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To: woodpusher
The grandfather clause exempted persons from the natural born citizen requirement.

It did NOT exempt them from the imaginary two citizen parent requirement which is NOT mentioned in either the grandfather clause or the requirements clause.

I cannot grasp what you are trying to say here. If they are exempted from the requirement, they are exempt from the requirement.

As for "two parents", that's just confusing nonsense that other people have injected into the discussion over the years.

In 1787, any woman who married an American automatically acquired American citizenship. If the child is born within wedlock, the child would be born to two American parents, so long as one of them was the father.

It was always about the father, and only the father. Even the naturalization acts of the 1790s say it's about the father.

183 posted on 01/22/2024 2:16:25 PM PST by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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To: DiogenesLamp; frog in a pot
The grandfather clause exempted persons from the natural born citizen requirement.

It did NOT exempt them from the imaginary two citizen parent requirement which is NOT mentioned in either the grandfather clause or the requirements clause.

I cannot grasp what you are trying to say here. If they are exempted from the requirement, they are exempt from the requirement.

Being exempted from the requirement to be a natural born citizen has nothinjg to do with parents. Chester Arthur had a foreign parent and served as President and Vice President. Ted Cruz had a foreign p[arent and was found by the Court to be a natural born citizen. Presidential candidate Charles Evans Hughes was accused, and in fact had a foreign parent. Hughes was not disqualified. As the CRS Report stated: "Although a question was raised by this individual at the time of Hughes’ candidacy, it did not appear to be an issue of any significance for Hughes or other presidential or vice-presidential candidates who were born in the U.S. of recent immigrants, as the “two-citizen-parent” argument with respect to native born U.S. citizens has not garnered serious legal consideration after Wong Kim Ark in 1898."

The two citizen parent requirement exists nowhere in the Constitution, nowhere in the records of the Constitutional Convention, nor anywhere in any of the state Ratification Debates. Such requirement has never existed.

Wong Kim Ark at 169 U.S. 662-63:

In United States v. Rhodes (1866), Mr. Justice Swayne, sitting in the Circuit Court, said: "All persons born in the allegiance of the King are natural-born subjects, and all persons born in the allegiance of the United States are natural-born citizens. Birth and allegiance go together. Such is the rule of the common law, and it is the common law of this country, as well as of England. . . . We find no warrant for the opinion that this great principle of the common law has ever been changed in the United States. It has always obtained here with the same vigor, and subject only to the same exceptions, since as before the Revolution."

In the Senate, Sen. Jacob Howard offered an amendment to Rep. Bingham's House bill to include a citizenship clause of Sen. Howard's drafting. Congressional Globe, May 30, 1866, page 2890, column 2, near the bottom.

The words proposed by Sen. Jacob Howard were incorporated into the Constitution via Section I of the 14th Amendment in 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."

As shown by the introduction of the 14A citizenship clause by Mr. Howard, his intent of the clause was quite clear and specific.

https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llcg&fileName=073/llcg073.db&recNum=11

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The ques­tion is on the amendments proposed by the Senator from Michigan, [Mr. Howard.]

Mr. HOWARD. The first amendment is to section one, declaring that "all persons born in the United States, and subject to the juris­diction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the States wherein they reside." I do not propose to say anything on that sub­ject except that the question of citizenship has been so fully discussed in this body as not to need any further elucidation, in my opinion. This amendment which I have offered is simply declaratory of what I regard as the law of the land already, that every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States. 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, but will include every other class of persons. It settles the great question of citizenship and removes all doubt as to what persons are or are not citi­zens of the United States. This has long been a great desideratum in the jurisprudence and legislation of this country.

https://fam.state.gov/FAM/08FAM/08FAM030101.html#M301_1_1

[State Department, Foreign Affairs Manual]

8 FAM 301.1-1 INTRODUCTION

(2) The Court also concluded that: “The 14th Amendment affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory, in the allegiance and under the protection of the country, including children here born of resident aliens, with the exceptions or qualifications (as old as the rule itself) of children of foreign sovereigns or their ministers, or born on foreign public ships, or of enemies within and during a hostile occupation of part of our territory, and with the single additional exception of children of members of the Indian tribes owing direct allegiance to their several tribes. The Amendment, in clear words and in manifest intent, includes the children born within the territory of the United States, of all other persons, of whatever race or color, domiciled within the United States.” Pursuant to this ruling:

(a) Acquisition of U.S. citizenship generally is not affected by the fact that the parents may be in the United States temporarily or illegally; and that;

(b) A child born in an immigration detention center physically located in the United States is considered to have been born in the United States and be subject to its jurisdiction. This is so even if the child’s parents have not been legally admitted to the United States and, for immigration purposes, may be viewed as not being in the United States.

Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 698

The Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, as originally framed by the House of Representatives, lacked the opening sentence. When it came before the Senate in May, 1866, Mr. Howard, of Michigan, moved to amend by prefixing the sentence in its present form (less the words "or naturalized"), and reading,

"All persons born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State herein they reside."

Mr. Cowan objected upon the ground that the Mongolian race ought to be excluded, and said:

"Is the child of the Chinese immigrant in California a citizen? . . . I do not know how my honorable friend from California looks upon Chinese, but I do know how some of his fellow citizens regard them. I have no doubt that now they are useful, and I have no doubt that, within proper restraints, allowing that State and the other Pacific States to manage them as they may see fit, they may be useful; but I would not tie their hands by the Constitution of the United States so as to prevent them hereafter from dealing with them as in their wisdom they see fit."

Mr. Conness, of California, replied:

"The proposition before us relates simply, in that respect, to the children begotten of Chinese parents in California, and it is proposed to declare that they shall be citizens. We have declared that by law; now it is proposed to incorporate the same provision in the fundamental instrument of the Nation. I am in favor of doing so. I voted for the proposition to declare that the children of all parentage whatever, born in California, should be regarded and treated as citizens of the United States, entitled to equal civil rights with other citizens of the United States. . . . We are entirely ready to accept the provision proposed in this Constitutional Amendment that the children born here of Mongolian parents shall be declared by the Constitution of [169 U. S. 699] the United States to be entitled to civil rights and to equal protection before the law with others."

149 U. S. 716.

The Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, in the declaration that

"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,"

contemplates two sources of citizenship, and two only: birth and naturalization. Citizenship by naturalization can only be acquired by naturalization under the authority and in the forms of law. But citizenship by birth is established by the mere fact of birth under the circumstances defined in the Constitution. Every person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, becomes at once a citizen of the United States, and needs no naturalization.

A natural born citizen is one who acquires citizenship at birth. Citizen includes naturalized citizens and natural born citzens. There are two classes of citizen, and two only. Your straining to invent a third class is unavailing.

In re Look Tin Sing, Circuit Court, D. California, 21 Federal Reporter 905 (29 Sep 1884), Field J.

21 Fed. Rep. 906:

The first section of the fourteenth amendment to the constitution declares that “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.” This language would seem to be sufficiently broad to cover the case of the petitioner. He is a person born in the United States. Any doubt on the subject, if there can be any, must arise out of the words “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” They alone are subject to the jurisdiction of the United States who are within their dominions and under the protection of their laws, and with the consequent obligation to obey them when obedience can be rendered; and only those thus subject by their birth or naturalization are within the terms of the amendment. The jurisdiction over these latter must, at the time, be both actual and exclusive. The words mentioned except from citizenship children born in the United States of persons engaged in the diplomatic service of foreign governments, such as ministers and ambassadors, whose residence, by a fiction of public law, is regarded as part of their own country. This ex-territoriality of their residence secures to their children born here all the rights and privileges which would inure to them had they been born in the country of their parents.

21 Fed. Rep. 909

With this explanation of the meaning of the words in the fourteenth amendment, “subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” it is evident that they do not exclude the petitioner from being a citizen. He is not within any of the classes of persons excepted from citizenship, and the jurisdiction of the United States over him at the time of his birth was exclusive of that of any other country.

186 posted on 01/22/2024 7:43:21 PM PST by woodpusher
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