ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION - Birthright Citizenship | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Initially, none of the ex-Confederate states ratified the 14th Amendment in 1866, except Tennessee. Accordingly, Tennessee was quickly re-admitted to the Union - reclaiming full status as a state and having its representatives allowed once again to sit in Congress.

    In response, the Northern-dominated Congress passed a series of punishing laws aimed at making sure the South came back into the Union on the terms it required - the Reconstruction Acts. It passed four of them (three in 1867 and one in 1868)

    The essential provisions can be summed up as follows:

    • The Reconstruction Acts of 1867 created five military districts in the seceded states (again, with the exception of Tennessee, which ratified the 14th Amendment and was thus re-admitted to the Union). The five districts were (1) Virginia; (2) North and South Carolina; (3) Georgia, Alabama, and Florida; (4) Mississippi and Arkansas; and (5) Texas and Louisiana. Around 200,000 troops were placed in the South to enforce military rule.

    • Each district in the Union was now headed by a military official empowered to remove and subsequently anoint state leaders/officials. All states were required to employ a military leader from the North (Marshall Law).

    • The Reconstruction Acts of 1867 required each state had to draft a new state constitution, which would have to be approved by Congress before that state could be re-admitted to the Union.

    • The Reconstruction Acts of 1867 implemented regulations regarding voter registration; all freed individuals were allowed to vote along with white persons who took extended oaths.

    • The Reconstruction Acts of 1867 required each state to ratify the 14th Amendment prior to readmission into the Union.

    • State constitutional conventions were required to draft new governing documents that included laws on black male suffrage and the elimination of their black codes.

    • The Reconstruction Acts of 1867 disabled confederate leaders and any individual who did not pledge their allegiance to the United States from voting. (Thirty-five percent to forty-five percent of potential white voters were either excluded from voting because of the Reconstruction Acts, or failed to register or were prevented from registering).

    One thing all military commanders did - because they were told to do so by Congress - was to place former slaves in positions in government. These former slaves knew nothing about government or money. They were not trained for their jobs. But they were loyal to the Republican Party. And nearly all were puppets under the control of army officials.


    [It should be noted that President Andrew Johnson, who had taken over as President of the United States after Lincoln was assassinated, vetoed the Reconstruction Acts, asserting that they were unconstitutional. But Johnson's veto was overruled by Congress. Military rule in the South would last for 10 years, until 1877, when the Republican party agreed to return Southern states to home rule in exchange for their support of the Republican candidate for president, Rutherford B. Hayes. That was the end of reconstruction].

    By early 1868, the former Confederate States began to draft and submit to Congress new state constitutions. By June 9, all had new "acceptable" constitutions and thus Secretary Seward announced that all had formed republican governments and would be entitled to representation in Congress (have its representation restored) once they ratified the 14th Amendment. On these terms, Florida ratified the amendment on June 9, North Carolina on July 2, Louisiana and South Carolina on July 9, and Alabama on July 16.

    These Southern ratifications seemed to give Secretary of State William Seward the required twenty-eight states necessary for the 14th Amendment to become law. Secretary Seward had twenty-nine ratifications on file, but prior to receiving the twenty-eighth, New Jersey and Ohio had rescinded their ratification. Nevertheless, on July 20, 1868, Secretary Seward issued a proclamation declaring the 14th Amendment ratified. Congress reacted quickly to Seward's proclamation, and on July 21, 1868, declared all twenty-nine ratifications to be valid and that the 14th Amendment was "part of the Constitution of the United States, and it shall be duly promulgated as such by the Secretary of State." On July 28, Seward, issued a second proclamation, declaring the 14th Amendment had "become valid to all intents and purposes as a part of the Constitution of the United States."

    As is explained in detail in the Appendix, there were serious irregularities in the ratification of the 14th Amendment, thereby making it most likely that it was never legally passed in Congress or ratified by the States. Nevertheless, on July 28, 1868, Secretary of State William Seward proclaimed that three-fourths of the states had ratified it.

    The Radical Republicans were satisfied that they had secured civil rights for blacks, but were disappointed that the amendment did not include the right to vote. That would come with the 15th Amendment, which was ratified on February 3, 1870.

    II. "AND SUBJECT TO THE JURISDICTION THEREOF...."

    Again, the purpose of this article is to discuss birthright citizenship, which is addressed immediately in Section 1 of the 14th Amendment -


    "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

    Although the Constitution of 1787 mentioned citizens, it did not define citizenship. It was not until the 14th Amendment was added that a definition of citizenship entered the Constitution. "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." Thus there are two components to American citizenship: birth or naturalization in the US and being subject to the jurisdiction of the US. Today, we somehow have come to believe that anyone born within the geographical limits of the US. is automatically subject to its jurisdiction; but this renders the jurisdiction clause utterly superfluous. If this had been the intention of the framers of the 14th Amendment, presumably they would have said simply that all persons born or naturalized in the U.S. are thereby citizens.

    During debate over the amendment, Senator Jacob Howard attempted to assure skeptical colleagues that the language was not intended to make Indians citizens of the United States. Indians, Howard conceded, were born within the nation's geographical limits, but he steadfastly maintained that they were not subject to its jurisdiction because they owed allegiance to their tribes and not to the Senator Lyman Trumbull, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, supported this view, arguing that "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" meant "not owing allegiance to anybody else and being subject to the complete jurisdiction of the United States."

    Jurisdiction understood in terms of "allegiance," Senator Howard explained, excludes not only Indians but "persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers." Thus, "subject to the jurisdiction" does not simply mean, as is commonly thought today, subject to American laws or courts. It means owing exclusive political allegiance to the United States.

    Furthermore, there has never been an explicit holding by the Supreme Court that the children of illegal aliens are automatically accorded birthright citizenship. In the case of Elk v. Wilkins (1884), the Court held that children born to Native Indian parents could not be citizens under the 14th Amendment's citizenship clause because at the time of the birth, the allegiance of the parents belonged to the tribal nation. In the case of United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) the Court ruled that a child born in the U.S. of legal aliens was entitled to "birthright citizenship" under the 14th Amendment. [A more in-depth analysis of Elk and Wong is provided in the Appendix].


    In a third Supreme Court case, Plyler v. Doe (1982), the Court addressed the treatment of children of illegal aliens, in the context of public education. Texas had a statue allowing the state to withhold funds to public school districts for illegal children. The provision at issue was not the Citizenship Clause but the Equal Protection Clause, but supporters of birthright citizenship for illegals will point to a footnote that the liberal judges included in the opinion. It read, in part:

    "As one early commentator noted, given the historical emphasis on geographic territoriality, bounded only, if at all, by principles of sovereignty and allegiance, no plausible distinction with respect to Fourteenth Amendment "jurisdiction" can be drawn between resident aliens whose entry into the United States was lawful, and resident aliens whose entry was unlawful."

    This footnote, however has little or no persuasive power. It provides no precedence power. It merely recited the views of a commentator and was irrelevant to the matter under decision.

    Ideological liberals have recently invented a novel and wholly fabulous interpretation of this passage, maintaining that when Howard mentions that "foreigners, aliens" are not "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States he means to include only "families of ambassadors or foreign ministers." If so, this would be an extraordinarily loose way of speaking: Ambassadors and foreign ministers are foreigners and aliens and their designation as such would be superfluous. If we give full weight to the commas after "foreigners" and after "aliens," this would indicate a series which might be read in this way: "foreigners, aliens, families of ambassadors, foreign ministers," all separate classes of persons who are excluded from jurisdiction. Or it could be read in this way: "foreigners, aliens, [that is, those who belong to the] families of ambassadors or foreign ministers." I suggest that the natural reading of the passage is the former, i.e., that the commas suggest a discrete listing of separate classes of persons excluded from jurisdiction. Of course, the debate was taken by shorthand reporters and not always checked by the speakers, so the issue cannot be settled simply on the basis of the placement of commas. In addition, Howard seemed to make a glaring omission - he failed to mention Indians. He was forced to clarify his omission when challenged by Senator James R. Doolittle of Wisconsin who queried whether the "Senator from Michigan does not intend by this amendment to include the Indians"; he thereupon proposed to add the language of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 "excluding Indians not taxed." Howard vigorously opposed the amendment, remarking that "Indians born within the limits of the United States and who maintain their tribal relations, are not in the sense of this amendment, born subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. They are regarded, and always have been in our legislation and jurisprudence, as being quasi foreign nations." In other words, the omission of Indians from the exceptions to the jurisdiction clause was intentional. Howard clearly regarded Indians as "foreigners, aliens." This conclusion is supported by Senator Lyman Trumbull who, as we will discuss shortly, also opposed Doolittle's amendment. This is clear evidence, against the claims of ideological liberals who have become the proponents of open borders and are intent to replace citizens with "universal persons," that Howard meant that foreigners and aliens included only the families of ambassadors and foreign ministers. Based on the evidence we have proffered so far, this has been exposed as an utterly preposterous idea. But there is more to come. There is no evidence anywhere in the debates to support the assertions of ideological liberals. [Edward J. Erler, "Trump's Critics Are Wrong About the 14th Amendment and Birthright Citizenship"]


    Howard had said earlier in his statement that "[t]his amendment which I have offered is simply declaratory of what I regard as the law of the land already." The "law of the land" to which Howard referred was undoubtedly the Civil Rights Act of 1866, passed over the veto of President Andrew Johnson by a two-thirds majority in both houses less than two months prior to the May 30 debate in the Senate. The Civil Rights Act provided the first definition of citizenship after the ratification of the 13th Amendment, specifying "[t]hat all persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States." Thus an overwhelming majority of Congress on the eve of the debate over the meaning of the citizenship clause of Section 1 of the 14th Amendment were committed to the view that foreigners - and presumably aliens - were not subject to birthright citizenship. Most of those who voted in favor of the act were still serving in Congress when the 14th Amendment was under consideration. In fact, Senator Lyman Trumbull, the author of the Civil Rights Act and chairman of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee, was an ardent supporter of Howard's version of the citizenship clause. "The provision is, that 'all persons born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens.' That means 'subject to the complete jurisdiction thereof.' . . . What do we mean by 'subject to the jurisdiction of the United States?' Not owing allegiance to anybody else." Not owing allegiance to anybody else, subject to the complete jurisdiction of the United States, and not subject to a foreign power. During debate over the Civil Rights Act, Senator Trumbull remarked that purpose of its citizenship clause was "to make citizens of everybody born in the United States who owe allegiance to the United States." Read in the light of the Civil Rights Act and the authoritative statements by Senator Trumbull in the May 30 debate, can there be any real dispute that "foreigners, aliens" in Senator Howard's opening statement does not refer to "families of ambassadors or foreign ministers" but to "foreigners, aliens" as a separate class of persons? Thus, is it not fair - and accurate - to read Howard's statement introducing the citizenship clause to the Senate in this way:

    "This amendment which I have offered is simply declaratory of what I regard as the law of the land already, that every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States. This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens [or] who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons." [Erler, cont'd]