Contumacious
Radical Freedom
5. Citizenship, of course, does not exist by nature; it is created by law, and the identification of citizens has always been considered an essential aspect of sovereignty. Although the Constitution of 1787 mentioned citizens, it did not define citizenship.?
That is because the states RETAINED the right to confer their citizenship on whomever.
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Are you suggesting that one may be a citizen of, say, Oklahoma, but not a legal citizen of the United States?
Yep.
Mr. Chief Justice FULLER, after stating the facts in the foregoing language, delivered the opinion of the court.
. In discussing this question, we must not confound the rights of citizenship which a State may confer within its own limits, and the rights of citizenship as a member of the Union. It does not by any means follow, because he has all the rights and privileges of a citizen of a State, that he must be a citizen of the United States. He may have all of the rights and privileges of the citizen of a State, and yet not be entitled to the rights and privileges of a citizen in any other State. For, previous to the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, every State had the undoubted right to confer on whomsoever it pleased the character of citizen, and to endow him with all its rights. But this character of course was confined to the boundaries of the State, and gave him no rights or privileges in other States beyond those secured to him by the laws of nations and the comity of States. Nor have the several States surrendered the power of conferring these rights and privileges by adopting the Constitution of the United States. Each State may still confer them upon an alien, or any one it thinks proper, or upon any class or description of persons;
BOYD v. NEBRASKA EX REL. THAYER., 12 S. Ct. 375, 143 U.S. 135 (U.S. 02/01/1892)
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