I understand and can appreciate your point of view and perhaps the courts or legislative action will codify your position in law.
Whatever was the Founder’s original intent (and we know from the notes taken at the Constitutional Convention that there was unanimous agreement on almost no issue), the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment has altered the view of courts and laws passed since 1865.
The Founders made provision for future generations to alter their thinking on any constitutional issue via amendment and since adoption of the 14th, the Supreme Court has ruled that there are two classes of citizens: born and naturalized: “ALL (no exceptions) 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.” The word “ALL” is definitive.
For example, the Supreme Court ruled in Elk v Wilkins, 112 U. S. 94 in 1884 that: “The distinction between citizenship by birth and citizenship by naturalization is clearly marked in the provisions of the constitution, by which ‘no person, except a natural-born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of this constitution, shall be eligible to the office of president;’ and ‘the congress shall have power to establish an uniform rule of naturalization.’Const. art. 2, § 1; art. 1, § 8.
” Citizens by birth” in the passage above were contrasted with naturalized citizens, with the former class being eligible to be president.
The Supreme Court went on to say in their ruling in Elk v. Wilkens: “This section [of the 14th Amendment] contemplates two sources of citizenship, and two sources only: birth and naturalization. The persons declared to be citizens are “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”
The trouble with or nemesis to a constitution is as time ebbs on, future generations and their understanding or interpretation of the originator’s intent becomes either something less or something more than originally intended, and it’s usually the latter.
The founder’s grandparents were of a generation that dunked witches in water in order to divine their purity.
Fast forward to today, and we find that hardcore pornography is protected free speech under the First Amendment. This is hardly what the founders intended as a kind of speech deserving of a protection clause, especially when considering what kind of puritan moral code prevailed in said times.
I can appreciate your due diligence in providing the foundations to your contentions regarding the definition of a citizen. THAT isn’t my point at all. It’s the higher bar set for ONLY two positions in government- only two, no matter the size of the population or the size of the government. The bar was elevated to the highest “loyalty” criteria permitted, under the freshly conceived form of government.
Anywho- the courts are filled with fallible humans (judges) creating ever unconstitutional, and might I add fallible laws, and we the people whom have remedy to elect others in their steed, are asleep at the wheel. Unfortunately and further, incumbency has powerful benefits and voter apathy is rampant.
Anyone who has any doubts that you are LorenC just didn’t know you in your former ID.