A politically powerful opponent of birthright citizenship railed that the United States cannot “give up the right” to “expel” dangerous “trespassers” who “invade [our] borders,” “wander in gangs,” and “infest society.”Was this Donald Trump speaking in 2024? No, the quote is from an 1866 speech on the Senate floor by Senator Edgar Cowan of Pennsylvania, a leading opponent of adding a provision to the U.S. Constitution granting citizenship based solely on birth on U.S. soil. Who were the “invaders” that Senator Cowan so feared? “I mean the Gypsies,” Cowan explained, despite offering no evidence that Roma migration posed a risk to the United States.Senator Cowan lost the fight. In 1868, the nation ratified the Fourteenth Amendment, the first sentence of which guarantees birthright citizenship. The amendment invalidated the Supreme Court’s infamous 1857 decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford, which declared that no Black person could ever be a U.S. citizen.… ...[TheTopNews] Read More.
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