Men are born its subjects, and no one can withdraw from it
without its express or tacit permission, unless for causes that
would justify resistance to its authority. The right of subjects
to denationalize or expatriate themselves, except to escape a
tyranny or an oppression which would forfeit the rights of power
and warrant forcible resistance to it, does not exist, any more
than the right of foreigners to become citizens, unless by the
consent and authorization of the sovereign; for the citizen or
subject belongs to the state, and is bound to it.
The solidarity of the individuals composing the population of a
territory or country under one political head is a truth; but
"the solidarity of peoples," irrespective of the government or
political authority of their respective countries, so eloquently
preached a few years since by the Hungarian Kossuth, is not only
a falsehood, but a falsehood destructive of all government and of
all political organization. Kossuth's doctrine supposes the
people, or the populations of all countries, are, irrespective of
their governments, bound together in solido, each for all and all
for each, and therefore not only free, but bound, wherever they
find a population struggling nominally for liberty against its
government, to rush with arms in their hands to its assistance--a
doctrine clearly incompatible with any recognition of political
authority or territorial rights.
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