Review: The Origins of Birthright Citizenship
Robert Tsai of American University Law School reviewed Birthright Citizens for the Boston Review:
“Weaving together court records and contemporaneous newspaper accounts, Jones convincingly demonstrates that free black people laid claim to U.S. citizenship by behaving like citizens rather than waiting for others to confer that status upon them. They made contracts, sued people, testified against whites in court, sought relief from debts, worshipped more or less as they wished, and exercised their right to bear arms. “Well before any judicial or legislative consensus granted their rights,” she writes, “free black men and women seized them.” What Jones sketches is an approach to reshaping constitutional norms that depends neither on a favorable national consensus nor on piling up electoral victories. Antebellum blacks traded on cultural notions of respectability and proved they were leading lives deserving of respect and recognition.”