ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION - Birthright Citizenship | Eastern North Carolina Now

    APPENDIX:

    I. US CONSTITUTION, Article I, Section 8:

    The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

    To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

    To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

    To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

    To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

    To establish Post Offices and Post Roads;

    To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

    To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;

    To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;

    To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;


    To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

    To provide and maintain a Navy;

    To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

    To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

    To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

    II. 14th AMENDMENT, 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.

    III. DRED SCOTT case - Facts of the Case and Judicial History

    Dred Scott was born into slavery circa 1799 in Southampton County, Virginia. It is not clear whether Dred was his given name or a shortened form of Etheldred. In 1818, Peter Blow and his family took their six slaves to Alabama, where the family ran an unsuccessful farm in a location near Huntsville that is now occupied by Oakwood University. The Blows gave up farming in 1830 and moved to St. Louis, Missouri, where they ran a boarding house. Dred Scott was sold to Dr. John Emerson, a surgeon serving in the United States Army. After Scott learned he would be sold to Dr. Emerson and relocated to Rock Island, Illinois, he attempted to run away. His decision to do so was spurred by a distaste he had previously developed for Dr. Emerson. Scott was temporarily successful in his escape as he, much like many other runaway slaves during this time period, "never tried to distance his pursuers, but dodged around among his fellow slaves as long as possible."

    Eventually, he was captured in the "Lucas Swamps" of Missouri and taken back. Blow died in 1832, and historians debate whether Scott was sold to Emerson before or after Blow's death. Some believe that Scott was sold in 1831, while others point to a number of slaves in Blow's estate who were sold to Emerson after Blow's death, including one with a name given as Sam, who may be the same person as Scott.

    As an army officer, Dr. Emerson moved frequently, taking Scott with him to each new army posting. In 1836, Emerson and Scott went to Fort Armstrong, in the free state of Illinois. In 1837, Emerson took Scott to Fort Snelling, in what is now the state of Minnesota and was then in the free territory of Wisconsin. There, Scott met and married Harriet Robinson, a slave owned by Lawrence Taliaferro. The marriage was formalized in a civil ceremony presided over by Taliaferro, who was a justice of the peace. Since slave marriages had no legal sanction, supporters of Scott would later point to this ceremony as evidence that Scott was being treated as a free man. Nevertheless, Taliaferro transferred Harriet to Emerson, who treated the Scotts as his slaves.

    Emerson moved to Jefferson Barracks in 1837, leaving the Scott family behind and leasing them out to other officers. In February 1838, Emerson met and married Eliza Irene Sanford at Fort Jesup in Louisiana, whereupon he sent for the Scotts to join him. While on a steamboat on the Mississippi River, between the free state of Illinois and the Iowa district of Wisconsin Territory, Harriet Scott gave birth to their first child, whom they named Eliza after their mistress. They later had a daughter, Lizzie.

    The Emersons and Scotts returned to Missouri in 1840. In 1842, Emerson left the Army. After he died in the Iowa Territory in 1843, his widow Irene inherited his estate, including the Scotts. For three years after Emerson's death, she continued to lease out the Scotts as hired slaves. In 1846, Scott attempted to purchase his and his family's freedom, offering $300, about $8,000 in current value. However, Irene Emerson refused, prompting Scott to resort to legal recourse.

    The Dred Scott case of the U.S. Supreme Court, which denied Scott his freedom by ruling that negro-slave descendants were not U.S. citizens, was the end of years of legal cases during 1846-1857, in lower federal district court and Missouri courts which had granted Dred Scott freedom for about 2 years, until overturned upon appeal.


    Back in 1846, having failed to purchase his freedom, Scott filed legal suit in St. Louis Circuit Court. Scott stood on solid legal ground, because Missouri precedent dating back to 1824 had held that slaves freed through prolonged residence in a free state would remain free when taken back to Missouri. The doctrine was known as "Once free, always free". Scott and his wife had resided for two years in free states and free territories, and his eldest daughter had been born on the Mississippi River, between a free state and a free territory.

    Dred Scott was listed as the only plaintiff in the case, but his wife, Harriet, played a critical role, pushing him to pursue freedom on behalf of their family. She was a frequent churchgoer, and in St. Louis, her church pastor (a well-known abolitionist) connected the Scotts to their first lawyer. The Scott children were around the age of ten at the time the case was originally filed, which was the age when younger slaves became more valuable assets for slave owners to sell. To avoid the family from breaking up, Harriet urged Dred to take action.

    The Scott v. Emerson case was tried in 1847 in the federal-state courthouse in St. Louis. Dred Scott's lawyer was originally Francis B. Murdoch and later Charles D. Drake. Because more than a year elapsed from the time of the initial petition filing until the trial, Drake moved away from St. Louis during that time. Samuel M. Bay tried the case in court. The verdict went against Scott, as testimony that established his ownership by Mrs. Emerson was ruled to be hearsay. However, the judge called for a retrial, which was finally held in January 1850. This time, direct evidence was introduced that Emerson owned Scott, and the jury ruled in favor of Scott's freedom.

    Irene Emerson appealed the verdict. In 1852, the Missouri Supreme Court struck down the lower court ruling, arguing that growing antislavery sentiment in the free states made it no longer necessary for Missouri to defer to the laws of free states. In doing so, the court had overturned 28 years of precedent in Missouri. Justice Hamilton R. Gamble, who was later appointed governor of Missouri, sharply disagreed with the majority decision and wrote a dissenting opinion.

    In 1853, Scott again sued; this time under federal law. Irene Emerson had moved to Massachusetts, and Scott had been transferred to Irene Emerson's brother, John F. A. Sanford. Because Sanford was a citizen of New York, while Scott would be a citizen of Missouri if he were free, the Federal courts had diversity jurisdiction over the case. After losing again in federal district court, they appealed to the United States Supreme Court in Dred Scott v. Sandford. (The name is spelled "Sandford" in the court decision due to a clerical error). And well, the rest is history. The Supreme Court handed down its opinion on March 6, 1857.


    IV. THE BRITISH COMMON LAW

    The framers of the Constitution were well-versed in the British common law, having learned its essential principles from William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England. As such, they knew that the very concept of citizenship was unknown in British common law. Blackstone speaks only of "birthright subjectship" or "birthright allegiance," never using the terms "citizen" or "citizenship." The idea of birthright subjectship, as Blackstone admitted, was derived from feudal law. It is the relation of master and servant: All who are born within the protection of the king owed perpetual allegiance as a "debt of gratitude." According to Blackstone, this debt is "intrinsic" and "cannot be forfeited, cancelled, or altered." Birthright subjectship under common law is the doctrine of perpetual allegiance.

    America's Founders rejected this doctrine. The Declaration of Independence, after all, solemnly proclaims that "the good People of these Colonies . . . 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." So, the common law - the feudal doctrine of perpetual allegiance - could not possibly serve as the ground of American citizenship. Indeed, the idea is too preposterous to entertain.

    Consider as well that, in 1868, Congress passed the Expatriation Act. This permitted American citizens to renounce their allegiance and alienate their citizenship. This piece of legislation was supported by Senator Howard and other leading architects of the 14th Amendment, and characterized the right of expatriation as "a natural and inherent right of all people, indispensable to the enjoyment of the right of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Like the idea of citizenship, this right of expatriation is wholly incompatible with the common-law understanding of perpetual allegiance and subjectship. One member of the House expressed the general sense of Congress when he proclaimed: "The old feudal doctrine stated by Blackstone and adopted as part of the common law of England . . . is not only at war with the theory of our institutions, but is equally at war with every principle of justice and of sound public policy." The notion of birthright citizenship was characterized by another member as an "indefensible doctrine of indefeasible allegiance," a feudal doctrine wholly at odds with republican government.