YOU LOST THE TRUMPBOTS AT OPPOSING DRED SCOTT:

[T]he great majority of scholars agree that the 14th Amendment means just what it says: Anyone born on American soil, regardless of ancestry, race, ethnicity, social standing, or parents' immigration status, is an American citizen. The relevant clause provides that "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." The reference to "jurisdiction" excludes children born to diplomats or to enemy troops; until 1924 it also excluded American Indians born on self-governing tribal lands. There are no other exceptions to birthright citizenship -- just as the amendment's drafters intended.

A key goal of the Republican-dominated Congress that approved the amendment in 1866 was to overturn the Supreme Court's execrable Dred Scott decision, which nine years earlier had held that the Constitution denied citizenship to all black people, even those born in the United States. But the amendment's language wasn't limited to black Americans, as critics bitterly complained.

"Is the child of the Chinese immigrant in California a citizen?" demanded Senator Edgar Cowan of Pennsylvania during the congressional debate. Nativist bigotry in the late 19th century was directed not at newcomers from Central America, but at immigrants from Asia. Cowan was appalled at the prospect that America could be "overrun by a flood of immigration of the Mongol race," and that citizenship would be bestowed automatically upon the children of "another people of a different race, of different religion, of different manners, of different traditions." Graft birthright citizenship onto the Constitution, he fumed, and you might as well invite "a flood of Australians or people from Borneo, man-eaters or cannibals if you please."

Cowan voted against the 14th Amendment, but it passed by overwhelming majorities in both houses of Congress. Within six months it had been ratified by three-fourths of the states, cementing birthright citizenship in the highest law of the land.

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