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.
Amendment XIV, Section 1
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Amendment XIV, Section 3
Before the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, citizens of the states were automatically considered citizens of the United States. In 1857, the Dred Scott v. Sanford decision had held that no black of African descent (even a freed black) could be a citizen of the United States. The Fourteenth Amendment was thus necessary to overturn Dred Scott and to settle the question of the citizenship of the newly freed slaves. The Fourteenth Amendment made United States citizenship primary and state citizenship derivative.
The Civil Rights Act of 1866 had previously asserted that “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.” The immediate impetus for the Fourteenth Amendment was to constitutionalize and validate the Civil Rights Act because some had questioned whether the Thirteenth Amendment was a sufficient basis for its constitutionality. A constitutional amendment would also have the advantage of preventing a later unfriendly Congress from repealing it.
One conspicuous departure from the language of the Civil Rights Act was the elimination of the phrase “Indians not taxed.” Senator Jacob Howard of Ohio, the author of the Citizenship Clause, defended the new language against the charge that it would make Indians citizens of the United States.
Most revealing, however, was Senator Howard’s contention 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.” Almost everyone certainly would have understood “natural law” to refer to the social compact basis of citizenship, the basis for citizenship articulated in the Declaration of Independence.
The argument of the Declaration grounded citizenship in consent. The natural law argument of the Declaration was a repudiation of the notion of birthright citizenship that had been the basis of British citizenship.
The disqualification of former rebels for federal and state office was the most controversial of the sections of the Fourteenth Amendment. It was blatantly vindictive and intruded on the President’s pardon power. It certainly made the ratification of new state constitutions in the South less likely—and this was a deliberate stratagem to keep the Southern states out of the Union until after the 1868 election. An original draft of the section would have disqualified all who had voluntarily aided the Confederacy until 1870, but the Senate adopted Senator Jacob Howard’s more permanent version.
Congress lifted the disqualification of many individuals, and in 1872 it did so for all but Members of the Thirty-seventh (1861–1863) and Thirty-eighth Congresses (1863–1865), federal judicial and military officers, heads of departments, and foreign ministers. In 1898, Congress removed all disqualifications for previous disloyal conduct. Despite being written in a particular historical context, the clause is still in operation and would apply in the case of future insurrections or rebellion.
The animosity between the inhabitants of the north and south did not soften after the civil war ended. The battlefield went silent, but not in the hearts and minds of the now disarmed combatants. Yes, amnesty was granted to both sides and the 11 Southern states assumed their lawful position in the now supposedly un-dissolvable United States. But there was a catch.
Despite the fact that the southern states had been functioning peacefully for two years and had been counted to secure ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, Congress passed the Reconstruction Act, which provided for the military occupation of 10 of the 11 southern states. It excluded Tennessee from military occupation, and one must suspect it was because Tennessee had ratified the Fourteenth Amendment on July 7, 1866. The Act further disfranchised practically all white voters and provided that no senator or congressman from the occupied states could be seated in Congress until a new constitution was adopted by each state which would be approved by Congress, and further provided that each of the 10 states must ratify the proposed Fourteenth Amendment, and the Fourteenth Amendment must become a part of the Constitution of the United States before the military occupancy would cease and the states be allowed seats in Congress.”
“By the time the Reconstruction Act had been declared to be the law, three more states had ratified the proposed Fourteenth Amendment, and two – Louisiana and Delaware – had rejected it. Then Maryland withdrew its prior ratification and rejected the proposed Fourteenth Amendment. Ohio followed suit and withdrew its prior ratification, as also did New Jersey. California, which earlier had voted not to pass upon the proposal, now voted to reject the amendment. Thus 16 of the 37 states had rejected the proposed amendment.””By spurious, non representative governments, seven of the southern states, which had theretofore rejected the proposed amendment under the duress of military occupation and of being denied representation in Congress, did attempt to ratify the proposed Fourteenth Amendment.
Obviously, to the more attentive reader, it is clear that the 14th Amendment was ratified by the Southern States under intense duress by the Northern States. In effect, the 14th Amendment was ratified by political thuggery and at the point of a gun, which is not unheard-of in politics ….. or war.
In contract law, any contract signed under duress, especially under the threat of force or violence, can be declared null and void. So the question is, is a treaty, constitutional amendment, or a contract, entered into under the threat of force or violence, enforceable?
The 14th Amendment led to “anchor babies” which created a giant magnet for illegal aliens to invade the United States, due to an unconscionable perversion of the Amendment by the U. S. Supreme Court. The invasion and the cost of that invasion, continues to grow and magnify, especially with sanctuary jurisdictions defying federal immigration laws and adding to the magnets. Each producing American is paying for that invasion in the billions of dollars. But the 14th Amendment also seriously diluted state’s rights under the Constitution.
Sadly, the American people go on about their daily lives oblivious to the fact that they are quite likely being governed by laws and constitutional amendments that were passed in violation of that constitution.
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