which his severities excited, but from the impression which the illegitimacy of his birth might make on his subjects.

The oath of fealty and homage necessarily accompanied the numerous grants of land, wrested from its original owners, and bestowed upon his adherents; the oath of allegiance was incorporated with the oath of fealty, and whoever will reflect on the condition of the times will be satisfied that allegiance was not sworn to the nation, but to the individual whose victorious arms had rendered him the ruler of the nation.

Hence certain consequences were understood to flow; the allegiance thus solemnly pledged could not be withdrawn, unless the protection which was implied in return, should be withheld or become impracticable.

If the monarch was driven out by a successful competitor, who took possession of the throne, the allegiance was considered as transferred to him, and the subject who disobeyed the reigning sovereign, was held to violate his oath.

But from this allegiance, either original or transferred, he could not withdraw himself; he was supposed never to cease being the subject of the reigning sovereign. Allegiance equally permanent was held to result from birth. The king could see none but his own subjects within his own domain. Bound as he alleged to protect all, all were bound to be faithful to him. But allegiance sprung from the birth of those only who were born under his dominion. It is observed by Coke, that if enemies were to obtain possession of a town or fort, and have issue there, that issue would not be subjects of the king of England, for they would have no claim to his protection.*

If this view of the subject be correct; if allegiance, at least since the Norman Conquest, is to be considered as proceeding from force and not from contract; if it is legally due to the king and not to the society which he governs, we can remain under

7 Coke's Rep. 6.

no difficulty in respect to its inalienable quality according to their laws.

The rights or expectations of the people were seldom taken into account; the king might, by treaty with a foreign power, alienate an entire territory; and its inhabitants, without their previous knowledge or consent, be compelled to serve another sovereign.* Thus allegiance was rendered perpetual at the pleasure of the sovereign, not of the people; and the former, not the latter, possessed a sort of property in it; but with us its indefeasible nature rests on better grounds.

The instantaneous result on our political character, from the declaration of independence, was to convert allegiance from compulsion into compact, and while it still remained due to the sovereign, to see that sovereign only in the whole community.

In the native we have observed that it is coeval with life; in him who migrates from another country, it commences as a permanent duty with naturalization; in both it lasts till death, unless it is released by some procedure, mutual on the part of both the state and the individual.

Whether the individual alone may relinquish it, is a question which in this as well as other countries has been often discussed, and on which an opinion cannot be given without diffidence, since it has not yet received a decision in the highest tribunal of our country.

* See Wooddeson, vol. i. 232, and many of the British treaties evince the truth of his position. In 1783, the cessions of Tobago, East Florida, &c.; the numerous transfers among the European monarchs since the year 1795, form striking instances of the general adoption of the principle. Time indeed is sometimes allowed to the people to withdraw themselves and their property, but age or other causes may render this impossible. In Great Britain such treaties are often confirmed by acts of parliament, but the principle is the same. Their colonies are not represented in parliament.

In the first place, we may dispose with little comparative difficulty of the case of the naturalized citizen. His accession is voluntary, and his engagement is neither in its terms nor in its nature limited to any time. He therefore binds himself by contract for his life, and the state,-which differently from the doctrine of the English and other monarchies, cannot afterwards deprive him of the quality thus acquired, which cannot again by its own act, convert him into an alien,-is equally bound for the same term.

This is well expressed by Locke in his treatise on civil government. "He that has once by actual agreement and express declaration given his consent to be of any commonweal, is perpetually and indispensably obliged to be and remain unalterably a subject of it, and can never be again in the liberty of a state of nature, unless by any calamity, the government he was under shall be dissolved, or by some public act it cuts him off from being a member of it."

Under our Constitution the last would be impossible without his own consent, and the citizen can no more dissolve this contract than he can any other of less moment without the consent of the opposite party.

But there are two other classes of citizens, and we must examine whether the same principle can be applied to them. It would, perhaps, be sufficient to say, that if the obligation, to which the naturalized citizen subjects himself, is clearly an obligation for life; that of the native cannot be for a shorter term. Naturalization is but a mode of acquiring the right, subject to the duties of a citizen; it is the factitious substitution of legal form for actual birth, and it can neither exceed nor fall short of the capacities and obligations which birth creates. It would be absurd indeed, if the foreigner was given to understand, that by naturalization he had become bound for life, in the midst of native citizens, none of whom were under the same obligation.

But we need not rest on this postulate. The compact created among the citizens, by the declaration of independence, was well understood by themselves at the moment, not to be of a temporary nature, and in the power of the individual at pleasure to dissolve. It was essential not only to the permanence, but to the formation of the new government, that every one either taking an active part in its establishment, or giving evidence of his consent by remaining within it, should be considered as bound to it, so long as it continued. Their situation at the moment was not that of aliens, who were held by a prior allegiance, while they undertook another. He who thus united himself with the newly-formed state, instantly ceased, in contemplation of our law, to be a subject of Great Britain. He could, thereafter, justify no hostile measure against us by alleging his ancient allegiance. What he once owed to that power was now wholly transferred to the new state, with all its qualities and accompaniments, except one. The correlative of protection, could not, as before, be destroyed at pleasure by the receiver of the allegiance. The obligation was mutual and perpetual. If any qualification of it was intended, it would have been expressed, but we do not find in any of the state constitutions, or in that of the United States, the slightest suggestion that the allegiance to be paid to them, was less solemn, less entire, less permanent than that which was previously due to the monarch of Great Britain. Thus the question stands in respect to this class of citizens.

The next inquiry is, whether this contract was confined to the individual or extended also to his issue. So far as relates to the parent, an answer to this question may be found in the mere statement of it. No one can suppose that the parent intended, that while he was a permanent citizen of the state, his children should not partake of the same rights, enjoy the same liberty, and be protected by the same government. Nature itself impresses on the parental mind, a desire to promote the

interests of children, and causes it to revolt at the idea of withholding from them what may not only be shared with them, but what also becomes more valuable by being so shared. The pleasing sensation in the parent, of passing from the condition of an oppressed subject, to that of a citizen of a free republic, would surely be impaired by a consideration that his offspring would acquire no birthright in the community of his choice. In respect to him, therefore, we cannot doubt the desire, and have only to examine the power, of fixing the political relations of his descendants. The principle which next presents itself is, that what all the members of the state must have thus understood, must also have been so understood by the state, which is only the collection of those members. The compact so far as relates to the state, of course extends to the individual and to all his descendants, and therefore, as the child is entitled to the benefit of being recognised as a citizen, the state is entitled in its turn, to view the child as under its allegiance. It may however be urged, that an infant cannot bind itself by contract, but if it is necessary to answer the objection, it is sufficient to say that an infant may expressly bind itself for necessaries, as food and raiment, that a contract is always implied where such articles are furnished, and that the reciprocal compact of protection and allegiance, must be ranked among considerations of the highest order and first necessity. The dignity of the subject is however somewhat affected by resting it on a ground so narrow; and when we consider all the obligations cast on a political society by the voluntary formation of it, we may discard the smaller rules of private contract, and more safely rely on the broad basis of the general good, inherent in its nature, and necessary to its self-preservation.

When the child has attained an age sufficiently mature, according to civil institutions, to enable it to determine the choice, it would seem, in consistency with the principles already