Quinby v. Duncan

Superior Court of Delaware

Quinby v. Duncan

4 Del. 383

DecidedJuly 5, 1846

StatusPublished

This text of 4 Del. 383 (Quinby v. Duncan) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Superior Court of Delaware primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook

Quinby v. Duncan, 4 Del. 383 (Del. Ct. App. 1846).

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Opinion

The Court

said, a man is to be regarded as a citizen of his native State, until it can be shown that he has changed this relation by leaving anima manendi, or by acquiring a citizenship elsewhere. (3 Story Com. 564, 674.) And this is to be not merely by a change of habitancy or residence, but by a change of citizenship.

It has been contended that the act of assembly of 1841, which prohibits the issuing a ca. sa. against any “ citizen ” of the State, is to be construed in connection with the act of 1785, which uses the term “ inhabitant;” and that, taken together, the restriction intended by the legislature to be imposed on issuing process to take the body, was designed to apply to resident citizens or inhabitants; and that the word citizen, used in the act of 1841, is to be taken in this sense.

It is true, these laws are on the same subject, but they are distinct enactments, applying in terms to different persons, the former to inhabitants, the latter to citizens; and there is nothing from which we can collect that the legislature meant the same thing by both. On the contrary, by the use of different terms, not having the same meaning, we are to suppose they meant different things. A man may be a citizen, without being an inhabitant, of the State; as a man may be an inhabitant, without being a citizen. This is not only an obvious distinction, but one which the constitution itself makes; as in the qualification of voters it requires both citizenship and residence.

We charge the jury, therefore, that if Benjamin M. Hyatt, was a citizen of the State at the issuing of this ca. sa., the writ was illegal and void; and the return made to it does not fix the liability of his special bail, the defendant in this action; and, on the question of citizenship, it being proved that he was a citizen prior to the issuing of that writ, it is incumbent on the plaintiff to show a loss of citizenship *385 by proof not merely of a change of residence, but of such a change as makes him a citizen of some other State, and deprives him of the rights of citizenship here.

Johnson and Wales, for plaintiff. Whitely, Bayard and Bradford, for defendant.

The plaintiff then suffered a nonsuit.

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The Court

said, a man is to be regarded as a citizen of his native State, until it can be shown that he has changed this relation by leaving anima manendi, or by acquiring a citizenship elsewhere. (3 Story Com. 564, 674.) And this is to be not merely by a change of habitancy or residence, but by a change of citizenship.

It has been contended that the act of assembly of 1841, which prohibits the issuing a ca. sa. against any “ citizen ” of the State, is to be construed in connection with the act of 1785, which uses the term “ inhabitant;” and that, taken together, the restriction intended by the legislature to be imposed on issuing process to take the body, was designed to apply to resident citizens or inhabitants; and that the word citizen, used in the act of 1841, is to be taken in this sense.

It is true, these laws are on the same subject, but they are distinct enactments, applying in terms to different persons, the former to inhabitants, the latter to citizens; and there is nothing from which we can collect that the legislature meant the same thing by both. On the contrary, by the use of different terms, not having the same meaning, we are to suppose they meant different things. A man may be a citizen, without being an inhabitant, of the State; as a man may be an inhabitant, without being a citizen. This is not only an obvious distinction, but one which the constitution itself makes; as in the qualification of voters it requires both citizenship and residence.

We charge the jury, therefore, that if Benjamin M. Hyatt, was a citizen of the State at the issuing of this ca. sa., the writ was illegal and void; and the return made to it does not fix the liability of his special bail, the defendant in this action; and, on the question of citizenship, it being proved that he was a citizen prior to the issuing of that writ, it is incumbent on the plaintiff to show a loss of citizenship *385 by proof not merely of a change of residence, but of such a change as makes him a citizen of some other State, and deprives him of the rights of citizenship here.

Johnson and Wales, for plaintiff. Whitely, Bayard and Bradford, for defendant.

The plaintiff then suffered a nonsuit.

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Bluebook (online)

4 Del. 383, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/quinby-v-duncan-delsuperct-1846.