CITIZEN (OF. citcuin, from Lat. ciritas, state, from eiris, citizen). In its most general sense, an individual member of at political so ciety, or State; one who owes allegiance to, and may lawfully demand protection from, the Gov ernment.and thus equivalent to subject. The original meaning of the term, as denoting a per son endowed with certain rights and privileges as a native or naturalized resident in a city, a free and lawful member of a civic community, has in America become its secondary signification; its Roman meaning. as a member of a free, self governing commonwealth. having superseded it. It is in this latter sense. also, that it is em ployed in the French and Swiss republics. In England. however, it is properly employed only in the narrower sense. as equivalent to mu niceps; and this is its meaning. generally, in the law of modern monarchical States, in which the rela tion of the citizen to the State is expressed by the term 'subject.' In Imperial. as well as in Republican Rome. the State continued legally to be regarded as a commonwealth of free citizens, bound together by the tie of common member ship of one body. The modern relation of sover eign and subject. which has been substituted fur that of commonwealth and citizen, is of feudal origin, the oath of allegiance, on which it is based, being in its essence the creation of the feudal obligation of fidelity and obedience due from a vassal to his lord.
It will be observed, then, that the more general sense of the term citizen—that in which it is employed in the 'United States and in other modern republics—is more closely in accordance with the original and historical meaning of the word. In the free republics of classical anti quity. the term 'citizen' signified, not a resident of a tour. but a free, governing member of the State, just as the term eh- ta s, from which we derive our 'city.' signified. not iner(dy a ]Deal municipality (arbs), lout the State at hirge. The confusion is doubtless duo to the importanee of the ride which several of these city-states—as Athens and Ronn—have played in history. In the not all the inhabitants. perhaps not all the free inhabitants. were citizen., but these constituted a class entitled to special privi leges and immunities; and as these cities formed the type of free government in the ancient world, the term 'citizen' soon Caine to mean one who possessed full civil and political rights. The Greek idea of citizenship is expressed by Aris• toile, who declared a citizen to be one to whom belonged the right of participating both in the deliberative or legislative and the judicial func tions of the political community of which he was a member. The right was jealously guarded, and was rarely conferred on those of foreign birth. In Rome there were two classes of citizens
—one that had a share in the sovereign power, i.e. were capable of attaining to the highest offices of State; the other possessing only the private rights of citizenship. These, however, included the privilege of voting in the public as sembly. There, as in the American Republic and in some other modern States, citizenship, though usually acquired by birth, might be attained by naturalization, or special grant of the State. In the later period of the Empire. Roman citizen ship. so highly valued under the Republic and early Empire, largely lost its distinctive charac ter. in consequence of the gradual disappearance of the political and legal privileges which for merly attended it. In the third century of our era, the constitution, or decree, of Caraealla ex tended it to all persons, except slaves, freedmen, and their children, under the sway of the Empire. and Justinian the work by extending it to all free persons.
• In the United States, as has been said before, the word 'citizen' is used in its broadest sense, as defined at the beginning of this article. Perhaps as simple a statement as any is that made by an Attorney-General of the United States, when he said: "Tice phrase. 'a citizen of the United States,' without addition or Inlillification, means neither more nor less than a member of the na tion." The same person may be. and usually is. a citizen of the United States and of the State in which he resides. The two things are not, how ever, necessarily coexistent ; for an inhabitant of one of the Territories or of the District of Co lumbia is a citizen of the United States without being a citizen of a single State. and there are conceivable legal conditions which might make a man a citizen of a certain State without being a citizen of the United States. The idea of citi zenship does not necessarily involve the right of voting or of other participation in political activ ity. as in the Greek conception of the term, for women and minors may lie citizens, although ex cluded from all direct political activity. The question of race does not now enter into the defi nition of citizenship: previous to the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, this could not be stated. as the possession of negro blood was lie fore that distinctly a disqualification from citi zenship; yet even before the passage of the Four teenth Amendment this position was doubted. The decisions denying the eitizenship of Indians were founded not on race distinction, but on the existence of tribal relations, which were incon sistent with full allegiance to the United States.