Weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1858-1865, 1859-07-13
Vol. XIV. No. %.
Naturalized Citizens.

We copy from the last Goldsborough Tribune the
following pointed and sensible remarks in relation
to naturalized citizens.
The position assumed BY Gen. Cass will, we
think, be found the true one. The opposition will
Of course clamor; that is their vocation. If Gen.
Cass had taken the opposite ground they would
have clamored at that and would have professed
great alarm at the prospect of war between the
United States and the belgerant nations of Europe
and other Know Nothings should have become all
atonce the peculiar champions of foreigners and
naturalized citizens?
The Tribune says:
The opposition presses are striving to make po-
tcal capital out of the letters of Gen. Cass relative
to the jurisdiction Of France and other European
powers over naturazed citizens who return to their
native country, and render themselves amenable to
its laws.
If we assert that our naturalzed citizens have
right to claim protection from the United States
government, when they voluntarily place themselves
in position to become amenable to the laws of
France Austria &c, it is tatamount to declaration
that those powers have no right to any system of
jurisprudence of their own, that comes in conflict
with the pleasure and whimS of the expatriated. In
fact that when man becomes citizen Of this
Republic, he has right to go where he pleascs and
do as he pleases everywhere.
1t is attempted to sustain the charge that this
procedure that is, failure to sustain and defend
them. makes the right of the naturalized and native
citizens unequal They equal wherever the
jurisdiction of the United States extends; but be-
yond that it is impossible that they should be, be-
cause we cannot legisatc for the antccedcnts of
man born and partly raised in Germany, or else
where abroad. A citizen of Poland, under the ban
of the authorities that subdued the revolutionSts
may become citizen of the United States but if
he wfuly puts himself under the jurisdiction of
those author itie he has no claim upon us TO protect
him against the government which lawfully places
him in the attitude of rebel. Common sense will
not surely admit the abSurdity that his oath of
al glance here abrogaes the guilt of treason there.
1t is not for US to say what is treason in Great
Britain. France. elsewhere; it is enough for
to attend to our own business in this matter. We
have not the power. and will never have the right
to dictate other nations to their internal laws
and municipal regulations. !
We who have set up quasi jurisdiction over all
America, and assert that foreign nations shall not
acquire territory therein, though it is not pro-
perty, or under our jurisdiction, afford to let
the other great nations of the earth make their own
laws in regard to their subjects andadmit that
each one of them knows better than others what is
best Tor their own security ana the pernanence ol
their government
Dothose who entertain this view of thesubjcct see
the evils to which weshoudbe subjected were we toas
sert the doctrine and carry it out in practice that all
naturalized citizens should receive protection
under all circumstances Any individual of this
class would involve this great country in the horr
BILE embroilmeht of Europe by putting himself in
the trap and making an outcry. Spectators and
war hawks and fbusters and robbers would ther
hold the destiny of empire, and control the fate o.
our beloved land. Enough could be found to act ir
this drama, and at very little cost to change ar
hostile demonstrations of blood and carnage, to thu
ruin of present hopes and to the earning of thu
interninabe hatred of many Of the most powerful
| nations of the earth.
We shall do other nations no wrong by asserting
and maintaining our own rights, neither do they
wrong us by asserting and maintaining theirs"