The Wong Kim Ark decision in the late 1800s discussed it in detail, and said:
“It thus clearly appears that, by the law of England for the last three centuries, beginning before the settlement of this country and continuing to the present day, aliens, while residing in the dominions possessed by the Crown of England, were within the allegiance, the obedience, the faith or loyalty, the protection, the power, the jurisdiction of the English Sovereign, and therefore every child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject unless the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign State or of an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was born.
III. The same rule was in force in all the English Colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the Constitution as originally established.”
---------------
Sounds reasonable, until you realize that NOT every child born in the U.S. was a natural born citizen from the time of the Declaration of Independence on. Some weren't even citizens, at all. Blacks were not provided birthright citizenship until the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and subsequently the 14th Amendment, and Native Americans weren't provided birthright citizenship until the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924.
Blows your theory all to hell.
Not true, slaves were not afforded citizenship in “pro-slavery” states until then. However, blacks were always considered citizens in abolitionist states which were mainly in the north. Blacks even sat as judges & elected community leaders in some states. The A1 of the Constitution says nothing of race, it only refers to free persons in regards to representation. You are mistaking congressional acts on immigration & naturalization that disallowed for the immigration of blacks. This was done in order to thwart the slave trade, not to denigrate black people.
“Blacks were not provided birthright citizenship until the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and subsequently the 14th Amendment, and Native Americans weren’t provided birthright citizenship until the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924.”
Both of those situations were dealt with in other parts of the opinion. Free blacks WERE citizens, but slaves were not - because slaves were considered property, not people (see Dred Scott, which the 14th Amendment overturned). Indians were considered to be foreign nations physically located within the USA. Sorry that the entire decision cannot be totally encompassed in two paragraphs, which is why they wrote much more. The link to the entire decision was provided.
Blows your theory all to hell.”
It must, further, be asked of Birthers why they want the PR disaster of going into the “intent” of the Founders on citizenship, since the greatest political document in history STILL had to make compromises due to slavery and the Indians. It was not the “intent” of our Founders that any American Indian should be President yet does anyone deny that Indians ARE full citizens, Natural Born Citizens if born in the United States? Such right was granted by STATUTE and not by any Constitutional Amendment.
Just as the Natural Born Citizenship status of John McCain was granted BY Statute or by simple LEGISLATION concerning the citizenship of children born of citizen parents on foreign soil.
Blows your theory all to hell.
Exactly. There are THREE exceptions. Slaves, (not Blacks, there were Citizen Blacks prior to 1866) Indians, and Diplomats. Interestingly enough, these are not exceptions when viewed through the jus sanguinus principle of citizenship.
If their theory was the standard, why does the standard have such large and blatant exceptions?