Under this Act the children of persons duly naturalized were, if resident in the United States, to be considered citizens, and those born elsewhere were to enjoy the same status, provided that the citizenship should not descend to children whose fathers never resided in the United States.
An Act passed in 1804 slightly modified the regulation in favor of aliens residing in the United States between 1798 and 1802, and provided also that in case a “declarant” should die before his naturalization had been consummated, his widow and minor children should be deemed citizens upon taking the prescribed oath.[48]
During the second war with England, in 1813, an Act was passed requiring the five years’ residence to be absolutely unbroken by any absence whatever from the United States, and prescribing penalties for forgery or sale of naturalization certificates.[49] Later in the same year another law was passed to permit the naturalization of alien enemies (then Englishmen) who had declared intention prior to June 18, 1812.[50] Another important amendment was made in 1816.[51]
In 1824, following a period of agitation for earlier naturalization, Congress passed an Act, the most important provision of which[52] reduced from three to two years the minimum interval between the declaration of intention and final naturalization. It is interesting to note that this agitation for more liberal conditions came, as might be expected, at the time of the initial influx of aliens to the Eastern cities, and the beginnings of the political exploitation of the “foreign vote.”
Further slight changes were made in 1828,[53] and after twenty years more, in 1848, Congress abolished the restriction of 1813 which forbade any absence whatever from the country during the five years’ period of “continuous residence.”[54] But during all of the period between 1820 and the Civil War there was an increasing “Native American” agitation for narrower, rather than more liberal, restrictions, even to the point of abolishing naturalization altogether. Innumerable bills were introduced reflecting this agitation; but, owing both to the increasing importance of the foreign-born element in politics, and to the underlying realization that the nation must have a constant accretion of population, no such legislation reached the statute books. The three minor amendments enacted during and immediately after the Civil War were designed to meet conditions arising out of the state of war.[55]
In 1876 the Act of 1802 was amended so that the declaration of intention could be made, as it is now, before the clerk of any of the courts having naturalization jurisdiction.[56] And in 1872 and 1894 provision was made for the easier naturalization of the United States soldiers, sailors, marines, and merchant seamen, about whose permanency of residence there was embarrassment.[57]
BARS UP AGAINST ALIEN ANARCHISTS
The assassination of President McKinley, in 1901, by a professed anarchist brought to a head the feeling against foreign ultra-radicals, and resulted in the enactment in 1903[58] of the restriction against the admission to this country of persons believing in the abolition of organized government or the removal of public officers by violence. This test is widely applied now by judges and by the Naturalization Service in the examination of applicants for citizenship.
VARIOUS PRESIDENTS DISCUSSED NATURALIZATION
The importance of the subject of the absorption of foreign-born persons into our life is reflected all through the records of the government; allusions to it may be found in a large proportion of the messages of the Presidents to Congress. John Adams found occasion to express abhorrence of “intrigues of foreign agents to alienate the affections of the Indians and to arouse them to acts of hostility.”