The first clause of this [14th] Amendment determines who are citizens of the United States, and how their citizenship is created. Before its enactment there was much diversity of opinion among jurists and statesmen whether there was any such citizenship independent of that of the State, and, if any existed, as to the manner in which it originated. With a great number the opinion prevailed that there was no such citizenship independent of the citizenship of the State. Such was the opinion of Mr. Calhoun and the class represented by him. In his celebrated speech in the Senate upon the Force Bill, in 1833, referring to the reliance expressed by a Senator upon the fact that we are citizens of the United States, he said: "If, by citizen of the United States he means a citizen at large, one whose citizenship extends to the entire geographical limits of the country without having a local citizenship in some State or territory, a sort of citizen of the world, all I have to say is that such a citizen would be a perfect nondescript; that not a single individual of this description can be found in the entire mass of our population. Notwithstanding all the pomp and display of eloquence on the occasion, every citizen is a citizen of some State or Territory, and as such, under an express provision of the Constitution, is entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and it is in this and no other sense that we are citizens of the United States." [Slaughter House Cases, 83 U.S. 36 (page 414)] [16 Wall. 36, 21 L.Ed. 394 (1872)] [Field dissent, emphasis added] Paul Mitchell comments: The House Congressional Record for June 13, 1967, contains all the documentation you need to prove that the so-called 14th Amendment was never ratified into law (see page 15641 et seq.). For example, it itemizes all States which voted against the proposed amendment, and the precise dates when their Legislatures did so. "I cannot believe that any court, in full possession of its faculties, could honestly hold that the amendment was properly approved and adopted." State v. Phillips, 540 P.2d. 936, 941 (1975). The Utah Supreme Court has detailed the shocking and sordid history of the 14th Amendment's "adoption" in the case of Dyett v. Turner, 439 P.2d 266, 272 (1968). # # #
Return to Table of Contents for
Slaughter House Cases