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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   25311 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 24, 2025

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I found discussion of this on a site about the 14th amendment. It links to a page from the Congressional Record, which seems to match a similar page in wayback from the Library of Congress. It records Sen. Jacob M. Howard (MI) as saying:

Mr. HOWARD: I now move to take up House joint resolution No. 127.

The motion was agreed to; and the Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, resumed the consideration of the joint resolution (H.R. No. 127) proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

The first amendment is to section one, declaring that all "persons born in the United States and Subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the States wherein they reside. I do not propose to say anything on that subject except that the question of citizenship has been fully discussed in this body as not to need any further elucidation, in my opinion. This amendment which I have offered 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.

(Emphasis as per www.14thamendment.us.)

I am not a constitutional scholar, but this seems fairly straightforward to me. What am I missing?

What you're missing is that you found that via a conservative source that filtered the evidence to arguments that sound conservative! Here's a rebuttal from a twitter nazi who happens to be intellectually honest in this case: https://x.com/HellenicVibes/status/1882234654310453753

And there are, iirc, other sources from the time that lean in the same direction

That's some great context, thank you.

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