1173
In general 1173
Section 4. Public debt, etc. 1174
Section 5. Enforcement 1175
Scope of the provision 1175

RIGHTS OF CITIZENS

Amendment 14

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United
States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the
United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make
or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of
citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any
person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Citizens of the United States

KIND AND SOURCES OF CITIZENSHIP

There are three categories of persons who, if subject to the
jurisdiction of the United States, are citizens thereof: (1) those who
are born citizens, of whom there are two classes, those who are born in
the United States and those who are born abroad of American parentage;
(2) those who achieve citizenship by qualifying for it in accordance
with the naturalization statutes; (3) those who have citizenship thrust
upon them, such as the members of certain Indian tribes and the
inhabitants of certain dependencies of the United States. In the present
connection we are interested in those who are citizens by virtue of
birth in the United States.[1]

HISTORY

In the famous Dred Scott Case,[2] Chief Justice Taney had ruled that
United States citizenship was enjoyed by two classes of individuals: (1)
white persons born in the United States as descendants of "persons, who
were at the time of the adoption of the Constitution recognized as
citizens in the several States and [who] became also citizens of this
new political body," the United States of America, and (2) those who,
having been "born outside the dominions of the United States," had
migrated thereto and been naturalized therein. The States were
competent, he conceded, to confer State citizenship upon anyone in their
midst, but could not make the recipient of such status a citizen of the
United States. The Negro, however, according to the Chief Justice, was
ineligible to attain United States citizenship either from a State or by
virtue of birth in the United States, even as a free man descended