When the
nation--the word itself keeps about it the remembrance of birth as the
groundwork of every thing--adopts a new citizen, that is, a new child of
the state, he is said to be _naturalized_. That is, a legal process puts
him in the same position, and gives him the same rights, as a man who
is a citizen and a son by birth. It is assumed that the rights of
citizenship come by nature--that is, by birth. The stranger is admitted
to them only by a kind of artificial birth; he is naturalized by law;
his children are in a generation or two naturalized in fact. There is
now no practical distinction between the Englishman whose forefathers
landed with William, or even between the Englishman whose forefathers
sought shelter from Alva or from Louis the Fourteenth, and the
Englishman whose forefathers landed with Hengest. It is for the
physiologist to say whether any difference can be traced in their
several skulls; for all practical purposes, historical or political, all
distinction between these several classes has passed away.
We may, in short, say that the law of adoption runs through every thing,
and that it may be practised on every scale.
Pages:
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105