On this day 250 years ago in Williamsburg, Virginia, Thomas Jefferson revised a proposed bill for “the encouragement of foreigners to settle in” Virginia to read:

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Delegates of Virginia now met in General Assembly That all persons born in other countries and now residing in this Commonwealth, and all who may hereafter migrate into the same, who shall go before any Court of Record within the same, and give Satisfactory proof by their own Oath or Affirmation or Otherwise, that they have resided or intend to reside in this Countrey for the space of  ___  years at the least; and who shall take an Oath of Fidelity to the Common Wealth and subscribe to be Obedient to the Laws thereof, shall be considered as Free Citizens of the same and shall be entitled to all the Rights, privileges and immunities civil and religious of this Commonwealth, as if born therein.

Source: “Bill for the Naturalization of Foreigners, [14 October 1776],” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-01-02-0223. [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 1, 1760–1776, ed. Julian P. Boyd. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950, pp. 558–559.]