NATURALIZATION TREATIES WITH THE UNITED STATES
The first naturalization treaties which this government negotiated embodying recognition of the right of expatriation were the so-called “Bancroft Treaties” of 1869, with the states of the North German Confederation—Bavaria, Hesse, Baden, and Württemberg. In the four years following similar treaties were concluded with Belgium, Great Britain, Sweden, and Norway, Austria-Hungary, Denmark, and Ecuador. Since then treaties of like import have been effected with Haiti, Portugal, Peru, Honduras, Salvador, Nicaragua, Uruguay, Brazil, and Costa Rica.[27] These treaties provide, in substance, for expatriation at will, but stipulate that subjects liable for offenses committed prior to emigration shall continue liable for the same, and that two years’ continuous resumption of residence in the country of origin shall be presumptive evidence of renewed citizenship in the old country. Under our own law, this loss of acquired citizenship by two years’ continuous residence in the country of origin is specifically recognized. And it is also generally provided that upon return to his former country a naturalized American shall be liable to punishment for the “evasion of an existing or accrued liability to military service”; but he is protected against the exaction of what was at the time of emigration merely (by reason of youth) a future liability to serve.[28]