ization, as effective in its operation as any special act passed by Congress for the admission to Federal citizenship of any person or persons ineligible (1) to receive it under the ordinary rules and methods of acquisition (2).

ABRIDGED PRIVILEGES OF NATURALIZED CITIZENS.

Presumptively there is no difference or distinction between one Federal citizen and another. The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution made the native-born and the naturalized citizens of the United States equal, and prohibited the States, in their separate and independent capacity, from abridging their privileges or immunities. For all that, the Federal Constitution abridges the privileges and immunities of the naturalized citizen as compared with those enjoyed by the citizen of native birth, and an age limitation is placed also on the native-born.

(1) Such as an act admitting an Indian, or an Indian tribe, to Federal citizenship.

(2) The right of an alien inhabitant of a Territory entering Statehood, who has taken none of the s eps prescribed in the naturalization laws, to State and Federal citizenship under the provision contained in the Act of Admission of the Territory, to wit: "on an equal footing with the original States in all respects whatever," is being tested in the courts. James E. Boyd, a person of foreign birth, who had resided in Nebraska for over thirty-five years, was elected Governor of that State in 1890. His right to the office was, however, challenged on the ground that he was not a citizen of the United States, not having been naturalized, and the Supreme Court of Nebraska sustained the challenge, and ousted Boyd from office, whereupon he appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States. The appellant relies mainly on the fact that he was a resident of the Territory of Nebraska when it was admitted to the Union of States "on an equal footing with the original States in every respect whatever;" and that, as a result of the Act of Admission, he became a citizen of the State and of the United States, in the same manner, under the same circumstances, and on the same conditions as a resident of one of the original thirteen States became a citizen of the United States under the Articles of Confederation creating the Unlon, namely, that of being a free inhabitant, self-dependent and of good repute.

No naturalized citizen can ever be President of the United States; and in some of the States naturalized citizens are not eligible to the Governorship. As originally adopted, the Federal Constitution restricted eligibility to the Presidency to natural born citizens or citizens of the United States at the time of its adoption. But neither class could then attain the Presidency unless thirty-five years of age, and fourteen years a resident of the country. No foreign-born citizen at the time. of the formation of the government was, consequently, eligible unless he had participated in the struggle for independence, and had fully alienated himself from the mother country. But, on the qualifications of the Vice-President, the Constitution was silent. The possibility of a citizen who was ineligible to the Presidency by election, obtaining it by right of succession, was evidently apprehended by Congress in 1803, when it submitted the XIIth amendment to the Constitution of the United States to the Legislatures of the several States for ratification, for that amendment specifically provided that "no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States." But the death of President Garfield and the danger threatening the life of Vice-President Arthur, when he succeeded Garfield as Presid、 nt, showed clearly the necessity of extending still further the line of succession. Therefore, agreeably with the powers conferred by Clause 6, Sec. 1, Art II, of the Constitution, Congress, in 1886, provided more fully for the succession

to the Presidency. In case of removal, death, resignation or inability of the President or Vice-President, this act of Congress directs that the office devolve, first, upon the Secretary of State, and in case of his inability, for any reason, to perform its duties, it shall pass, successively, upon similar conditions, to the Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of War, Attorney-General, PostmasterGeneral, Secretary of the Navy, and Secretary of the Interior. If, however, any one of these officers should be of foreign birth, the Presidency passes to the next name in the list. Thus the exclusion of the naturalized citizen was made more complete and thorough, and the possibility of the head of the Government falling into the hands of a person of foreign birth was forever removed.

A naturalized citizen cannot hold a seat in the House of Representatives until he has been seven years a citizen of the United States. Nor can a native-born sit in the House unless he shall have attained the age of twentyfive.

A naturalized citizen cannot be a Senator of the United States unless he shall have been nine years a citizen of the United States; nor can a native-born unless he shall have attained the age of thirty years.

The allegiance of a native-born citizen can be transferred with a change of sovereignty, but that of a naturalized citizen can not be so transferred (see p. 9).

In the registration of a vessel, owned in part or in whole, by a Federal citizen, there is some discrimination

against the naturalized citizen, and his privileges are abridged.

No vessel shall be entitled to be registered as a vessel of the United States, or, if registered, to the benefits of registry, if owned in whole or in part by any person naturalized in the United States, and residing for more than one year in the conntry from which he originated, or for more than two years in any foreign country, unless such person be a consul or other public agent of the United States.-Rev. Stats. U. S., Sec. 4134.

WHO ARE INELIGIBLE to feDERAL CITIZENSHIP.

Although the Declaration of Independence—the foundation stone of American liberty and nationality-declared "that all men are born equal," Congress never deemed it prudent to recognize this universal equality in the human family, when it exercised the authority vested in it by the Federal Constitution, and provided an uniform rule for the naturalization of such members of the various races as were, by the accident of birth, brought under the jurisdiction of other governments, but who desired to abandon their natural allegiance and swear fealty to the United States as their adopted country. In determining who should be eligible, Congress was originally influenced to adopt the color line as the standard, limiting eligibility to "free whites," because the black man was then in a state of bondage and degradation in several of the States, and, consequently, unfit to receive the boon of citizenship and incapable of exercising, of his own free will and accord, its rights and privileges, had he possessed it; and the red man-the original possessor of the soil—was still in a state of savagery and incapable of appreciating and intelligently exercising and enjoying

the rights and privileges of a civilized state, which citizenship would have conferred upon him. The abolition of slavery gave the black man an opportunity, as a free and responsible member of the body politic, to demonstrate his fitness for citizenship, and his capability to exercise its rights and privileges, whenever citizenship should be conferred upon him. And so far as the man of African nativity and African descent is concerned, he is unaffected by any color line now existing, and he stands on the same constitutional level as the 'free white," in his relations to Federal citizenship.

Chinese Ineligible.

But the red man and the yellow man-the Indian and the Mongolian-are still outside the pale of statutory eligibility to Federal citizenship; the former, because he is still in a savage or tribal state and largely in a condition of helpess dependency; the latter, because he does not assimilate with the white and black races and refuses to adopt our form of civilization and submit to our social customs. There was, however, a brief period in the history of the country when even Chinese, notwithstanding the objections stated, were eligible to citizenship. This was brought about by a revision of the United States Statutes, by Congress, June 22, 1874, when, through an oversight of the revisers, the words, "being a free white person," were omitted from the section in the naturalization laws declaring that "any alien, being a free white person, may be admitted to become a citizen." Through this