Controversy surrounds the 14th Amendment
CONTROVERSY SURROUNDS 14th AMENDMENT; DATELINE 1866-1868!!The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states in Section 1; "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law". There are four additional sections in the 14th Amendment that will not be discussed in this post.As leaders in the Congress of 2006 begin to discuss and debate a possible change to the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution I thought it might be interesting to look back to its inception and the extreme controversy that surrounded its passage and the assertion of some that unconstitutional means were employed by the Congress of 1866 to "force" passage of what could very well be our most important Amendment because it defined "citizenship" in this country.The 14th Amendment was proposed and ultimately ratified basically as support for the 13th Amendment (ratified in 1865) which abolished the practice of slavery in the United States. A main goal of the 14th Amendment was to define citizenship and provide Constitutional protection to "freedmen" residing primarily in the defeated southern States. As context the 13th Amendment was ratified by 7 southern States and certifed that those States were, at the time, full member States of the union.Now for the controversy. In 1866 there were 37 States in the Union. After the 14th Amendment was submitted to the States by the Secretary of State on June 16th, 1866 a total of 15 States (or 40%) rejected the proposed Amendment. These rejections occurred between June 16th, 1866 and March 24th, 1868. The argument being that final ratification should have been deemed unconstitutional because there was not a three fourths vote in favor of the Amendment. In order to combat the rejection, Congress took extraordinary measures to turn the loss into a victory for the advocates of the 14th Amendment. Through a series of maneuvers known as the Reconstruction Acts, Congress made it possible to remove with "military force", the legally constitued State legislatures of 10 southern States. Some of these States went to court to gain relief but again through a series of legal maneuvers a decision on the constitutionality of the Reconstruction Acts was avoided. As a result essentially puppet legislatures were put in place in these States. Seven of these States carried out "military orders" and ratified the 14th Amendment (as a note; 6 of the 7 had previously ratified the 13th Amendment with the legislatures later removed to insure passage of the 14th).An argument can be (and has been) made that the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution was never legally ratified and came into existence only because of numerous constitutional violations against several States.It is important to remember as the current debate progresses that the original motivation for the 14th Amendment was as much about protecting the rights of former slaves as it was about defining who would be considered an American citizen. Regardless of the opposition passage of the Amendment as a protective reinforcement to the 13th Amendment was not only necessary but correct. In the context of the question about children born in the United States from a parent who is in the country illegally, the premise that anyone born on American soil automatically becomes an American citizen can be questioned and probably should be questioned. The 14th Amendment was never designed to allow citizenship through an illegal act. There are already a few "exceptions" to the citizenship rule. They include; children born to foreign diplomats; children born to enemy forces in hostile occupation of the United States; and Native Americans born on tribal lands. The idea that children born from the illegal entrance to the United States should also be excluded from American citizenship may also have merit to reduce the controversy surrounding what actions should be taken when (or if) the parent(s) illegal status is discovered and what happens to the innocent child if the parents face deportation according the the law.The 14th Amendment is too important for it's meaning to be diluted by the purposeful actions of illigal immigrants and the resulting exploitation of the children. A program of actual control of our borders and reduction of the numbers of illegal immigrants inside the United States would certainly relieve much of the pressure on this discussion but the 14th Amendment should also not be subjected to manipulation or abuse.Time to Think