American Citizenship…
Civil War Amendments
13-15…
The Irish Flood…
Oriental
Immigration…
South America…
Who is a “citizen”?
• Two Types of Citizenship:
• 1. Birthright – people born on American soil or US military bases, per 14th
amendment.
• Naturalized citizen: a person born in another country who immigrates into the
US and goes through the naturalization process.
A brief history of “citizenship” in the US…
• Naturalization Act of 1790:
• first rules for granting national citizenship
• limited naturalization to immigrants who were free white
persons of good character
• excluded American Indians, indentured servants, slaves,
free blacks, and Asians
• also provided for citizenship for the children of U.S.
citizens born abroad
Dred Scott v. Sandford
•Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)
• landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court
• held that African Americans, enslaved or free,
could not be American citizens and therefore
had no standing to sue in federal court
Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Civil War
Amendments 13-15
• first United States federal law to define US citizenship
• affirmed that all citizens were equally protected by the law
• mainly intended to protect the civil rights of Africans born in
or brought to America after the Civil War.
• 13th – freed slaves
• 14th –Citizenship, Due Process, and Equal Protection under
the law
• 15th- Voting Rights for freed slaves
United States v. Wong Kim Ark - 1898
• United States v. Wong Kim Ark(1898)
• Supreme Court case ruled that a child born in the
United States of Chinese citizens automatically
became a U.S. citizen
• established an important precedent in its
interpretation of the Citizenship Clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment
Elk v. Watkins- US Supreme Court Case
• John Elk, a Winnebago Indian born on an Indian reservation and later
resided among whites in the non-reservation U.S. territory in Omaha,
Nebraska, where he renounced his former tribal allegiance and
claimed citizenship by virtue of the Citizenship Clause. The case came
about after Elk tried to register to vote on April 5, 1880, and was
denied by Charles Wilkins
• The question then was, whether an Indian, born a member of one of
the Indian tribes within the United States is a US Citizen?
• The court ruled that members of tribes owed allegiance to their tribe,
and were not US citizens
Indian Citizenship Act of 1924
• “BE IT ENACTED by the Senate and house of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled, That all non citizen
Indians born within the territorial limits of the United States be, and
they are hereby, declared to be citizens of the United States”
• Written partially in recognition of the thousands of Indians who
served in the armed forces during World War I.
Non-Citizens and the US Patriot Act…
• After 9/11, law passed to expand how long
suspected illegal immigrants can be detained –
indefinitely!
• The USA PATRIOT Act increased reasons why
non-citizens can be deported
Gaining US Citizenship….
• See handout!
• Take Citizenship Test – Can you pass the test?! Activity…
Social Contract Theory: Classical
• Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)
• Life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”
• SOCIAL CONTRACT – people give up some individual rights
to all get along
Social Contract Theory: Modern
• We consent to give up some rights to government,
BUT…
• Government must also respect and protect
natural/inalienable rights