The right of citizens of the United States to resort to and transact affairs of business or commerce in another country, without molestation or disfavor of any kind, is set forth in the general treaties of amity and commerce which the United States have concluded with foreign nations, thus declaring what this Government holds to be a necessary feature of the mutual intercourse of civilized nations and confirming the principles of equality, equity and comity which underlie their relations to one another. This right is not created by treaties; it is recognized by them as a necessity of national existence, and we apply the precept to other countries, whether it be conventionally declared or not, as fully as we expect its extension to us. In some instances, other governments, taking a less broad view, regard the rights of intercourse of alien citizens as not extending to their former subjects who may have acquired another nationality. So far as this position is founded on national sovereignty and asserts a claim to the allegiance and service of the subject not to be extinguished save by the consent of the sovereign, it finds precedent and warrant which it is immaterial to the purpose of this instruction to discuss. Where such a claim exists, it becomes the province of a naturalization convention to adjust it on a ground of common advantage, substituting the general sanction of treaty for the individual permission of expatriation and recognizing the subject who may have changed allegiance as being on the same plane with the natural or native citizens of the other contracting State. Some States, few in number, be it said, make distinction between different classes of citizens of the foreign State, denying to some the rights of innocent intercourse and commerce which by comity and natural right are accorded to the stranger, and doing this without regard to the origin of the persons adversely affected. One country in particular, although maintaining with the United States a treaty which unqualifiedly guarantees to citizens of this country the rights of visit, sojourn and commerce of the Empire, yet assumes to prohibit those rights to Hebrew citizens of the United States, whether native or naturalized.[45] This Government can lose no opportunity to controvert such a distinction, wherever it may appear. It cannot admit such discrimination among its own citizens, and can never assent that a foreign State, of its own volition, can apply a religious test to debar any American citizen from the favor due to all.