United States V. Wheeler - Assessment

Assessment

United States v. Wheeler did not have a direct major impact on American constitutional law. The case was only one of a long line of decisions which extended as far back as the circuit court ruling in Corfield v. Coryell, 6 Fed. Cas. 546 (1823), and included the Supreme Court decisions in Paul v. Virginia, 75 U.S. 168 (1869), Ward v. Maryland, 79 U.S. 418 (1871), the Slaughter-House Cases (1873) and United States v. Harris (1883). All the decisions rejected federal protection of important constitutional rights. Still, although Wheeler stood firmly in the middle of an established stream of constitutional law, the Supreme Court itself began rejecting the rationales contained in Wheeler a few years later.

Finally, in United States v. Guest, 383 U.S. 745 (1966), the Supreme Court overruled Chief Justice White's conclusion that the federal government could protect the right to travel only against state infringement.

Indirectly, however, United States v. Wheeler had a much larger impact. For many years, the roots of the Constitution's "privileges and immunities" clause had not been clearly determined. In 1823, the circuit court in Corfield had provided a list of the rights (some fundamental, some not) that the clause could cover. The Wheeler court dramatically changed this. By reasoning that the clause derived from Article IV of the Articles of Confederation, the decision suggested a narrower set of rights than those enumerated in Corfield, but also more clearly defined those rights as absolutely fundamental.