Overview

"Today the United States considers immigration a federal matter. Yet, despite America's reputation as a ""nation of immigrants,"" the Constitution is silent on the admission, exclusion, and expulsion of foreigners. Before the Civil War, the federal government played virtually no role in regulating immigration. 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. 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. 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."

Full Product Details

9798212981637

Table of Contents

Reviews

Author Information

Kevin Kenny is Glucksman Professor of History and director of Glucksman Ireland House at New York University. He is the author of Diaspora: A Very Short Introduction, The American Irish: A History, and Making Sense of the Molly Maguires, among other books. President of the Immigration and Ethnic History Society, Kenny came to the United States as an immigrant in the 1980s. Bill Andrew Quinn, a nationally recognized commercial and promo voice actor, has been narrating audiobooks since 1993. When not behind the microphone, Bill can be found doing research for his Metromedia Radio syndicated radio show The Bill Andrew Quinn Radio Hour X2, watching his beloved St. Louis Cardinals on the MLB Network, and/or sampling craft beer. He lives in the New York City area.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available