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True Faith and Allegiance is a provocative account of nationalism and the politics of turning immigrants into citizens and Americans. Noah Pickus offers an alternative to the wild swings between emotionally fraught positions on immigration and citizenship of the past two decades. Drawing on political theory, history, and law, he argues for a renewed civic nationalism that melds principles and peoplehood.
This tradition of civic nationalism held sway at America's founding and in the Progressive Era. Pickus explores how, from James Madison to Teddy Roosevelt, its proponents sought to combine reason and reverence and to balance inclusion and exclusion. He takes us through controversies over citizenship for blacks and the rights of aliens at the nation's founding, examines the interplay of ideas and institutions in the Americanization movement in the 1910s and 1920s, and charts how both left and right promoted a policy of neglect toward immigrants and toward citizenship in the second half of the twentieth century.
True Faith and Allegiance shows that contemporary debates over a range of immigration and citizenship policies cannot be resolved by appeals to fixed notions of creed or culture, but require a supple civic nationalism that bridges the gap between immigrants' needs and American principles and practices. It is critical reading for scholars, policy makers, and all who care about immigrants and about America.
Preface ix
Introduction 1
Naturalization and Nationhood in Three Eras 6
Citizenship in Theory and Practice 11
Chapter One: Immigration, Citizenship, and the Nation's Founding 15
Diversity and Nationhood 16
Immigration and Citizenship 22
"Men Who Can Shake Off Their Attachments to Their Own Country" 25
America's Civic Character 29
Chapter Two: Alienage and Nationalism in the Early Republic 34
Partisan and Ideological Divisions 35
"The Constitution Was Made for Citizens, Not Aliens" 37
The Rights of Aliens, Citizens, and States 42
Marshall, Madison, and Moderate Civic Nationalism 47
Chapter Three: The Free White Clause of 1790 52
Why White? 53
"We Have the Wolf by the Ears": Obstacles to Integration 56
Emancipation without Citizenship 58
Civic Nationalism and the Claims of History 61
Chapter Four: Americanization and Pluralism in the Progressive Era 64
Citizenship and Nativism, 1830-1911 65
Americanization, Progressivism, and John Dewey's International Nationalism 71
Randolph Bourne, Jane Addams, and the Practice of Pluralism 76
Chapter Five: Nationalism in the Progressive Era 85
Roosevelt's New Nationalism 86
Naturalization and Constitutional Attachment 90
Education for Citizenship 96
"We Mutually Pledge to Each Our Lives, Our Fortunes, and Our Sacred Honor": Frances Kellor and the National Americanization Committee 100
Chapter Six: World War I and the Turn to Coercion 107
Tightening the Boundaries of Citizenship 108
Postwar Americanization and the Specter of Separatism 112
The Peril and the Promise of Civic Nationalism 118
Chapter Seven: Immigration and Citizenship at Century's End 124
From New Deal Nationalism to Nationality as a Human Right 125
"Name One Benefit of Being a Citizen of the United States": Amnesty and the New Naturalization Process 131
Alien Rights and Minority Representation 136
The Return of the Nation 140
Chapter Eight: A New Civic Nationalism 147
Bourneian and Rooseveltian Civic Nationalism 148
Alternatives to Civic Nationalism 153
The Evasion of Politics and the Madisonian Moment 160
Tolerance, Neglect, and Governance by Proposition 164
Epilogue 171
Immigration and Immigrant Policy 173
What Naturalization Can Do 175
Beyond Naturalization 178
Dual Citizenship and Global Linkages 181
Notes 185
Index 241
Overview
True Faith and Allegiance is a provocative account of nationalism and the politics of turning immigrants into citizens and Americans. Noah Pickus offers an alternative to the wild swings between emotionally fraught positions on immigration and citizenship of the past two decades. Drawing on political theory, history, and law, he argues for a renewed civic nationalism that melds principles and peoplehood.
This tradition of civic nationalism held sway at America's founding and in ...