A quote from Geo Washington is never out of place.I note he said the people of these states...there were no citizens of the United States,except they be the states themselves.People were citizens of the state in which they resided.
1. This speech was given on his resignation from the Army on December 23, 1783, well before the establishment of our present national government by the Constitution. While your statement was accurate at the time he gave the speech, its applicability to today is at the very least debatable.
2. In the Dred Scott decision of 1857, the Supreme Court announced that certain groups of people could never become citizens of the United States, regardless of their status as citizens of an individual State.