I'm John Bachelor. I welcome Professor John Yu, Senior Research Fellow at the School of Civic Leadership

at the Civitas Institute, University of Texas at Austin, as well as the Emmanuel S. Heller

Professor of Law at the University of California at Berkeley and non-resident senior fellow

at the American Enterprise Institute, writing most recently at the Dispatch.com. It's available

for you all to read through, as I do, recently at the dispatch.com, it's available for you all to read

through, as I do, turning on the question of citizenship, birthright citizenship. This is history

that takes us back to the 19th century following the Civil War, which tore the country to pieces,

the Second revolution.

And it was necessary for Congress to move to confront the Confederacy as it burned down.

And what was to be done for all these human beings who had been treated and as enslaved now free?

They needed their citizenship, they needed the

right to vote, it needed everything. And Congress moved accordingly in time to pass an amendment

to the Constitution, several amendments to the Constitution, 13th, 14th and 15th at hand.

The 14th is the one that's in front of us right now because it has the passage that is about

citizenship.

Professor, a very good evening to you.

This citizenship is very important, so I want to begin very carefully to understand this

isn't the first time it came up in governance.

This was something that the British system, our forefathers,

the mother country dealt with very carefully beforehand,

who was a citizen of, who was a subject of the king,

who was not a subject of a king.

...