The Fourteenth Amendment: Clarifying the Superiority of ‘state citizen’ Rights over ‘U.S. citizen’ Rights
The Fourteenth Amendment created and clarified the concept of U.S. citizenship. Before the amendment, it was widely believed and accepted by many legal authorities that there was no such thing as a “citizen of the United States” except as a condition that stemmed from being a citizen of an individual state. It was thought that the only way to become a U.S. citizen was by first becoming a citizen of a state. The Fourteenth Amendment resolved this debate by explicitly defining U.S. citizenship: “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” are citizens of both the United States and the state in which they reside. This was meant to exclude certain groups, like the children of foreign diplomats, from automatic citizenship.
The Amendment also includes a protection stating that “no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.” However, this protection is limited to rights specific to U.S. citizenship, rather than all rights. It focuses solely on the privileges that exist as part of the condition of being a U.S. citizen, and not on the broader rights held by citizens of individual states.
In contrast, Article 4, Section 2, of the Constitution states that “the citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states.” This earlier provision specifically safeguards the rights of state citizens, showing a clear separation between state and federal citizenship rights. The Supreme Court, in the Slaughterhouse Cases, confirmed that these are distinct and separate categories. The rights of citizens of the states are not addressed by the Fourteenth Amendment; they remain as they were before its adoption, protected by other provisions of the Constitution.
Essentially, the rights of state citizens remain distinct and superior, as they are broader and more comprehensive than those conferred solely by U.S. citizenship. The Fourteenth Amendment’s focus on federal citizenship does not diminish or replace the rights held by citizens of the states, which are guaranteed and maintained independently.
A citizen of any one of the States of the union, is held to be, and called a citizen of the United States, although technically and abstractly there is no such thing. To conceive a citizen of the United States who is not a citizen of some one of the States, is totally foreign to the idea, and inconsistent with the proper construction and common understanding of the expression as used in the Constitution, which must be deduced from its various other provisions. The object then to be attained, by the exercise of the power of naturalization, was to make citizens of the respective States.
It is true, every person, and every class and description of persons, who were at the time of the adoption of the Constitution recognized as citizens in the several States, became also citizens of this new political body; but none other; it was formed by them, and for them and their posterity, but for no one else. And the personal rights and privileges guarantied [sic] to citizens of this new sovereignty were intended to embrace those only who were then members of the several state communities, or who should afterwards, by birthright or otherwise, become members, according to the provisions of the Constitution and the principles on which it was founded.
… [F]or it is certain, that in the sense in which the word “Citizen” is used in the federal Constitution, “Citizen of each State,” and “Citizen of the United States***,” are convertible terms; they mean the same thing; for “the Citizens of each State are entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States,” and “Citizens of the United States***” are, of course, Citizens of all the United States***.
[44 Maine 518 (1859), Hathaway, J. dissenting]
[italics in original, underlines & C’s added]
As it was the adoption of the Constitution by the Conventions of nine States that established and created the United States***, it is obvious there could not then have existed any person who had been seven years a citizen of the United States***, or who possessed the Presidential qualifications of being thirty-five years of age, a natural born citizen, and fourteen years a resident of the United States***. The United States*** in these provisions, means the States united. To be twenty-five years of age, and for seven years to have been a citizen of one of the States which ratifies the Constitution, is the qualification of a representative. To be a natural born citizen of one of the States which shall ratify the Constitution, or to be a citizen of one of said States at the time of such ratification, and to have attained the age of thirty-five years, and to have been fourteen years a resident within one of the said States, are the Presidential qualifications, according to the true meaning of the Constitution.
It is quite clear, then, that there is a citizenship of theUnited States** and a citizenship of a State, which are distinct from each other and which depend upon different characteristics or circumstances in the individual.
The first clause of the fourteenth amendment made negroes citizens of the United States**, and citizens of the State in which they reside, and thereby created two classes of citizens, one of the United States** and the other of the state.
We have in our political system a Government of the United States** and a government of each of the several States. Each one of these governments is distinct from the others, and each has citizens of its own ….
A person who is a citizen of the United States** is necessarily a citizen of the particular state in which he resides. But a personmay be a citizen of a particular state and not a citizen of the United States**. To hold otherwise would be to deny to the state the highest exercise of its sovereignty, — the right to declare who are its citizens.
The first clause of the fourteenth amendment of the federal Constitution made negroes citizens of the United States**, and citizens of the state in which they reside, and thereby created two classes of citizens, one of the United States** and the other of the state.
[4 Dec. Dig. ’06, p. 1197, sec. 11]
[“Citizens” (1906), emphasis added]
There are, then, under our republican form of government, two classes of citizens, one of the United States** and one of the state. One class of citizenship may exist in a person, without the other, as in the case of a resident of the District of Columbia; but both classes usually exist in the same person.
There is a distinction between citizenship of the United States** and citizenship of a particular state, and a personmay be the former without being the latter.
… citizens of the District of Columbia were not granted the privilege of litigating in the federal courts on the ground of diversity of citizenship. Possibly no better reason for this fact exists than such citizens were not thought of when the judiciary article [III] of the federal Constitution was drafted…. citizens of the United States**… were also not thought of; but in any event a citizen of the United States**, who is not a citizen of any state, is not within the language of the [federal] Constitution.
That there is a citizenship of the United States and a citizenship of a state, and the privileges and immunities of one are not the same as the other is well established by the decisions of the courts of this country.
No fortifying authority is necessary to sustain the proposition that in the United States a double citizenship exists. A citizen of the United States is a citizen of the Federal Government and at the same time a citizen of the State in which he resides. Determination of what is qualified residence within a State is not here necessary. Suffice it to say that one possessing such double citizenship owes allegiance and is entitled to protection from each sovereign to whose jurisdiction he is subject.
The privileges and immunities clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protects very few rights because it neither incorporates any of the Bill of Rights nor protects all rights of individual citizens. See Slaughter-House Cases, 83 U.S. (16 Wall.) 36, 21 L.Ed. 394 (1873).
Instead, this provision protects only those rights peculiar to being a citizen of the federal government; it does not protect those rights which relate to state citizenship.
The fourteenth 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 as that condition arose from citizenship of some state. No mode existed, it was said, of obtaining a citizenship of the United States, except by first becoming a citizen of some state. This question is now at rest. The fourteenth amendment defines and declares who shall be citizens of the United States, to wit, “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” The latter qualification was intended to exclude the children of foreign representatives and the like. With this qualification, every person born in the United States or naturalized is declared to be a citizen of the United States and of the state wherein he resides.
After creating and defining citizenship of the United States, the fourteenth amendment provides, that “no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.” This clause is intended to be a protection, not to all our rights, but to our rights as citizens of the United States only; that is to rights existing or belonging to that condition or capacity. The expression, citizen of a state, used in the previous paragraph, is carefully omitted here. In article 4. § 2, subd. 1. of the constitution of the United States, it had been already provided, that “the citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states.” The rights of citizens of the states and of citizens of the United States are each guarded by these different provisions. That these rights are separate and distinct, was held in the Slaughterhouse Cases, 16 “Wall. [83 U. S.] 36, recently decided by the supreme court. The rights of citizens of the state, as such, are not under consideration in the fourteenth amendment. They stand as they did before the adoption of the fourteenth amendment, and are fully guaranteed by other provisions. The rights of citizens of the states have been the subject of judicial decision on more than one occasion.
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