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that it should not be construed to apply to women who marry here and continue to reside in this country, or who marry an alien permanently residing in this country. As has been stated in reciting the origin of the Act, such persons frequently remove to the country of which the husband is a subject, or to other foreign countries. It was the obvious purpose to provide a rule which should govern in cases of that kind. Furthermore, the language of the section shows that it contemplates that an American woman included within its terms will in some cases reside in the United States after contracting the marriage with the alien, and that it intends that she shall continue to have the nationality of her husband during such residence here, so long as the marriage relation continues. The interpretation contended for would be contrary to this provision, and therefore it is not permissible.

Plaintiff's counsel also contends that the Act of Congress is contrary to the opening sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States declaring that "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." In support of this position they cite In re Look Tin Sing, supra, and United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U. S. 649. In the first mentioned case, which was decided in 1884, Justice Field of the United States Supreme Court, writing the decision for the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of California, held that a person born in the United States, of Chinese parents residing therein at the time of his birth and not members of the diplomatic force of China, was a native citizen of the United States and was not subject to the Act of Congress forbidding the re-entry into this country of Chinese who had returned temporarily to China, except where they had obtained a certificate allowing such return. This decision declares that a native born person of any race is a citizen, under the aforesaid provision of the Fourteenth Amendment, and it follows the familiar rule that such person remains a citizen so long as he chooses, provided he does no act which under our laws will have the effect of renouncing or forfeiting such citizenship. The Chinese Exclusion Act, it was held, did not affect the right of citizenship. But the quotation we have already given from this case shows that the court did not intend to hold and did not hold that the Fourteenth Amendment forbids expatriation, or takes from Congress the power to legislate concerning it. In United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the same question was involved and the same conclusion was reached. In the

course of its very elaborate discussion of the proposition that the Fourteenth Amendment affirms the "ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory" (p. 693), the court said (p. 703): "The power of naturalization, vested in Congress by the Constitution, is a power to confer citizenship, not a power to take it away." From this remark it is argued that a native born citizen cannot, since the adoption of that amendment, renounce his citizenship. But this by no means follows: The court in the quoted sentence was speaking of the power of Congress to deprive a person of his citizenship without his consent and for no sufficient or reasonable cause. In the next paragraph of the opinion the court says (p. 704):

Upon the facts agreed in this case, the American citizenship which Wong Kim Ark acquired by birth within the United States has not been lost or taken away by anything happening since his birth. No doubt he might himself, after coming of age, renounce this citizenship, and become a citizen of the country of his parents or of any other country.

Thus the opinion relied on itself recognizes and declares that citizenship may be renounced, notwithstanding the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment. As we have held that the act of the plaintiff here in marrying an alien was in effect a renunciation of her citizenship, it follows that she is not prevented from committing this act of expatriation by the aforesaid provision of the Fourteenth Amendment.

We think it advisable to state here that the question of the effect of the marriage of a native female citizen to an alien, where such marriage had taken place before the passage of the Act of 1907 aforesaid, is a question not involved in this case. It is not therefore to be deemed as a decision upon the question whether the section of the Act of Congress above quoted was applicable to and operated upon citizens of the United States who were at that time married to alien husbands. From what we have said the conclusion is clear that the plaintiff here is not now a citizen of the United States within the meaning of the Act of Congress above quoted, and as that act controls the question of her citizenship, and her right to vote is made by our Constitution, as amended in 1911, dependent upon her status as a citizen of the United States, and does not exist unless she is such citizen, she is not entitled to the exercise of the privilege of suffrage and cannot demand registration as a voter. It is ordered that the writ applied for be denied.

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BOOK REVIEWS

Commentaire de la Loi du 17 Juin 1909, ayant pour objet l'Acquisition et

la Perte de la Nationalité Belge. By Fernand Glesner. Namur: Jacques Godenne. pp. 185.

In an introductory chapter M. Glesner traces the history of the legislation of his country relative to nationality, beginning with the union of the Provinces with France in 1794, indicating the effect of the political events following the occupation of Belgium by the Allied Powers in 1814, and the Belgian revolution of 1830, and showing the impress made by the French Civil Code. The result of these various influences was to impose upon the country somewhat diverse systems of nationality. The design of the law of 1909 was to remedy this defect and make the law more definite.

The author analyzes each provision of the law and points out where modifications have been made in the preëxisting law. He also makes comparisons with the French law and in many instances with the law of other countries.

The first article of the law, as M. Glesner states, "consecrates the principle of jus sanguinis," declaring that Belgian children, wherever born, to a Belgian father or to a Belgian mother if the father has no determined nationality, are Belgians. But while the law thus declares the principle of jus sanguinis, it departs from this principle in Article 7, which states that the child born in Belgium of foreign parents of whom one was also born in Belgium, or was domiciled there for a specified period, is Belgian, unless before the expiration of his twenty-second year, during which he shall have had a domicile in Belgium, he shall have elected foreign nationality. This is the jus soli. In relation to this matter, the author says:

This is not the reëstablishment, pure and simple, of jus soli, since there are required besides birth, certain conditions of sojourn and stability, of a nature to indicate that the individual has dwelt among Belgians and acquired their mentality. But it is surely an important victory for that principle.

He adds that the framers of the law had a difficult task, as it was necessary, in order to prove Belgian nationality, to establish filiation far

enough back to find an ancestor born on Belgian soil at a period when one became a Belgian by the sole fact of birth on the territory, or by the effect of a treaty, or by a fact posterior to birth. As such proof is often impossible, the language of the text was adopted, it being deemed that an individual uniting the conditions prescribed in the law, would be almost always Belgian in heart and aspiration. Under this law an individual born in Belgium of foreign parents of whom one was also born there, has the faculty of repudiating Belgian nationality, while under the French law, in similar circumstances, the individual is French without option. Article 12 further recognizes the doctrine of jus soli in providing that the child born in a foreign country to a Belgian who himself was born in a foreign country, can always decline Belgian nationality, if he has in full right acquired the foreign nationality. And a further application of the jus soli is involved in the provision of Article 4, which declares that a child found in Belgium shall be presumed, in the absence of proof to the contrary, to be born on Belgian soil, and hence to be a Belgian.

Articles 5 and 11 of the law embody the almost universal rule that the nationality of a married woman follows that of the husband. M. Glesner calls attention to the fact that the new Belgian law, unlike the preëxisting law of that country and the law of some other countries, definitely declares that a change of nationality of the husband taking place after the marriage shall have the same effect on the wife's nationality as if the change occurred before the marriage.

Articles 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 12, 13, and 14 relate to the nationality of children. Article 3 contains the unusual provision that when the nationality of the parents at the epoch of conception would operate to confer Belgian nationality upon the child, and that at the epoch of the birth would not, regard to the epoch of conception shall be had in preference to that of birth. In his comments on this article, M. Glesner states that this puts an end to a controversy which had existed under the former Belgian law which left it doubtful whether it was necessary to consider the moment of conception, the moment of birth, or the one or the other, according to the interest of the child. Under this article, if a Belgian should change his nationality after conception and before the birth of a child, the nationality of the child would be Belgian.

By the provisions of Article 6, minor unmarried children of foreigners who voluntarily acquire Belgian nationality, become Belgians, with the option of renouncing such nationality by declaring their desire, upon

reaching majority, to recover foreign nationality. By making them Belgians in full right, the law goes a step further than the former Belgian law, which gave them the faculty of choosing Belgian nationality by means of a declaration to be made in the year of their majority. The law does not go as far, however, as the law of the United States of 1907, and state whether the children are required to go to Belgium if residing in a foreign country. Under the laws of the United States in such a case, the child is not deemed a citizen until he begins to reside permanently in the United States. The restricting word 'unmarried,' is inserted in the law for the reason that, otherwise, the minor married daughter might, through the voluntary acquisition of another nationality by the father, acquire a double nationality-that of the father and that of the husband. The commentator discusses the question whether, under the law, the minor child of a Belgian woman who has been divorced, acquires Belgian nationality, and reaches a negative conclusion, as otherwise the general principle of the preponderance of the father would be sacrificed.

Article 10, which relates to naturalization, merely refers to the Belgian naturalization law of 1881 prescribing the formalities of naturalization in that country.

Expatriation is covered by the provisions of Article 11, which provides for three modes, viz., voluntary acquisition of foreign nationality, marriage, and foreign naturalization through voluntary acquisition of foreign nationality by the father. In discussing the meaning of the term 'voluntary,' as applied to the acquisition of nationality, the commentator states that a Belgian born in France and domiciled in France at his majority, who, under the French law, becomes French under condition that he does not decline the quality of Frenchman in his twentysecond year, loses his Belgian nationality if he does not, in the delay prescribed by the French law, manifest his intention to preserve it. In other words, it being incumbent upon him to fulfil a simple formality prescribed by a foreign law to remain Belgian, if he does not fulfil that formality, it is deemed that he has willed to become foreign, and in the eyes of the Belgian law, that is the sole thing which it is necessary to consider. M. Glesner further states that a woman loses the quality of Belgian who marries a foreigner of determined nationality or whose husband voluntarily acquires a foreign nationality, if such nationality is equally conferred upon her by the foreign law. "This new principle," remarks the author, "is founded on the need of establishing the unity of nation

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