Cite the exact statement and provide a link to the Congressional Record in which this supposedly appears.
On January 30, 1866, on the floor of the Senate, Senator Trumbull proposed introducing the citizenship provision that would be slightly amended to become the citizenship provision of the 14th Amendment. He proposed adding the words,
"All persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign power, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States, without distinction of color..."
Just a few minutes later:
Mr. TRUMBULL: I should like to inquire of my friend from Pennsylvania, if the children of Chinese now born in this country are not citizens?
Mr. COWAN: I think not.
Mr. TRUMBULL: I understand that under the naturalization laws the children who are born here of parents who have not been naturalized are citizens. That is the law, as I understand it, at the present time. Is not the child born in this country of German parents a citizen? I am afraid we have got very few citizens in some of the counties of good old Pennsylvania if the children born of German parents are not citizens.
Mr. COWAN: The honorable Senator assumes that which is not the fact. The children of German parents are citizens; but Germans are not Chinese; Germans are not Australians, nor Hottentots, nor anything of the kind. That is the fallacy of his argument.
Mr. TRUMBULL: If the Senator from Pennsylvania will show me in the law any distinction made between the children of German parents and the children of Asiatic parents, I might be able to appreciate the point which he makes; but the law makes no such distinction; and the child of an Asiatic is just as much a citizen as the child of a European.
Trumbull also says that the Indians in tribes aren't citizens, but the Indians who have left their tribes and joined American society, in general, are already US citizens.
And he says that although his provision does not embrace the tribes, he is happy to add language to clarify that:
Mr. Trumbull: Our dealings with the Indians are with them as foreigners, as separate nations. We deal with them by treaty, and not by law, except in reference to those who are incorporated into the United States as some are, and are taxable and become citizens, and then it would be desirable that it should apply to the Indians so far as those who are domesticated and pay taxes and live in civilized society are concerned. In reference to the other tribes, they will not be embraced by this provision. If the Senator from Kentucky thinks the language would embrace them, I should have no objection to changing it so as to exclude the Indians. It is not intended to include them.