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Posted on 06/30/2026 11:56:46 AM PDT by Ultra Sonic 007
When Senator Jacob Howard explained the Fourteenth Amendment's citizenship clause, he said: "This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States."
Most people today read this statement and assume Howard was listing four separate categories of people who would not receive birthright citizenship:
Foreigners Aliens People who belong to families of ambassadors Foreign ministers
This interpretation has shaped decades of constitutional debate, but it's based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how Howard structured his sentence.
*Testing the List Theory*
There's a simple way to check whether a sentence actually contains a list. In English, when you have items separated by commas in a list, you can break the sentence apart into separate sentences for each item in the list, and they should all make sense.
Take this example: "Bob is wearing his hat, coat, and boots." You can split this into three separate sentences:
Bob is wearing his hat. Bob is wearing his coat. Bob is wearing his boots.
Each one works perfectly, which confirms it's a genuine list.
*What Happens When We Test Howard's Statement*
Let's try the same test on Senator Howard's words. If he really meant to list four categories, we should be able to create four sentences that all make sense:
This will not include persons born in the United States who are foreigners. This will not include persons born in the United States who are aliens. This will not include persons born in the United States who are who belong to the families of ambassadors. This will not include persons born in the United States who are foreign ministers.
The problem jumps out immediately in sentence three: "who are who belong to the families of ambassadors." This isn't proper English. The phrase is grammatically incorrect, and an accomplished nineteenth-century orator like Senator Howard would never have spoken this way.
This test proves that Howard wasn't creating a list of four different categories.
*Understanding the Real Grammar*
So what was Howard actually doing? He was using a grammatical construction called an appositive, where one word clarifies or restates another. In nineteenth-century English, the appositive was a common and sophisticated way to ensure precision.
In Howard's statement, "aliens" is an appositive for "foreigners"—he's using both terms to refer to the same group of people, not two different groups. The legal term "aliens" clarifies what he means by "foreigners."
The phrase "who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers" then describes which specific foreigners/aliens he's talking about.
*A Modern Example*
Here's a similar sentence that shows the same structure: "The team consisted of several teenagers, adolescents, who belonged to the parents or guardians watching from the bleachers."
No one would think this describes four different groups. We understand that "adolescents" is just another word for "teenagers," and the rest tells us which teenagers—the ones whose parents are in the stands.
Howard's sentence follows exactly the same pattern.
*What Senator Howard Actually Said*
When you read it with proper grammar, Howard's statement means: "This will not include persons born in the United States who are foreigners (that is, aliens) who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers."
He's describing one specific group: children born in America to foreign diplomatic families. That's it. Not multiple broad categories, but one narrow exception based on diplomatic immunity.
*Why This Distinction Matters*
The difference between these two interpretations is enormous for constitutional law. The misreading suggests the Fourteenth Amendment contains several broad exceptions to birthright citizenship. The correct reading shows just one specific exception for diplomatic families.
This affects how we understand the amendment's scope and intent. The framers of the amendment didn’t create a narrow category of citizens with multiple exclusions—they were acknowledging a single established principle of international law regarding diplomatic immunity.
*How the Mistake Happened*
The misinterpretation stems from reading nineteenth-century sentences with twenty-first-century assumptions. Modern readers expect simple, direct constructions and assume that commas always separate list items. But nineteenth-century writers used more complex structures that served different grammatical functions.
Howard wasn't being unclear or overly complicated. He was writing in the sophisticated style that educated people of his era considered normal and precise. The problem isn't with his sentence—it's with our unfamiliarity with his grammatical conventions.
Click here for a detailed analysis of the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction."
And click here to purchase my book The Birthright: A History of Citizenship in America where I use original source documents to trace the history of birthright citizenship all the way back to George Washington's administration.
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Posted because we have a bunch of people crashing out over the SCOTUS's birthright citizenship ruling today. (Personally, I'm not surprised by the outcome; anyone who thought they would overturn it was fooling themselves.)
The Constitution now says whatever any 5 Supreme Court Justices want it to say at any point in time. We live under a judicial oligarchy.
Well we had a pretty good 250 year run ....
This argument is ridiculous.
To support it, needs to get into the placement of commas, definition of the grammatical term “apositive,” and a very broad and unprovable assumption that a 19th century senator Howard certainly meant to use this “apositive” construct.
I wonder if one of the ways to limit pregnant women running across the border to give birth to an American Citizen is those countries that need a visa to enter the US must have a pregnancy exam when the apply for a visa, if you are pregnant, no visa.
On the border, all women get pregnancy tests, if you are pregnant, immediate deportation.
It’s not perfect, I think you could make a real dent in this type of illegal behavior.
Jacob Howard was speaking, not writing.
The distinctions between citizens, landed immigrants and illegal aliens only became meaningful in the 20th century with the establishment of a giant federal welfare state and an expensive bureaucracy to manage it.
And the fact that you can get to this country now, in a matter of hours on a plane.
There were two legal concerns, Amendment XIV and 8 USC 1401.
8 U.S. Code § 1401...:
“The following shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth:
(a) a person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof;”
Congress can change 8 USC 1401, and should.
Why are the leftists not merely relying on Amendment XIV?
Because they know it was meant for the “Africans” of 1868.
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”
Funny how the last part seems to get left out in quotes. It means the quoted sentence is retrospective as of the time of ratification and not prospective.
Birth tourism babies typically never reside in the USA.
And as far as Justice Thomas is concerned,
Blacks were entitled to citizenship because they were Americans. They had no other homeland, owed no allegiance to any foreign power, and were subject to no other authority. They “fought and bled in the same battles,” “gained and gloried in the same victories,” and were “liable to be called upon to defend [America] in time of war” alongside every other citizen. The Citizenship Clause thus guaranteed them the “dignity and glory of American citizenship,” so as to ensure that they would never be treated as second-class under the law.
The same could not be said for the children of foreign temporary visitors. Foreign temporary visitors were attached to their home country, lacked similar bonds to this country, and would not be called upon in time of war.
Not really. For example, Chinese immigration was an issue on the US west coast, particularly among workers and unions in California, from the 1850s onward. California state tried to control / regulate it, but it took Federal action, including the Page Act (1875), the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) and the Geary Act (1892), which controlled Chinese immigration up to the 1940s.
Fighting the battle the way the enemy expects is usually a way to lose.
The Russians are finding that out the hard way. The Ukrainians lie in wait and blast away.
********
Fighting in Congress to send middle-class income and property taxation cap constitutional amendments to the states would make Congress turn deep red come 2027.
Enter in bills for two constitutional amendments.
RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY TAX AMENDMENT
Levies on any residential property of less than 2799 square feet of finished living space shall be no higher than the 2019 dollar amounts for the property, or for a newer or since resold property no higher than what it would have been levied at for 2019 if it lacked owner specific tax breaks, increased by 3% per calendar year since 2019 and by any percentage increase to its finished living space.
FEDERAL PERSONAL INCOME TAX AMENDMENT
Federal taxation on personal income shall be progressively capped as follows:
below 20% of the median federal full-time civilian employee compensation amount, 10%,
below 50% of the median federal full-time civilian employee compensation amount, 22%,
below the median federal full-time civilian employee compensation amount, 30%,
below the average federal full-time civilian employee compensation of the 100,000 largest recipients, 35%,
below the average federal full-time civilian employee compensation of the 10,000 largest recipients, 40%.
These amendments will serve to reunite the United States.
The emphasis will shift back to making systems work with the generally limited funds available. If more funds are absolutely needed at a given time, government salaries can be cut. That won’t be for long.
The high-income people have the Laffer Curve effect to protect them.
The problem is: The whole 14th amendment. Not needed to accomplish anything not already contained in the original constitution. It begins the establishment of a centralized pseudo government we now call the deep state. It is a mini constitution. and it was designed by the commies of the day called progressives or social reformers.
Agreed.
The author's interpretation produces a lot of unnecessary verbiage and an incorrect conslusion.
Anyone being in "the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers " must by definition be considered by the host nation as being a foreigner or alien.
It seems more likely that Sen Howard wrote like he might speak by leaving the word "or" out of his text and, in fact, produced a list of three distinct classes of persons: foreigners, aliens OR those accredited to the U.S.
WIKI
Chinese women reported to the American consul for a series of questioning, which included the following questions:
Have you entered into contract or agreement with any person or persons whomsoever, for a term of service, within the United States for lewd and immoral purposes? Do you wish of your own free and voluntary will to go to the United States? Do you go to the United States for the purposes of prostitution? Are you married or single? What are you going to the United States for? What is to be your occupation there? Have you lived in a house of prostitution in Hong Kong, Macao, or China? Have you engaged in prostitution in either of the above places? Are you a virtuous woman? Do you intend to live a virtuous life in the United States? Do you know that you are at liberty now to go to the United States, or remain in your own country, and that you cannot be forced to go away from your home?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Page_Act_of_1875
We damn sure better get started or this place is toast!
Consider the citizenship of babies born in the USA with parents having citizenship from the country of India.
The babies can get Indian citizenship upon application, but they are not born with it.
Why does India have such a system? Probably so that babies of citizens of India don’t run afoul of the complete jurisdiction requirement.
That was always the case.
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