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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Thebrownblob" data-source="post: 6049701" data-attributes="member: 60485">“To further clarify the meaning of the proposed amendment, Senator Johnson read the first clause of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, passed earlier in the same year by the same Congress. That law’s first clause reads:There are thus two criteria for citizenship: being “born in the United States” and “not subject to any foreign power.” Just the first doesn’t cut it. Language doesn’t get any plainer than that.If we need further proof of what this language means and was intended to mean, we have this from Representative John Bingham of Ohio, who has been called “the father of the 14th Amendment.” In an earlier debate, explaining to the House the purpose and meaning of the citizenship clause of the 1866 Civil Rights Act, he said:</blockquote>