I think you’re misunderstanding. The point of the jurisdiction clause was to allow citizenship to slaves who were not born in the United States, but born into the Confederated States, a short-lived but separate nation. Because during the Northern-inflicted horrors of Reconstruction, Southern states were using any loophole or gotcha possible to maintain the social order of slavery, even if the economic benefits were no longer possible.
It had less to do with being born of slaves, and more an awkward work-around to make sure anyone born on US territory, even if it was briefly not US territory at the time, would not be denied citizenship. You gotta remember, this was the awkward middle point between not needing a large influx of cheap immigrant labor due to having a forced labor population maintained by human trafficking, and now needing cheap immigrant labor to maintain a positive capital flow while building infrastructure across the newly conquered West.
And while on paper it seems like it would be easier to just say “born within the borders” or something like that, the hundreds of sovereign micronations within America’s borders made that legally impossible, due to the already oft-violated Article VI. So instead we got the “subject to her jurisdiction” clause, which was reinterpreted about 30 years later specifically to allow American-born children of diplomats long-term stationed here to be citizens, as the economic necessities caused by no longer having slave labor meant we had to break from our long-term stance of Isolationism and embrace foreign expansionism. And this was a hundred years before the Supreme Court started feeing real comfortable with stipulating “This is only for this one specific case and cannot be taken as precedent going forward.”
I think you’re misunderstanding. The point of the jurisdiction clause was to allow citizenship to slaves who were not born in the United States, but born into the Confederated States, a short-lived but separate nation. Because during the Northern-inflicted horrors of Reconstruction, Southern states were using any loophole or gotcha possible to maintain the social order of slavery, even if the economic benefits were no longer possible.
It had less to do with being born of slaves, and more an awkward work-around to make sure anyone born on US territory, even if it was briefly not US territory at the time, would not be denied citizenship. You gotta remember, this was the awkward middle point between not needing a large influx of cheap immigrant labor due to having a forced labor population maintained by human trafficking, and now needing cheap immigrant labor to maintain a positive capital flow while building infrastructure across the newly conquered West.
And while on paper it seems like it would be easier to just say “born within the borders” or something like that, the hundreds of sovereign micronations within America’s borders made that legally impossible, due to the already oft-violated Article VI. So instead we got the “subject to her jurisdiction” clause, which was reinterpreted about 30 years later specifically to allow American-born children of diplomats long-term stationed here to be citizens, as the economic necessities caused by no longer having slave labor meant we had to break from our long-term stance of Isolationism and embrace foreign expansionism. And this was a hundred years before the Supreme Court started feeing real comfortable with stipulating “This is only for this one specific case and cannot be taken as precedent going forward.”
History is awkward and fascinating!