Members' Corner

The 14th Amendment was not enacted to apply to general citizenship but to correct errors resulting from the incomplete enactment of the 13th Amendment. The Slaughter-House case was not a case that involved individual citizenship of children born in this country. It is not the "controlling authority". It is not applicable and thus irrelevant and immaterial whether it was over turned or not.

In response to Kent Gildersleeve:
From Richard Gruetter, constitution177(at)bellsouth.net

Lets begin with the basics. Our U.S. Constitution belongs to the citizens of the Unites States and is the most fundamental and controlling law of our federal government. It controls the states only in those areas where the states have specifically given up control as specified in the Constitution.

Any changes to our most foundational law, our Constitution, must come back to the states where the people, through their legislatures, are able to affirm or deny these changes made through the amendment process.

What ever the original intent of our Congress was, when amending the Constitution, has to be the controlling intent and authority of any amendments to our Constitution. It is this original intent that the citizens must sign off on through their state legislators as they approve or reject the proposed amendment. “We the People” are the ultimate earthly sovereigns in the United States.

The Federalist Papers (and later along with Madison’s notes from the Constitutional Convention) form the most definitive intent of our Constitution as these papers served as the intent the citizens and their legislatures were signing off on. Later, the stated intent found in the Congressional Records should serve as a guide to the legal boundaries of subsequent Constitutional Amendments and the laws finding their authority in the same.

Fed33, p. 128, Hamilton

Laws Judged Against Constitution

6 But it may be again asked, who judges whether laws passed for executing the powers of the Union are necessary and proper?

I answer, first, that this question would be asked about the powers themselves even without the declaratory, clause. In the second place, the national government, like every other government, must judge the proper exercise of its powers, as must its constituents.

If the federal government should overreach the just bounds of its authority, making tyrannical use of its powers, the people, who created it, must appeal to the standard they have formed and correct the injury done to the Constitution as needs may suggest and prudence justify. The constitutional propriety of a law must always be determined by the nature of the powers upon which it is founded.
(Emphasis added)

The first Sentence of our Constitution, Article I, Section 1, places ALL Legislative authority in the Congress of the United States.
(Link)

When federal judges change the original intent of our Constitution, and the Amendments to it they are legislating and therefore VIOLATING the very first sentence of OUR Constitution. They are also violating the will of the people at the time the Constitution and/or the amendments were passed.

It was the opinion of the father of American Jurisprudence, Justice Story that:

"The offences to which the power of impeachment has been and is ordinarily applied as a remedy are ... what are aptly termed political offences, growing out of personal misconduct, or gross neglect, or usurpation, or habitual disregard of the public interests.”

He also said:
"...unconstitutional opinions" and "attempts to subvert the fundamental laws and introduce arbitrary power," were also grounds for impeachment.

In Federalist 65, p 266, Hamilton said:

Several State constitutions follow the example. Those States and Great Britain seem to regard the practice of impeachments as a bridle in the hands of the legislative body on the executive servants of the government. Isn't this the true light in which it ought to be regarded? (Emphasis added)

In Federalist 78, p. 319, Hamilton said:

Judges Can Be Impeached

“To assure judges will act responsibly, they are liable to be impeached by the House of Representatives and tried by the Senate. If convicted, a judge may be dismissed from office and disqualified for holding any other.”

Federalist 78 Hamilton said, pg. 313,314

[Judges would be the] Least Threat to Constitutional Rights

7 Anyone who studies the different departments of governmental power must see that, when they are constitutionally separated from each other, the judiciary, from the nature of its functions, will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution because it will have the least capacity to annoy and injure them.

The executive not only dispenses honors but holds the community's sword.

The legislature not only commands the purse but prescribes the rules by which the duties and rights of every citizen are to be regulated.

The judiciary, however, has no influence over either the sword or the purse. It directs neither the strength nor wealth of society. It can take no active resolution whatever.

The judiciary may be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, merely judgment. It even depends on the aid of the executive arm for the efficacy of its judgments. (Emphasis added)

Against the above backdrop we come back to the 13th and 14th Amendments.

The 13th Amendment was intended to abolish slavery, as Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation did not have the Constitutional authority to do so.

“...[T]he Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery in the nation. Lincoln recognized that the Emancipation Proclamation would have to be followed by a constitutional amendment in order to guarantee the abolishment of slavery.” (See this link for the above reference.)

It was widely believed that state constitutions would be changed to include former slaves as citizens as the federal government at the time had no authority over the basis of citizenship. Therefore, citizenship was not the purpose of the 13th Amendment. This lack of authority over citizenship by the federal government is why the Supreme Court overturned the Dred Scott decision.

In March of 1857, Scott lost the decision as seven out of nine Justices on the Supreme Court declared no slave or descendant of a slave could be a U.S. citizen, or ever had been a U.S. citizen.(See this link for the above reference.)

The above statement by Kent Gildersleeve that: “The 14th Amendment was not enacted to apply to general citizenship...,” is simply false. The Federal government had to pass the 14th Amendment in order to have any Constitutional authority to get involved in a person’s citizenship. The 14th Amendment was also the first time national citizenship was established and state citizenship flowed out of and was dependant on federal citizenship.

Given this shift in authority over citizenship from the states to the federal government it is extremely important to understand this newly established intent.

The 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. See Here

The stated intent of the Citizenship Clause of the Amendment can be clearly be seen from the Congressional Record:

" Senator Lyman Trumbull, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, supported Howard, contending that “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” meant “not owing allegiance to anybody else... subject to the complete jurisdiction of the United States.”

By itself, birth within the territorial limits or the United States, as the case of the Indians indicated, did not make one automatically “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States. And “jurisdiction” did not mean simply subject to the laws of the United States or subject to the jurisdiction of its courts. Rather, “jurisdiction” meant exclusive "allegiance" to the United States. Not all who were subject to the laws owed allegiance to the United States. As Senator Howard remarked, the requirement of “jurisdiction,” understood in the sense of "allegiance, "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.” (Emphasis added)

(The above comes from The Heritage Guide To the Constitution, ISBN 1-59698-001-X, Edwin Meese III Chmn. of the editorial board, with over 100 Professors of law from Universities like Harvard, Notre Dame, etc., contributing; p.384-385) This is a different source than that which I referred to in previous writings on the same subject.

It should be more than abundantly clear for anyone seeking the TRUTH that it was never the intent of the 14th Amendment to allow persons born in the United States who’s parents were foreigners or aliens to automatically become citizens PERIOD! Especially those who are here illegally!!!

Regarding Kent Gildersleeve’s statement:

“The Slaughter-House case was not a case that involved individual citizenship of children born in this country. It is not the "controlling authority". It is not applicable and thus irrelevant and immaterial whether it was over turned or not.

The Slaughter-House case is not irrelevant! It simply shows that the common understanding of intent of the 14th Amendment was to bring the rights and privileges of the former slaves up equal to the rest of the citizens – not to give the federal government broad new powers over the states.

IN SLAUGHTER-HOUSE CASES, 83 U.S. 36 (1872)

The Court ruled:

“… to establish a clear and comprehensive definition of citizenship which should declare what should constitute citizenship of the United States, and also citizenship of a State, the first clause of the first section [of the 14th Amendment] was framed.”

“… and it overturns the Dred Scott decision by making all persons born within the United States and subject to its jurisdiction citizens of the United States. That its main purpose was to establish the citizenship of the negro can admit of no doubt. The phrase, 'subject to its jurisdiction' was intended to exclude from its operation children of … citizens or subjects of foreign States born within the United States.” (Emphasis added)

In the same case the U. S. Supreme Court clarified the purpose and limits of the 14th Amendment’s Section 1, when they said:

“Nor shall any State deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

“... it is not difficult to give a meaning to this clause. The existence of laws in the States where the newly emancipated negroes resided, which discriminated with gross injustice and hardship against them as a class, was the evil to be remedied by this clause, and by it such laws are forbidden.

“If, however, the States did not conform their laws to its requirements, then by the fifth section of the article of amendment Congress was authorized to enforce it by suitable legislation. We doubt very much whether any action of a State not directed by way of discrimination against the negroes as a class, or on account of their race, will ever be held to come within the purview of this provision. It is so clearly a provision for that race and that emergency, that a strong case would be necessary for its application to any other.” (Emphasis added)

When you look at the ORIGINAL intent of the 14th Amendment and then look back and see how the 14th Amendment has been twisted and molded into other uses by the Court, it is time to start limiting the Courts to their original purpose and authority of discovering the law and its original intent and then applying the law in that light, not applying the new meaning and intent of the Judge.

This original intent was overturned in 1898 in United States v Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898). This case allowed the children born of those here legally to automatically be citizens, contrary to the original intent, understood by We the People, as presented by the authors of the 13th and 14th Amendments. The court in Ark ignored the above evidence of intent and would offer an interesting study concerning courts that change original intent rather than discovering and applying the law.

Respectfully submitted by,

Richard Gruetter

Constitution177(at)bellsouth.net