The latter can be seen as the beginning of the current American passport. Nevertheless, passports were not mandatory except for a period during the American Civil War (1861-1865) and during World War I (1914-1918). Many American states and cities also issued their own “voluntary” passports until 1856 when the Department of State exerted a federal monopoly, ostensibly to eliminate confusion. When the US Constitution was ratified, creating a new government, passports continued to be issued but not required. It was addressed “TO ALL Captains or Commanders of ships of war, privateers, or armed Vessels…”ĭuring the Articles of Confederation period (1783-1789), passports were issued but not required. For example, when John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and John Jay acted as ministers plenipotentiary in traveling to Great Britain to seal the terms of peace, all three names were on one passport. It was a single page with a description of the bearer(s) and his or their signature(s).
The first one was issued in 1783 based on the French “passport,” it was designed and printed by Benjamin Franklin. The American passport was also rooted in war, specifically the American Revolution (1775-1783). The ebb and flow of passports is that of war itself. Although passport requirements loosened once more after the WWII, the war on terror in the wake of 9/11 has raised those requirements to unprecedented levels. World War II made passports mandatory on a virtually worldwide basis.
In short, passports once again became social controls and, like the United States, many European nations maintained their requirements after the War. With World War I, European nations once more imposed requirements not only to identify “enemies of the state” (e.g., spies or the citizens of belligerents) but also to control the outward flow of skilled labor in order to maintain their own workforces. Thus, with trade and peace, mandatory passports declined. Their speed and the sheer number of travelers made traditional methods of checking documents impractical. Second, the period between the last Napoleonic War (1815) and World War I was unusually peaceful. First, governments were pressured to open up borders so that goods and services could flow across an increasingly industrialized Europe. The change was largely due to three factors. Therefore, neutral vessels were granted passports or “sea letters” from a port of departure, which permitted them to journey in safety.īy the mid-19th century, mandatory passports had largely disappeared from Europe and Asia, with Czarist Russia and the Ottoman Empire being prominent exceptions. With some frequency, war interrupted that flow. In the 17th century, sea voyaging was key to trade, travel, and the maintenance of empire. The passport as an official permission or protection, and not merely as identification, arose because of armed conflicts. It enriched the world economically, culturally, and psychologically.Įuropean nations pioneered many if not most aspects of the modern passport. It is important to remember that there once was a world in which people traveled freely across borders without paperwork to visit families, pursue education, conduct business, and mingle. The hoops through which passport carriers jump are all prelude to “permitting” them to exercise a right belonging to every freeborn person: the right to travel. Indeed, without a passport those who wish to fly or cross a border are not “allowed” to be scanned, searched, interrogated, or undergo a plethora of other indignities imposed by uniformed thugs. The accent is different but travelers need to recognize with equal immediacy that a totalitarian state is playing out in front of their eyes, and they must be careful.Ī passport is where the security theater begins. “Your papers!” now rings out at every American airport and border crossing. If the demand is made in the opening scene, then the audience knows immediately that they watching a totalitarian state in which travelers are in danger. “Your papers!” In old movies, the demand is barked at trembling travelers by a Nazi with a guttural accent.
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