The Development of American Citizenship, 1608-1870
Title | The Development of American Citizenship, 1608-1870 PDF eBook |
Author | James H. Kettner |
Publisher | UNC Press Books |
Pages | 404 |
Release | 2014-01-01 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 0807839760 |
he concept of citizenship that achieved full legal form and force in mid-nineteenth-century America had English roots in the sense that it was the product of a theoretical and legal development that extended over three hundred years. This prize-winning volume describes and explains the process by which the cirumstances of life in the New World transformed the quasi-medieval ideas of seventeenth-century English jurists about subjectship, community, sovereignty, and allegiance into a wholly new doctrine of "volitional allegiance." The central British idea was that subjectship involved a personal relationship with the king, a relationship based upon the laws of nature and hence perpetual and immutable. The conceptual analogue of the subject-king relationship was the natural bond between parent and child. Across the Atlantic divergent ideas were taking hold. Colonial societies adopted naturalization policies that were suited to practical needs, regardless of doctrinal consistency. Americans continued to value their status as subjects and to affirm their allegiance to the king, but they also moved toward a new understanding of the ties that bind individuals to the community. English judges of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries assumed that the essential purpose of naturalization was to make the alien legally the same as a native, that is, to make his allegiance natural, personal, and perpetual. In the colonies this reasoning was being reversed. Americans took the model of naturalization as their starting point for defining all political allegiance as the result of a legal contract resting on consent. This as yet barely articulated difference between the American and English definition of citizenship was formulated with precision in the course of the American Revolution. Amidst the conflict and confusion of that time Americans sought to define principles of membership that adequately encompassed their ideals of individual liberty and community security. The idea that all obligation rested on individual volition and consent shaped their response to the claims of Parliament and king, legitimized their withdrawal from the British empire, controlled their reaction to the loyalists, and underwrote their creation of independent governments. This new concept of citizenship left many questions unanswered, however. The newly emergent principles clashed with deep-seated prejudices, including the traditional exclusion of Indians and Negroes from membership in the sovereign community. It was only the triumph of the Union in the Civil War that allowed Congress to affirm the quality of native and naturalized citizens, to state unequivocally the primacy of the national over state citizenship, to write black citizenship into the Constitution, and to recognize the volitional character of, the status of citizen by formally adopting the principle of expatriation.-->
The Development of American Nationality
Title | The Development of American Nationality PDF eBook |
Author | Carl Russell Fish |
Publisher | |
Pages | 632 |
Release | 1913 |
Genre | United States |
ISBN |
The Development of American Nationality
Title | The Development of American Nationality PDF eBook |
Author | Carl Russell Fish |
Publisher | |
Pages | 544 |
Release | 1916 |
Genre | United States |
ISBN |
The Development of American Nationality
Title | The Development of American Nationality PDF eBook |
Author | Carl Russell Fish |
Publisher | Forgotten Books |
Pages | 633 |
Release | 2015-07-23 |
Genre | Political Science |
ISBN | 9781330592946 |
Excerpt from The Development of American Nationality The authors hope that this "Short History of the American People" may serve the purposes of two classes of readers. They have aimed, in the first instance, to provide for college undergraduates pursuing an introductory course in American history, a general manual which will embody, in some measure at least, the enlarged knowledge and the new points of view made possible by the results of research in recent years. They believe also that this history will meet the requirements of the general reader who desires a comprehensive view of the subject within reasonable compass. For the student and the general reader alike, it is hoped that the bibliographical notes may point the way to more extended studies. The aim of the authors is not so much to present a balanced narrative of events, as to describe those movements and forces which have left their permanent impress upon the national character and institutions. The first volume (The Foundations of American Nationality, 1492 to 1789) deals with the molding of the varied European nationalities and the several detached colonies into an independent and united nation; the second (The Development of American Nationality, 1783 to the Present Time) deals with the development of the nation so formed. While any division of the subject matter of history occasions perplexity and disagreement, the authors believe that the character of the problems confronting the people of the time, and the character of the materials which the historian must employ, permanently differentiate the colonial period from the national, and that the two can best be treated by different men. In order, however, that each author might have full liberty to express his views, the volumes overlap for the period 1783 to 1789. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
The Development of American Nationality (Classic Reprint)
Title | The Development of American Nationality (Classic Reprint) PDF eBook |
Author | Carl Russell Fish |
Publisher | Forgotten Books |
Pages | 632 |
Release | 2017-09-16 |
Genre | Political Science |
ISBN | 9781528564489 |
Excerpt from The Development of American Nationality The authors hope that this Short History of the American People may serve the purposes of two classes of readers. They' have aimed, in the first instance, to provide for college undergraduates pursuing an introductory course in American history, a general manual which will embody, in some meas ure at least, the enlarged knowledge and the new points of View made possible by the results of research in recent years. They believe also that this history will meet the requirements 'oi the general reader who desires a comprehensive view of the subject within reasonable compass. For the student and the general reader alike, it is hoped that the bibliographical notes may point the way to more extended studies. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
The Development of American Nationality
Title | The Development of American Nationality PDF eBook |
Author | Carl Russell Fish |
Publisher | |
Pages | 632 |
Release | 2012-09 |
Genre | |
ISBN | 9781258470357 |
In Two Volumes. Volume 1, The Foundations Of American Nationality; Volume 2, The Development Of American Nationality.
The Foundations of American Nationality
Title | The Foundations of American Nationality PDF eBook |
Author | Evarts Boutell Greene |
Publisher | |
Pages | 702 |
Release | 1922 |
Genre | United States |
ISBN |