State Citizen vs. U.S. Citizen: Fourteenth Amendment Citizenship and “Non-Citizen Nationals”

The Fourteenth Amendment citizenship clause

This page is for education, information and intellectual discussion. It explains what each authority says and what each court decided. It does not tell anyone to use these arguments, and it is not legal advice.

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1

Before 1868, the Constitution did not define national citizenship. In Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), the Court held that a state could make a person its citizen without making that person a citizen of the United States, and that people of African descent could not be national citizens. The Fourteenth Amendment overrode that ruling. Its first sentence makes a person born or naturalized here, and subject to U.S. jurisdiction, a citizen of the nation and of the state where he or she resides.

The Privileges and Immunities Clause of Article IV (“The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States”) is older. It protects a citizen of one state who travels to or does business in another.

United States v. Anthony (1873)

United States v. Anthony, 24 F. Cas. 829 (C.C.N.D.N.Y. 1873)

The fourteenth amendment creates and defines citizenship of the United States. It had long been contended, and had been held by many learned authorities, and had never been judicially decided to the contrary, that there was no such thing as a citizen of the United States, except as that condition arose from citizenship of some state. No mode existed, it was said, of obtaining a citizenship of the United States, except by first becoming a citizen of some state. This question is now at rest. The fourteenth amendment defines and declares who shall be citizens of the United States, to wit, “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” The latter qualification was intended to exclude the children of foreign representatives and the like. With this qualification, every person born in the United States or naturalized is declared to be a citizen of the United States and of the state wherein he resides.

United States v. Anthony, 24 F. Cas. 829, 11 Blatchf. 200 (C.C.N.D.N.Y. June 18, 1873)

What the case was about: Susan B. Anthony was prosecuted for voting in the 1872 congressional election when New York allowed only men to vote. Justice Hunt ruled that the right to vote came from the state constitution, not the Fourteenth Amendment. He directed a guilty verdict, and she was fined $100.

How it applies: The quotation is accurate. It states that the Fourteenth Amendment settled the question of national citizenship: every person born or naturalized here is a citizen of both the United States and the state of residence.

The Slaughter-House Cases and United States v. Cruikshank

Slaughter-House Cases, 83 U.S. (16 Wall.) 36 (1873)

It is quite clear, then, that there is a citizenship of the United States, and a citizenship of a State, which are distinct from each other, and which depend upon different characteristics or circumstances in the individual.

Slaughter-House Cases, 83 U.S. 36, 74 (1873)

What the case was about: Louisiana gave one company a slaughterhouse monopoly in New Orleans. By 5 to 4, the Court upheld it. The Court read the Fourteenth Amendment’s Privileges or Immunities Clause narrowly, as protecting only rights of national citizenship such as access to the seat of government, the ports and the navigable waters.

How it applies: The two citizenships are distinct, as the Court said. The same passage says a person born or naturalized here is a citizen of the United States, and becomes a citizen of a state by residing there.

United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1876)

We have in our political system a government of the United States and a government of each of the several States. Each one of these governments is distinct from the others, and each has citizens of its own who owe it allegiance, and whose rights, within its jurisdiction, it must protect. The same person may be at the same time a citizen of the United States and a citizen of a State, but his rights of citizenship under one of these governments will be different from those he has under the other.

United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542, 549 (1876)

What the case was about: The case arose from the Colfax Massacre in Louisiana. The Court held the federal indictments defective and ordered the defendants discharged.

How it applies: Affidavits often label this quotation “Slaughter House Cases United States vs. Cruikshank,” which merges two cases. The words are from Cruikshank. The Court describes the same person holding both citizenships at once.

“One may be a citizen of a State and yet not a citizen of the United States”

McDonel v. State, 90 Ind. 320 (1883)

One may be a citizen of a State and yet not a citizen of the United States.

McDonel v. State, 90 Ind. 320, 323 (1883) (citing Thomasson v. State, 15 Ind. 449; Cory v. Carter, 48 Ind. 327; McCarthy v. Froelke, 63 Ind. 507; In re Wehlitz, 16 Wis. 443)

What the case was about: This was a murder appeal. One juror was born in Germany and had filed his first naturalization papers but was not yet a U.S. citizen. Indiana’s 1851 constitution let such declarant immigrants vote. The court held he could serve as a juror because the statute required state citizenship and voter status only.

How it applies: The sentence is accurate and describes 19th-century declarant-alien voting. It was about an immigrant who had not yet naturalized. The cited “Thomasson v. State” is part of the consolidated decision reported as Shaufler v. State, 15 Ind. 448 (1860).

Crosse v. Board of Supervisors of Elections, 243 Md. 555, 221 A.2d 431 (1966)

Both before and after the Fourteenth Amendment to the federal Constitution, it has not been necessary for a person to be a citizen of the United States in order to be a citizen of his state.

Crosse v. Board of Supervisors of Elections, 243 Md. 555 (1966)

What the case was about: A candidate for sheriff of Baltimore City was born in the West Indies, lived in Maryland from 1957 and naturalized in 1966. The court held that “citizen of the State” in the sheriff qualification meant domicile, so he could run.

How it applies: The same opinion says that “Under the Fourteenth Amendment all persons born or naturalized in the United States are citizens of the United States and of the state in which they reside.”

Tashiro v. Jordan, 201 Cal. 236, 256 P. 545 (1927)

That there is a citizenship of the United States and a citizenship of a state, and the privileges and immunities of one are not the same as the other is well established by the decisions of the courts of this country.

Tashiro v. Jordan, 201 Cal. 236 (1927), aff’d, Jordan v. Tashiro, 278 U.S. 123 (1928)

What the case was about: Japanese residents formed a hospital corporation. The California Secretary of State refused to file its articles. The California Supreme Court ordered the filing under the 1911 treaty with Japan, and the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed.

How it applies: The court noted the distinction while answering the state’s narrow reading of the treaty, which it then rejected.

“Citizens,” 4 Dec. Dig. ’06, p. 1197, § 11

The digest line quoted in these affidavits reads: “The first clause of the fourteenth amendment of the federal Constitution made negroes citizens of the United States, and citizens of the state in which they reside, and thereby created two classes of citizens, one of the United States and the other of the state.”

What the case was about: A West digest entry is an editor’s summary of a court decision, not a decision itself. We could not locate this entry or the case behind it.

Jones v. Temmer, 829 F. Supp. 1226 (D. Colo. 1993)

The privileges and immunities clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protects very few rights because it neither incorporates any of the Bill of Rights nor protects all rights of individual citizens. See Slaughter-House Cases, 83 U.S. (16 Wall.) 36, 21 L.Ed. 394 (1873). Instead, this provision protects only those rights peculiar to being a citizen of the federal government; it does not protect those rights which relate to state citizenship.

Jones v. Temmer, 829 F. Supp. 1226 (D. Colo. 1993)

What the case was about: People who wanted to start taxi companies in Denver challenged Colorado’s limits on new taxi operators. The court dismissed the suit and upheld the regulations. It also declined to recognize a right to travel within a state on those facts.

How it applies: The quotation is accurate and summarizes Slaughter-House.

“The state constitution is the mandate of a sovereign people”

State ex rel. Lemon v. Langlie, 45 Wash. 2d 82, 273 P.2d 464 (1954)

The state Constitution is the mandate of a sovereign people to its servants and representatives. No one of them has a right to ignore or disregard its mandates; and the legislature, the executive officers, and the judiciary cannot lawfully act beyond the limitations of such Constitution.

State ex rel. Lemon v. Langlie, 45 Wash. 2d 82 (1954) (quoting 11 Am. Jur. 651, Constitutional Law § 44)

What the case was about: Taxpayers asked the court to order 13 state agencies to move their main offices from Seattle to the capital, Olympia. The court held the state constitution required those offices to be at the seat of government.

How it applies: Affidavits spell the case “Lemon vs. Langlin.” The wording they use matches this case most closely.

John F. Jelke Co. v. Emery, 193 Wis. 311, 214 N.W. 369 (1927)

The constitution is the mandate of a sovereign people to its servants and representatives, and no one of them has a right to ignore or disregard its plain commands.

John F. Jelke Co. v. Emery, 193 Wis. 311 (1927)

What the case was about: Wisconsin banned making and selling oleomargarine. The court struck the ban down because it protected the dairy industry from competition rather than public health.

How it applies: Affidavits spell this case “Jelko.” The court was reminding legislators of their oath to the constitution.

Waring v. Mayor of Savannah, 60 Ga. 93 (1878)

What the case was about: This was a city tax case about a Savannah tax ordinance.

How it applies: The words “People are supreme, not the state,” credited to this case, do not appear in the opinion.

Non-citizen nationals under federal law

The term “national of the United States” means (A) a citizen of the United States, or (B) a person who, though not a citizen of the United States, owes permanent allegiance to the United States.

8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(22)

Every U.S. citizen is also a U.S. national. Who is a citizen at birth is set by 8 U.S.C. § 1401, which begins with “a person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” Who is a national but not a citizen at birth is set by 8 U.S.C. § 1408, which covers people born in an “outlying possession of the United States.” Section 1101(a)(29) defines the outlying possessions as American Samoa and Swains Island.

Passports are issued “only to a U.S. national” (22 C.F.R. § 51.2(a)). That word covers citizens and non-citizen nationals alike. The State Department’s page on certificates of non-citizen nationality says that all U.S. citizens are U.S. nationals and that the outlying possessions are American Samoa and Swains Island.

Federal courts have rejected claims by people born in a state that they are non-citizen nationals rather than citizens. For example, the court in Cook v. Kellogg Community Credit Union (W.D. Mich. 2024) treated “non citizen National” filings as sovereign-citizen arguments that have been uniformly rejected.

• 8 U.S.C. § 1401
• 8 U.S.C. § 1408
• 22 C.F.R. § 51.2
• State Department: Certificates of Non-Citizen Nationality

Other statutes cited on state citizen status

• 18 U.S.C. § 112(c) says that the terms “foreign official,” “internationally protected person,” “national of the United States” and others “shall have the same meanings as those provided in section 1116(b).” Each term keeps its own definition from § 1116(b). The section does not make a U.S. national a foreign official.
• The Expatriation Act of 1868 (15 Stat. 223) declared expatriation “a natural and inherent right of all people.” Congress passed it to protect naturalized Americans abroad from claims by their former countries. Loss of nationality today is governed by 8 U.S.C. § 1481.
• The Buck Act (4 U.S.C. §§ 105–110) lets states collect sales, use and income taxes inside federal areas such as military bases. Its definition of “State” to include territories applies only to those tax sections.
• Public Law 97-280 (96 Stat. 1211) is the 1982 joint resolution asking the President to proclaim 1983 the “Year of the Bible.” It does not address oaths or affidavits.
• United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898) held that a child born in San Francisco to Chinese parents domiciled here was a citizen at birth. “Subject to the jurisdiction thereof” excludes only narrow groups, such as children of foreign diplomats.

How to check the state citizen claim yourself

If someone offers you a strategy built on state citizen, ask for the court decisions that accepted it. In the decisions cited on this page, courts did not accept it. Instead, read the real statute or rule the claim cites, and then read how courts have applied it. Also, look at the cases listed above. They show what happens when people raise the argument in court. For a real dispute, talk to a licensed attorney in your state. You can start with our directory.

Sources and further reading

Official sources used on this page:

• law.cornell.edu
• static.case.law
• static.case.law
• law.cornell.edu
• law.cornell.edu

Related reading on Lawtopolis:

• The "Right to Travel" Affidavit: Every Authority Reviewed
• "The United States Is a Corporation": 28 U.S.C. § 3002(15), 18 U.S.C. § 5 and Merriam's Estate
• Sovereignty of the People: Chisholm, Yick Wo, Perry and the Supremacy of the Constitution