Ibid. ))

The Court said that the exercise of one’s right to travel or the freedom to move from one place to another, as assured by the Constitution, is not absolute. (( Ibid. ))

There are constitutional, statutory and inherent limitations regulating the right to travel. Section 6 itself provides that “neither shall the right to travel be impaired except in the interest of national security, public safety or public health, as may be provided by law.” Some of these statutory limitations are the following: (( Ibid. ))

1] The Human Security Act of 2010 or Republic Act (R.A.) No. 9372. The law restricts the right to travel of an individual charged with the crime of terrorism even though such person is out on bail. (( Ibid. ))

2] The Philippine Passport Act of 1996 or R.A. No. 8239. Pursuant to said law, the Secretary of Foreign Affairs or his authorized consular officer may refuse the issuance of, restrict the use of, or withdraw, a passport of a Filipino citizen. (( Ibid. ))

3] The “Anti- Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003” or R.A. No. 9208 . Pursuant to the provisions thereof, the Bureau of Immigration, in order to manage migration and curb trafficking in persons, issued Memorandum Order Radjr No. 2011-011,12 allowing its Travel Control and Enforcement Unit to “offload passengers with fraudulent travel documents, doubtful purpose of travel, including possible victims of human trafficking” from our ports. (( Ibid. ))

4] The Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act of 1995 or R. A. No. 8042, as amended by R.A. No. 10022. In enforcement of said law, the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) may refuse to issue deployment permit to a specific country that effectively prevents our migrant workers to enter such country. (( Ibid. ))

5] The Act on Violence against Women and Children or R.A. No. 9262 . The law restricts movement of an individual against whom the protection order is intended. (( Ibid. ))

6] Inter-Country Adoption Act of 1995 or R.A. No. 8043. Pursuant thereto, the Inter-Country Adoption Board may issue rules restrictive of an adoptee’s right to travel “to protect the Filipino child from abuse, exploitation, trafficking and/or sale or any other practice in connection with adoption which is harmful, detrimental, or prejudicial to the child.” (( Ibid. ))

The Supreme Court took the liberty to enumerate some of the statutory limitations on the right to travel contemplated in Section 6 of the Bill of Rights.

In SPARKS vs. Quezon City,(( August 8, 2017, G.R. No. 225442 )) after the pronouncement of President Duterte to implement a nationwide curfew for minors, several local governments in Metro Manila started to strictly implement their curfew ordinances on minors through police operations.

Petitioners assail the constitutionality of the said Curfew Ordinances based on the minors’ right to travel. They claim that the liberty to travel is a fundamental right, which, therefore, necessitates the application of the strict scrutiny test.

The Supreme Court ruled that:

“Jurisprudence provides that this right refers to the right to move freely from the Philippines to other countries or within the Philippines. It is a right embraced within the general concept of liberty. Liberty – a birthright of every person – includes the power of locomotion and the right of citizens to be free to use their faculties in lawful ways and to live and work where they desire or where they can best pursue the ends of life. The right to travel is essential as it enables individuals to access and exercise their other rights, such as the rights to education, free expression, assembly, association, and religion.” (( Ibid .))

Final Thoughts

The freedom guaranteed by the Constitution should be available to the populace in a democratic nation. They ought to have unrestricted access to these rights, save in those instances which the law validly limits the exercise thereof.

One of them is the freedom to live and go anywhere. A basic right guaranteed by the Constitution is the freedom to select one’s own abode and to leave it at any time, as well as the freedom to move about the Philippines at will.

Nevertheless, it is important to remember that these rights are not absolute and sometimes do not apply. These privileges are not unqualified. They may have restrictions based on what the law may require.

RALB Law | RABR & Associates Law Firm

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> The liberty of abode and of changing the same within the limits prescribed by law shall not be impaired except upon lawful order of the court. Neither shall the right to travel be impaired except in the interest of national security, public safety, or public health, as may be provided by law.

I'd argue the law here is absolute. To argue otherwise would be necessary to justify illegal regulations such as LTO, Highway Patrol, checkpoints, and illegal confiscation of property, ART III, Sec. 9.

If a convicted criminal is being hauled somewhere against the freedom to travel it is because they are a threat to public safety established on REAL EVIDENCE by the court; totally within ART III, Sec 6.

If a person is quarantined, for public safety, there better be FACTUAL evidence provided by the court to justify the segregation, unlike the country-wide lock downs during 2020-2022 based on bogus, made up, and unscientific information. Why did the FLU count drop to nothing in 2020, for example?

When asking the governor of Negros Oriental where the data is to justify a lock-down I was blocked. There seems to have been a side-step of the due process of law to push these unconstitutional lock downs. If there was proper and scientific reasons to limit our travel then the data should be verifiably transparent.

Taxing the civilians because they aren't wearing helmets, licensed, wearing pants, or driving a registered vehicle have absolutely nothing to do with public safety, unless they are court ordered to withdraw travel for being reckless and an endangerment to others.

If public safety was a concern wouldn't we start covering open storm ditches adjacent to roadways, fill potholes in roads, remove fastfood joints for causing illnesses in people, and reduce dangers of sharp objects on pathways and sidewalks like unfinished rebar work?

To tax the poor man for his need to travel to and from his work to survive while letting the 4 wheeled vehicles pass on is not only an attack on the Philippine constitution, but an attack on the lower class. Surely it's easy to fleece the poor because they're unfamiliar with rights.

Thanks for the cases. I hope it's okay to borrow some that favor the freedom of travel. I hope to lobby for the freedom to travel and get as many people together to actually make a real dent the country's slipping away from the Constitution.

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Freedom to Travel

The freedom to travel which was sharply curtailed by the two World Wars has been even more rigorously limited for Americans by the McCarran Act of 1950. We turned to JUDGE CHARLES E. WYZANSKI, JR., for a firm reminder of how this freedom, comparable to freedom of speech, has been respected by other men in other, more broad-minded epochs. A graduate of Harvard and the Harvard Law School who served as secretary to both Judge Augustus N. Hand and Judge Learned Hand, and from 1937 as special assistant to the Attorney General of the United States, Judge Wyzanski was appointed to the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts in December, 1941.

by JUDGE CHARLES E. WYZANSKI, JR.

UNESCO recently proposed a conference in the United States of teachers throughout the world whose special field is civil liberties, but the State Department withheld the invitation because, under the McCarran Act, Communist teachers of even that subject are excluded from our land. More recently the government, without explanation, refused passports to a Harvard professor, once associated with the Institute of Pacific Relations, who wished to take a short teaching assignment in Japan; to a Protestant minister, critical of our post-war treaty with Japan, who wished to visit friends in the Orient; and to several nonCommunist scientists who planned to attend European meetings of professional societies. And in dozens of less conspicuous cases citizens and aliens with unacceptable views have been denied passports to travel from, or visas to enter, the United States.

These actions, characteristic of both our country and other countries in this age of crisis, invite a review of the legal, historical, and policy considerations underlying the freedom of men to travel — or, as it is sometimes technically phrased, the right of intercourse between nations.

In this discussion we are not concerned with the right of a citizen permanently to withdraw from our community, and thus expatriate himself; nor with his right to leave our shores, or remain abroad, to avoid taxes, military service, or other domestic obligation. Our interest is only in these physically healthy visitors who come to observe, to learn, to teach, to confer, or to trade — those whom Francis Bacon described in his Eighteenth Essay when he wrote, “Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience.”

Before indulging in any criticism of our present statutes, administration, or policies, we should remind ourselves that, whatever may be said of specific cases, of recent rules governing particular classes of travelers, and of novel dangers and remedies, America has in these post-war, as in earlier, years a record of hospitality to temporary visitors, scholars, teachers, merchants, that no nation, behind or before the Iron Curtain, has come close to matching. Over 80 million persons annually now cross our borders, many of them more than once. We are the most open society that the world has ever seen. We have adopted our liberal practice despite the doctrine of international law that there is no limitation upon the sovereign state’s power to restrict travel.

In the United States the most that can be derived from precedents is that in 1868 Congress declared, and in 1939 Chief Justice Hughes repeated, that the right of expatriation is a natural and inherent light of all people"; that our Constitution protects the right of a citizen to travel within the forty-eight states; that it is an open question whether the Bill of Rights assures him the privilege of foreign travel; that if he does go abroad, but on his return fails to persuade the immigration inspectors of his citizenship, he is excludable without the possibility of judicial review. As to a foreigner, as distinguished from a citizen, neither international nor American law accords him any inherent, natural, or positive right to enter the United States as an immigrant or visitor.

Historically our nation has a long record of exercising its power to exclude some aliens. Washington’s and Adams’s administrations furnish early examples. However, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and even in the first quota acts of 1921 and 1924, we left an open door for the temporary visitor, unless he had a loat hsome or contagious disease, carried on a criminal profession, or sought the overthrow of our government. We were, in those older times, glad to show our land not only to the admiring Tocqueville or Bryce, and to the not overenthusiastic Dickens and Trollope, but to those subverters of the democratic order now known to history as Napoleon III and Trotsky. Not until the McCarran Act of 1950 did we flatly exclude all associated with Communist parties or their affiliates_— though, as far back as 1918, enactments yielding varying interpretations reached toward the same end.

So far as travel from the United States was concerned, for 130 years we did nothing to restrain our journeying citizens, unless one counts as an exception the Logan Act, forbidding an American private citizen to negotiate with a foreign government. This legislation, we would do well to remember, was directed at a good Quaker doctor and United States Senator who had succeeded in persuading Talleyrand to lift the Napoleonic embargo against the United States, and who hoped to induce the British Cabinet to desist from the vexatious conduct that ultimately led to the War of 1812.

It may also be worth recalling that freedom of travel was in the nineteenth century a dominant theme in our foreign policy. We fought the Barbary States because of the restrictions and exactions they placed upon our traders; we sent warships under command of Commodore Matthew Perry to open up the ports of Japan to American visitors; we protested to the Czar when he expelled American Jews visiting their Russian relatives. Almost all our treaties of commerce and friendship had clauses looking toward unfettered freedom of intercourse.

With World War I a change set in. For the first time passports became a common incident of travel. Unless they had these certificates of nationality, our citizens could not enter most countries; and after President Wilson’s Executive Order, they could not cross our own borders in wartime. By 1918 the Wilsonian policy was crystallized in statutory form, so that now a citizen who leaves this land in time of war or declared emergency, while he retains a legal right to return to this country, may find in practice that his right is to return to that part of our land which is a federal prison.

As one would expect, when passports became mandatory the governmental control of travel became vested in theory in the Secretary of State, but in practice in a corps of specialists, devoted to their task, informed of the technicalities, but exercising in the interstices of their daily duties a range of policy judgments which were not always overt and were almost never the subject of detailed scrutiny by the busy Secretary, Congress, and press. This departmental power over passports has often been said to be discretionary, and virtually nonreviewable by courts. Certainly the tradition has been that the subordinates of the Secretary could refuse a passport to one whose conduct, or communications, or presence in a foreign land would prove embarrassing to this country. And, indeed, the practice has been fortified by the McCarran Act, in which Congress has forbidden the Department of State to issue a passport to a member of either the Communist Party or one of its affiliates.

Yet there are signs that the courts may be ready to put some elementary curbs on administrative absolutism. In July of this year a lower federal court ruled that the Secretary could not refuse a citizen the renewal of her passport without giving her the opportunity to be heard. The State Department now plans to allow interdepartmental appeals from the Passport Division, and in such appeals the Division will be required to explain its reasons for a denial of the passport and to give the applicant a chance to give his side.

THE present unfettered and strict executive control of passports and visas is, of course, not a curiosity of American statesmanship. It is a universal response to a world in fear of atomic war and planned insurrection. Yet it flies in the face of the cherished experiences of our Western world.

Twenty-four hundred years ago in his Funeral Speech, Pericles reminded the Athenians: ”[We] throw our city open to all the world, and we never by exclusion acts debar anyone from learning or seeing anything which an enemy might profit from observing if it were not kept from his sight ; for we place our dependence, not so much upon prearranged devices to deceive, as upon the courage which springs from our souls when we are called to action.” While this may not have been a representative pronouncement of the ancient world - and reflects a quite opposite view from Plato’s Laws, which proposed to confine foreign travel to those whose reliability was evidenced by their having passed their fortieth birthday and served in public office — the Periclean ideal came to be accepted early in European history for both men of business and men of learning. Magna Charta’s forty-first clause guarantees freedom of entry for foreign merchants. Traders of the Hanseatic League gained the right of access to most Continental as well as English markets, and English and Italian traders were to be found in many lands. Marco Polo gained entrance to China. Even Russian barriers finally yielded to Peter the Great’s ukase of April, 1702.

This freedom of intercourse extended far beyond the demands of commerce, and was most utilized by the very type of academic traveler and publicist whose journeys are now most carefully scanned. A tradition of academic intercourse began with the medieval wandering scholars moving from Paris, to Bologna, to Oxford; it grew with the pilgrimages of men of letters in Chaucer’s age, swelled with the generation of Erasmus, Colet, and More, found its permanent justification in the essays of Montaigne and Bacon, and became one of the impelling forces behind the Grand Tour taken by all gentlemen in Chesterfield’s day.

But the freedom of travel which characterized the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, and reached even across the mountains of Tibet, has been sharply curtailed by two world wars and the two periods of unsettlement that followed in their wake. We shall not find modern parallels for the visit of Spinoza to discuss philosophy with the Prince of Condé, while that French general was fighting the Dutch; or the Sentimental Journey of Laurence Sterne, who went without a passport from England to belligerent France; or that extraordinary social call paid in the middle of the War of 1812 by Lord Jeffrey, a Scottish Law Lord, upon President Madison in the White House. For many years to come, we must anticipate rigid passport inspection as the most convenient device for keeping out admittedly excludable persons and those who, pretending to come for a short sojourn, plan to remain as unauthorized permanent residents.

But an issue which deserves to be further debated is whether we ought to continue rigid administrative passport and visa censorship of tourists having no purpose but to exchange ideas and experiences.

This travel does not differ from any other exercise of the manifold freedoms of expression — from the right to speak, to write, to use the mails, to publish, to assemble, to petition. In all these liberties the principal element is the stretching of the mind to accommodate the growing spirit. The physical contact between men of different nationality while they exchange ideas, no matter how unconventional, is no evidence of a clear and present danger, unless the ideas themselves include a punishable incitement to immediate action.

To be sure, when men are face to face there may be greater understanding and increased possibilities of coöperation, but how can these be noxious if the same ideas may be lawfully communicated by post or print? And can any devotee of our liberal traditions argue that because a passport and a visa are governmental licenses, it follows that the authorities may arbitrarily withhold those official permissions from men whose actions are innocent, but whose thoughts alone are dangerous? Is not freedom to carry on such intercourse the core of our creed? For we cherish this liberty of communication not only for the sake of the traveler and his ideas, but more especially for the growth of the rest of us and our adventurous society.

Someone may urge that this nation will be embarrassed in its foreign relations if we permit noisy citizens from the extreme left and right wings of our commonwealth to go abroad posing as typical Americans. The first answer to that argument was given three decades ago by President Lowell when he was pressed to restrict Harvard professors whose public speeches caused the university annoyance: if we censor certain utterances, we tacitly assume responsibility for whatever we do not censor.

There is, however, a deeper answer for this country to ponder in this hour when its greatest need is to hold and to win allies. The most attractive promise of America has always been, not its natural resources, but its assured welcome to liberty. Belief in freedom is our only orthodoxy. The untouched radical is an irrebuttable exhibit of the stability of the society which he attacks. Just the other day, our British friends showed how applicable these principles are to the traveler who on his foreign journey exploits his mission to spread calumny and to create dissension. The spectacle of the Red Dean of Canterbury left free by Parliament became far better propaganda for the Western world than his preposterous charges of germ warfare could ever have been for the Communist despotism.

Yet, though we leave even our misguided, irresponsible citizens free to travel, and stop standing them in the corner when their views are unacceptable to Washington legislators and administrators, is it so clear that we should be hospitable to the foreigner who comes to spread divisive propaganda, or possibly to extract secrets from our arsenals and laboratories? If the alien’s errand be to circulate lies, then the proper way to deal with him, as Milton, Blackstone, Mill, Holmes, Brandeis, and Hughes have taught us, is not to censor him, by travel document or otherwise, but to let him proceed, subject, however, to the risk of criminal punishment and libel suit. If the traveler’s errand be to steal our confidential information, he is, and should be held, inadmissible, as a person whose journey is a punishable first step in an attempt to commit the crime of espionage. But let us be sure that crime is his real purpose, and that curtailment of his travel is not founded on distrust of his philosophy rather than on distrust of his respect for the locks, keys, and regulations which justifiably guard our military and other official secrets.

We can never afford to forget that in our war to win the world for liberty, our ultimate appeal must be not primarily to arms and secret weapons, but to the minds and spirits of men throughout the globe. And let us not be unmindful that in that vast area where the destiny of man may yet be decided, millions of men, for hundreds of years, have repeated the words of Confucius: “Within the four seas all men are brothers. . . . Good government obtains when those who are near are happy, and those who are far are attracted to come.”