Facebook LIVE: The 14th Amendment

The 14th Amendment, ratified in July 1868, is suddenly “current events” again thanks to discussions about birthright citizenship. Explore the history and legacy of the 14th Amendment with a special panel discussion presented by Emerging Civil War, live on Facebook, Thursday, January 30 at 8:00 p.m. EST. Moderator Chris Mackowski will be joined by panelists
  • Dr. Cecily Nelson Zander, ECW Chief Historian
  • Dr. Evan Rothera, University of Arkansas–Fort Worth
  • Patrick Young, Reconstruction Era Blog
  • Dr. Angela Zombek, UNC–Wilmington
With technical assistance by ECW Social Media Manager Darren Rawlings.


11 Responses to Facebook LIVE: The 14th Amendment

  1. This should be good. Unfortunately, there’s not anything to debate. Senators Lyman Trumbo, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Jacob Herrod, who wrote both the 1866 Civil Rights Act and the 1868 14th Amendment, used virtually the same text, with the same meaning and intent, in both.

    They later wrote of the 14th Amendment in order to clarify on any interpretation thereof. Trumbo stated: “Subject to the jurisdiction thereof” means “not owing allegiance to anybody else…subject to the complete jurisdiction of the United States.”

    Herrod, the chief author, stated: “Jurisdiction means allegiance to the United States, not mere presence therein. It will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners….”

    In 19th Century terms, the 14th Amendment clearly, and in no uncertain terms, bans Anchor Babies, Citizenship Tourism, so called “Birthright Citizenship” and “Dreamers.”

    1. First, please do some basic fact checking: Sen. Jacob Howard (not Herrod) of Michigan was An author of the 14th Amendment but not THE author. A number of legislators contributed to the text. As I tell my writing students: when you get basic facts wrong, you undermine your credibility with everything else you say because you immediately give readers a reason to doubt you.

      The flaw in your line of argument is that authorial intent does not trump the actual language. Just because those authors–as individual legislators–believed something, that does not necessarily represent the view of the majority that approved the final legislation. If the language didn’t make it into the final language of the legislation, then it’s not codified as the law. It’s just someone’s opinion.

      An example I like to use is Jefferson’s oft-quoted “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” People give that phrase a lot of weight because it was uttered by Jefferson, who had impeccable credentials as a Founder–so the sentiment must be true, right? But if that was the prevailing perspective of the Founders as a whole, that language would have been voted on and codified into law. It was a fringe perspective, and one Jefferson only even dared utter in private correspondence (and an idea Jefferson eventually moved away from over his lifetime). So, just because he said it, doesn’t make it true or even representative. It’s just one dude’s opinion.

      Your “no uncertain terms” assertion that there’s nothing to debate comes across almost as clearly as the unambiguous language of the amendment: “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.”

      1. Thank you, Chris! Pushing back against rhetoric (misleading) is more important now than it ever was.

  2. Apologies for the late response:
    The ‘take’ of Mr. Schafer above is interesting, albeit incorrect. It certainly conforms to a right-wing, trumper perspective, though. Unless his ancestors(or mine, which they did not) came across the Bering Strait about 15,000 years ago when it was a land bridge; he, myself & every other person on this blog are ‘anchor babies'(a nasty pejorative, at that). We all had distant(or not-so-distant) ancestors who in turn gave birth(s); those persons gave births in turn and we were each of us born; going back however many generations, to someone whose family came here from somewhere else. His last sentence displays ignorance of all English common-law and judicial concepts going back centuries. Perhaps googling & learning the Latin phrase ‘jus soli’ might prove helpful

Please leave a comment and join the discussion!