to have the privileges of citizenship in a second country, although he cannot sustain the same obligations to both. Is it also possible for him to renounce his country, and become a citizen of another, so far as even to be bound, like his fellowcitizens, to take up arms against the land of his birth? Most nations hold that this transfer of allegiance is possible, and embody the conditions of it in their naturalization laws. Even England, which long retained the doctrine of indelible allegiance, admitted strangers to citizenship (or to a less privileged relation) by special act or grant. (§ 70, infra.) But inasmuch as the conditions of naturalization vary, there may arise here a conflict of laws, and two nations may at once claim the same man as sustaining to them the obligations of a citizen. International law has not undertaken to decide in such conflicts, and the question is scarcely one of practical importance, except when the naturalized person returns to his native country, and when he is caught fighting against her. There is no doubt that a state, having undertaken to adopt a stranger, is bound to protect him like any other citizen. Should he return to his native soil, and be apprehended for the non-fulfillment of civic duties which devolved on him before his emigration, there would be no ground of complaint on that score. Should he be required anew to enter into the status of a citizen, in such sort as to renounce his allegiance to his new country, this force must be regarded by his adopted country, on her theory of civic rights, as a wrong calling for redress. Should he be subjected to ill-treatment when a captive in war, on the ground of fighting against his native country, here, too, there would be reason for retaliation. In short, the nation which has naturalized, and thus bound itself to protect a person, cannot abandon its obligation, on account of views of civic obligations which another nation may entertain. Whether anything short of completed naturalization can sunder the tie to the place of origin, may be a question. It is held that a domiciled stranger may not with impunity be found in arms against his native country. For the effects of 1 Kent, i., 76, Lect. iv. incipient naturalization compare the case of Koszta in the appendix to this chapter. The English practice in the earlier part of this century, of impressing seamen from neutral vessels, on the ground that they owed allegiance to their native sovereign, was objectionable, whether this doctrine of inalienable allegiance stands or falls; for to seize native-born sailors on foreign vessels, upon the sea, is to act the sovereign beyond one's own territory; it is to execute one's own laws where the laws of another sovereign are supreme. (Comp. § 221.) We add here the regulations of some of the more important countries in regard to naturalization.1 Rules of several nations as to naturalization. In England formerly an alien could cease to be such only in one of two ways, the first of which was by letters-patent of the crown constituting him a denizen, in which status he could purchase and devise lands, but received no capacity of holding political trusts, and was not altogether freed from burdens resting on aliens. The second way was naturalization by act of Parliament, which placed the person concerned in a slightly superior status to that of a denizen, yet did not qualify him to hold political trusts. A statute of 1844 (7 and 8 Vict., ch. 66), went further by allowing a secretary of state to confer on an alien, petitioning for naturalization, all the rights and capacities of a natural-born subject, except those of becoming a member of the Privy Council or of either house of Parliament. In 1870 (33 Vict., ch. 14), a new and very important statute gave to the alien all desirable facilities of becoming a British subject, and to the British subject the power of renouncing his nationality. By this statute an alien, after five years' residence in the United Kingdom, or service of the crown, who intends, if naturalized, to continue his residence or service, may apply to one of the principal secretaries of state for a certificate of naturalization. When thus naturalized, he becomes entitled to all the political rights and powers of a British subject, and is placed under all the obligations of a subject, with this qualification that within the limits of the state to which he for 1 Fœlix, Droit Intern. Privé, 3d ed., i., 81-100. merly belonged he shall not be deemed to be a British subject, unless he has ceased to be a subject of that state in pursuance of its laws or of a treaty to that effect. It is provided also that aliens naturalized according to the statute of 1844 may partake of the advantages of this new mode of naturalization. On the other hand, any British subject, naturalized in any foreign state, is deemed to have ceased to be a subject, and is regarded as an alien; and a British subject who has thus become an alien can be readmitted to British nationality on the same terms with other aliens, but with the qualification before noticed. Another article determines the status of married women and infant children. In August of the same year, and in conformity with this statute, a convention relative to naturalization was concluded between Great Britain and the United States. Subjects or citizens of either state may be naturalized in the other according to its laws, and after this they cease to retain their old national status; but may regain it like other aliens, and the same alternation of nationality may be renewed over and over.1 In France a stranger became a citizen by the Const. of 22d Frimaire, year VIII., when after reaching the age of twentyone, obtaining liberty of domicil, and declaring his intention to remain in France, he had resided there for ten consecutive years. His naturalization was also to be pronounced to be in force by the head of the state. In addition to this the child of foreign parents, born on French soil, may claim the quality of a Frenchman in the year succeeding his majority. Naturalization in a foreign country involves the loss of French citizenship.2 In Prussia an appointment to a public function brought the right of citizenship with it, and the same was the case in Aus 1 See the law and the treaty in Phillimore, Append. iv. of vol. i., and the treaty in the list of treaties of the United States (1871, p. 405). 2 Demangeat on Fœlix, i., 38, gives the then latest legislation on this subject. The term of ten years can be reduced to one in favor of inventors and others who confer important services on France. By a law of June 29, 1867, any foreigner, twenty-one years of age, to whom permission should be given to be domiciled in France, could enjoy all the rights of a French citizen after three years. tria, and perhaps elsewhere. In Prussia the higher adminis trative authorities had the right to naturalize strangers of good character who possess the means of subsistence, except ing Jews, subjects of other members of the Germanic confederacy, and persons incapable of taking care of themselves. In Austria leave to exercise a profession, ten years of residence, and the consent of the authorities, were prerequisites to naturalization. In both of the last-named states nationality is shaken off by emigration, for which permission has been obtained from the government. In Russia a simple oath of allegiance to the emperor formerly naturalized, but naturalized strangers can at any time renounce their national status and return to their own country. Since 1864, a foreigner must be domiciled five years before he can apply for naturalization. In the United States, the person wishing to be naturalized, must make a declaration on oath, before certain judicial persons, of an intent to become a citizen and to renounce his former nationality, two years at least after which, and after five years of residence, he may become a citizen in full of the United States, although not necessarily a citizen of any State in the Union. Between 1868 and 1870 quite a number of conventions were concluded between the United States and other powers, especially of Germany, all of them made after nearly the same pattern. Such are the treaties with the North German Union, Baden, Bavaria, Hesse, Würtemberg, with Belgium, Sweden, and Austria. The common term of uninterrupted residence is five years, before naturalization can be granted. The declaration of an intention to become a citizen has of itself no effect on the status of the person making it. If a naturalized person returns to the country where he first lived, he "remains liable to trial and punishment for an action punishable by the laws of his original country, and committed before his emigration, saving always the limitation established by its laws or any other remission of liability to punishment." In one or two of these conventions (as in those with Austria and Baden), the violations of military law incurred by emigration, and which still hung over the emigrant on his return after naturalization in the United States, are distinctly specified. These conventions put an end, probably, to all danger of carrying into effect the unwise reprisals authorized by our act of naturalization of 1868, which were intended to protect naturalized citizens of the United States, while visiting their original country. In many countries, a woman on her marriage to a native acquires nationality, and loses it on her marriage to a foreigner. In the laws of some countries, wives and minor children follow, as a thing of course, the status of the head of the family, and the son of a foreign resident born and brought up on the soil has peculiar facilities of naturalization. § 71. Domicil being more a legal than a political term, has had nearly the same, although a somewhat vague defini- Domicil, tion, always and everywhere. A definition of Ro- what? man law is expressed in these terms: "In eo loco singulos habere domicilium non ambigitur, ubi quis larem rerumque ac fortunarum suarum summam constituit, unde rursus non sit discessurus si nihil avocat, unde quum profectus est peregrinari videtur, quo si rediit peregrinari jam destitit.”1 According to Savigny," it is the place which a man has freely chosen for his durable abode, and thereby also as the centre of his jural relations and of his business." But in the case of a minor, who can exercise no jural choice in the matter, his domicil is held to be that of his father. The domicil, says Vattel, "is the habitation fixed in any place, with the intention of always staying there. A man then does not establish his domicil in any place unless he makes sufficiently known his intention of fixing himself there, either tacitly or by an express declaration. And yet, this declaration is no reason 1 C. J. C., 10, 39. L. 7, De Incolis. Fœlix, i., 54. |