Speech #550148514

The Supreme Court in that case not only decided that the child of Chinese parents born in this country becomes a citizen. but that Congress can not take away the right of citizenship conferred by the Constitution on account of birth. If this is not settled by adjudication. nothing can be settled by the Supreme Court of the United States. The fourteenth amendment. as I was proceeding to say. provides that all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction are citizens of the United States and of the State in which they reside. When. then. we take jurisdiction over millions of acres of what is now foreign soil and bring under our jurisdiction millions of human beings. whatever may be the case as to the citizenship of the older inhabitants of those areas. their children born under the jurisdiction of the United States become citizens. entitled to all the immunities and privileges of citizenship. If this amendment does not provide this. it is absolutely nugatory and void. If that is not one result of the war crystallized in the Constitution for all time and beyond question. then the results of that struggle are entirely misunderstood by the people of the United States and the world. The fifteenth amendment provides that all citizens shall be entitled to the right of suffrage. being supplementary to the fourteenth amendment. which provides that all persons born and naturalized in this country. and subject to its jurisdiction. shall be citizens. obviously intending to exclude the children of ambassadors and of persons in transit through the country. as. for instance. in going from Mexico to Canada. when children are born en route. The words "and subject to its jurisdiction" apply to that class of persons. but except such children and the Indians. it was unquestionably the intention of the framers of this amendment and of the States which adopted it that American citizenship should apply to all the inhabitants of our common country. But.