In the early days many of the American colonies permitted imprisonment for debt, and one of the greatest patriots and philanthropists of colonial times, Robert Morris, was imprisoned for debt by the State of Pennsylvania.
Constitution of the United States, Amendment XIV. Sec. 1.
A person may attain to citizenship in the United States in any of seven different ways: 1. By birth—i.e. natural born. 2. By naturalization, which usually requires continuous residence for five years. 3. By treaty regulation. 4. By statute of Congress. 3. By annexation of territory. 6. By marriage—if a foreign woman marries an American citizen. 7. By honorable discharge from the army or navy, upon which the court admits to citizenship regardless of the time of residence in the United States.
In the United States we recognize a dual citizenship—citizenship in the United States, and citizenship in a State. Any person who is a citizen of the United States is also a citizen of the State wherein he or she resides. Nine different States grant the right of suffrage and State citizenship to such foreigners as take out their first naturalization papers. These States are Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oregon, South Dakota, and Texas.
Citizenship must not be confused with the right of suffrage. Neither one necessarily includes the other. All citizens cannot vote—children for example. All voters are not necessarily citizens, those in the above nine States for example.
Aliens in the United States have practically all the civil rights that are enjoyed by citizens, but they do not have political rights. An alien may purchase, own, and convey property. He may sue and be sued in the courts.
“There can be no doubt that the minimum expectation of the framers of this amendment to the Constitution was that it would make the first eight amendments to the Constitution binding upon the states, as they already were upon the Federal Government, and that it should be susceptible not only of negative enforcement by the courts but also of direct positive enforcement by Congress.”—Cyclopedia of American Government, Vol. II, p. 41.
“By a series of decisions the most important of which were those in the Slaughter House cases (16 Wallace 36) and in the Civil Rights Cases (109 U.S. 3) the United States Supreme Court established the following principles: (1) that the prohibitions of the fourteenth amendment are addressed to the states as such and not to private individuals; (2) that these prohibitions contemplate only positive state acts and not acts of omission; (3) that the amendment recognizes a distinction between state citizenship and United States citizenship; (4) that it protects from state abridgement only ‘the privileges and immunities’ which the Constitution by its other provisions bestows upon ‘citizens of the United States’ as such.”—Cyclopedia of American Government, Vol. II, p. 41.
The nineteenth amendment which is now ratified by the States, provides that “the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”—Constitution of the United States, Amendment XIX.
“The American Constitution is the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given moment by the brain and purpose of man.”—William E. Gladstone.