[patlin]

Obviously you haven't read the congressional testimony & statements of the framers(Sen. Howard & Sen. Trumbull) of the 14th & cited by the Supreme Court in 1884 case of Elk v Wilkins, the seminal case that held the language of the 14th to be constitutional, explanation & language was accepted in the holding of both the deciding & dissenting opinions aka the entire court unanimously accepted this definition as being the law since our founding:

“[t]he phrase, ‘subject to its jurisdiction’ was intended to exclude from its operation children of ministers, consuls, and citizens or subjects of foreign States born within the United States.”

or how about Rep Bingham who wrote the actual language of the bill that passed the House of Reps:

I find no fault with the introductory clause [S 61 Bill], which is simply declaratory of what is written in the Constitution, that every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen. Now, where in either

[VADoc1980]

Let's make something clear, patlin. It doesn't matter what the framers of the 14th amendment's intentions were. It only matters what the amendment says, in plain English, because that's how SCOTUS interpreted it in later cases (like Wong Kim Ark). If the framers of the 14th amendment had said in the legislative history that they didn't mean for this to apply to Chinese people, would you support excluding people of Chinese descent from automatic citizenship at birth here?

Perhaps if these gentlemen you reference didn't want the 14th amendment to apply to everyone born here, they should have MENTIONED IT IN THE AMENDMENT. I'm looking at my pocket copy of the Constitution and I don't see anything in the 14th amendment about allegiance to any foreign sovereignty or excluded by operation children of ministers, consuls, etc. If it ain't in there, it doesn't matter.