3 - National and State Citizenship in the American Context

Summary

focuses on the particular case of the United States and the development of national citizenship and state citizenship over time. Following the lead of other works in American history and American Political Development, the authors lay out three major periods in federated citizenship that follow significant developments in the US Constitution and federal law: the Framers’ period, stretching from the Articles of Confederation and the founding Constitution through the Civil War; the Reconstruction period’s establishment and subsequent collapse of national control ensuring the provision of those citizenship rights under Jim Crow; and the Civil Rights period, starting with the Twenty-Fourth Amendment and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, and subsequent extensions and contractions in citizenship rights provided at the national and state levels along lines of race, gender, immigrant status, and sexual orientation.