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“The Naturalization Question …”
Last May. Mr. Cass. "Very sorry indeed; but can't help you, Mr. ___, Mr. ___, Mr. ___, what's your name."
As The Fall Elections Approach.
Mr. Cass. "Protect you, dear Old Hans? Why, of course! I say, Rynders, wave that buntin' a little higher!"
In
the late 1850s, a diplomatic controversy developed between the United
States and certain European governments, particularly Prussia and other
German states. Naturalized American citizens who returned
temporarily to their countries of origin on business or personal trips
were being forced into military service in their homelands. The
German-American community demanded that the administration of President
James Buchanan take immediate and decisive steps to secure the safe
return of the conscripted men, and to ensure that such impressments
ended.
This cartoon contrasts the
reactions of Secretary of State Lewis Cass in the spring and fall of
1859. At first, Cass refused to recognize any obligation of the
American government to intervene on behalf of the conscripted American
immigrants. However, the German-American vote was important to the
Democratic Party, and as the 1859 state and municipal elections
approached, Cass changed his mind, declaring that the American
government would protect the rights of its citizens abroad. On the
left, Cass rudely blows his nose while refusing to assist the
German-American who begs at his feet. On the right, Cass warmly
welcomes a German back to the United States, as Isaiah Rynders of
Tammany Hall waves a banner in celebration.
Harper's Weekly brought
the issue to the attention of the general public in 1858, supporting the
immigrants' cause when other major publications sided with the State
Department's noninterventionist policy. "It is not generally
known in this country that every native of any one of the fifteen or
twenty odd German States of Europe becomes, by the mere act of birth,
liable to military duty in the army of his native State." The
problem for German immigrants to the United States, and subsequently for
the American government, derived from the fact that German law did not
permit Germans to become citizens of other nations (i.e., expatriation).
If you were born a Prussian, you were a Prussian citizen for life, and
therefore subject to mandatory military service.
Secretary Cass's response in
May 1859 was that while there is no distinction between native-born and
naturalized citizens within the United States (except for the
constitutional prohibition on a foreign-born president), a naturalized
citizen may still have legal obligations he must meet if he returns to
his native land, and over which the American government has no
jurisdiction. Harper's Weekly compared "Mr. Cass's
idea of citizenship" with "a bad cold, which yield[s] to a
change of air, and leaves no trace behind." The journal also
contrasted the secretary with President James Madison, who declared war
on Britain in 1812 partially in reaction against the impressment of
American citizens into the British Navy, and to Secretary of State
William Marcy (1853-1857), who successfully insisted on the return of a
Hungarian applicant for American citizenship, Martin Koszta, conscripted
by Austria.
The latter case made headlines
in 1853, and whipped up patriotic fervor. This was partly due to
the dramatic intervention of Captain Duncan Ingraham, commander of the U.S.S.
St. Louis, who forced the Austrians at gunpoint to deliver Koszta to
a neutral third party (the French) for negotiations. It was also
because of American sympathies with Hungary's failed 1848 revolution against Austrian rule, with which Koszta was associated. Americans
had enthusiastically welcomed Louis Kossuth, the exiled leader of the
Hungarian nationalist movement, during his tour of the United States in
1851-1852. Playing on that sentiment, Harper's Weekly ended
the 1858 editorial: "Remember Martin Koszta."
Harper's Weekly urged
the Buchanan administration or Congress to place an embargo on German
imports until American citizenship was recognized in the German states.
The newspaper also called for a Congressional inquiry into the matter,
and expressed pleasure in reporting that Senator George Pugh, a Democrat
from Ohio (which had a large German population), had requested to see
the State Department correspondence on the matter of compulsory
enlistment of American citizens abroad. By the summer of 1859, the
newspaper was calling naturalization a farce for not protecting the
rights of naturalized citizens abroad, and a fraud for breaking the
contract of naturalized citizenship that clearly granted those rights.
Then,
Secretary Cass reversed the State Department's policy. The
specific case involved Christian Ernst, who had emigrated from Hanover
(Germany) with his family when he was 10 years old. In February
1858, he became a citizen of the United States, and the next month
visited his birthplace in Hanover. He was soon conscripted into
the Hanover army, leaving his family and business to suffer in the
United States. On July 8, 1859, Cass sent a dispatch to the
American minister instructing him to demand Ernst's release, with which
the Hanoverian government readily complied. More broadly, the
secretary of state explicitly stated that naturalized citizens had
"all the rights, privileges, and immunities which belong to a
native-born citizen, in their full extent ... both at home and
abroad."
Robert C. Kennedy
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