Free White Persons in the Republic

In Matthew Frye Jacobson's article called "Free White Persons in the Republic, 1790-1840", concepts of "probational whiteness" and "fitness for self-government" are scrutinized. This article is mainly related with racism, so this word is defined by Meriam-Webster Dictionary as "a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race or racial prejudice or discrimination." According to this definition racial differences have created problems among mankind for centuries. Jacobson draws a portrayal of perception of race and tells about the different phase of racism, especially after 1790 in America.

In the "latter half of the 19th century a second regime of racial understanding emerged" This new understanding was in response to the immigration. Many peasants and labourers were immigrated from different parts of Europe. After the immigration of Hebrews, Caucassians, Slavs, Teutons, Celts, Mediterraneans, etc. the known fact of racism, which was between blacks and whites, started to change its dimension. Thus, there emerged "white Others."

With the naturalization law of 1790 "the eighteenth centuries free white persons became the nineteenth centuries Celts, Slavs, Hebrews, Iberics, Latins, and Anglo-Saxons, who in turn became the twentieth centuries Caucassians, as popular recognition of consanguinity of racial difference fluctuated in response to national, regional and local circumstances." According to the naturalization law;

"that all free white persons who, have, or shall migrate into the United States, and shall give satisfactory proof, before a magistrate, by oath, that they intend to reside therein, and shall take an oath of allegiance, and shall have resided in the United States for one whole year, shall be entitled to the rights of citizenship."

Therefore, with this law the question of the limitation of naturalized citizenship

to "white persons" was raised. For the newcomers, namely for the immigrants, there occurred many limitations, for instance; on the right to hold political office, land-holding, inheritance and etc. From this point of view, Matthew Frye Jacobson has named this phase of racism as "probational whiteness."

Moreover, in the earliest dictionaries of American English, the definition of self-government was not political...it was the "government of one's self." This remained true as late as 1959 when the Merriam-Webster dictionary defined self-government as "Self-control; self-command," and self-control meant simply, "control of one's self." Jacobson defines fitness for "self-government" as "The very `inferiority' that suits a given group to a particular niche in economy.