Americanization; Civics; Immigrants -- United States; Naturalization -- United States; Noncitizens -- United States
_The Jus Sanguinis combined with the Jus Solis_ is found in Belgium,
Greece, Italy, Luxemburg, Russia, Spain, Turkey.
_The Jus Solis modified by the Jus Sanguinis_ prevails in most of
the states of the Americas, and in Bulgaria, Denmark, Egypt, Great
Britain, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland.
THE SUBJECT _VS._ THE ACTIVE MEMBER
In thought and writing on the subject of citizenship, two concepts
of the word “citizen” persist, and usually are treated as to such
an extent interchangeable as to produce a fatal confusion. For they
are not interchangeable. They differ in essence, and it is of the
utmost importance that they should be clearly distinguished. In the
distinction lies all the difference between Liberty and Autocracy.
Something, if not all, of this difference lies in the distinction
between the Law of the Blood and the Law of the Soil.
The first and commonest of these concepts is that which must have
colored the thought of the feudal lord as he looked upon “his”
people, belonging to him because they belonged to the soil which his
sword controlled. This concept contemplates the citizen or subject as
invested with the character of a national body politic, bound by an
obligatory allegiance to it and its political institutions because he
is there, born there, or led there by the circumstances of his life.
The other concept, which we like to think constitutes the basis
of what we call “America,” for it is of the essence of anything
worthy of the name of Democracy, contemplates the citizen as a
_participant_ in the fact of sovereignty, one who owns an undivided
and indivisible share in the community title, and whose right
and duty it is to take a definite part and acknowledge a definite
responsibility in the business of government. In this study of
naturalization and political life of the foreign-born citizen it is
with this second concept that we have most to do.
ESSENTIALS OF CITIZENSHIP: ANCIENT--AND AMERICAN
What, then, are the essentials of that citizenship to which an alien
aspires and addresses himself when he seeks to become an active
member in the American community whose members are something more
than mere chattels of the sovereign?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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