It may be noted that the treaty of peace between the United States and Spain concluded December 10, 1898, by which Porto Rico and the Phillipine Islands were ceded to the United States, contained a provision allowing Spanish subjects to elect to preserve their allegiance to Spain; but the treaty provided that "the civil rights and political status of the native inhabitants of the territories hereby ceded to the United States shall be determined by the Congress." 30 Stat. at L. 1759. The foregoing statutes, providing for the government of the islands, contain the declaration of Congress on this subject.

RIGHTS PROTECTED BY CONSTITUTIONS.

Privileges and Immunities of Citizens.

The Articles of Confederation, under which the Federal government was carried on during the Revolutionary War and until the adoption of the National Constitution, provided that the "free inhabitants of each of these states, paupers, vagabonds, and fugitives from justice excepted, shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several states." This provision was continued in the Constitution which (article 4, section 2, clause 1) declares that "the citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states." Then came the 14th Amendment, 1868, defining the term "citizen," and which sought to protect his rights from state interference by the provision that "no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States."

Thus, three times in our history the privileges and immunities of citizens have been made a subject of consti

tutional enactment. As construed by high judicial authority, the provision means only that citizens of other states shall have equal rights with the citizens of the state in which the right is claimed, and not that they shall have different or greater rights. Their persons and property must in all respects be equally subject to the law of the latter state; they must put themselves on the same footing as citizens of that state, and then they are entitled to like immunities. The Constitution does not

guarantee them any greater privileges.

A citizen does not carry with him the peculiar privileges and immunities he may enjoy in the state from which he goes, but in the state of his new residence he is entitled to all the privileges and immunities enjoyed by citizens of that state. The reader will need to consult the Constitutions and laws of the several states for the privileges and immunities accorded to citizens thereof.

The 14th Amendment was primarily intended to protect the privileges and immunities secured to citizens of the United States, and especially to protect persons of African descent who had become citizens by operation of this amendment.

The rights, privileges, and immunities which citizens are entitled to enjoy under the national Constitution do not all belong to the same class. Many of them are general in their nature, and affect the people only in their collective capacity, as members of the nation or of a particular state. Some of them are political in the highest sense, as affecting the organization, powers, and duties of government; while others are chiefly social in their nature. Many of them are of a public character, and the individual citizen does not feel any special interest in them unless under peculiar circumstances, not often arising, he is more particularly affected than his neighbors. Thus, every citizen has a right to know that

only proper laws are enacted by Congress, that they are properly executed by the President and other executive officers, and that they are properly interpreted by the courts. This situation touches every citizen so far as he is affected by national affairs. So, every citizen has an interest, usually quite general, but sometimes special, in the exercise of powers conferred on different branches of government.

The following may be included among the subjects in which citizens have a general interest: Administration of justice, ambassadors, appointment and removal of officers, appropriations and expenditures of public funds, bankruptcy, census, commerce, copyrights, cruel and unusual punishments, District of Columbia, due process of law, equal protection of the laws, excessive bail, excessive fines, executive power, fugitives from justice, guaranty of republican form of government in each state, House of Representatives, impeachments, indictments in criminal cases, judiciary, keeping and bearing arms, legislative power of Congress, militia and regulations concerning military and naval operations, money, including coinage and currency, naturalization, new states, patents, Postoffice, President, presidential electors, public lands, reservation of powers not delegated to the United States nor prohibited to the state, reservation of rights not expressly enumerated in the Constitution, revenue, right of assembly, right to hold office, right of petition, right to vote, search warrants, Senate, slavery and involuntary servitude, standard of weights and measures, states not to exercise certain powers, states, public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of each state to receive full faith and credit in every other state, tariff, taxation, territories, titles of nobility, treaties, unreasonable searches and seizures, validity of the public debt, and Vice-President.

The Constitution guarantees to the citizen certain personal rights, privileges, and immunities, and protects him from the infringement of them either by the national government or by the state government. Some of these are also general, but questions relating to them usually arise in individual cases, where some particular citizen claims that his personal rights are injuriously affected. Among these personal matters may be included:

Bill of Attainder.

This has been defined as "a legislative act which inflicts punishment without a judicial trial." Bills of attainder are prohibited by the Constitution, thus securing to the citizen the right to a trial in a proper court before he can be condemned and punished, or his property taken.

Compensation for Private Property Taken for Public Use.

Even the government cannot take the private property of the individual for public use without making him. compensation therefor. This right of property is protected by the 5th Amendment, and also by state Constitutions which provide that private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation.

Elective Franchise.

This is secured by the provision that members of the House of Representatives shall be chosen by electors who "shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the state legislature," from which it follows that persons entitled to vote for members of the most numerous branch of the legislature are entitled to vote for Representatives in Congress. So, where presidential electors are chosen by the people, every citi

zen qualified to vote by the laws of the state in which he resides may vote for Presidential elector. The right to vote is protected by the 15th Amendment, which provides that "the right of the citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."

Ex Post Facto Law.

"An ex post facto law is one which imposes a punishment for an act which was not punishable at the time it was committed; or imposes additional punishment to that then prescribed; or changes the rules of evidence, by which less or different testimony is sufficient to convict than was then required." Every citizen has a right to be protected against an ex post facto law.

Freedom of Speech and of the Press.

This right is protected by the 1st Amendment, which prohibits Congress from making any law "abridging the freedom of speech or of the press." State Constitutions contain similar provisions.

Habeas Corpus.

The writ of habeas corpus, issued by a court to inquire into the cause of detention of a person who claims that he is unlawfully in prison, is one of the great writs -some think it the greatest writ-devised to secure and preserve the personal liberty of the citizen. The Constitution prohibits the suspension of the writ except when, "in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it."