The link in #63 was to illustrate the extent of federal jurisdiction in determining citizenship.
The link for Tucker's Dissertation on Slavery, which was later included in his View of the Constitution, elaborates on the different political/civil status of slaves as compared to free citizens.
Note that this was written as a plan for the STATE to gradually prohibit slavery, NOT the federal government.
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Article 1, Section 8, Clause 4
To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization
This does NOT mean deciding who will or will not be 'allowed' to be a citizen, it only gives the authority to make the State's criteria for citizenship uniform.
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Here's another legal conundrum:
Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5
No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
If one were to adhere to strict Constitutional construction, and this clause prevents naturalized citizens from running for President since they fail to meet the criteria for being a 'natural born' Citizens who were citizens at the time of the Adoption of the Constitution, wouldn't this also prevent any descendant of a slave from being President since they also fail to meet this constitutional criteria?
I believe you’re misinterpreting the wording. There are two groups of people who are eligible to be President.
1. Natural born citizens.
2. Individuals who were citizens at the time of the adoption of the Constitution (1784). This clause allowed a good many people to be eligible, notably Alex Hamilton, who were actually immigrants to what is now the US.
There is nothing at all in there that implies that qualification is hereditary and limited to those eligible for citizenship in 1784. If there were, it would have been overridden by the 14th Amendment.
Anywho, in at least five states blacks, though not slaves, were full citizens in 1784.