Citizenship in Ceded Territory. The last sentence thereof is the following: The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article. According to this provision of the Con stitution a person who is a citizen of the United States is so without regard to his citizenship of a particular State, thereby re versing the rule on this subject existing pre vious to the adoption of this amendment; and the only additional power which Congress now possesses in regard to it is to pass such laws as may be necessary to insure to each citizen the full enjoyment of the rights, priv ileges and immunities of citizenship, but not to increase or to diminish those rights, priv ileges and immunities. The question of citizenship being determined by the Consti tution, therefore, Congress has no other control over it than that which is conferred upon that body thereby; and consequently no further authority can be granted to it by the treaty-making power. It will be noticed that according to this article, " all persons subject to the jurisdiction of the United States are citizens of the United States." These words suggest the question whether or not the inhabitants of the islands ceded to this nation by the treaty under consideration are now subject to its jurisdiction? It is a well-established rule of public law that a nation by annexing terri tory becomes entitled to the allegiance of its people; and therefore the latter must be come subject to the jurisdiction of the for mer; for, according to the American theory of civil government, there can be no alle giance where there is no citizenship. To use the language of Chief Justice Marshall, who delivered the opinion of the Supreme Court in the case of American Insurance Co. v. Canter, 1 Peters, 542, " The relations of the inhabitants with their former sovereign are dissolved, and new relations are created be tween them and the government which has acquired their territory. The same act which transfers their territory transfers the alle
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giance of those who remain in it." According to this decision, the treaty having been rati fied by the sovereign power of each of the respective parties thereto, the inhabitants of the ceded territory now owe allegiance to this country, and are completely subject to its jurisdiction. Their allegiance having thus been transferred from Spain to the United States, they have become citizens thereof ac cording to the general principle just enun ciated; for although they were not born in this country they have been as effectually naturalized therein by the annexation of their territory to it as though that had been done according to the existing statute on the subject of naturalization. In support of this contention the writer cites the following sentence from the opinion of the Supreme Court which was delivered by Chief Justice Fuller in the case of Boyd v. Thayer, 143 U. S., 162: — "Manifestly the nationality of the inhab itants of territory acquired by conquest or cession becomes that of the government under whose dominion they pass, subject to the right of election on their part to retain their former nationality by removal or other wise, as may be provided." This being the law, the clause in the treaty assuming to vest in Congress the power to determine the civil rights and the political status of these people can have no force, they having already become American citizens by virtue of the above-mentioned provision of the Federal Constitution. All of the previous treaties annexing ter ritory to the United States were made and ratified before the adoption of Article XIV. of the Amendments of the Constitution; and as at that time there was no constitutional provision defining citizenship, there was less reason to deny to the treaty-making power the right to determine the civil rights and the political status of the inhabitants of the Territories then acquired, than there is to deny to that power the same right in the present instance; but in none of those
