EXPATRIATION, the renunci ation of the rights and liabilities of citizenship in one country, in order to become the citizen or subject of another. The right of a citizen of one country to renounce his allegiance in order to adopt another country as his own has and is still much disputed. It seems most reasonable that the mother country and not the individual should decide the question. In the early part of the 19th century the United States was almost the only nation that claimed for individ uals the right of expatriation without the con sent of the government of which they were citi zens or subjects. The European nations, as a rule, maintained that the permission of the sovereign was necessary; and the enforcement by England of the claim was one of the causes of the War of 1812. The right of voluntary re nunciation of allegiance to the United States by one of our citizens was unsettled, so far as legislation was concerned, till the Act of Con gress of 27 July 1868 asserted that expatriation a natural and inherent right of all people," but the action of the Department of State had previously seemed practically to admit the right. The first formal recognition of this principle was secured in an expatriation treaty with the North German Confederation, signed 22 Feb. 1868. The position of Germans with regard to naturalization has been somewhat altered by the German law of 1913, which declares that as person does not lose his nationality if, be fore acquiring a foreign nationality, he has ap plied for, and received, the written permission of the competent authority of his home State to retain his nationality." England first recognized the right of voluntary expatriation by act of Parliament in 1870, and concluded an expatriation treaty with the United States. This act was amended in 1914 with the inten tion of making the status of naturalized citizens uniform throughout the Empire. All the lead ing nations of Europe now recognize the right, including, besides those mentioned, France, Austria, Russia, Italy and Spain.
The right of the individual to expatriate him self has always been a cardinal doctrine with American statesmen. The whole subject of ex patriation is regulated by the law of 2 March 1907. Under this statute an American citizen is assumed to have changed his citizenship when he becomes naturalized in any foreign state. When an individual who has been naturalized in the United States has resided for a period of two years in the foreign state from whence he came, or five years in any foreign state, he is presumed to have divested himself of his American citizenship. An American woman who marries a foreigner assumes the nationality of her husband. If a resident of the United States on the termination of the matrimonial bond, she may reassume her citizenship, or if in a foreign state, by registration within a twelve month, with the American consul. A foreign woman who acquires through marriage with an American citizenship in the United States re tains her status if she continues to reside in the country. The problem of assimilation has in the United States assumed an aspect of extreme gravity since the outbreak of the Great Euro pean War. On questions growing out of the war there has been maintained a persistent agitation by the representatives of foreign gov ernments, with the object of influencing Ameri can citizens of their respective races and through them stimulating loyalty to these for eign governments so as to influence American opinion on their behalf, to the grave endanger ment of American neutrality. Pressure has been brought to bear on legislators and through them on the national administration. Unwar rantable interference with the internal concerns of the United States led to the dismissal of Dr. Dumba (q.v.), the Austrian Ambassador. See