Thomas Jefferson, third President, as Secretary of State

Printed broadside document (15 1/2 x 9 7/8 in.; 388 x 262 mm) on paper (watermarked C Taylor), "Congress of the United States: at the Second Session, Begun and held at the City of New-York, on Monday the Fourth of January, one thousand seven hundred and ninety. An Act to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, …" signed in print by President Washington, Vice President Adams, and Speaker of the House Muhlenberg, and approved 26 March 1790, [New York : Printed by Francis Childs and John Swaine, 1790], docketed on the verso "Act of Naturalization 26 March 1790"; some careful reinforcement on verso to margins and some folds. 

Printed broadside document (15 1/2 x 9 7/8 in.; 388 x 262 mm) on paper (watermarked C Taylor), "Congress of the United States: at the Second Session, Begun and held at the City of New-York, on Monday the Fourth of January, one thousand seven hundred and ninety. An Act to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, ..." signed in print by President Washington, Vice President Adams, and Speaker of the House Muhlenberg, [New York : Printed by Francis Childs and John Swaine, 1790]; some careful reinforcement on verso to margins and some folds.
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THE FIRST NATURALIZATION ACT: ESTABLISHING LAW FOR CITIZENSHIP, THE BEST OF JUST THREE LOCATED COPIES SIGNED BY JEFFERSON.

The new Constitution required Congress to establish rules by which the foreign-born could obtain citizenship; in light of the expected increase in immigration, this legislation was speedily passed. The new act specified that "any alien, being a free white person, who shall have resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States for the term of two years, may be admitted to become a citizen thereof, on application to any Common Law Court of Record, in any one of the States wherein he shall have resided for the term of one year at least, and making proof to the satisfaction of such Court, that he is a person of good character, and taking the oath or affirmation prescribed by law, to support the Constitution of the United States … thereupon such person shall be considered as a citizen of the United States."

The law has been revised numerous times—most notoriously under the Naturalization Act of 1798 (part of the Alien and Sedition Acts which extended the required period of residence for citizenship to fourteen years). Nonetheless, this original Congressional Act established the precedents which all subsequent laws on naturalization would follow.

By restricting naturalization to "free white" persons, this legislation effectively prevented aliens who were people of color, as well as indentured servants and women (technically dependents, and thus considered incapable of casting their own vote) from gaining citizenship. Step by step over the next century and a half, those restrictions were eliminated. Two years after the ratification of the 14th Amendment, the Nationality Act of 1870 revised the "free white persons" limitation to include "persons of African nativity and African descent." That change still restricted naturalization of immigrants from Asia and India, however. In 1882, such limitations were further strengthened by passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act, which specifically barred naturalization of Chinese persons. The prohibition, reaffirmed in 1904, was not repealed until December of 1943. Three years later, legislation was passed allowing naturalization of individuals from India and persons of Filipino descent.

Naturalization regulations affecting women evolved differently. Passage of an act on February 10, 1855, allowed immigrant women to automatically acquire citizenship upon marriage to a U.S. citizen. Further tying a woman’s citizenship to that of her husband, a 1907 law stipulated that U.S.-born women who married aliens would lose their American citizenship. It was not until 1922 that women were allowed to acquire citizenship in their own right.

Following a law passed on September 15, 1789, Thomas Jefferson, as Secretary of State, signed two copies of each act of Congress for distribution to the executive of every state. (By the same law, a single copy was distributed to each U.S. senator and representative, though these did not require Jefferson’s authentication. Those copies are unsigned and printed on much smaller paper.) At the time this Naturalization Act was passed, there were still only twelve states; Rhode Island ratified the Constitution and officially became a state on May 29, 1790. Thus, it is likely that only 24 copies of this act were signed by Jefferson.

No signed copies are cited in Evans (Digital Evans, Early American Imprints, Series 2, no. 49375). We have located only two others, at the Connecticut Historical Society and the former Harry J. Sonnenborn copy (sold, Sotheby Parke Bernet, 11 June 1974, lot 276). Both of those have been severely trimmed, while the present document has exceptionally wide margins and preserved deckle on the lower and fore edges.