Old School Civics 1: How we thought about citizenship...

...100 years ago

As previously reported, I’ve become interested in learning how US government and civics were taught during the generation of my grandparents, who were born 1900-1907. Thanks to the twin miracles of the “Forgotten Books” and Amazon, I’ve gotten my hands on The Citizen and the Republic: A Text-Book In Government, published in 1918 by James Albert Woodburn, professor of American history at Indiana University, and Thomas Francis Moran, professor of history and economics at Purdue. It is more than 400 pages long, and it was written for American high school students of that time.

The plan is to share and excerpt what I learn as I pick my way through The Citizen and the Republic (TCATR). My purpose is not to imply that we ought to teach civics this way now, or revert to the policies and beliefs of 100 years ago, but to understand what that generation was taught. How did our ancestors, in many cases people we or our parents knew, learn to be Americans? This book shows the way, at least for people who made it as far as high school.¹

In this piece we will start right at the beginning, with a look at the fraught question, “Who Are Citizens?”, as the idea was understood in 1918.

A citizen is a member of the nation who owes the nation allegiance and is entitled to its protection. Under the Old Confederation (1781-1789) there were no citizens of the United States; the people were citizens of the several States. The United States had nothing to do with citizens; it dealt with States. The nation had yet to grow. The central Government, under certain circumstances, might act on behalf of a State’s citizen, but it was understood that citizenship was entirely a State matter. Even after the Constitution was adopted there were doubts and arguments as to who were citizens of the United States and by what authority they became such. It was contended by those who held to the compact view of the Constitution that one could be a citizen of the United States only by having a local citizenship in some State or territory; that there was no such thing as a citizenship at large, without local citizenship, like being a sort of citizen of the world.

Notice the sophistication in this passage, including the reference to the “Old Confederation.” The target audience was high school students. Back to TCATR, with footnotes added:

This States rights view of citizenship, expressed by the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case², while it recognized the right of Massachusetts or Vermont or any other State to confer the rights and privileges of its own State citizenship upon the negro³, asserted that these rights and privileges would be restricted to the State which gave them. The State could not make him a citizen of the United States or give him a right to become a citizen of any other State. The Court asserted that a man of African descent and slave birth could not, under the Constitution, become a citizen of the United States.

It was evident that citizenship ought to be made certain; that it should be determined by some common authority. So, after the Civil War, when the slaves had been set free and the national view of citizenship and the Constitution had prevailed, in order to settle all controversy and to give equal rights to all men alike, white or black, the Constitution was amended and for the first time clearly defined American citizenship:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

That clause in the 14th Amendment was, therefore, understood to undo the tortured finding of Dred Scott, among other things.

This is a part of the Fourteenth Amendment and it makes clear who are citizens of the United States. No State has any right to deny the privileges of its citizenship to any American citizen, of whatever creed, color, or nationality. “Born in the United States” is broadly construed. A child of an American ambassador, if born in the ambassador’s residence in a foreign country, is considered a “natural born” citizen of the United States, as also would be a child born to an American sea captain on his vessel in a foreign port. A national vessel is like “a bit of the national soil afloat.” Also all children born out of the limits and jurisdiction of the United States whose fathers are American citizens at the time of the children’s birth are declared to be citizens of the United States. If they continue to reside abroad they must, upon reaching the age of 18, register their intention to remain citizens and become residents of the United States and at 21 they must take the oath of allegiance to the United States. But the rights of citizenship do not descend to children whose fathers have never resided in the United States. Children born of aliens in the United States are citizens of the United States unless and until they renounce their citizenship by expatriation.

Emphasis added. And cool your jets! I appreciate the nuances in the debate over birthright citizenship. More to come on the perspective from 1918, but first let’s go to the sexist part.

An alien woman if married to an American citizen (native or naturalized) becomes thereby herself a citizen. The wife is by law a citizen of her husband’s country. Therefore when an alien husband becomes naturalized his acquired citizenship carries with it citizenship for his wife, provided she belongs to the classes allowed by law to become citizens of the United States. The wife has no necessity to apply for naturalization, though an unmarried woman may do so. On the other hand, if an American woman, being a citizen, marries an alien she loses her American citizenship. By widowhood or divorce she may recover her American citizenship, by her own declaration.

Suffice it to say that those rules have been repealed by subsequent legislation. Ratification of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote throughout the United States, quickly led to the Cable Act of 1922, which went a long way (although not all the way) toward severing a woman’s citizenship from her husband’s.

Some are born citizens, others acquire citizenship. The population of a country consists of citizens and aliens. Naturalization is the process by which aliens become citizens. In order to become naturalized the alien applicant for American citizenship must “declare his intention” at least two years before citizenship can be fully required.

There then follows a lot of details about the papers to file and such, with two critical requirements. First, the aspiring citizen in 1918 had to renounce all allegiance to any foreign country of which he had been a subject. Second, an applicant for naturalization “must be able to read and write his own language and be able to read and speak English.” Hammering it home: One needed to be literate in one’s native tongue, and able to read and speak English. There was no requirement to write English.

Now for the racist part, or at least one of them, again remembering this is as of 1918.

Certain foreigners are prevented from acquiring American citizenship by naturalization. Only Caucasians and Africans are given the privilege, only “free white persons” and “persons of African nativity and African descent.” We go to the extremes in colors, including the whites and the blacks, but leaving out the yellows and the browns. This seems like an absurd distinction in our law. Yet no Asiatics may be naturalized. No Mongolians or Malays, Chinese, Japanese, Burmese, or East Indians can become citizens of the United States unless they are born here or are permitted to become citizens by a special act of Congress. The Turk is not excluded or the Armenians, and an exception has been made in favor of the Filipinos and Samoans. Polygamists, anarchists, and certain other classes of criminals may not be naturalized; they are not considered worthy of our citizenship.

It would be 1943 before Congress would allow small numbers of Chinese people to immigrate lawfully and naturalize, a gesture toward one of our allies during World War II. Note, however, that American born children of Chinese people were considered native citizens. Given that Chinese had been barred from lawful immigration into the United States since 1882 with the first of the several “Exclusion Acts,” it was nevertheless understood by these professors, writing in 1918, that their children born on our soil were citizens. The Supreme Court has, however, not ruled on the precise point.

TCATR describes the process by which the United States may confer citizenship via the acquisition of territory by treaty, which it did in the cases of the Louisiana Purchase, Florida, California, Alaska, and Hawaii. The aquisition of Puerto Rico and the Philippines after the Spanish-American War did not lead to citizenship for the people in either place, but the Puerto Ricans won it via an act of Congress signed by Woodrow Wilson on March 2, 1917. The authors note that the same might be “done by Congress for the Philippines at any time,” which would have had quite the impact on geopolitics today if Congress had so done.

American Indians living in tribal nations in 1918 were not citizens of the United States, but Congress had “repeatedly conferred citizenship upon whole tribes of Indians on breaking up their tribal relations.” Congress would grant citizenship to members of the various tribes only a few years later, with the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924.

In 1918, people everywhere were extremely concerned with national allegiance and loyalty, and that informed ideas about citizenship. However, the philosophy of the United States broke sharply with that of Europe from the get-go for the perhaps obvious reason that we were building our citizenry by immigration. This tension led to changes in international law. Back to TCATR:

An American may renounce his citizenship and become a citizen or subject of a foreign power. “Once a citizen always a citizen” was a familiar saying a hundred years ago.⁴ It meant that citizenship was indelible - it could not be erased, destroyed, or renounced. The idea was opposed in America as it was desired to have Europeans become naturalized in the United States. Great Britain favored the principle, as she wished to maintain a claim upon the services of her citizens. Now most European nations admit the right of expatriation, that is, the right of a citizen or subject to renounce his country and become the adopted citizen of another country. This is agreed to by treaties between nations.

Different countries have different laws relating to nationality and allegiance. On this account the terms “dual nationality” and “double allegiance” have been used in international law. May a citizen’s allegiance and service be claimed by two countries? This would seem to be inconsistent, if not absurd. As a man cannot serve two masters, so two nations may not claim a citizen’s allegiance. No person can be a citizen of two countries.

Why would two perfectly sharp academic historians believe that the concept of dual citizenship was “absurd” a century ago, when it is accepted as normal today? The United States has allowed dual citizenship with any other country that allows it - a list that includes most countries that matter - since roughly the 1970s.⁵ How did “absurd” become “of course” in 60 years?

Just spitballin’ here - no claims to expertise on this topic - but I suspect that it has a lot to do with our changing sense of citizenship. In 1918, when we had gone to war in Europe to save democracy and whatnot, it was very clear that citizenship demanded that one do one’s duty, a topic to which we shall return in a future post. It was as much a burden, or at least a responsibility, as it was a bundle of privileges. Today, fewer Americans see it that way. Most of us think of the benefits of citizenship a lot more than the responsibilities. When was the last time you met somebody who truly acted as though it was their duty to serve on a jury?⁶

After some discussion of the conflict of laws inherent in dual citizenship, the authors of TCATR plant their stake in the ground, hard.

It is certain that a “double allegiance” cannot be tolerated in America. Subjects of European nations who come to this country, take the oath of allegiance to America and become naturalized citizens cannot be allowed to acknowledge allegiance to any European nation. Such “hyphenated citizens” would be dangerous in any country. Loyalty to America is expected of all.

This was a doctrine that was almost disgraceful in certain circles for the last sixty years, but it is certainly enjoying a resurgence now. There is a great deal to be said about it (including that the term “hyphenated citizens” is usually applied to delightful cultural traditions, like Oktoberfest or tacos, and not to tests of loyalty), which it is not my purpose to do in this post. However, the authors of TCATR make the philosophical case as well as it might have been made in 1918, and that is worth thinking about.

America contends, as it has always contended, for the doctrine of voluntary expatriation and that a European who has migrated to this country and become a citizen here owes allegiance to America only. And their children born in this country owe their first and only allegiance to America. To admit a “double allegiance” in such cases would be to deny the validity of the long-standing American position against the doctrine, “once a citizen always a citizen.” A citizen of America may forswear his allegiance and become a citizen of another country. His status and allegiance would then be clear. Likewise, when aliens become citizens of the United States by naturalization they forswear their old allegiance and take on a new. They may not acknowledge both. So, when the goernment of Austria-Hungary forbade former subjects of that country who had been naturalized in America to work in American munition factories, or when it was stated that under the German law of nationality (of January 1, 1914) Germans who may have acquired naturalization in America may under certain conditions retain their German allegiance, these powers made a demand that no foreign nation had any power to enforce or any right to claim. Foreigners living and working in America without having been naturalized are subject to the call of their former government only to the extent that they themselves may voluntarily recognize; no foreign government can exercise jurisdiction or in any way compel any action over aliens while they are domiciled in this country. …

The Republic can recognize in its citizenship but one standard - the standard of loyalty to one country, one government, one flag, one allegiance. This unity and loyalty in citizenship requires but one language, “the language of the Declaration of Independence, of Washington’s Farewell Address, of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Speech.” (Emphasis in the original) …

[I]t is the binding duty on every citizen of this country in every important crisis to act solidly with all his fellow Americans, having regard only to the honor and interest of America, treating every other nation purely on its conduct in that crisis, without reference to his ancestral predilections or antipathies. If he does not so act he is false to the teachings and the lives of Washington and Lincoln; he is not entitled to any part or lot in our country and he should be sent out of it.

That is some tough wartime love from Professor James Albert Woodburn and Professor Thomas Francis Moran, Indiana University and Purdue University respectively.

My questions - please comment! - are these: If you agree with Woodburn and Moran, why do you agree? If you recoil from their stern patriotism, why do you? What are the best arguments against it?

Also, please let me know whether this exploration of high school civics a century ago is interesting, or at least instructive. I’m going to keep at it, but it would be good to know whether you enjoy it, or not.

Until next time.

1. Per the AIs, only around 17% of Americans graduated from high school in 1920, compared to 92% today. It is tempting to assume that the students reading The Citizen and the Republic a century ago were therefore in the top 10-20% of all students - those who made it into high school - and comparable only to top high school students today. Standards, however, have changed. In 1920, when only 17% of the population graduated from high school, 94% of American adults were literate. Today only 87% are literate, so we are going backwards in that metric.

2. Boo! Hiss! PDF of the Opinion of the Court, which I have never read in full.

3. Remember, this book was written in 1918. They said things differently then.

4. Now, obviously, two hundred years ago.

5. The United States has never affirmatively outlawed dual citizenship, but the Federal government had wide discretion to strip citizenship, including if a US citizen also claimed allegiance to another country. Then, in 1967, the Supreme Court effectively eliminated that discretion in the case of Afroyim v. Rusk. A subsequent change in State Department policy in 1980 locked it in.

6. Some people are delighted to serve because their employers pay them and therefore it is a nice break from the tedium of their jobs, but that delight does not reflect a sense of duty.