straints as the government may justly prescribe for the general good of the whole. The right of a citizen of one State to pass through or reside in any other State, for the purposes of trade, agriculture, professional pursuits, or otherwise; to claim the benefit of the writ of habeas corpus; to institute and maintain actions of every kind in the courts of the State; to take, hold and dispose of property, either real or personal; and an exemption from higher taxes or impositions than are paid by citizens of the other State, may be mentioned as some of the particular privileges and immunities of citizens which are clearly embraced by the general description of privileges deemed to be fundamental; to which may be added the elective franchise as regulated and established by the laws or constitution of the State in which it is to be exercised. These, and many others which might be mentioned are, strictly speaking, privileges and immunities, and the enjoyment of them by the citizens of each State in every other State was manifestly calculated (to use the expressions of the preamble of the corresponding provision in the old Articles of Confederation) "the better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and intercourse among the people of the different States of the Union."

cannot discriminate

citizens of other states.

It was undoubtedly the object of the clause in question to A state place the citizens of each State upon the same footing with citizens of other States, so far as the advantages resulting from against citizenship in those States are concerned. It relieves them from the disabilities of alienage in other States; it inhibits discriminating legislation against them by other States; it gives them the right of free ingress into other States and egress from them; it insures to them in other States the same freedom possessed by the citizens of those States in the acquisition and enjoyment of property, and in the pursuit of happiness; and it secures to them in other States the equal protection of their laws. It has been justly said that no provision in the Constitution has tended so strongly to constitute the citizens of the United States one people as this. (Lemmon v. People, 20 N. Y. 607.) Indeed, without

A citizen

cannot carry

special privileges into another

state.

The constitutional provision.

The governor of

Iowa asks for advice

some provision of the kind, removing from the citizens of each State the disabilities of alienage in other States, and giving them equality of privilege with the citizens of those States, the republic would have constituted little more than a league of States; it would not have constituted the Union which now exists.

But the privileges and immunities secured to citizens of each State in the several States by the provision in question, are those privileges and immunities which are common to the citizens in the latter States, under their constitution and laws, by virtue of their being citizens. Special privileges enjoyed by citizens in their own States are not secured in other States by this provision. It was not intended by the provision to give to the laws of one State any operation in other States. They can have no such operation, except by the permission, express or implied, of those States. The special privileges which they confer must, therefore, be enjoyed at home unless the assent of other States to their enjoyment therein be given.

61. Interstate Rendition

In order that criminals from one state may not be harbored in another state, the Constitution provides that "A person charged in any state with treason, felony, or other crime, who shall flee from justice and be found in another state, shall on demand of the executive authority of the state from which he fled be delivered up to be removed to the state having jurisdiction of the crime." The Supreme Court, however, has decided that there is no way of compelling a state governor to surrender a criminal, should he refuse to do so on demand, and, in actual practice, governors have a wide discretion in the matter. The following report from an attorneygeneral of Iowa illustrates how the requisitions of other states are looked into and on sufficient grounds may be disallowed:

SIRI beg to acknowledge the receipt of your communication of the 12th inst., containing a request that I examine the requisition made by the governor of Kentucky for the extradition of on a requisi- J. D. Wurtsbaugh, together with the evidence attached to the requisition, and advise you as governor of the state whether in

tion from

Kentucky.

my opinion such requisition should be honored and Wurtsbaugh returned to the state of Kentucky for trial for the offense claimed to have been committed in that state. In response to such request I beg to submit the following opinion:

committed

request from Ken

be denied.

The facts in the case, as disclosed by the undisputed evidence, The crime are these: [Here follows statement of facts]. . . . It is repug- eighteen nant to every sense of justice to say that where a person leaves a years ago. state in the ordinary course of his affairs without any attempt of concealment, and for eighteen years lives an upright life, he may then be arrested and returned to the state where the crime is claimed to have been committed eighteen years before, to be put on trial for that offense, unless he is charged with murder or treason. This view, as it appears to me, is based upon the soundest Why the principles of public policy; that is, if the authorities of a sister state desire the arrest and return of a fugitive from justice, the tucky should application therefore must be made within a reasonable time under all the circumstances of the case after the commission of the offense. The request now made by the governor of Kentucky for the arrest and return of J. D. Wurtsbaugh for an offense committed more than eighteen years ago in that state does not fall within this rule. If the authorities of Kentucky desired to try Mr. Wurtsbaugh for the offense of bigamy, an application for his return to that state should have been made with reasonable promptness after the offense was committed. Under all the circumstances of this case, I am of the opinion that Wurtsbaugh can not now be held to be a fugitive from justice under the provisions of the federal constitution.

The request of the governor of Kentucky should not, therefore in my opinion, be complied with, and Wurtsbaugh should not be arrested and returned to that state to answer the charge preferred against him. Respectfully submitted,

October 26, 1903.

To the Honorable A. B. Cummins,

Governor of Iowa.

CHAS. W. MULLAN,

Attorney-General.

States cannot grant citizenship.

The term "citizenship" as

used in the federal Constitution.

62. The National Character of Citizenship*

Although in common usage we speak of a person's being a citizen of a particular state, there is in actual fact no such thing as state citizenship in the strict sense in which the term is used in international law. Citizenship is national in character, and states cannot interfere with the methods by which it is acquired or lost. The original Constitution, however, was not explicit in its terms as to citizenship, nor is the Fourteenth Amendment referring to it exhaustive in its provisions. The subject, confused as it is, has received the following general treatment by the Supreme Court:

The Constitution of the United States, as originally adopted, uses the words "citizen of the United States," and "naturalborn citizen of the United States." By the original Constitution, every representative in Congress is required to have been "seven years a citizen of the United States," and every Senator to have been "nine years a citizen of the United States"; and "no person except a natural-born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President." The Fourteenth Article of Amendment, besides declaring that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside," also declares that "no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." And the Fifteenth Article of Amendment declares that "the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any State, on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." The Constitution nowhere defines the meaning of these words, either by way of inclusion or exclusion, except in so far as this is done by the affirmative declaration that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,

are citizens of the United States." In this, as in other respects, it must be interpreted in the light of the common law, the principles and history of which were familiarly known to the framers of the Constitution.

classes of

persons

By the Constitution of the United States, Congress was em- Three powered "to establish an uniform rule of naturalization." In the exercise of this power, Congress, by successive acts, has made admitted to provision for the admission to citizenship of three principal citizenship. classes of persons: First. Aliens, having resided for a certain time "within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States," and naturalized individually by proceedings in a court of record. Second. Children of persons so naturalized, "dwelling within the United States, and being under the age of twentyone years at the time of such naturalization." Third. Foreignborn children of American citizens, coming within the definitions prescribed by Congress.

Persons not subject to

United

States.

The real object of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, in qualifying the words, "All persons born in the United the jurisdicStates," by the addition, "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof," tion of the would appear to have been to exclude, by the fewest and fittest words, (besides children of the members of the Indian tribes, standing in a peculiar relation to the National Government, unknown to the common law,) two classes of cases children born of alien enemies in hostile occupation, and children of diplomatic representatives of a foreign State- both of which, as has already been shown, by the law of England and by our own law, from the time of the first settlement of the English colonies in America, had been recognized exceptions to the fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the country.

natural-born

The Fourteenth Amendment affirms the ancient and funda- Who are mental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory, in the citizens. allegiance and under the protection of the country; including all children here born of resident aliens, with the exceptions or qualifications (as old as the rule itself) of children of foreign sovereigns or their ministers, or born on foreign public ships, or