Supreme Law Library : Resources : Two Classes

                A Collection of Court Authorities

                            in re

                     Two Classes of Citizens

by

                Paul Andrew Mitchell, B.A., M.S.

            (All Rights Reserved without Prejudice)

Before the 14th amendment [sic] in 1868:

   A citizen of any one of the States of the union,  is held to

   be, and  called a  citizen of  the United  States,  although

   technically and  abstractly there  is no  such  thing.    To

   conceive a citizen of the United States who is not a citizen

   of some  one of  the States, is totally foreign to the idea,

   and inconsistent  with the  proper construction  and  common

   understanding of the expression as used in the Constitution,

   which must  be deduced  from its  various other  provisions.

   The object then to be attained, by the exercise of the power

   of naturalization,  was to  make citizens  of the respective

   States.

                          [Ex Parte Knowles, 5 Cal. 300 (1855)]

                                          [bold emphasis added]

   It is true, every person, and every class and description of

   persons, who  were at  the  time  of  the  adoption  of  the

   Constitution recognized  as  citizens in the several States,

   became also  citizens of  this new political body;  but none

   other;   it was  formed by  them,   and for  them and  their

   posterity, but for no one else.  And the personal rights and

   privileges  guarantied   [sic]  to   citizens  of  this  new

   sovereignty  were intended to  embrace  those only  who were

   then members of the several state communities, or who should

   afterwards, by  birthright  or  otherwise,  become  members,

   according to  the provisions  of the  Constitution  and  the

   principles on which it was founded.

              [Dred Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. 393, 404 (1856)]

                                               [emphasis added]

... [F]or  it is  certain, that  in the  sense in  which the word

"Citizen" is  used in  the federal Constitution, "Citizen of each

State," and  "Citizen of  the United  States***," are convertible

terms;   they mean  the same  thing;   for "the  Citizens of each

State are  entitled to  all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens

in the  several States,"  and "Citizens  of the United States***"

are, of course, Citizens of all the United States***.

                   [44 Maine 518 (1859), Hathaway, J. dissenting]

                    [italics in original, underlines & C's added]

After the 14th amendment [sic] in 1868:

As it was the adoption of the Constitution by the

   Conventions of  nine States that established and created the

   United States***,  it is  obvious  there could not then have

   existed any person who had been seven years a citizen of the

   United  States***,   or  who   possessed  the   Presidential

   qualifications of  being thirty-five years of age, a natural

   born citizen,  and fourteen  years a  resident of the United

   States***.   The United States*** in these provisions, means

   the States  united.  To be twenty-five years of age, and for

   seven years  to have  been a  citizen of  one of  the States

   which  ratifies the Constitution,  is the qualification of a

   representative.   To be a natural born citizen of one of the

   States which  shall ratify  the Constitution,  or  to  be  a

   citizen  of   one  of  said  States  at  the  time  of  such

   ratification, and  to have  attained the  age of thirty-five

   years, and to have been fourteen years a resident within one

   of the  said States,  are the  Presidential  qualifications,

   according to the true meaning of the Constitution.

              [People v. De La Guerra, 40 Cal. 311, 337 (1870)]

                            [bold and underline emphasis added]

It is  quite clear,  then, that  there is  a citizenship  of  the

United States**  and a citizenship of a State, which are distinct

from each  other and  which depend upon different characteristics

or circumstances in the individual.

                       [Slaughter House Cases, 83 U.S. 36 (1872)]

                                                 [emphasis added]

It had long been contended,  and had been held  by many learned

authorities, and had never been judicially decided to the contrary,

that  there was no such thing as a citizen of the United States,

except as  that condition arose  from citizenship of some state.

No mode existed, it was said,  of obtaining a citizenship of the

United States, except by first becoming a citizen of some state.

                      [U.S. v. Anthony, 24 Fed. Cas. 829 (1873)]

                                    [headnote 3, emphasis added]

The  first  clause  of  the  fourteenth  amendment  made  negroes

citizens of  the United  States**, and  citizens of  the State in

which they  reside, and  thereby created two classes of citizens,

one of the United States** and the other of the state.

                      [Cory et al. v. Carter, 48 Ind. 327 (1874)]

                                     [headnote 8, emphasis added]

We have  in our  political system  a  Government  of  the  United

States** and  a government  of each  of the several States.  Each

one of  these governments  is distinct  from the others, and each

has citizens of its own ....

                         [U.S. v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1875)]

                                                 [emphasis added]

One may  be a  citizen of  a State  and yet  not a citizen of the

United States.  Thomasson v. State, 15 Ind. 449;  Cory v. Carter,

48 Ind.  327 (17  Am. R. 738);  McCarthy v. Froelke, 63 Ind. 507;

In Re Wehlitz, 16 Wis. 443.

                      [McDonel v. State, 90 Ind. 320, 323 (1883)]

                                               [underlines added]

A person who is a citizen of the United States** is necessarily a

citizen of  the particular  state in  which he  resides.   But  a

person may  be a  citizen of a particular state and not a citizen

of the  United States**.   To  hold otherwise would be to deny to

the state  the highest  exercise of its sovereignty, -- the right

to declare who are its citizens.

                               [State v. Fowler, 41 La. Ann. 380]

                                [6 S. 602 (1889), emphasis added]

The first  clause of  the fourteenth  amendment  of  the  federal

Constitution made  negroes citizens  of the  United States**, and

citizens of  the state  in which they reside, and thereby created

two classes of citizens, one of the United States** and the other

of the state.

                              [4 Dec. Dig. '06, p. 1197, sec. 11]

                              ["Citizens" (1906), emphasis added]

There are,  then, under  our republican  form of  government, two

classes of  citizens, one  of the  United States** and one of the

state.  One class of  citizenship may  exist in a person, without

the other,  as in  the case  of a  resident of  the  District  of

Columbia;  but both classes usually exist in the same person.

                   [Gardina v. Board of Registrars, 160 Ala. 155]

                          [48 S. 788, 791 (1909), emphasis added]

... citizens  of the  District of  Columbia were  not granted the

privilege of  litigating in  the federal  courts on the ground of

diversity of  citizenship.   Possibly no  better reason  for this

fact exists  than  such citizens were  not  thought of  when  the

judiciary article  [III] of the federal Constitution was drafted.

... citizens of the United States** ... were also not thought of;

but in  any event  a citizen of the United States**, who is not a

citizen of any state, is not within the language of the [federal]

Constitution.

                     [Pannill v. Roanoke, 252 F. 910, 914 (1918)]

                                                 [emphasis added]

That there is a citizenship of the United States and a citizenship

of a state,  and the privileges and immunities of one  are not the

same  as the other  is well established  by  the decisions  of the

courts of this country.

                          [Tashiro v. Jordan, 201 Cal. 236 (1927)]

There is a distinction between citizenship of the United States**

and citizenship  of a  particular state,  and a person may be the

former without being the latter.

                        [Alla v. Kornfeld, 84 F.Supp. 823 (1949)]

                                     [headnote 5, emphasis added]

A person  may be a citizen of the United States** and yet be not

identified or identifiable as a citizen of any particular state.

                   [Du Vernay v. Ledbetter, 61 So.2d 573 (1952)]

                                                [emphasis added]

No fortifying authority  is necessary  to sustain  the proposition

that  in the United States a double citizenship exists.  A citizen

of the United States  is  a citizen of the Federal Government  and

at  the  same time  a citizen  of the State  in which  he resides.

Determination  of what  is  qualified residence within a State  is

not  here necessary.  Suffice it to say  that  one possessing such

double citizenship owes allegiance  and  is entitled to protection

from each sovereign to whose jurisdiction he is subject.

            [Kitchens v. Steele, 112 F.Supp. 383 (USDC/WDMO 1953)]

...  both before and after the Fourteenth Amendment to the federal

Constitution,  it  has  not  been necessary  for a person  to be a

citizen of the United States in order to be a citizen of his state.

                      [Crosse v. Board of Supervisors of Elections]

                                              [221 A.2d 431 (1966)]

The  privileges and immunities clause  of the  Fourteenth  Amendment

protects very few rights  because it neither incorporates any of the

Bill of Rights  nor protects all rights of individual citizens.  See

Slaughter-House Cases,  83 U.S. (16 Wall.) 36,  21 L.Ed. 394 (1873).

Instead, this provision protects only those rights peculiar to being

a citizen of the federal government; it does not protect those rights

which relate to state citizenship.

                 [Jones v. Temmer, 829 F.Supp. 1226 (USDC/DCO 1993)]

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