VIII. SPECIAL PASSPORTS, § 528. IX. LOCAL PAPERS. 1. European countries, § 529. 2. American countries, § 530. XII. WAR REGULATIONS. 1. American Civil War, § 532. 2. Other cases, § 533. I. NATURE AND FUNCTIONS. § 492. A passport is the accepted international evidence of nationality. In its usual form, it certifies that the person described in it is a citizen or subject of the country by whose authority it is issued, and requests for him permission to come and go, as well as lawful aid and protection. Other documents, such as safe-conducts, letters of protection, and special passes for individuals, and even passes for vessels, are often referred to as passports, and not altogether inaccurately, since their object is to secure for the particular person or property freedom of movement and lawful protection. But these documents are used chiefly in war, and are granted on the strength of the personality rather than of the nationality of the individual, being issued, according to the circumstances of the case, even to enemies. The Attorney-General advised, in 1866, that the Secretary of State. was not authorized to furnish the owners of an American merchant vessel with a safe-conduct to the American ministers and naval officers in the East. A special passport or protection paper was, however, issued by Mr. Blaine, in 1890, to an American vessel going on a long and hazardous voyage; and certificates of American character are given to American-owned but foreign-built vessels. Such papers hardly fall within the provisions of the law relating to passports. The terms of the law obviously refer to certificates of nationality issued to individuals. b The Department of State seems in early times occasionally to have issued a certificate of citizenship, neither in the form nor in the nature of a passport. Thus Mr. Pickering, Secretary of State, certified under the seal of his Department, Aug. 3, 1796, that "Ferdinand Gourdon, of the city of Philadelphia, merchant, is, and for at least nine years last past has been, a citizen of the United States of America." Again, on Aug. 13, 1796, Mr. Pickering certified that it appeared "by authentic documents now before me," that on June 22, • Stanbery, At. Gen., 12 Op. 65. Supra, vol. 2, p. 1068. e Supra, § 323. 1784, "Andreas Everardus Vanbraam Houckgeest, before that time a subject of the United Netherlands, was duly admitted and became a citizen of the State of South Carolina, pursuant to the laws of that State, and consequently, by virtue of the Articles of Confederation, a citizen of the United States; " that no subsequent act appeared to have "divested him of his citizenship;" and that he therefore recognized " him as " a citizen of the United States of America." 9 MS. Dom. Let. 249, 265. For the form of the first passport found in the records of the Passport In 1866 two persons named Albee and Gordon, claiming to be American citizens, complained that the United States consul at Buenos Ayres had refused to give them duplicates of "protection papers" to secure to them their treaty rights as citizens of the United States. The action of the consul in refusing to issue "protection papers" was approved, passports being the only "protection papers" known to the law or sanctioned by the Department of State; and it was directed that the practice of granting so-called "protection papers," which seemed to have prevailed at the consulate, should be discontinued. It was stated, however, that "the Argentine Government or its agents might reasonably be expected to grant to the claimants some form of certificate of protection or safe-conduct such as is technically known as 'protection papers.'" Mr. Seward, Sec. of State, to Mr. Asboth, min. to Argentine Republic, No. 27, March 27, 1867, MS. Inst. Argentine Repub. XV. 275. In the course of this instruction, Mr. Seward said: 66 Passports are the only protection papers' known in the law, or sanctioned by this Department. What are technically called 'protection papers' are used in our international intercourse with uncivilized nations. Protection papers are a feature in the principle of asylum, which we maintain with barbarous or semicivilized states, but nowhere else." The passport is the only attestation of American nationality which the United States legation is authorized to give. Mr. Bayard, Sec. of State, to Mr. McLane, min. to France, July 2, 1885, See, to the same effect, Mr. Adee, Act. Sec. of State, to Mr. Terres, Sept. In reply to a request from a person for a letter to the United States minister in Germany recommending the person in question for protection in case he should return to Germany, the Department said that it never issued such a letter; that the only paper it issued to citizens going abroad, as an evidence to foreign governments of their nationality, was a passport. Mr. Blaine, Sec. of State, to Mr. Butterworth, March 4, 1890, 176 MS. "A passport is the only paper issued by the Department for the protection of a citizen " abroad. Mr. Foster, Sec. of State, to Mr. Clarke, M. C.,Dec. 20, 1892, 189 MS. Dom. "Passports are issued by this Department to naturalized citizens upon the production of the certificate of naturalization. There is no law of the United States requiring a passport to state when a naturalized citizen left the country of his birth, or to embody that statement in the passport. It has not been the practice of this Department to insert such a statement in the passports issued to former Turkish subjects or to any other naturalized citizens. A different course might imply that the right of the foreign government to participate in or to make the naturalization of its subjects conditional was acknowledged here. This it has never been and probably never will be." Mr. Bayard, Sec. of State, to Mr. Emmet, May 20, 1885, For. Rel. 1885, 847. "There is neither law nor regulation in the United States requiring those who resort to its territories to produce passports. Since the foundation of the Government such documents have never been required save in time of war, and resort to this restriction upon the freedom of travel was happily not found to be necessary during the recent hostilities with Spain. Neither is the production of a passport as evidence of identity or civil condition a requisite to residence in any of the several States of the Union. "The certificates issued to Chinese subjects coming to the United States are hardly an exception to this rule, being in the nature of certificates of identity and of individual right to enter the United States under the privileges granted by treaty between the United States and China to certain classes of Chinamen." Mr. Adee, Act. Sec. of State, to Sir J. Pauncefote, Brit. min., No. 1194, "It has been determined to inaugurate a new system by which no American citizen of foreign birth shall receive passports without being informed of those general provisions of law of the land of his birth which it is important for him to know before he returns to it. He will therefore receive with his passport a brief and easily comprehended statement applicable to his case." Mr. Hay, Sec. of State, to Mr. Herdliska, chargé at Vienna, Dec. 10, 1900, For the statements applicable to the various countries, see For. Rel. 1901, See, also, the chapter on Nationality, title Expatriation, supra, § 431 et seq. "As a means of controlling individuals, the efficacy of passports is questionable, for little or no impediment can exist to their procurement, either in a regular way upon proof of citizenship, or by subterfuge, by the few to whom precautionary measures might apply and who are interested in avoiding them, while upon the mass of honest travelers they impose an expensive and useless burden. Admitting that passports may serve as a check in certain cases, their usefulness in this sense is more than counterbalanced by the international considerations attaching to such documents. Passports are prima facie evidence of the individual's right as a citizen to the protection of the Government which issues them, and a special responsibility rests upon the Government that disregards such evidence. . The modern systems of travel, moreover, are on definite and regular lines of communication. Individuals traveling by separate conveyance from one country to another are rarely encountered, and to them the conditions of the passport system do not apply. By the aid of the electric telegraph instant notice can be given of anything like the formation of a hostile expedition, or even of the embarkation of a single dangerous individual." Mr. Bayard, Sec. of State, to Mr. Muruaga, Span. min., May 19, 1886, MS. Requiring on their part no such documentary evidence from persons landing in the United States from Spain or any of the Spanish dependencies, the United States cannot view the exaction of passports by Spain in the light of reciprocity; but, on the contrary, as a positive discrimination against their citizens, inasmuch as no passports are required in the Antilles of passengers from Europe or the British possessions in North America. "No interference is intended with the option of the individuals in providing himself with any convenient means of establishing his citizenship and identity. In the event of proof of American citizenship becoming necessary, proper identification can be made, or a passport issued whenever specially required. I draw a distinction between the right of the citizen to obtain from his government evidence of correlative allegiance and protection and the exaction by a foreign govern ment of such evidence in respect only of the citizens or subjects of a particular country." Mr. Bayard, Sec. of State, to Mr. Muruaga, Span. min., May 19, 1886, See, also, Mr. Bayard, Sec. of State, to Mr. Foster, min. to Spain, No. 336, "The question of national discrimination is broadly involved, and I do not understand Señor Muruaga's declaration as meeting the disfavor shown by demanding from travelers leaving the United States passports which are not required in the case of persons going to Cuba from other countries. My recent note to the Spanish minister has intimated the indisposition to accept as a reason for such discrimination the suggestion he appeared to imply, that residents in the United States are, more than in other countries, a source of peril to peace and order in the Antilles. This Government, of course, objects to any discrimination, no matter in what manner expressed, against its citizens." Mr. Bayard, Sec. of State, to Mr. Curry, June 14, 1886, MS. Inst. to Spain, "A recent dispatch from the United States consul-general at Havana communicates to me a number of letters addressed to him by American citizens who, having entered the island without the production of a passport being required as a condition of landing, have suffered considerable delay and some expense through the exaction of a passport as a condition of being permitted to quit the island. This rule appears to be enforced even when the passenger is merely in transit and transferred from one vessel to another for the purpose of making the continuous voyage between ports of the United States and Mexico. In nearly every instance the writers state that they had made inquiry at the United States port of sailing, and had been there informed that no passport was needed by them upon landing in Cuba, and that a permit to depart could be obtained through the consul of the United States, at a trifling cost, said in several of the letters to be 30 cents. The consul-general, however, reports the charge to be 30 cents for visé of a passport, and $4.05 for the issuance of a permit of departure when the party is unprovided with a passport. . I fail to see the justice of imposing restrictions and burdens upon the departure of American citizens from the island which are not imposed upon their landing, and I should be glad to hear that a more uniform and conspicuously rational rule has been adopted. May I trust that, in the interest of the large and mutually beneficial inter |