Opinion of the Court. shown. By the act of Congress of January 11, 1805, 2 Stat. 309, c. 5, a part of the Indiana Territory was constituted the Territory of Michigan, and a government in all respects similar to that provided by the ordinance of 1787 was established. The act of February 16, 1819, 3 Stat. 482, c. 22, authorized that Territory to send a delegate to Congress, and conferred the right of suffrage on the free white male citizens of the Territory who had resided therein one year next preceding the election and had paid county or territorial taxes. The act of March 3, 1823, 3 Stat. 769, c. 36, provided that all citizens of the United States having the qualifications prescribed by the act of February 16, 1819, should be entitled to vote and be eligible to office. By an act of the territorial legislature of January 26, 1835, the free white male inhabitants of the Territory of full age, who had resided therein three months preceding "the fourth day of April next in the year one thousand eight hundred and thirty-five," were authorized to choose delegates to form a constitution and state government. Mich. Laws, 1835, pp. 72, 75. Delegates were elected accordingly, and a constitution completed June 29, 1835, and ratified by a vote of the people November 2, 1835, which provided that every white male citizen above the age of twenty-one years, who had resided in the State six months next preceding any election, should be entitled to vote at any election, "and every white male inhabitant of the age aforesaid, who may be a resident of the State at the time of the signing of this constitution, shall have the right of voting as aforesaid." 1 Charters and Constitutions, 983, 984. This constitution was laid before. Congress by President Jackson in a special message, December 9, 1835, and a bill was introduced for the admission of Michigan into the Union. While this was under consideration an amendment to the provision that on the assent being given by a convention of the people of Michigan to certain boundaries defined in the bill, the State should be admitted, to strike out the words "people of the said State" and insert "by the free male white citizens of the United States over the age of twentyone years, residing within the limits of the proposed State," was voted down; as was also another amendment proposing Opinion of the Court. to insert after that part of the bill which declared the constitution of the new State ratified and confirmed by Congress, the words "except that provision of said constitution by which aliens are permitted to enjoy the right of suffrage." The act was passed June 15, 1836, and the conditions imposed having been first rejected and then finally accepted, the State was admitted into the Union by the act of January 26, 1837. In all these instances citizenship of the United States in virtue of the recognition by Congress of the qualified electors of the State as citizens thereof, was apparently conceded, and it was the effect in that regard that furnished a chief argument to those who opposed the admission of Michigan. It may be added as to that State that the state constitution of 1850, as amended in 1870, preserved the rights as an elector of "every male inhabitant, residing in the State on the 24th day of June, 1835." And in Attorney General v. Detroit, 78 Michigan, 545, 563, the Supreme Court of Michigan assigned as one of the reasons for holding the registry law under consideration invalid, that no provision was therein made for this class of voters, nor for the inhabitants who had resided in Michigan in 1850 and declared their intention to become citizens of the United States, who had the right to vote under the constitution of 1850. The sixth article of the treaty of 1819 with Spain, 8 Stat. 256, contained a provision to the same effect as that in the treaty of Paris, and Mr. Chief Justice Marshall said (Amer. Ins. Co. v. Canter, 1 Pet. 511, 542): "This treaty is the law of the land, and admits the inhabitants of Florida to the enjoyment of the privileges, rights, and immunities of the citizens of the United States. It is unnecessary to inquire whether this is not their condition, independent of stipulation. They do not, however, participate in political power; they do not share in the government, till Florida shall become a State. In the meantime, Florida continues to be a Territory of the United States; governed by virtue of that clause in the Constitution, which empowers Congress to make all needful rules and regulations, respecting the Territory, or other property belonging to the United States.'" Opinion of the Court. At the second session of the Twenty-seventh Congress, in the case of David Levy, who had been elected a delegate from the Territory of Florida, where it was alleged that he was not a citizen of the United States, it was held by the House Committee on Elections that "it matters nothing whether the naturalization be effected by act of Congress, by treaty or by the admission of new States, the provision is alike applicable." no The question turned on whether Mr. Levy's father was an inhabitant of Florida at the time of its transfer to the United States, as the son admitted that he was not a native-born citizen of the United States, but claimed citizenship through that of his father effected by the treaty while he was a minor. The argument of the report in support of the position that " principle has been more repeatedly announced by the judicial tribunals of the country, and more constantly acted upon, than that the leaning, in questions of citizenship, should always be in favor of the claimant of it," and that liberality of interpretation should be applied to such a treaty, is well worthy of perusal. Contested Elections, 1834, 1835, 2d Session, 38th Congress, 41. By the eighth article of the treaty with Mexico of 1848, those Mexicans who remained in the territory ceded, and who did not declare within one year their intention to remain Mexican citizens, were to be deemed citizens of the United States. 9 Stat. 930. By the annexation of Texas, under a joint resolution of Congress of March 1, 1845, and its admission into the Union on an equal footing with the original States, December 29, 1845, all the citizens of the former republic became, without any express declaration, citizens of the United States. 5 Stat. 798; 9 Stat. 108; McKinney v. Saviego, 18 How. 235; Cryer v. Andrews, 11 Texas, 170; Barrett v. Kelly, 31 Texas, 476; Carter v. Territory, 1 N. Mex. 317. It is too late at this day to question the plenary power of Congress over the Territories. As observed by Mr. Justice Matthews, delivering the opinion of the court in Murphy v. Ramsey, 114 U. S. 15, 44: "It rests with Congress to say whether, in a given case, any of the people, resident in the Opinion of the Court. Territory, shall participate in the election of its officers, or the making of its laws; and it may, therefore, take from them any right of suffrage it may previously have conferred, or at any time modify or abridge it as it may deem expedient. The right of local self-government, as known to our system as a constitutional franchise, belongs, under the Constitution, to the States and to the people thereof, by whom that Constitution was ordained, and to whom by its terms all power not conferred by it upon the government of the United States was expressly reserved. The personal and civil rights of the inhabitants of the Territories are secured to them, as to other citizens, by the principles of constitutional liberty which restrain all the agencies of government, state and national; their political rights are franchises which they hold as privileges in the legislative discretion of the Congress of the United States. If we concede that this discretion in Congress is limited by the obvious purposes for which it was conferred, and that those purposes are satisfied by measures which prepare the people of the Territories to become States. in the Union, still the conclusion cannot be avoided, that the act of Congress here in question is clearly within that justification." Congress having the power to deal with the people of the Territories in view of the future States to be formed from them, there can be no doubt that in the admission of a State a collective naturalization may be effected in accordance with the intention of Congress and the people applying for admis sion. Admission on an equal footing with the original States, in all respects whatever, involves equality of constitutional right and power, which cannot thereafterwards be controlled, and it also involves the adoption as citizens of the United States of those whom Congress makes members of the political community, and who are recognized as such in the formation of the new State with the consent of Congress. The organic law under which the Territory of Nebraska was organized, approved May 30, 1854, 10 Stat. 277, c. 59, provided in its fourth section for a legislative assembly, con Opinion of the Court. sisting of a council and a house of representatives, and that the members of the assembly should have the qualification of voters as thereinafter prescribed. Its fifth section was as follows: "SEC. 5. And be it further enacted, That every free white male inhabitant above the age of twenty-one years who shall be an actual resident of said Territory, and shall possess the qualifications hereinafter prescribed, shall be entitled to vote at the first election, and shall be eligible to any office within the said Territory; but the qualifications of voters, and of holding office, at all subsequent elections, shall be such as shall be prescribed by the legislative assembly; Provided, that the right of suffrage and of holding office shall be exercised only by citizens of the United States and those who shall have declared on oath their intention to become such, and shall have taken an oath to support the Constitution of the United States and the provisions of this act: And, provided further, That no officer, soldier, seaman, or marine, or other person in the army or navy of the United States, or attached to troops in the service of the United States, shall be allowed to vote or hold office in said Territory, by reason of being on service therein." Sections 10, 11 and 12 of chapter 9 of a general code for that Territory entitled "Elections," approved January 26, 1856, read thus: "SEC. 10. Every free white male citizen of the United States, who has attained the age of twenty-one years, and those who shall have declared on oath their intention to become such, and shall have taken an oath to support the Constitution of the United States, and the provisions of the organic law of this Territory, shall be entitled to vote in the precinct where he resides, at all elections. Provided, he has been an inhabitant of this Territory forty days and of the county twenty days next preceding the election. "SEC. 11. Any member of the board of electors, or persons who have voted at such election, may challenge any elector proposing to vote, whereupon one of the said board shall tender to such elector the following oath: I, A B, solemnly swear that I am a citizen of the United States, or that I have taken |