There are two classes of rights which would follow the establishment of common citizenship, viz., civil and political.
The civil rights, inter alia, would be these:
1. An Isopolite would enjoy the same rights to real estate as a native-born citizen, such as buying, {184} selling, trading in, or disposing of the same by will; and the slender thread and fragment of the alien laws still remaining in the United States, so far as they apply to citizens whose respective Governments are parties to the treaty, would necessarily disappear.
2. He would possess the same commercial rights and privileges of business as a native-born citizen.
3. He would enjoy the same material rights and privileges and be subject to the same limitations and duties as pertain to native-born citizens.
His political rights, among others, would be:
1. He would be entitled to vote at all Federal elections.
2. The right to vote at all State, county, or municipal elections, precisely the same as citizens of one of the States of the United States.
But while enjoying the same rights, he would be under the same disabilities, and be subject to the performance of the same duties as a citizen of the United States, as, for instance, to pay taxes, and to perform military or jury duty. If war should unhappily arise between the two nations, it must be admitted that all these rights would be rent asunder. Inter armes silent leges. But would not common citizenship be a most effectual barrier against war? And with Canada in the American Union, would not war, or even ugly disputes, be remote possibilities?
The principle of common citizenship is not novel; on the contrary, it is very ancient. Something {185} like it existed in the Grecian states, which, in establishing a federal union among themselves, interchanged civic rights comprehended by the Greek word "Isopolity," There was also "Sympolity," which meant in effect the protection which a larger or stronger State gave to a smaller or weaker one,