Mr. Sherman to Mr. Peak.
Washington, May 12, 1897.
Sir: Your dispatch No. 88, of April 27, has been received. You therewith inclose copy and translation of the reply of the Swiss Government to your note of March 24 in relation to the case of Mr. Frederick Arnold Schneider, an American citizen.
But little appears to be gained in the way of detailed analysis of and answer to the note of the Swiss Federal Council of April 20, inasmuch as nearly all of the elaborate argument therein presented rests on a [Page 567] fallacious disregard of the essential point which the Department’s instruction and your note of March 24 endeavored to present clearly to the Federal Government, viz, that, whatever may be said touching the application of express treaties of naturalization to the case of native subjects emigrating from one state to cast their lot in another and to become citizens thereof by due process of law, that conventional feature is wholly lacking in the case of persons native-born citizens of citizen fathers. By no just process of reasoning can it be claimed that such native-born citizens of citizen parentage are in the category of emigrants of whom the native state may exact renunciation of their original status as a condition to recognizing the acquisition of a new status. It is impossible to admit, even by way of argument that a person so born a citizen of any sovereign state holds his birthright by any artificial title of acquisition such as naturalization necessarily implies.
What the note of the Swiss Federal Council says, therefore, respecting the necessity of treaties of naturalization to determine points of allegiance not covered by the general treaties of amity and commerce between states can not be admitted as having reference to the case of a native-born citizen of a citizen father. The Swiss claim in this regard, as you have been already instructed, is far in advance of that presented by any country with which the United States maintain relations, and the United States can not be expected to acquiesce in so exceptional a contention.
It is observed that the note of the Swiss Federal Council rests its argument in part upon a citation from a note stated to have been written June 1, 1852, to the United States minister in Prussia by Daniel Webster, when Secretary of State. The citation is not quite accurate, for no instruction of the date and character described was written by Mr. Webster. Under date of February 14, 1853, Mr. Webster’s successor, Edward Everett, writing to Mr. Barnard at Berlin, in treating the case of naturalized citizens of the United States who had been drafted into the Prussian army upon their return to Prussia, refers to a letter written by Mr. Webster to a notary public of New York, named J. B. Nones, of June 1, 1852, in which, allowing for differences for translation, much the same language is found as in the citation made by the Swiss Federal Council.
It is to be insisted upon, however, that the reference is only valid to the case involved, namely, those citizens of a foreign state who emigrate in evasion or omission of military service and acquire another status by naturalization. As to such persons the doctrine of dual allegiance equally subsisting toward the country of origin and the country of adoption, and necessarily regulated by a treaty of naturalization, may be applied as an academic proposition; but in point of fact the claim is not pressed, so far as known, by any State except Italy and Russia, unless the emigration shall have been at or near the military age and constitute of itself an evasive violation of the law of origin. While the countries named have at times asserted that an infant emigrant carries his dual condition during minority and subsequently through life, neither of those countries has claimed that the yet unborn emigrant, so to speak, being born of a father who has lawfully become a citizen of the country of his birth, can be held for evasion of military “duty toward the country of his ancestors.
Reverting to the particular case which has given rise to this correspondence, the Department approves your inquiry as to the present status of Mr. Schneider’s case, and is disposed to await the result of his renunciation of Swiss citizenship and application for discharge there [Page 568] from, which, as you state, has not yet been granted. It is observable that throughout the note of the Swiss Federal Council the right of renunciation of citizenship is spoken of as pertaining to the individual, provided it be declared in the prescribed forms of the law of July 3, 1876.
Although not recognizing the obligation of the native-born American son of an American citizen father to make the application of renunciation referred to, that procedure may afford a practical solution to a position which otherwise is and would remain intolerable as between two sovereign states. It remains to be seen whether the release of Mr. Schneider from the peculiar claim of Switzerland to his allegiance will follow his voluntary acquiescence with the terms of the Swiss law on the subject or whether it may not, after all, be discovered that the real point at issue is in the form and manner in which a person claimed to owe Swiss allegiance maybe released therefrom. It may prove that the canton reserves an equal discretion to refuse to recognize the individual’s renunciation. It is, however, trusted, in the interest of the friendly relations which this Government earnestly desires to maintain with Switzerland, that such a contingency will not arise
Respectfully, yours,