Letters from an American - The Right to Run for Office

Episode Date: August 30, 2026

August 29, 2026Republican lawmakers are attempting to restrict the ability of naturalized and dual citizens to run for office, At least five Republican members of Congress want to prohibit them from holding federal judgeships, Cabinet posts, and ambassadorships as well, Americans have struggled over questions of equality and immigration for more than a century, Anti-immigrant sentiment on the East Coast over Irish immigrants and on the West Coast over Chinese immigrants led to limits to their rights and created a caste system, Abraham Lincoln understood that giving up the principle of equality is an excuse for enslaving people and that we cannot make exceptions to the Declaration of Independence, Americans added the 14th Amendment to the Constitution to ensure that these exceptions could not be made, The Constitution's requirements for officeholders are the only allowable qualifications, neither states nor the federal government can add additional qualifications, The idea of discriminating against naturalized citizens is, in the words of law professor Pamela Karlan, "ugly, stupid, and unconstitutional."Watch today's recording here: https://www.youtube.com/live/g9TUa1Rwd6U?si=T8_KKcHQZElhpnZ-Get full, free access to Letters from an American here: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/subscribeYou can also find me:Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/hcrichardson.bsky.socialInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/heathercoxrichardson/?hl=enFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/heathercoxrichardson/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@heathercoxrichardson Get full access to Letters from an American at heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/subscribe

August 29th, 26. On Thursday, August 27th, Tolu Honoranipa reported on the attempts of Republican lawmakers to restrict the ability of naturalized and dual citizens to run for office. In several states, Republican lawmakers have introduced measures to cut those Americans out of candidacy for elected positions, while in Congress, at least five Republicans have called for prohibiting them from federal judgeships, cabinet posts, ambassadorship, and congressional seats. The push has come in the wake of the rise of New York City Mayor Zoran Mamdani and other naturalized U.S. citizens whose policy positions, those like South Carolina Representative Nancy Mace, consider un-American. Those policies are, of course, the ones voters elected people like Mamdami to put into place.

In her comments to Ola Rinnepa, May said, this isn't personal. It's about what standard we want for the people entrusted with enormous power over the American people. Her word choice was revealing, Our elected officials are entrusted with the enormous power of the American people, not over them. In the 1850s, Americans struggled with the question of equality and immigration. The United States had always been a nation of immigrants, but in the 1840s, the failure of the potato crop in Ireland sent at least half a million Irish immigrants to the United States.

As they moved into urban ports on the East Coast, especially in Massachusetts and New York, Native-born Americans turned against them as competitors for jobs. warning that Catholics were un-American and could never assimilate into the U.S. The 1850s saw a similar anti-immigrant fury in the new state of California. After the discovery of gold there in 1848, native-born Americans, the so-called 49ers, moved to the West Coast. They had no intention of sharing the riches they expected to find. The indigenous people who lived there had no right to the land under which gold were. lay, native-born men thought, nor did the Mexicans whose government had sold the land to the U.S.

in 1848, nor did the Chileans who came with mining skills that made them powerful competitors. Above all, Native-born Americans resented the Chinese miners who came to work in order to send money home to a land devastated by the first opium war of 1839 to 1842, hoping to make money in America and then returned to China from which they could not legally emigrate. Expecting to go home again, they retained their languages, their culture, and their clothing. They tended to work the mines Americans had cleaned of their biggest deposits, focusing on meticulous reworking of the gravel, and they did better than Native-born Americans thought they should.

Democrats and the new anti-immigrant American Party, more popularly known as the know-nothings because members claim to know nothing about the party, turned against the new immigrants, seeing them as competition that would drive down wages. In the 1850s, no-nothing officials in Massachusetts persecuted Catholics and deported Irish immigrants they believed were paupers. In 1850, in California, a legislature charged with establishing the legal framework for the proposed state adopted the federal law enacted a half century earlier in 1802 that limited citizenship to free white persons. The state legislature then went on to impose a foreign minors tax on Chinese and Mexican minors.

Then, in 1854, the state courts agreed that Chinese nationals could not testify in court against white Americans. In 1855, the legislature tried to start. Chinese immigration altogether by passing a $50 tax on shipmasters for each person ineligible for citizenship they brought to the state. The construction of casts of immigrants mirrored the ideology of southern whites who enslaved their black neighbors. As George's Alexander Stevens explained, the men who framed the Constitution had made the terrible error of believing in equality, and northerners stupidly clung to the outdated idea that black people were equal to white people, and hence conclude that he is entitled to equal privileges and rights

with the white man. In contrast to the United States government, men like Stevens believed that subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. In 1855, Illinois lawyer Abraham Lincoln wrote to his friend Joshua Speed to reiterate his dislike, not just of enslavement, but also of the caste system going into place in places like Massachusetts and California. I am not a know-nothing, he wrote, that is certain. How could I be? How could anyone who abhors the oppression of black Americans be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that all men are created equal. We now practically read it, all men are created equal except black people. When the no-nothings

get control, it will read, all men are created equal except black people, and foreigners, and Catholics. When it comes to this, I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty, to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure and without the base alloy of hypocrisy. Lincoln understood that once you give up the principle of equality, you have given up the whole game. You have admitted the principle that people are unequal, and that some people are better than others. Once you have replaced the principle of equality with the idea that humans are unequal, you have granted your approval to the idea of rulers and servants. At that point, all you can do is to hope that no one in power decides that you belong in

one of the lesser groups. Arguments that some people were better than others are the arguments that kings have made for enslaving the people in all ages of the world, Lincoln said. you will find that all the arguments in favor of kingcraft were of this class. They always bestrode the necks of the people, not that they wanted to do it, but because the people were better off for being ridden. Turn in whatever way you will, whether it come from the mouth of a king, an excuse for enslaving the people of his country, or from the mouth of men of one race as a reason for enslaving the men of another race, It is all the same old serpent. I should like to know if taking this old declaration of independence,

which declares that all men are equal upon principle, and making exceptions to it, where will it stop? He asked. Americans answered him definitively in 1868, when they added the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. It recognized that all persons born, or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. It also established that states could not

draw lines around different groups of citizens by providing that no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. That same constitution also establishes requirements for office holders. The president must be at least 35 years old and a natural-born citizen of the United States. A U.S. Senator must be at least 30 years old, a citizen of the United States for at least nine years, and a resident of the state they're representing. A U.S. representative must be at least 25 years old, a U.S. citizen for at least seven years, and live in the state they represent.

Law professor Pamela Carlin told journalist Ola Rinnepa that those qualifications are exclusive. The state can't add qualifications on top of those, nor indeed can the federal government. Former Representative Mo Brooks, a Republican of Alabama, added that in a country growing more diverse, telling naturalized Americans that they can't run for office will ensure they vote for the opposing party. It's one of the dumbest tactical moves I've ever seen politicians make, he told Olorinipa. Carlin summed up the idea of discriminating against naturalized citizens, telling Ola Renepa it is just incredibly ugly, stupid, and unconstitutional. Letters from an American was written and read by Heather Cox Richardson. It was produced at Soundscape Productions, Dead in Massachusetts. Recorded with music composed by Michael Moss.