Trump v. Barbara · ¶186

The principle that citizenship followed domicile also made it more likely that citizens would be attached to their country. As Alexander Hamilton envisioned it, the citizenry were the people who would join together against any threat—“a large body of citizens . . . who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens.” The Federalist No. 29, p. 185 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961); see also Report of 1868, at 95. As Frederick Douglass saw it, citizenship belonged to those who “fought and bled in the same battles,” and “gained and gloried in the same victories.” 2 Douglass 266. And, as this Court put it, it is to “the citizen” that “the country must look for its safety.” United States v. Gettysburg Electric R. Co., 160 U. S. 668, 682 (1896). The “dignity and glory of American citizenship,” Plessy, 163 U. S., at 555 (Harlan, J., dissenting), belongs to people who have a…

slip opinion, revised 7/01/26
Source edition
Passage preview. Read in context for the complete text, notes and references.