Until comparatively recent times, except in the United States, the right of a citizen to cast off his natural allegiance, the allegiance into which he is born, was generally denied by the States of the world.

This denial was made, but not always enforced in practice, in England down to the time of her Naturalization Act of 1870. Blackstone in his Commentaries declared: "It is a principle of universal law that the natural-born subject of one prince cannot, by any act of his own, no, not by swearing allegiance to another, put off or discharge his natural allegiance to the former; for this natural allegiance is intrinsic, and primitive, and antecedent to the other, and cannot be divested without the concurrent act of that prince to whom it was first due. Indeed, the natural-born subject of one prince, to whom he owes allegiance, may be entangled by subjecting himself absolutely to another; but it is his own act that brings him into these straits and difficulties, of owing service to two masters; and it is unreasonable that, by such voluntary act of his own, he should be able at pleasure to unloose those bands by which he is connected to his natural prince."

The statute 3 Jac. 1, chap. 4, provided that promising obedience to any other prince, State, or potentate, subjected the person so doing to be adjudged a traitor, and to suffer the penalty of high treason.

In respect to the naturalization law of the United States, passed in 1795, Lord Grenville wrote to our minister, Rufus King: "No British subject can, by such a form of renunciation as that which is prescribed in the American law of naturalization, divest himself of his allegiance to his sovereign. Such a declaration of renunciation made by any of the King's subjects would, instead of operating as a protection to them, be considered an act highly criminal on their part.2

1 In addition to the general authorities on citizenship, see chapter VII (The Maintenance Of Federal Supremacy By The Removal Of Suits From State To Federal Courts. 65. Right Of Removal) of Moore's American Diplomacy, and the address of Hon. Oscar S. Straus entitled "The United States Doctrine of Citizenship and Expatriation" before the American Social Science Association, 1901.

The assertion by England of this principle with reference to her subjects who had become naturalized American citizens was one of the causes of the War of 1812.3

In a proclamation issued in 1807, the King declared: "Now we do hereby warn all mariners, seafaring men, and others our natural-born subjects, that no such letters of naturalization or certificates of citizenship do or can in any manner divest our natural-born subjects of the allegiance or in any degree alter the duty which they owe to us, their lawful sovereign."

In the treatv of Ghent which marked the conclusion of this war no mention, one way or the other, was made of this English doctrine; but in future England ceased to enforce her claims in an arbitrary manner against English born, but American naturalized, citizens.

By the act of 1870 England definitely abandoned the doctrine. By that statute it is recognized that by voluntarily assuming citizenship in another State, British citizenship is lost, though such change of allegiance is not to operate to discharge the expatriated one from liability for acts or defaults committed prior to expatriation. The act also provides for the naturalization of resident aliens of countries whose laws or treaties permit expatriation, and declares such naturalized citizens entitled to the protection of Great Britain everywhere except in the respective countries of" their original allegiance.

2 2 Am. State Tap., p. 149; Fitch v. Weber, 6 Hare, p. 61.

3 Moore (Op. Cit., p. 173) calls attention to the fact that the dispute over impressment as a whole did not involve the crucial point of the later controversies as to expatriation. "The burden of the complaint in regard to impressment," writes Moore, "as defined in Madison's war message of June 1. 1812. was that Great Britain sought, under cover of belligerent right, to execute her municipal law of allegiance on board the ships of other countries on the high seas, where no laws could operate ' but the laws of the country to which the vessels belong.' Precisely the same position was maintained by Webster in his correspondence with Lord Ashburton in 1842. Ships on the high seas are treated, for purposes of jurisdiction, as if they were part of the territory of the nation to which they belong. The complaint that the British Government enforced the. English law of allegiance on board of American vessels on the high seas was manifestly a different theory from objecting to her enforcement of the same law within British jurisdiction."

By a number of foreign States, among them Turkey and Russia, the doctrine of inalienable allegiance is still asserted. In many others it is partially upheld. "With most of these countries the United States has entered into special treaties governing the subject of naturalization.4