Show expatriation QUESTION p P lei izi LN ion lon I 1 0 N OP OF ATTORNEY GENERAL BLACK washington july attorney attorney y gener al black has in compliance with the request of the president of the united states rendered an opinion in the case of christian ernst ernat a native 9 of f hanover and who emigrated to country in 1851 when vahen he was waa about nineteen years of age this ibis subject was recently made the basis of a 1 communication to our minister at Berlin who was instructed to demand the release of mr ernst i it appears that he was naturalized last february and in march after procuring a regular passport past porty port he went back to hanover on a temporary i visit ile he had been in the village wh are lie lle feyas vas yas born about three weeks when he was arrested carried to the nearest military station forced into the hanoverian army and there he is at the present time unable to return home to his family and business but compelled against his will to perform military service the attorney general says that it is a case which makes it necessary for the government of he the united states to interfere promptly and decisively or acknowledge that we have no howerto power to protect naturalized citizens when they return to their native country under any circumstances whatever what you will do must of course depend upon the law law of our on OV country as controlled and modified by the law of lof nation the constitution of the united state states and the acts of congress the ile natural right of every free person who owes no debts and ia is not guilty of any crime to leave the country of his birth and in good lood faith and for an honest purpose the privilege ee e e of throwing off his natural alle aile allegiance elance Siance and a substituting u another allegiance b in its place the general right in one word of expatriation Is incontestable I 1 know that the common law of england denies it that the judicial decisions of that thab country are opposed to it and that some of our own courts misled by british authority have expressed though not very decisively the same opinion but bit all this is very far from settling the question the municipal code of england is not one of the uie sources from which we derive our knowledge knowledg e of international law we take it from natural reason and justice from writers of known wisdom and from the practice of civilized nations 1 all these are opposed to the doctrine of perpetual allegiance it is too injurious to the general interests of mankind to be ge tolerated justice denies that men should either be co confined to their native soil or driven away from it against their own will A man may be either exiled or imprisoned for an actual offense against the law of hh hii own country but being born in it is not a crime for which eith 11 er punishment can be justly inflicted amon among writers of public law the preponderance in weight of authority as well as the majority in number concurs with cicero who declares tint the right of expatriation is the firmest foundation of human freedom and with byn kere hoeck who utterly denies that the he territory of a state is the prison of her people in practice ti no nation on eartho tarth walks or tv yer er aid did walk by the rule ot oft the common law all the countries of europe edrop have received and adopted and naturalized naturalize 4 citizens of one adoth another er ahe the they T have all encouraged the immigration of foreigners foreigners into their territories and many of them vave lave have aided ilie ilia th emigration of their own people the germant states have conceded the ediete existence nce of the r right ight by making laws to re regulate 0 its exercise spain and the spanish am american states have always re cognized it england by a recent statute 7 and vic vie has baa established a permanent t system a of naturalization ini eni the tha very teeth af other common law rule france has done the same and besides that has declared in the code of napoleon the quality of a frenchman will be lost by naturalization in a foreign country there is no government in europe or america which practically denies the right here in the united states the thought of giving it up cannot be entertained for a moment ever since our independence we have upheld and maintained it by every form of words and acts we have consistently promised full and complete protection to all persons persona who should come here and seek it by renouncing in their natural allegiance and transferring their thein fealty to us we we stand pledged to it in the face 0 of the whole world upon the faith of that pledge millions of persons have staked their most important interests if we repudiate it now or spare one atom of the power which may be necessary to redeem it we shall be guilty of perfidy so gross that no american can witness it without a feeling of intolerable shame expatriation includes not only emigration i out of ones natural count naturalization n the country adopted as a fut fat ure residence when we prove the right of a man to expatriate himself we establish the lawful authority au authority thorit of the country in which he settles to natural naturalize him if the government pleas pleases es what then is naturalization there is no 0 dispute a bout about the meaning of it the derivation of the word alone makes it plain all lexicon rap raphers hersi herst and all jurists define it coneway in its popular etymological and lawful sense it signifies the act of adopting a foreigner and anil clothing clo cio hin him lim IM with all the privileges of a native citizen or sub subject act there can be e no 0 doubt doubts double that naturalization does pro facto place the native and adopted citizen in precisely the same relations with the government under which they live except so far aa as the express and positive law of t the e country has made a distinction in favor of one or the other in some countries immigration hs been so encouraged by giving to adopted citizens certain immunities and privileges not enjoyed by natives in most however political favors favors favora have gone the other way way her here none but a native can be president in some of our states foreign born citizens are aneli ineligible 0 i to the office of governor and in one of I 1 them they cannot even vote for two years after t they are naturalized but if these lestric 1 tlona tiona had not been expressly made by positive i enactments they certainly would not have existed in regard to the protection of our citizens in their rights at home and abroad we have no law which divides them into classes or makes any diffie difference rence whatever between them A native and a naturalized american may therefore go forth with equal security over every jbea sea and through every land under heaven in eluding he the country in which the latter was born either of them may be taken up under a debt contracted or a crime crime committed by himself but both are absolutely free from all political I 1 obligation obligations 3 to every country but their own the they are both of them american citi bleir zens and their exclusive allegiance is due to the government of the united state t tate ate one oie ole of them thera never did owe fealty elsewhere and the other at the time of his hia natural naturalization iza tion solemnly and rightfully in pursuance of public law and municipal regulation threw off renounced noun ced and abjured forever all alegi allegiance ance to every foreign prince pot potentate dentate S state wate tate and sovereignty ere igny whatsoever and especially to that sovereign whose su subject ece he had previously been if this did not work a solution of every political tie which bound him to his native country then our ri naturalization laws are a bitter mockery and the oath we administer to foreigners is a delusion and a snare there have been and are now persons persona of a i very high reputation who hold that a naturalized citizen ought to ta be protected by the government of his adopted country everywhere except in the country of his bir h b but if he goes there or is caught with the power of his natie native sovereign his ris act of naturalization may ba treated aa as mere nullity and cewill he will immediately cease to h have haye ave aye the right of an american citizens this cannot be true it has no foundation to rest upon and its ita advocates do donot not pretend that it nas has has any except the dogma which denies altogether the right of ex patria tion without the consent of his native sovereign and that is untenable as I 1 think I 1 have al already heady shown neither is this view supported su ted b by the them pra c tice of the world I 1 need not tsay say that our naturalization laws are opposed to it in their whole spirit as weil ivell as in their express words the state oc of europe are also practically committed against it no government donld allow one of its subjects to divide his allegiance between it and another sovereign for they all know that no man can serve two masters in europe as well ash as he rethe allegiance delaind ed of a naturalized resident must have been always understood as exclusive there are not many cases on record but what few we find are uniform and clear one alberti a frenchman na naturalized here went back and was arrested for an offense against the military law which none except a french subject could commit but he was discharged when his national character as an american citizen was shown A sin sir amther anther a native U acter after be ing in b naturalized in america and lived here for many years determined upon return returning ln to his native country and resuming his original po lotical status the bavarian government so far from ignoring 1 norin his naturalization expressed a doubt whether he could crould be re adopted there but the most decided fact which history records is the course of the british and american governments during the war of 1812 the prince regent proclaimed it as his determination that every native born subject of the british Crown taken prisoner while serving in the american ranks should be tried and executed as a traitor to his hig lawful sovereign this was undoubtedly right according to the common law doctrine the king of of england had not given his assent to the ex expatriation a tria tion of those people if the prince regent e had a right to arrest naturalized englishmen Scotch men or irishmen in canada as the king of hanover arrested mr ernst in his dominions and compel them to fight for him he certainly had a right to han them for fighting against him but mr gladison Sl madison adison denied this whole doctrine and all its consequences ile he immediately issued a counter proclamation declaring that if any naturalized citizen of the united states should be put to death on the pretence predence pre tence that he was still a british subject two eng english alish prisoners should dufferin suf summer suffer ferin in like manner by way of retaliation the prince I 1 re regents e n ts proclamation was never enforced in a single I 1 le instance A principle I 1 which our government successfully resisted under such circumstances cum curn stances will scarce scarcely lybe be submitted to now the application of these principles to the case of any naturalized citizen who returns to his hig native country is simple and easy enough he is liable like anybody else to be arrested for a debt or a crime but he cannot rightfully be e punished punished for the performance nonperformance non of a duty which is supposed to grow out of that allegiance which he has abjured and renounced if he was a deserter from the army he may be punished when he goes back because desertion is a crime on the other hand if he was not actually in the army at the time of his emi emigration gation gatlon but merely liable like other members of the state I 1 to be called on for his share of military duty which he did not perform because lie he left the country before the time for its performance came round he cannot justly be molested any arrest or detention of him on that account ought to be regarded as a graye grave offense to his adopted country what acts are necessary to make him part of the army what constitutes tit utes the crime of military desertion r whether a person drafted or notified but not actually serving servin may be called a deserter it he fails to report himself insela 9 these are questions which need not be cris discussed cussed until they arise but it may be said that the government of hanover has a right to make dier own laws and execute them in her own way this ills ig is strictly true of all laws which are intended to enforce the obligations and punish the eg es of her own awn people but a law which operates on the interests and rights of other states or peoples must be made and an d executed according to the law of nations A sovereign who tram tramples pes upon the public law of the world cannot excuse himself by pointing to a provision in his hia 0 own I 1 municipal code the ile municipal code of each country is the offspring of its own sovereign sovereigns will and public law must be paramount arp to local law in in every question where local laws are in conflict ff if hanover would make a legislative decree forbidding her people to emigrate or expatriate themselves vc upon pain of at death that would not take away the right of ot expatriation and any attempt to execute such a law upon one who has already become an american citizen would and ought to be met by prompt reclamation hanover hari Haji over probably has eoma some municipal regulation of her own by which the right of ex expatriation tria tion is denied to those of 04 her people who fall fail to comply with certain conditions bumb suming that such a re regulation Iu lation existed in 1834 1854 1851 1831 and assuming also mit nit that it was violated by mr sir ernst when an he came away the question will then arise whether the unlawfulness of his emi emigration ration makes his act of naturalization void vold as against the ung king of hanover I 1 answer no certainly not ile he ii Is an american amer ican citizen by our law if he violated the law of hanover which forbade hirn him to transfer his al ilance liance legi ance to us then the laws of the two coun count tries are in conflict a and add 11 d the law of nations steps in to de decide c ide the question upon principles and rules of its own by the public law of the world we have the undoubted right to naturalize a foreigner whether hla hia natural sovereign consented to his emigration or not in my opinion the hanoverian government cannot justify the arrest of mr ernst by showing that he emigrated contrary to the laws of that countr country V u unless I 1 it t can also be proved roved that the original right of expatriation depends on the consent at of the u natural a tural eign this latter proposition I 1 am sure no man can establish JAMES NUTT from england who arrived in captain stevenson Steven sons s company wishes to find his brother kother thomas Nutt who came to the valley some seven years asizee if it any person knawa where he lives or can be found elease report without delay to this odi Z |