{{Short description|United States federal law}}
{{Use American English|date=June 2025}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=November 2022}}
{{Infobox U.S. legislation
| shorttitle        = Naturalization Act of 1790
| othershorttitles  = Naturalization Act
| longtitle         = An Act to establish a uniform Rule of Naturalization.
| colloquialacronym = 
| nickname          = 
| enacted by        = 1st
| effective date    = March 26, 1790
| public law url    = 
| cite public law   = {{USPL|1|3}}
| cite statutes at large = {{usstat|1|103}}, [[s:United States Statutes at Large/Volume 1/1st Congress/2nd Session/Chapter 3|chap. 3]]
| acts amended    = 
| acts repealed   = 
| title amended   = <!--US code titles changed-->
| sections created = <!--{{USC}} can be used-->
| sections amended = 
| leghisturl      = 
| introducedin    = <!--House or Senate-->
| introducedbill  = 
| introducedby    = <!--sponsor(s)-->
| introduceddate  = 
| committees      = 
| passedbody1     = House of Representatives
| passeddate1     = March 4, 1790 
| passedvote1     = <ref>{{cite web|url=https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llac&fileName=002/llac002.db&recNum=95|title=''Annals of Congress'', House of Representatives, 1st Cong., 2nd sess.|page=1463|year=1790|publisher=[[Library of Congress]]|access-date=6 August 2021}}</ref> 
| passedbody2     = Senate
| passedas2       =  
| passeddate2     = March 19, 1790 
| passedvote2     = <ref>{{cite web|url=https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llac&fileName=001/llac001.db&recNum=496|title=''Annals of Congress'', Senate, 1st Cong., 2nd sess.|page=992|year=1790|publisher=[[Library of Congress]]|access-date=6 August 2021}}</ref> 
| conferencedate  = 
| passedbody3     =  
| passeddate3     =  
| passedvote3     = 
| agreedbody3     = House of Representatives
| agreeddate3     = March 22, 1790 
| agreedvote3     = <ref>{{cite web|url=https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llhj&fileName=001/llhj001.db&recNum=175&itemLink=r%3Fammem%2Fhlaw%3A%40field%28DOCID%2B%40lit%28hj001173%29%29%230010130&linkText=1|title=''House Journal''. 1790. 1st Cong., 2nd sess.|page=178|publisher=[[Library of Congress]]|access-date=6 August 2021}}</ref> 
| agreedbody4     = Senate
| agreeddate4     = March 25, 1790
| agreedvote4     = <ref>{{cite web|url=https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsj&fileName=001/llsj001.db&recNum=119&itemLink=r%3Fammem%2Fhlaw%3A%40field%28DOCID%2B%40lit%28sj001152%29%29%3A%230010096&linkText=1|title=''Senate Journal''. 1790. 1st Cong., 2nd sess.|page=124|publisher=[[Library of Congress]]|access-date=6 August 2021}}</ref>
| passedbody4     =  
| passeddate4     =   
| passedvote4     =  
| signedpresident = [[George Washington]]
| signeddate      = March 26, 1790
| amendments      = [[Naturalization Act of 1795]]
| SCOTUS cases    = 
}}
{{wikisource|United States Statutes at Large/Volume 1/1st Congress/2nd Session/Chapter 3|Naturalization Act of 1790}}

The '''Naturalization Act of 1790 ''' ({{USStat|1|103}}, enacted March 26, 1790) was a law of the [[United States Congress]] that set the first uniform rules for the granting of [[Citizenship of the United States|United States citizenship]] by [[naturalization]]. The law limited naturalization to "free [[Definitions of whiteness in the United States|white person(s)]] ... of good character". This eliminated ambiguity on how to treat newcomers, given that [[Free Blacks|free black people]] had been allowed citizenship at the state level in many states. In reading the Naturalization Act, the courts also associated whiteness with [[Christianity]] and thus often excluded [[Islam|Muslim]] immigrants from citizenship by classifying them as Asians.

Congress modeled the act on the [[Plantation Act 1740]] of the [[Parliament of Great Britain|British Parliament]] ([[13 Geo. 2]]. c. 7) that was officially titled ''An Act for Naturalizing such foreign Protestants and others therein mentioned, as are settled or shall settle in any of His Majesty's Colonies in America'', and used its provisions concerning time, oath of allegiance, the process of swearing before a judge, etc.<ref name="LB-US I&N">{{cite web|first1=Michael|last1=Lemay|first2=Elliott Robert|last2=Barkan|url=https://www.questia.com/read/6846180/u-s-immigration-and-naturalization-laws-and-issues|title=U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Laws and Issues: A Documentary History|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200805140810/https://www.questia.com/read/6846180/u-s-immigration-and-naturalization-laws-and-issues|archive-date=2020-08-05|pages=6–9|date=1999}}</ref><ref name="ProCon mirror">{{cite web|title=Historical Timeline – Immigration – ProCon.org|url=https://immigration.procon.org/historical-timeline/|access-date=2022-11-25|website=Immigration|language=en-US}}</ref>

==Provisions==
There was a two-year residency requirement in the United States and one year in the state of residence before an alien would apply for citizenship by filing a Petition for Naturalization with "any common law court of record" having jurisdiction over his residence. Once convinced of the applicant's "good character", the court would administer an oath of allegiance to support the [[Constitution of the United States]]. The applicant's children to the age of 21 would also be naturalized. The court clerk was to record these proceedings, and "thereupon such person shall be considered as a citizen of the United States".

The act also provided that children born abroad when both parents are US citizens "shall be considered as [[natural born citizen]]s", but specified that the right of citizenship did "not descend to persons whose fathers have never been resident in the United States".<ref>{{cite book|last1=Hymowitz|first1=Carol|last2=Weissman|first2=Michaele|title=A History of Women in America|publisher=Bantam|year=1975|isbn=9780072878134}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Schultz|first=Jeffrey D.|title=Encyclopedia of Minorities in American Politics: African Americans and Asian Americans|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WDV40aK1T-sC&pg=PA284|page=284|year=2002|publisher=Oryx Press|isbn=9781573561488|access-date=2010-03-25}}</ref><ref>[https://www.vox.com/2016/2/18/11058038/ted-cruz-court ''Bad news for Ted Cruz: his eligibility for president is going to court''] Dara Lind and Jeff Stein. Vox Media. February 18, 2016. Retrieved February 20, 2016.</ref> This act was the only US statute ever to use the term "natural born citizen", found in the US Constitution concerning the prerequisites for a person to serve as president or vice president, and the [[Naturalization Act of 1795]] removed the term.

Though the act did not specifically preclude women from citizenship, courts absorbed the common law practice of [[coverture]] into the United States legal system.{{sfn|Kerber|1998|p=11}} Under this practice, the physical body of a married woman, and thus any rights to her person or property, was controlled by her husband. A woman's loyalty to her husband was considered above her obligation to the state.{{sfn|Kerber|1998|p=xxiii}} Jurisprudence on domestic relations held that infants, enslaved persons, and women should be excluded from participation in public life and conducting business because they lacked discernment, the right to free will and property, and there was a need to prevent moral depravity and conflicts of loyalty.{{sfn|Isenberg|1998|p=45}}{{sfn|Jefferson|1999|pp=219–220}}

==Afterward==
The [[Naturalization Act of 1795]] repealed and superseded the 1790 Act. The 1795 Act extended the residence requirement to five years and required that a prospective applicant give notice of three years of application. The [[Naturalization Act of 1798]] extended the residency requirement to 14 years and the notice period to five years. The [[Naturalization Law of 1802]] repealed the 1798 Act, restoring the residency and notice requirements of the 1795 Act.

With the adoption of the Naturalization Law of 1804, women's access to citizenship was increasingly tied to their state of marriage. By the end of the 19th century, the overriding consideration to determine a woman's citizenship or ability to naturalize was her marital status. Starting in 1907, a woman's nationality entirely depended on whether she was married.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Smith|first=Marian L.|title="Any woman who is now or may hereafter be married...": Women and Naturalization, ca. 1802–1940|url=https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1998/summer/women-and-naturalization-1.html|journal=[[Prologue (magazine)|Prologue Magazine]]|date=Summer 1998|volume=30|issue=2|publisher=[[National Archives and Records Administration|United States National Archives and Records Administration]]|access-date=18 July 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200429215826/https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1998/summer/women-and-naturalization-1.html|archive-date=29 April 2020|location=Washington, D.C.|url-status=live|issn=0033-1031}}</ref>

The [[Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek]], which the US Congress ratified in 1831, allowed those [[Choctaw]] Indians who chose to remain in [[Mississippi]] to gain recognition as US citizens, the first major non-European ethnic group to become entitled to US citizenship.

Congress made significant changes in citizenship in the 19th century following the [[American Civil War]]. The [[Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fourteenth Amendment]] in 1868 granted citizenship to persons born within the United States and subject to its jurisdiction, irrespective of race, but it excluded untaxed "[[Native Americans in the United States|Indians]]" (American Indians living on reservations). The [[Naturalization Act of 1870]] extended "the naturalization laws" to "aliens of African nativity and to persons of African descent" while also revoking the citizenship of naturalized Chinese Americans.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wouYAP1oKDsC&pg=PA31|title=Forbidden Citizens: Chinese Exclusion and the U.S. Congress: A Legislative History|publisher=The Capitol Net|isbn=9781587332524}}</ref>

Under the Fourteenth Amendment and despite the 1870 Act, the [[Supreme Court of the United States|Supreme Court]] in ''[[United States v. Wong Kim Ark]]'' (1898) recognized [[Birthright citizenship in the United States|US birthright citizenship]] of an American-born child of Chinese parents who had a permanent domicile and residence in the United States, and who were there carrying on business, and were not employed in any diplomatic or official capacity under the [[Emperor of China]].<ref> [https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/169/649/ United States v. Wong Kim Ark], 169 U.S. 649 (1898).</ref> US citizenship of persons born in the United States since ''Wong Kim Ark'' have been recognized, although the Supreme Court has never directly made a ruling concerning children born to parents who are not legal residents in the United States.{{CN|date=September 2025}}

American Indians were granted citizenship in a piecemeal manner until the [[Indian Citizenship Act]] of 1924, which gave them blanket citizenship whether they belonged to a federally recognized tribe, though by that date, two-thirds of American Indians had already become US citizens by other means. The Act was not retroactive, so it did not cover citizens born before the effective date of the 1924 Act or outside of the United States as an Indigenous person.{{CN|date=September 2025}}

Further changes to racial eligibility for citizenship by naturalization were made after 1940 when Congress extended eligibility to "descendants of races indigenous to the Western Hemisphere", "Filipino persons or persons of Filipino descent", "Chinese persons or persons of Chinese descent", and "persons of races indigenous to [[India]]".<ref>{{cite journal|last=Coulson|first=Doug|title=British Imperialism, the Indian Independence Movement, and the Racial Eligibility Provisions of the Naturalization Act: United States v. Thind Revisited|journal=Georgetown Journal of Law & Modern Critical Race Perspectives|date=2015|issue=7|page=2|ssrn=2610266}}</ref> The [[Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952]] prohibits racial and sex [[discrimination]] in [[United States nationality law|naturalization]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Daniels|first=Roger|title=Coming to America, A History of Immigration and Ethnicity in American Life}}</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Bibliography==
* {{cite book|last=Isenberg|first=Nancy|title=Sex and Citizenship in Antebellum America|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7xbI2PQGBV8C&pg=PA45 |date=1998 |publisher=[[University of North Carolina Press]]|location=Chapel Hill, North Carolina|isbn=978-0-8078-4746-6}}
* {{cite book|last=Jefferson|first=Thomas|editor-last1=Appleby|editor-first1=Joyce|editor-last2=Ball|editor-first2=Terence|title=Jefferson: Political Writings|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6rOu3WYEiiQC&pg=PA219|series=Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought|date=1999|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|location=Cambridge, UK|isbn=978-0-521-64841-7}}
* {{cite book|last=Kerber|first=Linda K.|title=No Constitutional Right to be Ladies: Women and the Obligations of Citizenship|date=1998|publisher=Hill and Wang|location=New York, New York|isbn=0-8090-7383-8|edition=1st |url=https://archive.org/details/noconstitutional00kerb/page/n25/mode/1up?}}

{{Immigration to the United States}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Naturalization Act Of 1790}}
[[Category:1790 in American law]]
[[Category:History of immigration to the United States]]
[[Category:United States federal immigration and nationality legislation]]
[[Category:Presidency of George Washington]]
[[Category:Acts of the 1st United States Congress]]
[[Category:Repealed United States legislation]]
[[Category:Race legislation in the United States]]
[[Category:Asian-American issues]]
[[Category:White nationalism in the United States]]