“A Mysterious Fragment of Jetsam from the Lord Knows Where”: John Peter Altgeld and the Question of Citizenship

ON JUNE 8, 1896, GOVERNOR JOHN PETER ALTGELD of Illinois responded to an inquiry from James S. Hogg, the populist governor of Texas, on the subject of Altgeld's possible candidacy for president of the United States in the upcoming federal election. “I feel highly flattered by your inquiry,” he wrote, “but am glad to be able to say that I am not eligible to the Presidency. I was born in Germany and came to this country when I was three months old.” He hastened to add: “I am an enthusiastic American and almost a crank on the subject of republican institutions and of government by the people.”1Perhaps nothing so clearly underscores the distinction between naturalized and birthright citizenship as the qualifications for president outlined in the US Constitution. It has long been an article of faith that Altgeld was born on December 30, 1847, and that his parents arrived in the United States the following spring.2 Recent research, however, has uncovered a substantially different story. According to contemporary records, Johann and Maria Altgeld—ages twenty-nine and twenty-four, respectively—landed in New York on June 1, 1848, on board the Burgundy. Directly below their entries in the passenger list is the notation, “Peter Altgeld,” age “1/4 months.”3 The future Illinois governor was born a mere week before landing, almost certainly well outside US territorial waters. He was far closer to obtaining birthright citizenship—and therefore qualifying for the presidency—than he realized.Altgeld's case raises the question of how one defines a citizen in the first place. At what point does one transform from an immigrant to a wholly integrated, fully assimilated citizen? These are questions that troubled our forebears since well before the Revolution. The power of integrating and assimilating newly arrived immigrants into the British colonies was at the heart of one of the grievances set forth in the Declaration of Independence: “The king has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.” Parliament had long disdained liberal immigration policies due to “traditional xenophobia, jealousy of English commercial privileges, religious prejudices, and a fear of alien political views.” By contrast, the colonies’ more generous practices were motivated by practical concerns—“survival, population growth, and economic expansion”4—tempered by a disdain for centralized control of the process. The federal constitution as originally ratified was completely silent on citizenship except for the passages discussing qualifications for the presidency. One contemporary observer remarked—with uncomfortable echoes of rhetoric from our own time—“Though most of the states may be willing for certain reasons to receive foreigners as citizens, yet reasons of equal weight may induce other states, differently circumstanced, to keep their blood pure.”5 It was not until the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868 that national citizenship was clearly defined.But defining citizenship as a legal matter and describing it in patriotic terms are two different things. During John Peter Altgeld's 1892 gubernatorial campaign, the Chicago Tribune had sneered, “The Anarchists and Socialists will rally around this rich man who professes to be an anti-capitalist.”6 But it was after Altgeld's pardon of Samuel Fielden, Michael Schwab, and Oscar Neebe, who had been convicted in the 1886 bombing of Haymarket Square—and Altgeld's denunciation of the presiding judge in the case—that a firestorm of xenophobia truly erupted. The Washington Post sputtered: “An alien himself . . . Governor Altgeld has outraged the country of his refuge and adoption. . . . The Supreme Court of the United States had passed upon the cases, but this Altgeld, a mysterious fragment of jetsam from the Lord knows where, sees fit to impeach and overrule its verdict!”7 And the Hutchinson (Kansas) News roared, “He has apparently not a drop of true American blood in his veins.”8 His service in the Union Army, his record of entrepreneurship and public service—all sank into insignificance in light of his foreign origins. One wonders: Had Altgeld been born a week later—on American soil—would he have been attacked with the same vitriol?Altgeld's case illustrates that the question of citizenship extends beyond mere legalities. In uncertain times such as Altgeld's—and our own—it has the potential to polarize a population, to offer an excuse for dividing Americans between “patriots” and “the other.” One can hope that the 250th anniversary of the Declaration—with its assertion that “All men are created equal”—enables our nation to recommit itself to an understanding of citizenship not as a matter of birth, but as a matter of personal commitment to the principle that America is not a place, but an idea.