ty in the requirements
of law on this question affords opportunity for fraud, and the want of
uniformity in the proceedings and records of the various courts and in
the forms of the certificates of naturalization issued affords a
constant source of difficulty.

I suggest no additional requirements to the acquisition of citizenship
beyond those now existing, but I invite the earnest attention of
Congress to the necessity and wisdom of some provisions regarding
uniformity in the records and certificates, and providing against the
frauds which frequently take place and for the vacating of a record of
naturalization obtained in fraud.

These provisions are needed in aid and for the protection of the honest
citizen of foreign birth, and for the want of which he is made to suffer
not infrequently. The United States has insisted upon the right of
expatriation, and has obtained, after a long struggle, an admission
of the principle contended for by acquiescence therein on the part of
many foreign powers and by the conclusion of treaties on that subject.
It is, however, but justice to the government to which such naturalized
citizens have formerly owed allegiance, as well as to the United States,
that certain fixed and definite rules should be adopted governing such
cases and providing how expatriation may be accomplished.

While emigrants in large numbers become citizens of the United States,
it is also true that persons, both native born and naturalized, once
citizens of the United States, either by formal acts or as the effect of
a series of facts and circumstances, abandon their citizenship and cease
to be entitled to the protection of the United States, but continue on
convenient occasions to assert a claim to protection in the absence of
provisions on these questions.

And in this connection I again invite your attention to the necessity
of legislation concerning the marriages of American citizens contracted
abroad, and concerning the status of American women who may marry
foreigners and of children born of American parents in a foreign
country.

The delicate and complicated questions continually occurring with
reference to naturalization, expatriation, and the status of such
persons as I have above referred to induce me to earnestly direct your
attention again to these subjects.

In like manner I repeat my recommendation that some means be provided
for the hearing and determination of the just and subsisting claims