How were the first American citizens granted citizenship?

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Accepted answer

Citizenship definition did not appear in US Constitution until 1868 (XIV Amendment). So for Benjamin Franklin we have to look in previous founding document, Articles of Confederation:

*Article IV.

The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and intercourse among the people of the different states in this union, the free inhabitants of each of these states, paupers, vagabonds and fugitives from justice excepted, shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several states*

Theoretically, this just passed US citizenship question to the states. In practice, free Negroes were never granted citizenship rights in southern states, and the 1857 Supreme Court Dred Scott decision denied US citizenship for all Negroes regardless of the state they inhabited.

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