Nonresident

“ Section 2 of the Indiana Taxing Act of 1933, the text of which is set forth in the margin, [1] provides for a tax upon gross income 'derived from sources within the State of Indiana' of all nonresident persons and corporations. The court below (114 F.2d 926) , has held that under this statute the thing taxed was 'the receipt of gross income' and as the income in question was received by respondent in Pennsylvania, it was beyond the jurisdiction of Indiana ”

“ And we think, moreover, that the authority so possessed by the state carries with it the power to endow the corporation with a right of recovery against the stockholder for the tax which it may have paid on his behalf. Certainly, the exercise of such a power is no broader than the well-recognized right of a state to affix to the holding of stock in a domestic corporation a liability on a nonresident as well as a resident stockholder in personam, in favor of the ordinary creditors of the corporation. ”

“ The lips of the non-resident were, at all events, not the lips to utter this wisdom; the non-resident might well feel themselves indeed, after a little, appointed to silence, and, with any delicacy, see their duty quite elsewhere. ”

“ A second answer to this strange and latitudinous notion is that it so far stultifies the sages by whom the Constitution was framed as to impute to them ignorance of the material distinction existing between citizenship and mere residence or domicil, and of the well known facts that a person confessedly an alien may be permitted to reside in a country in which he can possess no civil or political rights, or of which he is neither a citizen nor subject, and that, for certain purposes, a man may have a domicil in different countries, in no one of which he is an actual personal resident. ”

“ People rarely choose a non-resident. It is improper, as, in the first branch, the people at large, not the states, are represented.
Mr. RUTLEDGE urged and moved, that a residence of seven years should be required in the state wherein the member should be elected. An emigrant from New England to South Carolina or Georgia would know little of its affairs, and could not be supposed to acquire a thorough knowledge in less time.
Mr. READ reminded him that we were now forming a national government, and such a regulation would correspond little with the idea that we were one people. ”

“ That every foreigner who can prove satisfactorily that he has been resident in the country for five years, and that he desires to make it his permanent place of residence, that he is prepared to take the oath to obey the laws, to undertake all the obligations of citizenship, and to defend the independence of the country, should be allowed to become a citizen on taking that oath. This should be confined to persons possessing a certain amount of property, or a certain amount of yearly wages, and who have good characters. ”

“ The immediate and practical aim in view was that foreigners and Catholics should be excluded from all national, state, county, and municipal offices; that strenuous efforts should be made to change the naturalization 124laws, so that the immigrant could not become a citizen until a resident of twenty-one years in this country. My husband at once perceived the pernicious tendency of the movement, which was sweeping the Northern states with resistless force. Secret lodges were formed everywhere, secret ceremonies inaugurated—grip, passwords, and signs. ”

“ We have long held that a resident alien is a 'person' within the meaning of the Fifth and the Fourteenth Amendments. He therefore may not be deprived either by the National Government or by any state of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. ”

“ Is it not within the power of a State to grant to an alien, residing within its limits, all the rights and privileges enjoyed by its native-born or naturalized citizens, so far as such rights and privileges are under control of the State?—that is, to naturalize an alien to the extent of its own exclusive jurisdiction, even to the extent of voting for United [Pg 198] States officials, thus practically making him a member of the political community in the United States. ”

“ In effect every state possessed the power of naturalizing aliens in every other state; a power as mischievous in its nature, as it was indiscreet in its actual exercise. In one state, residence for a short time might, and did confer the rights of citizenship. In others, qualifications of greater importance were required. An alien, therefore, incapacitated for the possession of certain rights by the laws of the latter, might, by a previous residence and naturalization in the former, elude at pleasure all their salutary regulations for self-protection. ”

“ And as the power vested in congress by that instrument applies to aliens only; and as all powers not delegated to congress by the Constitution, nor prohibited to the States, are expressly reserved to the States respectively, or to the people; the power of conferring citizenship, on all persons not aliens, necessarily remains in the several States, both as to persons born on their soil, and as to those born in other parts of the Union; and any person upon whom such rights are conferred becomes a citizen of the State conferring them. ”

“ The present state of things is, indeed, a compromise between two fundamentally different ideas as to the constitution of a political society. Citizenship and its remaining privileges are the outcome of the primitive conception of the state as a personal and permanent union of determinate individuals, for whose exclusive benefit the laws and government of the state exist. Residence, regarded as a title of membership and protection, is the product of the more modern conception of the state, as consisting merely of the inhabitants for the time being of a certain territory. ”

“ Remember that to reside in another state as an alien did not, in default of special treaty or act of legislative grace, give the resident any claim to civic rights in his place of residence, while misfortune might at any time reduce him to slavery in a foreign land. ”

“ The term "citizen," as understood in our law, is precisely analogous to the term "subject" in the common law, and the change of phrase has entirely resulted from the change of government. The sovereignty has been transferred from one man to the collective body of the people, and he who before as a "subject of the king" is now "a citizen of the State." ”

“ Considering the ordinary chances of human life, a denial of citizenship under a residence of fourteen years is a denial to a great proportion of those who ask it, and controls a policy pursued from their first settlement by many of these States, and still believed of consequence to their prosperity; and shall we refuse to the unhappy fugitives from distress that hospitality which the savages of the wilderness extended to our fathers arriving in this land? Shall oppressed humanity find no asylum on this globe? ”

“ It has been suggested, that in adopting it into the Constitution, the words 'free inhabitants' were changed for the word 'citizens.' An examination of the forms of expression commonly used in the State papers of that day, and an attention to the substance of this article of the Confederation, will show that the words 'free inhabitants,' as then used, were synonymous with citizens. When the Articles of Confederation were adopted, we were in the midst of the war of the Revolution, and there were very few persons then embraced in the words 'free inhabitants,' who were not born on our soil. ”

“ An alien friend who is domiciled, that is to say, who is a permanent resident, can be compelled to serve, for otherwise he would receive the benefits of the government without sharing the burdens. An alien’s declaration of intention to become a citizen, though it does not make him a citizen, is conclusive evidence that he is properly to be considered a permanent resident. ”

“ But still we are brought back to the question, may not a State bestow upon a resident alien the right to vote, within its limits, as a personal privilege, without conferring upon him the other privileges of citizenship, or ever intending to render it obligatory upon the other States to receive him as a citizen? ”

“ Those who are the avowed enemies of social order or who come to our shores to swell the injurious influence and to extend the evil practices of any association that defies our laws should not only be denied citizenship, but a domicile. ”

“ The draft code of the Executive Branch was an omnibus bill in five chapters. The chapter relating to 'Loss of Nationality' provided that any citizen should 'lose his nationality' by becoming naturalized in a foreign country; taking an oath of allegiance to a foreign state; entering or serving in the armed forces of a foreign state; being employed by a foreign government in a post for which only nationals of that country are eligible; voting in a foreign political election or plebiscite ”

“ The foreigners who have immigrated to this country, and embraced, through the naturalisation laws, American citizenship, have come here, for the most part, to make this their permanent abode. In assuming this citizenship, their foreign prejudices, thoughts, and habits have become absorbed in their new political life and duties. As rain, falling upon banks of sand, leaves no trace of its existence, so these foreigners, swallowed up in the immense and busy life of this country, soon pass unnoticed and undistinguished, into the walks of American citizenship. ”

“ To prevent any misapplication of the views expressed in this opinion, it is proper to observe that we do not mean to assert, by any thing we have said, that a State may not authorize proceedings to determine the status of one of its citizens towards a non-resident, which would be binding within the State, though made without service of process or personal notice to the non-resident. ”

“ It provides that no state shall 'deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.' The words 'any person' have sufficient scope to include resident aliens, whether eligible for citizenship or not. ”

“ Graves, 300 U.S. 308, 57 S.Ct. 466, 81 L.Ed. 666, 108 A.L.R. 721. The responsibilities of that citizenship arise out of the relationship to the state which domicile creates. That relationship is not dissolved by mere absence from the state. ”

“ By "residence," in the constitution, is to be understood, not an absolute inhabitancy within the United States during the whole period; but such an inhabitancy, as includes a permanent domicile in the United States. No one has supposed, that a temporary absence abroad on public business, and especially on an embassy to a foreign nation, would interrupt the residence of a citizen, so as to disqualify him for office. ”

“ Three states in the case of non-resident aliens limit to the closest relationships those who may be considered dependents. Three others present the extreme situation of refusing to recognize non-resident alien dependents at all. If an immigrant workman is killed in any one of these states, even his closest relatives in Austria or Italy have no standing under this law. ”

“ But the strong point of the article consists in a fierce onslaught on foreigners, all of whom, save those now resident in the South, are to be excluded from citizenship and office. 'With the exception of these, and after that time, no more votes should be allowed, and no' more offices be held, except by native-born citizens of the confederacy.'
'The naturalization law of the old Government has proved of little benefit to the Southern States. ”

“ A change in the laws of naturalization, making a continued residence of twenty-one years, of all not heretofore provided for, an indispensable requisite for citizenship hereafter, and excluding all paupers and persons convicted of crime from landing upon our shores; but no interference with the vested rights of foreigners.
10. Opposition to any union between church and state; no interference with religious faith or worship; and no test oaths for office.
11. Free and thorough investigation into any and all alleged abuses of public functionaries, and a strict economy in public expenditures. ”

“ The love of one's country, and solicitude for its welfare, are natural and laudable affections; to lose its good opinion is at once unhappy, and attended with many ill consequences; how much more unfortunate to be forever excluded from it without offence! It is said also that there is a resolve of congress, "that no absentee shall be permitted to take up his residence in [372] any other colony without having been first received and admitted as a citizen of his own." ”

“ In this study of naturalization and political life of the foreign-born citizen it is with this second concept that we have most to do.
ESSENTIALS OF CITIZENSHIP: ANCIENT—AND AMERICAN What, then, are the essentials of that citizenship to which an alien aspires and addresses himself when he seeks to become an active member in the American community whose members are something more than mere chattels of the sovereign?
“There is nothing that more characterizes a complete citizen,” says Aristotle, “than having a share in the judicial and executive part of the government.... ”

“ As an illustrative instance, citizenship has sat somewhat lightly on the denizens of the American republic, and with no evident damage to the community at large or to the inhabitants in detail. Naturalisation has been easy, and has been sought with no more eagerness, on the whole, than the notably low terms of its acquirement would indicate. Without loss or discomfort many [Pg 210] law-abiding aliens have settled in this country and spent the greater part of a life-time under its laws without becoming citizens, and no one the worse or the wiser for it. ”