# The 14th Amendment's grammar. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 6, 2005, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-14th-amendments-grammar/311239 "2005-07-06T02:55:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![stpauler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@stpauler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stpauler)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2005, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-14th-amendments-grammar/311239/1 "2005-07-06T02:55:58Z")
OK, [this website](http://www.usa-the-republic.com/revenue/true_history/Chap6.html) seems, well, kooky, but I wanted to run it through the dopers for debunking. > [@](#): > > Before the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868, Americans were called Citizens (with a capitlal “C”) of the united States of America. (American Citizen, or American, for short) If you were born in America, you were born a sovereign with inalienable rights. It was a common understanding among the people. Up until then, slavery was still accepted in America. Slaves were not Citizens, state or national, but were merely considered the personal ‘property’ of the slave holders. The 13th Amendment was ratified in 1865, just 3 years before the 14th. The 13th amendment abolished slavery. But that created a new problem. The newly freed slaves were not citizens of any state or country, because they were just property, and property did not have citizenship. To solve the problem, the 14th amendment was passed. This amendment created a new class of citizenship. This new class was legally called: ‘United States citizen’, (with a small “c”). NOT ‘United States of America Citizen’, but just ‘United States citizen’. Notice that the U.S. citizen is spelled with a lower case ‘c’. This is to show a lower class of citizenship. This class of citizen (U.S. citizen) is a privilege granted by the federal government, and not a sovereign inalienable right. > [@](#): > > The first part of this amendment says that ‘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. We just learned that jurisdiction implies superiority of power, so is a United States citizen superior to the government? NO! The roles are reversed. Notice this does not say they are citizens of the United States ‘of America’. Just the ‘United States’. Is there a difference? Let’s check it out. > > First, what is a ‘person’? There are legally two kinds of ‘persons’. First there is the ‘natural person’ with inalienable rights. This is a flesh and blood human being, the sovereign individual. Second, there is just the term ‘person’. When just the term ‘person’ is used, and not ‘natural person’, it means an artificial person, such as a corporation, trust, government, etc. A human being can be both a natural person and an artificial person at the same time. How do you tell the difference? It is as simple as whether you spell your name in all capital letters or not. More on this in a bit. The important thing to remember at this point is that artificial persons are property. Property in Latin is res. Property located in a certain territory, would be its place of residence. So property (res) belonging to and located in the State of Colorado, would be ‘resident’ of the state. Are you a resident of a state or of the United States? > > Important point. Since a government is an artificial person, according to the Supreme Court, does an artificial person have jurisdiction over the sovereign that created the artificial person? No. Does the artificial person (government) have jurisdiction over any new artificial persons, or property, created by the government? Yes. A government has complete power over its subjects and its own property. Remember, the Constitution is just a power of attorney from the sovereign people to the government. That power of attorney extends to anything the government, as an artificial person, creates or owns. Frankly, it just seems like a lot of tin foil hat malarky. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2005, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-14th-amendments-grammar/311239/2 "2005-07-06T03:14:09Z")
The capitalization conventions within the Constitution defy logic. For a proper explanation you’d need a linguist, not a political or legal historian. But in general the main body was written at a time when English writers tended to follow the German practice of capitalizing almost every noun (for example, a Standard of Weights and Measures). As the amendments were tacked on, the authors sometimes followed the older practice, and sometimes not. For example, Article III refers to the “judicial Power”, while the 11th Amendment refers to the “Judicial power”! Even some of the newer amendments capitalize words like State and Government, possibly because contemporary members of Congress feel this gives their words Added Gravity and makes them sound more like the Grand Original. Any attempt to weave conspiracy theories out of this random capitalization is doomed to Tinfoil-Hattedness. ---
**Author:** ![Loopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loopus/32/15343_2.png) [@Loopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopus)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2005, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-14th-amendments-grammar/311239/3 "2005-07-06T03:15:35Z")
[The US Constitution](http://www.house.gov/Constitution/Constitution.html) Note that every noun (including “Citizen”) is capitalized, as was the Style at the Time. I imagine that by the time of the 14th amendment, the practice of capitalizing every noun (one that is still practiced in German, which is closely related to English) had died out. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2005, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-14th-amendments-grammar/311239/4 "2005-07-06T03:19:08Z")
Why would _citizen_ be capitalized at all? Unless it’s being used as a title, but we don’t go around calling each other Citizen Clinton, Citizen Pitt, or Citizeness Clinton. ---
**Author:** ![Tyr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e56c9b/32.png) [@Tyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tyr)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2005, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-14th-amendments-grammar/311239/5 "2005-07-06T03:29:32Z")
**alphaboi867:** As stated previously back when the constitution was written it was common practice to capitalize _all_ nouns, not just proper nouns. ---
**Author:** ![Campion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@Campion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Campion)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2005, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-14th-amendments-grammar/311239/6 "2005-07-06T03:36:57Z")
Wow. I mean, wow. I understand each of the words in their individual word-ness, but strung together, all I can say is: wow. My favorite paragraph, broken down. > [@](#): > > First, what is a ‘person’? There are legally two kinds of ‘persons’. True. > [@](#): > > First there is the ‘natural person’ with inalienable rights. This is a flesh and blood human being, the sovereign individual. I’m still with you. > [@](#): > > Second, there is just the term ‘person’. Uh . . . > [@](#): > > When just the term ‘person’ is used, and not ‘natural person’, it means an artificial person, such as a corporation, trust, government, etc. Nope. When just the term person is used, it means person, which encompasses both a natural and an artificial person. Government is a person? Um, cite? > [@](#): > > A human being can be both a natural person and an artificial person at the same time. That would be tricky. How would you do that? > [@](#): > > How do you tell the difference? It is as simple as whether you spell your name in all capital letters or not. More on this in a bit. Huh. So I would become artificial if I spelled my name in all caps, but remain natural if I didn’t? Let’s try this out: using that system, select the artificial person(s) from the list below: [ul]Microsoft[/ul] [ul]Bill Gates[/ul] [ul]Yahoo![/ul] [ul]Madonna[/ul] Hmmm. The logic seems to be falling apart. How can I resolve this? > [@](#): > > The important thing to remember at this point is that artificial persons are property. Uh, no. How are they property? Stock in Yahoo! is property, but Yahoo! itself is a person. > [@](#): > > Property in Latin is res. Yes! Finally! I can shout an unqualified agreement! > [@](#): > > Property located in a certain territory, would be its place of residence. Um, so if I drive my car through Utah, my car becomes a resident of Utah? Huh. > [@](#): > > So property (res) belonging to and located in the State of Colorado, would be ‘resident’ of the state. I think someone fell asleep during the “in rem” section of Civ Pro. Because this little gem has all the earmarks of someone who didn’t quite get the point of _Pennoyer v. Neff_. > [@](#): > > Are you a resident of a state or of the United States? Both, thank you. But what do you mean by residency? For what purposes? **stpauler** , I think that this is crazy talk. It has just enough of the sound of truth to it that people might get sucked in. From the sections you quote, it’s hard to tell, and I haven’t perused the website, but it sounds like they’re trying to make the argument that the government has no right to order you to do anything (like, oh, I don’t know, maybe pay taxes?). Best of luck to them. Every so often, a mad hatter runs an argument like that in Tax Court. Those are the fun opinions to read. ---
**Author:** ![Gfactor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@Gfactor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gfactor)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2005, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-14th-amendments-grammar/311239/7 "2005-07-06T03:43:22Z")
A mind is a terrible thing to waste. 😃 Gibberish. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2005, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-14th-amendments-grammar/311239/8 "2005-07-06T03:50:35Z")
> [@Freddy the Pig](#): > > The capitalization conventions within the Constitution defy logic. For a proper explanation you’d need a linguist, not a political or legal historian. But in general the main body was written at a time when English writers tended to follow the German practice of capitalizing almost every noun (for example, a Standard of Weights and Measures). > > As the amendments were tacked on, the authors sometimes followed the older practice, and sometimes not. For example, Article III refers to the “judicial Power”, while the 11th Amendment refers to the “Judicial power”! Even some of the newer amendments capitalize words like State and Government, possibly because contemporary members of Congress feel this gives their words Added Gravity and makes them sound more like the Grand Original. > > Any attempt to weave conspiracy theories out of this random capitalization is doomed to Tinfoil-Hattedness. Right. Capitalization has no value as to the meaning of the word. As an aside, my understanding is that at the time he wrote the original draft of the Declaration of Independence, Thos. Jefferson was on a mission to get rid of excessive capitalization and didn’t capitalize any word in his draft, including “creator.” The capitalization that appeared in the final draft was the work of the Continental Congress as a whole, and all it does is identify nouns, proper names and the beginning of sentences. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2005, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-14th-amendments-grammar/311239/9 "2005-07-06T03:53:03Z")
Concerning citizenship, it need only be added that the first sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment was a reaction to _Dred Scott v. Sandford_, not an attempt to create a new class of citizens. Before the _Scott_ case, few would have questioned that all native-born or naturalized persons _except for slaves_ were both state and federal citizens. In the _Scott_ case, however, CJ Taney concluded that _even a free black person_ could never be a citizen of the United States, and he had to torture the relationship between state and federal citizenship in order to do it. His ruling was still on the books and not overridden as of 1868, and if allowed to stand, it invited the reconstructed Southern states to deny African Americans rights, such as access to courts, because they weren’t citizens. The first sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment simply restored the pre-Taney “common sense” status quo. ---
**Author:** ![Gfactor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@Gfactor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gfactor)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2005, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-14th-amendments-grammar/311239/10 "2005-07-06T04:02:56Z")
> [@](#): > > you were born a sovereign with inalienable rights. [How?](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&hs=9Q0&lr=&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&oi=defmore&q=define:sovereign) > [@](#): > > The newly freed slaves were not citizens of any state or country, because they were just property, and property did not have citizenship. On what planet? That’s kinda what the freed part was all about. > [@](#): > > This amendment created a new class of citizenship. This new class was legally called: ‘United States citizen’, (with a small “c”). NOT ‘United States of America Citizen’, but just ‘United States citizen’. Notice that the U.S. citizen is spelled with a lower case ‘c’. This is to show a lower class of citizenship. This class of citizen (U.S. citizen) is a privilege granted by the federal government, and not a sovereign inalienable right. This may have come from here: [PostModernism Generator](http://www.elsewhere.org/cgi-bin/postmodern) Thing is, this is a huge quantum leap. And what difference would it make, legally if there were two different kinds of citizenship? > [@](#): > > NO! :rolleyes: > [@](#): > > Since a government is an artificial person, according to the Supreme Court, does an artificial person have jurisdiction over the sovereign that created the artificial person? No. Does the artificial person (government) have jurisdiction over any new artificial persons, or property, created by the government? Yes. You had Ecstasy and didn’t share it. :mad: > [@](#): > > the Constitution is just a power of attorney from the sovereign people to the government. That power of attorney extends to anything the government, as an artificial person, creates or owns. A little metaphysical? In what way is it a POA? I guess its a durable POA. . . hmmm . . And where does that get us anyway. A POA extends to anything that it says it extends to–no more, no less. So it could easily be a very limited POA, couldn’t it? And oh yeah, the biggie. . . so what? I’m getting dizzy. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2005, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-14th-amendments-grammar/311239/11 "2005-07-06T13:11:07Z")
> [@Gfactor](#): > > This may have come from here: [PostModernism Generator](http://www.elsewhere.org/cgi-bin/postmodern) Thanks for the cite which reminds me of, and reinforces my ability to entirely disregard postmodern writers. It’s easy to dismiss anyone who writes like this in explaining their subject matter. “2. Subtextual deappropriation and the capitalist paradigm of expression” “‘Society is dead,’ says Lacan. It could be said that Lyotard suggests the use of semanticist precultural theory to attack hierarchy. Lacan uses the term ‘postcultural narrative’ to denote the bridge between sexual identity and language.” The main theme of Reicher’s[5] critique of neocapitalist theory is the role of the writer as participant. Thus, in _Jackie Brown,_ Tarantino deconstructs semanticist precultural theory; in _Reservoir Dogs,_ although, he analyses structuralist objectivism. If neocapitalist theory holds, we have to choose between semanticist precultural theory and neosemantic appropriation." “‘Sexual identity is fundamentally impossible,’ says Lyotard; however, according to Abian[6] , it is not so much sexual identity that is fundamentally impossible, but rather the economy, and thus the failure, of sexual identity. But any number of theories concerning not discourse, as Foucaultist power relations suggests, but postdiscourse exist. Brophy[7] states that we have to choose between the capitalist paradigm of expression and precultural situationism.” ---
**Author:** ![Gfactor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@Gfactor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gfactor)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2005, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-14th-amendments-grammar/311239/12 "2005-07-06T13:21:06Z")
[This](http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-1571285,00.html) [is](http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/scigen/rooter.pdf) (pdf) even better than [Sokol’s Hoax](http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/). ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2005, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-14th-amendments-grammar/311239/13 "2005-07-06T15:48:03Z")
Looks like somebody was bogarting the crack pipe… ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2005, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-14th-amendments-grammar/311239/14 "2005-07-06T16:09:28Z")
> [@Gfactor](#): > > [This](http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-1571285,00.html) [is](http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/scigen/rooter.pdf) (pdf) even better than [Sokol’s Hoax](http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/). That reminds me of a joke article in _Astounding Science Fiction_ about the amazing properties of resublimated triothymaline which dissolved before the water was added. Many readers took it as a fact. I forget the author but it might have been Robert Heinlein. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2005, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-14th-amendments-grammar/311239/15 "2005-07-06T16:35:40Z")
“The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated [Thiotimoline](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiotimoline)”, by Isaac Asimov. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2005, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-14th-amendments-grammar/311239/16 "2005-07-06T16:59:54Z")
“On the Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline”, by Isaac Asimov, who was at the time it was written working on his own biochemistry PhD thesis. But I’m not seeing the resemblance. See, the thiotimoline piece makes sense. My first problem with this screed is distinguishing the difference between “citizen of the United States” and “United States citizen”. While the grammatical structures are a bit different there (in the first, “of the United States” is a prepositioned genitive noun, while in the second, “United States” is an adjective), so far as I can tell, they have exactly the same meaning. I also must wonder what the author’s purpose is. Is he saying that the government is exploiting blacks, and decrying this shameful state of affairs, or is he saying that legally the government should exploit blacks, and is decrying the fact that they don’t? ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2005, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-14th-amendments-grammar/311239/17 "2005-07-06T17:23:50Z")
> [@.Tyr.](#): > > **alphaboi867:** As stated previously back when the constitution was written it was common practice to capitalize _all_ nouns, not just proper nouns. When I started my reply your post wasn’t up yet. I didn’t read it until after I posted/ ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2005, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-14th-amendments-grammar/311239/18 "2005-07-06T17:44:01Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I also must wonder what the author’s purpose is. Is he saying that the government is exploiting blacks, and decrying this shameful state of affairs, or is he saying that legally the government should exploit blacks, and is decrying the fact that they don’t? I think (it’s always a bit difficult to figure out what a moonbat is trying to say) he is trying to assert that the government swindled everybody out of their rights on the pretext of protecting the freedmen. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2005, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-14th-amendments-grammar/311239/19 "2005-07-06T19:10:27Z")
> [@Steve MB](#): > > I think (it’s always a bit difficult to figure out what a moonbat is trying to say) he is trying to assert that the government swindled everybody out of their rights on the pretext of protecting the freedmen. That sounds about right. This whole website reads like a lot of other Paranoid Ultra-Right-Wing Looniness of the kind spouted by militiamen and income tax dodgers and so on. These are the kinds of people who think Federal courts are ‘Courts of Admiralty’ because there is fringe on the flag in the courtroom. Anyway, they don’t want to be citizens of the Federal government but they still want to be Americans (and, perhaps, citizens of the state in which they reside) so they invent tortured pseudolegal reasoning with incantation-like formulas to ‘prove’ that they are Sovereign Citizens or Freemen or Citizens of the United States of America or whatever group they are shilling for. The most testing their theories get is when an overworked judge laughs them out of court. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2005, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-14th-amendments-grammar/311239/20 "2005-07-06T19:28:45Z")
[The Tax Protester FAQ](http://evans-legal.com/dan/tpfaq.html#sovereigncitizens) has a long section on this subject. It’s a favorite of the looney tax avoider fringe. The explication is too long to quote here, but the origins are of interest: > [@](#): > > Where did tax protesters get the idea that the 14th Amendment created some different kind of citizenship, or that there is a difference between citizenship under the 14th Amendment and “citizenship” as it existed before (or even after?) the 14th Amendment? From a collection of obscure, discredited, and misunderstood decisions. > > “No white person born within the limits of the United States and subject to their jurisdiction … or born without those limits, and subsequently naturalized under their laws, owes his status of citizenship to the recent amendments to the Federal Constitution. The purpose of the 14th Amendment … was to confer the status of citizenship upon a numerous class of persons domiciled with the limits of the United States who could not be brought within operation of the naturalization laws because native born, and whose birth, though native, at the same time left them without citizenship. Such persons were not white persons but in the main were of African blood, who had been held in slavery in this country…” Van Valkenburg v. Brown, 43 Cal. 43, 47 (1872). > > The Van Valkenburg decision is frequently quoted for the proposition that white citizens do not owe their citizenship to the 14th Amendment. However, the decision was a state court decision, not a federal decision, and it is inconsistent with the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in the Slaughterhouse Cases, decided the following year, in 1873. (See the quotation above from the Slaughterhouse Cases, in which the court emphasized that, under the 14th Amendment, all persons born in the United States are citizens.) > > The other problem with the Van Valkenburg decision is that, although the California court stated that there was a difference between how the plaintiff (a white woman) became a citizen, the court nevertheless concluded that she was a citizen of the United States within the meaning of the 14th Amendment. > > “\*\*y whatever means the plaintiff became a citizen of the United States, her privileges and immunities cannot be abridged by State laws; and this is true. The purpose and effect of the amendment, in this respect, is to place the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States beyond the operation of States legislation.” Van Valkenburg v. Brown, 43 Cal. 43, 47 (1872). > > So although an old, discredited decision from California may distinguish between white citizens and black citizens, it is a distinction without a difference. And certainly there are Stretch-Hummer-loads of cases explicitly denying that the Citizens wording has any effect whatsoever. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-14th-amendments-grammar/311239.md?page=2)