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To: AmishDude
"A literalist can't help but conclude that citizenship is conferred by birth on US soil."

Couldn't disagree more.

"As it turns out "all persons" was merely "all American citizens," as evidenced by the man wrote the fourteenth's citizenship clause, Sen. Jacob Howard of Michigan:

This amendment which I have offered [citizenship clause to the fourteenth amendment] is simply declaratory of what I regard as the law of the land already, that every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States. This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons. It settles the great question of citizenship and removes all doubt as to what persons are or are not citizens of the United States. This has long been a great desideratum in the jurisprudence and legislation of this country.[10]

http://idexer.com/articles/newt_14th.htm

256 posted on 11/04/2005 10:58:30 AM PST by moehoward
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To: moehoward

Ah, but if you're looking at the intent, rather than just the plain language of the Amendment, then you'd have to agree that there is a "Wall of Separation" between church and state.

If he wanted to "settle the great question of citizenship", he could have done so with the language of the amendment. He did not, or rather in failing to specify, he did but didn't define it in the manner he intended.


266 posted on 11/04/2005 11:35:55 AM PST by highball ("I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have." -- Thomas Jefferson)
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To: moehoward

Senator Howard's opinion is just that: his opinion.
It is not the 14th Amendment, and doesn't define what the 14th Amendment means. It means what it says, because that's what the states ratified. What he says he wanted it to mean is an interesting vignette in history. It is not binding authority.


279 posted on 11/04/2005 1:15:18 PM PST by Vicomte13 (Et alors?)
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To: moehoward

Sorry, but you're making an originalist argument, not a literalist one.


329 posted on 11/04/2005 6:12:06 PM PST by AmishDude (Amishdude, the one and only.)
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