Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XII.djvu/168

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160 NATURALIZATION the various kinds of living things, both ani- mal and vegetable, including their description, collection, preservation, determination, and ar- rangement in a natural series, and embracing as principal divisions zoology, botany, and mineralogy. For details on these divisions, see the articles ANIMAL, BOTANY, COMPABA- TIVE ANATOMY, GEOLOGY, MINERALOGY, PHYSI- OLOGY, ZOOLOGY, and the various animal and vegetable classes in their respective order. NATURALIZATION, the act of investing an alien with the rights and privileges of a native-born citizen or subject. It is of two kinds, collec- tive and personal. A collective naturalization takes place when a country or state is incor- porated in another country by gift, cession, or conquest. Thus, when England and Scotland were formed into one kingdom in the reign of Queen Anne, it was declared by the fourth section of the act of union that subjects of the United Kingdom possessed thereafter all the rights, privileges, and advantages enjoyed by the subjects of either kingdom ; and when Louisiana was ceded by France to the United States in 1803, it was provided by the third article of the treaty that its inhabitants should be entitled to all the rights and privileges of citizens of the United States; and a similar effect took place when the republic of Texas was annexed to and formed into one of the states of the American Union. Personal nat- uralization is where the privileges of a subject or citizen are conferred upon an individual by the license or letters patent of a sovereign or the act of a legislative body, or are obtained by the individual himself under a general law, upon his complying with certain conditions prescribed by the law. Naturalization was practised among the states of antiquity, and is found in the rudest forms of human society. The North American Indians frequently adopt- ed Europeans, and more frequently members of other tribes taken in war. The earliest ac- count that we have of naturalization is among the Jews. It formed a part of their early legislation, as embodied in the books of Moses. The knowledge we possess of the laws or customs of the great contemporary nations, the Egyp- tians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Phoenicians, and Persians, is too limited to enable us to know with certainty the policy they pursued upon this subject. In Greece, during the heroic ages, the people had few or no privileges, and whatever was allowed to them appears to have been as freely extended to strangers. In the convulsions which followed these ages, natural- ization was readily granted ; but as the differ- ent states settled down into compact and well organized communities, the value of citizenship became enhanced, and the privilege was more sparingly bestowed. In Athens, so far as can be gathered from the fragmentary information that has descended to us, there would seem to have been three kinds of naturalization : 1, the admission of an alien to membership in a deme or township by the vote of its inhabitants, at their convocation or general meeting, and the inscribing of his name upon the lexiarchic re- gister, or roll of the qualified citizens of the deme, kept by the demarch ; 2, citizenship con- ferred by the state as a mark of distinction upon foreigners eminent for their virtues or talents, or who had rendered important services to the republic; 3, privileges, more or less qualified, extended to the inhabitants of other states, or to particular persons. By the laws of Solon, none but those who were banished from their country for ever, and had with their families taken up their permanent abode in Attica, with the intention of practising some trade or profession, could be enrolled in the list of citizens. Afterward, however, the practice arose of bestowing citizenship as the gift of the state. It was conferred as an honorary dis- tinction upon foreigners, admitting them to every privilege except that of holding the office of archon or priest, and did not imply the ne- cessity of residence; but whether it entitled them to vote in the assembly is a point upon which authors are divided. The admission of aliens as members of a deme, which was the ordinary or general mode of naturalization, was very limited at first, as the Athenians, in com- mon with the other Grecian states, placed a high value upon citizenship, and were suspicious of and prejudiced against foreigners. When Clisthenes made a new division of the tribes, in 509 B. 0., and of their subdivision into demes or local parishes, townships, or cantons, he, with a view of strengthening these separate political communities, added new citizens, among whom were included not only resident foreigners and strangers, but even slaves. It was not intended as a precedent, but was a temporary expedient to enable him to carry out more effectually his plan for the division of the people into local communities. The in- novation, however, was followed by the grad- ual extension of a more liberal feeling in regard to aliens. There was constantly at Athens a large body of resident foreigners, attracted there either by commercial pursuits, or a wish to profit by the instruction of its schools, or the love of amusement. This class, embracing persons from all parts of Greece and from other countries, were known, in contradistinction to transitory strangers or mere sojourners, by the appellation of metcaci, and were under many disabilities. They could not acquire landed property, and if engaged in industrial pursuits, they were subject to a heavier tax than the citizens. They were compelled to select a pat- ron as the mediator between themselves and the state in the transaction of all legal busi- ness, who was answerable for their good con- duct. They were obliged, like the citizens, to serve in the army or navy when the exigencies of the state demanded it, and occasionally com- pelled to perform degrading services, which were rather symbolical acts, designed to remind them of the inferiority of their relation to the citizen. Upon the payment of the tax imposed,