act or event indicating his election of United States citizenship when he arrived at full age. He has exhibited no such proof of an election, on arriving at full age, of United States citizenship as now entitles him to a passport. An election, in a case of dual or doubtful allegiance, which is the utmost which can be claimed in the present case, must be made on attaining majority, or shortly afterwards, and must be signified by acts plainly expressive of intention, such as immediate preparations to return to the elected country." Mr. Bayard to Mr. Lee, July 24, 1886, MSS. Inst. to Austria, 2 Wharton, International Law Dig. 401, 402.

In the Case of Steinkauler, 15 Ops. Atty. Gen. 18, who was born in the United States of German parents and taken to Germany at the age of four years, and who was called upon to report for duty in the German army when twenty years of age, Attorney General Pierrepont said: "Young Steinkauler is a native-born American citizen. There is no law of the United States under which his father or any other person can deprive him of his birthright. He can return to America at the age of twenty-one, and in due time, if the people elect, he can become President of the United States. I am of opinion that when he reaches the age of twenty-one years he can then elect whether he will return and take the nationality of his birth, with its duties and privileges, or retain the nationality acquired by the act of his father.

This seems to me to be 'right reason,' and I think it is law." In view of the fact that the son was domiciled with the father, and subject to him under the law during his minority, and as he declined to give any assurance of intention of ever returning to the United States and claiming his American nationality by residence here, the Attorney General held that he could not rightfully invoke the aid of this government to relieve him from military duty in Germany dur

ing his minority.

See also Case of Blesch, For. Rel. 1877, p. 247, and the Case of Pipping's Sons, For. Rel. 1899, pp. 600,

603.

François Heinrich was born in the United States of Austrian parents, and was taken to Austria when two years of age, where he remained for twenty years, when he was called upon to render military service. He claimed exemption on the ground that he was an American citizen. There was in force between the United States and Austria a treaty of naturalization, providing that citizens of the one country, who have resided in the territories of the other uninterruptedly at least five years, and during such residence have become naturalized, shall be held to be citizens of the latter country. According to the Austrian law, the children born abroad to subjects of Austria are Austrians. Secretary Fish, upon the advice of Attorney General Williams (14 Ops. Atty. Gen. 154), held that, though François Heinrich was a native of this country, and as such originally clothed with American nationality, yet, having resided in Austria uninterruptedly far beyond the period mentioned in the treaty, and having at different times obtained passports from the Austrian government and traveled under its protection as an Austrian subject, he must be deemed to have acquired Austrian citizenship. Mr. Fish to Baron Lederer, December 24, 1872, For. Rel. 1873, p. 78.

Bernard J. Gautier, who claimed as an American citizen before the United States and Mexican claims commission, convention of 1868 (15 Stat. at L. 679), was born in Texas of French parents, and at the age of nineteen years removed to Mexico with his mother, a widow, where they established a commercial house. While in Mexico he presented to a commission, established under a treaty between Mexico and France, a claim as a French subject. The French and Mexican commission

considered him entitled to French nationality, and made an award in his favor. The United States and Mexican commission held that, as it did not appear that the parents of the claimant were naturalized during their residence in Texas, it was to be presumed that they retained their original French nationality; that the claimant, who left the United States before arriving at the age of twenty-one years, was entitled, according to the French Code, to retain the nationality transmitted by his parents; that the laws of Mexico did not forbid such election; but that he was not entitled to renounce his French nationality and elect that of the United States, after he had abandoned the latter country to establish himself in another, and after he lad made a valid act of adoption of French nationality. Moore, International Arbitrations, 2450.

In the case of Josef Georg Surmann, who was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1873, of a German father, and who, in 1874, was taken by his father to Germany where he had continued to reside, Secretary Olney, in 1896, said: "Josef Georg Surmann is, according to the Constitution and laws of the United States, a citizen thereof by birth. Conformably to a general rule of international law, followed by this Department in its special rulings in cases as they arise, the young man might, if sojourning in a foreign country, have been required, on attaining the age of twenty-one, to make formal option of allegiance. It does not appear whether he ever made such option, or was afforded an opportunity to do so. Were he now called upon to elect American allegiance, and were he to demonstrate his immediate purpose of returning to the United States, here to dwell and discharge the duties of citizenship, a passport might be issued to him by the United States ambassador at Berlin upon being satisfied of the bona fides of the case. Otherwise, following the precedents established for many years, to which you advert, this

Department would be constrained to regard Josef Georg Surmann as having voluntarily relinquished his right to continued protection as a citizen of the United States by reason of and during his prolonged and indefinite sojourn abroad after attaining majority." Mr. Olney to Mr. von Reichenau, November 20, 1896, For. Rel. 1897, p. 182.

CHAPTER II.

CITIZENSHIP BY BIRTH ABROAD TO AN AMERICAN FATHER.

5. General doctrine.

6. The father must have been a citizen at time of birth of child.

7. The father must have resided in the United States.

8. Dual citizenship of such children; election of nationality.

9. Illegitimate children.

5. General doctrine.- Citizenship is also conferred, by our law, upon children born in foreign countries, whose fathers are, at the time of their birth, citizens of the United States, and have at some time resided therein.

While Congress did not undertake, until 1866, to declare what constitutes citizenship by birth within the United States, one of the earliest laws enacted by the national legislature provided that "the children of citizens of the United States that may be born beyond the sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural-born citizens [of the United States]." 1 Stat. at L. 104, chap. 3.

It was almost universally conceded that citizenship by birth in the United States was governed by the principles of the English common law. It is very doubtful whether the common law covered the case of children born abroad to subjects of England. Statutes were enacted in England to supply this deficiency, or to remove the doubt which existed in regard to the matter. Hence, it was deemed necessary to enact a similar law in the United States to extend citizenship to children born to American parents out of the United States.

In 1795 the following provision was substituted for the lan

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