"[T]here were stirrings in the North American colonies regarding who might be let in. Before the Revolution, grievances arose between the colonials and the Crown over two crucial aspects of immigration: on the negative side, the colonies claimed the right to exclude undesirables-notably Catholics, paupers, and felons; on the positive side, they claimed the right to naturalize desirable settlers who were not British subjects. It is noteworthy that some of these grievances were spelled out in the Declaration of Independence as arguments in support of the quest for sovereignty. Already incipient in the Colonial period, this situation was fundamentally altered by the formation of the United States-an independent overseas republic controlled by people of European descent which, on the whole, welcomed substantial immigration of putative settlers and workers from Great Britain and select Protestant countries on the continent. Despite some setbacks, the new country acted as a magnet, particularly for members of the "middling classes" of society, because it afforded the possibility of acquiring land at a much lower price than anywhere in Europe. In Europe this precipitated an emigration crisis to which all sovereigns (including the Swiss cantons and German principalities) responded by reinforcing sanctions against unauthorized departure."