Mr. Fish to Mr. MacVeagh.
Sir: An application has been made to this Department, in a letter dated the 1st ultimo, and signed Mathieu Orlich, for a passport.
* * * * * * * *
The applicant states, as you will observe, that he obtained a passport from this Department in 1853 or 1854; but upon examination of the Department records, this statement appears to be inaccurate. If Mr. Orlich [Page 888] be entitled to a passport, an application to you would have been sufficient to secure one.
* * * * * * * *
In judging Mr. Orlich’s claim to protection as an American citizen, you have the principle laid down in the circular from this Department issued October 14, 1869, to guide you. Without determining that the continued residence in Turkey of an Hungarian or Austrian who may have been naturalized as an American citizen is necessarily to be regarded in the same light as the circular indicates with respect to a naturalized citizen returning to the country of his nativity, it may well be that the same principle applies. The fact of the person having been born in a contiguous jurisdiction assimilates his case very closely to the case contemplated by the circular, which was intended only to indicate the general principle and theory by which the agents of the Government in foreign countries are to be governed in deciding the questions which come before them.
Among the tests which may be applied to determine the intent of a naturalized person who resides continuously abroad, the fact of payment by such person of the income and excise taxes which have been imposed by law (since 1861) upon American citizens will be an important aid. Inquiry should be made when, and in what assessment district, the returns required by the internal revenue laws have been made; where and to whom the taxes have been paid. The omission to have made the returns, or to have paid any tax, would necessarily cast grave suspicion upon the claim of the party applying for the protection of a government from whose support he has withheld the contributions required of all its citizens, whether resident at home or abroad; and if such omission has been long continued, it will, as a general rule, justify the refusal of a recognition of the claim to protection.
I am, &c.,