Other countries, however, did not recognise this position; indeed, the British Royal Navy's impressment of American sailors was one of the casus belli provoking the U.S. to join the War of 1812.

In the 1860s, France as well as various German and Scandinavian states attempted to conscript their natives who had become U.S. citizens when they went back to their homelands for short visits.

[1] The problem was illustrated more acutely the following year when Britain charged naturalized Americans John Warren and Augustine Costello of the Fenian Brotherhood under the Treason Felony Act 1848.

[1][8] Johnson used this example to illustrate the urgency of the problem in his Third Annual Message in December 1867, stating that it "perplexes the public mind concerning the rights of naturalized citizens and impairs the national authority abroad".

[1] In January 1868, the month after Johnson's Third Annual Message, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs issued a report on nationality issues; their report argued against the doctrine of perpetual allegiance, stating that countries which permitted emigration implicitly recognized the right to renounce one's citizenship as well.

[11] The attitude towards emigration and loss of citizenship expressed in the Expatriation Act of 1868 was echoed by the contemporaneous Burlingame Treaty between the United States and China's Qing dynasty, which stated that both signatory parties recognized "the inherent and inalienable right of man to change his home and allegiance, and also the mutual advantage of ... free migration and emigration ... for purposes of curiosity, of trade, or as permanent residents".

[18] However, the Expatriation Act of 1907 and subsequent legislation would thenceforth broaden the number of actions which, if undertaken voluntarily, would be considered by the U.S. government to prove the intent to lose U.S.

Associate Justice Harold Hitz Burton wrote that:[20] And, in his footnote: In the 1957 case Briehl v. Dulles, the Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit held that the Department of State could lawfully deny issuance of a United States passport to an applicant who refused to execute an affidavit regarding his political affiliations.

However, in a dissenting opinion, Judge David L. Bazelon argued that "[s]ince expatriation is today impossible without leaving the country, the policy expressed by Congress in 1868 and never repealed precludes a reading of the passport and travel control statutes which would permit the Secretary of State to prevent citizens from leaving".

Associate Justice Hugo Black's majority opinion extensively discussed the Expatriation Act of 1868, including the history of proposed amendments to it.