- [Kim] Hey, this is Kim, from Khan Academy
and today, I'm learning about Article IV
of the U.S. Constitution.
Article IV lays out the nuts and bolts
of how Federalism, the system of shared governance
between states and the federal
government works in practice.
Article IV has four sections.
The first two, the Full Faith and Credit clause
and the Privileges and Immunities clause
talk about how states will treat each other's citizens
as well as they treat the citizens of their own states.
Then the third section is an Admissions clause
discussing how new states will be added to the Union
and the fourth section is the Guarantee clause,
which guarantees every state in the Union
a Republican form of government.
To learn more about Article IV
I sought out the help of two experts.
Erin Hawley is an Associate Professor of Law
at the University of Missouri.
Her scholarship focuses on the federal courts,
and she teaches Constitutional Litigation,
Tax Policy, and Agricultural Law.
Professor Gabriel Chin is the Director
of Clinical Legal Education at the UC Davis School of Law.
He's a teacher and scholar of Immigration Law,
criminal procedure, and race and law.
Professor Hawley, can you take us a little bit through
why the framers included Article IV?
What was its purpose?
- [Professor Hawley] The founders of the Constitution
were very concerned that the federal government
be one of limited powers
and, because of that, they saw the states
as having an active and critical role in placing
a check on the federal government.
So, we've got the three branches
and their own checks and balances
and then we've got the federal government
and the state government also playing a role in
checking and balancing each other.
They wanted to establish a
strong central government, but also to
ensure that it didn't have too much power,
and the states were critical to this effort.
Also, they very much wanted the states
to act collectively, not individually.
As you'll recall, the states had not been doing so well
under the loose Articles of the Confederation.
They'd sort of been going it alone
on critical issues like trade and defense
to the detriment of the Union.
So, Article IV is also
a, sort of, key to making sure that the states act,
sort of, as a unified whole,
rather than going it alone.
- [Professor Chin] It's one country made up
of diverse states, and
if you prefer the way
things are done in Nevada,
you can move there.
And if you think that some other state has a better set
of answers to the problems of modern life, you can move.
What the Full Faith and Credit clause and the
Privileges and Immunities clause are designed to do
is to facilitate transactions, to facilitate moving,
to facilitate communications and commerce
and trade and travel, among the states.
But that doesn't mean that what's going on
in each of the states can't be very, very different.
- [Kim] We often think of checks and balances
as being something that was designed
to be kind of horizontal.
That the Legislature and the Executive branch
and the Judicial branch,
just kind of all at the same level checking each other.
But there's also kind of this
vertical checks and balances happening, too,
between the power of the federal government,
the power of the states,
and the power of the local governments.
- [Professor Hawley] Absolutely; we've got the, the,
three branches and their checks and balances.
But we also have a strong central government
that's checked in large part by
strong, independent, sovereign governments
in each of the 50 states and these states
traditionally have what are known as Police Powers,
so they have a lot of inherent authority to govern
the people in those states, subject to federal law.
But it really does sort of place a check on
federal authority, and I think this is precisely
what the framers wanted because they did want
a strong government, but they also were very much
of the view that states were important,
that their own states were important
and they didn't want to lose that in the new,
new Constitution and new federal government.
- [Kim] There are four sections
in Article IV, and the first section
deals with Full Faith and Credit.
And it says Full Faith and Credit shall be given
in each State to the public Acts,
Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State.
What does Full Faith and Credit actually mean?
- [Professor Chin] It's designed to make,
in a certain sense all of the states
of the United States part of a single system.
And, so, Full Faith and Credit means that
a court judgment, for example, in one state,
will be recognized in every state.
- [Professor Hawley] If you have a valid judgment in
New York, for example, and you move to California,
the California courts are required to give effect
to that judgment, to that state court judgment,
so long as it was validly issued.
There was a federal statute known as the
Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA,
that was passed under President Clinton,
and recently the Supreme Court
struck that down as unconstitutional.
So now under Full Faith and Credit if you're married in one
state, you're married in another state as well.
- [Professor Chin] You can see the kinds of problems
that would exist if states
didn't honor the legal decisions
that were made by other states
such as, who's married or who's divorced?
Or who owns a particular piece of property?
Or whether a particular child
is going to be in the custody of one
parent rather than another?
And the Full Faith and Credit clause is designed to say
in order for our system
to work, as a unified whole,
while it's true that the courts of Georgia are
distinct from the Courts of New York, et cetera,
they're separate systems, but they have
to treat the work that each other does with respect.
- [Kim] If we move on to section two,
this says that the Citizens of each State
shall be entitled to all
Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.
What are these Privileges and Immunities?
- [Professor Hawley] The Privileges and Immunities clause
has been one that's subject to
a number of, sort of, debate,
in the courts and the academic literature.
But, basically, Privileges and Immunities have been
construed to be those sorts of things
that would go with citizenship.
So, the right to travel, for example,
is a Privilege and Immunity.
Those sorts of things.
- [Professor Chin] Occasionally in American history,
there have been moments where states
didn't wanna let citizens of other states come through,
so during the Depression
there was an effort by some states to
limit the migration of people from out of state to in state.
And the Supreme Court said that's not permissible.
It also protects the right to travel.
In 1999, the Supreme Court dealt with a case called
Saenz vs. Roe, and what that case was about is that
California had relatively generous
welfare benefits and California wanted to
set up its law
in such a way that it wouldn't encourage people
from other states to move to California
just to get the welfare benefits.
And, so, what they did is, they said,
that if you don't live in California,
if you're moving from out of state
and you apply for welfare benefits,
then we're gonna give you the welfare
benefits that you would have gotten
in your state for the first year.
We're not gonna give you the higher California benefits,
we're gonna give you whatever you would've gotten
where you came from.
That's unconstitutional and the Supreme Court said
that violates the Privileges and Immunities clause.
We're one county, one nation.
People are allowed to cross the borders whenever they want.
- [Kim] Interesting, but there's this second part of it
that says: No person held to Service
or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof,
escaping into another, shall, in Consequence
of any Law or Regulation therein,
be discharged from Service or Labour.
What is that all about?
- [Professor Hawley] That is one of the most unfortunate,
probably the most unfortunate clauses in our Constitution
and it's known as the Fugitive Slave clause
and that title is pretty descriptive.
If you have a slave, who is validly owned,
as it were in those days, under one states law and that
person escaped to a free state,
this clause gave the owner the right to
reclaim that slave and put them back
into, sort of, ownership in their own state.
- [Professor Chin] It is a sneaky way
of talking about slavery and
this compromise with slavery was necessary
to create the United States.
Slavery, the word, isn't used in the Constitution.
They only use these euphemisms,
these, sort of, complicated circumlocutions,
and there's an argument that there's a reason for that.
And the reason for that is
that a lot of the framers of the Constitution
didn't support slavery, opposed slavery.
They did think that it was important to have
a United States and to have a Constitution,
so they wanted to,
to do what was necessary to achieve that.
But they did the absolute minimum and they did it
in such a way
that, consciously, doesn't recognize
and legitimize the institution of slavery.
- [Kim] All right, so, then we get into
New States and Territories.
I think it was very forward-looking
of the framers to recognize that
new states wanna join the Union,
and then to provide a process for that.
Can you tell us a little bit about
what that process was like?
- [Professor Hawley] Article IV, Section Three, Clause One
provides the process for admitting new states.
Again, it recognizes that new states might
want to join the Union,
and it gives a wide latitude to Congress
for admitting new states.
Basically the process was that
a territory would indicate to the Congress
that it wished to become a state.
Then they would submit a constitution
and Congress would approve the new state.
But the Constitution, itself, in Article IV, places
some limitationa on that.
Some of the Eastern states were concerned
that the large Western territories
might become too influential.
They had a couple of provisions that no new state
could be created out of an old state,
nor could parts of states be combined
to form a new state unless there was consent
from all of the involved states.
- [Professor Chin] And it's not so clear that, that
purchase of territory from foreign governments
was a power that was granted in the Constitution to anyone.
Thomas Jefferson, who was the President
at the time of the Louisiana Purchase,
had doubts that the Louisiana Purchase was Constitutional.
He thought that it was a great idea to purchase
all that land, from France,
but he thought that it would require
a Constitutional Amendment for the United States
to have that power.
This is different from Texas joining the Union.
But the House and the Senate didn't have
the same qualms that President Jefferson did
and, so, they agreed
to approve the Louisiana Purchase and to fund it.
When the bill got to Thomas Jefferson's desk, he signed it.
- [Kim] Moving on to Section Four,
there's this promise, here, that the federal government
will guarantee every state a Republican Form
of Government, and shall protect each of them
against invasion or domestic violence.
What does this mean?
- [Professor Hawley] We see here, in Article IV,
the end of Article IV, a really, sort of, famous
and important promise to each of the individual states.
The federal government is promising
to basically aid them in
keeping a Republican form of government.
As we'll remember, Benjamin Franklin famously said,
We've given you a republic if you can keep it.
(Kim laughs)
- [Professor Chin] When we talk about invasion,
when Section Four talks about invasion,
it's pretty clear that what they're talking about is
invasion by some hostile state.
And, of course, during this period,
there was continuing conflict with England.
And the idea is that if New York
or South Carolina gets
invaded by England, that's not just that particular state's
problem, it's the nation's problem and
the national government has an obligation
to protect against invasion.
- [Kim] And I imagine it also prevents someone from,
for example, declaring themselves the king of Maryland.
- [Professor Chin] The Republican Form of
Government clause does that.
It leaves the details to the states,
but the basic idea is that there has; the, the,
the concept of Republican government
that's embodied in Article IV is majority rule.
That even if there were free and fair elections,
the state could not choose
to have military or hereditary government.
Even if everybody in California got together
and said, you know, what we really need is a,
a good family that generation after generation
will lead us, and they will be
the, the kings and queens of California,
and this is what we want
and so, we're going to amend our Constitution
to provide for hereditary leadership in our state.
And we're gonna find somebody great and this
is what we wanna do.
Article IV would say,
we can't choose to do that,
even through Democratic means.
- [Kim] As we've learned, Article IV
requires states to give Full Faith and Credit
to the legal proceedings of other states,
and to treat the citizens of other states
as well as they treat their own citizens.
It provides a process for adding new states into the mix
and guarantees a Republican Form of Government
to the citizens of all the states.
Article IV binds the United States together,
so it's not just a collection of independent states,
but rather a unified nation.
To learn more about Article IV,
visit the National Constitution Center's
interactive Constitution and Khan Academy's
resources on U.S. government and politics.