Speech #530032623

See also the Dredd Scott case. 19 How.) I think that this is the basis upon which is founded the objection for want of constitutional power in Congress to pass a law prohibiting aliens from owning lands within the States of the Union which has been urged. But such a law would not deprive any State of any right which it reserved from the Union for itself and its people. Before the adoption of the Constitution each State had the right to pass naturalization lawsto invest aliens with all the rights possessed by natives upon any terms which the State saw proper to prescribebut by its adoption and ratification every State surrendered that right. That Constitution declares that Congress shall have power "to establish a uniform rule of naturalization * * * throughout the United States." Kent. Story. and other distinguished commentators upon the Constitution all hold that this grant vests in Congress the exclusive right to legislate upon the subject of naturalization. The only restriction is that the laws upon that subject must be "uniform throughout the United States." that is. the law must be the same as applied to all aliens from whatever country they come. And here was one of the doubts which arose in the case with reference to the Chinese. In Collet vs. Collet. 2 Dallas. the Supreme Court of the United States held that in the absence of any law of Congress upon the subject a State might pass naturalization laws. provided they were not in conflict with any law of Congress upon the subject. but afterwards in numerous wellconsidered cases that court held that the power of naturalization was vested exclusively in Congress. That being true. the legal status of an alien. that is. all the rights which he acquires or can exercise in this country beyond those with which the common law and law of nations invest him is acquired by his naturalizationhis becoming a citizen. In Vattels Law of Nations. Book 2. chapter 8. section 114. it is pointedly asserted to be the right of every sovereignty to deny t0 aliens the right to own or possess lands or immovable property within its jurisdiction.