Opinion of Thomas, J.
by the Continental Congress; and in the United States, by President Washington and every President since.
Historically, “passports were classed with those documents known as safe conducts or letters of protection, by which the person of an enemy might be rendered safe and inviolable.” Dept. of State, G. Hunt, The American Passport: Its History 3 (1898). Letters of safe conduct and passports performed different functions in England, but both grew out of the King's prerogative to regulate the “nation's intercourse with foreign nations,” see 1 Blackstone 251–253. The King issued letters of safe conduct during times of war, id., at 252, whereas passports were heirs to a tradition of requiring the King's license to depart the country, see, e. g., Richard II, Feb. 26, 1383, 2 Calendar of Close Rolls, pp. 281–282 (1920); 1 E. Turner, The Privy Council of England in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries 1603–1784, p. 151 (1927); see also K. Diplock, Passports and Protection in International Law, in 32 The Grotius Society, Transactions for the Year 1946, Problems of Public and Private International Law 42, 44 (1947).
Both safe conducts and passports were in use at the time of the founding. Passports were given “for . . . greater security” “on ordinary occasions [to] persons who meet with no special interference in going and coming,” whereas “safe-conduct[s]” were “given to persons who could not otherwise enter with safety the dominions of the sovereign granting it.” 3 E. de Vattel, The Law of Nations § 265, p. 331 (1758 ed. C. Fenwick transl. 1916) (emphasis deleted). Both were issued by the person exercising the external sovereign power of a state. See id., §§ 162, 275, at 69, 332. In the absence of a separate executive branch of government, the Continental Congress issued passports during the American Revolution, see, e. g., Resolution (May 9, 1776), in 4 Journals of the Continental Congress 340–341; Resolution (May 24, 1776), in id., at 385; as did the Congress under the Articles of Confederation, see, e. g., 25 id., at 859 (Jan. 24, 1783) (dis-
