The 14th Amendment vs. Real Birthrights

By Lex Greene

January 24, 2025

Citizenship rights are front and center in the national debate again, following President Trump’s “Birthright Citizenship” Executive Order (EO) intended to stop the intentional abuse of 14th Amendment language by politicians opposed to national sovereignty and security, including those appointed to the bench. With more than 20-million illegal aliens flooded into the USA by Biden over the past four years, what is and is not a “citizen” eligible for all rights belonging only to legal citizens is of utmost critical importance.

Unfortunately, the lawyers paid to draft that Executive Order for the President may not know what true “birthright citizenship” is either, since today’s lawyers are trained in British Common Law rather than U.S. Constitutional Law.

Over many years now, politicians have worked around the clock to amend the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights without using the lawful constitutional amendment process to do it. Instead, they use British Common Law rules allowing courts to establish new (alleged) laws via mere court opinions, which is a wholly unconstitutional practice, and has undermined the Constitution by way of intentional misinterpretation of the text.

Constitutional Rule #1 – If it’s not written and ratified, it doesn’t exist.

It has become a practice of our courts to interpret “unwritten” words that appear nowhere in Constitutional text, as well as using new definitions of old words that were not in existence when the documents were adopted and ratified, in order to intentionally undermine the original intent and purpose of the Charters of Freedom for partisan political agendas.

Imagine my shock when the U.S. Supreme Court found an alleged “constitutional right” to gay marriage in the 14th Amendment, in the Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. 644 (2015) case. Clearly, the 14th Amendment has nothing whatsoever to do with marriage or gay rights. But the court imagined language and intent that just isn’t there and is completely unrelated to the Amendment text and intent.

Constitutional Rule #2 – The meaning of the words at the time they were used, remain the true meaning of those words. In 1776, referring to someone as “gay” would have meant they were a “happy” type of person. But in 2025, the word “gay” most often refers to someone who is homosexual.

Constitutional Rule #3 – The proper interpretation of Constitutional text must be consistent with the clear intent and purpose of the text at the time that text was adopted and ratified, whether lawyer, judge or citizen. Only the meaning of the words at the time they were used, was ratified by the member States or the People. The documents were not agreed to or ratified on the basis of new definitions not in existence at the time of adoption.

A living document?

The U.S. Constitution is indeed a “living document” in two ways. The intent and purpose of that document that existed 248-years ago, still lives today. But also, the document can be updated from time to time, but only via the constitutional amendment process.

It is wholly unconstitutional to “amend” the Constitution by any means other than by the established lawful constitutional amendment process. The U.S. Constitution is essentially a contract between the Federal government, all three branches, and the member States and the legal U.S. Citizens. Like any contract, only the items written and agreed to in the contract are a part of that contract. The courts have no power to unilaterally renegotiate the terms of that contract at will, by simply misinterpreting the document to include things it doesn’t say, changing the definitions of words, or in a manner never intended at the time of the agreement.

With this understanding, we must settle the critical distinction between true “birthright citizenship” and the text agreed to in the 14th Amendment, in accordance with the three fundamental Constitutional Rules explained above.

Before we can properly discuss “birthright citizenship,” we first have to settle what a “birthright” actually is…

True Birthrights

Imagine my surprise when in researching this subject, when I found that modern online Law Dictionaries are missing the legal term “birthright.” On the Law.com website, a search for the term “birthright” resulted in this search result – “birthright” isn’t available in the dictionary,” as if the term doesn’t exist in law at all.

The Law Dictionary has no definition for the word either. The Cornell Law School offers this pile of convoluted nonsense when you search their site for the word “birthright.” How can anyone declare anyone a “birthright citizen” when the legal dictionaries don’t even acknowledge the term “birthright” itself?

However, the Merriam-Webster Law Dictionary takes a stab at it, defining the term this way;

Fortunately, the Merriam-Webster Law Dictionary not only answers the question, but it answers the question correctly. Webster’s 1828 Dictionary confirms the proper definition of “birthright,” in agreement with Merriam-Websters Law Dictionary definition.

The only way to protect the future sovereignty, security, freedom, liberty and justice of the United States is to properly interpret, uphold, defend and enforce the Foundations of Freedom cemented in our Charters of Freedom, under “the Laws of Nature, and Natures God,” as established in our Declaration of Independence, which is the true source of all natural “birthrights.”

EXAMPLE 1: No government has the authority over the natural “birthrights” of your children. By mere fact of the birth, a child is the natural offspring of the natural birth Father and Mother. No government has the power to declare your child not yours, or yours. They are your children by an act of nature alone, and those children are entitled to inherit all conditions and possessions of the parents by their tacit consent, as a result of The Laws of Nature alone. All Rights that come from Nature, are “inalienable” by man, or any government actions of men.

EXAMPLE 2: No nation or government has the power to lay claim to your child simply because you happened to give birth to your child on foreign soil. No matter where you may have been at the time of your child’s birth, the child is your child and they inherit by “birthright,” legal citizenship in your country the moment they are born. These are “natural birthright citizens.”

Therefore, all “birthrights” are simply inherited from your natural birth condition. It has nothing to do with anything created by any government body. In fact, no government has any authority or power over the matter at all, to grant or deny this most fundamental “birthright.”

Birthright Citizenship

Although governments can and throughout history have acknowledged the real source and purpose of all natural birthrights, these rights are not derived from or subject to any governmental influence. Our Declaration refers to them as “inalienable rights, endowed by our Creator.”

Once you know what a “birthright” is, now we can properly establish what a “birthright citizen” is, and what it isn’t.

Based upon British Common Law, it can mean anything anyone wants it to mean, which is why our courts use Common Law to invent laws that just aren’t so, as opposed to the strict limitations of Constitutional Law.

Citizenship by “birthright” simply means you “inherit” legal citizenship in the same country to which your birth parents are members, at the time of your birth. It has nothing whatsoever to do with any law, amendment, court opinion, or act of government.

During Reconstruction following the Civil War, it was necessary and proper to extend full “citizenship” rights to former slave families via the three Reconstruction Amendments, which combined granted former slave families freedom (13th), citizenship (14th) and voting rights (15th).

True History and Intent of the 14th Amendment

Again, the only way to properly interpret anything in the Constitution or law is to interpret it in proper context. Anything less is an overt attempt to rewrite and amend those documents unconstitutionally and it can even rise to the level of treason against the United States.

Understand that all three post-Civil War amendments, the 13th, 14th, and 15th, are all “reconstruction” amendments. All three were designed and adopted to rectify issues pertaining to former slave families from the past, and only those families at that time.

“To former abolitionists and to the Radical Republicans in Congress who fashioned Reconstruction after the Civil War, the 15th Amendment, enacted in 1870, appeared to signify the fulfillment of all promises to African Americans. Set free by the 13th amendment, with citizenship guaranteed by the 14th Amendment, Black males were given the right to vote by the 15th Amendment.”

Before the 14th Amendment, two prior events drove the purpose and intent of the 14th.

“Passed by Congress June 13, 1866, and ratified July 9, 1868, the 14th Amendment extended liberties and rights granted by the Bill of Rights to formerly enslaved people.

Following the Civil War, Congress submitted to the states three amendments as part of its Reconstruction program to guarantee equal civil and legal rights to Black citizens. A major provision of the 14th Amendment was to grant citizenship to “All persons born or naturalized in the United States,” thereby granting citizenship to formerly enslaved people.”

What caused the focus on the 14th at the time, and therefore the purpose and intent of the amendment?

In the Dred Scott v. Sandford case (1857), the U.S. Supreme Court stated that enslaved people were not citizens of the United States and, therefore, could not expect any protection from the federal government or the courts. The opinion also stated that Congress had no authority to ban slavery from a Federal territory.

“In 1846, an enslaved Black man named Dred Scott and his wife, Harriet, sued for their freedom in St. Louis Circuit Court. They claimed that they were free due to their residence in a free territory where slavery was prohibited.”

Before the 14th Amendment was the 13th Amendment, making slavery and involuntary servitude illegal in the United States, most specifically in the Confederate States. The 13th followed President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation (1863).

“Passed by Congress on January 31, 1865, and ratified on December 6, 1865, the 13th Amendment abolished slavery in the United States.

In 1863 President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation declaring “all persons held as slaves within any State, or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.”

However, the 13th Amendment fell short of making former slaves and their families eligible for legal “citizenship” in the United States. Although the 13th established freedom from slavery and involuntary servitude for former slave families in the United States, it did not grant them legal citizenship or citizenship rights in the United States.

Because the 13th Amendment codified what President Lincoln established in his Emancipation Proclamation but failed to extend “citizenship” rights or constitutional protections to former slave families, Congressman John A. Bingham of Ohio, submitted a proposal for the 14th Amendment to the House of Representatives with the stated intent and purpose of extending liberties and rights granted by the Bill of Rights to formerly enslaved people in the form of “mass-naturalization” originally titled “A Naturalization Amendment

In legal terms, the 14th was a (one-time) “blanket naturalization” of all former slave families, by act of Congress and adoption of the 14th Amendment, extending full “citizenship rights” to all former slave families. For those families, every generation born since has been born legal citizens of the United States by “birthright” as the children of citizens.

In the United States and most of the world, the “birthrights” of a child are derived from the Father of those children.

The Source of Confusion

In a word… lawyers are the source of the confusion. Lawyers who teach in law school, lawyers on the bench, lawyers who write things like legal definitions, lawyers who have been writing legislation for 248-years on the basis of British Common Law instead of Constitutional Law, lawyers who argue their political interest in a court, lawyers the media tells you are “experts” and “scholars.” Yes…lawyers!

The “love of money” isn’t the only root of all evil. The “love of unbridled power” is too!

Most Americans think their elected Presidents and Legislators run this country, but it isn’t so. Lawyers run this country, and they have ever since Marbury v. Madison in 1803. This is the Supreme Court case that established the courts as the final arbiters of truth, justice and the American way, even though the Constitution says no such thing.

NOTE: At the adoption of the Constitution, the definition of “interpret” was essentially for the courts to translate legalese into plain English so that citizens could know and protect their own Rights. In the case of the Constitution, the founding documents were not written in legalese, requiring a legal “expert” to translate the foundational documents into plain English for the average citizen. The Founders intentionally wrote and adopted the Constitution in plain English, so that any citizen able to read and comprehend English, can properly interpret the documents for themselves.

Since this case, lawyers have felt untethered to the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Through the unconstitutional use of British Common Law practices, they have done exactly what Thomas Jefferson warned us about between 1804 and 1823…on the heels of the Marbury v. Madison decision.

  • “Nothing in the Constitution has given them [the federal judges] a right to decide for the Executive, more than to the Executive to decide for them. . . . The opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves, in their own sphere of action, but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch.” (Letter to Abigail Adams, September 11, 1804)
  • “You seem . . . to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so . . . and their power [is] the more dangerous, as they are in office for life and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots.” (Letter to William Jarvis, Sept. 28, 1820)
  • “At the establishment of our constitutions, the judiciary bodies were supposed to be the most helpless and harmless members of the government. Experience, however, soon showed in what way they were to become the most dangerous; that the insufficiency of the means provided for their removal gave them a freehold and irresponsibility in office; that their decisions, seeming to concern individual suitors only, pass silent and unheeded by the public at large; that these decisions, nevertheless, become law by precedent, sapping, by little and little, the foundations of the constitution, and working its change by construction, before any one has perceived that that invisible and helpless worm has been busily employed in consuming its substance. In truth, man is not made to be trusted for life if secured against all liability to account.” (Letter to A. Coray, October 31, 1823)

To put a very fine point on this matter, the 14th Amendment became obsolete once the former slave families were granted freedom, citizenship and voting rights via the Reconstruction Amendments.

However, the lawyers have continued to amend the intent and purpose of the 14th to suit their political agendas and ambitions via the overt abuse of that one sentence ever since.

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

While these words were quite clearly directed solely at former slave families during reconstruction, with no mention of “birthrights” or “gay marriage,” the clear intent and purpose of these words were only applicable to the former slave families at the time of its adoption, just as the 13th and 15th apply only to that special class as well.

These words were never intended to be abused by lawyers for 248-years to essentially eliminate true “birthright citizenship” and allow such a lofty reward to anyone and everyone who stumbles across our borders illegally to give birth to a foreign citizen on our soil.

For the record, everyone, while in the United States, on vacation, a work or school VISA, as a second home to their primary residence in their home country, is “subject to our jurisdiction” while in our country. The only exception is those foreigners who have been legally granted “diplomatic immunity” by our laws.

The “common law” practices to undermine our Constitution, Bill of Rights and all Natural Birthrights of American citizens, is a treasonous act against the United States and every legal citizen of the United States.

Unless corrected, we will no longer be a Constitutional Republic of, by or for the legal American citizens!

Last, the Executive Order just signed by President Trump on the subject is in error. It’s in error because like most modern citizens, Trump doesn’t know all of the facts presented in this lengthy piece and he depended upon lawyers to write the EO for him.

His lawyers got it wrong…so, Trump did too!

The intentional legal profession bastardization of natural “birthrights” and “birthright citizenship” took a major turn for the worse in United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) case, often cited as a “landmark legal decision” by modern law professionals. It’s since this case that our courts and politicians have falsely used Common Law to totally undermine all “natural birthrights” and all “natural birthright citizens” of the United States, and today, we barely recognize our country as a result.

Regardless of any other priorities or personal pet agendas today, if we, Trump, fails to correct everything exposed in this piece, no one will be able to save the Constitutional Republic from total collapse via British Common Law undermining even our most basic foundational Rights, no one!

This is the hill all Natural Birthright Citizens must be willing to die on! Naturalization is not a “birthright.”

© 2025 Lex Greene – All Rights Reserved

E-Mail Lex Greene: LexGreene24@gmail.com