facts differ. Is it agreeable all round, that we should have such a talk, upon these terms and conditions?

JUDGE BYNUM. Perfectly so, to me; and I will undertake to vouch for the others. You see the Professor and the Major both nod their assent.

MR. STEPHENS. Well, then, before undertaking to answer your question, Judge, "how I could reconcile it with my sense of duty, to go with my State against the Union," which opens such a field of inquiry, allow me to premise, by making an observation or two on your remark about my being a citizen of the United States, and, as such, being bound by allegiance, as a loyal citizen (to use a popular phrase, so current just now), to obey the acts of that Government, as the supreme law of the land.

I agree with you in this, that allegiance and Paramount authority go together; that the first follows the latter. We shall have much to say on that, hereafter.

But, first, as to citizenship. Is there any such thing as citizenship of the United States, apart from citizenship of a particular State or Territory of the United States? We are To me it seems most clearly that there is not. all citizens of particular States, Territories, or Districts of the United States, and thereby only, citizens of the United States. I was a citizen of Georgia; being a citizen of Georgia, I became, thereby, a citizen of the United States, only because Georgia was one of the United States under the Constitution, which was the bond, or compact, of the Union between the States thus united. Had Georgia never united with the other States, her people would never have been, in any sense of the word, citizens of the United States.

JUDGE BYNUM. You do not mean to say that there is no such thing as being a citizen of the United States, except as a citizen of some 'one of the States or Territories?

MR. STEPHENS. Yes; that is exactly what I mean

to say.

JUDGE BYNUM. That is, certainly, a strange idea. What do you do with naturalized foreigners, who are, by the laws, made citizens of the United States?

MR. STEPHENS. They are, as you and I are, citizens of the United States, because of their being, under the laws, admitted to citizenship of some one of the States or Territories of the United States. The only power Congress has, under the Constitution, on this subject, is to make uniform rules of naturalization. That is, to prescribe uniform rules, which are to be the same in all of the States, by which foreigners may be permitted to become citizens of the several States or Territories. Before this power was delegated to Congress, each State, as all other Sovereign, independent nations, had the uncontrolled right to admit foreigners to citizenship, upon such terms as each, for itself, saw fit. In order that the same terms or conditions might exist in all the States, each State, in the Constitution, agreed to delegate the power to Congress, to make the rules on the subject of naturalization uniform in all of the States. This is the view of all writers upon the subject.

Mr. Rawle, in his admirable treatise on the Constitution of the United States, has well said, on the subject of citizenship, generally: "It cannot escape notice that no definition of the nature and rights of citizens appears in the Constitution." And then, on the subject of naturalization, and the reason of giving power to Congress over the subject, he says: "In the second section of the fourth article, it is provided that the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges

* Rawle on the Constitution, p. 85.

t

† Id., p. 84.

:

and immunities of citizens in the several States; and the same rule had been ambiguously laid down in the Articles of Confederation. If this clause is retained, and its utility and propriety cannot be questioned, the consequence would be that, if each State retained the power of naturalization, it might impose on all other States such citizens as it might think proper. In one State, residence for a short time, with a slight declaration of allegiance, as was the case under the former Constitution of Pennsylvania, might confer the rights of citizenship; in another, qualifications of greater importance might be required an alien, desirous of eluding the latter, might, by complying with the requisites of the former, become a citizen of a State in opposition to its own regulations ; and thus, in fact, the laws of one State become paramount to that of another. The evil could not be better remedied than by vesting the exclusive power in Congress." That is, of making the rule for admission to citizenship in each State uniform in all the States. The same view is clearly and strongly expressed by Judge Curtis, of the Supreme Court of the United States, in a very able and elaborate opinion upon questions of as much importance as were ever decided by that Court. I refer to the Dred Scott case, 19 Howard's Reports, 393. Here is what he says:

"It appears, then, that the only power Congress has concerning citizenship is confined to the removal of disabilities of foreign birth."

Judge Curtis, in support of his position, cites numerous authorities-The Federalist, No. 42; 12th Wheaton, 259, 269; 3d Washington, 313, 322; 12th Wheaton, 277; 3d Story on Constitution, 1-3; Rawle on the Constitution, 84-88; 1st Tucker's Blackstone, App., 255, 259.

When a foreigner, therefore, wishes to become a citizen

of any one of the States or Territories, he has to file his petition to this effect, according to the uniform rules established by Congress; and the Courts, in the State or Territory, whether Federal or State, have to conform to these rules, in admitting to citizenship, where the application is made. He then becomes possessed of all the rights, privileges and immunities pertaining to citizenship which are possessed by native-born citizens in that State or Territory, and no more. He then and thereby only becomes a citizen of the United States as nativeborn citizens so become, and no more. He cannot enter suit, in any of the United States Courts, for a redress of any wrong within their jurisdiction, any more than a native-born citizen, without stating distinctly that he is a citizen of some one of the States, and of which one. is, in every respect, after being naturalized in conformity to the uniform rules, as stated, on the same footing with native-born citizens. Of this class, Judge Curtis, further on in the same opinion, says: "The necessary conclusion is, that those persons, born within the several States, who, by force of their respective constitutions and laws, are citizens of the State, are thereby citizens of the United States." This covers the whole question. There is no such thing as general citizenship of the United States under the Constitution.

He

JUDGE BYNUM. That is not the general understanding upon this subject.

MR. STEPHENS. That may be, but it is certainly the understanding of the Supreme Court of the United States in repeated decisions, as well as the understanding of the ablest writers upon the subject; and it is very clear to my mind that it is the only true constitutional understanding of the subject. So much then for citizenship

and its necessary legitimate consequences, by way of premise, barely at this time.*

Secondly. Another observation now in the same way upon what you call the supreme law of the land. The Constitution does declare that "this Constitution and the laws of the United States made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made or which shall be made under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of

* Mr. Calhoun, in the United States Senate, expressed himself upon the subject, as follows:

"The Senator from Delaware (Mr. Clayton), as well as others, had relied with great emphasis on the fact, that we are citizens of the United States. I, said Mr. C., do not object to the expression, nor shall I detract from the proud and elevated feelings with which it is associated; but he trusted that he might be permitted to raise the inquiry, in what manner we are citizens of the United States, without weakening the patriotic feeling with which he trusted it would ever be uttered. If by citizen of the United States he meant a citizen at large, one whose citizenship extended to the entire geographical limits of the country without having a local citizenship in some State or Territory, a sort of citizen of the world, all he had to say was, that such a citizen would be a perfect nondescript; that not a single individual of this description could be found in the entire mass of our population. Notwithstanding all the pomp and display of eloquence on the occasion, every citizen is a citizen of some State or Territory, and, as such, under an express provision of the Constitution, is entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and it is in this, and in no other sense, that we are citizens of the United States. The Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Dallas), indeed, relies upon that provision in the Constitution which gives Congress the power to establish a uniform rule of naturalization; and the operation of the rule actually established under this authority, to prove that naturalized citizens are citizens at large, without being citizens of any of the States. He did not deem it necessary to examine the law of Congress upon this subject, or to reply to the argument of the Senator, though he could not doubt that he (Mr. D.) had taken an entirely erroneous view of the subject. It was sufficient that the power of Congress extended simply to the establishment of an uniform rule by which foreigners might be naturalized in the several States or Territories, without infringing, in any other respect, in reference to naturalization, the rights of the States as they existed before the adoption of the Constitution." Niles's Register, vol. xliii, Supplement 166.