EXPATRIATION, the act or state of banishment from one's native country; also the voluntary renunciation of the rights and liabilities of citizenship in one country to become the citizen or subject of another. In the early part of the 19th century, the United States was almost the only nation that claimed for indi viduals the right of expatriation with out the consent of the government of which they were citizens or subjects. The European nations, as a rule, main tained that the permission of the sover eign was necessary; and the enforcement by England of this claim was one of the causes of the War of 1812. It must be said, however, that notwithstanding the position of the United States in regard to citizens or subjects of foreign powers, the right of voluntary renunciation of allegiance to the United States by one of our citizens was unsettled, so far as legislation was concerned, till the act of Congress of July 27, 1868, asserted that expatriation "is a natural and in herent right of all people," but the ac tion of the Department of State had previously seemed practically to admit the right. As far as foreign States are
concerned, however, the United States has steadily maintained its original posi tion. The first formal recognition of its claims was secured in an expatriation treaty with the North German Confed eration, signed Feb. 22, 1868. England first recognized the right of voluntary expatriation by act of Parliament in 1870, and immediately concluded an ex patriation treaty with the United States. All the leading nations of Europe now recognize the right, including besides those just mentioned, France, Austria, Russia, Italy, and Spain.