Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol III).djvu/9

COMMENTARIES.

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CHAPTER XVI.

POWER OVER NATURALIZATION AND BANKRUPTCY.

§ 1097. The next clause is, that congress "shall have power to establish an uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States."

§ 1098. The propriety of confiding the power to establish an uniform rule of naturalization to the national government seems not to have occasioned any doubt or controversy in the convention. For aught that appears on the journals, it was conceded without objection.^[1] Under the confederation, the states possessed the sole authority to exercise the power; and the dissimilarity of the system in different states was generally admitted, as a prominent. defect, and laid the foundation of many delicate and intricate questions. As the free inhabitants of each state were entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in all the other states,^[2] it followed, that a single state possessed the power of forcing into every other state, with the

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1. Journ. of Convention, 220, 257.—One of the grievances stated in the Declaration of Independence was, that the king had endeavoured to prevent the population of the states by obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners.
2. The Confederation, art. 4.

vol. iii.1