Opinion of the Court. the United States to be entitled to civil rights and to equal protection before the law with others." Congressional Globe, 39th Congress, 1st sess. pt. 4, pp. 2890-2892. It does not appear to have been suggested, in either House of Congress, that children born in the United States of Chinese parents would not come within the terms and effect of the leading sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment. Doubtless, the intention of the Congress which framed and of the States which adopted this Amendment of the Constitution must be sought in the words of the Amendment; and the debates in Congress are not admissible as evidence to control the meaning of those words. But the statements above quoted are valuable as contemporaneous opinions of jurists and statesmen upon the legal meaning of the words themselves; and are, at the least, interesting as showing that the application of the Amendment to the Chinese race was considered and not overlooked. The acts of Congress, known as the Chinese Exclusion Acts, the earliest of which was passed some fourteen years after the adoption of the Constitutional Amendment, cannot control its meaning, or impair its effect, but must be construed and executed in subordination to its provisions. And the right of the United States, as exercised by and under those acts, to exclude or to expel from the country persons of the Chinese race, born in China, and continuing to be subjects of the Emperor of China, though having acquired a commercial domicil in the United States, has been upheld by this court, for reasons applicable to all aliens alike, and inapplicable to citizens, of whatever race or color. Chae Chan Ping v. United States, 130 U. S. 581; Nishimura Ekiu v. United States, 142 U. S. 651; Fong Yue Ting v. United States, 149 U. S. 698; Lem Moon Sing v. United States, 158 U. S. 538; Wong Wing v. United States, 163 U. S. 228. In Fong Yue Ting v. United States, the right of the United States to expel such Chinese persons was placed upon the grounds, that the right to exclude or to expel all aliens, or any class of aliens, absolutely or upon certain conditions, is an inherent and inalienable right of every sovereign and indepen Opinion of the Court. dent nation, essential to its safety, its independence and its welfare; that the power to exclude or to expel aliens, being a power affecting international relations, is vested in the political departments of the Government, and is to be regulated by treaty or by act of Congress, and to be executed by the executive authority according to the regulations so established, except so far as the judicial department has been authorized by treaty or by statute, or is required by the paramount law of the Constitution, to intervene; that the power to exclude and the power to expel aliens rest upon one foundation, are derived from one source, are supported by the same reasons, and are in truth but parts of one and the same power; and, therefore, that the power of Congress to expel, like the power to exclude aliens, or any specified class of aliens, from the country, may be exercised entirely through executive officers; or Congress may call in the aid of the judiciary to ascertain any contested facts on which an alien's right to be in the country has been made by Congress to depend. 149 U. S. 711, 713, 714. In Lem Moon Sing v. United States, the same principles were reaffirmed, and were applied to a Chinese person, born in China, who had acquired a commercial domicil in the United States, and who, having voluntarily left the country on a temporary visit to China, and with the intention of returning to and continuing his residence in this country, claimed the right under a statute or treaty to reënter it; and the distinction between the right of an alien to the protection of the Constitution and laws of the United States for his person and property while within the jurisdiction thereof, and his claim of a right to reënter the United States after a visit to his native land, was expressed by the court as follows: "He is none the less an alien, because of his having a commercial domicil in this country. While he lawfully remains here, he is entitled to the benefit of the guaranties of life, liberty and property, secured by the Constitution to all persons, of whatever race, within the jurisdiction of the United States. His personal rights when he is in this country, and such of his property as is here during his absence, are as fully protected by the supreme law of the land, as if he were a native or Opinion of the Court. naturalized citizen of the United States. But when he has voluntarily gone from the country, and is beyond its jurisdiction, being an alien, he cannot reënter the United States in violation of the will of the Government as expressed in enactments of the law-making power." 158 U. S. 547, 548. It is true that Chinese persons born in China cannot be naturalized, like other aliens, by proceedings under the naturalization laws. But this is for want of any statute or treaty authorizing or permitting such naturalization, as will appear by tracing the history of the statutes, treaties and decisions upon that subject - always bearing in mind that statutes enacted by Congress, as well as treaties made by the President and Senate, must yield to the paramount and supreme law of the Constitution. The power, granted to Congress by the Constitution, "to establish an uniform rule of naturalization," was long ago adjudged by this court to be vested exclusively in Congress. Chirac v. Chirac, (1817) 2 Wheat. 259. For many years after the establishment of the original Constitution, and until two years after the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, Congress never authorized the naturalization of any but "free white persons." Acts of March 26, 1790, c. 3, and January 29, 1795, c. 20; 1 Stat. 103, 414; April 14, 1802, с. 28, and March 26, 1804, с. 47; 2 Stat. 153, 292; March 22, 1816, c. 32; 3 Stat. 258; May 26, 1824, c. 186, and May 24, 1828, c. 116; 4 Stat. 69, 310. By the treaty between the United States and China, made July 28, 1868, and promulgated February 5, 1870, it was provided that "nothing herein contained shall be held to confer naturalization upon citizens of the United States in China, nor upon the subjects of China in the United States." 16 Stat. 740. By the act of July 14, 1870, с. 254, § 7, for the first time, the naturalization laws were "extended to aliens of African nativity and to persons of African descent." 16 Stat. 256. This extension, as embodied in the Revised Statutes, took the form of providing that those laws should "apply to aliens [being free white persons, and to aliens] of African nativity and to persons of African descent;" and it was amended by the act of February Opinion of the Court. 18, 1875, c. 80, by inserting the words above printed in brackets. Rev. Stat. (2d ed.) § 2169; 18 Stat. 318. Those statutes were held, by the Circuit Court of the United States in California, not to embrace Chinese aliens. In re Ah Yup, (1878) 5 Sawyer, 155. And by the act of May 6, 1882, c. 126, § 14, it was expressly enacted that "hereafter no state court or court of the United States shall admit Chinese to citizenship." 22 Stat. 61. In Fong Yue Ting v. United States, (1893) above cited, this court said: "Chinese persons not born in this country have never been recognized as citizens of the United States, nor authorized to become such under the naturalization laws." 149 U. S. 716. The Convention between the United States and China of 1894 provided that "Chinese laborers or Chinese of any other class, either permanently or temporarily residing in the United States, shall have for the protection of their persons and property all rights that are given by the laws of the United States to citizens of the most favored nation, excepting the right to become naturalized citizens." 28 Stat. 1211. And it has since been decided, by the same judge who held this appellee to be a citizen of the United States by virtue of his birth therein, that a native of China of the Mongolian race could not be admitted to citizenship under the naturalization laws. In re Gee Hop, (1895) 71 Fed. Rep. 274. The Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, in the dec-. laration 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 in 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 Opinion of the Court. 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. The power of naturalization, vested in Congress by the Constitution, is a power to confer citizenship, not a power to take it away. "A naturalized citizen," said Chief Justice Marshall, "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. The Constitution then takes him up, and, among other rights, extends to him the capacity of suing in the courts of the United States, precisely under the same circumstances under which a native might sue." Osborn v. United States Bank, 9 Wheat. 738, 827. Congress having no power to abridge the rights conferred by the Constitution upon those who have become naturalized citizens by virtue of acts of Congress, a fortiori no act or omission of Congress, as to providing for the naturalization of parents or children of a particular race, can affect citizenship acquired as a birthright, by virtue of the Constitution itself, without any aid of legislation. The Fourteenth Amendment, while it leaves the power, where it was before, in Congress, to regulate naturalization, has conferred no authority upon Congress to restrict the effect of birth, declared by the Constitution to constitute a sufficient and complete right to citizenship. No one doubts that the Amendment, as soon as it was promulgated, applied to persons of African descent born in the United States, wherever the birthplace of their parents might have been; and yet, for two years afterwards, there was no statute authorizing persons of that race to be naturalized. If the omission or the refusal of Congress to permit certain |