ALIEN FRIEND - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

ALIEN FRIENDAuthored

The Law Mind • 1022 words

Definition

An alien friend is a foreign national who is a subject or citizen of a nation that is presently at peace with the host country. The term distinguishes peaceable foreign nationals from alien enemies — nationals of countries with which the host nation is at war or in a state of declared hostility. In the context of Anglo-American law, an alien friend generally enjoys the capacity to hold personal property, to sue in courts, and to engage in commerce, subject to statutory limitations, while an alien enemy is stripped of most such legal capacities for the duration of the hostility.

The classification is inherently relational and temporal: the same individual may be an alien friend one day and an alien enemy the next, depending entirely on the diplomatic and military posture of their home nation toward the host country.

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Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "Alien" in ordinary English refers to a foreigner or, in science-fiction contexts, an extraterrestrial being. "Friend" carries its ordinary sense of a person with whom one has a friendly relationship.

Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "Alien" — one owing allegiance to another state or country; a foreigner. "Friend" — one not hostile; one of the same nation, party, or kin.

The compound "alien friend" is not a common-language expression. A lay reader encountering it might assume it simply means a foreign acquaintance. In law, it is a technical status classification with direct consequences for legal capacity, property rights, and access to courts — none of which the ordinary pairing of the two words conveys.

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Common Confusion

ALIEN FRIEND vs. ALIEN ENEMY: These are antonyms within the same classification system, but researchers frequently treat "alien" as a monolithic category, missing the legal significance of the peace/war distinction. An alien enemy at common law could not sue in the courts of the host nation and was subject to confiscation of property; an alien friend could sue and hold personal property, though land ownership was often restricted by statute. The distinction collapses in peacetime sources and resurfaces sharply in wartime legislation and case law.

ALIEN FRIEND vs. DENIZEN: A denizen occupied an intermediate status between alien friend and natural-born subject. Created by royal letters patent in English law, a denizen could hold land and was partially naturalized but lacked the full rights of a natural-born subject. An alien friend, by contrast, holds no such grant and remains fully foreign in legal status.

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Why It Matters in Research

The alien friend / alien enemy distinction is most consequential in three research contexts: wartime property law, access-to-courts doctrine, and early immigration and naturalization materials.

In wartime sources — particularly those touching the American Revolution, the War of 1812, the Civil War, and World Wars I and II — the status of alien friend versus alien enemy determines whether a litigant had standing, whether contracts were void or merely suspended, and whether property was subject to confiscation or sequestration. Researchers working in these periods must identify the precise date of hostilities and the nationality of the party at issue before drawing conclusions from case outcomes.

In historical immigration materials, "alien friend" appears as a term of art in contrast to both alien enemy and the naturalized citizen. The Alien Friends Act of 1798 (one of the Alien and Sedition Acts) used the phrase to define its jurisdictional subject — the president's power to deport alien friends during peacetime. This statute expired in 1800 and was never renewed, but it generated substantial political and constitutional commentary that appears throughout early American legal literature.

In corpus searches, "alien friend" will appear in clusters around wartime legislation and commentary, early Republic constitutional debates, and treatises on the law of nations. It is largely absent from post-World War II legal literature, where "alien" alone (and later "noncitizen" or "foreign national") displaced the friend/enemy pairing in most statutory contexts. Researchers should not assume silence in modern sources means the concept is gone — it survives in the law of war and in enemy property statutes.

The Rapalje & Lawrence entry provided in the source material does not address alien friend; it addresses alias dictus, an entirely separate term. Researchers should treat that source as unhelpful for this entry and rely on Black's and primary sources.

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Historical Dictionary Support

Black's Law Dictionary defines alien friend concisely as "the subject of a nation with which we are at peace; an alien amy." The use of "alien amy" (from the French ami, meaning friend) reflects the term's origins in the law of nations and English common law, where Latin and French terminology coexisted with English equivalents well into the nineteenth century.

Black's definition, though accurate, is skeletal. It does not address the legal consequences that attach to the status, the mechanism by which the classification changes (declaration of war, executive proclamation, or treaty rupture), or the procedural implications for litigation. Researchers relying on Black's alone will have the label but not the doctrine.

Historical dictionaries universally treat alien friend as the affirmative half of a binary. The negative half — alien enemy — receives considerably more treatment in legal literature, reflecting the fact that the restrictions on alien enemies generated more litigation and commentary than the baseline capacities of alien friends. This asymmetry in historical sources means that to fully understand alien friend status, researchers often must work backward from alien enemy doctrine.

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Jurisdictional Note

In the United States, the alien friend / alien enemy distinction operates at both federal and state levels, but federal law dominates. Congress has plenary power over alien status, and wartime enemy alien statutes — including the Trading with the Enemy Act and the Alien Enemy Act — displace state common law treatment. State courts in the nineteenth century developed their own alien friend property doctrines, but these are largely superseded for modern purposes.

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ALIEN FRIENDmain

Black's Law Dictionary • 1891

The subject of a na- tion with which we are at peace; an alien amy.

ALIEN FRIENDmain

Rapalje & Lawrence • 1888

(45) is indicted, he is described in the indictment as "A. B., otherwise C. D." &c.; formerly, when pleadings, &c., were in Latin, this was expressed alias dictus ("otherwise called") (Cro. Eliz. 249; Archb. Cr. Pl. 39), and hence such a person is said to go by several aliases or false names. ALIAS DICTUS, (history and use of). 1 Saund. 14 n. (1). (in a writ). 1 Dyer 50 b. (in pleading). 1 Campb. 479; 1 Chit. Cr. L. 203; 4 Com. Dig. 663, 667; 1 Dowl. & Ry. 43; Dyer 279 a. ALIEN, (defined). 3 Bradf. (Ν. Υ.) 130, 136; 5 Call (Va.) 160; 6 Id. 60; 1 Com. Dig. 552; 2 Cranch (U. S.) 120, 280; 4 Id. 321; 5 Day (Conn.) 169; 4 East 502; 2 Halst. (N. J.) 335; 3 Hall L. J. 22, 190; 20 How. (U. S.) 8; 4 Johns. (N. Y.) 75; 20 Id. 191, 693; 2 Johns. (N. Y.) Cas. 407; 2 Kent Com. 43; 2 Mass. 179 n, 236, 244 n; 9 Id. 456; 16 Id. 230; 1 Sandf. (N. Y.) Ch. 583, 668; 1 Wheel. Am. C. L. 294. (as to taking lands by descent). 1 Cranch (U. S.) C. C. 479; 4 Cranch (U. S.) 321; 7 Id. 603; 18 How. (U. S.) 235; 7 Johns. (N. Y.) 214; 7 Wheat. (U. S.) 535; 2 Barn. & C. 779; 5 Id. 771; 4 Dowl. & Ry. 394; 4 T. R. 308. ALIAS EXECUTION, (defined). 17 Conn. 142. (children of, as to becoming citizens). (when may issue). South. (N. 21 Wend. (N. Y.) 391. (dower of widow of). 9 Mass. 363. (enabled to acquire land under statute). J.) 320. 362 b. Dec. 92; Y.) 133. S.) 61. (in a deed). Cro. Jac. 210; Dyer (in a statute). 3 Abb. (N. Y.) App. 33 How. (N. Y.) Pr. 456; 1 Keyes (N. (may commit treason). 5 Cranch (U. ALIBI.-Elsewhere; in another place. 1 Pet. (U. S.) 349. A prisoner or accused person is said to set up an alibi when he alleges that at the time when the offence with which he is charged was committed he was "elsewhere," that is, in a different place from that in which it was committed. If proved it is of course a complete answer to the 45 b. charge (Best Ev. 460), and is consequently a favorite defence (Id. 821); but owing to the temptation which it offers to subornation of perjury, it is usually looked upon with suspicion. -The subject of a nation with which we are at peace. alien. (Id. * In English law, an alien is a person who is 10.) Aliens are also divisible not a British subject, as opposed (1) to naturalinto alien enemies and alien friends (alien born subjects (as to these, see ALLEGIANCE); (2) amys), according as the state of which they are to aliens who have become British subjects by subjects is or is not at war with the United Kingnaturalization (naturalized aliens); and (3) to dom. (7 Co. 17; Co. Litt. 129 b.) Alien enedenizens. (See Co. Litt. 129 a.) Aliens are mies have in theory no rights or privileges uneither aliens by birth (aliens nées), or aliens by less by the Queen's special favor. (2 Steph. Com. election. The former class includes all persons 409.) And if they bring goods into this country born abroad, except the children of ambassadors and persons whose fathers or paternal grandfathers were British subjects. (Stat. 7 Anne, c. 5; 13 Geo. 4, c. 21.) To the class of aliens by election belong those persons who have availed them selves of the provisions of the Naturalization Act, the defendant. (Archb. Pr. 1112.) Alien friends 1870, which allows a British subject to become an have certain disabilities; thus, an alien cannot alien either by expatriation or, in certain cases, be the owner of a British ship (Natur. Act, 1870, on his making a declaration of alienage. (Na-814), or hold certain offices, or vote at certain tur. Act, 1870, 22 3, 4.) The act also makes an elections. 2. after the declaration of war, it is said that they are liable to be seized. (Id. 17.) It is also said that if the plaintiff in an action is or becomes at any time before verdict an alien enemy, the court will stay the proceedings on the application of Englishwoman who marries a foreigner an

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