MacKenzie v. Hare

Headnotes

1. Statutory Interpretation — Construction In construing a statute, whatever was said or given prominence in debate gives way to the statute's actual language as passed; all reasons that induced its enactment and all of its purposes must be supposed to be satisfied and expressed by its words as finally enacted. 239 U.S. 299, 308 (1915)
2. Constitutional Law — Citizenship Under the Constitution, every person born in the United States is a citizen thereof. 239 U.S. at 311
3. Statutory Interpretation — Construction of Citizenship Act of 1907 Section 3 of the Citizenship Act of March 2, 1907, providing that any American woman who marries a foreigner shall take the nationality of her husband, is not limited as to place or effect prior to the termination of the marital relation. 239 U.S. at 307
4. Federal Courts & Jurisdiction — Judicial Power to Imply Limitations Where an act of Congress is explicit and circumstantial, it would transcend judicial power to insert limitations or conditions upon disputable considerations of the reasons that impelled the law or of the conditions to which it might be conjectured it was addressed. 239 U.S. at 308
5. Constitutional Law — Expatriation Whatever may have been the original law of England and this country as to perpetual allegiance, Congress by the Act of 1868 explicitly declared the right of expatriation to have been and to be the law. 239 U.S. at 309–10
6. Constitutional Law — Marriage and Identity of Husband and Wife The identity of husband and wife is an ancient principle of our jurisprudence, retained notwithstanding much relaxation; while it has purpose, if not necessity, in domestic policy, it has greater purpose and possibly greater necessity in international policy. 239 U.S. at 311
7. Constitutional Law — Powers of the United States as Sovereign As a government, the United States is invested with all the attributes of sovereignty, and as it has the character of nationality it has the powers of nationality, especially those concerning its relations and intercourse with foreign countries. 239 U.S. at 311
8. Constitutional Law — Citizenship and Expatriation A change of citizenship cannot be arbitrarily imposed, that is, imposed without the concurrence of the citizen; but where the citizen voluntarily enters into a condition with notice of the consequences, Congress may attach expatriation as a consequence without exceeding its powers. 239 U.S. at 311–12
9. Constitutional Law — Marriage as Expatriation Marriage of an American woman with a foreigner may involve national complications of like kind as her physical expatriation may involve, and Congress may therefore make such marriage tantamount to voluntary expatriation without exceeding its powers, as it did by the Act of March 2, 1907. 239 U.S. at 312