The English law gives the citizenship to all persons who are born anywhere of a British citizen or of one whose father or father's father was a citizen of Great Britain. The English law also gives the citizenship to every person born in the British dominions ; which rule originated in the king claiming such persons as his subjects who were born within his dominions. (ALLE GIANCE.] In the earliest periods of English history, those were properly called subjects who may now properly be designated citizens ; though citizen ship in England must be divided into two kinds, as it was in Rome. Some native citizens do not enjoy the suffrage, nor are they eligible to certain offices, such for instance as a membership of the House of Commons. But these are not permanent and personal disabilities : they are temporary incapacities arising from not having a certain amount of property, and therefore the complete citizenship may be acquired by every man who can acquire the requisite property qualifica tion. It follows from what has been said that those who happen to be under this disability are not full citizens, but have a capacity to become such. Those who have not the suffrage are in the situation of subjects to that sovereign body, of which those who possess the suffrage form a part. The terms on which foreigners are admitted to the citizenship are different in different countries. A recent act of parliament (7 & 8 Viet. c. 76) has rendered the ac quisition of partial citizenship in Eng land much easier and less expensive than it was under the former process of a spe cial act of parliament. [NATIMIALIZA noN.] The United States of North America have had various rules as to the admis sion of aliens to citizenship ; but at pre sent they require a period of five years' residence as a preliminary to obtaining the citizenship. [ALIEN.] Some persons in that country would extend the period of probation to twenty-one years. This nowever would be a very impolitic mea sure, for if foreigners will throng to a country such as the United States, with the view of settling there, the best thing is to make them citizens as soon as they wish to become such ; and there would be manifest danger to the United States if the large number of foreigners who set tle there should be considered as aliens for a period which would extend to the whole term of the natural life of many of the new settlers. Indeed there seems to be no objection to giving to aliens in re publican governments, as soon as they choose to ask for them, all the rights and consequent duties of citizens, if they are ever to have them. It may be prudent to exclude aliens by birth from some of the high offices in a state, which is done in England and in the United States of North America. [ALIEN.] In ancient Rome, aliens were not al ways admitted to the MI rights of Roman citizens; and indeed in the early history of the state, even the Plebeians formed an order who were without many of the privileges which the Patricians en joyed. A person might receive the Roman
citizenship so far as to enjoy every advan tage except a vote at the public elections and access to the honours of the state. This however was not citizenship as understood by Aristotle, nor is it citizen ship as understood by the free states of modern times. The acquisition of com plete citizenship implies the acquisition of a share of the sovereign power : the acquisition of all the rights of a citizen, ex cept the suffrage and access to the honours of the state, is a limited citizenship ; and it is no more than may be acquired in those states where there is no representa tive body, and in which a man by such acquisition gets not citizenship, but the state gets a subject.
The great facilities for a man changing his residence which now exist, and the increased motives to such change in a desire to better his condition by perma nently settling in another country, lead to emigration from one country to another, and more particularly from Europe to America. The advantage which any country receives from the emigration of those who possess capital or peculiar arts is so great, that, under the present eircum• stances of the world, it is not easy to dis cover any good reason for Republican governments refusing to give the citizen ship to any person who comes to another country with the view of settling there. A difficulty will arise in case of war, when owes a divided allegiance, for it is a principle of English law that a man cannot divest himself of his alle giance to the king of England ; and pro bably an American wizen cannot divest himself of his allegiance to the United States. [ALIEN.] And yet the two countries which maintain this legal prin ciple, allow the citizens of any other country to become citizens of their several communities. The Roman principle under the Republic was, that as soon as a Roman was admitted a citizen o another State, he ceased to be a Roman citizen, because a man could not belong to two States at _once ; wherein we have one among many examples of the precision of Roman political principles. The same principle must certainly be adopted some time into the international law of modern States.
The nations z" Europe and the States of the two Americas have all a common religion, which however contains a great number of sects. A person of any religion in the United States of North America may become a citizen, and his opinions are no obstacle to his enjoying any of the honours of the country. But this is not so in England. No man for instance, though an English citizen, can be a member of the House of Commons unless he is, or is willing to profess that he is, a Christian.