Speech #460008839

The applicant can declare his intention. and can take the prescibed oath. and snako the prescribed renunciation. but he cannot see to it that the proceedings and renunciatlon are recorded. lie can produce a witness as to his residence anti character. and can appear in person in the proper court and be sworn there in open court. with his witness. as to the atoter proscribed in the statute. When this is done lie can so nothing more than to receive such certificate from te court as that Which Coleman (the defendant) received from the courb. a certificate which sets foith that it is given by the court under ie seal. Yet notwithstanding this sensible decision. the same arbitrary course toward the naturalized citizen is still pursued there under this law. I maintain that it is unwise and impolitic as well as unjust to the naturalized citizen to perpetuate a law upon the statutebook that furnished the pretext for establishing a dangerous precedent for foreign nations to question the validity of naturalization papers issued to their former subjects. For what recognition. I ask. can we reasonably expect of them for American certificates of naturalization. if United States officials at hoes may refuse to accept them as primta facie evidence of the rights of citizenship acquired by thepersons to whom they were issued by the courts? EXSECiRTAIiY OF STATE IIA)iLTON FIU KNEW ETErE. Such international questions may spring up at any moment. and this virtual disfranchisement of naturalized citizens in New York by an officer of the United States Government may prove a dangerous weapon against us whenever an occasion should arise compelling our Government to recognize the principle of upholding the legality of such certificates of naturalization. That the Government is well aware of its true position under such circumstances. is best shown by a correspondence which passed between the German eusbassador. Baron Schloezer. and the Secretary of State. Mr. Fish. in reference to the case of two brothers. Jacob and Herman Kastellan. former Prussian subjects. who left their native country in May. 1866. and June. 1867. respectively. and returned to Prussia in 1871. after having been naturalized in the early part of that year. It was thus evident that they could not have complied with thorequirements of thenaturalization laws as to prior residence. and on December 31. 1874. the German embassador. transmitting these naturalization papers to our Department of State. requested information upon the following points: First. whether these papers wore valid under the laws of the United States. and. Second. whether the Government of the United States recognized the Messrs. Kastellan upon these certificates of naturalization us American citizens. On January 8.1875. the Department of State forwarded the following reply to Baron Sehloezer. (see Foreign Rel.. 1875. Pt. 1.