What Senator Howard Really Said about the Fourteenth Amendment

When Senator Jacob Howard explained the Fourteenth Amendment's citizenship clause, he said: "This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States." Most people today read this statement and assume Howard was listing four separate categories of people who would not receive birthright citizenship: Foreigners Aliens People who belong to families of ambassadors Foreign ministers This interpretation has shaped decades of constitutional debate, but it's based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how Howard structured his sentence....