Speech #650321473

Any such statute. if passed. would be unconstitutional. Of course. I do not contend that Congress can not at any time. under the authority conferred upon it by the Constitution to pass uniform naturalization laws. either amend or repeal section 1994 of the Revised Statutes. The power of Congress in this regard is no doubt plenary. This fact might naturally lead some to ask the question. "Why attempt to cover this point in a constitutional amendment? Why not leave it to Congress to repeal the statute lying at the foundation of the difficulty?" But to such a question there are two sufficient answers. In the first place. section 1994. although a statute and therefore open to repeal or revision. is simply declaratory of a principle of law that is almost universally recognized and runs infinitely into important legal questions of botil a local and an international nature. It is not likely. therefore. that Congress will ever go so far in amending and extending the naturalization laws as to abandon this principle. And just so Iong as citizenship can be acquired by woalen through the performance of a marriage ceremony will there exist the inequalities and evils to which attention has been called. In the second place. by such a constitutional provision as that proposed by me. the past as well us the future can be cared for. There are. of course. now in the United States a great many women. formerly foreigners. who have acquired citizenship through marriage. It may be seriously doubted that Congress could legally divest these women of the citizenship already acquired in that manner. The Supreme Court has said. in the Wong Kim Ark decision. already mentioned. that "the power of naturalization vested in Congress by the Conslitution Is a power to confer citizenship. not a power to take it away." But wlolly aside from this legal doubt. it would hardly be fair and just to pass a law changing the status of these %vomen from that of citizenship to that of alienage--certaily it would not be just or fair in inny of their cases. On the other hand. no unfairness or injusticeand nothing in any sense illegalis involved in so qualifying the conferrence of a constitutional right to vote as to make it possible for Congress hereafter t6 enact legislation. requiring those whose citizenship arises merely from marriage to meet. in every substantial respect. before. they .will be allowed to exercise the right of suffrage. the conditions that inales and unmarried females are required to meet before citizenship is conferred upon them. Accordingly. the purpose I have In mind in inserting in my proposed amendment the provision that "no female person who is not such a citizen otherwise than by marriage. or who. having acquired citizenship by marriage. has not complied with such requirements aind conditions as may be prescribed by Congress. shall exercise such right" is to pave the way for the passage through Congress. in the event that the constitutional amendment should be adopted. of a law which would compel foreign women who acquire citizenship in the instantaneous and unregulated manner of going through a marriage ceremony to meet conditions and requirements similar to those now governing the conferrence of citizenship through court processes before they would be permitted to stand alongside men and women born here and nren and women born abroad and naturalized here in the regular safeguarded manner and cast votes having the same effect in determining the course of government as the votes cast by the nativeborn and regularly naturalized citizens. - I repeat. Mr. President.