Trump v. Barbara · ¶484

Other senators quickly agreed. Senator Doolittle called the Civil Rights Act the “forerunner of this constitutional amendment” and said the “civil rights bill undertook to do this same thing” as the Fourteenth Amendment. Id., at 2896. Senator Reverdy Johnson, a member of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction and former Attorney General, pointed out that “all that this amendment provides is that all persons born in the United States and not subject to some foreign Power—for that, no doubt, is the meaning of the committee who have brought the matter before us— shall be considered as citizens of the United States.” Id., at 2893 (emphasis added). So too Senator Williams remarked that he understood “the words here, ‘subject to the jurisdiction of the United States,’ to mean fully and completely subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.” Id., at 2897. Public commentary on the…

slip opinion, revised 7/01/26
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