United States
The doctrine that no man can cast off his native allegiance without the consent of his sovereign was early abandoned in the United States, and Chief Justice John Rutledge also declared in Talbot v. Janson, "a man may, at the same time, enjoy the rights of citizenship under two governments." On July 27, 1868, the day before the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, U.S. Congress declared in the preamble of the Expatriation Act that "the right of expatriation is a natural and inherent right of all people, indispensable to the enjoyment of the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," and (Section I) one of "the fundamental principles of this government" (United States Revised Statutes, sec. 1999). Every natural-born citizen of a foreign state who is also an American citizen and every natural-born American citizen who is a citizen of a foreign land owes a double allegiance, one to the United States, and one to his homeland (in the event of an immigrant becoming a citizen of the US), or to his adopted land (in the event of an emigrant natural born citizen of the US becoming a citizen of another nation). If these allegiances come into conflict, he or she may be guilty of treason against one or both. If the demands of these two sovereigns upon his duty of allegiance come into conflict, those of the United States have the paramount authority in American law; likewise, those of the foreign land have paramount authority in their legal system. In such a situation, it may be incumbent on the individual to renounce one of his citizenships to avoid possibly being forced into situations where countervailing duties are required of him, such as might occur in the event of war.
Read more about this topic: Allegiance
Famous quotes related to united states:
“You may consider me presumptuous, gentlemen, but I claim to be a citizen of the United States, with all the qualifications of a voter. I can read the Constitution, I am possessed of two hundred and fifty dollars, and the last time I looked in the old family Bible I found I was over twenty-one years of age.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1816–1902)
“It is said that the British Empire is very large and respectable, and that the United States are a first-rate power. We do not believe that a tide rises and falls behind every man which can float the British Empire like a chip, if he should ever harbor it in his mind.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“An alliance is like a chain. It is not made stronger by adding weak links to it. A great power like the United States gains no advantage and it loses prestige by offering, indeed peddling, its alliances to all and sundry. An alliance should be hard diplomatic currency, valuable and hard to get, and not inflationary paper from the mimeograph machine in the State Department.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“In the United States there is more space where nobody is is than where anybody is.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“In the United States there’s a Puritan ethic and a mythology of success. He who is successful is good. In Latin countries, in Catholic countries, a successful person is a sinner.”
—Umberto Eco (b. 1932)