States cannot grant citizenship.

The term "citizenship" as

used in the federal Constitution.

62. The National Character of Citizenship*

Although in common usage we speak of a person's being a citizen of a particular state, there is in actual fact no such thing as state citizenship in the strict sense in which the term is used in international law. Citizenship is national in character, and states cannot interfere with the methods by which it is acquired or lost. The original Constitution, however, was not explicit in its terms as to citizenship, nor is the Fourteenth Amendment referring to it exhaustive in its provisions. The subject, confused as it is, has received the following general treatment by the Supreme Court:

The Constitution of the United States, as originally adopted, uses the words "citizen of the United States," and "naturalborn citizen of the United States." By the original Constitution, every representative in Congress is required to have been "seven years a citizen of the United States," and every Senator to have been "nine years a citizen of the United States"; and "no person except a natural-born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President." The Fourteenth Article of Amendment, besides declaring that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside," also declares that "no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." And the Fifteenth Article of Amendment declares that "the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any State, on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." The Constitution nowhere defines the meaning of these words, either by way of inclusion or exclusion, except in so far as this is done by the affirmative declaration that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,

are citizens of the United States." In this, as in other respects, it must be interpreted in the light of the common law, the principles and history of which were familiarly known to the framers of the Constitution.

By the Constitution of the United States, Congress was empowered "to establish an uniform rule of naturalization." In the exercise of this power, Congress, by successive acts, has made provision for the admission to citizenship of three principal classes of persons: First. Aliens, having resided for a certain time "within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States," and naturalized individually by proceedings in a court of record. Second. Children of persons so naturalized, "dwelling within the United States, and being under the age of twentyone years at the time of such naturalization." Third. Foreignborn children of American citizens, coming within the definitions prescribed by Congress.

The real object of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, in qualifying the words, "All persons born in the United States," by the addition, "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof," would appear to have been to exclude, by the fewest and fittest words, (besides children of the members of the Indian tribes, standing in a peculiar relation to the National Government, unknown to the common law,) two classes of cases children born of alien enemies in hostile occupation, and children of diplomatic representatives of a foreign State both of which, as has already been shown, by the law of England and by our own law, from the time of the first settlement of the English colonies in America, had been recognized exceptions to the fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the country.

The Fourteenth Amendment affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory, in the allegiance and under the protection of the country; including all children here born of resident aliens, with the exceptions or qualifications (as old as the rule itself) of children of foreign sovereigns or their ministers, or born on foreign public ships, or

Three classes of

persons

admitted to citizenship.

Persons not subject to the jurisdiction of the

United

States.

Who are

natural-born citizens.

Two sources of citizenship.

of enemies within and during a hostile occupation of part of our territory, and with the single additional exception of children of members of the Indian tribes owing direct allegiance to their several tribes. The Amendment, in clear words and in manifest intent, includes the children born, within the territory of the United States, of all other persons, of whatever race or color, domiciled within the United States. Every citizen or subject of another country, while domiciled here, is within the allegiance and the protection, and consequently subject to the jurisdiction, of the United States. To hold that the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution excludes from citizenship the children, born in the United States, of citizens or subjects of other countries, would be to deny citizenship to thousands of persons of English, Scotch, Irish, German or other European parentage, who have always been considered and treated as citizens of the United States. The Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, in the declaration that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside," contemplates two sources of citizenship and two only: birth and naturalization. Citizenship by naturalization can only be acquired by naturalization under the authority and in the forms of law. But citizenship by birth is established by the mere fact of birth under the circumstances defined in the Constitution. Every person born within the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof becomes at once a citizen of the United States and needs no naturalization. A person born out of the jurisdiction of the United States can only become a citizen by being naturalized, either by treaty, as in the case of the annexation of foreign territory; or by authority of congress, exercised either by declaring certain classes of persons to be citizens, as in the enactments conferring citizenship upon foreign-born children of citizens, or by enabling foreigners individually to become citizens by proceedings in the judicial tribunals as in the ordinary provisions of the naturalization acts.

www

citizens

given full

The power of naturalization, vested in Congress by the con- Naturalized stitution, is a power to confer citizenship, not a power to take it away. "A naturalized citizen," said Chief Justice Marshall, rights. "becomes a member of the society possessing all the rights of a native citizen, and standing, in the view of the constitution, on the footing of a native. The constitution does not authorize congress to enlarge or abridge those rights. The simple power of the national legislature is to prescribe a uniform rule of naturalization, and the exercise of this power exhausts it so far as respects the individual."

1 It will be noted, however, that a naturalized citizen cannot be President or Vice President.

CHAPTER IX

Article II of the

federal Constitution.

The

Twelfth

Amendment.

THE NOMINATION AND ELECTION OF THE PRESIDENT

63. Constitutional Provisions Relating to the Election of the President

THE mode of selecting the chief magistrate of the United States, Hamilton stated in The Federalist, was almost the only part of the new scheme of government which escaped without severe censure or received the slightest mark of approbation from its opponents. Nevertheless, it has been the only part of the national machinery which has been amended, and, in its actual operation, it has departed completely from the ideas of its designers. The following constitutional provisions, however, form the starting point for the study of the subject:

1. The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his office during the term of four years, and, together with the Vice-President, chosen for the same term, be elected as follows:

2. Each State shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of senators and representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress; but no senator or representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States, shall be appointed an elector.

[1. The electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same State with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and