Paul v. Virginia

1. The OCR of this opinion appears not to have gone perfectly. On several occasions, I have manually corrected the content of the opinion.

2. Notice that this opinion deals with two issues: (1) the privileges and immunities clause of Article IV (NOT the 14th amendment one) and (2) the commerce clause.  The opinion on the rights of corporations under the privileges and immunities clause of Article IV is in 2019 still GOOD law. The opinion on the commerce clause has since been overruled.

3. It's a little muddled, isn't it, about whether the court is saying that insurance is inherently not commerce at all or whether this particular transaction is not interstate commerce. It looks more like the former to me. It doesn't end up mattering too much because the Supreme Court later removes all doubt: insurance is not commerce at all within the meaning of the Constitution. And such is the law until, as you will see in the next case, 1944. Thus, during the formative years of the American insurance industry, insurance was regulated exclusively by the states.