Amicus Curiae Brief — Donald J. Trump, President of the United States, et al., Petitioners v. Barbara, et al.
Supreme Court briefFeb 25, 2026
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No. 25-365
IN THE
Supreme Court of the United States
____________________
DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES,
ET AL.,
Petitioners,
v.
BARBARA, ET AL.,
Respondents.
____________________
On Writ of Certiorari Before Judgment to the
United States Court of Appeals for the
First Circuit
____________________
BRIEF OF CHINESE AMERICAN LEGAL
DEFENSE ALLIANCE AS AMICUS CURIAE
IN SUPPORT OF RESPONDENTS
____________________
JUSTIN SADOWSKY
Counsel of Record
CHINESE AMERICAN LEGAL
DEFENSE ALLIANCE
4250 N. Fairfax Drive #600
Arlington, VA 22203
justins@caldausa.org
(646) 785-9154
i
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS .............................................i
TABLE OF AUTHORITIES ..................................... iii
INTEREST OF THE AMICI CURIAE ...................... 1
The Chinese American Legal Defense
Alliance........................................................... 1
SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT ................................... 2
ARGUMENT .............................................................. 4
I.
Chinese migration to the United States
begins to grow in the mid-19th century. ........ 4
II. Congress passes the Citizenship Clause
over racist anti-Chinese objections ............... 9
A. Congress passes the Civil Rights
Act of 1866, including Chinese
children in citizenship .......................... 9
B. Congress passes the Fourteenth
Amendment, including Chinese
children within citizenship ................ 11
III. Anti-Chinese lawyers attempt to
relitigate the Citizenship Clause ................ 12
A. Chinese migration and antiChinese racism rise ............................ 12
ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
B. Wharton uses anti-Chinese
arguments in support of the
new international law concept
of jus sanguinis
............................. 15
C. Morse sees an opportunity in rising
anti-Chinese sentiment ...................... 20
D. George Collins takes anti-Chinese
racism to the Supreme Court ............. 26
IV. The Government is simply recycling the
losing arguments of Wharton, Morse, and
Collins........................................................... 31
CONCLUSION......................................................... 33
APPENDIX (Table comparing citations in Wong
Kim Ark to citations in petitioner’s brief)........... 1a
iii
TABLE OF AUTHORITIES
CASES
Contzen v. United States, 179 U.S. 191
(1900) .................................................................. 26
Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19
How.) 393, 15 L. Ed. 691 (1856) ......................... 31
Hurd v. Hodge, 334 U.S. 24 (1948).......................... 11
Iannelli v. United States, 420 U.S. 770
(1975) .................................................................. 16
In re Ah Yup, 1 F. Cas. 223 (C.C.D. Cal.
1878).................................................................... 20
In re Look Tin Sing, 21 F. 905 (C.C.D.
Cal, 1884) .......................................... 24, 25, 26, 31
In re Wong Kim Ark, 71 F. 382 (N.D.
Cal. 1986) ............................................................ 29
Jones v. Alfred Mayer Co., 392 U.S. 409
(1968) .................................................................. 11
Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S.
214 (1944) ........................................................... 33
People v. Hall, 4 Cal. 399, 404 (1854) ....................... 6
Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896) ............ 14, 21
Shen v. Fla. Commissioner of
Agriculture, 158 F.4th 1227 (11th
Cir. 2025) .............................................................. 4
State of Missouri ex rel Carey v.
Andriano, 138 U.S. 496 (1891) ........................... 26
iv
Terrace v. Thompson, 263 U.S. 197
(1923) .................................................................... 4
Trump v. Hawaii, 585 U.S. 667 (2018) ................... 33
United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169
U.S. 649 (1898) ....................... 3, 18, 20, 31, 32, 33
STATUTES
Act of Apr. 29, 1902, 32 Stat. 176 (1902) ................ 14
Act of July 4, 1864, ch. 246, 13 Stat. 385
(1864) .................................................................... 8
Act of Feb. 19, 1862, ch. 27, 12 Stat. 340
(1862) .................................................................... 8
Burlingame Treaty, U.S.-China, July
28, 1868, 16 Stat. 739 ....................................... 8, 9
Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, ch. 126,
22 Stat. 58 (1862) ............................. 13, 14, 19, 29
Pacific Railroad Act of 1862 , ch. 120, 12
Stat. 489 (1862) .................................................... 8
Geary Act, 27 Stat. 25 (1892) .................................. 13
U.S. Const. amend. XIV, §1 ....................................... 1
TREATISES
Alexander Porter Morse, A Treatise on
Citizenship, 248 (1881) .......................... 22, 23, 24
Francis Wharton, Digest of the
International Law of the United
States, 461 (1886) ............................................... 13
v
Francis Wharton, Treatise on the
Conflict of Laws, or Private
International Law, including a
Comparitive View of AngloAmerican, Roman, German, and
French Jurisprudence (1872) ....................... 17, 18
Francis Wharton, Treatise on the
Conflict of Laws, or Private
International Law, including a
Comparitive View of AngloAmerican, Roman, German, and
French Jurisprudence (2nd ed. 1881) ... 18, 19, 20,
21, 22
John Westlake, Treatise on
International Law, 5 (1858) ......................... 15, 22
OTHER AUTHORITIES
Alexander Morse, De l’acquisition de la
Nationalite aux Etats-Unis, Journal
du 'Droit International Prive et de la
Jurisprudence comparer 32 (1887) ............. 25, 26
Alexander Morse, Letter to Editor:
Citizenship of Children of Aliens
Born in the United Statess, 30 Alb.
L.J. 401 (1884) .............................................. 24, 25
Alexander Morse, Natural-Born Citizen
of the United States, 66 Alb. L.J. 99
(1904) .................................................................. 24
vi
Anna O. Law, Migration and the
Origins of American Citizenship:
African Americans, Native
Americans and Immigration 41
(Oxford University Press) (pub.
forthcoming 2026) ................................... 5, 6, 7, 13
Annuaire l'Inst de Droit Int'l , xiv (1877)
[1994] .................................................................. 16
Bernadette Meyler, The Gestation of
Birthright Citizenship, 1868-1898:
States’ Rights, The Law of Nations,
and Mutual Consent 521,
Georgetown Univ. L.J. Vol. 15 (2001) .................. 8
Brief Amici Curiae of Senator Ted Cruz,
et al. in Support of Petitioners,
Trump v. Barbara, No. 25-365 (U.S.
Jan. 28, 2026). .......................................... 2, 29, 32
Brief for Petitioner, Trump v. Barbara,
No. 25-365 (U.S. Sep. 26, 2025) .............. 2, 26, 32
Brief of Respondents, Trump v.
Barbara, No. 25-365 (U.S. Oct. 29,
2025) ..................................................................... 9
Brief for the United States, United
States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S.
649, No. 132 (1898) .......................... 18, 20, 30, 32
Caroline Jordan, Remaking Life: The
Culture of Chinese Transcontinental
Railroad Workers 1, The Purdue
Historian Vol. 12, art. 3 (2025) ............................ 6
Cong. Globe, 1st Sess. 39th Cong.
(1866). ................................................. 9, 10, 11, 12
vii
George Collins, Are Persons Born
Within the United States Ipso. Facto
Citizens Thereof?, 18 Am. L. Rev. 831
(1884) ........................................................... 27, 28
George Collins, Citizenship by Birth, 29
Am. L. Rev. 385 (1895) ...................................... 29
Helen Elizabeth Moore, Francis
Wharton: A Memoir (1891) ................................. 16
Henry M. Field, The Life of David Dudley Field (1898) .................................................. 22
Kerry Abrams, Polygamy, Prostitution,
and Federalization 105 Colum. L.
Rev. 641 (2005) ......................................... 5, 6, 7, 8
Lea VanderVelde & Gabriel J. Chin,
Sowing the Seeds of Chinese
Exclusion As the Reconstruction
Congress Debates Civil Rights
Inclusion 25 UCLA Asian Pacific
Am. L.J. Vol. 29 (2021) ............................... 5, 8, 14
Lucy Salyer, Wong Kim Ark: The Contest Over Birthright Citizenship, Immigration Stories 51 (2005) ......................... 27, 29
Michael Lao, When an American Town
Massacred its Chinese Immigrants,
The New Yorker (Mar. 3, 2025),
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/03/10/when-an-americantown-massacred-its-chinese-immigrants. ................................................................ 14
viii
Reply Brief for the United States,
United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169
U.S. 649, No. 119 (1898) .................................... 30
Sam Erman & Nathan Perl-Rosenthal,
Jus Soli Nation to Jus Soli Evasion:
International Lawyers for White
Supremacy and the Road through
Wong Kim Ark, 3 J. Am. Const. Hist.
615 (2025) ............................. 15, 20, 21, 22, 23, 27
Terry E. Boswell, A Split Labor Market
Analysis of Discrimination Against
Chinese Immigrants, 1850-1882, 51
Am. Socio. Rev. 352 (1986) ............................... 4, 5
1
INTEREST OF THE AMICI CURIAE1
The Chinese American Legal Defense Alliance
The Chinese American Legal Defense Alliance was
founded in 2021 by several Chinese-American lawyers, who having beaten back the Government’s attempt to ban the Chinese communications app
WeChat, saw a need for a civil rights organization that
could combat racial discrimination and hate crimes
through strategic legal action. CALDA has since become a leading force nationwide for civil rights for
Chinese Americans and for all Americans. It has challenged the harm caused by the Government’s “China
Initiative” unfairly targeting and prosecuting Chinese-American professors and scientists. It also challenged the Government’s recent attempt to cancel en
masse foreign students’ rights to study at American
schools, disproportionately targeting Chinese students. And it has brought lawsuits against state laws
trying to resurrect the racist alien land laws of the late
19th and early 20th century, as well as state laws prohibiting Chinese scholars and students from engaging
in paid academic opportunities.
1 No counsel for any party authored this brief in whole or in part,
and no person or entity other than amici and their counsel funded
its preparation or submission.
2
SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT
The Government claims the mantle of original understanding by citing a number of post-ratification articles that it claims show that “[c]ontemporary commentators” understood that the meaning of the Citizenship Clause excluded “temporarily present aliens.”2 Most prominently, they rely on two Democratic
lawyers, Francis Wharton and Alexander Porter
Morse, who were writing about 15 years after Congress passed the language of the Citizenship Clause
in 1866. The Amicus Brief of Senator Ted Cruz relies
on a third lawyer, George Collins.3 But those lawyers
were not merely interpreting the Citizenship Clause.
Instead, relying on decidedly non-originalist arguments based on policy and evolving international law,
these lawyers were trying to weaponize anti-Chinese
racism in order to relitigate the very passage of the
Citizenship Clause.
Chinese-Americans have a long history in this
country. They first arrived in large numbers in the
1800s, driven by poverty at home and opportunity in
the United States. They arrived poor and in debt.
They provided the engine of labor to the American
economy, including most famously building the railroad system that connected Americans personally and
2 See Petitioner’s Brief at 25-28.
3 Cruz Brief at 16.
3
economically. Meanwhile, they were increasingly
hated by a populace that saw them as foreigners, pagans, and barbarians. They were seen as transient migrants, rather than American immigrants. They were
discriminated against legally, including being subjected to a complete immigration ban. They suffered
terrible violence.
Anti-Chinese hatred was still in its early stages
when the Citizenship Clause passed Congress in 1866.
Though some Senators specifically opposed the Citizenship Clause on the basis that Chinese people born
in the United States should not be granted citizenship, its proponents defended the Clause’s breadth
and affirmed that Chinese people born in the United
States would indeed be natural born citizens.
A decade and a half later, three lawyers—Francis
Wharton, Alexander Porter Morse, and George Collins—tried to ride the rising tide of anti-Chinese animus to relitigate the meaning of the Citizenship
Clause. Relying on new theories of international law
and anti-Chinese policy arguments, the arguments of
these three lawyers were unoriginalist. They were
racist. And, in Wong Kim Ark, these arguments ultimately lost. Like Congress, this Court determined not
to draw a race line in the Fourteenth.
This Court should not allow the writings of antiChinese racists of the late 19th Century to harm the
4
rights of Chinese and other people here in the United
States today by adopting their reasoning. After all, if
anti-Chinese scholarship can be laundered into the
Constitution in this case, it can in other civil rights
cases, including ones challenging the newly revived
alien land laws. See Shen v. Fla. Commissioner of Agriculture, 158 F.4th 1227, 1269-70 (11th Cir. 2025)
(Wilson, J., dissenting) (criticizing the majority for upholding the continued validity of Terrace v. Thompson,
263 U.S. 197 (1923), which was part of a disgraced history of restricting the rights of Asians in the United
States).
ARGUMENT
I.
Chinese migration to the United States begins to grow in the mid-19th century.
In the late 1840s, desperate economic conditions at
home and the prospect of gold in the American west
drove thousands of Chinese migrants to seek opportunity in California.4 Most had no money to fund the
trip and were forced to take out passage loans; these
loans required them to repay as much as $100 for a
4 Terry E. Boswell, A Split Labor Market Analysis of Discrimina-
tion Against Chinese Immigrants, 1850-1882, 51 American Sociological Review, 352, 357 (1986).
5
$40 ticket.5 Trapped in contract labor, Chinese migrants worked for pennies to pay off their debt.6 By
1852, more than 20,000 Chinese immigrants had arrived on the west coast, up from 2,700 the year before.7
White gold miners, threatened by the influx of cheaper
labor, rioted. After a recession in 1853 tanked gold
prices, white miners drove many Chinese immigrants
out of their leases altogether.8
Chinese migrants crashed against an increasingly
hostile west coast throughout the 1850s and 60s.
White miners and railroad workers would even form
anti-Chinese clubs.9 In the face of legal discrimination
and a lack of citizenship, Chinese workers were confined to certain jobs, including hard labor, cooking,
and laundry services,.10 In 1852, California passed a
law requiring Chinese miners to purchase a $3 license, without which they could not even challenge
Id.
Id.
7 Id. at 356.
8 Id.
9 Kerry Abrams, Polygamy, Prostitution, and Federalization
105 Columbia Law Review 641, 651 (2005).
10 Lea VanderVelde & Gabriel J. Chin, Sowing the Seeds of Chinese Exclusion As the Reconstruction Congress Debates Civil
Rights Inclusion, 25 UCLA Asian Pacific American Law Journal
Vol. 29, 39-40 (2021).
5
6
6
the law in the courts.11 In 1854, the California Supreme Court expanded a state law barring African
Americans from testifying for or against a white person to include Chinese citizens, who the court labeled
“a race of people whom nature has marked as inferior,
and who are incapable of progress or intellectual development beyond a certain point.”12 Laws like this in
California and elsewhere led to attacks on Chinese
workers, who had no effective recourse to justice given
this inability to access the courts.13
White people in the U.S. looked down on these indentured migrant workers as “coolies,” Chinese peasants who were supposedly willing to submit themselves to a kind of slavery and who, therefore, could
never be capable of participation in democratic society.14 Because of the high cost of travel and harsh labor conditions, most Chinese workers in the U.S. at
the time were men. In 1852, of 2,954 Chinese people
11 Anna O. Law, Migration and the Origins of American Citizen-
ship: African Americans, Native Americans and Immigration
41-43 (Oxford University Press) (pub. forthcoming 2026), at
157.
12 People v. Hall, 4 Cal. 399, 404-05 (1854).
13 Caroline Jordan, Remaking Life: The Culture of Chinese Transcontinental Railroad Workers 12 The Purdue Historian 1, 5-6
(2025).
14 Abrams, above note 9, at 658-59.
7
in San Francisco, only 19 were women.15 When Chinese women did arrive, locals characterized them all
as second wives, concubines, and prostitutes, just as
prone to voluntary slavery as Chinese men.16 California and other states effectively banned all female Chinese migration by prohibiting prostitution and polygamy and then overenforcing the laws to apply to all
Chinese women.17
Throughout the 1850s and 60s, California, Oregon,
and Washington passed more statutes targeting Chinese immigrants, ranging from manifest, bond, and
approval requirements for ship captains bringing Chinese migrants to the U.S., to strict Chinese immigration bans.18 In 1862, the California legislature commissioned a study to answer the “Chinese question.”
When the study concluded Chinese workers provided
an economic benefit to the state, the legislature disregarded it and passed “An Act to protect Free White
Labor against competition with Chinese Coolie Labor,
and to Discourage the Immigration of the Chinese into
the State of California” which required migrants to
pay a $2.50 per month “Chinese Police Tax.”19
15 Id. at 649.
16 Id. at 652-53.
17 Id. at 651-53.
18 Law, above note 10, at 157-58.
19 Id.
8
At the federal level, the U.S. government initially
welcomed the influx of low-cost Chinese workers, but
its support was fickle. In February 1862, Congress
passed the Anti-Coolie Act, hoping to quell the flow of
immigrants by prohibiting the passage loans that
brought so many Chinese migrants to the U.S.20 A few
months later, however, in the heat of the Civil War,
Congress passed the Pacific Railroad Act of 1862, authorizing construction of the transcontinental railroad
to begin on the west coast.21 Realizing construction
would require an immense labor force, and eyeing a
lucrative trade route for Asian goods, Congress reauthorized immigration recruitment through the passage loans and indentured servitude it had just outlawed two years earlier.22 In the end, 90 percent of the
workers who built the Central Pacific Railroad were
Chinese.23 Congress ultimately replaced the servitude
authorization four years later with the Burlingame
Treaty, under which China received “most favored nation” trade status in exchange for unrestricted immigration to America for its citizens.24 Though the
20 12 Stat. 340.
21 12 Stat. 489.
22 VanderVelde & Chin, above note 11, at 43-45.
23 Abrams, above note 9, at 649.
Bernadette Meyler, The Gestation of Birthright Citizenship,
1868-1898: States’ Rights, The Law of Nations, and Mutual
Consent 521, Georgetown University Law Journal Vol. 15:519
(2001); see also Act of July 4, 1864, 13 Stat. 385 (repealed 1868).
24
9
Treaty recognized “the inherent and inalienable right
of man to change his home and allegiance,” whether
for “curiosity … trade … or permanent residents,” the
U.S. government withheld any path to citizenship for
Chinese immigrants.25
II.
Congress passes the Citizenship Clause
over racist anti-Chinese objections.
A.
Congress passes the Civil Rights Act of
1866, including Chinese children in citizenship.
As other briefs document in more detail, the precursor to the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship
Clause was part of the Civil Rights Act of 1866.26 Some
of the opposition, led by Senators Edgar Cowan, Garrett Davis, and George Williams, invoked anti-Chinese sentiment as a means of attacking the breadth of
the citizenship provisions in the Act. Senator Cowan
asked if the law will “not have the effect of naturalizing the children of Chinese and Gypsies born in this
country?”27 When Senator Lyman Trumbull responded “[u]ndoubtedly,” Cowell responded by protesting that “the day may not be very far distant
when California, instead of belonging to the IndoEuropean race, may belong to the Mongolian, may
25 Burlingame Treaty, July 28, 1868, U.S.-China, 16 Stat. 739.
26 See, e.g., Brief of Respondents at 17-20.
27 See Cong. Globe, 1st Sess. 39th Cong. 498 (Jan. 30, 1866).
10
belong to the Chinese.”28 “I cannot consent to say
that California, or Oregon, or Colorado, or Nevada,
or any of those States shall be given over to an
irruption [sic] of Chinese.”29
Senator Davis was even more vocal: “I deny that a
single citizen was ever made by one of the States out
of the negro race. I deny that a single citizen was ever
made by one of the States out of the Mongolian race. I
controvert that a single citizen was ever made by one
of the States out of the Chinese race, out of the Hindoos, or out of any other race of people but the Caucasian race of Europe.”30 “[N]one of the inferior races
of any kind were intended to be embraced or were embraced by this work of government in manufacturing
citizens.”31 “Does the honorable Senator from Illinois
[Trumbull] mean to assume the position that he declared with so much distinctness and emphasis a day
or two ago, that everybody born in the United States
is a citizen?”32 Senator Williams then asked rhetorically if “negroes and Indians and Chinese and all persons of that description shall be eligible to the office of
President,”33 before Senator Davis again complained
28 Id.
29 Id. at 499.
30 Id. 523 (Jan. 31, 1866).
31 Id.
32 Id.
33 Id. 573 (Feb. 1, 1866)
11
that “[w]hen a negro or Chinaman is attempted to
be obtruded into [our system of government], the
sufficient cause to repel him is that he is a negro
or Chinaman.”34
President Johnson’s (overridden35) veto of the Act contained more of the same. “This provision comprehends
the Chinese of the Pacific States, Indians subject to
taxation, the people called Gypsies, as well as the entire race designated as blacks, people of color, negroes,
mulattoes, and persons of' African blood. Every individual of those races, born in the United States, is by
the bill made a citizen of the United States.”36 It was
not meant as a compliment.
B.
Congress
passes
the
Fourteenth
Amendment, including Chinese children within citizenship.
After passage of the Act, some members of Congress moved to amend the Constitution, in part to
eliminate any doubts about the Act’s constitutionality.37
The debates were much the same. For instance,
Senator Cowan, now rhetorically, asked once again
34 Id. 575.
35 See Jones v. Alfred Mayer Co., 392 U.S. 409, 435 (1968).
36 Cong. Globe, 1st Sess. 39th Cong. at 1679 (Mar. 27, 1866).
37 Hurd v. Hodge, 334 U.S. 24, 32-33 (1948).
12
“[i]s the child of the Chinese immigrant in California
a citizen? Is the child of a Gypsy born in Pennsylvania
a citizen?”38 Do “they have any more rights than a sojourner in the United States?”39
Senator Conness ultimately responded that “in
that respect to the children begotten of Chinese parents in California, and it is proposed to declare that
they shall be citizens. We have declared that by law;
now it is proposed to incorporate the same provision
in the fundamental instrument of the nation.”40 Conness explained, under the Fourteenth Amendment,
that “the children of all parentage whatever, born in
California, should be regarded and treated as citizens
of the United States.”41
III.
Anti-Chinese lawyers attempt to relitigate
the Citizenship Clause.
A.
Chinese migration and anti-Chinse
racism rise.
After the Fourteenth Amendment became law,
Chinese migration continued to increase. By 1880,
38 Cong. Globe, 1st Sess. 39th Cong. at 2890 (May 30, 1866).
39 Id.
40 Id. at 2891.
41 Id.
13
nearly 140,000 Chinese people lived in the U.S.42 Hostility and legal discrimination also continued to increase. In 1874, in President Grant’s Sixth Annual
Message, he complained that Chinese people in the
United States do not “perform any honorable labor,
but they are brought for shameful purposes, to the
disgrace of the communities where settled, and to
the great demoralization of the youth of those localities.”43 In 1880, the U.S. entered into a new treaty permitting it to limit or suspend Chinese immigration.44
Two years later, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, barring any new Chinese migrants from entering the country for 10 years, and asserting that the
migration of Chinese laborers to the U.S. “endangers
the good order” of the nation.45 The next year, President Arthur used part of his Third Annual Message to
complain China was violating the Exclusion Act.46 In
1892, the Geary Act extended exclusion for another 10
years, and required all Chinese people to register with
the federal government, with stiff penalties for any
who could not prove they had complied.47 In 1902,
42 Law, above n. 11, at 156.
43 From Francis Wharton, Digest of the International Law of the
United States 461 (1886) (“Wharton’s Digest”).
44 Law, above n. 11 at 257.
45 Act of May 6, 1882, 22 Stat. 58.
46 Wharton’s Digest, above n. 40, at 469.
47 27 Stat. 25 (1892).
14
Congress made the Chinese Exclusion Act permanent.48
Meanwhile, anti-Chinese violence and sentiment
continued to flourish. In 1885, for instance, the Rock
Springs Massacre saw white miners kill at least 28
Chinese immigrants and burn down the town’s entire
Chinese quarter.49 Violence like this was made all the
worse due to the incapacity, as noted above, of Chinese
people to act as witnesses in court against white assailants.
Even those otherwise on the right side of history gave
in to anti-Chinese racism, In his Plessy v. Ferguson
dissent, Justice Harlan noted that “[t]here is a race so
different from our own that we do not permit those belonging to it to become citizens of the United States.
Persons belonging to it are, with few exceptions, absolutely excluded from our country. I allude to the Chinese race.”50
Chinese immigrants remained excluded from naturalization until 1943.51
48 Act of April 29, 1902, 32 Stat. 176.
49 Michael Lao, When an American Town Massacred its Chinese
Immigrants, The New Yorker (Mar. 3, 2025), available at
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/03/10/when-anamerican-town-massacred-its-chinese-immigrants.
50 163 U.S. 537, 561 (1896).
51 VanderVelde & Chin, above note 10, at 523-25.
15
B.
Wharton uses anti-Chinese arguments
in support of the new international law
concept of jus sanguinis.
At around the same time the 14th Amendment was
passed, Europe itself debated the definition of citizenship. In 1858, Cambridge Professor John Westlake
noted that there was “‘no rules of quite universal acceptance’ for attributing nationality at birth,” but “the
mechanisms of birthplace and descent predominated.”52 A few years later, the French jurist Charles
Demolombe coined the terms jus sanguinis and jus
solis.53 As that debate occurred, a number of international law experts began pushing for a theory of citizenship based on jus sanguinis, often backed by xenophobic reasoning.54
Back in the States, and despite the language of the
1866 Act and the Citizenship Clause, several wellknown lawyers entered the fray in an attempt to make
jus sanguinis the law of the land. Why they did so, in
their heart of hearts, may be unclear. They may have
opposed the Reconstruction Amendments. They may
52 Sam Erman and Nathan Perl-Rosenthal, Jus Soli Nation to
Jus Soli Evasion: International Lawyers for White Supremacy
and the Road through Wong Kim Ark, 3 J. Am. Const. Hist. 615,
630 (2025) (“JACH”) (quoting John Westlake, A Treatise on the
International Law 5 (1858)).
53 Id. at 631.
54 Id. at 631-35, 637-39.
16
have simply believed that international law was
trending towards jus sanguinis and wanted the
United States to follow suit. They may have simply
hated foreigners. They may have been white supremacists. Ultimately, their motives are less important
than how they pressed their case.
Francis Wharton was already into his late 40s during the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment.55 A
Pennsylvania Democrat, he was a scholar, mostly
known for his contributions to criminal law.56 Still, he
had an interest in international law and relations. He
took a position as a claims examiner with the Department of State from 1885-1888, and was ultimately
elected to the Institute of International Law.57
He was also prone to the racial prejudices of the
Democratic party of the day. One contemporary describing him as “a Democratic in politics, of the old
States-rights school.”58 Though he was a Civil War unionist, he had “serious question how far immediate
emancipation would really help the colored race.”59
55 Helen Elizabeth Moore, Francis Wharton: A Memoir 7 (1891).
56 Id. at 16; Iannelli v. United States, 420 U.S. 770, 773-74 (1975).
1 Institut De Droit International: Annuaire xiv-xv (1994)
[1877]).
58 A Memoir, above n. 55, at 254 (1891).
59 Id.
57
17
Wharton took an interest in the meaning of citizenship in his Treatise on the Conflict of laws. And, although what he wrote was careful and concise—he
wrote general treatises, after all, rather than opinion
based articles—anti-Chinese sentiment seeped in.
Initially, in his attempt to reframe the Citizenship
Clause as espousing a theory of jus sanguinis, Wharton focused on the concept of domicile.60 For this approach to work within the framework of the Democratic political worldview that wanted to encourage
European (but not Asian) migration, he required a
view of birthright citizenship that included European
immigrants but excluded the Chinese. And so Wharton argued that Chinese people were insufficiently
“civilized” for Americans to tolerate them being
deemed domiciled in the United States.61 They “come
in vast masses, and are permitted by treaty to
disperse themselves over the whole land.”62 “To admit
such rights to an emigrating nation, would be not
merely to establish a foreign sovereign, but a foreign
60 Francis Wharton, Treatise on the Conflict of Laws, or Private
International Law, including a Comparative View of AngloAmerican, Roman, German, and French Jurisprudence 25-26
(1872).
61 Id.
62 Id.
18
barbarism, within our national domain.”63 So, Wharton theorized, citizenship must, at minimum, require
a domicile status that Chinese people could not attain:
“Undoubtedly, domicil must be the test, among Christian nations, so far as concerns the capacity to make
wills, and the law by which succession is governed.”
But the Chinese could be excluded based on the (racist) preconception that the Chinese themselves “regard themselves simply as strangers and sojourners.”64 This idea would later, in a way, find its way into
the briefing in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169
U.S. 649 (1898), where the Government argued that
“all Chinese persons, as a rule, are but temporary residents of this country,”65 even as it admitted that
Wong Kim Ark’s parents were domiciled in the United
States.66
Wharton evolved his Citizenship Clause arguments in his Treatise of the Conflict of Laws or Private
International Law.67 This evolution was likely based
on two likely problems with using domicile. First, the
phrase was simply not one present in the Citizenship
Clause. So, for instance, he admitted that the plain
63 Id.
64 Id.
65 Wong Kim Ark Brief for the United States at 26 (emphasis orig-
inal).
66 Id. at 3.
67 (2nd ed. 1881) (“Conflict of Laws 1881”).
19
language of the Amendment would permit “a child []
born in the United States of French parents temporarily resident but not domiciled in the place of birth” to
be deemed an American citizen.68 Second, Wharton
likely was aware that it may not always be possible to
divide European immigrants from Chinese ones forever on the mere basis of domicile. So instead, Wharton argued that the plain language of “subject to the
jurisdiction” should be construed in terms of the
(later-evolving, as noted above) “international law.”69
As for what international law required, Wharton went
on to admit that most Britain and France still followed
jus solis to at least some extent, but argued that because such citizenship was renounceable, it was based
on consent; and because minors could not consent, this
should be seen as citizenship by naturalization.70 This
worked better as a way to include Europeans but exclude the Chinese, as the United States had just recently re-excluded Chinese people from being able to
claim citizenship by naturalization.71 So the “Chinese
born of Chinese-non naturalized parents, such parents not being here domiciled, are not citizens of the
United States.”72 And because “only whites can be naturalized” under an 1804 statute, the Chinese were not
68 Id. at 32-34.
69 Id. at 34.
70 Id. 36-39 & n.2
71 Chinese Exclusion Acts, above n. 45.
72 Conflict of Laws 1881, above n. 67, at 41;
20
“comprehended within the federal naturalization statutes.”73 Wharton then went on to favorably cite antiChinese findings made in the House of Representatives, including that Chinese migrants were homeless,
unsanitary, baby-killers, and, unlike “[r]espectable
persons,” unafraid of punishment74. China was, in
Wharton’s words, a “semi-barbarous state[]” rather
than a “Christian state[].”75
Similarly, in his separate treatise International
Law Digest, Wharton stated that “Chinese also are
not citizens in the contemplation of the fourteenth
amendment, since they are not capable of naturalization under our system.”76
C.
Morse sees an opportunity in rising
anti-Chinese sentiment.
Alexander Porter Morse was a Louisiana Democrat and a confederate veteran.77 Like Wharton,
Morse was also interested in international law.78 A
73 Id.; see also In re Ah Yup, 1 F. Cas. 223 (C.C.D. Cal. 1878) (in-
terpreting naturalization law as limited to white people and excluding the Chinese)
74 Id. at 42-43 n.1.
75 Id. at 47.
76 (1881) at Vol. II 481; see also Wong Kim Ark Brief of United
States at 42 (citing Wharton).
77 JACH, above n. 52, at 622, 635.
78 Id. at 635-36.
21
white supremacist, he is perhaps most famous for being part of the team arguing Plessy v. Ferguson, 163
U.S. 537 (1896), for Louisiana, enshrining the doctrine
of separate but equal into our interpretation of the
Fourteenth Amendment for over 50 years.79 After the
Civil War, he returned to Louisiana, and soon became
something of an expert on international law.80 He rose
to prominence as an able lawyer on the legal team for
Democratic presidential candidate Samuel Tilden before the Electoral Commission.81 Then and later, he
became a well-known advocate for limiting the Reconstruction Amendments, often under the mantra of
states’ rights.82
Morse found within international law “opportunities
to relitigate aspects of the Civil War and its settlement.”83 This included the use of international law to
seek damages for Union appropriation and destruction of property.84 And it was especially true of adopting Wharton’s international theory of jus sanguinis.85
79 Id. at 655.
80 Id. at 617, 627.
81 Id. at 635.
82 Id. at 636.
83 Id.
84 Id.
85 Id.
22
Jus sanguinis was a relatively recent (or at least
recently popularized) concept in international law.86
And in the dispute between jus sanguinis and jus
solis, there was a movement to “create a global jus
sanguinis standard.”87 Among the leaders of that
movement were John Westlake, David Dudley Field
and Alexander Cockburn.88 These views were themselves seeped in a certain racism. For instance,
Westlake stated that jus sanguinis was preferrable
because doing so would match citizenship to a person’s
“mental and moral habits.”89 And Field was, like
Morse, an opponent of Reconstruction who believed in
the inherent inferiority of blacks.90
If there seemed to be a racial aspect to jus sanguinis, for Morse at least, that was the point.91 In 1881,
Morse wrote “A Treatise of Citizenship.”92 That treatise “mixed comparative and international law analy-
86 Id. at 637; see generally above at 15-16.
87 Id.
88 Id. 634-36; see also Appendix (showing Government here rely-
ing on these authors).
89 John Westlake, A Treatise on the International Law at 16
(1858).
90 See, e.g., Henry M. Field, The Life of David Dudley Field at
161, 166, 199-200, 265, 290 (1898).
91 JACH, above n.52, at 639.
92 (1881).
23
sis with racist arguments favoring disenfranchisement.”93 Adopting racist stereotypes, Morse referred
disparagingly to the “fecundity of the blacks,” for
which he stated emancipation had only increased.94
He warned about extending the vote to black people,
stating that there is a “danger to the republic as a result of the indiscriminate extension of the franchise to
ignorant and unqualified masses, whether white or
black, native or foreign.”95 He referenced favorably the
racist musings of another author, Page McCarty, as
having said that “one half of the dual character of
American citizenship was paralyzed, and he foreshadowed that under the care of the black nurse it would
cease to exist and slough off.”96 He further argued for
segregation,97 and for prohibiting interracial marriage
and criminalizing sex between people different
races.98
Morse was more outspoken in his formal writings
about his anti-black racism, but his views on the Chinese were no more enlightened. “The negro question—
so far, at least, as political status is concerned—has
been finally disposed of. But the Indian problem and
93 JACH, above n. 52, at 363.
94 Treatise on Citizenship, above n. 92, at 173
95 Id. at 214.
96 Id. at 183.
97 Id. at 253.
98 Id. at 253 (fornication) and 293 (marriage).
24
the Chinese question remain,” he wrote.99 Morse approved of laws prohibiting Chinese people from testifying where a white person is a party.100 In a later article he wrote in the Albany Law Journal in 1904, he
warned that if jus solis was used to determine citizenship, this would mean that a child of Chinese persons
born in the United States might one day rise to become President.101
Morse, like Wharton, was expressly not relying on
the original public meaning of the Citizenship clause.
After Wharton and Morse published their 1881 works,
Justice Stephen Field (the brother of David Dudley
Field) decided the U.S. Circuit Court case In re Look
Tin Sing, 21 F. 905 (D. Cal. 1884). That case, a habeas
case involving a Chinese petitioner born in California,
held the Chinese Exclusion Act inapplicable because
persons born in the United States were citizens, unless born on a public vessel, or to a diplomat, or unless
they renounce their citizenship. Id. at 906.
Look Tin Sing angered Morse. He wrote an 1884 letter to the Albany Law Journal lambasting the decision.102 There, he “conceded” “that the language of the
fourteenth amendment, which was under construction
99 Id. at Preface, xiv.
100 Id. at 253.
101 66 Alb. L. J. 99, 100 (1904).
102 30 Alb. L.J. 401 (1884).
25
in the case of Look Tin Sing, is very broad.”103 Still, he
argued that his position should be adopted under an
evolving understanding of the Constitution because,
evoking Wharton, “Citizenship” was “nowadays dependent upon choice rather than status.”104 Morse
suggested the Court ignore plain meaning of the Citizenship Clause in favor of evolving international law,
where “jus sanguinis” was “now universally accepted
by dominant northern [that is, European] States.”105
Indeed, Morse went on to argue that Courts should ignore outright the language of the “less carefully
worded” Fourteenth Amendment (compared to the
Civil Rights Act of 1866) and instead apply statutory
law from 1866: “The former makes citizenship (or national character) of children of aliens dependent upon
place of birth; the latter derives it, in case of children
of citizens, from parentage.”106
Morse did not argue just to a domestic audience.
He travelled and published internationally to advance
his argument, significantly overstating (to be kind) his
103 Id. at 420.
104 Id.
105 Id. (bracketed language added).
106 Id.
26
case.107 And so a combination of this active international lobbying, along with a preference for jus sanguinis themselves, may have led certain foreign writers
and international law specialists publishing about
American law—such as Hugh Bellott, Boyd Winchester, William Edward Hall, and Hannis Taylor, to believe that America applied some sort of rule of jus sanguinis.108
D.
George Collins takes anti-Chinese racism to the Supreme Court.
Morse would press his theories of citizenship before the Supreme Court,109 but did not himself get a
chance to overturn Look Tin Sing before the Supreme
107 Washingtonians Abroad, Evening Start, 7 Sept. 1874, 1; Insti-
tut De Droit Interna- Tional: Annuaire: Tome 1: 1877, at 29 (1994
[1877]); Alexander Porter Morse, De l’acquisition de la Nationalite aux Etats-Unis, Journal du 'Droit International Prive et de la
Jurisprudence comparer (1887); see id. at 32 (falsely stating that
the child of a foreigner is a foreigner, “[l]'enfant d'un citoyen des
Etats-Unis est citoyen des Etats-Unis; l'enfant d'un étranger est
étranger,” and that the United States has adopted jus sanguinis
in full, “[l]es Etats- Unis, en présence du jus soli et du jus sanguinis, ont fini par donner une adhésion entière à la doctrine du
jus sanguinis”).
108 See Brief of Petitioners at 27-28.
109 State of Missouri ex rel Carey v. Andriano, 138 U.S. 496 (1891);
Contzen v. U.S., 179 U.S. 191 (1900).
27
Court. That fell to George Collins, a California Republican who grew up among the anti-Chinese hostility
then prevalent in California.110
Although Morse’s ideas formed the attack on the
citizenship clause,111 Collins’s arguments for jus sanguinis were more xenophobic than those of Morse or
Wharton. In his article “Are Persons Born Within the
United States Ipso Facto Citizens Thereof?” Collins
argued that such a rule would be “impolitic.”112 “The
Chinese, for instance, are a people foreign to us in
every respect.”113 He continued:
Although all this time surrounded by American
civilization it has wholly failed to make any impression upon them; they segregate themselves
from the mass of people and establish a colony
according to Oriental ideas in order that they
may live in a manner similar to those in China;
they are antagonistic to our civilization; know
nothing and refuse to know anything of our institutions and are utterly incapable of self-government; they do not come here animus
110 JACH, above n.52, at 647.
111 See generally id. at 648-49; see also Lucy Salyer, Wong Kim
Ark: The Contest Over Birthright Citizenship, Immigration Stories 51, 58-59 (NY Foundation Press 2005) (“Salyer”).
112 18 Am. L. Rev. 831, 834 (1884)
113 Id.
28
manendi, but as soon as they obtain a competency, either by their labor or otherwise, they
return to their native land to enjoy it. Their
children born upon American soil are Chinese
from their very birth in all respects, just as
much so as though they had been born and
reared in China; they inherit the same prejudices, the same customs, habits, and methods of
their ancestors; in short, they are subject to the
same civilization and adhere to it with as much
tenacity as did their forefathers.114
Chinese people were “utterly unfit, wholly incompetent” to be American citizens, “and yet under the common-law rule they would be citizens.”115 Congress’s
own racism showed that the citizenship was meant to
be exclusionary: “Congress has seen fit to confine the
privilege of becoming an American citizen to the Caucasian and African races; yet under the common-law
rule the children of all persons, irrespective of race,
who were born within the United States would be citizens.”116 Such “evils which result from an indiscriminate admission of foreigners into the body politic,”
Collins implied, could not be tolerated.117
114 Id.
115 Id.
116 Id. at 835.
117 Id.
29
Collins followed that up with an 1895 article, “Citizenship by Birth.”118 That article was no more egalitarian. For instance, there Collins warned that the
government was “oblivious” to the fact that Chinese
people “under the claim of citizenship by birth” were
invading America and exercising the rights of citizens.119
While the Amicus Brief of Senator Cruz modestly
describes Collins as appointed amicus in Wong Kim
Ark, as if he was some neutral observer,120 Collins organized a lobbying campaign to push for a test case.121
Due to its own anti-Chinese racism and the effect the
Citizenship Clause was having in limiting the Chinese
Exclusion Act, the Government shared the same
goal.122 Collins’ gambit ultimately resulted in the
Wong King Ark case. There, the Government expressly “invited” George Collins “to participate as
amicus curiae” in the case.123
118 29 Am. L. Rev. 385, 393 (1895).
119 Id. at 394-95.
120 at 16.
121 Salyer, above n. 111, at 65-67.
122 Id. at 62-67.
123 Letter from US Attorney Henry Foote to the Office of the At-
torney General (Nov. 23, 1895) (on file with author); see also In
re Wong Kim Ark, 71 F. 382, 384 (N.D. Cal. 1986) (“The district
attorney was assisted by Mr. George D. Collins, of the San Francisco bar, who appeared in the matter as amicus curiae.”).
30
In lower courts, Collins’ and the Government’s arguments focused on xenophobia.124 In the Supreme
Court, the arguments were more academic, but ultimately Collins’ arguments returned to anti-Chinese
racism. “Are Chinese children born in this country to
share with the descendants of the patriots of the
American Revolution the exalted qualification of being eligible to the Presidency of the nation, conferred
by the Constitution in recognition of the importance
and dignity of citizenship by birth?” asked Collins’
Brief on Behalf of the Appellant (co-signed by the Solicitor General).125 “If so, then verily there has been a
most degenerate departure from the patriotic ideals of
our forefathers; and surely in that case American citizenship is not worth having.”126 After all, according to
Collins, the “offspring” of Chinese “are just as obnoxious” as their parents.127 The Government would go on
to argue in reply that Chinese people would always
have “obedience” to China and Chinese culture, and
therefore could not be citizens.128
But ultimately, these appeals lost. The Supreme
Court rejected the Government’s jus sanguinis argu-
124 Salyer, above n. 111, at 68.
125 Wong Kim Ark Brief on Behalf of the United States at 34.
126 Id.
127 Id.
128 Wong Kim Ark Reply Brief for United States at 7.
31
ments, even though those arguments repeatedly relied on Wharton129 and Morse.130 More importantly, it
rejected the Government’s racial appeal. Just like in
Congress, the opponents of birthright citizenship
posed the question of would you even allow the Chinese to become citizens, and the Court responded that
it would.
IV.
The Government is simply recycling the
losing arguments of Wharton, Morse, and
Collins.
In Wong Kim Ark, Wharton, Morse, and Collins
lost. And that loss was deserved. Their arguments
were built on a racist foundation, attempting to use
anti-Chinese sentiment to relitigate, rather than interpret, the Citizenship Clause. These policy-based
arguments simply echoed the same arguments made
by Senators Cowan, Davis, and Williams.
The Government expressly relies on the approach
129 Wong Kim Ark Brief for United States at 42, 43; Wong Kim
Ark Brief on Behalf of the United States at 27-31.
130 Wong Kim Ark Brief for United States at 10, 11. The Brief for
the United States (at 18) and the Brief on Behalf of the United
States (at 15-16) also relied on Chief Justice Taney’s decision in
Dred Scott. Id. at 18; but see Look Tin Sing, 21 F. at 909 (noting
that one purpose of the Citizenship Clause was “to overrule the
doctrine of the Dred Scott case”).
32
of Wharton and Morse.131 And while it does not cite
Collins expressly, it recycles the same arguments Collins made in Wong Kim Ark. As the appendix to this
brief show, many of the same treatises relied on by the
Government come right out of either Collins’ Wong
Kim Ark Brief on Behalf of the United States, or Conrad’s Brief for the United States. Likewise, many of
the case, statutory, and legislative history citations
are the same.
This Court should reject the Government’s approach. The writings of Wharton, Morse, and Collins
were not contemporary—they occurred 15-40 years after the Fourteenth Amendment was passed out of
Congress. They were not commentaries on the public
meaning of Citizenship Clause, either. Rather, they
were non-textualist attempts to recast the Citizenship
Clause in terms of later-evolving international law
and a racist and increasingly hostile opposition to Chinese people in the United States.
The Government is inviting this Court to rewrite
the Citizenship Clause vindicate exactly what Wharton, Morse, and Collins were trying to do 140 or so
years ago. If the Court accepts the invitation, it will
overturn a Constitutional amendment, under the
guise of interpreting it, in a decidedly non-originalist
131 See Petitioner’s Brief at 26-27; see also Cruz Brief at 16-17
(expressly relying on Collins).
33
manner, to ratify an anti-immigration agenda of the
federal Government motivated by xenophobia and
racism. The Court refused to do so 140 years ago, and
it should refuse again today.
*
*
*
The history of the Supreme Court is written in
stone, but it is also written in moments. In Wong Kim
Ark, a Supreme Court made up of people who themselves harbored racist anti-Chinese racist beliefs nevertheless stood up to that moment and defended the
Constitution. In contrast, in Korematsu v. United
States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944), the Supreme Court allowed fear and bigotry to subjugate the Constitution,
a mistake that this Court would later say was “wrong
the day it was decided, has been overruled in the court
of history, and—to be clear—has no place in law under
the Constitution.” Trump v. Hawaii, 585 U.S. 667, 710
(2018) (cleaned up). This is another moment for the
Court. Will it follow the path this Court blazed in
Wong Kim Ark? Or will it issue another Korematsu?
CONCLUSION
The Court should affirm the decision of the District
Court.
34
Respectfully submitted,
JUSTIN SADOWSKY
Counsel of Record
CHINESE AMERICAN LEGAL DEFENSE ALLIANCE
4250 N. Fairfax Drive #600
Arlington VA 22203
justins@caldausa.org
(646) 785-9154
February 25, 2026
APPENDIX
i
TABLE OF APPENDICES
Appendix (Table comparing citations in Wong
Kim Ark to citations in petitioner’s brief) ............. 1a
1a
APPENDIX
Cite
Pet’s
Brief
Page
3, 26
WKA Brief Page
Francis Wharton, A
Treatise on the Conflict of Laws (2d ed.
1881)
26
Brief for the U.S. at
43
William Edward
Hall, A Treatise on
International Law
(4th ed. 1895).
John Westlake, International Law
(1904)
4 Robert Phillimore,
Commentaries Upon
International Law
(2d. ed. 1874)
Secretary of State
Frelinghuysen Opinion
26
Alexander Porter
Morse, A Treatise on
Citizenship, 248
(1881)
Brief for the U.S. at
11
Brief on behalf of
the U.S. at 28-29, 31
Brief for the U.S. at
9
28
Brief on behalf of
the U.S. at 7
20
Brief on behalf of
the U.S. at 12
25
U.S. Reply Brief at
14-16
2a
Emerich de Vattel,
The Law of Nations
(1797)
Slaughter-House
Cases, 16 Wall. 36,
73 (1873) (“was intended to exclude
from its operation
children of … citizens or subjects of
foreign States born
within the United
States”)
Minor v. Happersett,
21 Wall. 162 (1875)
(“doubts” about the
citizenship of children who are not
“born of citizen parents”)
Shanks v. Dupont, 3
Pet. 242 (1830)
Elk v. Wilkins, 112
U.S. 94 (1884) (Native Americans are
21, 22
Brief on behalf of
the U.S. at 7
24
Brief for the U.S. at
17, 30-31, 41
Brief on Behalf of
the U.S. at 24
24
Brief for the U.S. at
12
Brief on behalf of
the U.S. at 37
21
21
U.S. Reply Brief at 4
Brief on behalf of
the U.S. at 13
U.S. Reply Brief at
22, 24
Brief for the U.S. at
40-41
3a
not “completely subject to [the United
States’] political jurisdiction”)
Munro v. Merchant,
36 Barbour’s (New
York) Hep., 400, 401
(1858),
Ludlam v. Ludlam,
31 Barb. 486, 503
(N.Y. Gen. Term
1860).
Cong. Globe, 39th
Cong. 1st Sess. 2893
(1866) (“What do we
mean by ‘subject to
the jurisdiction of
the United States?’
Not owing allegiance
to anybody else.
That is what it
means.”)
Cong. Globe, 39th
Cong. 1st Sess. 2895
(1866) (Howard: “full
and complete”—that
Brief on behalf of
the U.S. at 26-27,
30, 38-39
411
U.S. Reply Brief at
17
11, 41
U.S. Reply Brief at
17-19
18
U.S. Reply Brief at
37
18
Brief for the U.S. at
38
1 Indirectly cited via David Dudley Field, Outlines of an Interna-
tional Code 132 n.1 (2d ed. 1876).
4a
is, “the same jurisdiction in extent and
quality as applies to
every citizen of the
United States.”)
1866 Civil Rights
Act (“not subject to
any foreign power”)
U.S. Reply Brief at
9-10
17-18,
42
Brief for the U.S. at
40
Brief on behalf of
the U.S. at 23
1868 Expatriation
Legislation (“inconsistent with the fundamental principles
of the Republic”)
40-412
2 Citing congressional report.
U.S. Reply Brief at
10-12
Brief on behalf of
the U.S. at 8
This is a copy of a public record, reproduced as it was published. It is not legal advice, and it may not be the version a court would rely on. Check the official source before you cite it.