Trump v. Barbara · ¶162

The Court offers a different account. American citizenship, the Court says, was based on a medieval English “feudal” principle, according to which each person “owed personal service to the lord of the soil” as his “master”—a perpetual servitude that was “born with the child and only ended in the grave.” 2 Cong. Rec. 3282 (1874) (statement of Rep. Cox). Americans, the Court says, adopted this feudal principle as a rule of American citizenship “with little fanfare.” Ante, at 4. Then, according to the Court, the Reconstruction Congress codified that feudal principle with the words “not subject to any foreign power” in the Civil Rights Act and “subject to the jurisdiction thereof ” in the Citizenship Clause. Then, the Court says, the Clause’s meaning was definitively settled by dicta in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U. S. 649 (1898).

slip opinion, revised 7/01/26
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