Lunatics, Idiots, Paupers and Negro Seamen: Immigration Federalism in the Early American State

Abstract

Why did it take the U.S. national government until 1882 to gain control over immigration policies from the states, and what does this situation say about the strength of the Early American State? This phenomenon is especially curious since the control of entry into and across a nation is so fundamental to the definition of a State. I argue that the delay of the national government takeover was not due to a lack of administrative capacity. Instead, there were regionally specific reasons for why the states wanted to retain control over immigration. The national government did not take over policy because of the nineteenth-century political-cultural understanding that many migration policies were properly in the province of local control. This article explains the timing and sequencing of state and federal controls over nineteenth-century migration policies and what this timing meant for the freedom of movement of many politically vulnerable classes of people.

Keywords: immigration, constitution, federalism