No. 21.
Mr. Cadwalader to Mr. Jay.

No. 442.]

Sir: Your dispatch No. 799, bearing date September 16, in reference to the case of one Josef Barts, who has presented a naturalization-certificate to the Austrian authorities as proof of citizenship, and inclosing a copy of the correspondence with the foreign office on the question, is received, and your action, as therein shown, is approved by the Department.

The right to enjoy such privileges as may attach to a citizen of the United States is properly proved by the production of a passport legally issued.

In every case where the action of a diplomatic or consular officer of the United States is invoked, on behalf of a person claiming to be a citizen of the United States, it is incumbent on such officer not only to carefully and zealously guard and protect the rights of all bona-fide citizens, but also to carefully abstain from committing this Government to a demand for protection on behalf of a person presenting a false or fraudulent claim to citizenship.

Naturalized citizens who have become such solely to avoid the duties and burdens attached to a residence in and allegiance to their own country, and who have returned to their native country without intention to reside in the United States, or to assume the duties or burdens common to its citizens, who, in other words, are desirous of enjoying all the benefits and immunities common to citizens of each country, and of avoiding all corresponding duties in each, may be held to have forfeited ail right to the protection of the United States. Particular instructions will be found on these questions in section 30 of the personal instructions lately issued.

The attention of the Department has also been called, on several occasions, to applications for passports in foreign countries founded on certificates of naturalization which, upon their face, bear conclusive evidence that they have been illegally or fraudulently obtained. In such cases a passport should be refused and the fraudulent certificate forwarded to this Department.

I am, &c.,

JOHN L. CADWALADER,
Acting Secretary.