Citizenship and the Fourteenth Amendment
Senator Lyman Trumbell, a key figure in the drafting and adoption of the Amendment, stated that “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States meant subject to its “complete” jurisdiction, “[n]ot owing allegiance to anybody else.” And Senator Jacob Howard, who introduced the language of the jurisdiction clause on the floor of the Senate, contended that it should be construed to mean “a full and complete jurisdiction,” “the same jurisdiction” requirement as applied under the 1866 Civil Rights Act, which afforded citizenship to “all persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power.” Although the subsequent ratification debates are not very comprehensive, one thing is quite clear: Everyone understood that the Fourteenth Amendment was at least designed to constitutionalize the 1866 Civil Rights Act, with the birthright citizenship caveat that one not be “subject to any foreign power.”