But was this qualification to apply to those foreigners who were then citizens of the States, and who, as such, would have the right to vote on the acceptance of the Constitution? Were they to be told that, although they could ratify the Constitution, they could not be eligible to office under it, until they had enjoyed the privileges of citizenship for seven years? They had been invited hither by the liberal provisions of the State institutions; they had been made citizens by the laws of the State where they resided; the Articles of Confederation gave them the privileges of citizens in every other State; and thus the very communities by which this Convention had been instituted were said to have pledged their public faith to these persons, that they should stand upon an equality with all other citizens. It is a proof that their case was thought to be a strong one, and it is a striking evidence of the importance attached to the principles involved, that an effort was made to exempt them from the operation of the rule requiring a citizenship of seven years, and that it was unsuccessful.[137]
It is impossible now to determine how numerous this body of persons were, in whose favor the attempt was made to establish an exception to the rule; and their numbers constitute a fact that is now historically important only in its bearing upon a principle of the Constitution. From the arguments of those who sought to introduce the exception, it appears that fears were entertained that the retrospective operation of the rule would expose the acceptance of the Constitution to great hazards; for the States, it was said, would be reduced to the dilemma of rejecting it, or of violating the faith pledged to a part of their citizens. Accordingly, the implied obligation of the States to secure to their citizens of foreign birth the same privileges with natives was urged with great force, and it was inferred from the notorious inducements that had been held out to foreigners to emigrate to America, and to avail themselves of the easy privileges of citizenship. Whether the United States were in any way bound to redeem these alleged pledges of the States, was a nice question of casuistry, that was a good deal debated in the discussion. But in truth there was no obligation of public faith in the case, the disregard of which could be justly made a matter of complaint by anybody. When the States had made these persons citizens, and through the Articles of Confederation had conferred upon them the privileges of citizens in every State in the Union, they did not thereby declare that such adopted citizens should be immediately eligible to any or all of the offices under any new government which the American people might see fit to establish at any future time. To have said that they never should be eligible, would have been to establish a rule that would have excluded some of the most eminent statesmen in the country. But the period in their citizenship when they should be made eligible, was just as much an open question of public policy, as the period of life at which all native and all adopted citizens should be deemed fit to exercise the functions of legislators. If the citizen of foreign birth was disfranchised by the one requirement, the native citizen was equally disfranchised by the other, until the disability had ceased. The question was decided, therefore, and rightly so, upon large considerations of public policy; and the principal reasons that exercised a controlling influence upon the decision, and caused the refusal to establish any exception to the rule, afford an interesting proof of the national tone and spirit that were intended to be impressed upon the government at the beginning of its history.