Bayard Taylor to Mr. von Bülow, June 15, 1878

No. 150. Mr. Taylor to Mr. Evarts.

Sir: Although, in accordance with the previous custom of this legation, I do not consider it necessary to make a circumstantial return of all cases of contested citizenship which occur, there are occasional exceptions which seem especially to call for the consideration of the Department of State. I beg leave at present to ask your attention to one which involves a new claim on the part of a minor German state, and, having apparently received the sanction of the imperial government, may practically annul treaty obligations, so far as that state is concerned. The inclosures accompanying this dispatch will present the necessary substance of the case; and, in order to avoid a surplus of detail, I will briefly recapitulate the main facts, holding all the minor documents at the disposal of the Department, if it should desire them to be forwarded.

Carl Ganzenmüller, of Sinsheim, Baden, born in 1851, emigrated to the United States with the permission of the local authorities in 1869; became a naturalized citizen on the 12th July, 1875; left for Germany July 17, 1875, furnished with his certificate of naturalization, and has resided at his former home since August, 1875, ostensibly to take care of his aged and decrepit father. On the 11th of April last, he was ordered to leave Baden or become a citizen of the Grand Duchy, subject to military duty. The reasons given by the local authorities of Sinsheim for this order of expulsion was that his exemption from such duty, on account of his American citizenship, was a bad example to other young men, who might be tempted to imitate it. The said Ganzenmüller, it is true, had exceeded the two years of residence allowed by article 4 of the treaty of 22d February, 1868, between the United States and the North German Union; but this article is not included in the separate treaty between the United States and the Grand Duchy of Baden, nor was it officially adduced as a reason for the order of expulsion. The case was presented to the foreign office by Mr. H. Sidney Everett, chargé d’affaires of the United States, on the 30th April (inclosure 1), not because the limit of two years’ residence is not stipulated in the treaty with Baden (since a single clause applicable to all German states would be much more desirable), but especially because he was unwilling to accept, without protest, the claim of the Baden authorities to make a state law, enacted subsequently to the treaty, paramount to the international law embodied in the treaty itself.

Since then the said Ganzenmüller has appealed to this legation for special measures of protection, which (except such as might procure a stay of proceedings) could not properly be demanded while his case was under consideration by the imperial government. In order, however, that nothing might be left undone to prevent flagrant injustice, I directed Mr. Edward M. Smith, United States consul at Mannheim, to visit Sinsheim and ascertain personally the facts of the case. This, as will be seen from his letter (inclosure 2), was promptly done. His answer reached me on the 13th instant, and simultaneously with it the reply of the minister of foreign affairs (inclosures 3 and 4) to Mr. Everett’s note of April 30.

If the government of the Grand Duchy of Baden had accepted and officially signified its acceptance of article 4 of the treaty of 22d February, 1868, between the United States and the North German Union—thus recognizing the Government of the German Empire as political heir to the agreements made by foreign nations with the former government—the limitation of two years’ residence might preclude this legation from taking further steps in the case; but, so far from having done so, the sole justification presented (and apparently accepted by the Imperial Government of the German Empire, vide inclosure 4) is based upon article 4 of the laws of sojourn (Aufenthaltsgesetz) of the Grand Duchy of Baden, enacted 5th May, 1870, nearly two years subsequent to the treaty. The article runs thus: “The grand ducal ministry of the interior may at any time decree the expulsion of such foreigners as endanger the external or internal safety of the state.”

The fact that this article is intended to apply to naturalized American citizens who may return temporarily to Baden, without regard to the term of their residence there, is singularly proven by the circumstance that the same local authorities at Sinsheim, in Baden, have just ordered the expulsion of Gustav Weil, a naturalized American residing in Alabama, only four weeks after his return for a brief visit to his native place. My reply to the communication of the minister of foreign affairs (inclosure 5) presents the new element which the government of the Grand Duchy of Baden has introduced into questions of this kind, together with an illustration of the abuses which it may cover, furnished by the case of the said Gustav Weil.

The direct inference from the ground taken by the German Government is that American citizenship is in itself dangerous; and, if the plea were admitted, it might be made the occasion for the arbitrary expulsion of all German Americans of a certain age who may desire to revisit their former homes. I cannot, therefore, allow it to be even inferentially assumed by the government that the reason given for the expulsion of Carl Ganzenmüller in its memorial is accepted as satisfactory; and hence I have felt it my duty to declare, without delay, the different view taken by this legation.

I beg leave to ask most earnestly and respectfully for a consideration of the principle involved, and a decision which will enable me to express authoritatively the judgment of the Government of the United States. Inasmuch as cases of a similar nature are multiplying with such rapidity as to tax the ability of the force of the legation to give them whole and fitting attention, it is particularly desirable to come to a clear understanding with the German Government in regard to the principles upon which they may be settled.

I have, &c.,

Memorial.

Charles Ganzenmüller, born August 15, 1851, at Sinsheim; emigrated to America in the year 1869, and acquired citizenship in the United States in the year 1875. In the course of the same year, and within a few days after his naturalization, he returned to his native place, where he has taken up his permanent residence.

His nationality is therefore to be determined by article 4 of the state-treaty, concerning the mutual regulation of the rights of citizenship of emigrated persons, concluded between Baden and the United States of America on the 19th of July, 1869, which reads as follows:

“The emigrant from the one state, who, according to article 1, is to be held as a citizen of the other state, shall not on his return to his original country be constrained to resume his former citizenship; yet if he shall of his own accord reacquire it, and renounce the citizenship obtained by naturalization, such a renunciation is allowable, and no fixed period of residence shall be required for the recognition of his recovery of citizenship in his original country.”

Ganzenmüller is, in accordance herewith, notwithstanding his return to Germany, to be regarded, not as a Badener, but as an American citizen, and particularly is his enrollment for military service thereby excluded under section 11 of the military law of May 2, 1874. Ganzenmüller has thus achieved by his course the practical result that, through an absence of several years and his naturalization in America, he has divested himself of the onerous and highly important obligation to perform military duty in his native country, enjoying at the same time, however, and while still within the military age, sojourn in and the protection of the laws of his native country in the same degree as those of his former fellow-citizens who, in accordance with regulations, have performed their military duty.

It may remain an open question whether the emigrant at the time of his emigration had or had not the intention to thus evade military service; the practical result thus attained is alone sufficient to bring the temptation home to others to adopt a like course. Pursuant to section 4 of the Baden law of sojourn of May 5, 1870, the grand ducal ministry of the interior may at any time decree the expulsion of such foreigners as endanger the external or internal safety of the state.

It has now recognized such a danger in the continued sojourn of Ganzenmüller, and in order to counteract the evil consequences resulting from such an example, and in order that the practical success attained in the evasion of military duty without final emigration may be as practically set aside, has decreed his expulsion. Ganzenmüller has appealed against this decree to the supreme state authority; his appeal has, however, been adversely decided by a state ministerial decision of the 24th of May last, and the grand ducal district officer (Bezirksamt) at Sinsheim was thereupon instructed to execute, after a brief respite, the expulsion heretofore suspended by the appeal.

The possibility of expulsion under article 4 of the Baden law of June 1, 1870, is an indispensable supplement of the treaty hereinbefore mentioned, if the latter is not to be abused as a means of evading military duty.

For the rest, a person thus expelled can avoid the execution of the decree by deciding, under article 4 of the treaty and section 8 of the imperial law concerning the acquisition and loss of state and federal citizenship, to reacquire Baden citizenship and perform the necessary military service.

To Charles Ganzenmüller the alternative is thus offered of either leaving the country or again becoming a Badener and submitting to be treated as such.

As, moreover, the expulsion was only decreed after Ganzenmüller had resided more than two years in his former country subsequent to his return from America, he finds himself practically in the same position as if the provisions of Article 4 of the naturalization treaty, concluded between the former Northgerman-Bund and the United States, different in themselves from those of the Baden-American treaty, were the guide by which he must determine his state-citizenship relations.

Under these circumstances there were found to exist, even after a repeated examination of the case, no adequate grounds to abstain from carrying into execution the decree of expulsion pronounced against Ganzenmüller.