Who Is A Citizen?: Negotiating American Citizenship Before The Fourteenth Amendment

Date of Award

Spring 1-1-2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

History

First Advisor

Freeman, Joanne

Abstract

Americans in the twenty-first century tend to assume U.S. citizenship was always a settled and stable concept associated with rights and duties, including voting, jury duty, and traveling with a U.S. passport. However, this understanding is shaped by the period after the Fourteenth Amendment (1868) to the U.S. Constitution, which provided the first concrete definition of U.S. citizenship and gave federal citizenship primacy over other forms of allegiance, such as state citizenship. This dissertation destabilizes this perception by drawing on popular understandings, debates, and claims and government-driven top-down decisions to provide the first historical study of how U.S. citizenship operated before the Fourteenth Amendment. During this period, citizenship was not fixed, exact, or uniformly defined. Instead, it was shaped by negotiations among and between officials and the larger public—rather than through an elite, top-down process of granting rights and privileges. This dissertation examines instances where people and the government were compelled to address questions related to citizenship, such as the end of the American Revolution, the acquisition of new territories, and foreign travel. Focusing on these moments provides insight into the tensions between state and federal citizenship and the expansion of federal control over citizenship. These meanings of citizenship had tangible importance as they became embodied in various documents that served as evidence of citizenship, including passports and seamen protection certificates.

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