No. 478.
Mr. Bayard
to Mr. Coleman.
Washington, December 4, 1888.
Sir: Your dispatch No. 690, of the 9th ultimo, in relation to the application of Mr. Solomon H. Ulmer for a passport, has been received.
It appears by Mr. Ulmer’s sworn statement that he was born in Bavaria in 1819, and came to the United States in 1846, when twenty-seven years of age. He was naturalized in 1853, and in 1858, less than five years after his naturalization and less than twelve after his coming to the United States, he returned to his native land, where he has since continuously resided for more than thirty years, without exhibiting any sign of an intention ever to return to this country.
[Page 662]Now, however, when his son, born in Germany, and who has apparently never been in the United States, has arrived at the age of nineteen years and is subject to call for military service, Mr. Ulmer applies for a passport as a citizen of the United States, to include his son, for the alleged purpose of going to the United States “in the course of one or two years.”
By the treaty of naturalization between the United States and Bavaria it is provided that if a citizen or subject of one of the contracting parties, naturalized in the dominions of the other party, return to his country of origin without the intention to go back to the country of his adoption, he shall be held to have renounced his naturalization, and a two years’ residence in the country of origin, after return thereto, is made prima facie evidence of such renunciation.
Upon the facts stated the Department is of opinion that Mr. Ulmer long since renounced his American citizenship, and that to grant a passport to him, as now requested, would be to promote an obvious abuse of our naturalization, and to commit a breach of that fair dealing which should characterize the observance of treaty obligations.
I am, etc.,