itizen.=--In modern usage this means a member of the body politic
who owes allegiance to the nation and is entitled to public
protection. One may be a citizen of the United States without being a
citizen of any state, for example, a citizen of the District of
Columbia, or the territory of Alaska. Citizen-ship implies the duty of
allegiance to the government, and the right of protection from it. A
citizen of the United States who resides in a state owes a double
allegiance, and can demand protection from each government. For the
ordinary rights of person and property he looks to the state for
protection. The rights for which he can seek the protection of the
United States are only such as are established by the constitution and
federal laws. For some purposes even a corporation may be included
within the term citizen, for example the right to sue in the federal
courts as a citizen of the incorporating state.

By the fourteenth amendment of the federal constitution, all persons
born in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction are citizens
of the United States. In 1855 Congress passed an act conferring
citizenship on alien women who should marry American citizens. An
American woman therefore who marries an alien takes the nationality of
her husband. When her marital relation ends she may elect to retain
her marital or her original citizenship. Since minor children follow
the status of their parent, by the marriage of an alien widow to an
American citizen, her children also become American citizens.

An alien may be naturalized. To do this he must have continuously
resided in the United States for five years before his application,
and he must have appeared in court at least two years before, and
there declared his intention to become a citizen of the United States
and to renounce allegiance to his former sovereign. He must prove by
the oath of at least two persons his residence, also during that time
that he has behaved as a man of good moral character and attached to
the principles of the federal constitution. He must take an oath to
support and defend the constitution and laws of the United States and
renounce allegiance to any foreign prince. The naturalization of a
person confers citizenship on his minor children if dwelling in the
United States, also on his wife, unless she is of a race incapable of
American citizenship.

The rights of aliens, from the very beginning of the American
government, have been e