Ex-slaves not born in U.S. and 14th Amendment The 14th Amendment states that &quot;All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.&quot; Did cases ever arise in courts concerning any ex-slaves not born in the United States include arguments that the 14th Amendment did not apply to them?
At least one such person was naturalized, according to Wikipedia, in 1868, a time at which I believe naturalization was conferred by district court judges. Although this doesn't perhaps constitute a court case, as asked by the question, it does show that formerly enslaved people who has been born outside the United States were not automatically granted US citizenship. Wikipedia says: Although native-born American former slaves became citizens upon the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in July 1868, this change in status did not apply to the members of the Clotilda group, who were foreign-born. Cudjo Kazoola Lewis became a naturalized American citizen on October 24, 1868. The passage cites Dreams of Africa in Alabama: The Slave Ship Clotilda and the Story of the Last Africans Brought to America by Sylviane A. Diouf
A US citizen who resides abroad can register to vote in federal elections in the last state or territory where they resided in the US. So in your example, the US citizen who was resident in Puerto Rico, and who moves to Canada without first residing in any other state or territory, would register to vote in Puerto Rico. Since he is registered to vote in Puerto Rico, he does not vote in an election for choosing presidential electors since Puerto Rico doesn't have any presidential electors. Only the 50 states and DC have presidential electors, and each of them chooses the electors based on elections by people registered to vote in that state (or DC), so he would have to be registered to vote in some particular state or in DC to participate in an election for choosing presidential electors, but he does not qualify to register to vote in any of the states or DC, because he was not resident there last. Yes, US citizens who are neighbors in Vancouver, Canada, one of whom is a former New Yorker and the other of whom is a former Puerto Rican, would be registered to vote in two places (one in New York and the other in Puerto Rico). They would get two different ballots, and may even have different dates for elections (for elections that are not held on the November election day). They would have different offices to vote for, and, in the case of the ballot for the November election in a presidential election year, the New York ballot would contain an election for a slate of presidential electors, while the Puerto Rico ballot would not.
It probably does, up to a point. Roe v. Wade asserts a right to privacy, discussed in §VIII. Granting that there is no explicit enumeration of a right to privacy in the Constitution, its implicit presence is discerned via a long series of constitutional rulings of a diverse nature. It is not clear what is the extent of This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment's concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment's reservation of rights to the people... However, even in the case of explicitly recognized rights, they are not absolute: you cannot commit fraud or threaten a person with death and escape punishment by citing the 1st Amendment, you cannot own a machine gun and cite the 2nd in your defense. Fundamental rights are strongly protected, but they may be limited in a fashion that survives strict scrutiny. This means that the encroachment is necessary to a "compelling state interest", it is "narrowly tailored" towards that end, and is the "least restrictive means" to achieve that end. The question arose in Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U. S. 11 where Jacobson was criminally arraigned for refusing to comply with a mandatory vaccination law (applicable to all persons over 21). The court noted that the liberty secured by the Constitution of the United States to every person within its jurisdiction does not import an absolute right in each person to be, at all times and in all circumstances, wholly freed from restraint. There are manifold restraints to which every person is necessarily subject for the common good. The liberty secured by the 14th Amendment, this court has said, consists, in part, in the right of a person 'to live and work where he will'...; and yet he may be compelled, by force if need be, against his will and without regard to his personal wishes or his pecuniary interests, or even his religious or political convictions, to take his place in the ranks of the army of his country, and risk the chance of being shot down in its defense... According to settled principles, the police power of a state must be held to embrace, at least, such reasonable regulations established directly by legislative enactment as will protect the public health and the public safety. The right to compel vaccination is reaffirmed in Zucht v. King, 260 U.S. 174. There is currently no mandatory vaccination law applicable to adults; were such a law to be created (analogous to the earlier Mass. law regarding smallpox vaccination), it could easily pass judicial review as long as it is "minimalist". The question of "compelling government interest" would distinguish between mandatory Ebola or zombie-fever vaccinations vs. shingles or (ordinary) flu. School-related vaccination laws are the most minimal way to achieve the desired outcome, so a law requiring everybody to submit might not pass a strict scrutiny review.
The Constitution does not describe such a method, and no one has ever tried to do so. During and immediately following the U.S. Civil War, states that attempted to secede from the U.S. to join the Confederate States of America were not represented in Congress until their insurrections ceased and a post-war government approved by the Union forces in the Reconstruction era was in place. But this was not on the theory that these areas had ceased to be states, it was on the theory that there was a vacancy in the positions because these areas had not held elections for the U.S. House of Representatives, had not nominated U.S. Senators, and were in degradation of the U.S. Constitution once the 14th Amendment was adopted (denying the right to serve in office to confederate leaders until Congress acted otherwise). Prior the 14th Amendment this denial of U.S. government representation was simply viewed as a function of practical reality and the war powers of Congress, and perhaps the &quot;invasion or insurrection&quot; and &quot;Republican government&quot; clauses of the U.S. Constitution. Certainly there is no recognized roadmap for doing so today.
See Article VI of the Constitution: This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding. This seems to me that it pretty clearly establishes the Constitution as taking the place of any previous laws. In particular, Article XI of the Articles is in conflict with Article IV Section 3 of the Constitution ("New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union"). The Constitution says that Congress's action is required to create a new state, and doesn't mention any exceptions. The Constitution's terms presumably take precedence. If Canada wanted to become a state, it would have to be admitted by Congress under Article IV Section 3.
I assume that you were not born in the United States, and that your mother was/is not a US citizen. If these assumptions are incorrect, the answer below does not apply. A child born outside the United States to a US citizen and a non-US citizen will be a US citizen so long as the parent spent a certain amount of time physically present in the United States. For a child born before 1986 to gain US citizenship through a single parent, that parent would have had to spend 10 years total in the USA, of which at least 5 years were after the parent’s 14th birthday. So if your father was a citizen and lived in the US until at least 1966 or his 19th birthday (whichever was later), you would be a US citizen. However, the document you describe does not prove that your father was a US citizen. Instead, it only proves that your father was admitted to the US as an permanent resident (a so-called “green card”). If your father did become a citizen, he would have received a Certificate of Naturalization. This would be necessary to prove your father’s US citizenship and, by extension, yours.
A defendant has the right to be tried by his peers. In the U.S., this is an incorrect belief. A defendant does not has the right to be tried by his peers in the U.S. The &quot;jury of his peers&quot; language is a legacy of English law in the days when aristocrats were entitled to a jury of aristocrats rather than commoners, while commoners were entitled to a jury of commoners. The sole legacy of that in U.S. law is in court-martials in which officers are entitled to have their cases heard by a panel of fellow officers, rather than by a panel of active duty military personnel generally. Outside of court-martials in the U.S., the &quot;jury of his peers&quot; concept was eliminated not later than the time when the current U.S. constitution was adopted (in 1789) which eliminated hereditary titles of nobility, or when 6th Amendment to the Bill of Rights was adopted (as applicable in federal criminal cases) which was adopted in 1791. Instead, the Courts have interpreted the 6th Amendment right to trial by jury, which has now been applied to state and local governments as well, to require that the jury be drawn from a fair cross-section of the community (regardless of what an individual jury actually ends up as) and to have people who are conflicted or biased removed from the jury.
The only real answer is that the US Supreme Court, in interpreting the constitution, and specifically the argument that the 13th Amendment prohibits a draft for compelled military services has totally rejected that argument. For many years now the US has not used a draft, and it is obviously possible for the US to have an enduring and powerful military without any draft, which was perhaps not apparent to the Justices in 1918. A draft had been common in this country from the colonial period, through the Revolution, the Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. In reaction to the problems during the Vietnam War, and the great opposition to any draft at that time, the US has not used a draft since, although it retains a legal requirement to register for a possible draft, and the legal authority to impose one should it be thought wise. Note that this was not because of the 13th Amendment. Note also that compelled service by the citizens (or residents) in a locality, particularly to fight fires and floods, when the usual forces are inadequate to that end, has been commonly used. Such compulsory service has never been thought to be prohibited by the 13th Amendment. Also, as mentioned in comments, citizens can be compelled to do jury duty, which could in theory be considered &quot;involuntary servitude&quot; but has never been thought to be prohibited by the 13th amendment. The answer by Trish (now deleted) thoroughly described the many differences between a slave and a drafted soldier. Still, drafted military service might be thought to be a form of involuntary servitude. But the Court (and the laws and other courts as well) have not treated it as such. In the Selective Draft Law Cases, 245 U.S. 366 (1918) the Court thought the idea that compulsory military service constituted involuntary servitude was so wrongheaded that it thought a very brief mention sufficient to refute this contention. It wrote (at 245 U. S. 390): Finally, as we are unable to conceive upon what theory the exaction by government from the citizen of the performance of his supreme and noble duty of contributing to the defense of the rights and honor of the nation, as the result of a war declared by the great representative body of the people, can be said to be the imposition of involuntary servitude in violation of the prohibitions of the Thirteenth Amendment, we are constrained to the conclusion that the contention to that effect is refuted by its mere statement. It is clear from the text of that opinion that the justices thought that the existence of a power to draft soldiers was essential to the implementation of the constitutional power (article I section 8): 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; The opinion discusses the history of compelled military service in the United States, in the colonies before there was a United States, and in Great Britain before that. The opinion says that: Compelled military service is neither repugnant to a free government nor in conflict with the constitutional guaranties of individual liberty. Indeed, it may not be doubted that the very conception of a just government and its duty to the citizen includes the duty of the citizen to render military service in case of need, and the right of the government to compel it. and Further, it is said, the right to provide is not denied by calling for volunteer enlistments, but it does not and cannot include the power to exact enforced military duty by the citizen. This however but challenges the existence of all power, for a governmental power which has no sanction to it and which therefore can only be exercised provided the citizen consents to its exertion is in no substantial sense a power. One may disagree, but that is the law of the land as interpreted by the final body authorized to make such interpretations, the Supreme Court, and it remains good law today.