Where territories are annexed either by treaty or by conquest, the status of their inhabitants is determined at the will of the annexing States. In all cases, however, in the absence of any treaty stipulations to the contrary, the annexation of a territory transfers to the annexing State the allegiance of its inhabitants, and makes them, from the viewpoint of other nations, the citizens of that State. Whether or not, however, they become.its citizens in the stricter constitutional sense depends upon the municipal will of that country. This branch of the subject will be treated in the chapter dealing with "Citizenship in the Territories and Dependencies."

Besides naturalization by general acts, by treaty, and by conquest, there have been many instances in the United States of naturalization of specific individuals or groups of individuals by special acts of Congress.11

By statute it is provided that "all children heretofore born out of the limits and jurisdiction of the United States, whose fathers were or may be at the time of their birth citizens thereof, are declared to be citizens of the United States; but the rights of citizenship shall not descend to children whose fathers never resided in the United States.12

The application of this principle to persons born in countries which, like the United States, claim as their own citizens all persons born within their limits, is to create a double citizenship. This is true, especially, of course, with reference to England.

11 Cf. Van Dyne, Citizenship of the United States, Chapter VI (The Maintenance Of Federal Supremacy By Writs Of Error From The Federal Supreme Court To State Courts. 62. Writs Of Error To State Courts). See the same work, chapter VT. for questions of citizenship connected with the admission of Territories as States.

12 Rev. Stat., § 1993.

Most European countries apply the doctrine of jus sanguinis in fixing citizenship. That is, they treat as their own citizens persons wherever born, whose parents are their citizens. In some cases also, they apply the jus soli as well, claiming as their own citizens persons born upon their soil of alien parents. This, for example, is the practice of France. Many States permit after majority an election to one born in one country of parents who are citizens of another; for example, France, Spain, Belgium, Greece, Bolivia, Italy, Portugal, Mexico, and Great Britain. The British Act of 1870 declares that "any person who is horn out of Her Majesty's dominions, of a father being a British subject, may, if of full age, and not under any disability, make a declaration of alienage, . . . and, from and after the making of such declaration, shall cease to be a British subject." In default of such declaration he remains, by birth, a British subject.

Double citizenship is also created, as we shall see in those cases in which one country naturalizes the citizens of another country which does not admit the right of the individual to expatriate himself without the consent of the State of his natural allegiance.

The difficulties and conflicting claims arising out of these cases of double allegiance have been numerous, and have usually been settled, each case upon its own merits, by way of compromise and upon doctrines of comity, rather than by the establishment of any very general principles. Thus it has been held upon numerous occasions by the executive branch of our government that our law cannot operate to relieve such persons from their allegiance to the countries in which they are born so long as they remain in such countries. It has also been generally held that where a naturalized American citizen returns to his native country, he may be held bound by such obligations, as, for example, the rendition of military service, as may have been due by him at the time of his departure from his native country.13

13 Of, W. S. Tingle, Germany's Claims Upon German Americans in Germany, Philadelphia, 1903.