On the Law and Liberty blog, law professor Kurt Lash has a lengthy post, drawn from his recent book, contesting libertarian Damon Root’s claim about the 14th Amendment’s “privileges or immunities” clause. (The clause reads, in pertinent part: “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.”)

Lash argues forcefully that the clause provided that “all of the constitutionally enumerated personal rights of American citizens were now enforceable against the states—from the substantive rights listed in the first eight amendments to the equal treatment rights of Article IV’s Comity Clause.” (Emphasis added.) Lash disputes Root’s claim that the clause transformed the equal-treatment rights of Article IV into unenumerated substantive rights enforceable against the states.