Congress maintains an annotated version of the Constitution online where they explain the language, meaning, and history of all of the clauses in the Constitution. In this course, we are concerned with Article I, Section 8, Clause 4. This bit of the Constitution is often abbreviated as ArtI.S8.C4 and it reads as follows: “[Congress has the power] To establish a uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States.” It may not seem immediately obvious why this matters in the history of immigration but there are some annotations (which are brief explanations written by legal scholars) of the Constitution that can help us understand it.
Read through two of the annotations that help explain this small clause in the Constitution (there are many, but we’ll just focus on these two):
ArtI.S8.C4.1.2.2 (This link opens in a new window) Constitutional Convention and Naturalization
The clause gives Congress the power to regulate naturalization law. Naturalization refers to the process by which immigrants become U.S. citizens. Read the link above to understand why it was necessary for Congress to retain this power. You can skim this one.
ArtI.S8.C4.1.2.3 (This link opens in a new window) Early U.S. Naturalization Laws
This annotation explains how Congress used this newfound power to regulate who could and could not because a U.S. citizen. Read this one closely.
After reading about ArtI.S8.C4 and some examples of how Congress used this clause, write a 250-word imagining of what America would look like if the citizenship laws in place in 1799 were still in place today. You must, at the very least, accurately describe who can and cannot become citizens according to the 1799 laws. Be careful to pay attention to the chronology of naturalization law as it’s laid out in annotation ArtI.S8.C4.1.2.3. Figure out what the citizenship laws would have been in 1799 specifically.
Students with the best responses will use their imaginations to guess what America would be like today with those same 1799 laws in place. Feel free to get creative. Some things to consider: Who would make up most of the American population? Would you be a U.S. citizen under these 1799 restrictions? Would there be a lot of people living in America who don’t have legal citizenship? Or would America be a lot smaller? Who would have the power?
