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To: TigersEye; bushpilot1; Las Vegas Ron; Red Steel; LucyT; El Gato; STARWISE; ...

I thought that looked like a state naturalization document.

It may well be. I would need to know its source, but I think I have an explanation at the bottom of this post.

Each state maintained the right to bestow citizenship until it ratified the US Constitution;
Maryland was #7 on April 26, 1788.

This document (Post 378) seems to show February 1, 1794.

However — and few people know thisit wasn't until the Immigration Act of 1795 that new citizens swore allegiance to the United States and its Constitution ... at least at the FEDERAL level.

Each state had slightly different rules on the issue of an Oath of Allegiance. Massachusetts (which barely passed ratification of the US Constitution by a vote of 187 to 168) was generally regarded to be the strictest state in regards to immigration. On the other hand, Pennsylvania was generally perceived as the most liberal state when it came to receiving foreigners as citizens.

James Madison, the sponsor of the revisions of the Immigration Act of 1795 that were introduced in December 1794, thought that the 1790 Immigration Act had not duly guarded against "intrusions and evasions" and that "the progress of things in Europe" was exposing the United States to "very serious inconveniences." Part of the Immigration Act of 1795 was a requirement that new citizens abjure prior allegiancesand it is still the law of the land today. As I showed in Post 323 above, Madison's fears would turn out to be justified.


However, as the document in bushpilot1's Post 378 is AFTER the Constitution was FULLY ratified in 1789 yet BEFORE the 1795 Immigration Act, I suspect bushpilot1's document a type of state-level
Oath of Abjuration and Allegiance ... in this case, from the state of Maryland.


411 posted on 04/10/2010 6:50:58 PM PDT by BP2 (I think, therefore I'm a conservative)
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To: BP2; Las Vegas Ron; Red Steel; LucyT; El Gato; TigersEye; tired_old_conservative

“We start,” Justice Douglas wrote for the Court, “from the premise that the rights of citizenship of the native–born and of the naturalized person are of the same dignity and are coextensive. The only difference drawn by the Constitution is that only the ‘natural born’ citizen is eligible to be President.”

http://www.law.cornell.edu/anncon/html/art1frag64_user.html


704 posted on 04/13/2010 1:05:00 PM PDT by bushpilot1
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