RIGHT SPEAK: Senator Who Helped Write Birthright Citizenship Clause Specifically Said It Doesn’t Include Aliens: The Modern Claim That the 14th Amendment Guarantees Automatic Citizenship to the Children of People who Break Into the Country Would Have Been Unimaginable to the Men Who Wrote It

Senator Who Helped Write Birthright Citizenship Clause Specifically Said It Doesn’t Include Aliens:

The modern claim that the 14th Amendment guarantees automatic citizenship to the children of people who break into the country would have been unimaginable to the men who wrote it

On Friday the Supreme Court agreed to review a case that could finally force a long, overdue reckoning with how the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause has been interpreted for more than a century. The case arises from leftist challenges to President Donald Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship.

Democrats have responded to the Supreme Court’s decision to hear the case as expected.

“For more than 150 years, our Constitution has spoken plainly: everyone born on American soil has an equal claim to the rights of citizenship from their first breath,” Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi posted.

New York Attorney General Letitia James posted: “Birthright citizenship is a fundamental right of our Constitution, and it’s under attack by the Trump administration.”

Former California Rep. Katie Porter said: “Birthright citizenship is literally written into the Constitution. There is no debate to be had: if you are born here, you are a citizen.”

But “birthright citizenship” is not “literally written into the Constitution,” and the framers of the amendment would likely be aghast to see how their work has been exploited by the left to facilitate and legitimize a mass invasion.

The 14th Amendment was written to guarantee citizenship to formerly enslaved Americans and their children. To that end, its first sentence reads: “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.” But it surely was not intended to be a blanket citizenship grant.

Sen. Benjamin Wade introduced the citizenship clause on May 23, 1866, believing that the amendment needed a clear definition of citizenship because the broader guarantees of the 14th Amendment depended on it. Wade originally proposed using this language: “persons born in the United States or naturalized by the laws thereof.”

Such language may have lent slightly more credence to the left’s claim that anyone born here is a citizen. But that’s not what the amendment says. In fact, Sen. Jacob Howard, upon receiving Wade’s proposal, added the “subject to the jurisdiction” clause.

As Edward Erler points out in his book The United States in Crisis: Citizenship, Immigration, and the Nation State, the addition meant “at a minimum, that not all persons born in the United States were automatically citizens.”

During the debate on the clause, Howard said during opening remarks that “I do not propose to say anything on that subject except that the question of citizenship has been so fully discussed in this body as not to need any further elucidation, in my opinion.”

“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,” Howard continued. “This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, 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.”

As Erler explains, Howard was referring to the Civil Rights Act of 1866 when he said the citizenship clause was “simply declaratory” of the “law of the land already.”

Sen. Lyman Trumbull, who co-authored the 13th Amendment, authored the Civil Rights Act of 1866. The act specified “that all persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, and hereby declared to be citizens of the United States.”

As Erler points out, that means that Congress, just prior to ratifying the 14th Amendment and its citizenship clause, was “committed to the view that foreigners (and aliens) were not subject to birthright citizenship.” --->READ MORE HERE

If you like what you see, please "Like" and/or Follow us on FACEBOOK here, GETTR here, and TWITTER here.