May 5, 2025 • 42 mins
What’s an American? In Part Three, we continue our journey by telling the story of how American citizenship developed. So-called intellectuals claim the early days of American citizenship were based solely on racism. But the truth is, the people of America were primarily concerned with their future survival.
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(01:03):
Previously on Red Pilled America.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
This Protestant movement had taken root throughout Europe and England.
Religious leaders that resisted the Church of England's authority were
either jailed or executed.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
The small group of English separatists were under constant persecution.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
The Mayflower only had room for forty of the separatists.
These separatists would come to be known as the Pilgrims.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
They drafted and signed a document, the Mayflower Compact, agreeing
to form a civil body politic that would create just
and equal laws for the good of the colony.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Twenty thousand Puritans leave England and flood into New England.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
And almost all free citizens of this new United States
left behind their countries of origin forever.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
I'm Patrick Currelchi and I'm Adrianna Cortes.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
And this is Red Pilled America, a storytelling show.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
This is not another talk show covering the day's news.
We're all about telling stories.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
Stories.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Hollywood doesn't want you to hear stories.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
The media mocks stories about everyday Americans at the Globalist Ignore.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
You can think of Red Pilled America as audio documentaries,
and we promise only one thing, the truth. Welcome to
Red Pilled America. As the American Revolution kicked off, the
(02:37):
new nation had a serious problem. It had a hard
time recruiting soldiers. Colonists like Jacob Kons had a lot
to lose. Jacob was born in seventeen forty in the
Colony of Virginia, making him a subject of the English crown.
If he joined the Virginia Militia to fight against the British,
he would be committing high treason, a crime punishable by
(02:59):
a gruesome public death. Jacob had a wife in seven
kids at home, so if he went off and joined
the American Revolution, his family would not only be losing
his presence, but Jacob could also lose his head literally.
We're at part three of our series of episodes entitled
What's an American? We're looking for the answer to that
(03:20):
question by taking a deep dive into the meaning of
American citizenship. So to pick up where we left off
in part two, we told the story of how Protestants
from all over Europe migrated to the New World, leaving
their countries of birth behind forever they settled in the
British colonies with no real way of returning to their
homeland by coming to America. The overwhelming majority either spent
(03:45):
their entire net worth to pay for the trip or
got their travels financed by capitalists looking to profit from
trade in the New World. As a result, the settlers
could not turn back. They had burned the boats behind them.
Their entire lives were now in America. Fast forward today,
and not only can American citizens also be citizens of
(04:06):
other foreign countries, but many refer to themselves with hyphenated
labels like Mexican, American, Japanese American, Italian, American, Jewish American,
Irish American, and so on. After some research, I've learned
that I'm eligible for multiple foreign citizenships. My paternal grandfather
was born in Mexico City, my paternal grandmother in Durango, Mexico.
(04:28):
On my mom's side, my nana was born in Ireland.
It appears this makes me theoretically eligible for citizenship in
both Mexico and Ireland. And I'm putting together the paperwork
to test this theory, which we'll get to before the
end of this series. But if true, it literally would
make me both a Mexican American and an Irish American.
How did this happen? How did this hyphenated American concept
(04:51):
become so prevalent in the country. Well, to understand this phenomenon,
we first need to grasp how citizenship in the United
States of America. Developed. If you listen to today's so
called intellecttion, you'd think that the early days of American
citizenship were based solely on racism. But that is a
grotesque misrepresentation. The truth is, like other persecuted religious groups,
(05:13):
the people of America were primarily concerned with their future survival.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Before the seventeen seventy six Declaration of Independence, the settlers
of the American colonies were not citizens. They were subjects
of the British Crown. The colonies were governed largely by
English common law, which operated under a concept known as
just so lee or right of the soil, a feudal
principle were anyone born within the king's domain owed natural
(05:42):
and perpetual allegiance to the monarch in exchange for the
crown's protection. Once you were born on the king's land,
your allegiance could never be severed. A subject of the
English Crown could not voluntarily renounce being a subject or
pledge loyalty to another sovereign. Under this doctrine, individuals were
considered subject forever. They were not citizens. This was the
(06:06):
way of the British colonies in the New World, but
the American Revolution would flip the table on this concept.
The Declaration of Independence asserted the revolutionary idea that government
derives its legitimacy from the consent of the governed. In essence,
(06:28):
it was a complete rejection of the English doctrine of
perpetual allegiance by birth. It declared the right of the
American people to severtise with the British Crown and form
a new sovereign nation, effectively eliminating the just so lee
right of the soil subject of the Crown relationship that
was imposed on the colonist The founders clearly stated this
(06:50):
in the Declaration of Independence.
Speaker 5 (06:52):
We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America
in General, Congress Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of
the World for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in
the name and by authority of the good people of
these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare that these United Colonies are,
and of right ought to be free and independent states,
(07:15):
that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown,
and that all political connection between them and the State
of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
The founding fathers were wiping the slate clean, creating something new.
Contrary to the propaganda spread by historians at its founding,
the United States of America was not a nation of immigrants.
It was founded by a nation of settlers. To be
an immigrant, you must be traveling to an established land.
These settlers were the ones establishing a new country. Declaring
(08:02):
independent from the English crown was no small act. By
signing the document, the founders were committing high trees and
against the crown, a crime punishable by what was called hanging, drawing,
and quartering. It was a death of the most gruesome kind.
Those sentenced to this capital punishment would first be tied
to a wooden panel and dragged by a horse from
(08:24):
prison to a place of execution. This was meant to
publicly humiliate the trader. The person was then hung by
the neck, but were cut down right before dying. The
goal was to inflict maximum pain while keeping them alive
for what came next. Nearly dead, the condemned were cut
open and their intestines and genitals were removed and burned
(08:47):
in front of them. This part symbolized ending the trader's
ability to reproduce, destroying the bloodline of treason. Only then
was he beheaded. Once finally dead, the body was chopped
into four parts or quartereden displayed in different towns as
a warning to others. This was the punishment American patriots
(09:09):
faced by severing their subject relationship with the Crown. The founders,
no doubt knew this, which is why Benjamin Franklin famously said.
Speaker 6 (09:18):
We must indeed all hang together, or most assuredly, we
shall all hang separately.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
This punishment was part of the English common law, excepted
in the American colonies. The signers of the Constitution were
gentlemen that may have been given a more dignified execution,
like just hanging, but there was no guarantee of mercy.
The founders might have been spared such a gruesome death
that not soldiers like Jacob Kuns.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Jacob was born in Virginia in seventeen forty. His father
migrated to America three years earlier from Missin, a part
of the Holy Roman Empire and what today is Germany.
By being born in the British colony of Virginia, Jacob
Kuhns was a subject of the English Crown. So listed
in the Patriots Lost in the American Revolution, Jacob would
(10:06):
not only have faced execution, but he would have left
his wife and kids destitute. Yet, with all that at risk,
he decided to fight for citizenship. His allegiance was one
hundred percent with the United States. Jacob Kuns would become
a lieutenant in the American Revolution. He was my fourth
great grandfather. With the American Revolution underway, migration to the
(10:28):
new United States of America collapsed. Transatlantic travel was dangerous.
British naval blockades, privateers, and wartime chaos made ocean crossing
extremely risky, and the war wasn't just dangerous physically, it
was also unstable economically. As a result, most migration during
the Revolution was either military like British troops, or internal movement,
(10:51):
people fleeing battle zones or moving to safer frontier areas.
The only significant growth in the national population was through childbirth.
The war dragged on for years, but in October seventeen
eighty one, American General George Washington and French General Rochambeau
surrounded British General Cornwallis in Yorktown, Virginia. After weeks of siege,
(11:17):
the British general had no way out. On October nineteenth,
seventeen eighty one, he surrendered his entire army, about seven
thousand British troops. After the defeat, British Prime Minister Lord North,
who led Britain's war effort in the American colonies, lost
political support. He was forced to resign. The British government
(11:37):
lost the political will to continue. Yorktown was the last
major battle. Peace talks began soon after General Cornwallis's surrender.
The war was effectively over on September third, seventeen eighty three.
The American Revolution officially ended with the signing of the
Treaty of Paris.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
In the immediate aftermath of the revolution, post war instability
and a poor economy led to very slow immigration to
this new country, so defining citizenship was not an immediate concern,
and that was a welcome condition because the founders had
a country to define. In seventeen eighty seven, the Constitutional
Convention drafted the United States Constitution. It was ratified the
(12:23):
following year. The Constitution did not define an American citizen.
It only referred to we, the people and citizens of
the United States. But it did create the United States
Congress and stated that Congress shall quote have power to
establish a uniform rule of naturalization so they went to work.
(12:44):
Congress first passed the Bill of Rights and organized the
federal court system, and then seven years after the end
of the American Revolution, the first United States Congress turned
to naturalization because by then the country was growing by
leaps and bounds. Prior to seventeen ninety, each individual state
had its own rules about who could become a citizen,
(13:08):
and they varied wildly. Generally, most states considered free white
men born in the US to be citizens, but there
was still white indentured servants that were not free and
not given citizenship status. Several states naturalized foreigners easily, while
others were very strict. Some free black people were considered
(13:28):
citizens in a few northern states like Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.
States like Virginia and South Carolina were much stricter, heavily
tying citizenship to race and property, and in the eyes
of the Americans of the time, there was a reason
for this strict approach. The country was made up overwhelmingly
(13:52):
of white Protestants who remembered their religious persecution in Europe.
They were concerned for their survival. We don't know the
precise religious makeup of Americans, and seven veteen seventy six,
there were no surveys done like in modern times. However,
there is one way to get a gauge of the
religiosity of the country, and that's what an analysis of
(14:13):
congregations present at the time of the nation's founding. According
to a nineteen eighty eight study entitled American Religion in
seventeen seventy six, a statistical portrait, ninety eight point one
percent of the church congregations at the time of the
country's birth were Protestant, A small one point seven percent
were a Roman Catholic, only point two percent were Jewish.
(14:37):
In other words, America was a Protestant nation, and for
social cohesion and their own survival, they wanted to keep
it that way. The Protestants of America, no doubt, still
remembered the stories of their ancestors being persecuted, jailed, and worse,
burned at the stake. Making the country safe for them
and their children's children was a paramount priority. But the
(14:59):
problem was the country was growing. At the time I'm
of the ratification of the Constitution in seventeen eighty eight,
there were roughly three million people in the United States,
but in the first census of seventeen ninety, the population
had grown to roughly three point nine million, an almost
thirty three percent growth in just two years. Given the
(15:21):
ancestral history of the settlers, a cultural anxiety was building,
so one of the first jobs of the first United
States Congress after ratifying the Constitution and Bill of Rights,
was to handle naturalization. They wanted to define the American
identity early by establishing a single federal standard to replace
conflicting state rules. They mostly wanted to encourage the immigration
(15:45):
of white European Protestants, and there was a reason for that.
They wanted groups with the same beliefs and traditions as
those that founded the nation. The result of this mission
may on its surface look racial in effect, but the
goal was to attract groups that fit in culturally. So
they passed the Naturalization Act of seventeen ninety, which was
(16:06):
the first federal statute defining eligibility for naturalized citizenship. It
declared that any alien, being a free white person who
had lived in the US for at least two years,
could become a naturalized citizen. The Act required those looking
to become citizens to not only declare loyalty to the US,
(16:27):
but also renounce all foreign allegiances. Their loyalty had to
be one hundred percent with America. They deliberately excluded non
white people like Native Americans, black people, Asians, as well
(16:48):
as enslaved persons and white indentured servants. Historians have characterized
the statute as racist in nature, but the Americans of
the time wanted a functioning, peaceful society. They wanted immigrants
seen and is capable of adopting Republican values meaning self government,
property ownership, and Protestant work ethic. And they thought that
(17:11):
people that came from northern and Western Protestant European countries
as fitting that goal. But a few years after passing
the First Naturalization Act, a crisis arose that caused Congress
to tighten its naturalization requirements.
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(19:06):
Welcome back to Red Pilled America. Inspired by the Americans.
In seventeen eighty nine, the French embarked on their own revolution.
At first, it looked much like the one that created
(19:28):
the United States. They championed the ideas of liberty, natural rights,
popular sovereignty, and government by consent. Like the Americans, the
French commoners rejected the monarchy. Both were triggered by tax
and economic grievances. Both wanted representation. But after its initial phase,
the French Revolution took a much more radical turn. The
(19:51):
people of France wanted not just to sever its relationship
with the monarchy, they wanted to overthrow it and craft
their own. Unlike the Protestant Americans, the French wanted religion
to be pressed. As a result, the violence associated with
the French Revolution was not just between military forces. It
was directed at the clergy and the monarchy. Revolutionaries seized
(20:14):
church land, and mass purges in guillotine justice swept through
the nation. In less than a year, thousands were guillotined,
including nobles, clergy, political moderates, suspected counter revolutionaries, and even
former revolutionaries that fell out of favor. The radicals captured
France's King Louis the sixteenth and as Queen Marie Antoinette.
(20:37):
Both were beheaded. The country would ultimately devolve into a dictatorship.
The leaders of the United States watched as this radical
change overtook France, and the citizens of America became concerned.
Many French and Haitian refugees fleeing the conflicts in their
French territories started making their way to America, and some
(20:58):
began to fear that they brought France's radical ideas with them,
So Congress moved to strengthen the country's naturalization process. It
passed the Naturalization Act of seventeen ninety five, where they
increased the required US residency from two to five years.
They invoked a waiting period by requiring applicants to declare
(21:18):
their intent to become a citizen at least three years
before naturalization. Congress strengthened the Oath of Allegiance, explicitly requiring
all candidates to renounce any hereditary titles of nobility and
what has been remembered. Most from the Act, they added
a good moral Character clause, which was designed to protect
the Republic from foreign radicalism by ensuring immigrants were stable
(21:40):
and loyal to the United States. The Naturalization Act of
seventeen ninety five tightened and clarified citizenship requirements and ultimately
standardized the naturalization process in the courts. There were some
adjustments over the years that followed, but the overall structure
remained the same. Free white persons of good more oral
(22:03):
character that resided in America for at least five years
and renounced all foreign allegiances could become naturalized citizens, but
the federal government had not yet addressed the question of
birthright citizenship. How would the country treat those that were
born in America to non citizens. That question wouldn't be
answered until after a crisis that helped ignite the Civil War.
(22:39):
In eighteen fifty six, one of the most consequential cases
in American history reached the U. S. Supreme Court. A
nearly sixty year old black man named Dred Scott claimed
he was a freeman, and the highest court in America
was asked to decide his fate. Dread Scott was born
into slavery in Virginia around seventeen ninety nine. He was
(23:01):
initially owned by a Virginian Peter Blow. The Blow family
would eventually move west, first to Alabama and then to Missouri,
bringing Scott along with them, but around eighteen thirty two,
the slave owner died. Shortly after his death, the Blow
family sold Dred Scott to a man named doctor John Emerson,
(23:24):
a U. S. Army surgeon. Emerson would eventually take Scott
to Illinois, where slavery was prohibited, and then to Fort
Snelling in Wisconsin Territory, also a free territory under the
Missouri Compromise. While there, Dred Scott married an enslaved woman
named Harriet Robinson, and the couple went on to have
two daughters. In eighteen thirty eight, doctor Emerson moved back
(23:46):
to Missouri, a slave state, and brought the Scott family,
which he owned, along with him. But in December eighteen
forty three, doctor John Emerson died. His widow, Irene Sandford,
inherited the Scotts as part of her late husband's estate,
and this is where the legal struggle began. Dread Scott
reportedly tried to buy his and his family's freedom from
(24:09):
Irene Sandford, but to Scott's horror, Emerson's widow declined to
sell or free the Scots, So in eighteen forty six,
Dread and Harriet Scott sued the widow in Missouri state
court for their freedom, claiming that their time in free
territories like Illinois Wisconsin made them free citizens of the
United States. The Missouri Court ruled in their favor, but
(24:31):
in a sad turn, Emerson's widow appealed the verdict all
the way to the Missouri Supreme Court, which in eighteen
fifty two reversed the lower court's decision, reinstating the Scott's
status as enslaved individuals. The case eventually made its way
to the U. S. Supreme Court, but the Scots had
a problem. You see, of the nine Supreme Court justices,
(24:52):
seven were from slaveholding states or had pro slavery leanings,
and to make matters worse, the Chief Justice, Robert B. Tanney,
was himself a former slaveholder. Once the Court decided to
take the case, it expanded its scope, a bad sign
for the abolitionist movement. The central question the court looked
to address was this, was Dread Scott, a black man
(25:15):
of African descent, a citizen of the United States, therefore
entitled to sue in federal court. This was a threshold issue.
If Scott was not a citizen, the court had no
jurisdiction to even hear the case. In a shocking seven
to two decisions. The Court ultimately ruled that black people,
free or enslaved, were not and could never be citizens,
(25:37):
and thus had no standing to sue in federal court.
And this is where the bias of the Supreme Court
became glaringly obvious. If dread Scott had no legal standing
to sue, the Supreme Court's decision should have ended there.
No other aspect of the case should have had merit, because,
according to the judges, the Court had no jurisdiction over
(25:57):
the case. But the judges in the majority were obviously
looking to expand the interests of this slave states. At
the time trouble was brewing in America. The abolitionists of
the North wanted an end to this so called peculiar institution.
The slaveholding South knew this and looked to use the
friendly Court in their favor. The Court ultimately expanded on
(26:19):
their decision, claiming that dred Scott remained enslaved despite living
on free soil. The Court also found that Congress had
no power to restrict slavery in the territories, but they
didn't stop there. They held that enslaved people were constitutionally
(26:40):
protected property under the Fifth Amendment, and therefore could not
be taken from slaveholders without due process. This meant that
slaveholders could bring their slaves into free territories and courts
would be bound to recognize their status as property. This
potentially opened not only the free territories of Minnesota, Kansas, Nebraska,
(27:00):
and the West to slavery, but also the long established
free states of the North as well. The decision denied
black's access to federal courts and cast doubt on whether
they can legally own property, testifying court, or claim any
constitutional protections whatsoever. In the wake of the decision, former
slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglas expressed his concern over the
(27:23):
Dreadscott decision.
Speaker 7 (27:24):
This infamous decision of the slaveholding wing of the Supreme
Court maintains that slaves are within the contemplation of the
Constitution of the United States property, that slaves are property
in the same sense that horses, sheep, and swine are property.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Douglas called the decision a direct assault on black liberty
and dignity, but he also believed it would galvanize anti
slavery resistance.
Speaker 7 (27:49):
You may close your Supreme Court against the black man's
cry for justice, but you cannot, Thank God, close against
him the ear of a sympathizing world, nor shut up
the court of heaven. All that is merciful and just
on earth and in Heaven will execrate and despise this
edict of tainey.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
The following year, a forty eight year old lawyer named
Abraham Lincoln delivered a speech that came to be known
as a House Divided.
Speaker 6 (28:15):
I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and
half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved.
I do not expect the house to fall, but I
do expect it will cease to be divided.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Lincoln feared that the dread Scott ruling was part of
a broader legal and political plan to make slavery legal nationwide,
even in states that have long banned it.
Speaker 4 (28:40):
Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread
of it and place it where the public mind shall rest,
in the belief that it is in course of ultimate extinction,
or its advocates will push it forward till it shall
become alike lawful in all the states old as well
as New, North as well as South.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Magic eighteen fifty seven dread Scott decision was a sweeping
win for the slaveholding South, and it ignited anger throughout
the abolitionist movement, likely due to the public outcry from
the case. Emerson's widow eventually set dread Scott and his
family free, but the decision set the stage for a
civil war in America, a war that would eventually force
(29:25):
Congress to deal with the issue of birthright citizenship.
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us save America one story at a time. Welcome back
to Red Pilled America. So by the time the Civil
War erupted, the US federal government did not have a
(30:48):
military draft. Enlistment was purely voluntary. Both sides initially relied
on patriotism, local pride, and peer pressure to fill their armies,
but by early eighteen sixty three, voluntary enlistments were plummeting,
and with enormous casualties, both the Union and the Confederacy
needed huge numbers of fresh soldiers to continue fighting. The
(31:15):
Confederacy was the first to act. It passed the first
conscription law in American history. It initially required all white
men aged eighteen to thirty five to serve in the military.
If it were to survive, the Union needed to act
as well, so Congress began very serious deliberations over the
(31:36):
question of who they could compel to take up arms
for the nation. At the time, in addition to the
people that had been living in America for generations, there
were also a significant number of foreign born residents Congress
discussed whether everyone residing in the North could be forced
to enlist. But at the time, places like France and
(31:56):
the German Confederation viewed the French and Germans residing in
America as their subjects. Sign powers claimed that the U
S couldn't compel their subjects in America to fight in
its civil war. They may have been in America for
a while, but because of perpetual allegiance, France and the
German countries still considered them theirs. So Congress had to
(32:19):
decide who was sufficiently American to be compelled to serve
in the military. What they decided was to draft citizens
as well as foreign born immigrants who had filed what
was then known as a declaration of intent to become
a citizen. At the time, there was a very regimented
way immigrants became citizens. Joe Smithenheimer went down to the
(32:41):
local courthouse and swore under oath that they intended to
become a loyal US citizen and intended to sever all
ties of allegiance to any foreign power. Then, after living
in the US continuously for five years, they could file
a petition to become a naturalized citizen of the United States.
So this is where Congress drew the line. It passed
(33:04):
the Enrollment Act of eighteen sixty three, requiring all abled
body male citizens and immigrants who had filed a declaration
of intent to become a citizen could be compelled to
serve in the military. It was these people that the
US federal government felt were subject to its jurisdiction. They
had already sworn an allegiance to America and couldn't claim
(33:24):
that they were subjects of a foreign power because it
had already taken an oath. The Enrollment Act of eighteen
sixty three was the first federal law in US history
that created a national military draft, and it would create
the framework for citizenship in America.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
After the North won the Civil War, Congress enacted the
Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery, but it did not define
American citizenship. With the dread Scott decision still standing as precedent,
millions of formally enslaved people and their descendants hung in
legal limbo. The challenge before Congress was clear, how to
affirmatively undue dread Scott and recognize black Americans as full citizens.
(34:10):
To some lawmakers, the decision was obvious The Enrollment Act
passed just a few years earlier, and it identified immigrants
who had sworn a loyal oath to the United States
and intended to sever all ties of allegiance to a
foreign power. Those were the people that were sufficiently American
to fight and die for the country. Lawmakers like Senator
(34:33):
Lyman Trumbull argued that it was illogical to deny citizenship
to former slaves who had been in the United States
for generations. He believed they had deep rooted ties to
the country. Trumbull emphasized that the US had the authority
to grant citizenship to those born under its jurisdiction, highlighting
(34:56):
the absurdity of considering former slaves as subjects of a
foreign nation. So Congress set out to draft the f
the first civil rights law in US history, with this
principle in mind. But the task was not easy. Congress
was burdened with drafting language that would give birthright citizenship
to formally enslaved blacks without making the language so broad
(35:17):
as to capture other people born in the United States
that lacked full allegiance to the country. Senator Trumbull, who
played a key role in drafting the Act, eventually explained
the evolution behind the language.
Speaker 8 (35:29):
There's difficulty in framing the amendments so as to make
citizens of all people born in the United States and
who owe allegiance to it. But upon investigation, it was
found that a sort of allegiance was due to the
country from persons temporarily resident in who we would have
no right to make citizens, and that form would not answer.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
What Trumbull was saying was that it was hard to
write language that clearly grants citizenship to everyone born in America,
but only if they truly owed a leads to the
United States and not to another country. He observed that
some foreigners who are just visiting or temporarily living in
the United States still owed a kind of temporary or
(36:14):
limited allegiance simply by being under US laws while here,
but that didn't mean that Congress can or should make
them citizens just because they gave birth on US soil.
He ultimately concluded that wording that captured temporary allegiance wouldn't
(36:38):
work for defining citizenship because it would accidentally include people
Congress didn't intend to include. Congress wanted to give birthright
citizenship to people that had a true and full allegiance
to the United States, not just anyone born here by
chance while their foreign parents were temporarily in the country,
and they certainly were not intending to give citizenship to
(36:59):
people that entered illegally. Humble was no legal lightweight. He
was a respected legal mind of the time. Aside from
being one of the primary drafters of the new Civil
Rights Act, it was once an Illinois State Supreme Court justice.
Congress put these concepts into the Civil Rights Act of
eighteen sixty six. It declared all persons born in the
(37:22):
United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding
Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens. Congress
passed the Act over President Andrew Johnson's veto. It was
the first formal legal definition of birthright citizenship in American history.
The Act did not simply adopt the English common law
(37:43):
of just solely or right of the soil. It specifically
rejected defining birthright citizenship solely on the person's place of birth.
It explicitly excluded children of foreign diplomats, native Americans under
tribal authority, and individuals owing allegiance to foreign powers that
were born on American soil. In short, Congress defined citizenship
(38:04):
by allegiance, not just place of birth. The phrase not
subject to any foreign power was understood to mean owing
full and exclusive allegiance to the United States.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
But with reconstruction underway in the wake of the Civil War,
lawmakers were concerned that once Southern states rejoined Congress, they
could either repeal the Civil Rights Act or enact laws
that would undo it. So Congress set out immediately to
constitutionalize the Act with the Fourteenth Amendment. For the citizenship clause,
(38:36):
the Fourteenth Amendment declared all persons born or naturalized in
the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens.
The change in language from the Civil Rights Act was
not a shift in meaning. It was meant to clarify
jurisdictional exclusions, especially concerning Native Americans. Lawmakers debated whether the
(38:59):
Indians not taxed language of the Civil Rights Act might
inadvertently include those who had left tribal life but were
too poor to pay taxes. Congress did not want to
give Indians citizenship. They felt their loyalties were in essence
to a foreign power, that being their tribe. So to
address this, Congress came up with the phrase subject to
(39:21):
jurisdiction thereof. In essence, it meant the same thing as
not subject to any foreign power. Congress wanted the citizenship
clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to require American citizens to
have full allegiance to the United States, just as with
the Civil Rights Act. In fact, Senator Revity Johnson of
Maryland affirmed this when he stated.
Speaker 9 (39:42):
All that this Amendment provides is that all persons born
in the United States and not subject to some foreign power,
shall be considered as citizens of the United States.
Speaker 2 (40:04):
With the Fourteenth Amendment drafted, Congress approached the Southern States
with a demand to rejoin Congress. Each had to abolish slavery,
accept the legitimacy of federal authority, and ratify the Fourteenth Amendment.
On July ninth, eighteen sixty eight, three fourths of the
states ratified it. Dread Scott was finally overruled. The Civil
(40:28):
Rights Act of eighteen sixty six was constitutionalized, and birthright
citizenship was defined. It was clear citizenship was rooted in
allegiance and jurisdiction, not merely birthplace. After nearly one hundred years,
birthright citizenship was defined in America, the country was on
(40:48):
the road to healing, but then an eighteen ninety eight
Supreme Court decision would give future open borders advocates the
crack they needed to change the meaning of American citizenship.
Speaker 3 (41:02):
Coming up on Red Pilled America, the case I think
thus presents squarely the issue of constitutional power of Congress
in this area.
Speaker 10 (41:13):
Stated specifically, the issue is this, may Congress declare that
a native born American citizen shall forfeit that citizenship and
be deported from the United States if he votes in
a foreign political election or if he remains out of
the United States to avoid military service.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
Red Pilled America is an iHeartRadio original podcast. It's owned
and produced by Patrick Carrelci and me Adrianna Portez for
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Speaker 4 (42:03):
At LA
This is Red Pilled America.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
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(01:03):
Previously on Red Pilled America.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
This Protestant movement had taken root throughout Europe and England.
Religious leaders that resisted the Church of England's authority were
either jailed or executed.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
The small group of English separatists were under constant persecution.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
The Mayflower only had room for forty of the separatists.
These separatists would come to be known as the Pilgrims.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
They drafted and signed a document, the Mayflower Compact, agreeing
to form a civil body politic that would create just
and equal laws for the good of the colony.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Twenty thousand Puritans leave England and flood into New England.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
And almost all free citizens of this new United States
left behind their countries of origin forever.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
I'm Patrick Currelchi and I'm Adrianna Cortes.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
And this is Red Pilled America, a storytelling show.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
This is not another talk show covering the day's news.
We're all about telling stories.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
Stories.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Hollywood doesn't want you to hear stories.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
The media mocks stories about everyday Americans at the Globalist Ignore.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
You can think of Red Pilled America as audio documentaries,
and we promise only one thing, the truth. Welcome to
Red Pilled America. As the American Revolution kicked off, the
(02:37):
new nation had a serious problem. It had a hard
time recruiting soldiers. Colonists like Jacob Kons had a lot
to lose. Jacob was born in seventeen forty in the
Colony of Virginia, making him a subject of the English crown.
If he joined the Virginia Militia to fight against the British,
he would be committing high treason, a crime punishable by
(02:59):
a gruesome public death. Jacob had a wife in seven
kids at home, so if he went off and joined
the American Revolution, his family would not only be losing
his presence, but Jacob could also lose his head literally.
We're at part three of our series of episodes entitled
What's an American? We're looking for the answer to that
(03:20):
question by taking a deep dive into the meaning of
American citizenship. So to pick up where we left off
in part two, we told the story of how Protestants
from all over Europe migrated to the New World, leaving
their countries of birth behind forever they settled in the
British colonies with no real way of returning to their
homeland by coming to America. The overwhelming majority either spent
(03:45):
their entire net worth to pay for the trip or
got their travels financed by capitalists looking to profit from
trade in the New World. As a result, the settlers
could not turn back. They had burned the boats behind them.
Their entire lives were now in America. Fast forward today,
and not only can American citizens also be citizens of
(04:06):
other foreign countries, but many refer to themselves with hyphenated
labels like Mexican, American, Japanese American, Italian, American, Jewish American,
Irish American, and so on. After some research, I've learned
that I'm eligible for multiple foreign citizenships. My paternal grandfather
was born in Mexico City, my paternal grandmother in Durango, Mexico.
(04:28):
On my mom's side, my nana was born in Ireland.
It appears this makes me theoretically eligible for citizenship in
both Mexico and Ireland. And I'm putting together the paperwork
to test this theory, which we'll get to before the
end of this series. But if true, it literally would
make me both a Mexican American and an Irish American.
How did this happen? How did this hyphenated American concept
(04:51):
become so prevalent in the country. Well, to understand this phenomenon,
we first need to grasp how citizenship in the United
States of America. Developed. If you listen to today's so
called intellecttion, you'd think that the early days of American
citizenship were based solely on racism. But that is a
grotesque misrepresentation. The truth is, like other persecuted religious groups,
(05:13):
the people of America were primarily concerned with their future survival.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Before the seventeen seventy six Declaration of Independence, the settlers
of the American colonies were not citizens. They were subjects
of the British Crown. The colonies were governed largely by
English common law, which operated under a concept known as
just so lee or right of the soil, a feudal
principle were anyone born within the king's domain owed natural
(05:42):
and perpetual allegiance to the monarch in exchange for the
crown's protection. Once you were born on the king's land,
your allegiance could never be severed. A subject of the
English Crown could not voluntarily renounce being a subject or
pledge loyalty to another sovereign. Under this doctrine, individuals were
considered subject forever. They were not citizens. This was the
(06:06):
way of the British colonies in the New World, but
the American Revolution would flip the table on this concept.
The Declaration of Independence asserted the revolutionary idea that government
derives its legitimacy from the consent of the governed. In essence,
(06:28):
it was a complete rejection of the English doctrine of
perpetual allegiance by birth. It declared the right of the
American people to severtise with the British Crown and form
a new sovereign nation, effectively eliminating the just so lee
right of the soil subject of the Crown relationship that
was imposed on the colonist The founders clearly stated this
(06:50):
in the Declaration of Independence.
Speaker 5 (06:52):
We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America
in General, Congress Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of
the World for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in
the name and by authority of the good people of
these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare that these United Colonies are,
and of right ought to be free and independent states,
(07:15):
that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown,
and that all political connection between them and the State
of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
The founding fathers were wiping the slate clean, creating something new.
Contrary to the propaganda spread by historians at its founding,
the United States of America was not a nation of immigrants.
It was founded by a nation of settlers. To be
an immigrant, you must be traveling to an established land.
These settlers were the ones establishing a new country. Declaring
(08:02):
independent from the English crown was no small act. By
signing the document, the founders were committing high trees and
against the crown, a crime punishable by what was called hanging, drawing,
and quartering. It was a death of the most gruesome kind.
Those sentenced to this capital punishment would first be tied
to a wooden panel and dragged by a horse from
(08:24):
prison to a place of execution. This was meant to
publicly humiliate the trader. The person was then hung by
the neck, but were cut down right before dying. The
goal was to inflict maximum pain while keeping them alive
for what came next. Nearly dead, the condemned were cut
open and their intestines and genitals were removed and burned
(08:47):
in front of them. This part symbolized ending the trader's
ability to reproduce, destroying the bloodline of treason. Only then
was he beheaded. Once finally dead, the body was chopped
into four parts or quartereden displayed in different towns as
a warning to others. This was the punishment American patriots
(09:09):
faced by severing their subject relationship with the Crown. The founders,
no doubt knew this, which is why Benjamin Franklin famously said.
Speaker 6 (09:18):
We must indeed all hang together, or most assuredly, we
shall all hang separately.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
This punishment was part of the English common law, excepted
in the American colonies. The signers of the Constitution were
gentlemen that may have been given a more dignified execution,
like just hanging, but there was no guarantee of mercy.
The founders might have been spared such a gruesome death
that not soldiers like Jacob Kuns.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Jacob was born in Virginia in seventeen forty. His father
migrated to America three years earlier from Missin, a part
of the Holy Roman Empire and what today is Germany.
By being born in the British colony of Virginia, Jacob
Kuhns was a subject of the English Crown. So listed
in the Patriots Lost in the American Revolution, Jacob would
(10:06):
not only have faced execution, but he would have left
his wife and kids destitute. Yet, with all that at risk,
he decided to fight for citizenship. His allegiance was one
hundred percent with the United States. Jacob Kuns would become
a lieutenant in the American Revolution. He was my fourth
great grandfather. With the American Revolution underway, migration to the
(10:28):
new United States of America collapsed. Transatlantic travel was dangerous.
British naval blockades, privateers, and wartime chaos made ocean crossing
extremely risky, and the war wasn't just dangerous physically, it
was also unstable economically. As a result, most migration during
the Revolution was either military like British troops, or internal movement,
(10:51):
people fleeing battle zones or moving to safer frontier areas.
The only significant growth in the national population was through childbirth.
The war dragged on for years, but in October seventeen
eighty one, American General George Washington and French General Rochambeau
surrounded British General Cornwallis in Yorktown, Virginia. After weeks of siege,
(11:17):
the British general had no way out. On October nineteenth,
seventeen eighty one, he surrendered his entire army, about seven
thousand British troops. After the defeat, British Prime Minister Lord North,
who led Britain's war effort in the American colonies, lost
political support. He was forced to resign. The British government
(11:37):
lost the political will to continue. Yorktown was the last
major battle. Peace talks began soon after General Cornwallis's surrender.
The war was effectively over on September third, seventeen eighty three.
The American Revolution officially ended with the signing of the
Treaty of Paris.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
In the immediate aftermath of the revolution, post war instability
and a poor economy led to very slow immigration to
this new country, so defining citizenship was not an immediate concern,
and that was a welcome condition because the founders had
a country to define. In seventeen eighty seven, the Constitutional
Convention drafted the United States Constitution. It was ratified the
(12:23):
following year. The Constitution did not define an American citizen.
It only referred to we, the people and citizens of
the United States. But it did create the United States
Congress and stated that Congress shall quote have power to
establish a uniform rule of naturalization so they went to work.
(12:44):
Congress first passed the Bill of Rights and organized the
federal court system, and then seven years after the end
of the American Revolution, the first United States Congress turned
to naturalization because by then the country was growing by
leaps and bounds. Prior to seventeen ninety, each individual state
had its own rules about who could become a citizen,
(13:08):
and they varied wildly. Generally, most states considered free white
men born in the US to be citizens, but there
was still white indentured servants that were not free and
not given citizenship status. Several states naturalized foreigners easily, while
others were very strict. Some free black people were considered
(13:28):
citizens in a few northern states like Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.
States like Virginia and South Carolina were much stricter, heavily
tying citizenship to race and property, and in the eyes
of the Americans of the time, there was a reason
for this strict approach. The country was made up overwhelmingly
(13:52):
of white Protestants who remembered their religious persecution in Europe.
They were concerned for their survival. We don't know the
precise religious makeup of Americans, and seven veteen seventy six,
there were no surveys done like in modern times. However,
there is one way to get a gauge of the
religiosity of the country, and that's what an analysis of
(14:13):
congregations present at the time of the nation's founding. According
to a nineteen eighty eight study entitled American Religion in
seventeen seventy six, a statistical portrait, ninety eight point one
percent of the church congregations at the time of the
country's birth were Protestant, A small one point seven percent
were a Roman Catholic, only point two percent were Jewish.
(14:37):
In other words, America was a Protestant nation, and for
social cohesion and their own survival, they wanted to keep
it that way. The Protestants of America, no doubt, still
remembered the stories of their ancestors being persecuted, jailed, and worse,
burned at the stake. Making the country safe for them
and their children's children was a paramount priority. But the
(14:59):
problem was the country was growing. At the time I'm
of the ratification of the Constitution in seventeen eighty eight,
there were roughly three million people in the United States,
but in the first census of seventeen ninety, the population
had grown to roughly three point nine million, an almost
thirty three percent growth in just two years. Given the
(15:21):
ancestral history of the settlers, a cultural anxiety was building,
so one of the first jobs of the first United
States Congress after ratifying the Constitution and Bill of Rights,
was to handle naturalization. They wanted to define the American
identity early by establishing a single federal standard to replace
conflicting state rules. They mostly wanted to encourage the immigration
(15:45):
of white European Protestants, and there was a reason for that.
They wanted groups with the same beliefs and traditions as
those that founded the nation. The result of this mission
may on its surface look racial in effect, but the
goal was to attract groups that fit in culturally. So
they passed the Naturalization Act of seventeen ninety, which was
(16:06):
the first federal statute defining eligibility for naturalized citizenship. It
declared that any alien, being a free white person who
had lived in the US for at least two years,
could become a naturalized citizen. The Act required those looking
to become citizens to not only declare loyalty to the US,
(16:27):
but also renounce all foreign allegiances. Their loyalty had to
be one hundred percent with America. They deliberately excluded non
white people like Native Americans, black people, Asians, as well
(16:48):
as enslaved persons and white indentured servants. Historians have characterized
the statute as racist in nature, but the Americans of
the time wanted a functioning, peaceful society. They wanted immigrants
seen and is capable of adopting Republican values meaning self government,
property ownership, and Protestant work ethic. And they thought that
(17:11):
people that came from northern and Western Protestant European countries
as fitting that goal. But a few years after passing
the First Naturalization Act, a crisis arose that caused Congress
to tighten its naturalization requirements.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
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(19:06):
Welcome back to Red Pilled America. Inspired by the Americans.
In seventeen eighty nine, the French embarked on their own revolution.
At first, it looked much like the one that created
(19:28):
the United States. They championed the ideas of liberty, natural rights,
popular sovereignty, and government by consent. Like the Americans, the
French commoners rejected the monarchy. Both were triggered by tax
and economic grievances. Both wanted representation. But after its initial phase,
the French Revolution took a much more radical turn. The
(19:51):
people of France wanted not just to sever its relationship
with the monarchy, they wanted to overthrow it and craft
their own. Unlike the Protestant Americans, the French wanted religion
to be pressed. As a result, the violence associated with
the French Revolution was not just between military forces. It
was directed at the clergy and the monarchy. Revolutionaries seized
(20:14):
church land, and mass purges in guillotine justice swept through
the nation. In less than a year, thousands were guillotined,
including nobles, clergy, political moderates, suspected counter revolutionaries, and even
former revolutionaries that fell out of favor. The radicals captured
France's King Louis the sixteenth and as Queen Marie Antoinette.
(20:37):
Both were beheaded. The country would ultimately devolve into a dictatorship.
The leaders of the United States watched as this radical
change overtook France, and the citizens of America became concerned.
Many French and Haitian refugees fleeing the conflicts in their
French territories started making their way to America, and some
(20:58):
began to fear that they brought France's radical ideas with them,
So Congress moved to strengthen the country's naturalization process. It
passed the Naturalization Act of seventeen ninety five, where they
increased the required US residency from two to five years.
They invoked a waiting period by requiring applicants to declare
(21:18):
their intent to become a citizen at least three years
before naturalization. Congress strengthened the Oath of Allegiance, explicitly requiring
all candidates to renounce any hereditary titles of nobility and
what has been remembered. Most from the Act, they added
a good moral Character clause, which was designed to protect
the Republic from foreign radicalism by ensuring immigrants were stable
(21:40):
and loyal to the United States. The Naturalization Act of
seventeen ninety five tightened and clarified citizenship requirements and ultimately
standardized the naturalization process in the courts. There were some
adjustments over the years that followed, but the overall structure
remained the same. Free white persons of good more oral
(22:03):
character that resided in America for at least five years
and renounced all foreign allegiances could become naturalized citizens, but
the federal government had not yet addressed the question of
birthright citizenship. How would the country treat those that were
born in America to non citizens. That question wouldn't be
answered until after a crisis that helped ignite the Civil War.
(22:39):
In eighteen fifty six, one of the most consequential cases
in American history reached the U. S. Supreme Court. A
nearly sixty year old black man named Dred Scott claimed
he was a freeman, and the highest court in America
was asked to decide his fate. Dread Scott was born
into slavery in Virginia around seventeen ninety nine. He was
(23:01):
initially owned by a Virginian Peter Blow. The Blow family
would eventually move west, first to Alabama and then to Missouri,
bringing Scott along with them, but around eighteen thirty two,
the slave owner died. Shortly after his death, the Blow
family sold Dred Scott to a man named doctor John Emerson,
(23:24):
a U. S. Army surgeon. Emerson would eventually take Scott
to Illinois, where slavery was prohibited, and then to Fort
Snelling in Wisconsin Territory, also a free territory under the
Missouri Compromise. While there, Dred Scott married an enslaved woman
named Harriet Robinson, and the couple went on to have
two daughters. In eighteen thirty eight, doctor Emerson moved back
(23:46):
to Missouri, a slave state, and brought the Scott family,
which he owned, along with him. But in December eighteen
forty three, doctor John Emerson died. His widow, Irene Sandford,
inherited the Scotts as part of her late husband's estate,
and this is where the legal struggle began. Dread Scott
reportedly tried to buy his and his family's freedom from
(24:09):
Irene Sandford, but to Scott's horror, Emerson's widow declined to
sell or free the Scots, So in eighteen forty six,
Dread and Harriet Scott sued the widow in Missouri state
court for their freedom, claiming that their time in free
territories like Illinois Wisconsin made them free citizens of the
United States. The Missouri Court ruled in their favor, but
(24:31):
in a sad turn, Emerson's widow appealed the verdict all
the way to the Missouri Supreme Court, which in eighteen
fifty two reversed the lower court's decision, reinstating the Scott's
status as enslaved individuals. The case eventually made its way
to the U. S. Supreme Court, but the Scots had
a problem. You see, of the nine Supreme Court justices,
(24:52):
seven were from slaveholding states or had pro slavery leanings,
and to make matters worse, the Chief Justice, Robert B. Tanney,
was himself a former slaveholder. Once the Court decided to
take the case, it expanded its scope, a bad sign
for the abolitionist movement. The central question the court looked
to address was this, was Dread Scott, a black man
(25:15):
of African descent, a citizen of the United States, therefore
entitled to sue in federal court. This was a threshold issue.
If Scott was not a citizen, the court had no
jurisdiction to even hear the case. In a shocking seven
to two decisions. The Court ultimately ruled that black people,
free or enslaved, were not and could never be citizens,
(25:37):
and thus had no standing to sue in federal court.
And this is where the bias of the Supreme Court
became glaringly obvious. If dread Scott had no legal standing
to sue, the Supreme Court's decision should have ended there.
No other aspect of the case should have had merit, because,
according to the judges, the Court had no jurisdiction over
(25:57):
the case. But the judges in the majority were obviously
looking to expand the interests of this slave states. At
the time trouble was brewing in America. The abolitionists of
the North wanted an end to this so called peculiar institution.
The slaveholding South knew this and looked to use the
friendly Court in their favor. The Court ultimately expanded on
(26:19):
their decision, claiming that dred Scott remained enslaved despite living
on free soil. The Court also found that Congress had
no power to restrict slavery in the territories, but they
didn't stop there. They held that enslaved people were constitutionally
(26:40):
protected property under the Fifth Amendment, and therefore could not
be taken from slaveholders without due process. This meant that
slaveholders could bring their slaves into free territories and courts
would be bound to recognize their status as property. This
potentially opened not only the free territories of Minnesota, Kansas, Nebraska,
(27:00):
and the West to slavery, but also the long established
free states of the North as well. The decision denied
black's access to federal courts and cast doubt on whether
they can legally own property, testifying court, or claim any
constitutional protections whatsoever. In the wake of the decision, former
slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglas expressed his concern over the
(27:23):
Dreadscott decision.
Speaker 7 (27:24):
This infamous decision of the slaveholding wing of the Supreme
Court maintains that slaves are within the contemplation of the
Constitution of the United States property, that slaves are property
in the same sense that horses, sheep, and swine are property.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Douglas called the decision a direct assault on black liberty
and dignity, but he also believed it would galvanize anti
slavery resistance.
Speaker 7 (27:49):
You may close your Supreme Court against the black man's
cry for justice, but you cannot, Thank God, close against
him the ear of a sympathizing world, nor shut up
the court of heaven. All that is merciful and just
on earth and in Heaven will execrate and despise this
edict of tainey.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
The following year, a forty eight year old lawyer named
Abraham Lincoln delivered a speech that came to be known
as a House Divided.
Speaker 6 (28:15):
I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and
half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved.
I do not expect the house to fall, but I
do expect it will cease to be divided.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Lincoln feared that the dread Scott ruling was part of
a broader legal and political plan to make slavery legal nationwide,
even in states that have long banned it.
Speaker 4 (28:40):
Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread
of it and place it where the public mind shall rest,
in the belief that it is in course of ultimate extinction,
or its advocates will push it forward till it shall
become alike lawful in all the states old as well
as New, North as well as South.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Magic eighteen fifty seven dread Scott decision was a sweeping
win for the slaveholding South, and it ignited anger throughout
the abolitionist movement, likely due to the public outcry from
the case. Emerson's widow eventually set dread Scott and his
family free, but the decision set the stage for a
civil war in America, a war that would eventually force
(29:25):
Congress to deal with the issue of birthright citizenship.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
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(30:25):
to hear red Pilled America stories? Ad Free then become
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us save America one story at a time. Welcome back
to Red Pilled America. So by the time the Civil
War erupted, the US federal government did not have a
(30:48):
military draft. Enlistment was purely voluntary. Both sides initially relied
on patriotism, local pride, and peer pressure to fill their armies,
but by early eighteen sixty three, voluntary enlistments were plummeting,
and with enormous casualties, both the Union and the Confederacy
needed huge numbers of fresh soldiers to continue fighting. The
(31:15):
Confederacy was the first to act. It passed the first
conscription law in American history. It initially required all white
men aged eighteen to thirty five to serve in the military.
If it were to survive, the Union needed to act
as well, so Congress began very serious deliberations over the
(31:36):
question of who they could compel to take up arms
for the nation. At the time, in addition to the
people that had been living in America for generations, there
were also a significant number of foreign born residents Congress
discussed whether everyone residing in the North could be forced
to enlist. But at the time, places like France and
(31:56):
the German Confederation viewed the French and Germans residing in
America as their subjects. Sign powers claimed that the U
S couldn't compel their subjects in America to fight in
its civil war. They may have been in America for
a while, but because of perpetual allegiance, France and the
German countries still considered them theirs. So Congress had to
(32:19):
decide who was sufficiently American to be compelled to serve
in the military. What they decided was to draft citizens
as well as foreign born immigrants who had filed what
was then known as a declaration of intent to become
a citizen. At the time, there was a very regimented
way immigrants became citizens. Joe Smithenheimer went down to the
(32:41):
local courthouse and swore under oath that they intended to
become a loyal US citizen and intended to sever all
ties of allegiance to any foreign power. Then, after living
in the US continuously for five years, they could file
a petition to become a naturalized citizen of the United States.
So this is where Congress drew the line. It passed
(33:04):
the Enrollment Act of eighteen sixty three, requiring all abled
body male citizens and immigrants who had filed a declaration
of intent to become a citizen could be compelled to
serve in the military. It was these people that the
US federal government felt were subject to its jurisdiction. They
had already sworn an allegiance to America and couldn't claim
(33:24):
that they were subjects of a foreign power because it
had already taken an oath. The Enrollment Act of eighteen
sixty three was the first federal law in US history
that created a national military draft, and it would create
the framework for citizenship in America.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
After the North won the Civil War, Congress enacted the
Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery, but it did not define
American citizenship. With the dread Scott decision still standing as precedent,
millions of formally enslaved people and their descendants hung in
legal limbo. The challenge before Congress was clear, how to
affirmatively undue dread Scott and recognize black Americans as full citizens.
(34:10):
To some lawmakers, the decision was obvious The Enrollment Act
passed just a few years earlier, and it identified immigrants
who had sworn a loyal oath to the United States
and intended to sever all ties of allegiance to a
foreign power. Those were the people that were sufficiently American
to fight and die for the country. Lawmakers like Senator
(34:33):
Lyman Trumbull argued that it was illogical to deny citizenship
to former slaves who had been in the United States
for generations. He believed they had deep rooted ties to
the country. Trumbull emphasized that the US had the authority
to grant citizenship to those born under its jurisdiction, highlighting
(34:56):
the absurdity of considering former slaves as subjects of a
foreign nation. So Congress set out to draft the f
the first civil rights law in US history, with this
principle in mind. But the task was not easy. Congress
was burdened with drafting language that would give birthright citizenship
to formally enslaved blacks without making the language so broad
(35:17):
as to capture other people born in the United States
that lacked full allegiance to the country. Senator Trumbull, who
played a key role in drafting the Act, eventually explained
the evolution behind the language.
Speaker 8 (35:29):
There's difficulty in framing the amendments so as to make
citizens of all people born in the United States and
who owe allegiance to it. But upon investigation, it was
found that a sort of allegiance was due to the
country from persons temporarily resident in who we would have
no right to make citizens, and that form would not answer.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
What Trumbull was saying was that it was hard to
write language that clearly grants citizenship to everyone born in America,
but only if they truly owed a leads to the
United States and not to another country. He observed that
some foreigners who are just visiting or temporarily living in
the United States still owed a kind of temporary or
(36:14):
limited allegiance simply by being under US laws while here,
but that didn't mean that Congress can or should make
them citizens just because they gave birth on US soil.
He ultimately concluded that wording that captured temporary allegiance wouldn't
(36:38):
work for defining citizenship because it would accidentally include people
Congress didn't intend to include. Congress wanted to give birthright
citizenship to people that had a true and full allegiance
to the United States, not just anyone born here by
chance while their foreign parents were temporarily in the country,
and they certainly were not intending to give citizenship to
(36:59):
people that entered illegally. Humble was no legal lightweight. He
was a respected legal mind of the time. Aside from
being one of the primary drafters of the new Civil
Rights Act, it was once an Illinois State Supreme Court justice.
Congress put these concepts into the Civil Rights Act of
eighteen sixty six. It declared all persons born in the
(37:22):
United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding
Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens. Congress
passed the Act over President Andrew Johnson's veto. It was
the first formal legal definition of birthright citizenship in American history.
The Act did not simply adopt the English common law
(37:43):
of just solely or right of the soil. It specifically
rejected defining birthright citizenship solely on the person's place of birth.
It explicitly excluded children of foreign diplomats, native Americans under
tribal authority, and individuals owing allegiance to foreign powers that
were born on American soil. In short, Congress defined citizenship
(38:04):
by allegiance, not just place of birth. The phrase not
subject to any foreign power was understood to mean owing
full and exclusive allegiance to the United States.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
But with reconstruction underway in the wake of the Civil War,
lawmakers were concerned that once Southern states rejoined Congress, they
could either repeal the Civil Rights Act or enact laws
that would undo it. So Congress set out immediately to
constitutionalize the Act with the Fourteenth Amendment. For the citizenship clause,
(38:36):
the Fourteenth Amendment declared all persons born or naturalized in
the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens.
The change in language from the Civil Rights Act was
not a shift in meaning. It was meant to clarify
jurisdictional exclusions, especially concerning Native Americans. Lawmakers debated whether the
(38:59):
Indians not taxed language of the Civil Rights Act might
inadvertently include those who had left tribal life but were
too poor to pay taxes. Congress did not want to
give Indians citizenship. They felt their loyalties were in essence
to a foreign power, that being their tribe. So to
address this, Congress came up with the phrase subject to
(39:21):
jurisdiction thereof. In essence, it meant the same thing as
not subject to any foreign power. Congress wanted the citizenship
clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to require American citizens to
have full allegiance to the United States, just as with
the Civil Rights Act. In fact, Senator Revity Johnson of
Maryland affirmed this when he stated.
Speaker 9 (39:42):
All that this Amendment provides is that all persons born
in the United States and not subject to some foreign power,
shall be considered as citizens of the United States.
Speaker 2 (40:04):
With the Fourteenth Amendment drafted, Congress approached the Southern States
with a demand to rejoin Congress. Each had to abolish slavery,
accept the legitimacy of federal authority, and ratify the Fourteenth Amendment.
On July ninth, eighteen sixty eight, three fourths of the
states ratified it. Dread Scott was finally overruled. The Civil
(40:28):
Rights Act of eighteen sixty six was constitutionalized, and birthright
citizenship was defined. It was clear citizenship was rooted in
allegiance and jurisdiction, not merely birthplace. After nearly one hundred years,
birthright citizenship was defined in America, the country was on
(40:48):
the road to healing, but then an eighteen ninety eight
Supreme Court decision would give future open borders advocates the
crack they needed to change the meaning of American citizenship.
Speaker 3 (41:02):
Coming up on Red Pilled America, the case I think
thus presents squarely the issue of constitutional power of Congress
in this area.
Speaker 10 (41:13):
Stated specifically, the issue is this, may Congress declare that
a native born American citizen shall forfeit that citizenship and
be deported from the United States if he votes in
a foreign political election or if he remains out of
the United States to avoid military service.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
Red Pilled America is an iHeartRadio original podcast. It's owned
and produced by Patrick Carrelci and me Adrianna Portez for
Informed Ventures. Now you can get ad free access to
our entire catalog of episodes by becoming a backstage subscriber.
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Speaker 4 (42:03):
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