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Disclaimer: The following editorial was written   by Tom G.  Glass, and does not necessarily reflect the views of KHTW Freedom1300 management or its advertisers. 
 

Here is commentary on Trump v Barbara from one of my favorite constitutional scholars, John Eastman.

You should read the entire article, but I consider this to be the money quote:

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"The Reconstruction Congress was not attempting to preserve English constitutionalism. It was completing the work begun in 1776.

 

The Declaration proclaimed that “all men are created equal.” Dred Scott denied that promise, holding that an entire class of Americans could never become members of the political community. The 14th Amendment repudiated that decision. But it did so by restoring the principles of the American Founding, not by reviving the legal doctrines of the British Crown.

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This is why the majority’s repeated description of the Citizenship Clause as “declaratory” does not resolve the question. Declaratory of what? The common law of royal subjectship inherited from England? Or the constitutional law of citizenship that Americans had transformed through the Declaration, the Revolution, and nearly a century of republican self-government?

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The 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868, not 1768. It should therefore be interpreted through the constitutional understandings of the American Republic, not simply those of the British Empire.

The Citizenship Clause provides: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” are citizens. The clause does not simply require birth in the United States. It adds a second requirement: the person must be “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States.

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Those words must do real work.

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The majority effectively equates “subject to the jurisdiction” with “subject to American law.” Anyone physically present in the country, except diplomats and members of sovereign Indian tribes, must obey American law. From that premise, the majority concludes that virtually everyone born here becomes a citizen.

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But the Reconstruction Congress was speaking of something more profound than traffic laws and criminal jurisdiction. It was defining membership in the American political community.

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The debates surrounding the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the 14th Amendment repeatedly invoked the ideas of complete jurisdiction, complete allegiance, and undivided political obligation. Senator Lyman Trumbull, the principal author of the Civil Rights Act, explained that citizenship extended to those who were subject to the complete jurisdiction of the United States—not merely to those temporarily answerable to its laws.

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Every foreign visitor is obliged to obey American law while here. So is every foreign student, every tourist, every diplomat’s driver, and every person who crosses the border unlawfully. But mere obedience to law is not the same thing as complete political allegiance. If it were, the jurisdictional language would add almost nothing to the constitutional text.

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The Civil Rights Act of 1866 used slightly different language, extending citizenship to persons born in the United States and “not subject to any foreign power.” The 14th Amendment altered the phrasing, but not the underlying concept of complete political jurisdiction. The point was not mere geography. It was political membership.

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That is why the dissents have the stronger originalist argument."

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• vatives.