Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/20-1199_l6gn.pdf
Page Number: 58

10  STUDENTS FOR FAIR ADMISSIONS, INC. v. PRESIDENT 

AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE 
THOMAS, J., concurring 

The proposal passed the House by a vote of 128 to 37.  Id., 
at 2545. 

Senator Jacob Howard introduced the proposed Amend-
ment in the Senate, powerfully asking, “Ought not the time
to be now passed when one measure of justice is to be meted 
out to a member of one caste while another and a different 
measure is meted out to the member of another caste, both 
castes being alike citizens of the United States, both bound 
to obey the same laws, to sustain the burdens of the same 
Government, and both equally responsible to justice and to
God for the deeds done in the body?”  Id., at 2766.  In keep-
ing with this view, he  proposed an introductory sentence, 
declaring that “ ‘all persons born in the United States, and 
subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United
States and of the States wherein they reside.’ ”  Id., at 2869. 
This text, the Citizenship Clause, was the final missing el-
ement  of  what  would  ultimately  become  §1  of  the  Four-
teenth Amendment.  Howard’s draft for the proposed citi-
zenship text was modeled on the Civil Rights Act of 1866’s 
text,  and  he  suggested  the  alternative  language  to  “re-
mov[e] all doubt as to what persons are or are not citizens
of  the  United  States,”  a  question  which  had  “long  been  a 
great  desideratum  in  the  jurisprudence  and  legislation  of
this  country.”  Id.,  at 2890.    He  further  characterized  the 
addition as “simply declaratory of what I regard as the law 
of the land already.”  Ibid. 

The proposal was approved in the Senate by a vote of 33 
to 11.  Id., at 3042.  The House then reconciled differences 
between the two measures, approving the Senate’s changes 
by a vote of 120 to 32.  See id., at 3149.  And, in June 1866, 
the amendment was submitted to the States for their con-
sideration and ratification.  Two years later, it was ratified
by  the  requisite  number  of  States  and  became  the  Four-
teenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.  See 
15  Stat.  706–707;  id.,  at  709–711.  Its  opening  words  in-
stilled in our Nation’s Constitution a new birth of freedom: