Naturalization Act of 1790 facts for kids
.svg) |
|
| Other short titles | Naturalization Act |
|---|---|
| Long title | An Act to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization. |
| Enacted by | the 1st United States Congress |
| Effective | March 26, 1790 |
| Citations | |
| Public law | Pub.L. 1-3 |
| Statutes at Large | 1 Stat. 103, chap. 3 |
| Legislative history | |
|
|
| Major amendments | |
| Naturalization Act of 1795 | |
The Naturalization Act of 1790 was an important law passed by the United States Congress on March 26, 1790. This law was the first to set rules for how people from other countries could become U.S. citizens. This process is called naturalization.
However, the law only allowed "free White persons" to become citizens. This meant that Native Americans, enslaved people, and later people from Asia could not become U.S. citizens through this law. Some free Black people could become citizens at the state level in certain states.
Contents
Becoming a Citizen: Rules of 1790
To become a U.S. citizen under this act, a person had to live in the United States for at least two years. They also needed to live in a specific state for one year.
Applying for Citizenship
After meeting the residency rules, a person could apply for citizenship. They would go to a local court and ask to become a citizen. The court would check if the person was of "good character."
If the court agreed, the person would take an oath. This oath meant they promised to support the Constitution of the United States. Once the oath was taken, the court would record it. The person would then be considered a U.S. citizen.
Children and Citizenship
The law also said that children under 21 years old would become citizens if their parent did. This applied to children who lived with their parent.
Children born outside the U.S. to two U.S. citizen parents were also considered citizens. However, this rule did not apply if the father had never lived in the United States.
Women and Citizenship
The 1790 Act did not directly stop women from becoming citizens. But, old laws called "coverture" were part of the U.S. legal system. Under coverture, a married woman's rights and property were controlled by her husband.
Because of this, married women's citizenship was often linked to their husband's. Women were generally not expected to take part in public life.
How Citizenship Rules Changed
The Naturalization Act of 1790 was changed several times over the years. These changes affected who could become a citizen and how.
Early Changes to the Law
- 1795: The Naturalization Act of 1795 replaced the 1790 Act. It made the residency requirement longer, to five years. People also had to announce their intention to apply three years before.
- 1798: The Naturalization Act of 1798 made the residency rule even longer, to 14 years. The notice period became five years.
- 1802: The Naturalization Law of 1802 brought back the shorter residency and notice rules from the 1795 Act.
Women's Citizenship Rules
After 1804, a woman's ability to become a citizen became more and more tied to her marriage. By the late 1800s, a woman's citizenship mostly depended on whether she was married. By 1907, a woman's nationality was completely dependent on her marital status.
Citizenship for Native Americans
The Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek in 1831 was a big step. It allowed some Choctaw Native Americans in Mississippi to become U.S. citizens. This was the first time a large non-European group could gain U.S. citizenship.
Later, the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 gave all Native Americans blanket citizenship. This meant they were all U.S. citizens, whether they belonged to a tribe or not.
Race and Citizenship
Major changes happened after the American Civil War. The Fourteenth Amendment in 1868 said that anyone born in the U.S. was a citizen, no matter their race. However, it did not include Native Americans living on reservations.
The Naturalization Act of 1870 allowed people of African descent to become citizens. But it also took away citizenship from Chinese Americans who had naturalized.
Despite the 1870 Act, the Supreme Court case United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) was important. It confirmed that a child born in the U.S. to Chinese parents living permanently in the U.S. was a citizen. This case helped establish U.S. birthright citizenship.
After 1940, more racial groups became eligible for naturalization. This included people from the Western Hemisphere, Filipinos, Chinese, and people from India. Finally, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 made it illegal to discriminate based on race or gender in naturalization.
See also
In Spanish: Ley de naturalización estadounidense de 1790 para niños
