By Sarah Becker © 2017 An Act to Encourage Immigration Abraham Lincoln, in his 1864 holiday proclamation, praised Almighty God for augmenting “our free population by emancipation and by immigration…” To immigrate: to enter and settle in a foreign country. To naturalize: to admit a foreigner to citizenship. In 1790 naturalization was limited to “any Alien being a free white person who shall have resided within…the United States for a term of two years.” On July 4, 1864 the U.S. Congress “passed a bill to encourage immigration,” an Act President Lincoln signed into law the same day. The Act permitted foreign emigrants to enter as Alien contract labor “for a term not exceeding 12 months.” In 1864 America’s Civil War was ongoing and labor (common and otherwise) was in short supply. Particularly in the South’s pre-war cotton producing states. The 1860 Census “showed the aggregate population of the United States amounted to 31,041,977, an increase of 8,449,921 as compared with 1850.” Slaves accounted for 12.9% of the total population. The increase in free men was 38%, “a material increase due to immigration from abroad.” Between 1845-1850 Ireland’s potato famine brought approximately 500,000 immigrants to the United States. The Republican Party platform of 1860, the platform upon which President Lincoln was first elected, referenced immigration. The Party “opposed any change in our naturalization laws.” Especially as regards “free homestead policy” and or construction of “a railroad to the Pacific ocean.” “Inasmuch as our country is extensive and new, and the countries of Europe are densely populated, if there are any abroad who desire to make this the land of their adoption, it is not in my heart to…prevent them from coming,” President-elect Lincoln said. Ninety-three million Americans are descended from Homesteaders. In 1862 President Lincoln, an architect of a…