Articles IV to VII: States, Amendments, Supremacy and Ratification

Articles I, II and III build the three branches. Articles IV through VII set the rules of the road for a union of states: how an Idaho court judgment is treated in Oregon, what happens when a person charged with a crime flees across a state line, how new states join, how the document can be changed, and what happens when state and federal law collide.

Because several of these clauses touch questions courts are reluctant to answer, the first case on a clause is sometimes one in which the Court said, in effect, "this is not ours to decide." That is still a first, and it tells you where the fight will happen from then on. For each clause below, we name the earliest case we found (or the case generally cited as the first), say what kind of first it is, and follow the rule forward.

Article IV, Section 1: Full Faith and Credit

The text, from the National Archives transcription, begins: "Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State." The section goes on to let Congress prescribe how those records are proved and what effect they have. Congress did that in 1790, so the first cases were about the clause and the 1790 statute together.

Mills v. Duryee (1813)

A creditor won a judgment in a New York court and then sued on that judgment in the federal court for the District of Columbia. The debtor tried to plead nil debet, the old common law plea that simply denies owing the debt, which would have reopened the whole dispute. The Supreme Court, in an opinion by Justice Joseph Story, said no. A judgment from another state is a record, and the only proper challenge is to deny that the record exists (the plea of nul tiel record). If the judgment was conclusive in New York, it was conclusive in the District of Columbia too. In Story's words, the judgment "must have the same faith and credit in every other court." Justice Johnson dissented.

Mills v. Duryee, 11 U.S. (7 Cranch) 481 (1813) is generally cited as the first Supreme Court interpretation of the clause. It set the basic rule that still governs: a valid judgment from one state must be honored in every other state, and the losing party cannot relitigate the merits just by crossing a state line.

Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1: Privileges and Immunities

"The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States." This is sometimes called the Comity Clause. It is a different clause from the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which is covered in Lesson 11.

Corfield v. Coryell (1823, federal circuit court)

The first important case was not decided by the full Supreme Court. Justice Bushrod Washington, sitting as a circuit justice in the federal Circuit Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, heard a trespass suit over a boat seized under a New Jersey law that barred nonresidents from gathering oysters in certain New Jersey waters. The boat owner argued that New Jersey could not treat out of state citizens worse than its own.

Washington ruled for the defendants. The clause, he said, protects privileges "which are, in their nature, fundamental; which belong, of right, to the citizens of all free governments." He listed examples such as protection by the government and the right to travel to or live in another state. But the oyster beds belonged to New Jersey's own citizens as a kind of common property, and the clause did not require the state to share them. The Federal Judicial Center's summary of Corfield v. Coryell, 6 F. Cas. 546 (C.C.E.D. Pa. 1823) gives the full background.

The Constitution Annotated, quoting the Supreme Court's own description in Austin v. New Hampshire (1975), calls Corfield "the first, and long the leading, explication" of the clause (Constitution Annotated, ArtIV.S2.C1.7).

What came after. The Supreme Court later recognized that pursuing an ordinary occupation in another state is a protected privilege (Ward v. Maryland, 79 U.S. (12 Wall.) 418 (1870)), and modern cases such as Toomer v. Witsell (1948) and Hicklin v. Orbeck (1978) applied that idea to commercial fishing and jobs. In Baldwin v. Fish and Game Commission of Montana (1978), the Court held that recreational hunting is not a fundamental privilege protected by the clause. That point matters in Idaho and other Western states that sell separate resident and nonresident hunting licenses.

Article IV, Section 2, Clause 2: Extradition Between States

"A Person charged in any State with Treason, Felony, or other Crime, who shall flee from Justice, and be found in another State, shall on Demand of the executive Authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having Jurisdiction of the Crime."

Puerto Rico v. Branstad (1987)

Ronald Calder, an air traffic controller, was charged in Puerto Rico with murder and attempted murder after a 1981 incident, then surrendered in Iowa. Iowa governors Robert Ray and Terry Branstad refused to extradite him. Puerto Rico sued, and the lower federal courts dismissed the case because of Dennison.

The Supreme Court reversed. Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote that Kentucky v. Dennison "is the product of another time," that "the conception of the relation between the States and the Federal Government there announced is fundamentally incompatible with more than a century of constitutional development," and that its rule barring federal courts from compelling an asylum state's officers to perform the extradition duty "may stand no longer." See Puerto Rico v. Branstad, 483 U.S. 219 (1987). Today, the duty to extradite is mandatory and federal courts can enforce it.

Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3: The Fugitive Slave Clause

The original Constitution required that a person held to service or labor in one state who escaped into another be delivered up on the claim of the person to whom that service was said to be due. The Thirteenth Amendment made the clause obsolete.

Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842)

Margaret Morgan had been held as a slave under Maryland law and moved to Pennsylvania in 1832. Edward Prigg, acting as an agent for the woman who claimed to own her, obtained a warrant from a Pennsylvania justice of the peace, but the local magistrate declined to act further. Prigg then took Morgan and her children back to Maryland without following the procedures in Pennsylvania's 1826 law. At least one of the children had been born in Pennsylvania. A York County grand jury indicted Prigg for kidnapping under the 1826 act, and he was convicted.

The Supreme Court reversed. Justice Joseph Story wrote the opinion of the Court. It held that the Pennsylvania law was unconstitutional because it penalized conduct the fugitive slave clause was meant to protect, that Congress had exclusive power to legislate on the subject, and that the claimed right to recapture was a federal right that state law could not control. The Court also said that state magistrates could choose whether to help enforce the federal act, unless state law forbade it. Six other justices wrote separately, several disputing parts of Story's reasoning, and Justice John McLean dissented. See Prigg v. Pennsylvania, 41 U.S. (16 Pet.) 539 (1842) and the National Park Service's overview of the case.

What came after. The idea in Prigg that state officers may decline to enforce a federal program reappears in the modern Tenth Amendment cases covered in Lesson 10.

Article IV, Section 3: New States and Federal Territory

Section 3 lets Congress admit new states and make rules for federal territory and property. Both clauses matter in Idaho, where federal agencies manage much of the land.

American Insurance Co. v. Canter (1828)

The ship Point a Petre wrecked off Florida, then a U.S. territory. A Key West court created by a Florida territorial law ordered 356 bales of its cotton sold to pay salvors, and David Canter bought them. The cargo's insurers sued to get the cotton back, arguing that the Key West court was not a proper federal court.

Chief Justice John Marshall wrote for the Court that Congress's power over territories allowed it to set up territorial governments and territorial courts, and that those courts were "legislative courts," not Article III courts. "The right to govern," he wrote, "may be the inevitable consequence of the right to acquire territory." The sale was valid and Canter kept the cotton. See American Insurance Co. v. Canter, 26 U.S. (1 Pet.) 511 (1828). This is generally cited as the first major Supreme Court case on Congress's power to govern territories.

Coyle v. Smith (1911)

When Congress admitted Oklahoma, its enabling act said the state capital would "temporarily be at the city of Guthrie" and would not be moved before 1913. In 1910, Oklahoma's legislature moved it to Oklahoma City anyway. Taxpayers who owned property in Guthrie sued.

Justice Lurton wrote for the Court that Congress cannot attach admission conditions that strip a new state of powers essential to its equality with the original states. Choosing a seat of government is one of those "essentially and peculiarly state powers." Justices McKenna and Holmes dissented. The Court relied on an earlier Alabama case, Pollard's Lessee v. Hagan. See Coyle v. Smith, 221 U.S. 559 (1911). Coyle is the case most often cited for the "equal footing" doctrine: every new state, Idaho included, enters with the same sovereignty as the original thirteen.

Article IV, Section 4: The Guarantee Clause

"The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence."

Luther v. Borden (1849)

Rhode Island was still governed under its colonial charter in 1841, and the charter had no set procedure for amendment. Reformers organized their own convention, drafted a new constitution, claimed it had been ratified, and set up a rival government. The charter government declared martial law. In June 1842, Luther M. Borden and other militia members broke into the house of Martin Luther, a supporter of the rival government, and Luther sued them for trespass. His argument depended on the claim that the charter government was not the lawful government of Rhode Island.

Chief Justice Taney, writing for the Court, refused to decide which government was legitimate. That was a political question. Under Article IV, Taney wrote, "it rests with Congress to decide what government is the established one in a State." The President, acting under the militia act of 1795, had also recognized the charter government's governor as the executive power of the state. The jury verdict for Borden stood. Justice Woodbury dissented, disagreeing with the Court on the martial law question rather than on the political question point. See Luther v. Borden, 48 U.S. (7 How.) 1 (1849).

What came after. When Oregon adopted the initiative and referendum, a telephone company taxed by a voter-approved law argued that direct democracy made Oregon's government no longer "republican." In Pacific States Telephone and Telegraph Co. v. Oregon, 223 U.S. 118 (1912), Chief Justice Edward White called Luther v. Borden "the leading and absolutely controlling case" and dismissed the challenge as a political question. That matters in Idaho, which also has the initiative and referendum: a challenge to a ballot measure generally has to rest on some other clause.

Article V: Amending the Constitution

Article V lays out two ways to propose amendments (two thirds of both houses of Congress, or a convention called on application of two thirds of the state legislatures) and two ways to ratify them (three fourths of state legislatures or of state conventions). Courts have been asked many times to referee the process.

Hollingsworth v. Virginia (1798)

The Eleventh Amendment was written to overturn Chisholm v. Georgia (1793), which had allowed a citizen of one state to sue another state in federal court. When it was ratified, suits like that were already pending. The case raised whether the amendment applied to those pending suits, and during argument the question came up whether an amendment had to be presented to the President for signature like an ordinary bill.

The Court held that the amendment had been "constitutionally adopted," and that no jurisdiction could be exercised "in any case, past or future," in which a state was sued by citizens of another state or of a foreign country. During argument, as recorded by the reporter in a footnote, Justice Chase said the President "has nothing to do with the proposition, or adoption, of amendments to the Constitution." See Hollingsworth v. Virginia, 3 U.S. (3 Dall.) 378 (1798). Chase's remark is not the holding, but in Hawke v. Smith (1920) the Court said Hollingsworth "settled" that submitting an amendment does not require the President's action (Constitution Annotated, Role of the President).

That makes Hollingsworth the earliest Supreme Court case we found on Article V, and the earliest we found applying the Eleventh Amendment.

Dillon v. Gloss (1921) and Coleman v. Miller (1939)

Two later cases set the modern framework for deadlines. In Dillon v. Gloss, 256 U.S. 368 (1921), a man held under the National Prohibition Act argued that the Eighteenth Amendment was invalid because Congress had put a seven year ratification deadline in the text of the amendment itself. Justice Van Devanter wrote that ratification must happen "within some reasonable time after the proposal," that Congress may set a definite period, and that seven years was reasonable.

In Coleman v. Miller, 307 U.S. 433 (1939), the Kansas Senate split 20 to 20 on ratifying the Child Labor Amendment, which Congress had proposed in 1924. The lieutenant governor broke the tie. Senators who voted no argued that he could not vote, that Kansas had already rejected the amendment, and that too much time had passed. Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes's opinion treated the effect of an earlier rejection and the question of whether an amendment had gone stale as political questions for Congress. The Court was equally divided on the lieutenant governor question and expressed no view on it.

Together these cases mean that, in most Article V disputes today, Congress has the last word.

Article VI: Debts, Supremacy and Oaths

Article VI keeps pre-Constitution debts valid, requires officers to swear to support the Constitution, bans religious tests for federal office, and contains the Supremacy Clause, which makes the Constitution, federal laws and treaties "the supreme Law of the Land."

Ware v. Hylton (1796)

Before the Revolution, Virginians had borrowed heavily from British merchants. During the war, Virginia passed a 1777 law allowing debtors to pay what they owed British creditors into the state loan office instead. The fourth article of the 1783 Treaty of Peace with Britain then preserved creditors' right to recover bona fide debts. William Jones, surviving partner of the British firm Farrel and Jones, sued Daniel Hylton and Company and Francis Eppes, of Virginia, on a 1774 bond. The Virginians said they had paid part of it into the loan office under state law.

One of the lawyers for the Virginia debtors was John Marshall, who would later become Chief Justice. He questioned whether a treaty could wipe out a state law. The justices delivered their opinions one at a time (seriatim), as was common then, and the Court held that the treaty's debt provision annulled the Virginia law, so the British creditor could recover. See Ware v. Hylton, 3 U.S. (3 Dall.) 199 (1796).

Ware is the earliest case we found in which the Supreme Court set aside a state law because it conflicted with federal law under the Supremacy Clause.

McCulloch v. Maryland (1819)

Maryland taxed the Baltimore branch of the Second Bank of the United States, and the dispute over that tax reached the Supreme Court. In a unanimous judgment, Chief Justice Marshall wrote that Congress could charter the bank and that Maryland could not tax it, because "the power to tax involves the power to destroy," and a state cannot use its powers to undercut lawful federal operations. See McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. (4 Wheat.) 316 (1819). For Article VI, it is the foundational case on federal supremacy over state law.

Article VII: Ratification

"The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States, shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the Same." The clause came up in court later, when parties needed to know when the Constitution began to operate.

Owings v. Speed (1820)

The question in this case was whether the Contract Clause applied to a Virginia law passed before the Constitution took effect. Chief Justice Marshall said it did not, and fixed the start date: "it is apparent that its operation did not commence before the first Wednesday in March, 1789." See Owings v. Speed, 18 U.S. (5 Wheat.) 420 (1820). Ratification by nine states made the Constitution binding among them, but the Court treated its operation as beginning only when the new government was set to start in March 1789.

Summary table

Clause	First case	Year	What kind of first
Art. IV, Sec. 1, Full Faith and Credit	Mills v. Duryee	1813	Generally cited as first Supreme Court interpretation
Art. IV, Sec. 2, Privileges and Immunities	Corfield v. Coryell	1823	First leading explanation (federal circuit court)
Art. IV, Sec. 2, Extradition	Kentucky v. Dennison	1861	Earliest Supreme Court interpretation we found; overruled in part by Puerto Rico v. Branstad (1987)
Art. IV, Sec. 2, Fugitive Slave Clause	Prigg v. Pennsylvania	1842	Earliest major Supreme Court ruling we found; clause made obsolete by the Thirteenth Amendment
Art. IV, Sec. 3, Territories	American Insurance Co. v. Canter	1828	Generally cited as first major case on governing territories
Art. IV, Sec. 3, Admission of new states	Coyle v. Smith	1911	Leading equal footing case (relied on earlier Pollard's Lessee v. Hagan)
Art. IV, Sec. 4, Guarantee Clause	Luther v. Borden	1849	Earliest Supreme Court case we found; held a political question
Art. V, Amendment process	Hollingsworth v. Virginia	1798	Earliest Supreme Court case we found on Article V
Art. VI, Supremacy (treaties)	Ware v. Hylton	1796	Earliest case we found setting aside a state law under the Supremacy Clause
Art. VI, Supremacy (federal laws)	McCulloch v. Maryland	1819	Foundational case barring state taxes on federal operations
Art. VI, No Religious Test	Torcaso v. Watkins (decided on First Amendment)	1961	No Supreme Court case decided under the Article VI clause itself that we found
Art. VII, Ratification	Owings v. Speed	1820	Fixed when the Constitution began to operate