Birth Right Citizenship
Citizenship in the United States of America would be a different issue and might be able to be discussed more rationally if it were not for the issue of SLAVERY and its history in this country.
In more an a few ways this a matter of history. Folks can ignore history, folks can try to change history, but many times in spite of our issues with history it just keeps marching on.
Some folks go on and on about the Constitution. The South might have been happy to count all their slaves to make their states more powerful but they would not have been happy to be taxed for their slaves. The 3/5ths compromise was about representation and taxes and probably less about slavery until the Constitution was ratified.
Article 1, Section 9. The importation of more slaves into the country was not popular, however another compromise in the new Constitution prohibited the Congress from legislation restricting the importation of slaves until 1808.
Article 2, Section 3 required that runaway slaves be returned to their owners. A compromise for sure but "constitutional".
The Missouri Compromise of 1820 was an attempt to limit the spread of slavery.
Missouri entered the Union a slave state and at the same time Maine entered the Union a free state.
The Kansas Nebraska Act tried to get around the Missouri Compromise by allowing voters to decide the question of allowing slavery on a state by state basis.
The Supreme Court tried to dispose of the question of citizenship for slaves in the Dred Scott decision.
Dred Scott was a slave. Under Articles III and IV, argued Taney, no one but a citizen of the United States could be a citizen of a state, and that only Congress could confer national citizenship. Taney reached the conclusion that no person descended from an American slave had ever been a citizen for Article III purposes. The Court then held the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional, hoping to end the slavery question once and for all.
This may have been the worst Supreme Court decision of all time in my opinion.
The 13th Amendment outlawed slavery and the 14th Amendment defined citizenship in this way:
Birth right citizenship has been the law of the land for time even before the United States were formed with the exception of the detour of slavery in this country.
Does this country really want to turn back the clock prior to the 14th Amendment.
Immigration and Naturalization policies are already very complicated and scream for better legislation. The current policy of detaining folks with immigration issues isn't being very well administered and this would just add another level of injustice to a really flawed system.
By 1861 the North and South were at war, mostly it was about slavery.
In more an a few ways this a matter of history. Folks can ignore history, folks can try to change history, but many times in spite of our issues with history it just keeps marching on.
Some folks go on and on about the Constitution. The South might have been happy to count all their slaves to make their states more powerful but they would not have been happy to be taxed for their slaves. The 3/5ths compromise was about representation and taxes and probably less about slavery until the Constitution was ratified.
Article 1, Section 9. The importation of more slaves into the country was not popular, however another compromise in the new Constitution prohibited the Congress from legislation restricting the importation of slaves until 1808.
Article 2, Section 3 required that runaway slaves be returned to their owners. A compromise for sure but "constitutional".
The Missouri Compromise of 1820 was an attempt to limit the spread of slavery.
Missouri entered the Union a slave state and at the same time Maine entered the Union a free state.
The Kansas Nebraska Act tried to get around the Missouri Compromise by allowing voters to decide the question of allowing slavery on a state by state basis.
The Supreme Court tried to dispose of the question of citizenship for slaves in the Dred Scott decision.
Dred Scott was a slave. Under Articles III and IV, argued Taney, no one but a citizen of the United States could be a citizen of a state, and that only Congress could confer national citizenship. Taney reached the conclusion that no person descended from an American slave had ever been a citizen for Article III purposes. The Court then held the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional, hoping to end the slavery question once and for all.
This may have been the worst Supreme Court decision of all time in my opinion.
The 13th Amendment outlawed slavery and the 14th Amendment defined citizenship in this way:
Amendment XIV
Section 1.
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.Birth right citizenship has been the law of the land for time even before the United States were formed with the exception of the detour of slavery in this country.
Does this country really want to turn back the clock prior to the 14th Amendment.
Immigration and Naturalization policies are already very complicated and scream for better legislation. The current policy of detaining folks with immigration issues isn't being very well administered and this would just add another level of injustice to a really flawed system.
By 1861 the North and South were at war, mostly it was about slavery.
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