CITIZEN, originally, a member of the body of freemen entitled to share in the government of a civitas, or city-state of the ancient type; as the Roman state gradually broadened into the entire ancient world, the citizenship was ex tended piecemeal for political reasons, till Justin ian made it coextensive with personal freedom, and the attribute of all residents of the empire except slaves. With the rise of the miscel laneous modern community, where flux of popu lation, permanent and temporary, is going on, and the mass of people share in the government to a varying extent, the question of its limita tions and the privileges it confers have become acute, and that of its legal definition has fur nished one of the grounds of a civil war. The definition varies in different countries. In monarchies it is commonly used only of a resi dent's relation to his municipality, the term °subject" expressing the relation to the state; in republics generally it means a regular mem ber of the community, subject to its ordinances, obligated to its support and defense, and en titled to its protection. In the United States, a complication is introduced by the Federal struc ture of the government, there being a citizenship of each distinguished from that of the other. The questions arising in this country are there fore: (1) What constitutes citizenship; (2) What rights it confers; (3) How it is acquired; (4) How it can be • (5) What are the re spective obligations to State and nation.
1. A citizen has been legally defined as who owes to the government allegiance, service, and money by way of taxation, to whom the government in turn grants and guar antees liberty of person and of conscience, right of acquiring and possessing property, . . . suit and defense, security in person, estate, and reputation.' In a word, the citizen is one whose lot is cast in with his society, for all social pur poses according to his status and means, to fight or pay unless he is a dependent member of a group which fights, pays, etc. This includes
women, children, defectives and criminals; and excludes alien residents (see, however, section 3), and Indians living in tribal relations, who are °dependent subjects.* It should be added, however, that for jurisdictional purposes resi dent aliens are regarded as citizens, and in com mercial and business legislation 'citizen' is equivalent to 2. Citizenship implies civil but not neces sarily political rights. The former are alike for all, and are the primary obligation of a govern ment to secure to its citizens; political rights are endlessly varied and within the discretion of the government. The right of direct share in government is everywhere withheld from minors, convicts and the insane or idiotic, nearly always from paupers, and most generally from women; but these do not cease to be citi zens. On the other hand, voting has occa sionally been permitted in this as in foreign countries to persons not citizens of a State or municipality, for holdings of property, and could be so again. It was on this distinction that the minority in the Dred Scott case based their dissenting opinion that a slave's lack of political rights did not prevent his being a citizen with a right to sue in the courts; and the government by the Fourteenth Amendment ratified this view, and definitely dissociated civil from politi cal rights.
3. Citizenship may be acquired by birth, every child born on the soil or within the juris diction of the United States,— even of resident aliens, except of foreign official representatives, whose residences are assumed to be part of their country's territory,— or of citizen parents trav eling abroad, or of its officials resident abroad, being a citizen; or by naturalization; or by succession to a parent's or husband's rights— the wife of an alien becomes a citizen by his naturalization, or after his death before natu ralization if he had previously declared his in tention of becoming so; and the children inherit similar rights.