Center for Civic Education: Citizenship at the Founding: Citizenship, Part 1
What was citizenship at the founding of our country? Professor Henry L. Chambers Jr. of the University of Richmond School of Law explains how citizenship was initially decided by each individual state, and how this presented a challenge as the United States gained independence and evolved into a more mature republic.
Civil Discourse: An American Legacy is funded under the 2022 Leonore Annenberg Civic Mission of the Nation Initiative, sponsored by the Leonore Annenberg Institute for Civics. LAIC is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.
60-Second Civics, Episode 5342, March 31, 2025 (a rebroadcast of Episode 4982, September 25, 2023)
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(AI summary) At the beginning of the United States, citizenship was not very clear. Each of the 13 states had its own rules for who was a citizen. When the states joined together, U.S. citizenship was a mix of all these state citizenships. The Constitution showed that citizenship was important, but it did not fully explain what it meant. For example, only people born in the U.S. or citizens at that time could become president.
