The census is part of the U.S. Constitution.
Article 1, Section 2 of the Constitution calls for an “enumeration” to be made of the populace “within every subsequent term of 10 years.” In some ways, this idea was nothing new. The ancient Babylonians, Chinese, Egyptians and Romans all conducted censuses, as did William the Conqueror, who in 1086 inscribed info about England’s landowners into the so-called Domesday Book.
Censuses are even mentioned in the Bible. However, the United States was one of the first modern countries to count all of its citizens and not just, say, military-age males. It was also the first country to constitutionally mandate a regular census and the first to use the census for apportioning political power. To this day, the number of seats each state holds in the House of Representatives depends entirely on census results.
Federal marshals used to carry it out.
Though best known for witness protection and hunting fugitives, U.S. marshals were also required by an act of Congress to count the inhabitants in their respective districts. As result, they hired roughly 650 assistants for the first census in 1790 and sent them door-to-door, more often than not in extremely rural terrain. Assistant marshals continued in this role for nearly a century.
One year after George Washington became president, Congress dispatched U.S. Marshals to visit every household in the 13 states, as well as a few areas that had yet to become states: the districts of Kentucky, Maine, Vermont, and the Southwest Territory, which later became Tennessee.
The Marshals knocked on doors throughout the country and spoke to the head of each household—each “master, mistress, steward, overseer, or other principal person therein.” In addition to the name of the head of household, the Marshals also recorded the number of people in each household in the following categories:
• Free white males over the age of 16
• Free white males under the age of 16
• Free white females
• All other free persons
• Slaves
And just as the Constitution had directed, numbers of delegates in the House of Representatives were assigned in proportion to each state’s population, calculated as the sum of free constituents and three-fifths of slaves.
The majority of Americans were not eligible to vote for any of these delegates, but they were all, in some way, represented. By this method, the Founding Fathers could convince themselves that theirs was truly a government “of the people.”
Later, in 1879, concerns over the census’ inefficiencies at last prompted Congress to replace the Marshalls with specially trained enumerators. Congress then further professionalized the count in 1902 by creating a permanent government agency, the U.S. Census Bureau.
Some Founding Fathers doubted the census’ accuracy.
The first census turned up only 3.9 million (non-Indian) Americans, including nearly 700,000 slaves, a result that President George Washington, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson and other high-ranking government officials dismissed as an undercount.
“Our real numbers will exceed, greatly, the official returns of them,” wrote Washington, who put the blame on negligent census takers, as well as “the religious scruples of some…[and] the fears of others that it was intended as the foundation of a tax.” With so few people in the United States, he purportedly worried about looking weak in the eyes of the European powers.
During the first few censuses, the government essentially lumped the country into two racial categories: white and black. But from 1850 to 1920 (with the exception of 1900), it enumerated mixed-race “mulattos” as well. “Quadroons,” defined as those with one-fourth black blood, and “octoroons,” defined as those with one-eighth black blood, were counted in 1890 and then never again. Meanwhile, those of Chinese, Japanese and American Indian descent started being counted at various points in the late 1800s and still are to this day.
For three decades “Hindu” was a category, whereas a category for Koreans was added in 1920, taken out in 1950 and then added back in 1970. A category for Mexicans likewise appeared on the 1930 census, only to be dropped immediately thereafter following complaints from the Mexican government. The most recent major change occurred in 2000, when it finally became possible to select more than one race.
New York has always been the largest U.S. city.
The 1790 census documented 33,131 people in the Big Apple, which put it just ahead of Philadelphia as the most populous U.S. city. It has retained the top spot in all 22 censuses since, growing from a population of about 60,000 in 1800 to 515,000 in 1850 and then to 3.4 million in 1900. As of the last census in 2010, New York City had nearly 8.2 million people, more than Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia (the second, third and fifth most populous cities) combined.
The largest state, on the other hand, occasionally changes.
Virginia started out as the most populous U.S. state—back when there were only 13 of them—with a 1790 population of around 700,000. New York then claimed the top spot in 1810 and remained there until being overtaken by California in 1970. As of 2010, the California had 37.3 million residents, more than the 21 least populous states combined.
Only one state lost population during the last census period.
From 2000 to 2010, Michigan’s population fell 0.6 percent, from 9,938,444 to 9,883,640, a decline that experts largely attributed to job losses in the auto industry.
Every other state in the country grew that decade, led by Texas, which gained 4.3 million people, and California, which gained 3.4 million.
The census is not cheap for taxpayers.
Though the first census cost just $44,000 to conduct, the price tag has since ballooned to an estimated $6.5 billion in 2000 and $12.9 billion in 2010.
Now all the latest controversy brought several questions to mind.
The first was, “Are we supposed to count everyone?” The answer is yes. The Constitution does not say to count citizens, it says to count “the populace”.
The second question I had was “Why was this information important?” Well, something called the Northwest Ordinance had to be on the minds of our forefathers.
The Northwest Ordinance of 1787, laid the basis for the government of the Northwest Territory and for the admission of its parts as states into the union. Under this ordinance, each district was to be governed by a governor and judges appointed by Congress until it attained a population of 5,000 adult free males, at which time it would become a territory and could form its own representative legislature. So we needed a census to determine when an area had reached 5000 adult free males.
Once the land became a territory, it had to grow to a population of 60,000 before it could petition Congress to be admitted as a state.
So again, you can see why the census data was necessary.
So now let’s turn to the current issue at hand.
Many social media sites claim that former President Barack Obama removed the citizenship question from the 2010 census. He didn’t. The citizenship question in 2010 was handled the same way it had been since 1970.
One popular version of the claim that Obama removed it is from Charlie Kirk, founder of the young conservative group Turning Point USA. His tweet has been liked more than 75,000 times. Kirk wrote: “If Barack Obama was able to remove the Citizenship Question from the census in 2010 without Supreme Court approval Why does President Trump need their approval to put it back on?”
But Obama didn’t remove the citizenship question from the census.
Explaining how the misconception developed requires some background.
Now in addition to performing the census the Constitution mandates that the U.S. population be counted every 10 years in order to determine the number of representatives each state should have and to distribute federal funds.
As the country’s population grew, the complexity of the census also grew. In 1940, the Census Bureau, for the first time, used sampling as a way to get more detailed information about the population without overburdening all residents with too many questions.
That year it sent additional questions to just 5 percent of the population and used statistical techniques to broaden the results. By 1970, the bureau was sending out a short-form questionnaire to every U.S. household and a long-form supplement with more detailed questions to a fraction of U.S. households. This is important. I will say it again.
By 1970, the bureau was sending out a short-form questionnaire to every U.S. household and a long-form supplement with more detailed questions to a fraction of U.S. households.
Now back in 1997, the bureau outlined a plan to eliminate the long-form questionnaire after 2000 and replace it with the American Community Survey, which would be sent out to a small sample of households every year instead of once every 10 years. In 2005, the bureau started using that survey — which U.S. residents are required by law to answer, just as they are required to answer the census.
That background is important for understanding where the citizenship questions have been asked.
Here’s how it has been handled since 1820, the first year that a citizenship question was included:
• 1820 — The country’s fourth census asked this question of each household in the U.S.: “Number of foreigners not naturalized.” The following census in 1830 included a variation on that question.
• 1840 — The citizenship question wasn’t asked this year. It wasn’t included in 1850 or 1860, either, although those questionnaires did ask about a person’s “place of birth,” a question that the government would continue to ask, in some form, through today.
• 1870 — The first census following the Civil War asked two specific citizenship questions: “Is the person a male citizen of the United States of 21 years or upwards?” and “Is the person a male citizen of the United States of 21 years or upwards whose right to vote is denied or abridged on grounds other than ‘rebellion or other crime?’”
• 1880 — The census did not include any citizenship questions.
• 1890 — The citizenship question returned this year, asking: “Is the person naturalized?” That question remained in the next four questionnaires, adding the phrase “or an alien” in 1910, 1920 and 1930.
• 1940 — The census included this question: “If foreign born, is the person a citizen?” The 1950 census included the same question.
• 1960 — This census did not include a citizenship question.
• 1970 — The short-form questionnaire sent to every household did not include a citizenship question, but the supplemental long-form questionnaire sent to some households asked: “For persons born in a foreign country- Is the person naturalized?” The 1980 census handled the question in a similar manner.
• 1990 — The short-form questionnaire sent to every household again did not ask about citizenship, but the long form sent to some households asked: “Is this person a citizen of the United States?” The same was true for the 2000 census.
• 2005 — The first American Community Survey was sent out with this question: “Is this person a citizen of the United States?”
• 2010 — The census sent to every U.S. household did not include a citizenship question, like all of the short-form questionnaires since 1960. The American Community Survey, which had replaced the long-form census, included the same citizenship question as it did in 2005 and continues to today.
As the timeline shows, Obama did not remove the citizenship question from the census.
Plans to replace the long-form questionnaire with the American Community Survey were underway during the Clinton administration and the shift happened during the Bush administration. The 2010 census that occurred during the Obama administration handled the citizenship question the same way it had been since 1970; there was no citizenship question on the short-form questionnaire sent to every U.S. household, but a citizenship question was asked on the supplemental form sent out to a smaller sample of households.
So now that we have cleared that up, where do we stand on the issue today?
President Donald Trump stated last weekend that he will no longer pursue adding a question on citizenship to the 2020 US census questionnaire.
Instead, he said officials would obtain the information through an executive order for government agencies, as court challenges would have delayed a census.
The retreat follows a long fight over the inclusion of the question, which the Supreme Court blocked in June.
Critics called the question politically motivated and said it would lead to fewer immigrant households taking part.
The administration had argued that the question would bolster protections for minority voters.
President Trump’s reversal was celebrated by Democrats and civil liberties groups, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi saying she was “jubilant”.
What happens now?
On Thursday, President Trump said: “We are not backing down on our effort to determine the citizenship status of the United States population.”
“We will leave no stone unturned.”
He said his executive order would require other government agencies to provide the Census Bureau with documents regarding citizenship.
“As a result of today’s executive order we will be able to ensure the 2020 census generates an accurate count of how many citizens, non-citizens and illegal aliens are in the United States of America,” President Trump said at the White House.
Is this a new idea?
Not really – it is similar to plans that were announced last year.
Back in January 2018, the Census Bureau described taking citizenship information from government records as an option – saying it was cheaper and less disruptive than adding a question to the census.
So why is the citizenship question so controversial?
As we now know, the question – “Is this person a citizen of the United States?” – has not appeared on a US census for all Americans since 1950, though it has been asked to some subsets of the population between 1970 and 2000.
The government says the question would help them allocate resources and enforce voter laws designed to prevent discrimination, including the Voting Rights Act.
However, Democratic states with large immigrant populations argue a citizenship question will produce undercounts because fewer people will participate if they believe the information could be used against them.
Even legal citizens could be afraid to complete the census if it could expose noncitizen family members, media reports say.
Critics argued that states with high non-citizen populations would lose congressional seats and funding – even though many non-citizens pay taxes and use government services.
Last Thursday, President Trump said that citizenship information “is also relevant to administering our elections… some states may want to draw state and local legislative districts, based upon the voter eligible population.”
In response, Dale Ho, director of the American Civil Liberties Union Voting Rights Project, said President Trump had attempted to “weaponize the census” to “sow fear in immigrant communities and turbocharge Republican gerrymandering efforts by diluting the political influence of Latino communities”.
note: Gerrymandering (an unfair manipulation of an electoral area for political advantage).
President Trump’s administration proposed adding a question to the 2020 US census which would have asked: “Is this person a citizen of the United States?” Respondents would have five options, indicating that they were born in the US, born in a US territory, born abroad to US citizen parents, naturalized as a citizen, or not a citizen.
As I said earlier, opponents to the question believe many immigrants will not return their census forms if there’s a citizenship status question, out of fear the information could be used against them.
Again, that would have major political and financial ramifications: census counts are used to decide how many seats each state gets in the congressional House of Representatives.
An undercount of immigrants would especially hurt representation of states such as New York and California. The census numbers also determine how much federal funding states and cities receive. Those states have argued the question is unconstitutional.
So in closing, let’s go back to President Trump’s proposed question.
“Is this person a citizen of the United States?” Respondents would have five options, indicating that they were born in the US, born in a US territory, born abroad to US citizen parents, naturalized as a citizen, or not a citizen.
What do you think folks? Is that a fair question to ask people, “The Populace”, currently living in the United States?
Do you think it is unconstitutional to ask such a question? If so, why?
Is the opposition correct in saying the Trump administration is weaponizing the census by trying to determine who is a citizen and who is not? Or should we pursue an accurate count to determine the correct number of members of the House of Representatives and financial aid given to the states?