Domicil the of such state, or acquiring in it any political rights. But domicil is the basis of taxation. All persons domiciled in a state may be personally taxed by it, and they are subject to such personal taxation until they acquire a domicil elsewhere. Hence it has been held that the registered public debt of one state, or of a city or county in such state, may be taxed by another state when held by a domiciled citizen of the latter." basis of taxation, but not of political rights. Aliens in States are entitled to equal civil III. PERSONAL STATUS. § 261. So far as concerns the right to sue in the courts, the right to personal protection, and the right to hold the United personal property, an alien belonging to a country not at war with the United States, stands, as a rights with general rule, on the same footing as a citizen of the citizens. United States. In some of the states aliens are prohibited from holding real estate beyond a designated limit. There is no such restriction, however, as to the public lands of which the title is in the United States; nor can such restrictions operate when in conflict either with treaty or with the fourteenth amendment giving equal civil rights to all persons.3 An alien, also, as we have seen, may be domiciled in the United States, though he may have no intention of being domiciled. And aliens have the distinctive privilege of being entitled to sue in the Federal courts.-What has been said, it will be observed, is restricted to civil privileges. Political privileges, so far as concerns the Federal government, are regulated by Federal statutes. So far as concerns the several states, such privileges are determined by state legislation. In some states aliens are entitled, before naturalization, to vote for state and county officers. And in any view an alien cannot set up alienage as a defence to an indictment for a crime.5 Whart. Conf. of Laws, §§ 72 et seq. That state may tax generally, see infra, § 417 a. 2 Bonaparte v. Tax Court, 104 U. S. 592; Aff. S. C. sub. nom.; Appeal 4 Whart. Conf. of Laws, § 17. tion now interna tionally conceded. § 262. It was for a long time held that the impress of nationality was indelible, and that no act of expa- Naturalizatriation, no matter how solemn or permanent, had any international force. This position, however, is now almost universally abandoned. There is no civilized country which does not receive, by naturalization or adoption, persons born in other lands, and does not thereby concede the right of its own subjects to throw off on emigration their allegiance; and now emigration, from the redundaney of population in some of the principal European states, so far from being prohibited, is encouraged. So far as concerns the United States, a naturalized citizen is placed precisely on the same footing as a native citizen, and his rights, unless his naturalization was meant merely to evade home duties, and not with the intention of taking up a domicil in the United States, will be as fully protected against foreign interference as if he were a native citizen. Even an inchoate naturalization, based upon a declaration, under the statute, of an intention to be naturalized, has been held to be entitled, when there is a bona fide domicil in the United States, to the same protection.-Naturalization, it should be added, is implied in annexation. When a territory is annexed to the United States, this, by the act of annexation, naturalizes all the inhabitants of such country.1 African descent enti led to the and politia privi same civil § 263. By amendments to the constitution of the United States, adopted as a part of the reconstruction meas- Persons of ures consequent on the close of the war of secession, all political and civil distinctions between persons of African descent and white persons were obliterated, and any state legislation establishing such distinction was prohibited and declared void. These constitutional provisions are elsewhere specifically considered. It is sufficient here to say that while the negro race is hereby entitled to the same rights, civil and political, as the white race, legislation imposing a common restriction in both cases, 1 Whart. Conf. of Laws, § 5; supra, §§ 154 et seq., 177. Justices' Opinions, 68 Me. 589; see Minor v. Happersett, leges with whites. 21 Wall. 162; Crane v. Reeder, 25 Mich. 303. As to naturalization in the United States, see infra, §§ 431 et seq. e. g., laws prohibiting intermarriage, does not conflict with the constitution as thus amended.1 264. Neither the amendments just specified, nor the Otherwise as to Chinese. Indian tribes not naturalization laws adopted by the Federal government, cover Chinese coming to the United States, nor, as a rule, can they become domiciled among us, unless they should intend to remain permanently. This, however, is rarely the case, since they almost without excep tion retain, when among us, their national dress and their national religion and mode of life, and regulate their mode of living and expenditure so as best to subserve an ultimate return to their native land. By a Federal statute adopted on May 6, 1882, the immigration of Chinese laborers was suspended for ten years with certain limited exceptions. $265. The Indians resident within the borders of the United States are not within the protection of the amendments to the constitution just noticed. They form, when grouped in tribes, distinct nations, with whom we have from time to time negotiated treaties, and distinct na- who occupy, in respect to our government both federal and state, a quasi independence. They inhabit, when so recognized, distinct reservations of territory, within which they are governed by their own laws. They are not within the range of our naturalization laws; they are not entitled, when thus forming part of a tribe, to vote at elections; they are not punishable in our courts for wrongs committed on or debts due one another. When, however, they leave their reservations, and mingle with the population of a state, they are subject to its laws, though not entitled, by the mere force of the Federal constitution, to vote at its elections. And even when maintaining a distinct tribal system within their own reserva so entitled, and constitute a tionality. Infra, §§ 584 et seq. 2 Infra, § 435; Whart. Conf. of Laws, § 12. As to naturalization of Chinese, see infra, §§ 435, 585; supra, § 179. 3 Infra, §§ 434, 585. 4 That non-tribal Indians may be citizens of a state, see Rogers v. Quinney, 51 Wis. 62; and see, generally, Whart. Conf. of Laws, § 9. tions they are subject to the control of the United States government, so far as concerns the dealings of Indians with whites, and so far as concerns the excise laws imposed by congress.1 disabilities territorial. § 266. It is one of the consequences of the old theory of the ubiquity of personal laws that the disabilities and privileges attached to a person by the law of Foreign his domicil follow him wherever he goes. This not extraposition, however, is not accepted in this country. It would greatly impair business confidence if persons of European descent, settling, as far as may appear, in this country, and here doing business as persons capable of binding themselves by contract, should be entitled to set up, when sued, incapacities or privileges impressed on them by the law of their domicil. When notice is given of a disability, e. g., infancy, or mental incapacity pronounced to be such by home adjudication, then those dealing with a person alleged to be so incapacitated are put on their inquiry. Such notice is implied when a young child, or a person evidently insane, undertakes to do business. But it is otherwise with regard to merely artificial distinctions. These are to be determined by the distinctive policy of the state in which the litigation is pending. If that policy is to assign business capacity to and endow with business responsibility all persons who have arrived at the age of twenty-one, then it would conflict with that policy to enforce foreign statutes incapacitating married women as a class, and extending with men the period of minority five or ten years beyond the limit fixed by the lex fori. A state, therefore, which invests married women with greater or less business capacity will regard all married women doing business within its borders as endowed with such capacity; a state which places majority at the age of twenty-one will not regard persons of that age within its borders as infants, though they are still infants by their home law. But the converse that a state adopting a narrow limit of capacity will apply such limit to all foreigners visiting its shores does not follow, the better view being that while restrictions of capacity 1 Supra, § 26; infra, §§ 434, 585. are not extra-territorially binding, it is otherwise with grants of capacity, which are ubiquitous in their effects. As a rule, also, while emancipation by the law of domicil is regarded as everywhere operative, it is otherwise with restrictions or deprivations of freedom, which have no extra-territorial force. In the United States this distinction is of peculiar importance. Our population is made up either of emigrants from the old world, or of descendants of such emigrants. If foreign incapacities as to marriage are held to bind in this country, the shadow of uncertain legitimacy would hang over multitudes; if foreign incapacities of minority were ubiquitous, business would sustain a serious shock in those sections in which it is conducted largely by young men, many of whom come from countries in which they are still minors, they not being as yet naturalized on our shores. Nor could we recognize such restrictions, nor the kindred restrictions placed in some foreign lands on ecclesiastics, and on those judicially assigned to civil death, consistently with the principle imbedded in our own jurisprudence as well as in that of England, that whoever touches our soil becomes free, no matter what may be the extent to which his freedom was restrained in the land from which he came.1 Liberty of action sub ordinate to national policy and good morals. § 267. Liberty of action, therefore, when given by the lex domicilii, is to be regarded as belonging to the person so privileged wherever he goes. This, however, is subject to important restrictions. It is not permitted to invade, in the first place, settled national policy. Special prerogatives, for instance, given in their own land to particular classes of society, will not be respected in a land whose policy is to recognize no such prerogatives. And, in the second place, neither the privilege of polygamy, nor that of absolute paternal or marital power, will be regarded in the United States as adhering on our shores to persons who by the law of their domicil are entitled to such privileges. This limitation, excepting from ubiquity of what are called personal laws such laws as conflict with the national policy or settled standard of morality 1 Whart. Conf. of Laws, §§ 101 et seq. |