ECW Breaking News: Supreme Court Rules on Birthright Citizenship
The U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling on June 30, 2026, that underscored birthright citizenship as defined in the 14th Amendment. The case came from a challenge to an executive order by President Trump that sough to limit birthright citizenship. Emerging Civil War’s Chris Mackowski talks with Dr. Angela Zombek for some context on the 14th Amendment and reaction to the ruling.
In January 2025, ECW hosted a Facebook LIVE discussion about the 14th Amendment, featuring Zombeck, Evan Rothera, Patrick Young, and Cecily Zander. You can watch that program here:
Where is the response to other SCOTUS rulings? Talk about mission creep, stick to the Civil War and leave current events to other outlets
It helps to actually read Roberts’ majority opinion. It’s expressly about the history of the Fourteenth Amendment, its enactment, the Dred Scott decision, etc. How covering that constitutes “mission creep” for a Civil War site defies rational explanation. Anybody who did a word search for “Gettysburg”, “Antietam”, or “Chancellorsville” would quickly see the connection.
John, first Dred Scott isnt during the American Civil War and second, there are many other case opinions that have mid 19th century basis in their text that have not been mentioned as “breaking news”
You do realize, I’m sure, that the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments are collectively referred to as “the Civil War Amendments”? The best emerging Civil War scholarship covers the impact that the Civil War and its aftermath continues to have on our society today.
Hardly “mission creep” to talk about the intersection of Civil War history and current events. Whatever happened to “studying the past so we can better understand the present”? Whatever happened to making history relevant?
If other SCOTUS rulings dovetailed from Civil War-related topics, I suspect we’d comment on those, as well, just as we often try to provide context for other intersections of CW history and current events. With this case, John Roberts’ opinion was a history lesson all its own, as was Kentaji Brown Jackson’s dissent–both useful reads for people interested in the Civil War, Reconstruction, and/or the history of slavery.
There have been many since the founding of ECW…but this seems to be the first to warrant “breaking news”
Rob says that the Dred Scott decision wasn’t issued “during the Civil War.” This is the first time I’ve seen anybody (apparently) assert the proposition that the ruling in Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393 (1857) isn’t relevant to the Civil War. I’ll leave it at that.
The criteria for “breaking” news is A) timeliness, B) impact, and C) interest. RE: timeliness, the ruling came today and we responded today. RE: impact, it was far-reaching and national in scope. RE: interest, this was widely considered a high-stakes case that had attracted considerable interest.
A third criteria is, of course, whether ECW has someone with the time/ability to “report” on a story. The Court released its ruling in the morning and we didn’t have staff able to respond to the story until later in the day. As a result, perhaps this could have been listed as “news” rather than “breaking news” because of that delay, although the response time was still pretty quick.
Agreed.
It’s important also to note that the “birthright citizenship” clause was promoted by, and necessary due to, the decision of the Supreme Court in the 1850s Dred Scott decision. Therein, the Court, led by Chief Justice Roger Taney, held that persons of African descent never could become part of the national body politic (i.e., American citizens).
I for one applaud ECW in connecting the significance of a Civil War/Reconstruction Amendment as it pertains to the current time. If all we did was stick to the silos of military history from a four-year span, we would become stagnant and ignorant to why sectional tensions bubbled over and what the nation did in the aftermath. It’s important to remember the battles just as much as it is to remember the before and after years. If we don’t, as Chris said, “study the past to understand the present,”well then frankly I don’t know what we are doing.
Actually, the concept of birthright citizenship was brought other the colonies by the English. Birthright citizenship by right of the soil (jus soli) is a foundational concept in English common law, which holds that anyone born within a sovereign’s territory automatically owes allegiance to that sovereign and is entitled to its citizenship. Colonists were British citizens.
All the 14th Amendment did was to codify the Law Ito the Constitution.
This topic deserves to be discussed on this thread!