It settles the great question of citizenship and removes all doubt as to what persons are or are not citizens of the United States.
All due respect to Senator Howard, but history has proven him quite wrong!
Section One (the so-called Citizenship Clause) of the 14th Amendment, states "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."
Notably, the 14th Amendment does not address NBC, just citizenship ... but I've addressed this with you before ...
Furthermore, the 14th Amendment MOST CERTAINLY DID still leave room for ambiguity with respect to at least THREE significant groups.
First, were the children of immigrants who were barred from citizenship. Although touched on in Wong Kim Ark in 1898, some rights were not completely granted to this group until 1952.
Second, Native American felt should be allowed citizenship under the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof. In Elk v Wilkins, the SCOTUS felt the Indians owed alliance to their tribes and thus were NOT part of the United States. Congress however extended Native Indians birth citizenship in 1924. Subsequently, that same right has been extended to Puerto Rico, Guam and other US Territories.
A third group, Illegal Aliens, has not been decided by the SCOTUS, although it's been assumed for legal and other purposes that one need only proved birth in the US to claim citizenship based upon current immigration laws and the stance of the Executive.
As Elk v Wilkins shows, the SCOTUS feels Alliance is an important issue, as is Residency -- both problems if you're an Illegal Alien giving birth on our sovereign soil.
Here's the last paragraph of Elk v Wilkins:
"Born, therefore, in the territory, under the dominion and within the jurisdictional limits of the United States, plaintiff has acquired, as was his undoubted right, a residence in one of the states, with her consent, and is subject to taxation and to all other burdens imposed by her upon residents of every race. If he did not acquire national citizenship on abandoning his tribe and becoming, by residence in one of the states, subject to the complete jurisdiction of the United States, then the Fourteenth Amendment has wholly failed to accomplish, in respect of the Indian race, what, we think, was intended by it, and there is still in this country a despised and rejected class of persons with no nationality whatever, who, born in our territory, owing no allegiance to any foreign power, and subject, as residents of the states, to all the burdens of government, are yet not members of any political community, nor entitled to any of the rights, privileges, or immunities of citizens of the United States.