The Naturalization Act of 1790 restricted citizenship to persons who resided in the United States for two years, who could establish their good character in court, and who were "white." Moreover, the trajectory of expanding democratic rights for whites was accompanied by the contraction of the rights of Blacks in an ever deepening cycle of oppression. The franchise, for example, was broadened to extend voting rights to unpropertied white men at the same time that Black voters were specifically disenfranchised, arguably shifting the property required for voting from land to whiteness. This racialized version of republicanism-this Herrenvolk republicanism-constrained any vision of democracy from addressing the class hierarchies adverse to many who considered themselves white.
-Whiteness As Property by Cheryl I. Harris
Harvard Law Review Volume 106, June 1993, Number 8
pg.1744
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