FIRST NATURALIZATION LAWS
Generally speaking, except where a colony had legislated independently in the matter, the British law was in effect. Under this, an alien might be naturalized by the Act of Parliament, or given partial rights by grant of the king, in “Letters of Denization.”
Prior to 1740, a number of naturalization laws were passed by Colonial legislatures. General laws were passed by New York and Pennsylvania in 1683, South Carolina in 1696, and Virginia somewhat later. The use of the private Act of Naturalization was very common, especially in Pennsylvania and New York. The general Act of Pennsylvania was in fact revoked by Queen Anne, and from that time until 1840 all naturalizations in that colony were by private or special legislation.
Probably the first naturalization of aliens in the New World was the collective acceptance of the Dutch inhabitants of New Amsterdam (New York) by the articles of capitulation in 1664, by which they with their territory passed under the British flag. Two years later Augustine Herman of Prague, with his family, was naturalized by Act of the Maryland Assembly. This appears to have been the first naturalization law enacted in America.
The rights conferred by all of these Colonial Acts were limited strictly to the colony in which each was passed. Political rights varied in the different colonies, chiefly according to voting qualifications in force in each. But since most of them provided for a property qualification, the permission to foreigners to own land usually carried with it the right of suffrage. However, in some of the colonies the naturalized citizen was not eligible to public office. For all practical purposes of social standing, the ownership of land sufficed, and since that could be passed down by inheritance, and it was always admitted that a child born on this soil was a citizen regardless of his racial descent, the restrictions were hardly irksome at that time.
In 1740 the English Parliament passed an Act for providing for naturalization in the American colonies[42] of “foreign Protestants.” Persons naturalized under this statute might enjoy all civil rights except that of holding certain offices. A residence of seven years was required, and certain oaths and rites were imposed, including partaking of the sacrament of the Holy Communion in accordance with the ritual of the Church of England. Quakers and Jews, however, were the subject of exemption; Quakers were permitted to affirm, rather than to swear, and Jews were permitted to omit the words, “on the faith of a Christian.” This Act remained the basic law of the American provinces until the Revolution, when all British statutes were, at least constructively, superseded by Acts of the Congress of the United States of America.[43]
Among the grievances recited against the government of George III was the treatment of this subject of naturalization. It is thus set forth in the Declaration of Independence:
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriation of Lands.
Under the Articles of Confederation, which served the new republic until the adoption of the Constitution, no specific action was taken by the Congress to provide for the naturalization, although certain provision was made for an oath of allegiance for office-holders, and to facilitate desertion from the British ranks by offers of land and of citizenship. After the Revolution a number of individual states enacted naturalization statutes: Massachusetts, 1783–89; Delaware, 1788; Maryland, 1779; New York, 1789; South Carolina, 1784; Virginia, 1779–85. These Acts generally provided very easy methods for the acquisition of citizenship—usually requiring only an oath of allegiance, without any specific length of residence; though Virginia required a formal declaration of intention to remain here, and South Carolina insisted upon a previous residence of at least one year.