But see here, if your theory of citizenship by being born here was correct, and there never has been an alternative theory, how could the court have made such an egregious mistake?
If everybody in the world knew that the only criteria for citizenship was being born here, how is it possible that the Majority of the justices of the Supreme court did not know this?
This particular mistake was so outrageous, so counter to the spirit of both the Constitution and the United States that the founding document had to be clarified to strike their error from our nation.
How did the 14th amendment clarify anything? It makes no mention of color. It doesn't say "hereafter all black people born in the United States will be citizens." It merely asserts what you guys claim was always the law. Why would we need an amendment to "clarify" what you guys claim was already existing law?
Now it's my turn: when we push for a Human Life Amendment, is that admitting that Roe v. Wade was correctly decided in full accordance with the Constitution? Or is it the people trying to overcome one of the Court's terrible, terrible mistakes? If the latter, then the 14th Amendment has nothing to do with this conversation.
A human life amendment is merely an attempt to work around a politicized court. We would be perfectly happy with the court reversing itself on Roe, which it didn't do. It simply declared "Stare Decisis."
But this is a very different issue from asserting that "the law has always said that being born here makes you a citizen, so we need to amend the constitution to say that being born here makes you a citizen."
If Rawle's understanding of the constitution was correct, it would not have been possible for a court to get it wrong, nor would an amendment have been needed to re-state what was supposed to be already existing law.
The creation of the 14th amendment is proof positive that what it says WAS NOT EXISTING LAW. If it were, there would have been no need to create the 14th amendment.