From: ur-valhalla!aol.com!FreedomHse
Subject: USA! STATE CITIZENSHIP EX...
Message-ID: <199510230804.BAA06512@ix5.ix.netcom.com>
Date: Sun, 22 Oct 1995 23:15:59 -0700

In the discussion of citizenship, the following exchange brought the
Civil Rights Act of April 9, 1866, into the forum. That Act needs to
be known and considered.

The point was raised:

". . .my status as a United States citizen seems to have been by
virtue of my birth in one of the states, and not a matter of me
accidentally, or ignorantly, or deliberately claiming it by listing my
citizenship on some bureaucrat's form."

And californ@netcom.com responded:

"This is what you are 'supposed' to believe. It has been made to look
this way. However, the term 'United States citizen' as currently used
dates back to the 1866 Civil Rights Act and then the 1868 14th
Amendment. A form of citizenship was created pursuant to the federal
government's exclusive jurisdiction over Washington DC and
territories/enclaves. The people living outside that 'federal zone'
have been freely given citizenship *as if* living within that federal
zone. According to the Constitution, the district (DC) given to the
federal government for its operations is called "The United States".
Those who declare themselves citizens of 'The United States' are
declaring themselves to be (and electing to be treated as if) citizens
of the District of Columbia and therefore are citizens of the federal
government. It's all a word game used against us."

The Civil-Rights Act was a law passed by Congress over the veto of
President Andrew Johnson, amid a raging protest against the un-
Constitutionality of such legislation.  It provided that all persons
born in the United States and not subjects of any foreign power,
excluding Indians not taxed, were to be recognized as citizens of the
United States. . . but it provided more than tis!  The violation of
the law was made a misdemeanor to be considered by the Federal courts
alone.   The Fourteenth Amendment was framed in accordance with it,
and in 1875 more stringent extensions of it became law.  The purpose
was to secure the rights of Negroes, but the Act, by extension, was
seen as a serious problem.  Several cases reaching the Supreme court
in the following years, charging violations of the act, found for the
defendant, and several sections of the Civil-Rights Act were declared
null and void.

But not all.

President Johnson's veto included numerous solid points, not least of
which are the following:

". . . When a State judge, acting upon a question involving a conflict
between a State law and a Federal law, and bound, according to his own
judgment and responsibility, to give an impartial decision between the
two, comes to the conclusion that the State law is valid and the
Federal law is invalid, he must not follow the dictates of his own
judgment, at the peril of fine and imprisonment.  The legislative
department of the Government of the United States thus takes from the
judicial department of the States the sacred and exclusive duty of
judicial decision, and converts the State judge into a mere
ministerial officer, bound to decide according to the will of
Congress."

The fourth section of the Act, which empowers Federal officers and
agents to make arrests, "also authorizes circuit courts of the United
States and superior courts of the territories to appoint, *without
limitation*, commissioners, who are to be charged with the
performance of *quasi* judicial duties."  But this is only the
beginning!  The fifth section, Johnson points out, provides for
commissioners *selected by the courts*, who shall appoint, "suitable
persons, from time to time, to execute warrants and other processes
described by the bill.  These numerous agents, are made to constitute
a sort of police, in addition to the military , and are authorized to
summon a *posse comitatus*, and even to call to their aid suchportion
of the land and naval forces of the United States, or of the militia,
'as may be necessary to the performance of the duty with which they
are charged.'  This extraordinary power is to be conferred upon agents
irresponsible to the Government and to the people, to whose number the
discretion of the commissioners is the only limit, and in whose hands
such authority might be made a terrible engine of wrong, oppression,
and fraud."

Among the other points, let me summarize those given above: 1) State
judges are held to account for federal laws, without regard to reason
or propriety, or State law. 2) Federal legislators may appoint judges
to enforce their laws without regard for enumerated rights of the
State or individual. 3) Both the legislative and judicial arms may
exercise authority over the military and police powers. 4) States
rights are null and void when in conflict with federal decisions, and
therefore effectively nonexistent. 5) Agents of the Government, and
not just the Government alone, are fully empowered to tyrannize
citizens according to their own interpretation of un-Constitutional
legislation, unjust court decisions, and with disregard for
Constitutional limits.

What does this mean?  It means, among many other things, that the
burden of weight we drew down upon our nation by compromising the
principles of the majority to form our nation tolerating slavery has
grown to such enormous proportion that we are now all slaves.

God help us: "Give me liberty, or give me death!"

Dave Delany

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