If I understand the material you posted, it implies the citizens of other nations are not subject to constitutional provisions. It seems clear they were not covered by the 14th ammendment. It also seems clear, that unless one used contortionist logic, that the children of foreign subjects, which were born on U.S. soil (refering to the children here), would not be covered by the 14th ammendment either.
Am I reading too much into this? Is that your take on both counts?
They are not citizens. They are foreign subjects. Their children born here are foreign subjects. That much is clear in the text I cited, which is important because it is contemporary with the ratification of the 14th Amendment, thus Justice Miller HAD to know what the drafters of the Amendment intended.
I don't think your first point, which is entangled with the distinction between "person" and "citizen" is addressed in that part of the opinion. HOWEVER, the opinion from which I quoted contains a complete exposition on the 14th Amendment. There may be language that addresses your first question therein.
To the former question then, I refer to the section of the opinion that refers to equal protection of "persons":
As you can see, in Miller's opinion, the ONLY inclusion to which the equal protection clause applied was racial, because it was written to address that particular injustice. He further added that the restraining nature of the Constitution, as confirmed by the Bill of Rights, did not permit a wider interpretation of "persons," including corporate "persons" as it does today which (as I understand it, not having read the entire morass) was the question the Slaughterhouse Cases were to determine)."Nor shall any State deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." In the light of the history of these amendments, and the pervading purpose of them, which we have already discussed, it is not difficult to give a meaning to this clause. The existence of laws in the States where the newly emancipated negroes resided, which discriminated with gross injustice and hardship against them as a class, was the evil to be remedied by this clause, and by it such laws are forbidden.
If, however, the States did not conform their laws to its requirements, then by the fifth section of the article of amendment Congress was authorized to enforce it by suitable legislation. We doubt very much whether any action of a State not directed by way of discrimination against the negroes as a class, or on account of their race, will ever be held to come within the purview of this provision. It is so clearly a provision for that race and that emergency that a strong case would be necessary for its application to any other. But as it is a State that is to be dealt with, and not alone the validity of its laws, we may safely leave that matter until Congress shall have exercised its power, or some case of State oppression, by denial of equal justice in its courts, shall have claimed a decision at our hands. We find no such case in the one before us, and do not deem it necessary to go over the argument again, as it may have relation to this particular clause of the amendment.
In the early history of the organization of the government, its statesmen seem to have divided on the line which should separate the powers of the National government from those of the State governments, and though this line has [p82] never been very well defined in public opinion, such a division has continued from that day to this.
The adoption of the first eleven amendments to the Constitution so soon after the original instrument was accepted shows a prevailing sense of danger at that time from the Federal power. And it cannot be denied that such a jealousy continued to exist with many patriotic men until the breaking out of the late civil war. It was then discovered that the true danger to the perpetuity of the Union was in the capacity of the State organizations to combine and concentrate all the powers of the State, and of contiguous States, for a determined resistance to the General Government.
Unquestionably this has given great force to the argument, and added largely to the number of those who believe in the necessity of a strong National government.
But, however pervading this sentiment, and however it may have contributed to the adoption of the amendments we have been considering, we do not see in those amendments any purpose to destroy the main features of the general system. Under the pressure of all the excited feeling growing out of the war, our statesmen have still believed that the existence of the State with powers for domestic and local government, including the regulation of civil rights the rights of person and of property was essential to the perfect working of our complex form of government, though they have thought proper to impose additional limitations on the States, and to confer additional power on that of the Nation.
But whatever fluctuations may be seen in the history of public opinion on this subject during the period of our national existence, we think it will be found that this court, so far as its functions required, has always held with a steady and an even hand the balance between State and Federal power, and we trust that such may continue to be the history of its relation to that subject so long as it shall have duties to perform which demand of it a construction of the Constitution or of any of its parts. [p83]