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.
Many such as yourself who don't like the truth of these matters seek to counter this clear statement in which "not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty" is very clear langauge by misrepresenting what others involved in the passage of the 14th Amendment and attacking Bingham despite his distinguished career and respected gift for oratory on the House floor.
And just where did I attack Bingham?
Here is what Senator Trumbull had to say: Senator Trumbull: “The provision is, that ‘all persons born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens.’ That means ‘subject to the complete jurisdiction thereof.’ What do we mean by ‘complete jurisdiction thereof?’ Not owing allegiance to anybody else. That is what it means.”
And if you bother to read a bit more in the debates, here’s where Trumbull clarified:
"The Senator from Missouri and myself desire to arrive at the same point precisely, and that is to make citizens of everybody born in the United States who owe allegiance to the United States. We cannot make a citizen of a child of a foreign minister who is temporarily residing here. There is a difficulty in framing the amendment [to the Act] so as to make citizens of all people born in the United States who owe allegiance to it. I thought that might perhaps be the best form in which to put the amendment at one time, 'That all persons born in the United States and owing allegiance thereto are hereby declared to be citizens;' but upon investigation it was found that a sort of allegiance was due to the country from persons temporarily resident in it whom we would have no right to make citizens, and that that form would not answer."Cong Globe, Senate, 39th Congress p. 572
Rep. Wilson, the house judiciary committee chairman of such Congress,said this:“It is in vain that we look into the Constitution of the United States for a definition of the term “citizen.” It speaks of citizens, but in no express terms defines what it means by it. We must depend on the general law relating to subjects and citizens recognized by all nations for a definition, and that must lead us to the conclusion that every person born in the United States is a natural born citizen of such States, except it may be that children born to temporary sojourners or representatives of foreign Governments, are native-born citizens of the United States.”
So you acknowledge that those born in the US to a long term legal resident is natural born? So you acknowledge that those born to one citizen parent and a noncitizen is natural born? That’s an advance.
Thus you see what Story plainly says. Common law governs civil rights but political rights and acquiring and governing a national character, which is to say citizenship, are governed by the law of nations which is more general than the common law.
Actually, that’s not what Story says. If you think it is, then you are saying that international law (law of nations) takes precedence over immigration laws passed by Congress. Is that what you believe?
Blackstone himself recognized that the law of nations was more general than and not the same as the common law. He observed in his commentaries that while offenses against the law of nations were "principally incident to whole states or nations ...where the individuals of any state violate this general law, it is then the intersst as well as the duty of the government under which they live, to animadvert upon them with a becoming severity, that the peace of the world may be maintained."
Way to pick and choose! The whole quote gives a different impression, as does the paragraph which follows, it details how individuals may violate the law of nations: violations of safe conducts or passports or committing acts of hostility against allies. "Law of nations" under Blackstone deals with “whole states or nations” or individuals who may cause incidents that may “be just ground of a national war.” Not exactly a question of who shall be a citizen. Blackstone was quite clear that
The children of aliens, born here in England, are, generally speaking, natural-born subjects, and entitled to all the privileges of such. In which the constitution of France differs from ours; for there, by their jus albinatus, if a child be born of foreign parents, it is an alien.So Blackstone allows that different nations may have different laws about what makes a natural born citizen. And court cases have held that in the US, we follow English common law.
You have not shown that Tucker regarded "native born" as being the same as the phrase "natural born" in the Constitution
That provision in the constitution which requires that the president shall be a native-born citizen (unless he were a citizen of the United States when the constitution was adopted,) is a happy means of security against foreign influence...I don’t see how it can be clearer for you.
In fact the passage you quote shows that like Senator Trumbull years later, Turner understood that the constituional phrase barred other than complete allegiance, which was the Founders' concern. Complete allegiance was particularly important with regard to the father given the status of women at the time. Further "complete allegiance" was clearly more part of the intent at the time of the drafting of the body of the Constitution than it was when Senator Trumbull was speaking of the concept.
Lots of assertions, no evidence. I see nothing in the Constitution about “complete allegiance.” Further, there is James Madison’s (father of the Constitution) quote:
"It is an established maxim that birth is a criterion of allegiance. Birth however derives its force sometimes from place and sometimes from parentage, but in general place is the most certain criterion; it is what applies in the United States; it will therefore be unnecessary to investigate any other.p>I will be interested in seeing how you misrepresent what John Marshall said. I have no doubt that you will give it a try.
An insult, as I have said. You accuse, but I have no interest in misrepresenting – what he actually said is clear enough. He was dealing with a case of seizure of goods and ship. The ship was owned by a naturalized citizen who was living in the country of the enemy in time of hostilities. The question, among others, was about whether the merchant was still entitled to the privileges and rights of an American citizen, or whether he had expatriated himself. The case had nothing to do with natural born whatsoever. Marshall quoted a large portion of Vattel, most in regard to whether the merchant was still American.
If you accept that any material quoted by a Justice is definitive, then all the clear quotes by Justice Gray are definitve for born on the soil = natural born.
By the way no less a figure than Scalia has recognized in colloquy in a case in recent years that at the time of the founding the Framers were concerned about dual loyalties with one loyalty being to Britain. M
Citation please. Especially given what Justice Scalia has said:
use British law for those elements of the Constitution that were taken from Britain. The phrase "the right to be confronted with witnesses against him" -- what did confrontation consist of in England? It had a meaning to the American colonists, all of whom were intimately familiar with my friend Blackstone. And what they understood when they ratified this Constitution was that they were affirming the rights of Englishmen. So to know what the Constitution meant at the time, you have to know what English law was at the time.
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.