The court held that the state could not impose such a restriction because: "The theory upon which our political institutions rest is. that all men have certain inalienable rightsthat among these are life. liberty and the pursuit of happiness. and that in the pursuit of happiness all avocations. all honors. all positions. are alike open to everyone. and that in the protection of these rights all are equal before the law." In many decisions following the Cummings case. the court struck down state imposed restrictions on the occupations of Chinese laundrymen. railroad men. teachers. and Japanese fishermen. In 1915. the right to work was declared to be plain and selfevident principle of American Constitutional Law by Justice Charles Evans Hughes in Truax v. Raich. 239 U.S. 33. holding that a state may not deny to foreign born residents the ordinary means of earning a livelihood. As therein stated: "It requires no argument to show that the right to work for a living in the common occupations of the community is of the very essence of the personal freedom and opportunity that it was the purpose of the [Fourteenth] amendment to secure." The Supreme Court of Florida expressed the principle very well in Carpenters District Council v. Miami Chapter.
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foreign born