Daily national Democrat., 1859-07-30
Edmund Randolph on the Naturaliza-
ton Question.

"Taken together he says, "they can be
practically construed to mean only that the
Government declines to give any promise OF
protection whatsoever, and to amount TO
nothing more than general official notice to
all of our naturalized citizens to remain at
home That idea is indeed very plainly con-
veyed in terms 10y the letter to Mr., Hofer.7
Again he says;
"And in our own country no less than in
Europe it is to day understood, as it has been
by all men in all ages that present existing
liability to render military service to a mans
country begins with his birth and continues
so long as he has strength to bear arms in its
defense. The summons to the ranks is not
nor ever was, regarded as the beginning OF
that liability, but the appointment of the
time, place, and manner of its discharge. A
levy or conscipton does not impose but col
lects the debt The American doctrine on
this subject differs from the European only
in that we hold that man may, 10y his own
net release himself from this obligation TO
his native country and assume it towards the
country of his adoption, and, being then nat
uralized become in every respect as one born
unon the soil We cannot deny that, at the
moment of his emigration, every naturalized
citizen was under a present existing obliga-
ton TO render military service to his country
whenever he might be called upon to do so,
and unless he maintain that this obligation
has been wholly dissolved by naturalization,
we have no resource but to admit that it still
exists in all its force against every individ-
ual citizen of that class in the United States"
Mr.. Cass, he says gives the consent of this
Government that the Governments of Europe
shall enforce against he naturalized citizens
of the United States, the obligation to bear
arms. 1t will embrace the flower of the
youth of that portion of our people, for our
laws grant peculiar facilities for their natur-
alization The policy of Mr.. Cass is a craven
and alject policy, and opposed to tbe sound
est principles of justice and law Since their
independence, the United States have re-
ceived between eight and nine million emil
grants from Europe. OF this great mass of
humanity, there are to-day among us, at
least, perhaps, one half million of men, in
the prime of active life naturalized citizens
of the United States Against the manifest
Justice of their claim to an equality of bene-
fits as well as of burdens until now, but one
objection has ever teen interposed, and that
came not from this continent, but from Eu-
rope; il is the doctrine of perpetual allegi
ance.
ado the Governments of Europe claim mil
tary service from naturalized American citi-
zens on the ground of n still existing allegi-
ance to the sovereign under whom they were
born? Not one of them ever pretended to
make this claim on the footing of any other
right, unless in the case of mere desertion
from actual service. With that narrow ex-
c, pton, naturalized and native citizens stand
on precise equality as no one denies the |
right of an American born to enlist in a for
eign service, or the right of the Government !
with wich he contracts, to punish him for any |
infraction of his obligations. Cases of actu- /
al desertion from foreign ranks of those who .
were born American citizens, or become so
after the commission of that offense las well
known as any other in the codes of all ma.
tions, and as strictly dehned) do not enter
into the present consideration at ALL and are
not hkely ever to be heard of. The Gov
ernments of Europe demand those who were
never in the ranks, on the ground, not of dc
sertion from the army, but desertion from
allegiance and the general duty of a subject
to his sovereign. Those Governments conde.
sccnd to Justify themselves by some of the
distinctions to be found in Mr.. Cass' letters
These are all our own invention, and gotten
up for the purpose only, of securing ourselves
from the duty Of redressing the wrong
When, then, a citizen Of the United States is
seized, handcuffed, imprisoned lashed, and |
showed off with a musket in his hand to be |
slaughtered in Italy or elsewhere, avowedly |
on the ground of the continuance of that al |
legiance which we encourage hi.d to for |
swear and of which we accept the transfer, |
with all its mutual obligations of service and |
protection, it is a painful sight to behold |
our Government looking on with indifference |
and endeavoring to shield its recreancy with |
idle, volunteer quibbling and empty phrases |
about present obligations existing against |
the poor deluded wretch at the time of his |
emigration.
IL
If in respect of this debt of military SER
vice. the idea of a breach of present existing
obligation can be intended to mean anything
more than is included in the dfnition of til e
crime Of desertion, then it is but change of
pnraseoogy, and yields, in fact, all that is
claimed by those who assert the doctrine of
perpetual allegiance The one, equally as well
as the other, will carry a nuturaized Ameri-
can citizen into the slavery of European
army, and as effectually close the ears Of our
Government to his supplications. And as,
| therefore, we are not dealing in words but
the substance of things, it is plain that Mr..
! Cass in these letters has surrendered the
American ground on the question of perpet-
ual allegiance"
Mr. Randolph quotes portion Of Mr..
Webster's letter to Lord Ashburton, in 1912,
as follows:
Now, my Lord if war should break ont
between England and a European power,
can anything be more irreconcilable to the
general sentiments of mankind than that
England should seek out these persons thus
encouraged by her and compelled by their
own condition to leave their native homes.
tear them away from their new employments,
their new political relations, and their do.
nestle connections and force them to under
90 the dangers and hardships of a military
service for country which has ceased to be
their own country? Certainly, my Lord,
there can be but one answer to the question
Is it not far more reasonable that England
should either prevent such emigration of her
subjects, or that if she encourage and pro.
mote it she should leave them, not to the
embodiment of a double and contradictory
allegiance, but to their voluntary choice, to
form such relations, political or social, as they
see fit, in the country where they are to find
their bread and to the laws and institutions
to which they are to look for defense and
protection ?"
Mr.. Randolph concludes by an allusion to