Taxation, beyond all doubt, is the exercise of a sovereign power, and it must be admitted that all subjects over which the sovereign power of a State extends are objects of taxation; but it is equally clear that those objects over which it does not extend are exempt from State taxation, from which it follows that the means and instruments of the general government are exempt from taxation. McCulloch v. Maryland, supra.

Tonnage duties on ships by the States are expressly prohibited, but taxes levied by a State upon ships or vessels owned by the citizens of the State as property, based on a valuation of the same as property, are not within the prohibition, for the reason that the prohibition, when properly construed, does not extend to the investments of the citizens in such structures.

Duties of tonnage, says Cooley, the States are forbidden to lay; but he adds that the meaning of the prohibition seems to be that vessels must not be taxed as vehicles of commerce, according to capacity, it being admitted that they may be taxed like other property. Cooley, Const. Lim. (4th ed.), 606.

"Vessels are taxable as property," says the same author; and he adds that "possibly the tax may be measured by the capacity, when they are taxed only as property and not as vehicles of commerce;" which may be true if it clearly appears that the tax is to the owner in the locality of his residence, and is not a tax upon the ship as an instrument of commerce. Cooley, Taxation, 61.

"Whatever more general or more limited view may be entertained of the true meaning of this clause," says Mr. Justice Miller, "it is perfectly clear that a duty, tax, or burden imposed under the authority of the State, which is by the law imposing it to be measured by the capacity of the vessel, and is in its essence a contribution claimed for the privilege of arriving and departing from a port in the United States, is within the prohibition." Cannon v. New Orleans, 20 Wall. 577; Peete v. Morgan, 19 id. 581; State Tonnage Tax Cases, 12 id. 204.

Decided cases of the kind everywhere deny to the States the power to tax ships as the instruments of commerce, but they all admit, expressly or impliedly, that the State may tax the owners of such personal property for their interest in the same. Corresponding views are expressed by Mr. Burroughs in his valuable treatise upon Taxation. He says that vessels of all kinds are liable to taxation as property in the same manner as other personal property owned by citizens of the State; that the prohibition only comes into play where they are not taxed in the same manner as the other property of the citizens, or where the tax is imposed upon the vessel as an instrument of commerce, without reference to the value as property. Burroughs, Taxation, 91; Johnson v. Drummond, 20 Gratt. (Va.), 419.

Property in ships and vessels, say the Court of Appeals of Mary

land, before the Federal Constitution was adopted, was within the taxing power of the State; and they held that such property since that time, when belonging to a citizen of the State living within her territory and subject to her jurisdiction, and protected by her laws, is a part of his capital in trade, and, like other property, is the subject of State taxation. Howell v. The State, 3 Gill (Md.), 14; Perry v. Torrence, 8 Ohio, 522.

Beyond all doubt, the taxes in this case were levied against the owners as property, upon a valuation as in respect to all other personal property, nor is it pretended that the taxes were levied as duties of tonnage. Congress has prescribed the rates of measurement and computation in ascertaining the tonnage of American ships and vessels, and in the light of those regulations Burroughs says that the word "tonnage" means the contents of the vessel expressed in tons, each of one hundred cubical feet.

p. 89.

Homans says that the word has long been an official term, intended originally to express the burden that a ship would carry, in order that the various dues and customs levied upon shipping might be imposed according to the size of the vessel, or rather in propor tion to her capability of carrying burden. Homan's Dict., Com. and Nav., Tonnage.

Tested by these definitions and the authorities already cited, it is as clear as any thing in legal decision can be, that the taxes levied in this case are not duties of tonnage, within the meaning of the Federal Constitution. Taken as a whole, the contention of the plaintiffs is not that the taxes in question are duties of tonnage, but their proposition is that ships and vessels, when duly enrolled and licensed for the coasting trade, are not subject to State taxation in any form, and that the owners of the vessels cannot be taxed for the same as property, even when valued as other personal property, as the basis of State or municipal taxation.

Opposed as that theory is to the settled rule of construction, that the commercial clause of the Constitution neither confers, regulates, nor prohibits taxation, it is not deemed necessary to give the theory much further consideration. Gibbons v. Ogden, supra. By that authority it is settled that the power to tax, and the power to regulate and prohibit taxation, are given in the Constitution by separate clauses, and that those powers are altogether separate and distinct from the power to regulate commerce; from which it follows, as a necessary consequence, that the enrolment of a ship or vessel does not exempt the owner of the same from taxation for his interest in the ship or vessel as property, upon a valuation of the same as in the case of other personal property.

Judgment affirmed.

SECTION III. — NATURALIZATION.

BOYD v. THAYER.

143 United States, 135. 1892.

[A PROCEEDING by information was instituted in the Supreme Court of Nebraska by Thayer, who had been governor of the State and was entitled to hold the office until his successor was duly elected and qualified, to question the right of Boyd, who claimed to have been duly elected and to be qualified to hold that office. By the Constitution of Nebraska it is provided that no one shall be eligible as governor who has not for two years been a citizen of the United States and of the State. Relator claimed that respondent was not such citizen, and demurred to the answer setting up facts relied on to show such citizenship. The Supreme Court of Nebraska sustained this demurrer and entered up judgment of ouster as against respondent, reinstating the relator. A writ of error was thereupon sued out of the Supreme Court of the United States by Boyd, by which he sought to have the action of the State court reviewed on the ground that it involved the denial of a right or privilege under the Constitution and laws of the United States. The court, MR. JUSTICE FIELD, dissenting, held that the case was within its jurisdiction. Only so much of the opinion is given as is necessary to present the views of the court on the subject of naturalization.]

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE FULLER delivered the opinion of the court.

Naturalization is the act of adopting a foreigner, and clothing him with the privileges of a native citizen, and relator's position is that such adoption has neither been sought nor obtained by respondent under the acts of Congress in that behalf.

Congress in the exercise of the power to establish a uniform rule of naturalization has enacted general laws under which individuals may be naturalized, but the instances of collective naturalization by treaty or by statute are numerous.

Thus, although Indians are not members of the political sovereignty, many classes of them have been made citizens in that way. Elk v. Wilkins, 112 U. S. 94. By the treaty of September 27, 1830, provision was made for such heads of families of the Choctaws as desired it, to remain and become citizens of the United States. 7 Stat. 335. By the treaty of December 29, 1835, such individuals

and families of the Cherokees as were averse to a removal west of the Mississippi and desirous to become citizens of the States where they resided were allowed to do so. Ibid. 483. By the act of Congress of March 3, 1843, it was provided that on the completion of certain arrangements for the partition of the lands of the tribe among its members, "the said Stockbridge tribe of Indians, and each and every of them, shall then be deemed to be, and from that time forth are hereby declared to be, citizens of the United States, to all intents and purposes, and shall be entitled to all the rights, privileges, and immunities of such citizens." 5 Stat. 647, c. 101, § 7. And such was the act of March 3, 1839, 5 Stat. c. 83, pp. 349, 351, relating to the Brothertown Indians of Wisconsin.

The act of Congress approved February 8, 1887, 24 Stat. 388, c. 119, was much broader, and by its terms made every Indian situated as therein referred to, a citizen of the United States.

Manifestly the nationality of the inhabitants of territory acquired by conquest or cession becomes that of the government under whose dominion they pass, subject to the right of election on their part to retain their former nationality by removal or otherwise, as may be provided.

All white persons or persons of European descent who were born in any of the colonies, or resided or had been adopted there, before 1776, and had adhered to the cause of independence up to July 4, 1776, were by the declaration invested with the privileges of citizenship. United States v. Ritchie, 17 How. 525, 539; Inglis v. Trustees of Sailors' Snug Harbor, 3 Pet. 99. In McIlvaine v. Coxe's Lessee, 4 Cranch, 209, it was held that Mr. Coxe had lost. the right of election by remaining in New Jersey after she had declared herself a State, and had passed laws pronouncing him to be a member of the new government; but the right itself was not denied. Shanks v. Dupont, 3 Pet. 242.

Under the second article of Jay's treaty (8 Stat. 116, 117), British subjects who resided at Detroit before and at the time of the evacuation of the Territory of Michigan, and who continued to reside there afterwards without at any time prior to the expiration of one year from such evacuation declaring their intention of becoming British subjects, became ipso facto to all intents and purposes American citizens. Crane v. Reeder, 25 Mich. 303.

By section three of Article IV. of the Constitution, "new States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union." The section, as originally reported by the committee of detail, contained the language: "If the admission be consented to, the new State shall be admitted on the same terms as the original ones. But the legislature may make conditions with the new States concerning the public debt which shall be then subsisting." These clauses were stricken out, in spite of strenuous opposition, upon the view that wide latitude ought to be given to the Congress, and the denial of

any attempt to impede the growth of the western country. Madison Papers, 5 Elliot, 381, 492, 493; 3 Gilpin, 1456.

And paragraph two was added, that "the Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to prejudice any claims of the United States, or of any particular State."

By article three of the treaty of Paris of 1803 (8 Stat. 200, 202), it was provided that "the inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be incorporated in the Union of the United States, and admitted as soon as possible, according to the principles of the Federal Constitution, to the enjoyment of all the rights, advantages, and immunities of citizens of the United States; and in the meantime they shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty, property, and the religion which they profess."

It was said by Mr. Justice Catron, in his separate opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. 393, 525: "The settled doctrine in the State courts of Louisiana is, that a French subject coming to the Orleans Territory, after the treaty of 1803 was made, and before Louisiana was admitted into the Union, and being an inhabitant at the time of the admission, became a citizen of the United States by that act; that he was one of the inhabitants contemplated by the third article of the treaty, which referred to all the inhabitants embraced within the new State on its admission. That this is the true construction I have no doubt."

In Desbois's Case, 2 Martin, 185 (decided in 1812), one Desbois, of French birth, applied for a license to practise as a counsellor and attorney at law in the Superior Courts of Louisiana, and by one of the rules of the court the applicant could not be admitted unless he was a citizen of the United States. Desbois conceded that he had no claim to citizenship by birth nor by naturalization under the acts of Congress to establish a uniform rule on that subject, but he contended that there was a third mode of acquiring citizenship of the United States, namely, the admission into the Union of a State of which he was a citizen. He contended that as he had, in the year 1806, removed to and settled with his family in the city of New Orleans in the Territory of Orleans, in contemplation of the enjoyment of all the advantages which the laws of the Territory and of the United States held out to foreigners removing into that Territory, and had ever since considered it as his adopted country, he had become a citizen under the act of Congress of March 2, 1805, further providing for the territorial government of Orleans, the enabling act of February 20, 1811, and that of April 8, 1812, admitting the State.

Judge Martin, who delivered the opinion of the court, referred among other things to the fact that the act of Congress authorizing