“…Price notes that although today we speak of birthright citizenship in terms of its “automatic” qualities and entitlements, citizenship throughout American history has been anything but straightforward. Native Americans and freed slaves were totally excluded from the rule of birthright citizenship in most states during the first century of the Republic. Even among those who were considered citizens, “classes” of citizenship carried the day. White women, for example, were considered citizens but were without many basic political rights associated with citizenship today.

The surprise, then, is that American courts ever adopted birthright citizenship at all, given the fact that until well after passage of the 14th Amendment, “politically no one intended to accord equal citizenship rights solely on the basis of birth within the territory,” Price said. Great Britain, the nation that gave birth to Calvin’s Case, abandoned birthright citizenship in 1981, after four centuries. “The remaining question is whether, as a legal practice and a political idea, the United States rule of birthright citizenship will survive, without the sanction it once enjoyed as a product of natural law….” HERE