Trump v. Barbara · ¶418

Every step of this story is incorrect. The Declaration of Independence repudiated the foundation on which the British rule was based. See infra, at 5. From 1776 until the eve of the Civil War, the status of the rule in this country was unsettled. There is no evidence establishing that the Constitution’s references to citizens incorporated the British rule, infra, at 5–8, and until the eve of the Civil War, there was little litigation about the meaning of American citizenship, infra, at 9–11. After the war, Congress finally adopted a constitutional provision, §1 of the Fourteenth Amendment, making certain persons citizens at birth, but that provision differed substantially from the British rule. It specified that a person born here is not a citizen unless his allegiance to the United States is unimpaired by any obligations to a foreign power. Infra, at 11–22. And while Wong Kim Ark…

slip opinion, revised 7/01/26
Source edition
Passage preview. Read in context for the complete text, notes and references.