Balkinization  

Wednesday, February 19, 2025

John Bingham on Monsters and Natural-Born Fools

Gerard N. Magliocca

From a speech he gave on October 8, 1867:

[T]hey framed your matchless Constitution of Government at Philadelphia, known as the Constitution of the United States.— The word white is not there. The words "natural-born citizen" are there, and the man is a natural-born fool who does not understand that the term "natural-born citizen" implies that citizenship is a birthright. It comes with a man into the world. He has a right to citizenship, no matter what his complexion, upon the spot in which he had his origin; and the man who denies it to him, or attempts to withhold it from him, is simply a monster. When he comes to you with his nostrums you ought to herald his approach with the cry of the old cheating peddler: "This is the genuine old Doctor Jacob Townsend's saraparilla." - [Laughter.] 

 

 




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