Contesting American Citizenship… in 1784

A street fight between two French-born men in Philadelphia in May, 1784 sparked a nation-wide debate over the meaning of American citizenship. Historian Connie Thomas explores how the debate revealed a gap between legal definitions of citizenship and the nascent national sense of belonging to a community.

This Philadelphia story began when French migrant and Revolutionary War veteran Charles Julien de Longchamps attacked the French Consul to the US, Francois Barbe-Marbois. In response,...