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If you can find a single reference in the Bill of Rights -- or even the U.S. Constitution as a whole -- to a "freedom to travel," then you might have a point.

It is impossible for people to "assemble" without traveling to the point of assembly. The freedom of the people to assemble is explicitly guaranteed in the First Amendment. Q.E.D.

If you can find a single reference in the Bill of Rights -- or even the U.S. Constitution as a whole -- to a "freedom to travel," then you might have a point.-Alberta's Child

Now to agree with you, steve. Just because something isn't in the Bill of Rights or the Constitution, doesn't mean it isn't a right. Did Americans have no freedom of speech or religion in the years between the ratification of the Constitution and the ratification of the Bill of Rights?

Frankly, I'm getting tired of "conservatives" assuming that just because a right isn't specifically enumerated in the Bill of Rights, it isn't a right. After all, are we not "endowed by [our] Creator with certain unalienable Rights"? Note, endowed by our Creator, not by the government. We had these rights before the Bill of Rights was ever written, and as they are "unalienable", would be endowed with those rights even if the Bill was repealed.

The Bill of Rights itself was controversial at the time it was written, as many of the founders saw that it was unnecessary. The Constitution as it was originally written did not call upon the people to cede their rights to the authority of the federal or state governments. Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist #84, "Here, in strictness, the people surrender nothing; and as they retain every thing they have no need of particular reservations." We didn't need a Bill of Rights because those rights weren't the Constitution's to grant!

So, frankly, I'm sick and tired of people using the Bill of Rights to deny liberty, by pointing out that this specific right or that one isn't technically present in the document. We receive our rights from God, not from a piece of paper. Sorry to go way off topic, but this is something that has been bothering me for some time.