Page:A legal review of the case of Dred Scott, as decided by the Supreme Court of the United States.djvu/16

 power to confer those rights on persons born in other States of the Union, who are not recognized as citizens in their native State. He then shows that, in several States, negroes, as part of the people, joined in the adoption of the federal Constitution, and have both before and since been recognized as citizens, and therefore contends that, in those States in which no law to the contrary is proved, they are to be deemed citizens, and may sue as such in the courts of the United States.

Let us test the soundness of these several positions. Citizenship, as we understand it, may be acquired in either of two ways—by birth; or by adoption, called, when applied to aliens, naturalization. After the Declaration of Independence, and before the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, the power of conferring citizenship, by naturalization or otherwise, like all other sovereign powers, was in the several States. And as the power vested in congress by that instrument applies to aliens only; and as all powers not delegated to congress by the Constitution, nor prohibited to the States, are expressly reserved to the States respectively, or to the people; the power of conferring citizenship, on all persons not aliens, necessarily remains in the several States, both as to persons born on their soil, and as to those born in other parts of the Union; and any person upon whom such rights are conferred becomes a citizen of the State conferring them.

And every citizen of a State is, ipso facto, a citizen of the United States. 2 Story on the Constitution, (2d ed.) § 1693. The preamble of the Constitution of the United States declares that it is established "by the people of the United States," that is, by the people of the States already confederated and known by that name. All admit that those who were citizens of the several States at that time became citizens of the United States; and no sound reason has been suggested why their successors should not acquire the same rights in the same way. The Constitution usually treats of citizens as belonging to the several States; for instance, in the clause concerning the judicial power of the United States, under which the question arose in this case; and in the provision that the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States. It refers exclusively to State laws to ascertain the qualifications of voters for officers of the United States; thus representatives in congress are to be chosen by those persons qualified to choose members of the most numerous branch of the State legislature, and