1st: 45 words
2nd: 27 words
3rd: 32 words
4th: 54 words
5th: 108 words
6th: 81 words
7th: 50 words
8th: 16 words
9th: 21 words
10th: 28 words
11th: 43 words
12th: 401 words -- because it details the change in the process of electing prez and VP
13th: 94 words (including the headers "Section 1" and "Section 2")
Let's compare those to the 14th Amendment.
14th: 433 words (including the "Section" headings).
248 of those words are in Sections 2 and 3. Section 2 is to clarify the details of the election process regarding the new citizens (i.e. don't even think about a 3/5ths clause anymore). No wonder it's about as terse as Article I's Sections 2 and 3. Section 3 is saying nobody in the rebellion can hold office.
433 words - 248 words = only 185 words for the remainder of the 14th Amendment. Take out Section 4 (8the government isn't paying the debt of rebel states) and you have only 80 words in Section 1 (the citizenship portion we're arguing about lately)
So the 14th Amendment, excluding the political process section, isn't wordy. It's much like the prior amendments (again, excluding the political process amendments). Now let's look at the portion of the 1866 Civil Rights Act that you copied. It has 156 words. Practically twice as many as the comparable 14th Amendment's Section 1. IMHO, it would be unreasonable to expect the 14th Amendment's Section 1 to be that terse.
My point wasn't that it was excessively wordy. (It is.) My point was that the words they chose were worse than the words they previously chose.
The Civil Rights Act of 1866 completely clears up any misunderstanding that is inherent in the 14th.
My complaint isn't that they used too many words (which they did) but that they used the *WRONG WORDS*, which made it so subject to the abuse it has accumulated from Federal Judges.
"That all persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, "
Is *WAY* clearer than "subject to the jurisdiction thereof".