years before his election, he had become, in the usual and technical meanings of the word, an inhabitant first of the State of Massachusetts and afterwards of that of Virginia, and, as such, entitled to the privilege of citizen in the several States, or, in other words, a citizen of the United States.

It was contended, on the other hand, 1st, that the assertion that his coming to the United States at the age and time and under the circumstances above mentioned entitled him to the privileges of a citizen, was contrary to the laws of the several States, as well as to the usages and general law of nations; and, 2dly, that the construction put on the above-mentioned clauses in the 4th Article of Confederation was inadmissible, and that the term inhabitants therein used must necessarily be taken as applying only to such as were also citizens of the State.

That such was the opinion of Mr. Gallatin was inferred from the fact of his having thought it necessary to take the oath of allegiance in 1785, for the express purpose of being admitted a citizen of Virginia.

The case was argued before the Senate by Mr. Gallatin for himself, and by Mr. William Lewis, of Philadelphia, in behalf of the petitioners against the election. The question was afterwards discussed with much ability by Messrs. King, Ellsworth, Strong, &c., against Mr. Gallatin's eligibility, and by Messrs. Monroe, Taylor, Burr, Baldwin, &c., in favor of it, and finally decided against the election by a majority of two votes.

But this decision applied only to the subject of debate. That if Mr. Gallatin had taken the oath of allegiance before February, 1784, he would have been entitled to a seat in the Senate, or that he had become a citizen of the United States in October, 1785, and therefore prior to the adoption of the Constitution, never was or could be disputed.

After having been chosen in 1789 a member of the convention for revising the constitution of Pennsylvania, he was elected, in October, 1790, a member of the House of Representatives of that State. The new constitution provided that no person should be a representative who had not been a citizen and inhabitant of the State three years next preceding his election. Mr. G. must, therefore, have been deemed a citizen of the State in October,

1787, prior to the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, the earliest date which can be assigned for the adoption being the day of 1788, when the Constitution was adopted by nine States.

In October, 1794, a few months after the decision on his eligibility to the Senate, he was elected a member of the House of Representatives for the Congress beginning on the 4th March, 1795, to which he would not have been eligible unless he was a citizen of the United States seven years before, that is to say, on the 4th March, 1788, and prior to the adoption of the Constitution. His seat was not contested nor any doubt suggested on his eligibility at a time when all the facts connected with his right to citizenship were fresh in the memory of every person and on record. But, without reference to particular dates, if not a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, he was at no time eligible to a seat in Congress, and he must have been for ten years a member either of that body or of the Legislature of Pennsylvania contrary to the provisions of the Constitutions of that State and of the United States. For, if he was not a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, he never was and is not now one, since he has not, subsequent to the year 1785, performed any act which could bestow the right upon him. Had there been the least foundation for assuming this ground, there is no doubt that the attempt would have been made. For the part he took in Congress in the year 1798-1799 had rendered him so obnoxious to at least a portion of the party in power that an amendment to the Constitution was recommended by the State of Massachusetts and by some of the adjacent States, but arrested in its progress by the Legislatures of New York and Pennsylvania, the effect, if not the sole object, of which was to render him incapable of holding a seat in Congress.

It seems, however, to have been lately suggested that a person admitted citizen of a State prior to the adoption of the Constitution of the United States was not a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution. The grounds for that opinion are not distinctly understood, but it seems altogether untenable.

The several States assumed the name of the United States in the very act by which they declared their independence; but being bound at that time by no compact, and having no common government, it was not till after the ratification of the Articles of Confederation, in the year 1781, that there could be any citizens of the United States.

The power of naturalization was not by those Articles vested in the general government, and remained, therefore, as every other power not thus delegated, with the States respectively. It was equally obvious that, unless express provision was made for the purpose, the union of the several States, whether by those Articles or by the subsequent adoption of the present Constitution, did not of itself create citizens of the United States or communicate to citizens of a State the right of citizenship in the several States. The power of granting or refusing that right to a citizen of another State would have remained as entire with the several States as that of naturalizing foreigners had no provision been introduced on the subject, first in the Articles of Confederation and afterwards in the Constitution. It was accordingly enacted, with a variation in the expression, by the Articles of Confederation, that the inhabitants, and by the Constitution, that the citizens, of each State should be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States. There is no other provision affecting the subject in either of those instruments, except that in the present Constitution which gives to Congress the power of establishing an uniform rule of naturalization. With the exception of foreigners naturalized in conformity with the Acts of Congress passed since the adoption of the Constitution, all native- or foreign-born citizens of the United States are such by virtue of either the one or the other of the clauses above mentioned of the Articles of Confederation and of the Constitution. Were it not for those provisions, the citizens of the several States would not be entitled to the rights of citizenship in another State unless admitted to those rights by such State; they would not be citizens of the United States. The citizens of the United States contemplated by the Constitution are, with the exception above mentioned, exclusively the citizens (or perhaps, under the Constitution, the

inhabitants) of each State, declared either by the Act of Confederation or by the Constitution to be entitled to the privileges of citizens in the several States.

The clause in the Constitution may perhaps be considered as having had a retrospective effect. This might at least be inferred from the provision which renders ineligible for Senator any person who had not been nine years a citizen of the United States, as there was no person who, strictly speaking, was such prior to the ratification of the Articles of Confederation in 1781, since which time less than eight years had elapsed when the present Constitution was organized. But the Articles of Confederation are sufficient to decide the question on which a doubt has been raised.

Under the Confederation the several States preserved, and they did exercise, the right of admitting citizens. By the 4th Article the inhabitants of each State became entitled to the privileges of citizens in the several States, or, what has been shown to be tantamount, became citizens of the United States. That provision was not at all limited to those who were inhabitants of each State at the time of the ratification of the Articles of Confederation, but was prospective, and necessarily embraced all those who might thereafter become inhabitants of a State.

The foreigners, therefore, who, during the existence of the Articles of Confederation, became inhabitants, or, taking the expression in its most limited sense, were admitted citizens of any State, became thereby entitled to the privileges of citizens in the several States, and were, to all intents and purposes, citizens of the United States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution of the United States. The contrary opinion would lead to the extraordinary conclusion that the several thousand foreigners naturalized under the laws of the States prior to the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, not being then deemed citizens of the United States, would be forever ineligible, whilst those naturalized under the Acts of Congress subsequent to the adoption of the Constitution would, as citizens of the United States, become eligible to either House of Congress.

GALLATIN TO B. RUGGLES, U. S. SEN.

FAYETTE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA, 16th May, 1824. SIR, I had the honor to receive your letter of the 1st instant, informing me that at a meeting of Republican members of Congress, held pursuant to general notice on the 14th of February last, I was recommended to the people of the United States as a suitable candidate for the office of Vice-President of the said States at the coming election.

I entertain the highest sense of the honor done me by the distinguished citizens who composed the meeting; and, if elected, I will accept with gratitude the elevated office for which they have thought it proper to recommend me to the people of the United States.

I have the honor to be, with great respect, sir, your most obedient servant.

GALLATIN TO WALTER LOWRIE.

NEW GENEVA, PENNSYLVANIA, May 22, 1824.

DEAR SIR,-Your and Mr. Ruggles's letters of 1st instant were detained one day at the post-office, and reached me at the moment of my departure from Baltimore. As I had previously written to you that I would abide by the decision of our friends in Congress and stand as a candidate for Vice-President, if they ultimately concluded that it was most advantageous for the public cause that I should be retained on the nomination, I had not believed it necessary to make a formal answer to Mr. Ruggles's notification. Indeed, I think that the great solemnity given at the last elections to the Congressional nominations of President and Vice-President, and the making it a part of the proceedings to publish the answers of the persons nominated, has been injurious to the Republican interest. It is that which has furnished a pretence to attach to the whole the odium of being an attempt to dictate to the people. Formerly those meetings were as efficient; and yet there was no publication, with the formalities