Material Interests
occur in the near future. The fiscal reorganization of the country was complete and the Republican party added to its credit a record of efficiency and public beneficence comparable with that made in the saving of the Union and the freeing of a race of slaves.
CHAPTER IX
PROGRESS AND REFORM
Early in President Grant's first term the Republican party had the profound gratification of marking the beginning of a new and most advanced and beneficent era in the international relations of the world. This was the recognition of the right of expatriation. Down to that time European nations had denied the right of their subjects to renounce their allegiance and to become citizens of the United States. When such naturalized citizens of the United States revisited their former homes they were often seized as deserters and subjected to penalties, or were subjected to the laws of those countries as though they had never left them. The Republican party, standing supremely for the rights of man, insisted from the outset that every man in the world had a right to choose for himself to what nation he would belong and to what government he would give allegiance. As already recorded, it made that demand a conspicuous and unequivocal plank in its platform. At an opportune time, in 1868, it proceeded from words to acts. Congress enacted a law asserting that right and indicating the purpose of this government to enforce and to vindicate that right in behalf of all its naturalized citizens. The matter was one of high importance,
70
