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To: sometime lurker
Thank you. You will note three points: Bingham never specified two citizen parents as you claimed. Secondly, “Not owning allegiance to any foreign sovereignty” is not so cut and dried as you seem to think. After an initial uncertainty, the US accepted the idea of voluntary expatriation, so those who renounced their original allegiance, even while not yet citizens, did not owe allegiance to a foreign sovereignty. Finally, “Not owning allegiance to any foreign sovereignty” is not what the 14th amendment said, but rather “under the jurisdiction of” which has a different meaning.

Now we are concerned with the precise letter of the law? As I pointed out, if the 14th amendment was meant to mean the same thing as "natural born citizen" it would have used the term "natural born citizen" instead of just "citizen." In any case, "under the jurisdiction of" does in fact mean "not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty", the court simply got that wrong. The precursor to the 14th Amendment is far clearer and less subject to wrong interpretation. It says:

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 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; and such citizens, of every race and color, without regard to any previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall have the same right, in every State and Territory in the United States, to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property, and to full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property, as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, and penalties, and to none other, any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, to the contrary notwithstanding.

The only reason the Congress created the 14th amendment was because people pointed out that State Sovereignty would allow individual states to ignore this act of congress. They wanted something that would FORCE the states to do as they were told. (Then they FORCED them to ratify it under the guns of Federal troops.) The purpose of the Civil rights act and the 14th amendment was exactly the same thing. To give former slaves the rights of citizenship without opening the door up to people who have no reason to be loyal to this country.

166 posted on 01/06/2012 8:12:21 AM PST by DiogenesLamp (Partus Sequitur Patrem)
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To: DiogenesLamp
In any case, "under the jurisdiction of" does in fact mean "not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty", the court simply got that wrong.

Which is what you've said every time when a court decision doesn't say what you want. It also forces you to discount what Senator Trumbull said about his original intent on "owing allegiance" and that even foreign diplomats owe a type of allegiance. And as I have pointed out repeatedly, what matters to current eligibility is what the law is currently held to be.

167 posted on 01/06/2012 8:28:23 AM PST by sometime lurker
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