Expatriation Act of 1868
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| Long title | An Act concerning the Rights of American Citizens in foreign States |
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| Enacted by | the 40th United States Congress |
| Effective | July 27, 1868 |
| Citations | |
| Statutes at Large | 15 Stat. 223 |
| Legislative history | |
The Expatriation Act of 1868 was an act of the 40th United States Congress regarding the right to renounce one's citizenship. It states that "the right of expatriation is a natural and inherent right of all people" and "that any declaration, instruction, opinion, order, or decision of any officers of this government which restricts, impairs, or questions the right of expatriation, is hereby declared inconsistent with the fundamental principles of this government". Its intent was to counter other countries' claims that U.S. citizens owed them allegiance; it was an explicit rejection of the feudal common law principle of perpetual allegiance.
The Expatriation Act of 1868 was codified at 25 Rev. Stat. § 1999, and then by 1940 had been re-enacted at 8 U.S.C. § 800. It is now the last note to 8 U.S.C. § 1481.
The United States had, since its early days, implicitly denied the doctrine of perpetual allegiance through its naturalization laws. President Thomas Jefferson wrote to Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin that "I hold the right of expatriation to be inherent in every man by the laws of nature … the individual may [exercise such right] by any effectual and unequivocal act or declaration". Other countries, however, did not recognise this position; indeed, the British Royal Navy's impressment of American sailors was one of the casus belli provoking the U.S. to join the War of 1812. Those countries' non-recognition of renunciation of their citizenship continued to cause problems for naturalized Americans during the course of the century. In the 1860s, France as well as various German and Scandinavian states attempted to conscript their natives who had become U.S. citizens when they went back to their homelands for short visits. France, Italy, and Switzerland however at least had procedures for abjuring one's original allegiance; Greece, Russia, and the Ottoman Empire did not have such procedures at all, and even sometimes punished their natives for acquiring U.S. citizenship.
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