Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 5.djvu/29

 LEONARD V. GEANT. X7 �ized," alBO. To entitle the plaintiff to become naturalized at the time slie was married to Leonard, on June 19, 1875, she should have been : First, a f ree white person, or a person of African descent or nativity; second, she must have resided within the United States five years; third, ehe vciast have been of good moral character, attached to the principles of the constitution of the United States, and well disposed to the good order and happiness of the same; and, fourth, she nrnst have renounced àll titles or orders of nobility, if ady she had. �If, whenever during the life of the -wonian or afterwards, the question of her citizenship arises in a legal proceeding, the party asserting her citizenship by reàson of her marriage with a citizen must not only prove such marriage, but also that the woman then possessed ail the further qualifications necessary to her beeoming naturalized under existing lawa, the statute vfill be practically nugatory, if not a delusion and a snare. The proof of the facts may have existed at the time of the marriage, but years after, when a contre ver sy arises upon the subject, it may be lost or difficult to find. �The marriage is a public act, of -which the law takes cog- nizance and preserves the evidence, and the race of the woman is, generally, a fact susceptible of proof; but beyond this it vrould be very difficult, if not impossible, to establish, after the lapse of any considerable time, the facts showing her right to become naturalized under the then-existing laws. �In Kelly v. Owen, supra, the question does not appear to bave been discussed or considered, but it was assumed that race was the only one of these qualifications that it was nec- essary for the woman to possess at the time of her marriage — in other words, that, as the law then stood, she "should be ' a free white person,' and not an alien enemy ; " and it ap- peared affirmatively that one of the parties who was held to be a citizen, Margaret Kahoe, had not the qualification of residence, because she was only two years in the United States when she was married, and only four years therein when her husband became naturalized. In Burton v. Bur- �T.5,no.l — 2 ����