17, 275.

concurring), That the following article be proposed to the legislatures of the several States as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which, when ratified by three-fourths of said legislatures, shall be valid, to all intents and purposes, as a part of the said Constitution, namely:"-[Here follows the amendment.]

And whereas it appears from official documents on file in this department that the amendment to the Constitution of the United States proposed, as aforesaid, has been ratified by the legislatures of the States of Illinois, Rhode Island, Michigan, Maryland, New York, West Virginia, Maine, Kansas, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio, Missouri, Nevada, Indiana, Louisiana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Vermont, Tennessee, Arkansas, Connecticut, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Alabama, North Carolina, and Georgia; in all twenty-seven States:

And whereas the whole number of States in the United States is thirty-six; and whereas the before specially-named States, whose legislatures have ratified the said proposed amendment, constitute three-fourths of the whole number of States in the United States:

Now, therefore, be it known that I, WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State of the United States, by virtue and in pursuance of the second section of the act of Congress, approved the twentieth of April, eighteen hundred and eighteen, entitled "An act to provide for the publication of the laws of the United States and for other purposes," do hereby certify that the amendment aforesaid has become valid, to all intents and purposes, as a part of the Constitution of the United States.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the Department of State to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this eighteenth day of December, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixtyfive, and of the independence of the United States of America, the ninetieth.

[L. S.]

WILLIAM H. SEWARD,
Secretary of State.

This proclamation is given to show the views of the executive, that the seceded States had a right to vote upon the amendment, and did in fact, make up the number necessary to put it into operation. The President had previously given notice, that no State would be regarded as restored until it adopted this amendment. Seward's dispatch to the governor of Florida.

List of States which have ratified the amendment to the Constitution prohibiting slavery, &c., and given official notice thereof, with the respective dates of ratification:

In 1865.-Illinois, Feb. 1; Rhode Island, Feb. 2; Michigan, Feb. 2; Maryland, Feb. 1, 3,; New York, Feb. 2, 3,; West Virginia, Feb. 3; Maine, Feb. 7; Kansas, Feb. 7; Massachusetts, Feb. 8; Pennsylvania, Feb. 8; Virginia, Feb. 9; Ohio, Feb. 10; Missouri, Feb. 10; Nevada, Feb. 16; Indiana, Feb. 16; Louisiana, Feb. 17; Minnesota, Feb. 8, 23: Wisconsin, March 1; Vermont, March 9; Tennessee, April 5,7; Arkansas, April 20; Connecticut, May 5;

New Hampshire, July 1; South Carolina, Nov. 13; Alabama, Dec. 2; North Carolina, Dec. 4; Georgia, Dec. 9; Oregon, Dec. 11; California, Dec 20; Florida, Dec. 28 In 1866.-New Jersey, Jan. 23; Iowa, Jan. 24.

It will thus be seen that the States which have not ratified the amendment are Delaware, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Texas. Delaware alone, of these, gave notice through the governor, of the rejection. Governor Parker of New Jersey, gave notice of rejection on the first of December, 1865; but the same State afterward ratified it.

Because of this amendment Congress had the right to pass the Civil Rights Bill to secure the citizenship of the negro. Smith v. Moody, 26 Ind. 307.

In the matter of Elizabeth Turner, on Habeas Corpus, by ChiefJustice Chase (Maryland, 1867). And because of the Civil Rights Bill, the United States Circuit Court had jurisdiction of a Habcas 6, 18, 220. Corpus case, to relieve a child of color from an apprenticeship, under the laws of Maryland, which were in conflict with that law.

Id.

The apprenticeship, among other things, allowed the assignment of the apprentice's services by the master, with the sanction of the orphan's court. The Chief-Justice said: "The following propositions seem to me to be sound law, and they decide the case: First. The first clause of the thirteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States interdicts slavery and involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, and establishes freedom as the constitutional right of all persons in the United States. Second. The alleged apprenticeship in the present case is involuntary servitude within the meaning of these words in the amendment." Id.

This amendment is the last one made. It trenches directly upon the power of the States and of the people of the States. It is the first and only instance of a change of this character in the organic law. United States v. Rhodes (by Justice Swayne, Kentucky, Oct. T. 1867).

206, 220-222

The act of Congress (the Civil Rights Bill) confers citizenship. Who are The Constitution uses the words "citizen" and "natural born citizens of of the citizen;" but neither that instrument nor any act of Congress United has attempted to define their meaning. In Johnson's Dictionary, States? "citizen" is thus defined: "(1) A freeman of a city; not a 18, 19, 85, 46, foreigner; not a slave; (2) a townsman, a man of trade; not a 98,169, 205a, gentleman; (3) an inhabitant; a dweller in any place." In Jacob's Law Dictionary (edition of 1783) the only definition given is as follows: "Citizens (cives) of London are either freemen or such as reside and keep a family in the city, &c.; and some are citizens and freemen, and some are not, who have not so great privileges as others. The citizens of London may prescribe against a statute because their liberties are re-enforced by statute. (1 Roll. 105.)" Id. "The word civis, taken in the strictest sense, extends only to him that is entitled to the privileges of a city of which he is a member, and in that sense there is a distinction between a citizen and an inhabitant within the same city, for every inhabitant there is not a citizen." (Scott qui tam v. Swartz, Com. Rep. 68.) Id.

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A citizen is a freeman who has kept a family in a city." (Roy v. Hanger, 1 Roll. Rep. 138, 149.) Id.

What was

the Ameri

220.

"The term citizen, as understood in our law, is precisely analogous to the term subject in the common law; and the change of phrase has entirely resulted from the change of government. The sovereignty has been changed from one man to the collective body of the people, and he who before was a subject of the king is now a citizen of the State." (The State v Manuel, 4 Dev. & Batt. 26.) Id. "During the war each party claimed the allegiance of the natives the effect of of the colonies as due exclusively to itself. The Americans insisted can Revolu- upon the allegiance of all born within the States, respectively; and tion upon Great Britain asserted an equally exclusive claim. The treaty of citizenship? 1783 acted upon the state of things as it existed at that period. It took the actual state of things as its basis. All those, whether natives or otherwise, who then adhered to the American States, were virtually absolved from their allegiance to the British crown, and those who then adhered to the British crown were deemed and held subjects of that crown. The treaty of peace was a treaty operating between the States on each side, and the inhabitants thereof: in the language of the seventh article, it was a 'firm and perpetual peace between his British majesty and the said States, and between the subjects of the one and the citizens of the other.' Who then were subjects or citizens was to be decided by the state of facts. If they were originally subjects of Great Britain and then adhered to her, and were claimed by her as subjects, the treaty deemed them such; if they were originally British subjects, but then adhering to the states, the treaty deemed them citizens." (Shanks v. Dupont, 3 Pet. 247.) United States v. Rhodes (Justice Swayne).

All persons born in the allegiance of the king are natural born subjects, and all persons born in the allegiance of the United States are natural born citizens. Birth and allegiance go together. Such is the rule of the common law, and it is the common law of this country as well as of England. There are two exceptions, and only two, to the universality of its application. The children of ambassadors are, in theory, born in the allegiance of the powers the ambassadors represent, and slaves, in legal contemplation, are property, and not persons. (2 Kent's Com. 3d ed. 1; Calvin's Case, 7 Coke, 1; 1 Black. Com. 366; Lynch v. Clark, 1 Sandf. Ch. Rep. 139.) The common law has made no distinction on account of race or color. None is now made in England nor in any other Christian country of Europe. The fourth of the articles of confederation, (ante, p. 10) quoted; also Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. 575. Id. When the Constitution was adopted, free men of color were clothed with the franchise of voting in at least five States, and were a part of the people whose sanction breathed into it the breath of life. (Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. 573; The State v. Manuel, 2 Dev. & Batt. 24, 25.) United States v. Rhodes.

"Citizens under our Constitution and laws mean free inhabitants born within the United States or naturalized under the laws of Congress." (1 Kent's Com. 292, note.) It is further said in the note in 1st Kent's Commentaries, before referred to: "If a slave born in the United States be manumitted or otherwise lawfully discharged from bondage, or if a black man born in the United States become free, he becomes thenceforward a citizen, but under such disabilities as the laws of the several States may deem it expedient to prescribe to persons of color." Id.

In the case of the State v. Manuel it was remarked: "It has been 18, 220. said that, by the Constitution of the United States, the power of naturalization has been conferred exclusively upon Congress, and therefore it cannot be competent for any State by its municipal regulations to make a citizen. But what is naturalization? It is the removal of the disabilities of alienage. Emancipation is the removal of the incapacity of slavery. The latter depends wholly upon the internal regulations of the State. The former belongs to the government of the United States. It would be dangerous to confound them." (The State v. Manuel, 2 Dev. & Batt. 25; The State v. Newcomb, 5 Iredell, 253.) Id.

We cannot deny the assent of our judgment to the soundness of the proposition, that the emancipation of a native-born slave by removing the disability of slavery made him a citizen. If these views be correct, the provision in the act of Congress conferring citizen-ship was unnecessary and is inoperative. Granting this to be so, it was well, if Congress had the power, to insert it, in order to prevent doubts and differences of opinion which might otherwise have existed upon the subject. We are aware that a majority of the court in the case of Scott v. Sandford, arrived at conclusions different from those we have expressed. But in our judgment these points were not before them. They decided that the whole case, including the agreed facts, was open to their examination, and that Scott was a slave. This central and controlling fact excluded all other questions, and what was said upon them by those of the majority, with whatever learning and ability the argument was conducted, is no more binding upon this court as authority than the views of the minority upon the same subjects. (Carroll v. Carroll, .16 How. 287.) Id.

Citizenship has no necessary connection with the franchise of What is the voting, eligibility to office, or indeed with any other rights, civil or po- effect of citizenship litical. Women, minors, and persons non compos are citizens, and not upon the less so on account of their disabilities. In England, not to advert suffrage? to the various local regulations, the new reform bill gives the right 18, 220. of voting for members of Parliament to about eight hundred thousand persons from whom it was before withheld. There, the subject is wholly within the control of Parliament. Here, until the 13th amendment was adopted, the power belonged entirely to the States, and they exercised it without question from any quarter, as absolutely as if they were not members of the Union. Id.

Our attention has been called to several treaties by which Indians were made citizens; to those by which Louisiana, Florida, and California were acquired, and to the act passed in relation to Texas. 220, 230, 117. All this was done under the war and treaty-making powers of the Constitution, and those which authorize the national government to regulate the territory and other property of the United States, and to admit new States into the Union. (American Ins. Co. v. Canter, 1 Pet. 511; Cross v. Harrison, 16 How. 164; 2 Story's Const 158.) Id.

Congress has power "to establish an uniform rule of naturali'zation." Art. 1, Sec. 8. After considerable fluctuation of judicial opinion it was finally settled, by the Supreme Court, that this

98.

267.

220-223.

188.

85,

89.

195.

power is vested exclusively in Congress. (Collet v. Collet, 2 Dall. 294; United States v. Velati, Dall. 370; Golden v. Prince, 3 Wash. C. C. 313; Chirac v. Chirac, 2 Wheat. 259; Houston v. Moore, 2 Wheat. 49; Federalist, No. 32.) United States v. Rhodes. Id. An alien naturalized is "to all intents and purposes a natural born subject." (Co. Litt. 129.) Id. "Naturalization takes effect from birth; denization from the date of the patent." (Vin. Ab. Tit. Alien, D.) Id.

The form under the English act of Parliament appears in Godfrey v. Dickson, Cro. Jac. 539, c. 7. Under the late act, a resident alien may accomplish the object by a petition to the Secretary of State for the Home Department Id.

The power is applicable only to those of foreign birth. Alienage is an indispensable element in the process. To make one of domestic birth a citizen, is not naturalization, and cannot be brought within the exercise of that power. There is an universal agreement of opinion upon this subject. (Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. p. 578; 2 Story's Const. 44.) Id. It was well remarked by one of the dissenting judges, in Scott v. Sandford, 19 Howard, 586, in regard to the African race: "The Constitution has not excluded them, and since that has conferred on Congress the power to naturalize colored aliens, it certainly shows that color is not a necessary qualification for citizenship under the Constitution of the United States." Id. The Constitution. 10th amendment, and clause 2 of Sec. 2, Art. IV., and generally the notes thereon (ante, notes 220, 221), quoted. Id.

What the several States under the original Constitution only could have done, the nation has done by the thirteenth amendment. An occasion for the exercise of this power by the States may not, perhaps cannot, hereafter arise. United States v. Rhodes.

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The thirteenth amendment quoted, and the same rules of interpretation applied to APPROPRIATE LEGISLATION." That is. " propriate" is equivalent to "necessary and proper." (McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 421-423.) Id. The rule in the United States v. Coombs, 12 Pet. 72; United States v. Holliday, 3 Wall. 407; United States v. Beavan, 3 Wheat. 390; Prigg v. Pennsylvania, 16 Pet. 60; quoted and applied as to the general power. Id. [Out of its place it may be noted, that under the power to regulate commerce, it has recently been ruled, that the power extends to commerce on land, carried on by railroads which are parts of lines of inter-State communication, as well as to commerce carried on by vessels, and such railroads may be regulated by Congress as well as steamboats. By Associate Justice Miller, in Gray v. Clinton Bridge, American Law Register (January, 1868), pp. 149154. The power to regulate commerce is the power to regulate the instruments of commerce. (Cooley v. The Board of Wardens, 12 How. 316.) Id. And it extends to railroads as well as steamboats. Id.]

Since the organization of the Supreme Court, but three acts of Congress have been pronounced by that body void for unconstitutionality. (Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cr. 137; Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. 393; Ex parte Garland, 4 Wall. 334.) United States v. Rhodes.

The present effect of the amendment was to abolish slavery