naturalized, and have all the rights and privileges of a natural-born subject.'

The American law is based on the British act.

Section 2 of the Act of February 10, 1855, reads as follows: "Any woman who might lawfully be naturalized under the existing laws, married, or who shall be married to a citizen of the United States, shall be deemed and taken to be a citizen" of the United States.

The language of the law as incorporated in the Revised Statutes of the United States, Section 1994 (U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, 1268), is as follows: "Any woman who is now, or may hereafter be, married to a citizen of the United States, and who might herself be lawfully naturalized, shall be deemed a citizen."

The power of Congress to enact a uniform rule of naturalization throughout the United States authorizes the provision of Rev. Stat., Section 1994 (U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, 1268), that the marriage of an alien woman with a citizen makes her a citizen. Dorsey v. Brigham, 177 Ill. 250, 42 L. R. A. 809, 69 Am. St. Rep. 228, 52 N. E. 303.

Any woman capable of naturalization under our laws, who is married to a citizen of the United States, is to be deemed a citizen.

B. Women Who May be Naturalized by Marriage.

What women may be naturalized? What is the meaning of the clause, "who might herself be lawfully naturalized?"

In Burton v. Burton, 26 How. Pr. 474, it was held the Act was designed for the benefit of "alien white women."

The Supreme Court of the United States, in Kelly v. Owen, 7 Wall. 496, 19 L. ed. 283, expressed the opinion that the terms of the Act limit the application of the law to "free white women."

In Kane v. McCarthy, 63 N. C. 299, it was decided that

"a white woman not an alien enemy" answered the description required by the section under consideration. To the same effect is 14 Ops. Atty. Gen. 403. See, also, Secy. Hay to Mr. Cruger, February 6, 1903.

In Leonard v. Grant, 6 Sawy. 603, 5 Fed. 11, which was decided after the extension by the Act of July 14, 1870 (16 Stat. at L. 256, Ch. 254, Sec. 7, U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, 1333), of the naturalization laws to the African, it was declared that the law applied to free white persons, or persons of African nativity or descent. It was decided in this case that a native Swiss woman became a citizen of the United States by virtue of her marriage to a citizen.

In Broadis v. Broadis, 86 Fed. 951, it was held that an alien woman of African descent, married to a citizen of the United States is a citizen of the United States, since the extension of the naturalization laws to persons of African birth or descent.

In the case of Pequignot v. Detroit, 16 Fed. 215, the court said: "All doubt upon the construction to be placed upon the words, 'who might herself be naturalized,' was put at rest by the case of Kelly v. Owen, 7 Wall. 496, 19 L. ed. 283, in which it was held that these terms only limited the application of the law to 'free white women,' inasmuch as the naturalization act existing at the time only required that a person applying for its benefits should be a 'free white person,' and not an alien enemy.'

The Act of August 9, 1888 (25 Stat. at L. 392, Chap. 818, Sec. 2), provides that every Indian woman, member of any Indian tribe in the United States, or any of its territories except the Five Civilized Tribes in the Indian Territory, who may hereafter be married to any citizen of the United States, is declared to become by such marriage a citizen of the United States, with all the

rights, privileges, and immunities of any such citizen, being a married woman.

As the law now stands, therefore, any white woman, or woman of African nativity or descent, or Indian woman, a member of any Indian tribe (except a member of the Five Civilized Tribes in Indian Territory), married to a citizen of the United States, is a citizen thereof.

C. Time of Marriage.

What is the significance of the term "married" in the section under consideration? In order to confer citizenship upon the wife, must the husband be a citizen at the time of marriage, or does his subsequent naturalization have the same effect?

Kelly v. Owen, 7 Wall. 496, 19 L. ed. 283, was a case in which it appeared that one Miles Kelly, a native of Ireland, emigrated to the United States in 1848. In 1853 he married Ellen Duffy; in 1855 he was naturalized; and in 1862 he died in the city of Washington, intestate, seized of certain real property. He left surviving him in the United States, his widow, the said Ellen, and two sisters, Ellen Owen and Margaret Kahoe. The sister Ellen arrived in 1856, and was married in 1861 to Edward Owen, who had been naturalized in 1835. The sister Margaret arrived in the United States in 1850, and was married in 1862 to James Kahoe, who was naturalized in 1854. Mr. Justice Field, delivering the opinion of the court, said that the case turned upon the construction given to the second section of the Act of Congress of February 10, 1855 (10 Stat. at L. 604, Ch. 71, U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, 1268). He said: "As we construe this Act, it confers the privileges of citizenship upon women married to citizens of the United States, if they are of the class of persons for whose naturalization the previous Acts of Congress provide. The terms 'married,' or 'who shall be

married,' do not refer, in our judgment, to the time when the ceremony of marriage is celebrated, but to a state of marriage. They mean that whenever a woman, who under previous Acts might be naturalized, is in a state of marriage to a citizen, whether his citizenship existed at the passage of the Act or subsequently, or before or after the marriage, she becomes, by that fact, a citizen also. His citizenship, whenever it exists, confers, under the Act, citizenship upon her. The construction which would restrict the Act to women whose husbands, at the time of marriage, are citizens, would exclude far the greater number, for whose benefit, as we think, the Act was intended. It follows, from these views, that the widow and the two sisters were citizens of the United States upon the decease of the intestate husband. The widow and Margaret Kahoe became such on the naturalization of their respective husbands, and Ellen Owen became such on her marriage."

.

And in Kane v. McCarthy, 63 N. C. 299, where the facts showed that the naturalization of the husband took place after the marriage, the court said: "The circumstance that the husband was not a citizen at the time of marriage is wholly immaterial, for he became a citizen afterward ipso facto." Referring to the wife, the court said: "Being a free white woman married to a citizen, [she] comes within the description and the very words of the Act of Congress [10 Stat. at L. 604, Chap. 71, Sec. 2, U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, 1268], 'and is deemed and taken to be a citizen;' for it is the status of being married to-being the wife of a citizen that makes her one. It can in no possible view make any difference whether the marriage ceremony is performed first and then the husband becomes a citizen, or whether he becomes a citizen first and the marriage afterwards takes place. Whenever the two events concur and come together 'she

is a woman married to a citizen."" See, also, 14 Ops. Atty. Gen. 402. The fact that the wife is under twentyone years of age does not exclude her from citizenship. She acquires citizenship when her husband becomes a citizen. Renner v. Müller, 57 How. Pr. 229.

The wife of an alien becomes a citizen upon the naturalization of her husband. People v. Newell, 38 Hun, 78.

D. Necessity of Residence in the United States.

Whether, under this law, residence in the United States, is essential, in order to confer citizenship upon a woman of foreign nationality married to a citizen of the United States, is not entirely well settled, although the better view appears to be that such residence is necessary.

It has been contended that an alien woman, in order to be naturalized by marriage to an American citizen, must have resided in the United States for the statutory period of five years. In Burton v. Burton, 1 Keyes, 359, the judges of the Court of Appeals of New York were divided in opinion upon this point. Mr. Justice Mullin said: "If a residence of five years was not a condition precedent to citizenship, residence for some length of time was most obviously contemplated. Without residence she could not be naturalized, and it is the most essential of all the requirements for naturalization, and can not be dispensed with, unless the intention to dispense with it is most clearly manifested by the legislature." But Mr. Justice Wright thought that the act did not require that the woman claiming its benefits should have resided within the United States; and, if it did, he thought the residence of the wife was, by construction of law, the same as that of her husband.