Against this background the Court in 1941, in Edwards _v._ California,[953] held void a statute which penalized the bringing into that State, or the assisting to bring into it, any nonresident knowing him to be "an indigent person." Five Justices, speaking by Justice Byrnes, held the act to be even as to "persons who are presently destitute of property and without resources to obtain the necessities of life, and who have no relatives or friends able and willing to support them,"[954] an unconstitutional interference with interstate commerce. "The State asserts," Justice Byrnes recites, "that the huge influx of migrants into California in recent years has resulted in problems of health, morals, and especially finance, the proportions of which are staggering. It is not for us to say that this is not true. We have repeatedly and recently affirmed, and we now reaffirm, that we do not conceive it our function to pass upon 'the wisdom, need, or appropriateness' of the legislative efforts of the States to solve such difficulties. * * * But this does not mean that there are no boundaries to the permissible area of State legislative activity. There are. And none is more certain than the prohibition against attempts on the part of any single State to isolate itself from difficulties common to all of them by restraining the transportation of persons and property across its borders. It is frequently the case that a State might gain a momentary respite from the pressure of events by the simple expedient of shutting its gates to the outside world. But, in the words of Mr. Justice Cardozo: 'The Constitution was framed under the dominion of a political philosophy less parochial in range. It was framed upon the theory that the peoples of the several States must sink or swim together, and that in the long run prosperity and salvation are in union and not division'."[955] Four of the Justices would have preferred to rest the holding of unconstitutionality on the rights of national citizenship under the privileges and immunities clause of Amendment XIV.[956] STATE CONSERVATION AND EMBARGO MEASURES