historians, columbia university history professor eric foner and university of iowa history profession linda kerber argue discuss the 15th amendment and the birthright. they argue it changed history for the better and that it is unique to the united states. this is half an hour. >> american history tv is in milwaukee at the organization of american historians annual meeting and we're joined by professor eric foner from columbia university and linda kerber with the university of iowa. thanks to both of you for joining us. you'll be talking about at this conference about birthright citizenship and the 14th amendment. why don't you set the stage for us, mr. foner, and what is birthright citizenship? >> in a nutshell, this is the principle that any person born in the united states, regardless of the status of their parents,

their ancestor, regardless of their race, gender, religion, any other category, is a citizen of the united states just by have i chew of being born here. of course you can also become a citizen by naturalization if you're an immigrant. but i think historically, the important point is that this is not a principal that goes back to the constitution. it was really implemented or institutionalized in the aftermath of the civil war and the civil rights act of 1866 then the 14th amendment which wrote it in the constitution. first clause of the 14th amendment says explicitly any person born in the united states with one or two minor extensions, particularly native americans who at that time were thought to be citizens of their own sovereignties, but any person born in the united states is a citizen. and as i said, this was not necessarily the case before the civil war.

the most dramatic example of course was the dred scott decision of 1857 in which the supreme court stated explicitly that no black person could be a citizen. free or slave. born here or not. it didn't matter. but the birthright citizenship principle eliminates that and says there are no other boundaries to citizen right other than birth in the united states. >> and this law and the 14th amendment written specifically for african-americans, the freed slaves? >> well, yes and no. it was written -- those laws were written as part of the effort of the country to come to terms with the abolition of slavery and to deal with the question of what would the status of these 4 million freed people be. and yet there the 14th amendment does not say anything about race, it does not say anything about black people. it establishes a principle and universal standard of citizenship which is to it apply to everybody. it applies to chinese immigrants on the west coast, it applies to mexican americans who might come

into the united states and have a child in the united states. so, yes, the catalyst is the ending of slavery, but the principle is not just limited to black people. >> before the 14th amendment, who was considered a citizen? >> that varied from state to state. there was no national standard. for example, massachusetts always insisted black people ins massachusetts were citizens of massachusetts and other states denied that and then the supreme court made that a national principal. but it really depended on the states, who was a citizen and what rights it they had and one of the purposes of the 14th amendment is to create this national standard so that you wouldn't have all these variations within the country. >> and obviously citizenship didn't mean the right to vote, did it, professor gerber. >> not necessarily. and that's why there is 15th amendment that says no state may deprive a person of the right to vote on the basis of race or fashion or physical begin or

religion. there was a struggle, there was an effort to put sex into the 15th amendment which would say in person has the -- no state maiden the right to vote on the basis of sex, that lost. and at that moment, elizabeth keady stanton says this is a chance to make sure it's capacious vote that all citizens will have. and if we lose that chance, she says we won't have it again until 1940. she pulls 1940 out of the thin air. and i've always felt she reaches over and converses enough -- >> there wasn't enough support

to put it in the 15th? >> that's right. people who are drafting the 15th are conscious of the denial of rights to black people and they knew there had been a war over this and the people had died. and women they didn't think had died. so there simply weren't enough votes. charles sumner tried in fact to count the noses in congress to see if he could do it and it put the particular amendment at risk. but the opening section of the 14th amendment, the one that starts all persons born in the united states are citizens of the united states, in the state in which they live, it says all persons. doesn't say all white and black men. >> and that would have been that all persons would have been

recognized as being citizens. >> that's right. that language. and so this is 1868 and there are elections in 1868 and 1870. and women went to the polls, susan b. anthony went to the polls in new york that were being held in a barber shop because the idea was if only men voted, you put your registration where the guys are. she goes in to the barber shop and attempts to register to vote. and in various places -- >> i think she does vote. and then is put on trial for illegally voting because women were not legally eligible to vote and it becomes a court case. >> so ultimately her vote doesn't count. >> the judge rules against her,

but he refuses to put her in jail. but the point is that it was tested. there were women who said leave aside the negatives of the 15th amendment. the positive of the 14th says all persons are entitled to equal protection of the laws. and if all persons are entitled, then doesn't that include our right to vote. >> with the recognition that the u.s. is an immigrant country, is the idea of a birthright citizenship a uniquely american idea? >> it has become very uniquely american. it didn't used to be.

for example, no country in europe today recognizes birthright citizenship, although many did until fairly recently and they're restricting it precisely because they themselves are going over immigration from africa, from middle east, from asia. and so -- but it's a good point that the notion of birthright citizenship suggests some aspiration what have it means to be an american. this is not a country that defines membership in the nation through any particular religion. there are plenty of countries where religion is linked directly to citizenship. it doesn't link it to language. it doesn't link to some notion of being part of a population it that has a historic root like in germany, that people of german ancestry can move to germany and immediately become part of the an population. but the noble principle is anybody can be an american.

if you come and accept the basic principles of the society, you're equally entitled to be an american with anybody else. >> the issue of birth right citizenship has been tested recently. what's been the controversy and is this sort of the first time since the passage of the 14th that the concept of birthright citizenship has been -- >> let me just say and linda knows about the current controversies. let me just say it is not the first time at all. the issue came up in the late 19th century over children of chinese immigrants because at that time no one from asia could become a naturalized citizen. but what did that mean about children of those people born here. and the courts ruled eventually the 14th amendment applies to them, also. >> it seems to me a really

important decision that we should be teaching in our schools, it's in some ways the proud counterpart to the dred scott decision, because at the time that he was demanding recognition of his citizenship, it there was not only an impossibility for his parents to become citizen, but there was so much anti-chinese sentiment. which some members of the u.s. supreme court personally shared. but the issue or reining opinion that says that birthright citizenship is what it should do what it was meant to do, in the debates over the 1th amendment, there is a senator from -- there were several, but one i remember

particularly from pennsylvania who says in congress, okay, in effect, okay, i get it, we're going to make black people citizens. but you don't mean the heathen chinese, do you? the senator from illinois says in effect, you better believe it. we mean that. because what they understood themselves to be doing and what i think this is an important thing, piece that has been absent from our current conversation. they understood what the 14th amendment does for this country. a lot of people think of it as a generous act to people who are here, that their children get to be citizens. fair enough. it is generous. but it is also what you see in the congressional debates is

they wanted to be able to claim the allegiance of everyone who was here. and if you're a citizen, then the reciprocal is that the nation can claim your allegiance. the reciprocal is also that you don't really have to keep track of who was born here, whose parents were born here, who is a citizen by birth. when i register my child in school, i bring a birth certificate to show this child is born here. i don't have to bring my mother's birth certificate. i don't have to bring my grandmother's birth certificate. i don't have to prove -- no one will question me about that. >> bring us up-to-date on why the last couple years it's become such an issue. is it strictly because of immigration from mexico and central america?

>> we may have different views on this. i think we have a great deal of anxiety in this country about a lot of things. we have anxiety about the economy, we have anxiety about the very different racial mix that we have in this country from what weed had 40 years ago, say. and there's insecurity. and one of the ways that insecurity has expressed itself is a kind of nastiness and anger and resentment. >> unfortunately, i believe that's correct. but the issue has become very closely tied to the question of undocumented aliens illegal immigrants, whatever you want to call it. and for example, in arizona, a state where the anti-immigrant sentiment has been most extreme in politics, they have had bills introduced not to recognize as citizens the children of people who are undocumented in the

united states. now, that would be a flagrant violation of the 14th amendment and i think those bill have not gotten very far for that reason. but there was actually senator lindsey graham a couple years ago was calling for hearings on whether to change the 14th amendment, to get rid of birth right citizenship. changing the constitution is a long process, requires approval of three-quarters of the states, two-thirds of congress, would not likely happen very easily. but there was also just political pandering going on to this sense of anxiety, that people who are fearful about the future and their economic

stability, it's easy to find a scapegoat. and illegal aliens are a very recognizable scapegoat at the moment. >> how quickly was the 14th amendment passed? >> well, it was written in 1866, passed by congress. it was ratified in 1868. but a lot of historical water passed under the bridge between those two years. the entire overthrow of the president's reconstruction policy, the institution of new governments in the south. so a lot -- but it took two years basically from congress to the ratification by the states. >> you write a good bit about abraham lincoln and your most recent book was about abraham lincoln. is there any indication all of this is a fallout from the union victory in the civil war. is there any indication about how abraham lincoln felt about immigration and citizenship? >> yes. even though the no knowings or the anti-immigrant party at that time were quite powerful, lincoln repudiated their views

and in fact made it clear that the basic liberties applied to everybody no matter what your origin, immigrants were welcome, they were part of the american -- you know, american firmament here. lincoln did not pander to anti-immigrant sentiment the way many politicians at that time did. as to black citizenship, before the war, he was ambivalent. but during his -- the attorney general said any black citizen is a citizen. that's before the 14th amendment. he said the dred scott decision was wrongly decided. so the citizenship of african-americans was recognized by the lincoln administration even before the 14th amendment, so certainly in that, the civil

war itself creates this national center. the solidify kags of the nation requires a solidification of the notion of citizenship. there has to be one standard for the nation not state by state. >> is this when we start beginning to recognize the country is a nation of immigrants, understanding that immigration began to increase in the late 1800s? >> i'm not so sure. i think that comes later and actually probably during and after the world war ii even when we start taking pride in the mixture of immigrants. let me add one more piece of why i think the 14th amendment is someone of which we should be very proud and why i think people should rally around it and protect it. if all persons born in the united states are citizens, then we don't have to, then

their citizenship is stable and they are not exposed to statelessness. all over the world, one of the aftermaths of this ratcheting it of the rules of citizenship in europe and elsewhere has been that people with ambivalent histories are exposed to, they're not exposed because their parents are no longer citizens or their father couldn't transmit their citiz citizenship to them and they're not citizens of a country in which they land because of its rules and we now have as we haven't since the 1920s, really and then since the aftermath of world war ii and the nazis and jews and the soviets throughout the white russians, we have a crisis in this world in which

the world is just flooded with people seeking asylum, with people with unstable nationalities. many of them are children. teenagers who are caught in the cracks of the rules of nations and the united states is not contributing largely to that population. if we destabilize the 14th amendment, we will be part of the problem. >> although we do have a considerable number of people in this country estimated from 10 million, 12 million, 14 million who are in an ambiguous state because they were not born here and they're in the united states without proper documentation, so we do have some -- >> that's right. >> the 14th amendment means that their children are recognized as s citizens of the united states. >> so it stops with one generation and we hope to figure out what to do. >> i wanted to ask you a little bit about the book you've written on women's rights,

women's citizenship. the book is no constitutional right to the ladies, "women and the obligations of citizenship." i was reading some of what they had to say about your book and they say you link a woman's exemption from civic duties such as jury or military service to the denial of women civics rights such as suffrage, a jury by her peers, citizenship and even her body. expand on that. what were you aiming for? >> at the time of the revolution when, at marriage, the husband got virtual absolute right to access to the body of his wife. there's no concept of rape in marriage until the feminists of the 1970s put it there. it seemed to follow, therefore, that of course he could control her property, of course he could

control her will, of course he would never give her the vote because she would have to vote. she would be forced into voting just the way he did. it didn't occur to them that, therefore, they should take away some rights from him and make her part of this new world of equali equality. the married woman owed many obligations that we think of as civic obligations directly to her husband, and her husband interfaced between her and the state. this doesn't really break down until our own time. the first time that the u.s. supreme court ruled that discrimination on the basis of sex might be a denial of equal protection of the laws is 1971. and they don't do a capacious ruling until 1973. our understanding of how women related to the state before that is complicated, and it's not the

same as the way in which men related to the state. >> at this point just to underscore it, it shows why there was so much opposition to women's suffrage on the part of men because giving women the right to vote suggests they may have a will of their own, right? >> right. >> they're not necessarily going to vote the same way their husbands want them to, and it gives them relation directly to the state, circumventing the husband. so to us it may not seem like such a radical idea. most countries in the world, not every single one but most allow women to vote nowadays. but at the time it was really seen as a threat to the stability of a family, to males being the head of the family. that's why it took -- you know, stan was right. it took many decades to achieve even though it doesn't seem like that radical an idea. >> well, at the time, one piece of this that when an american-born married a foreign

woman -- we go back to citizenship now -- she automatically became a citizen. she did not have to be naturalized. when an american-born woman married a foreign-born man, she lost her citizenship. and if his country did not instantly make her a subject or a citizen, she was exposed to statelessness. and the u.s. supreme court said in 1915 this is okay. this is okay. and when american women got the vote, that the integrity of married women's citizenship was one of the key things that they wanted to fix. and when they fixed it, congress would only fix it so that if you married a man who was eligible for citizenship, you could keep your citizenship. but, at that time, chinese, japanese -- >> you could marry european but not an asian -- >> or an african. and so american-born women lost their -- grant's daughter had

married an englishman and when she was widowed she had to petition congress to restore her citizenship. so these are ways in which the history of women in the united states has been very -- the grounding of that history has been quite different. >> and although the 14th amendment did a lot to define who was a citizen, the issue of citizenship still isn't resolved. you pointed out in something you wrote that, for example, asians -- it wasn't until the mid-1960s that the chinese -- >> right. well, in 1940 a few -- each country had a sort of quota at that time and they gave china quota of like 100 who could become citizens. that's not a lot. naturalized citizens, it's really, as you say, the 1965 immigration reform act which

tries to eliminate obligations who can become a naturalized citizen. >> did it actually do that? >> it did in the law and, in fact, as we know it, led to a significant change in the origins of immigration. previously most immigration had been from europe. after '65 we had so much immigration from asia, south asia, east asia, africa, the middle east, all over the world so that racial configuration of our country has changed enormously since that law. >> well, professor kerber mentioned the one senator from pennsylvania who vilified the chinese, have you found that through history that a new immigrant comes along -- a new immigrant group comes along and is vilified almost equally? >> yeah, we all know that. we all know that, and i think one of the things i conclude from that or i like to think about is that we've had conflicting and contested traditions in the united states

so that we have principles which are grand and eloquent and ethical and capacious and they're difficult to live by and in every decade, in every generation, if you want, there's resistance. they have to be argued about. people have to be persuaded of them over and over again. they don't stay -- they're not static. >> we have a couple of minutes left and i will wrap up by asking each of you in that the issue is still fairly current if you were called before congress to testify on the importance of the 14th amendment what are a couple of the things that you would say? >> well, i would say, first of all, as i mentioned, that this principle of birthright citizenship is a statement about the nature of the united states as a country, the ideals that we stand for and that we have resisted, at least since the civil war and slavery, linking membership in the nation to being a member of a it

particular race, a particular group or a particular religion, and that i think to move away from that would really be a violation of deeply held principles in our history. so even though there are tensions today and fears and some people are angry at one group or another, i think hold ing to these deep american principles is something that we ought to try to strive for. >> linda kerber, what would you add to that? >> i would ditto that and i would say that we -- i would want us to appreciate the contribution that these principles, acting on these principles has made to the robustness of this country to its vitality, to its power, to its power in the world, as people want to come here and to contribute to it. it has meant that -- it has held us back from being a greater contributor to the problems of the world. than we may otherwise have been. >> linda kerber from the university of iowa and eric

foner from columbia university, thanks so much for being with us here on american history it tv. >> you're very welcome. >> thank you for asking us. i want people to get from the book is a better understanding of who she was, what she was like during that four-year period because there have been a lot of books written and most of it has been written by people who have talked to friends of friends of friends. they really don't have the information themselves. i happened to be there. i knew her. >> from late 1960 through 1964, former secret service agent clint hill served on the protective detail to first lady jacqueline kennedy. >> there isn't any gossip in there, no salacious information. it's just what happened, what she was like, things that she liked to do, how humorous she was at times, how athletic she was at times, and how intelligent she was, and how rambunctious she was. she tried to put me to the test many, many times. i did my best. >> more with clint hill sunday

night at 8:00 on c-span's q&a. as the presidential campaign enters its final months and the political parties prepare for their conventions american history tv will air c-span's original series "the contenders" featuring 14 key political figures who ran for president and lost but impacted american political history. we'll air the series every weekend from june 3rd to september 2nd on sundays at 8:30 a.m., 7:30 p.m., and 10:30 p.m. eastern, all here on american history tv on c-span 3. and join us as historians previewed the series on saturday, june 2nd, at 10:00 a.m. eastern. this week on the civil war, two historians discuss the wartime leadership styles of abraham lincoln and jefferson davis. this is the first in a series of sessions we'll air over the next few weeks from a conference organized