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The 14th Amendment Protected the Civil Rights of Freed Slaves, Not Illegal Aliens
FrontPage Magazine ^ | Jan 22 2025 | Daniel Greenfield

Posted on 01/22/2025 6:30:46 AM PST by texas booster

I have said it before and I will say it again, the 14th Amendment is by far the worst amendment to the Constitution. It broke every possible rule of constitutional government beginning with simplicity and timelessness. The 14th is a sprawling mess meant to deal with immediate problems that used sloppy broad language and quickly became a magnet for every leftist effort to conduct backdoor rewrites of the law.

Consider that in just the last few years, Democrats used 4 of the 5 sections of the 14th to argue that…

1. That Trump was ineligible to hold office

2. That Congress was obligated to raise the debt limit

3. That men who pretend they’re women are entitled to do so

and now

4. That illegal aliens born in this country are automatically citizens

We know exactly what Section 1 of the 14th was aimed at. “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” was meant to protect the civil rights of freed slaves. It did not mean that anyone who happened to give birth in this country automatically made their kid a citizen, but that’s the absurd premise of birthright citizenship.

(Excerpt) Read more at frontpagemag.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 14thamendment; aliens; danielgreenfield; greenfield; slaves; sultanknish
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And the current Trump executive order meant to apply to future children of illegal aliens is being challenged on the basis of the Fourteenth. This battle is almost certainly going to end up in the Supreme Court which should be interesting, though far from an inevitable happy outcome. If you think Neil or Amy are going to vote to eliminate birthright citizenship, well good luck with that. Ideally we should repeal old number fourteen which is probably the sloppiest and messiest of the amendments. If you doubt that, go look up at that list above.

Not likely to happen, but a man can dream.

1 posted on 01/22/2025 6:30:46 AM PST by texas booster
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To: 100American; 21twelve; 2nd amendment mama; A Conservative Thinker; Absolutely Nobama; ...
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam and leftism.

There’s no such thing as birthright citizenship. Or any of the other things that Dems keep finding in the 14th Amendment which was not written to do any of these things.

Mr Greenfield's take on the birthright citizen idea.

Ping out to the Daniel Greenfield Ping! list.

As always, please FReepmail me if you want on or off the esteemed Daniel Greenfield ping list.

Daniel Greenfield's website: The Sultan Knish blog

2 posted on 01/22/2025 6:32:11 AM PST by texas booster (Join FreeRepublic's Folding@Home team (Team # 36120) Cure Alzheimer's!)
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To: texas booster

It also wasn’t intended to grant citizenship to childen of birth tourists.


3 posted on 01/22/2025 6:33:54 AM PST by Socon-Econ (adi)
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To: texas booster

Truth.

Especially since it came right after the 13th.


4 posted on 01/22/2025 6:34:12 AM PST by left that other site (Ask Not What The Left is Doing. Ask What They Are Accusing YOU of Doing.)
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To: texas booster

it’s true that was the intent, but it clearly says what is says. it’ll definitely make it to SCOTUS


5 posted on 01/22/2025 6:38:09 AM PST by wny
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To: texas booster
I 100% agree with the larger premise of Mr. Green's article (14th Amendment doesn't mean anchor babies). But I disagree with his notion that we know that the 14th was sloppily written because the Dims are able to make up interpretations of it.

Nope. The left will make up anything and say it over and over until their cult followers believe it, even if the Constitution clearly states otherwise. Or sometimes they say to ignore what's written in the Constitution because they say it should be viewed as a "living and breathing document" that they can twist however they want. So the left making a "legal" case of what they want doesn't imply that the 14th Amendment was poorly written. It means that the left is the left.

6 posted on 01/22/2025 6:38:42 AM PST by Tell It Right (1 Thessalonians 5:21 -- Put everything to the test, hold fast to that which is true.)
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To: texas booster

Exactly. The slobs on the various Supreme Courts over the years perverted the meaning of this amendment in their efforts to pimp illegal immigration and expand voter registrations for the communist RATS.


7 posted on 01/22/2025 6:39:53 AM PST by FlingWingFlyer (The Dark Days are over. We don't want your criminals. Stop sending your scum to America!)
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To: texas booster

The dissent in Wong by Justice Stephen J. Field:

“The main object of the opening sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment was to settle the question, upon which there had been a difference of opinion throughout the country and in this court, as to the citizenship of free negroes, Scott v. Sandford, ...and to put it beyond doubt that all persons, white or black, and whether formerly slaves or not, born or naturalized in the United States, and owing no allegiance to any alien power, should be citizens of the United States, and of the State in which they reside....”

https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/supreme-court-case-library/united-states-v-wong-kim-ark-1898


8 posted on 01/22/2025 6:46:19 AM PST by Brian Griffin
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To: texas booster

It seems like President Trump had these EOs ready to go long before January 20th.

Which means he had lawyers making sure they had a good chance of standing up in court.


9 posted on 01/22/2025 6:47:28 AM PST by airborne (Thank you Rush for helping me find FreeRepublic! )
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To: Socon-Econ

Is there even a way to count birth tourism from China?

Start with Saipan, Hawaii and add LA and SF ...


10 posted on 01/22/2025 6:48:50 AM PST by texas booster (Join FreeRepublic's Folding@Home team (Team # 36120) Cure Alzheimer's!)
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To: texas booster

I think I got these quotes right:

“All persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States.”

1866 Civil Rights Act

“The phrase was intended to exclude from its operation the children of ministers, councils, and citizens or subjects of foreign states who are born within the United States.”

Slaughterhouse

“What the phrase that we’re using means is that it’s complete jurisdiction, not owing allegiance to anybody else.”

Senator Trumbull

“I voted for the proposition to declare that children of all parentage whatsoever, born in California, should be regarded as citizens of the United States.”

Senator Conness

“Every citizen subject of another country while domiciled here is within the allegiance”

Supreme Court in Wong Kim Ark

https://ecollections.law.fiu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1136&context=lawreview

“domicile...one’s legal residence”

my dictionary


11 posted on 01/22/2025 6:48:56 AM PST by Brian Griffin
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To: texas booster
It was the doctrine of selective incorporation that did the most damage pursuant to the 14th, Kelo being the classic example.
12 posted on 01/22/2025 6:50:24 AM PST by Carry_Okie (The tree of liberty needs a rope.)
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To: texas booster

And if you look at the legislative history, the debates on the floor of the Senate where the citizenship clause – remember when the Fourteenth Amendment was passed out of the House of Representatives, it did not have a citizenship clause. It was introduced by Senator Howard on the floor of the Senate. And he was, during the course of the discussions, asked precisely, “What do you mean by this citizenship?” And everybody understood what they were trying to do with the Fourteenth Amendment was constitutionalize the 1866 Civil Rights Act. The 1866 Civil Rights Act, they thought, was on uncertain constitutional terms, whether Congress had exceeded its authority under the powers given to it under the Thirteenth Amendment. And even if it was constitutionally valid, they were concerned that a future Congress might repeal the 1866 Civil Rights Act. So they wanted to lock it into the Constitution. And that was the principal purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment.

And with respect to the Citizenship Clause, the 1866 Civil Rights Act, I think, is very clear. It said, “All persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States.” Now, you might argue that “not subject to any foreign power” is more clear on the question of whether somebody born here to parents who are subject to foreign powers, who are still citizens of Ireland or Mexico or Japan or what have you, would clearly not be citizens under the 1866 Civil Rights Act. Maybe the change in language to the Fourteenth Amendment, “subject to the jurisdiction,” was intended to broaden the grant of citizenship. If you look at the debates, though, you will see that the change had one purpose in mind. When it said “not subject to any foreign power,” the issue was whether children of Native Americans, “Indians” in their terminology, were automatically citizens.

https://ecollections.law.fiu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1136&context=lawreview


13 posted on 01/22/2025 6:55:52 AM PST by Brian Griffin
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To: texas booster

It also wasn’t passed to help the foreign Birthright Vacation Tours industry. Allowing foreigners to vacation in the U.S. so they can get in on feeding at the U.S. Government teat for life by popping out a mini-me “american” is one sick scam. Americans are some real dumbasses for allowing it to continue.


14 posted on 01/22/2025 7:10:43 AM PST by FlingWingFlyer (The Dark Days are over. We don't want your criminals. Stop sending your scum to America!)
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To: texas booster

Astounding how far we’ve allowed the communists to pervert the nation with their distorted interpretation of the 14th. Republicans have been such cowards.


15 posted on 01/22/2025 7:25:55 AM PST by LouAvul (Rom 8:9b: if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. )
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To: texas booster

Be careful what you wish for…this opens a whole can of worms since it could be argued that many Americans whose families have been here many generations, technically are not citizens either, unless they can prove their ancestors were naturalized. If they never officially became citizens the jurisdiction argument could get pretty messy.

This really should be done properly through a Constitutional Amendment to completely clarify the issue as pertaining to ILlEGAL immigrants only.


16 posted on 01/22/2025 7:29:55 AM PST by XRdsRev (Justice for Bernell Trammell, black Trump supporter, executed in the street in broad daylight 2020.)
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To: wny

For any attorney arguing this case it seems like a slam dunk. They can actually use the words of the author and the intentions.

https://www.14thamendment.us/articles/anchor_babies_unconstitutionality.html


17 posted on 01/22/2025 7:38:15 AM PST by sheana
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To: texas booster

illegals are not “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” and have NEVER been eligible for birthright citizenship! It was all a massive lie by the communists seeking to destroy our nation from within!


18 posted on 01/22/2025 7:46:39 AM PST by imabadboy99
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To: texas booster

p


19 posted on 01/22/2025 7:47:07 AM PST by gattaca (Once a nation loses control of its borders, it is no longer a nation...Ronald Reagan)
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To: imabadboy99

Correct! And it is working.


20 posted on 01/22/2025 7:53:25 AM PST by sport
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