The 14th Amendment - how the courts determine it
The 14th Amendment is both the assignment of benefits and privileges for some, and a deliberate intrusion into the real Rights of the People of America. It addresses in its first segment, citizenship [small c] in United States [US], and what applies to those private citizens. This is NOT Citizenship in The United States of America as is applied within the States, but within UNITED STATES which was created by the federal/national contract, is a separate corporate entity, and is NOT bound by the constitution.
It is NOT a true Citizenship in America, as it is under congressional control relating to those PRIVILEGES and BENEFITS [not Rights] and CAN be legislated, restricted, removed, and otherwise modified at the whim of government/Congress.
Therefore, we need to address certain findings in the courts so the People better understand what that citizenship means. Not surprisingly, though it is touted as the GREAT Amendment for equality, it is anything but.
The Briefings/Expose Volumes go into considerably more depth on the effects and issues of the purported 13th and 14th Amendments, therefore, if you are really interested, you will need to read those as well.
NOTE: those Briefings WERE submitted into courts at the state and federal level, and were to have been reviewed by the Supreme Court [SCUSA], for which two "conservative federalist" justices were chosen by the President and Congress. SEE: The People and their states of The United States of America against James Bonini, et. al., and the Supreme Court links. Moreover, as they were pre-written [as brief > counter brief > response brief > etc. - knowing what HAD to briefed against by any opposition], they were written in book-like form [consecutive] with chapters, basic addressing, cumulative effects, etc.; and actual meanings and effects when taken with considerations of the full constitutions [contracts] of state and federal government.
Those briefings also explain some of the misconceptions that the people of America suffer under, such as: that UNITED STATES [US, U.S.] is THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA [America, USA, U.S.A.]; racial equality; general equality; and other effects.
Intent
"On the other hand, there is a significant historical fact in
all of this. Clearly, one of the purposes of the 13th and 14th
Amendments and of the 1866 act and of section 1982 was to give
the Negro citizenship. . ."
Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co. (1967), 379 F.2d 33,
43.
"It is true that the chief interest of the people in giving
permanence and security to citizenship in the 14th Amendment was
the desire to protect the Negroes."
Afroyim v. Rusk (1967), 18 L.Ed. 2d 758,
764.
"The object of the 14th Amendment, as is well known, was to
confer upon the colored race the right of citizenship."
United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U. S. 649,
692.
"It would be a remarkable anomaly if the national government,
without the amendment, could confer citizenship on aliens of
every race or color, and citizenship, with civil and political
rights, on the "inhabitants" of Louisiana and Florida, without
reference to race or color, and cannot, with the help of the
amendment, confer on those of the African race, who have been
born and always lived within the United States, all that this law
seeks to give them."
United States v. Rhodes (1866), 27 Fed. Cas. 785,
794.
"The amendment referred to slavery. Consequently, the only
persons embraced by its provisions, and for which Congress was
authorized to legislate in the manner were those then in
slavery."
Bowlin v. Commonwealth (1867), 65 Kent. Rep. 5,
29.
"The only question, therefore, left for determination is the
constitutionality of Section I of the Civil Rights Act of April
9, 1866. Nothing in the Constitution of the United States, as
originally adopted, or in any of the first twelve amendments to
that instrument, adopted shortly after ratification of the
Constitution, would warrant the enactment of this Act by
Congress."
United States v. Morris (1903), 125 Fed. Rep.
322.
"It is claimed that the plaintiff is a citizen of the United States and of this state. Undoubtedly she is. It is argued that she became such by force of the first section of the 14th Amendment, already recited. This, however, is a mistake. It could well be claimed that she became free by the effect of the 13th Amendment, by which slavery was abolished, for she was no less a citizen than she was free before the adoption of either of these amendments. No white person. . . owes the status of citizenship to the recent amendments to the Federal Constitution.
"The history and aim of the 14th Amendment is well known, and
the purpose had in view by its adoption, well understood. That
purpose was to confer the status of citizenship upon a numerous
class of persons domiciled within the limits of the United States
who could not be brought within the operation of the
naturalization laws because (of being) native born; and whose
birth, though native, had at the same time left them without the
status of citizenship. These persons were not white persons, but
were, in the main, persons of African descent who had been held
in slavery in this country or, if having themselves never been
held in slavery, were the native-born descendants of
slaves."
Van Valkenberg v. Brown (1872), 43 Cal. Sup. Ct. 43,
47.
Not Affecting State Citizenship
"After the adoption of the 13th Amendment, a bill which became
the first Civil Rights Act was introduced in the 39th Congress,
the major purpose of which was to secure to the recently freed
Negroes all the civil rights secured to white men. . . .(N)one
other than citizens of the United States were within the
provisions of the Act."
Hague v. C. I. O., 307 U. S. 496, 509.
"No white person. . . owes the status of citizenship to the recent amendments to the Federal Constitution." Van Valkenbrg v. Brown (1872), 43 Cal. Sup. Ct. 43, 47.
"The amendment reversed and annulled the original policy of
the Constitution, which left it to each state to decide
exclusively for itself whether slavery should or should not exist
as a local institution, and what disabilities should attach to
those of a servile race within its limits. The whites needed no
relief or protection, and they are practically unaffected by the
amendment."
United States v. Rhodes (1866), 27 Fed. Cas. 785 (No.
16,151), 794.
"The rights of the state, as such, are not under consideration
in the 14th Amendment, and are fully guaranteed by other
provisions."
United States v. Anthony (1873), 24 Fed. Cas. 829 (No.
14,459), 830.
"It appears upon the face of the amendment, as well as from
the history of the times, this was not intended to impose any new
restrictions upon citizenship, or to prevent any persons from
becoming citizens by fact of birth within the United States who
would thereby have become citizens according to the law existing
before its adoption."
United States v. Wong Kim Ark, supra, p.
676.
"It is quite clear, then, that there is a citizenship of the
United States and a citizenship of a state, which are distinct
from each other and which depend upon different characteristics
or circumstances of the individual. . . . Of the privileges and
immunities of the citizens of the United States and of the
privileges and immunities of the citizen of the state, and what
they respectively are, we will presently consider; but we wish to
state here that it is only the former which are placed by this
clause under the protection of the Federal Constitution, and the
latter, whatever they may be, are not intended to have any
additional protection by this paragraph of the amendment."
Slaughter House Cases, supra, p. 408.
"There can be no doubt. . . that the civil rights sometimes
described as fundamental and inalienable, which before the war
amendments were enjoyed by state citizenship and protected by
state government, were left untouched by this clause of the 14th
Amendment."
Twining v. New Jersey, 211 U. S. 78, 96.
"The 14th Amendment creates and defines citizenship of the
United States. It had long been contended, and had been held by
many learned authorities, and had never been judicially decided
to the contrary, that there was no such thing as a citizen of the
United States, except by first becoming a citizen of some
state."
United States v. Anthony, supra, p. 80.
What 14th Amendment enfranchized citizenship demands and extracts as payment
Congressional Authority Under 14th Amendment
"Under the 14th Amendment Congress has the power to protect by
appropriate legislation the freedom of speech and the other
rights enumerated in the first 8 Articles of Amendment."
United States v. Hall (1871), Fed. Case No.
15,282.
"The exercise of congressional authority under the enforcement
provision of the 14th Amendment, unlike the commerce clause, is
not limited by the 10th Amendment."
Remmick v. Barnes County (1977), 435 F.Supp.
914.
"Power reserved to the States by the 10th Amendment is limited
by the 14th Amendment so that requirements of the Civil Rights
Act may be applied to municipalities."
Lowe v. Waukesha Joint School District #1 Board of
Education (1977), 560 F.2d 285.
"Statutory law of the United States is part of the law of each
State just as if it were written into State statutory law."
People v. Barajas, 147 Cal. Rptr. 195.
"Naturalization" is a privilege."
United States v. Zgrebee, 38 F.Supp. 127,
129.
"The opportunity to become a "citizen" is a privilege."
United States v. Shapiro, 43 F.Supp. 927. 929.
"It may be conceded that this amendment gives the power to Congress not only to protect the personal freedom of enfranchised citizens but to remove from them every badge and restraint of slavery and involuntary servitude.
"Congress has by virtue of this amendment declared 'that all
persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have
the same right in every state and territory. . . to give
evidence. . . as is enjoyed by white persons.'. . . Conceding,
then, that Congress has the power by virtue of the 13th Amendment
to confer on the persons enfranchised thereby the same right to
testify as is enjoyed by white persons,. . . (i)t would be an
offense for two or more colored persons, enfranchised slaves, to
conspire with the same purpose. . . .The ground of the decision
was that the sections referred to were broad enough, not only to
punish those who hindered and delayed the enfranchised colored
citizen from voting on account of his race, color, or previous
condition of servitude, but also those who hindered and delayed
the free white citizen."
LeGrand v. United States, 12 Fed. Rep. 577,
580-582.
"The utmost legal effort of the emancipating section was to declare the colored as free as the white race in the United States.
It certainly gave the colored race nothing more than freedom. It did not elevate them to social or political equality with the white race. It neither gave nor aimed to give them, in defiance of state laws, all the rights of the white race, but left them equally free in all the states, and equally subject to state jurisdiction and state laws. Without the second section, therefore, there could be no pretext for a claim by Congress for special legislation for the colored race which would be unauthorized in relation to the white race of freemen.
"And whatever may have been the unspoken aim of the second
section--freedom to all, and nothing more, was the only
constructive object, and is the inevitable effect of this
section. . . .To prevent any such frustration of the aim and
effect of the declared emancipation was obviously the object, and
must be the only legitimate effect of the second section. "Power
to enforce this article by appropriate legislation" can import
nothing more than to uphold the emancipating section, and prevent
a violation of the contemplated race. It could not mean that
Congress should have the power to legislate over their civil
rights and remedies in the states any more than over those of all
citizens; and it certainly does not squint at any such
legislation as to white citizens."
Bowlin v. Commonwealth (1897), 65 Ky. Rep. 5,
8.
"In United States v. Cruikshank, 1 Woods 308, 319,. . . the
question was the constitutionality of the enforcement act. . .
which Mr. Justice Bradley declared to be unconstitutional, as an
unauthorized assumption of power by Congress under the 14th
Amendment, but in referring to the Civil Rights Act, in this
cause involved, expressing the following opinion: It was supposed
that the eradication of slavery and involuntary servitude of
every form and description required the slave should be made a
citizen and placed on an entire equality before the law with the
white citizen, and, therefore, that Congress had the power, under
the amendment, to declare and effectuate these objects. The form
of doing this, by extending the right of citizenship and equality
before the law to persons of every race and color (except Indians
not taxed, of course, excepting the white race, whose privileges
were adopted as the standard,. . . "
United States v. Morris, supra, p. 237.
"The privilege or immunity asserted in the Slaughter House
Cases was the freedom to pursue a common business calling,
alleged to have been infringed by a state monopoly statute. It
should not be forgotten that the court, in deciding the case, did
not deny the contention of the dissenting justices that the
asserted freedom was in fact infringed by the state law. It
rested its decision, rather, on the ground that the immunity
claimed was not one belonging to persons by virtue of their
citizenship; "that there is a citizenship of the United States,
and a citizenship of a state, which are distinct from each other,
and which depend on different characteristics in the individual."
And it held that the protection of the privileges and immunities
clause did not extend to those "fundamental" rights attached to
state citizenship which are peculiarly the creation and concern
of state governments and which Mr. Justice Washington, in
Corfield v. Coryell, 4 Wash. C. C. 371, 6 Fed. Cas. No. 3,230,
mistakenly thought to be guaranteed by Article IV, section 2, of
the Constitution. The privileges and immunities of citizens of
the United States, it was pointed out, are confined to that
limited class of interests growing out of the relationship
between the citizen and the national government created by the
Constitution and federal laws. That limitation upon the operation
of the privileges and immunities clause has not been relaxed by
any later decisions of this court."
Hague v. C. I. O., supra, p. 520, note 1.
Privileges and Immunities pursuant to a franchise Under 14th Amendment
"Naturalization" is a privilege."
United States v. Zgrebee, 38 F.Supp. 127,
129.
"The opportunity to become a "citizen" is a privilege."
United States v. Shapiro, 43 F.Supp. 927.
929.
"No statute of Arkansas inhibits persons described as
belonging to 'low and lawless type of humanity' coming into the
state. Under the 14th Amendment, and under the interstate
commerce clause, of the Constitution, they now have that right
[privilege]."
State of Arkansas v. Kansas & T. Coal Co., 96 F. 353.
(insertion added.)
"The Federal Civil Rights Statutes created rights which may be
protected by federal courts in the exercise of their normal
equity jurisdiction."
Progress Development Corp. v. Mitchell (1960), 182
F.Supp. 681, 711. (insertions added.)
"Any definition of the word 'franchise' must include the word
'privileges'."
Willamette Woolen Mfg. Co. v. Bank of British Columbia,
Or., 119 U. S. 191.
"A franchise is bi-lateral in nature and imposes obligations
[duties] while conferring rights [privileges], so that acceptance
is necessary to prove that grantee has undertaken those
obligations."
Greenberg v. City of New York, 274 N. Y. S. 4.
(Insertions added.)
"A franchise is a privilege in which the public have an
interest, and which cannot be exercised without the authority of
the sovereign."
People v. Utica Insurance Co. (1818), 15 Johns. 358.
"The act of 1902, under which the assessment complained of was
made, provides for a tax on franchises, rights, and privileges,
and not on tangible property, income, business, or capital. A
franchise is a grant of right by public authority, the main
element of which is, in general, "permission" to do something
which otherwise the grantee would not have the right to
do."
Western Union Tel. Co. v. Wright (1910), 185 Fed. Rep.
250, 253.
"It is hardly necessary to do more than recall the fundamental
principle established in Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 4 Wheat.
518,. . . that a franchise is a contract between the grantor and
the grantee."
D. C. Transit System v. Pearson (1957), 149 Fed. Supp.
18, 24.
"What is a franchise? Under English law, Blackstone defines it
as 'a royal privilege or a branch of the King's prerogative,
subsisting in the hands of a subject.'"
State of California v. Central Pacific R. R. Co. (1888),
8 S. C. 1073, 1080.
14th Amendment franchised citizenship related to taxation
"A tax is an enforced contribution to sovereign exacted
pursuant to legislative authority and not as a voluntary payment
or donation."
Arizona Department of Revenue v. Transamerica Title
Insurance Co., 604 P. 2d 1139.
". . . (E)very taxpayer is a cestui qui trust having
sufficient interest in the preventing abuse of the trust to be
recognized in the field of this court's prerogative jurisdiction
as a relator in proceedings to set sovereign authority in motion.
. . "
In Re Bolens (1912), 135 N.W. 164.
"As a general rule, every citizen of the United States,
regardless of his residence, and every resident of the United
States, regardless of his citizenship, is taxable on his income
without respect to its geographic source. The constitutional
power to impose the tax on such a world wide basis is sustained
by Cook v. Tait (1924), 265 U.S. 47, 44 S.Ct. 444."
Cases and Materials on Federal Taxation (1955), by Paul
W. Bruton and Raymond J. Bradley, edited by Warren A. Seavey,
West Publishing Co., p. 115.
"Taxpayers are not [de jure] State Citizens."
Belmont v. Town of Gulfport, 122 So. 10. (This decision
regards a poll tax.)
Due Process Under the 14th Amendment
"In Maxwell v. Dow, supra, where the plaintiff in error had
been convicted by a state court of a felony upon an information,
and by a jury of eight persons, it was held that the indictment,
made indispensable by the 5th Amendment, and the trial by jury
guaranteed by the 6th Amendment were not privileges and
immunities of citizens of the United States, as those words were
used in the 14th Amendment. . . .(T)he decision rested upon the
ground that this clause of the 14th Amendment did not forbid the
states to abridge the personal rights enumerated in the first
eight amendments, because these rights were not within the
meaning of the clause "privileges and immunities of citizens of
the United States.". . . We conclude, therefore, that the
exemption from compulsory self-incrimination is not a privilege
or immunity of national citizenship guaranteed by this clause of
the 14th Amendment against abridgement by the states. . . .It is
possible that some of the first personal rights safeguarded by
the first eight amendments against national action may also be
safeguarded against state action, because a denial of them would
be a denial of due process of law. . . .If this is so, it is not
because those rights are enumerated in the first eight amendments
but because they are of such a nature that they are included in
the conception of due process of law."
Twining, supra, pp. 98-99.
"Due process requires that the court which assumes to determine the rights of parties shall have jurisdiction. . . and that there shall be notice and opportunity for hearing given the parties. . . subject to these two fundamental conditions. . . .(T)his court has. . . sustained all state laws, statutory or judicially declared, regulating procedure, evidence, and methods of trial, and held them to be consistent with due process of law. . .
"Among the most notable of these decisions are those
sustaining the denial of jury trial both in civil and criminal
cases, the substitution of information for indictments by a grand
jury, the enactment that the possession of policy slips raises a
presumption of illegality, and the admission of the deposition of
an absent witness in a criminal case."
Twining, supra, pp. 110-111.
"But it is clear that the 14th Amendment in no way undertakes
to control the power of the state to determine by what process
legal rights may be asserted or legal obligations be enforced,
provided the method of procedure adopted gives reasonable notice
and affords fair opportunity to be heard before the issues are
decided;. . . Due process of law, guaranteed by the 14th
Amendment, does not require the state to adopt a particular form
of procedure, so long as it appears that the accused has had
sufficient notice of the accusation and an adequate opportunity
to defend himself in the prosecution."
Twining, supra, p. 112.
"It is impossible to reconcile the reasoning of these cases
and the rule which governed their decision with the theory that
an exemption from compulsory self-incrimination is included in
the conception of due process of law. Indeed, the reasoning for
including indictment by a grand jury and trial by petit jury in
that conception, which has been rejected by this court in Hurtado
v. California and Maxwell v. Dow, was historically and principle
much stronger. Clearly appreciating this, Mr. Justice Harlan, in
his dissent in each of these cases, pointed out that the
inexorable logic of the reasoning of the court was to allow the
states, so far as the Federal Constitution was concerned, to
compel any person to be a witness against himself. In Missouri v.
Lewis, 101 U. S. 22, Mr. Justice Bradley, speaking for the whole
court, said, in effect, that the 14th Amendment would not prevent
a state from adopting or continuing the civil law instead of the
common law. This dictum has been approved and made an essential
part of the reasoning of the decision in Holden v. Hardy, 169 U.
S. 387, 389, and Maxwell v. Dow, 176 U. S. 581, 598. The
statement excludes the possibility that the privilege is
essential to due process, for it hardly need be said that the
interrogation of the accused at his trial is the practice of the
civil law."
Twining, supra, p. 113.
"The right of trial by jury in civil cases, guaranteed by the
7th Amendment (Walker v. Sauvinet, 92 U. S. 90), and the right to
bear arms, guaranteed by the 2nd Amendment (Presser v. Illinois,
116 U. S. 252), have been distinctly held not to be privileges
and immunities of citizens of the United States guaranteed by the
14th Amendment against abridgement by the states, and in effect
the same decision was made in respect of the guarantee against
prosecution, except by indictment of a grand jury, contained in
the 5th Amendment (Hurtado v. California, 110 U. S. 516), and in
respect of the right to be confronted with witnesses, contained
in the 6th Amendment."
West v. Louisiana, 194 U. S. 258.
"The technical niceties of the common law are not regarded. .
. .",
1 R.C.L. 31, p. 422.
"A jury does not figure, ordinarily, in the trial of an
admiralty suit. . . the verdict of the jury merely advisory, and
may be disregarded by the court."
1 R.C.L. 40, p. 432.
"[The] rules of practice may be altered whenever found to be
inconvenient or likely to embarrass the business of the
court."
1 R.C.L. 32, p. 423.
"A court of admiralty. . . acts upon equitable
principles."
1 R.C.L. 17, p. 416.
"A libel of information [accusation] does not require all the
technical precision of an indictment at common law. If the
allegations describe the offense, it is all that is necessary;
and if it is founded upon a statute, it is sufficient if it
pursues the words of the law."
The Emily v. The Caroline, 9 Wheat. 381 (Insertion
added).
Due Process of 14th Amendment not applicable to State Citizens
"A state neither loses any of its rights nor is discharged
from any of its duties by a change in the civil government. The
body politic is still the same, though it may have a different
organ of communication."
Snow, Cases in International Law, p. 21.
"The states had guarded the privilege to the satisfaction of
their own people up to the adoption of the 14th Amendment. No
reason is perceived why they cannot continue to do so. The power
of their people ought not to be fettered, and their capacity of
sober and restrained self-government weakened by forced
construction of the Federal Constitution. "
Twining, supra, p. 114.
"Plaintiffs in error have no just complaint on the basis of
any want of due process of law. The 14th Amendment does not
profess to secure to all persons in the United States the benefit
of the same laws and the same remedies."
Twining v. New Jersey, supra, p. 90.
"Different tribunals for different persons: When the
protection of equal laws equally administered has been enjoyed,
it cannot be said that there has been a denial of the equal
protection of the law within the purview of the 14th Amendment,
only because the state has allowed one person to seek one forum
and has not allowed another person, asserted to be in the same
class, to seek the same forum, although as to both persons the
law has afforded a forum in which the same and equal laws are
applicable and administered."
United States Federal Statutes Annotated (1888), Volume
9, p. 551.
See also Admiralty.
14th Amendment not Constitutionally Ratified by the States
State v. Phillips (1975), 540 P.2d. 936
&
Dyett v. Turner (1968), 439 P.2d 266 (where the courts
questioned the lawful validity of the 14th Amendment's
ratification).
Pinckney G. McElwee, "THE 14TH AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES AND THE THREAT THAT IT POSES TO OUR DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT", 11 S. C. L. Q. 484 (1959).
Walter J. Suthon, Jr. "THE DUBIOUS ORIGIN OF THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT", 28 Tul. L. Rev. 22 (1953).
SEE also the Expose` of Crimes Volumes listed on the side bar