The Problem of Immigration in a Slaveholding Republic: Policing Mobility in the Nineteenth-Century United States

FAIN: FT-269846-20

Kevin Kenny
New York University (New York, NY 10012-1019)

Research and writing leading to a book on the interrelationship of immigration standards and slavery in federal policy, constitutional reform, and political action after the Civil War.

Immigration and slavery are separate subjects but their histories are tightly entangled. Before the Civil War, the federal government played almost no role in immigration. National laws regulating the movement of one kind of people (immigrants) would have affected the movement of others (free black and slaves). The states set their own terms for the admission, exclusion, and expulsion of foreigners, and for the movement of free blacks and enslaved persons. Only after slavery was abolished did the Supreme Court rule unequivocally that immigration was a federal matter. By this time, the Chinese were subject to the kinds of racial practices that had been used against free blacks in the antebellum era. To justify Chinese exclusion, the Supreme Court ruled in 1889 that federal authority over immigration resided in the inherent sovereignty of the nation, rather than any particular part of the Constitution. This doctrine has been the basis of U.S. immigration policy ever since.

Associated Products

The Antislavery Origins of US Immigration Policy (Article)
Title: The Antislavery Origins of US Immigration Policy
Author: Kevin Kenny
Abstract: Congress played almost no role in regulating the entry of immigrants before the Civil War. The states passed their own laws controlling the admission, exclusion, and expulsion of foreigners, as well as the movement of free and enslaved African Americans. When a national immigration policy began to emerge for the first time during the Civil War, it was shaped by the dominant ideology of antislavery. In 1862 Congress passed legislation prohibiting American involvement in the so-called coolie trade, equating the transportation of unfree Chinese laborers with slavery. Legislation passed in 1864, by contrast, gave federal recognition to the recruit- ment of European workers on short-term contracts. The 1862 law led indirectly to the exclusion of Chinese laborers in 1882, which was justified as an antislavery measure. The 1864 law, meanwhile, generated opposition to immigrant contract labor, also on antislavery grounds, culminating in the prohibition of immigrant contracts under the Foran Act of 1885. In this way, Chinese migration was coded as inherently unfree, and European workers, liberated from the shackles of contract, emerged as America’s archetypal immigrants. Together, these two developments during the Civil War laid the groundwork for the federal immigration system of the postbellum era.
Year: 2021
Primary URL: https://www.journalofthecivilwarera.org/
Primary URL Description: Journal website
Access Model: Subscription only
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Journal of the Civil War Era
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press

Introduction: Immigration in the Civil War Era (Article)
Title: Introduction: Immigration in the Civil War Era
Author: Katherine Carper
Author: Kevin Kenny
Abstract: While recent immigration scholars have turned most of their attention to the twentieth century, many historians are also reexamining immigration policy in the mid-nineteenth century. This special issue examines the relationship between slavery and immigration, the balance between state and federal policy, the connections among race, birthplace, and citizenship, and the international dimensions of US immigration policy during and after the Civil War.
Year: 2021
Primary URL: https://www.journalofthecivilwarera.org/
Primary URL Description: Journal website.
Access Model: Subscription only.
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Journal of the Civil War Era
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press

The Problem of Immigration in a Slaveholding Republic: Policing Mobility in the Nineteenth-Century United States (Book)
Title: The Problem of Immigration in a Slaveholding Republic: Policing Mobility in the Nineteenth-Century United States
Author: Kevin Kenny
Editor: Susan Ferber
Abstract: Offering an original interpretation of nineteenth-century America, The Problem of Immigration in a Slaveholding Republic argues that the existence, abolition, and legacies of slavery were central to the emergence of a national immigration policy. In the century after the American Revolution, states controlled mobility within and across their borders and set their own rules for community membership. Throughout the antebellum era, defenders of slavery feared that, if Congress gained control over immigration, it could also regulate the movement of free black people and the interstate slave trade. The Civil War and the abolition of slavery removed the political and constitutional obstacles to a national immigration policy, which was first directed at Chinese immigrants. Admission remained the norm for Europeans, but Chinese laborers were excluded through techniques of registration, punishment, and deportation first used against free black people in the antebellum South. To justify these measures, the Supreme Court ruled that immigration authority was inherent in national sovereignty and required no constitutional justification. The federal government continues to control admissions and exclusions today, while some states monitor and punish immigrants, and others offer sanctuary and refuse to act as agents of federal law enforcement. By revealing the tangled origins of border control, incarceration, and deportation, distinguished historian Kevin Kenny sheds light on the history of race and belonging in America, as well as the ongoing tensions between state and federal authority over immigration.
Year: 2023
Primary URL: https://www.worldcat.org/search?q=9780197580080
Primary URL Description: WorldCat entry (9780197580080)
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 9780197580080
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes

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