1 62 • HARVARD LAW REVIEW belief in an unrestricted right to shake off foreign sovereignty.* What- ever doubt existed as to the legislative view in the middle of the nine- teenth century was dispelled by the Act of July 27, 1868.^ This some- what flamboyant statute declares expatriation to be "a. natural and inherent right of all people, indispensable to the enjoyment of the rights of life, liberty, and the piirsuit of happiness"; it further asserts that "any declaration, instruction, opinion, order, or decision of any officer of the United States which denies, restricts, impairs, or questions" the right, is "inconsistent with the fundamental principles of the Republic." This act was sufficient to settle United States municipal law for the time being, but of course it could not of itseh affect foreign municipal law. At this very time, however, the series of reciprocal naturalization agreements known as the Bancroft treaties was being negotiated.^" It might be argued that this negotiation per se was a surrender of free ex- patriation, the more so as the treaties impose substantial conditions upon the exercise of the right. It seems fairer, though, to deem them discreet concessions to convenience. In diplomacy, half a loaf is far better than no bread at all. The United States has not been successful in making such conventions with all nations, France, Italy, Serbia, Tur- key, and numerous others remaining outside the fold. By its own municipal law, Great Britain has adopted an extremely liberal policy with respect to foreign naturalization of its subjects.^ Divorced from the heat and prejudice of the times in which it was passed,^^ the Act of 1868 does not seem an entirely safe star by which to set one's course. The vigorous caveat against contesting its utter validity is somewhat repulsive to legal common sense, which prefers logic to bull-dozing. Many of the better writers on public or international law deny flatly and with good reason that there is any such thing as an un- restrictable right of expatriation.^' To those taking this point of view it is gratifying and significant to find Congress eating some of its own words by passing the Act of March 2, -1907,^^ which in laying down general rules as to what constitutes expatriation declares "That no American citizen shall be allowed to expatriate himself when this coun- try is at war." The prohibition gains a more than municipal sigrdficance from 'the fact that its framers stated it to be " declaratory of a principle of public law which should be placed on the statute books, so that no ' Van Dyne on Naturalization in the United States (1907), 333 et seq. » Now U. S. Rev. Stat., § 1999. " These are conveniently collected in Maixoy's Treaties, Conventions, Etc., between the United States and Other Powers (1776-1909). " 33 & 34 Vict. c. 14, § 6 (1870). And see 4 & 5 Geo. V, c. 17, pt. Ill, § 13. ^ The days of the Fenian uprising. Cockbxjrn, supra, 86 et seq., shows what the English thought of the American attitude. Oddly enough, Cockburn seems not to have known of the Act of 1868, although his book was published in 1869. See his acid com- ment on page io6. " For example, Borchard on Diplomatic Protection of Citizens Abroad, § 317, says: "... the conclusion is inevitable, both under international and mimicipal law, that there is no such thing as the inalienable and inherent right of a citizen to expatriate himself." See also Attorney General Cushing's very elaborate opinion, 8 Opinions Attorneys General, 139, 152, 153, and 168 (1856). Compare Professor Valery's remarks in the Bulletin Mensuel de la Societe de Legislation Comparee, Avril-Juin (1917), 161. " 34 Stat, at L., pt. I, 1228.
