Essay on Citizenship

Part One

There is considerable attention drawn, amongst those outspoken writers in the patriot community, on the subject of the 14^th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. It has been called the “Red Amendment” by some, or the communist amendment, the amendment that changed our citizenship and placed us in servitude, and even alleged to have been unlawfully ratified by the Supreme Court of Utah [see Dyett v. Turner, 439 P.2d 266 (1968)]. This addition to the post civil war Constitution must be carefully read in its entirety and context with its sister amendments and the rest of the Constitution as a whole. Below are the opening lines of Section One of this amendment;

The amendment has a total of five sections. Sections two and three discuss the apportionment and eligibility of representatives and senators. Section Four addresses the public debt and declares “the validity of the public debt, of the United States, authorized by law…shall not be questioned.” The reader should bookmark this section for it will be discussed in intricate detail in part three of this essay. Finally, section five states that Congress shall have the power to enforce, by legislation, the provisions of this article. Again, bear this one in mind for future reference as well.

The implications of the fourteenth amendment are more fully revealed after one reads it in context with the thirteenth and fifteenth amendments and then contrasts the word “citizen” as defined in the fourteenth amendment with the word “Citizen” as referenced elsewhere throughout the articles of the original Constitution. If one pours through the articles line by line it will not take long for the reader to notice a slight grammatical difference between the original articles of the Constitution and the subsequent amendments. Nowhere in the seven articles of the Constitution will one find the word “Citizen” where the letter “C” is not capitalized as if it were a proper noun. Nowhere in the Bill of Rights is the term ever found at all. It first appears as a common noun in the eleventh amendment which states;

In the original articles many key terms are capitalized. This is consistent with old style English. The Constitution was a formal (some may even say sacred) contract of a newly declared free people. Throughout the articles the terms “Citizen,” “People,” “Person,” “Persons,” and “Inhabitant” are all spelled with the first letter capitalized. In English grammar a proper noun is always capitalized. It is a sign of importance or deference to the character of the thing being described. One may draw the conclusion that the writers of the Constitution sought to highlight, to give deference to, the authority from which this document was born.

Anyone who has read the writings of Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, or the Federalist Papers would know that the founding fathers were highly educated and sophisticated men. But when the framers of the Constitution met to write this document, they boarded up the windows of Independence Hall so that no one might pass by and hear someone in heated debate speaking a position in argument that may be taken out of context. Recall these people had just come out of a rather bloody war for an idea whose time had come, that being the notion that all men were created equal and each was a sovereign with all rights and privileges of the King of England himself.

The framers debated fiercely over significant concepts of government and delegation of power, whether or not to have a President, currency and banking, and whether to have a Bill of Rights. But these wordsmiths also debated over minutia like whether a phrase need be followed by a comma, a semi-colon, or a colon. The point is this: If the framers made the point of a word beginning with a capital letter, there was indeed a point to that capitalization.

To this day, even in the United States Government Style Manual, there is only one way to write a proper noun. The first letter must be capitalized followed by lower case. So it stands to reason that the words “Citizen,” “People,” “Person,” and “Inhabitant” were meant to be read with a sense of deference and respect. So one might also argue with respect to terms like “Powers,” “Representatives,” “Electors,” “Duty,” and “Revenue.”

What is immediately apparent, as one moves forward into the amendments to the Constitution, is the decreasing use of this unique grammatical style. With very few exceptions, the only words that get a capital letter in mid-sentence are words relating to government, military, and the legal system. The terms “person,” “people,” and “citizen” are relegated to the level of common nouns.

As stated above, the only use of the term citizen between the original articles and the fourteenth amendment is in the eleventh amendment. The amendment makes a clear distinction between the term “citizens” and “subjects.” This same distinction is clearly evident in Article III, Section 2, which reads in the last line of the first paragraph “Citizens or Subjects.”

What is historically evident by the time of the fourteenth amendment is that the very definition of “citizenship” was about to undergo it’s first metamorphosis in the annals of constitutional law. Until this time, the concept of a “citizen” of the United States wasn’t considered to be a designation that carried any legal weight at all. People were citizens of their state, and by virtue of this citizenship they enjoyed all privileges and immunities throughout the Union of the compact states. The very concept of state sovereignty, however, met the ultimate test in 1861 when the north quashed the secession of the southern states from the Union. The result of this war was the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments. It was the language of the fourteenth amendment that became the topic of controversy in the case of United States v. Anthony.

In 1873, in New York, a woman was indicted for having voted for a representative in congress when the United States alleged she possessed no such right. This was a suffrage case, ironically, that most succinctly provides definition of a citizen of the United States. The court stated a position that had, prior to the fourteenth amendment, been stare decisis.

The court in this case held that the “…thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth amendments were designed mainly for the protection of newly emancipated negroes…” and further held that the “…fourteenth amendment creates and defines citizenship of the United States.” For the court, on the one hand, to state that it long held that there was no such thing as a citizen of the United States and then to say that now such a citizen has been created and defined and therefore “[t]his question is now at rest” is no small declaration to be making from the bench. This is a highly significant statement.

If it was basically stare decisis that there was really no such thing as a “citizen of the United States,” then why does the Constitution, in several different sections, constantly refer to a “Citizen” or “Citizens” of the United States? For example, in Art. 1 Sec. 1 it is required that a person seeking a seat in the House of Representatives be at least twenty five years old and for seven years a “Citizen of the United States.” A person aspiring to the Senate needs to be thirty years old and for nine years a “Citizen of the United States.” It is mandated, under Art. 2, Sec. 1, that no person except a “natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of the Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of the President….” Then there is the reference in Art. 4, Sec. 2, stating “[t]he Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several states.”

Refer again to U.S. v. Anthony and examine the operative paragraph from Justice Hunt in its entirety and context:

From this paragraph one can presume that Justice Hunt holds the following opinions:

                    1.      Prior to the adoption of the fourteenth amendment, a “citizen” of the United States did not exist.

                    2.      A person’s recognized status as a “citizen” was inexorably tied to his being a citizen of a state.

                    3.      The fourteenth amendment created a citizenship that never had existed before.

                    4.      The fourteenth amendment defined a citizenship that never had been defined before.

                    5.      This newly defined citizen must be:

                                a) born or naturalized in the United States and

                                b) subject to the jurisdiction thereof.

                    6.      Those “excluded” by the clause “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” were children of foreign representatives and the like.

Since this newly defined citizen must meet two criteria to be a citizen of the United States the question then becomes, what is “born or naturalized” and what is the meaning of “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” The term “born” is easy and needs no analysis. The term “naturalized” in the modern age is generally thought of as meaning the process of immigration procedures requisite to becoming a U.S. citizen. Black’s Dictionary, 6^th Edition, defines the term as meaning “[t]he process by which a person acquires nationality after birth and becomes entitled to the privileges of U.S. citizenship. 8 U.S.C.A. § 1401 et seq.”

The second element to define is the word “subject” as used in the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” According to Black’s, a “subject” is defined as one that owes allegiance to a sovereign and is governed by his laws. So it naturally follows that a citizen of the United States will be one who is either born in or naturalized into the United States and will be one that owes allegiance to the sovereign and is governed by his laws. So who is the sovereign? The amendment defines the citizen as one who is subject to the jurisdiction “thereof.” This word is defined in Webster’s as “of the place, thing, event, etc. just mentioned.” So one must return to the language of Section one which reads, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof…” It is grammatically evident that the place or thing just mentioned, that being the preceding direct object of the sentence, is “the United States.” So one presumes, according to this amendment, that a citizen of the United States is one who is either born in or naturalized in this place or thing called the United States and is also one who owes allegiance to the sovereign called the United States. The next question to ask it just who or what is this sovereign named the United States?

In the United States Code there is found a definition of the United States under Title 28, Section 3002 (15)(A). In this section the “United States means – (A) a Federal corporation.” The United States means a Federal corporation. A corporation, according to Black’s is: “An artificial person or legal entity created by or under the authority of the laws of a state.” A more encompassing definition is provided by the United States Supreme Court in Hale v. Henkel:

If the 14^th amendment created and defined a new type of citizen, then the foundation and authority laid for the definition of a “citizen of the United States” would be grounded in an absolute anathema to the ideals of the framers of the Constitution, not to mention the dirt farmers and laborers that got their heads blown off by canons in the name of this ideal. One needs to really ask the question, “What are the ramifications of being subject to the jurisdiction of a corporation?” How can a corporation be “sovereign” over an individual? According to the same Supreme Court justices that handed down the above opinion, such an assertion is an absolute impossibility;

If according to Black’s a subject is defined as one that owes allegiance to a sovereign and is governed by his laws, then there exists a serious conflict with the concept of a citizen individual defined above and the one defined in the fourteenth amendment. The conflict rests in the fact that there is a clear and indisputable distinction between the terms “sovereign” and “subject.” The term “Sovereign” might, for the purpose of argument, be deemed synonymous with “Citizen.” Taking that as a premise, one is then confronted with the clear language of both Article III, Section 2, as well as amendment eleven. Both of these passages clearly draw the distinction between citizens and subjects. If we already know what a “subject” is then what is a citizen. Or more to the point, what is a sovereign?

Thus, the People themselves, either singly or collectively, are sovereign (Chisholm at 456) over both the State and the federal government and are the true sovereigns within this nation.

The above concept of a sovereign citizen does not conform with the concept of a citizen of the United States if indeed that citizen is one who is subject to the jurisdiction of a corporation that is subject to a charter which was written by sovereign individuals with the unlimited capacity to contract uninhibited from government interference or scrutiny. How can an individual be completely free to contract, owing no duty to the State, and yet be subject to a corporation that can make no contracts not authorized by its charter?

Another way to understand the conflict created by this new concept of a citizen of the United States is to understand the premise chain of authority. The Declaration of Independence stated that all men were created equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. So if one visualizes this, then the chain of authority which created the Federal corporation known as the United States would look like this:

Creator (God)

|

Man/Woman (Individual-Sovereign-Citizen)

|

Constitution (Charter)

|

United States (Federal Corporation)

|

“citizen” of the United States (subject to the jurisdiction thereof)

The Declaration of Independence declared the equality of all men as “self evident” and further declared the colonies once subject to the King of England to be “Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown….” The authority to which these writers appealed was none other than “the Supreme Judge of the world.” As Chief Justice Chase stated:

As stated above, this political body is defined in 28 USC 3002(15)(A) as a “corporation.” This definition of the United States is supported back through the annals of caselaw as well:

The “charter” of this corporation is the Constitution, that contract which places the limits, duties, powers and privileges upon said corporation. Indeed, the Supreme Court has settled this issue as well;

It then follows, logically, that a citizen subject to the jurisdiction of this corporate body draws all his rights and privileges at the sufferance of this corporate body. Again, just follow the chain of authority as drawn above. So can this citizen be a sovereign? The evidence and law before us would not support this contention at all. This citizen, or individual, does not seem to possess an unlimited power to contract. Nor would he likely be capable of asserting the claim that he owes no duty to the United States. It would certainly be impossible to argue he is the author and source of law when the source to the law governing the body politic he is subject to is the corporate charter. If given the choice between holding the rank and status on tier two of the above chart and the status of tier five, what person would choose the latter? The answer, again, is laid out in the second paragraph of U.S. v. Anthony;

This new citizenship was designed to provide “protection” for a class of persons that had been previously vulnerable to attack subsequent to their emancipation from indentured servitude. As such, the federal government created for the emancipated slaves a “citizenship” they could present in court in lieu of being a Citizen of the state in which they inhabited. This is a direct consequence of the ignorance of many of our ancestors who held onto foolish notions of “classes” of people within a free society. The issue was raised prior to the Civil War in the landmark case Dred Scott v. Sanford. Scott was a slave by birth who found himself in Illinois and then Wisconsin territory for nearly ten years before the death of his owner, originally from Missouri. Scott brought his suit in court for freedom under the theory that his residence in free United States territory as well as the free state of Illinois made him a free man. Chief Justice Taney held, for the majority, that not only was Scott a slave but that he had no standing to sue as he was not a citizen of the United States.

What is most fascinating is the argument written by Jusitce Curtis in the dissenting opinion. He espoused and broke down a theory grounded in international law, a concept long held as in itinere and suggested this principle applied in the Scott case by virtue of his master’s choice to remain domiciled in the Wisconsin territory. Curtis suggested that the masters decision to take up residence there, and permit Scott to marry in that territory (at Fort Snelling) laid down sufficient grounds for the argument that Scott was not only a resident of Wisconsin at the time, but that his being allowed to marry was akin to being vested a property right. Curtis cited previous decisions that showed a bequest of property from master to slave evidenced intent to grant his freedom since only a freeman could take and hold such a bequest (Legrand v. Darnell, 2 Pet. R., 664). It was of course not sufficiently convincing to sway seven of the nine justices on the court. But the maxim of law laid down in the dissent sheds light to what the fourteenth amendment actually performed in law a decade later:

Even if the in itinere status were recognized “that law which has next previously rightfully operated on and fixed that status” could likely have been argued as the laws of Missouri, since this was where Scott and his family resided with no voiced intent to seek his freedom until the death of his master in 1843.

With the onset of the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth amendments, the newly emancipated slaves were granted a newly created and defined citizenship of the United States. Under this protection a form of in itinere status was bestowed upon them even if they never once set foot in the District of Columbia.

Another thought to ponder for later discussion is the old saying, whenever one gives government the power to do something for him he gives government the power to do something to him. Some will argue that this maxim was being shouted loud and clear by the courts on a case by case basis. But no one listened. It is clear, from the subsequent decisions of the Supreme Court, that a the first form of dual citizenship was being crafted in a nation that previously had only one designation of a “Citizen.”

Indeed, for the first time there was created in America, arguably, two distinct nation-states. Citizenship in one did not mean the same as the other. In the Anthony case the defendant was seeking recognition of 14^th amendment citizenship so as to enjoy the protections it offered its citizens. The court held she could not qualify as a citizen of the United States by virtue of her sex. Her opportunity was, of course, destined to arrive in the history books and the Constitution some years later. So if one can indeed be a citizen of both or of either, is there any reason a person would not want to be, in some cases, deemed a citizen of the United States? After all, the cases seem to show instances where persons found protection, or sought protection, under the veil of this newly defined type of citizenship. That was, of course, prior to the bankruptcy of the United States and the Internal Revenue Code.

Of course, if one’s only reason for gaining insight into the two forms of citizenship is simply to escape an audit they are probably missing the bigger picture. The case of In re Merriam’s Estate, which was affirmed in the Supreme Court in United States v. Perkins, lays down a solid foundation for something far more ominous that the mere fact that the United States is a corporation:

In 19 CJS § 883 one finds the statement that “The United States government is a foreign corporation with respect to a State.” The above case is cited as the authority. That the United States is a foreign corporation is exactly what the court held. By affirming the decision, the United States Supreme Court concurred in U.S. v. Perkins, 163 U.S. 625 (1896).

Two attorneys made argument for the United States in the New York Court of Appeals. One attorney, Jesse Johnson, argued that “stock held by decedent in foreign corporations should not be included in the value on which the tax is to be levied.” However, Charles Baker argued that the “legacy in question on the death of the testator vested immediately in the United States, and became at once their property, free from liability to taxation.” Baker then confronted the court with an either/or position. Either the United States was not a corporation at all, and therefore not within the meaning of those terms employed in the New York laws, OR the United States was a domestic corporation entitled to all the privileges and immunities respectively. The court did not find for either argument. It held the United States was a corporation, it was not domestic, and was not immune from being taxed on the legacy of the estate. It further held that the tax imposed was on the right of succession and not on the property itself, rendering the United States argument with respect to stocks of foreign corporations completely moot. The Supreme Court affirmed New York’s holding by stating that the legacy became the property of the United States only after it had suffered a dimunation to the amount of the tax. However the Supreme Court also made clear that the United States was not one of the class of corporations intended by law to be exempt from taxation and that the United States was indeed a government corporation.

There is no arguing to the contrary. The United States is a foreign corporation. In fact, if one reads Title 28 USCS § 297, the “compact states” of subsection (a) are clearly defined as “countries” in subsection (b). So if the United States is a foreign corporation in relation to a group of “countries,” then what are the ramifications to those who have dual citizenship, especially when the foreign corporation formally enters into bankruptcy and becomes pledged to a third party creditor?

Essay on Citizenship

Part Two

It is difficult to conceptualize dual citizenship capacity in this country without being able to conceptualize the jurisdictional foundations of these alleged citizenship capacities. Many critics of the process of “expatriation” will ask “just what are you expatriating from?” “Where are you expatriating to?” If government, as we know it today, is nothing more than a corporation, how can one be certain that an organic republic is even there to move back to if one wanted? Recall in Part One there was reference to the Constitution as a “corporate charter” for the “federal corporation.” If that is the case today then the problem of historical analysis grows a bit more complex when one understands that there is not merely an existence of more than one type of “citizen” or “Citizen” of the United States. There may well be, in fact, more than one Constitution.

The legal authority for the American experiment is founded in several writings. The “theological” foundations can be found in the writings of Locke, Hobbs, and the Magna Carta. The cornerstone of the national founding is, of course, the Declaration of Independence, penned by Jefferson in 1776. This document, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World, holds as self-evident the equality (and arguably inherent sovereignty) of all and further holds the claim that the States in which these men lived were “Free and Independent.” After the war for independence the nation operated as a loose Confederacy under the Articles of Confederation. These articles are where the nation we call America first gets a name…the united States of America. For ten years the states operated under these articles with considerable difficulty. The need for a stronger centralized government was recognized by the states so a Constitutional Convention was called for, whereby the Sovereign States gave authority to representatives to convene and write up a Constitution. This Constitution is often referred to as a “Trust document.” The document, finally drafted and signed, had no title but stated in the opening paragraph that it was a “Constitution for the United States of America.” This is located in what is known as the Preamble:

Upon signing this document the People, through those authorized to sign on their behalf, had created a Trust. This Trust document or Trust instrument called for a Constitutional Republic form of government in trust. The “Trust” was known as the “United States.” The Trust created a government controlled by the Trust. This is a concept that must sink in for the reader who has before now never given much consideration to what was “created” in Philadelphia in 1789.

The “Trust” was known as the “United States.”

Referring to Black’s 6^th Edition, one finds the definition of a trust laid out in significant detail with nearly exhausting explanation. In fact, the term “trust” occupies seven pages of the dictionary alone, not including ancillary terms like “trustee,” “trustor,” “trust fund,” “trust indenture” and so on. The word “trust” begins with the following definition:

Several paragraphs into this definition is an interesting passage:

Resting on the premises that the “United States” is in fact a Trust means the other parties must be identified in their respective roles. As stated above, the People (through their representatives of the sovereign states) are the creator, or settlor. The trustees are those officials to be elected or appointed as set out in the terms and conditions of the Trust instrument. The Trust Instrument, the Constitution, called for government officials, set up within the trust as trustees, having specifically defined responsibilities and functions. The “People,” in addition to being the settlor, were named as the beneficiaries. They are clearly defined as such by the language of the preamble which lists the trust instrument as being ordained for the People, as well as all descendants down the line to the remotest generation (e.g. to ourselves and our Posterity).

Some make the argument that the government had already been created in trust by the signing of the Constitution. There were, however, no trustees occupying the requisite seats yet due to the states’ unwillingness to ratify the Constitution without the inclusion of a “Bill of Rights.” It can be argued, then, that “ratification” of this trust was not yet completed. This may seem like splitting hairs, but it becomes a crucial issue to ponder considering what transpired in our nation seventy years later. If the United States, at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, was a trust then how is it now under the law a corporation? If the United States was a “trust,” was this trust revocable or irrevocable? If it was irrevocable, then to say the United States is a corporation is to clearly evidence the existence of more than one United States. If, on the other hand, this trust was revocable then there may be posed the question as to whether or not the “United States” that was a trust even exists at all any more. This is an issue not only maddening to a person simply seeking enlightenment, it literally pits patriots against patriots.

If the “United States” was set up as a trust, then the creator or settlor was the sovereign People. One of the qualities necessary to the management of a trust is that the one creating this trust divests himself of control of the thing once it is created. The trustees are set up to manage the assets of the trust subject to the limitations and duties of a trust instrument, such as an indenture. A question one might ask would be whether the “trustees” have the authority to “create” or “define” the creators of the trust. For example, if a trust indenture clearly states the “Creator” as being one “Samuel Smith,” can the trustee turn around and attach a rider stating the “Creator shall hereinafter be known as Samuel Smith as well as James Jones.” If James Jones did not create the Trust, then he can never be a creator. Could the trustee add him on as a beneficiary? No, only the Creator can agree to such an amendment since the creator created and defined the trust for the benefit of the beneficiaries. It may be different if the trust were a constructive trust without indenture. In such a case the trustee would be empowered to draft an indenture, but he still must submit the trust document to the creator for approval.

Since the People created the “United States” and established themselves and their posterity as the beneficiaries, only the People can add or delete beneficiaries. Perhaps the most accurate definition of a Citizen of the United States is a beneficiary of the United States. So what if someone doesn’t wish to be a beneficiary anymore? Several “beneficiaries” attempted to do just that in 1860. Lincoln, acting as a trustee, took matters into his own hands and established a frightening precedent that has been almost unquestioned for over one hundred years by the historians and courts alike. Though some may argue the case of State of Texas v. White as judicial activism, it is nonetheless an opinion of the Supreme Court which warrants analysis;

If the “United States” was a Trust, then the logic of the Supreme Court is severely flawed. To start with, Texas could not become one of the “United States” any more that Samuel Smith could become a trust that he created. The statement with respect to all the “obligations of perpetual union… attached to the State” seem strange if Texas, or any state, is cast in the role of a “settlor” or “beneficiary” since the settlor must divest his interest in managing the trust’s assets whereas a beneficiary has no obligation whatsoever save his simply “being.”

Further, the idea that “the act of which consummated her admission into the Union was something more than a compact…” is a difficult position to defend if the states are truly “Free and Independent” as the Declaration of Independence states. It certainly does not comport with the extensive definition of a trust as cited above in Black’s (i.e. “preserving their separate and individual existence). Finally, if the United States was a trust then how can anyone make the argument that the beneficiary is bound to remain a beneficiary against his will? Does not the thirteenth amendment contradict such a position? The amendment clearly reads “[n]either slavery nor involuntary servitude…shall exist within the United States.” The court, in White, goes on to opine that there was “no place for reconsideration, or revocation, except through revolution, or through consent of the States.” So we then are confronted with the question as to whether or not this trust was revocable. Black’s defines a revocable trust as a “trust in which the settlor reserves the right to revoke.” A “settlor” is defined as “one who creates trust – Restatement, Second, Trusts § 3(1)” and “[o]ne who furnishes the consideration for the creation of a trust, though in form the trust is created by another. Lehman v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, C.C.A.2, 109 F.2d 99, 100.”

If the sovereign states were settlors, was there anywhere in the trust instrument that evidenced a revocation clause? Recall the states would not sign off on the Constitution until a Bill of Rights was added. Upon examination of these articles one may quite justifiably suggest such a caveat of the right of revocation is stipulated in the ninth and tenth amendments:

Where does one find, anywhere in the Trust instrument, the enumerated right of the United States to bind a sovereign People to it in perpetuity? Further, where can a clause or passage be found delegating a power to the United States to bind any one of its sovereign creators or settlors? Can a man created by God turn around and bind God? Can an entity created by the sovereign People turn around and bind them if they are “free and independent?” Surely not. Again, recall the definition of a trust in Black’s, cited above:

If a trust does indeed encompass a character and quality such that its creators or settlors combine (or compact) without any consolidation or merger, and if the “United States” was at least at that time a Trust, why does the court clearly suggest a maxim of law that is incompatible with the law? Recall the court stated the “act which consummated” admission was something more than a compact. Just following this sentence is a semi-colon and another phrase further clarifying the opinion the court was defending;

The word “incorporation” is defined in Black’s as the “act or process of forming or creating a corporation.” This opens a door to a completely different sphere of commercial law. The process of incorporation implies a granting of privileges and duties by the state as stipulated by a charter. The state grants incorporation because the corporation is “a creature of the state.” Hale v. Henkel, supra. The Henkel case clearly draws clear distinction between the sovereign individual and a corporation. So the suggestion that a sovereign state can be “incorporated,” as was clearly suggested by the Supreme Court in White, is to suggest that the sovereign state can divest itself of its sovereignty such that once done the act would be “complete” and “perpetual.”

The Supreme Court addressed this very question almost seventy years after Texas v. White in the case of Ashton v. Cameron County. In this decision the court addressed a petition for bankruptcy by a water improvement district which was chartered under a municipal corporation in California. The decision was a five to four split in favor of prohibiting the petitioner from declaring bankruptcy under federal law. The logic followed that the corporate municipality came under the jurisdiction of the sovereign state that created it. Citing previous decisions the majority held:

Justice Cardozo wrote the opinion for the minority, suggesting that while the states themselves may not be capable of joining in a bankruptcy, a municipal corporation did not enjoy the same protection. Some would say such a position is consistent with the Henkel case that makes the distinction between the sovereign and the corporation. But in any case Cardozo did concede to the majority view from one vantage point:

There is no definition of the word “quasi sovereign” in Black’s, Bouvier’s, or even Webster’s. Quasi is Latin for “as if; almost as it were; analogous to.” Why would Cardozo suggest a state as “quasi sovereign?” Go back to the original Trust instrument and all the case law mentioned in Part One of this essay. The true sovereignty inherently lies and is vested in “We the People.” The states serve to evidence and execute that inherent and collective sovereignty. Could that be why Title 28 USCS § 297 refers to the compact states as “countries” in subsection (b)?

One might further confound this trust analysis by suggesting that the United States has always been nothing more than a mere corporation from the onset. After all, a corporation is a mere creature of the State. In this case the Free and Independent States, made of the We the People, “created” a corporate entity to perform certain necessary functions. In that case, the whole trust argument is moot since the government has always been corporate from its onset. Review of some of the cases already cited, as well as others, suggest this is an argument not wholly meritless. Consider this statement by the Supreme Court of California in 1855:

It was this above concept which “had long been held by many learned authorities, and had never been judicially decided to the contrary…” [U.S. v. Anthony 24 F.Cas. 829 (1873)], that Justice Hunt was referring to in his analysis of the newly created and defined “citizen of the United States.”

It is the opinion of this writer that what the case of State of Texas v. White most clearly represents is a battered and wounded judiciary trying to justify a police action that was so far outside the law regardless of what commercial or governmental entity was created and given the name the “United States” thereafter. When the trustees of the seven southern states that originally seceded refused to convene in Congress in December of 1860 the remaining body politic was confronted with a serious dilemma. The Constitution clearly dictated that the Congress “shall assemble at least once every Year, and such Meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they shall by Law appoint a different Day.” Article I, Section 4. When those seceding states didn’t show, and the subsequent states (eleven total) followed suit, the legislative body could not ever again during the course of the war lawfully assemble for it lacked a quorum.

Whether trust or corporation, that government ceased to function as per the terms of the trust instrument. John Locke’s Essays on Civil Government speak to the term sine die (sunset). He said the best way to end a government is not to meet. What followed was an absolutely unarguable military dictatorship by President Lincoln. He arrested state legislators for debating the war, he issued an arrest warrant for the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court for daring to issue an opinion that his decision to suspend Habeaus Corpus was unlawful, and he allowed for mass executions of peaceful dissenters without any trial whatsoever. A sobering history of this war, suspiciously overlooked by academics for decades, can be found in the book When in the Course of Human Events; Arguing the Case for Southern Secession, by Charles Adams, Rowman and Littlefield (2000).

What followed the Civil War was the Reconstruction. This, too, is a topic of study in and of itself. But what transpires in this time frame is the adoption of three new amendments, the creation and definition of a new kind of “citizen,” and a conspicuous Congressional Act in 1871 called the District of Columbia Organic Act. This act charters a municipal corporation which, if one follows the subsequent acts and laws passed, he or she will discover becomes the “United States.”

Do we exist today in a society of side by side and separate governments (i.e. countries v. the federal corporation) or rather an overlay of “federal enclaves” (see the Buck Act) that rest atop the sovereign states? Further, if there are two distinct entities do they each operate under the same constitution or do they have separate documents, one being a trust document and the other a corporate charter? It is certainly clear there are two jurisdictions and there are two types of citizens.

This question of jurisdictional foundation becomes a crucial one to confront even if the answer to the above historical mystery cannot be agreed upon before the sun sets. This is because the reality of the present day confronts us with an absolute certainty. That reality is that this “United States” today is a corporation that is in Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The certainty is that a “citizen” who is “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” is one who is subject to that bankruptcy. Since such a condition has tremendous implications and ramifications for creditors, debtors and third parties, it is crucial to determine just who are the parties respectively.

Essay on Citizenship

Part Three

On April 5, 1933, President Roosevelt issued an Executive Order 6260 declaring:

Section 9 of the order reads as follows:

The Postmaster General, James Farley, ordered a posting of this order in a conspicuous place inside each branch of the Post Office.  At the bottom of the posting were the declarations that read as follows:

CRIMINAL PENALTIES FOR VIOLATION OF EXECUTIVE ORDER

Stated within a written document received September 17, 1997, from the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Legal Counsel, Office of the Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Richard L. Shiffin, in response to a FOIA, was the following:

If the President issued an order that literally forced a person to give up his property to the state, from where did he believe he was vested with a grant of authority?  One need only backtrack through the United States Statutes at Large and one can read quite plainly that the Congress purported to grant this authority by passage of the Emergency War Powers Act:

What was the emergency? Were we at war? Was there invasion imminent? In fact we were at war and had been under attack since the United States incorporated in 1871 and began dealing in bonds. The banks which bought out those loans in 1911 turned around and called them in a year later. By 1913 the Federal Reserve Act and the purported 16th Amendment were in place in United States law. By 1917 the Congress passed the Trading with the Enemy Act (H.R. 4960, Public, No. 91, 40 Stat. L. 411). This allowed the United States to trade with its enemies in a time of war. The act carefully stipulated the grant of broad regulatory powers granted the President as applying to “(c) Such other individuals, or body or class of individuals, as may be natives, citizens, or subjects of any nation with which the United States is at war, other than citizens of the United States…”

By 1929 the stock market crashed and we were in a depression. Just after Roosevelt’s inauguration, Congress passed the Amendatory Act (48 Stat. 1, H.R. 1491) commonly referred to as the Emergency War Powers Act (see Senate Report 93-549, Pgs. 187 & 594). The Congress, in Chapter 1, Title 1, Section 1(b) and Section 2, amended the Trading with the Enemy Act in Section 5, Subdivision (b) by extending the President’s broad grant of regulatory powers to include enforcement against “…any person within the United States or any place subject to the jurisdiction thereof…”

By operation of law the American people just became an “enemy.” How can the American people be an enemy of the United States? Recall by this time the United States is a corporation. That corporation is in serious financial trouble. By June of this same year that corporation declared bankruptcy by passage of House Joint Resolution 192:

If one reads this resolution carefully, it can be broken down to a very simple statement laid out in subdivision (a):

Followed by subdivision (b) which states:

 So if one pulls these operative passages it is clear that the resolution states the following intent:

What has Congress just declared here?  They have stated for the record that it shall be against public policy to require payment of a debt. Read Black’s 6^th Ed. (page 147) and you can find a definition that reads, “The state or condition of a person (individual, partnership, corporation, municipality) who is unable to pay its debts as they are, or become due.”  The term defined by this statement is BANKRUPT. The United States corporation openly declared bankruptcy on June 5, 1933. It openly declared it to be against public policy to require anyone to have to make “payment” in “coin or currency” on “any obligation.” So what was Roosevelt doing trying to collect gold from the people? Congress purported to grant him the authority on March 9, 1933 in Sec. 2 of H.R. 1491 by stating:

Roosevelt was collecting assets in a bankruptcy proceeding. The creditors were the banks. The debtors were the people, being divested of their lawful right to hold property. The people were joined into a bankruptcy whether they wished it or not. Now recall a clause you were advised to bookmark from the first page of this essay:

Then recall that Section Five states that Congress shall have power to enforce, by legislation, the provisions of this article.  Roosevelt is, by grant of authority of Congress, enforcing the public debt. From here on the United States corporation, bankrupt and held as a possession of a creditor, is trading with its enemies…the debtor citizenry.

This debtor citizenry is burden by a debt that is impossible, by law, to pay off. The House Joint Resolution cited above makes very clear two important facts, (1) we are no longer using gold to back the currency and (2) a federal reserve note is defined as “coin and currency.” Currency is used to pay debts but this particular currency is evidence of the very debt one seeks to pay. Can you use your VISA credit card to pay off your VISA account? If the only currency in use, by law, is the federal reserve note then how is one to ever pay off the debt? An if he cannot pay it off is he not forever, perpetually, in a debtor state, i.e. servitude? Is this not totally incompatible with the amendment passed in 1865 with respect to slavery and involuntary servitude? 

If a person were to write the national archivist in Washington D.C. for a copy of the constitutional amendment adopted on January 1^st, 1865, he would receive a copy of a parchment which reads in part:

So if a citizen, subject to the jurisdiction thereof, wants to pay off his portion of the debt (or for the sake of the argument, the ENTIRE NATIONAL DEBT) how can he? He can’t use gold and silver and the federal reserve knows all too well what its own promissory notes are worth. A citizen, subject to the jurisdiction thereof, cannot even question the public debt as stated in Section 4 of the fourteenth amendment. It sounds like a fourteenth amendment citizen is already in servitude.

What is wrong with Article XIV cited above? Do you see it? The above citation is not a typographical error. In fact, one may go to copies of the Constitution of the United States printed in the statute books of several state archives and find this same anomaly. In both The Complied Laws of Wyoming, 1876, p. xxix, and the Revised Statutes of Colorado, 7^th Session, 1868, p. 28, one can read in black and white the amendment that prohibits slavery is listed as the 14^th amendment. This certainly complicates matters for one who has just digested over twenty pages of this essay on the 14^th amendment that defined and created a “citizen of the United States.” For anyone learned in the law will tell you the slavery amendment was the 13^th amendment, right? Go to the library and look up the thirteenth amendment and you will find a clause reading just like the one cited above. But if one checks the archives and reviews the second session of the Eleventh Congress, the researcher will discover a proposed amendment that reads:

The historical fact that this above amendment was proposed and passed to the states for ratification is a matter of Congressional Record (see Senate Document No. 103-6, 103’d Congress, 1^St Session, p. 47). The Senate Documents claim this amendment was never ratified by the states.

Then why do these two documents just referred to from Wyoming and Colorado (pp. xxix and 27-28 respectively) clearly read an ARTICLE XIII that reads verbatim to the one the Senate Report cites but denies as having been ratified? Further, if one checks The Revised Code of the Laws of Virginia, p. 80, 1819 and The Constitution of the State of Maine And That Of The United States, 1825, p. 45, one will see the same Article XIII there as well. In fact, the examination of the 1876 laws of Wyoming clearly show an omission of the amendment that creates and defines a citizen of the United States and moves right to the 15^th amendment, concerning the right to vote. Now recall the opening paragraph of this essay in which it was mentioned that the Supreme Court of Utah asserted the 14^th amendment was never lawfully adopted to begin with [Dyett v. Turner, 439 P.2d 266 (1968)]. The Senate wants us to believe the original 13^th amendment was never adopted whereas it seems at least two states, one from the legislative records, and the other from the judiciary, clearly contest the notion of the 14^th amendment as a lawful amendment. This again raises a question as to whether there is in fact more than one Constitution in operation. If the states recognized, at least for a time, this amendment with respect to titles of nobility, why would the federal government be invested in forgetting about it?

The vexing question is what was it exactly Congress proposed? The answer lies in the definitions of three terms, foreign power, emolument, and citizen. 

Now just suppose that the principle shareholders of the Federal Reserve System were the following:

Rothschild Banks of England and Berlin

Warburg Banks of Hamburg and Amsterdam

Lazard Brothers Banks of Paris

Israel Moses Seiff Banks of Italy

Chase Manhattan Bank of New York

Lehman Brothers of New York

Kuhn Loeb of New York

Goldman Sacks of New York

Four of these shareholders are offshore, the other four are incorporated in the State of New York. Now suppose that under the Par value modification provisions of the Bretton Woods Agreement (July 31, 1945, ch. 339, § 2, 59 Stat. 512) it states that the United States Treasury is now the individual drawing account of the IMF.  Until 1999 a canceled check made out to the IRS could be turned over to determine where it had been cashed. One saw the stamp “PAY TO THE ORDER OF FRB” being an abbreviation for Federal Reserve Bank. Now such stamps read payable to the outfit the IRS asks one to write the check to…the U.S. Treasury.

It is semantics really. There hasn’t been any money in the Treasury since 1911. Who took it? Just look at the paper in your wallet. The Federal Reserve is a private corporation (Lewis v. U.S., 608F 2d 1239 [1982]), one that has never been audited once! It is also the holder of the national debt. The holder of the Treasury is the International Monetary Fund, according to statute. That doesn’t really make any sense if one knows that under the bankruptcy the FED already took control of all the assets of the Treasury in 1933. One can dig into this further and discover the difference between the FED and the IMF are basically the letters. It doesn’t really matter if you trace the ownership of the bankrupt corporation by following where the taxes go or by who has all the assets of the Treasury. The results always come up the same.

The bankrupt corporation called the U.S. Government is held and owned by a foreign power. That power operates outside, extrinsic to, the jurisdiction of the United States. In fact, under the terms of the Bretton Woods Agreement and Title 22 USC 286 the President of the United States appoints the Governor of the IMF….who happens to be the Secretary of the Treasury. The debtor citizenry elects a trustee who appoints another trustee to be Governor of a foreign power. So a cabinet official is governor of the IMF?

This brings us to our second term, emolument:

If Paul O’Neil is in fact the governor of a foreign power, if he is in fact paid a salary by this entity, then there is certainly a conflict of interest is there not?  Such a relationship, whereby a U.S. government official receives a payment from a foreign power would meet the above definition of an emolument. But, if one thinks about it, the U.S. Government is a possessory interest, chattel property if you will, of the creditor Federal Reserve/IMF. It is nothing more that a satellite.You want evidence? What type of payment do you think the President gets his salary in? How about a Congressmen, Senator, FBI agent, or midnight janitor at the Smithsonian?

This brings us to our final definition, and the subject of this paper:

In Black’s, unfortunately, every term is capitalized so that it is impossible to distinguish the proper from the common as far as the lexicon is concerned. But just looking at the general definition offered one sees that citizens are “members of a political community.” The question one need ask with respect to the original thirteenth amendment is what political community did the word “citizen” denote in that amendment?

The question is most easily resolved by first establishing what a “citizen” is not. Can a “citizen” be a term that refers to the sovereign man who is referred to in the articles of the Constitution as “Citizen?” No, and here’s why. This proposed amendment specifically states that a person who accepts an emolument of any kind from any foreign power shall “cease to be a citizen of the United States.” First of all, the Constitution does not grant sovereignty, or Citizenship. This issue has already been clearly addressed by the Declaration of Independence. The Constitution certainly cannot revoke that which it has no power to grant in the first place. So “citizen” is obviously referring to another type of citizen. We could re-raise all the issues of the fourteenth amendment, but the courts clearly agree that the type of citizen discussed there was not created and defined until that amendment was enacted. So what is a “citizen” under this proposed amendment of 1813?

If one were to go back to 1813 one would find that, just like today, Washington D.C. was its own district, in which many lived and worked. Usually a person’s residence there was temporary due to his tenure in some governmental office or position of trust. In fact, those who went to take up residence there, as well as in territories or insular possessions outside the several states, were commonly referred to as “citizens of the United States.” These were folks, under the suffrage laws, who were eligible to hold office and were required to have primary allegiance to one of the several states. So what would be the implications of such an amendment as proposed in 1813? If an elected or appointed official took a title or payment from a foreign power he would lose his job.

People generally lose sight of the fact that the battle for financial control of this nation began the moment the battle for soil ended. The Treaty of Peace of 1782 left the new nation in debt to the Crown of England to the tune of 18 million lire. The war of 1812 was the creditor coming in to collect. Why do you think they raided the White House? It is also noteworthy that the hero of that war, Andrew Jackson, fought to his dying day to prevent another central bank from forming in this country in the vain hope that the people of the nation would stay true to lawful currency in which their vested right to own property would be protected. He would roll in his grave if he saw his face on today’s twenty dollar federal reserve note.

But such an instrument of exchange is in and of itself prima facia evidence of a perquisite, a privilege, granted by a foreign power. In 1813, the thought was to add some enforcement teeth to the provisions of the Constitution that prohibited the acceptance of titles of nobility. By 1865 this amendment conveniently disappears. It is a complicated monkey wrench in the machinery of a government that just illegally invaded it’s sovereign benefactors’ homes and lands; a government that forced them to adopt an amendment creating and defining a new kind of citizen; a new kind of citizen that would one day become pledged to a bankruptcy.

Today anyone who partakes in a federal benefit program is considered federal personnel [see 5 USC 552a(13)]. One’s participation in Social Security makes that person a federal employee, which was the only type of person ever intended to be subject of the Income Tax under the Public Salary Tax Act of 1913. So looking back at the original thirteenth amendment, if one replaced the word “citizen” with “federal employee” one is liable to quickly see the problem. Everyone loses their “citizenship” under this amendment. Everyone, congressmen, appointed officials, cops, lawyers, janitors, teachers, even drug dealers. Why? Because everyone is acting as a “citizen” by taking part in the Social Security system and the bankruptcy. By virtue of that participation each one is accepting perks from a foreign power, i.e. the privilege of engaging in commerce by means of a currency system owned by a foreign power.

Robert A. Mundell, a noted Nobel winning economist, last year at the Gustavus Adolphus Nobel Conference, stated “Money is a component of sovereignty.”  That same economist was stupified when it was suggested that in reality the income tax is merely a tax of the money we use.  So much for higher education. 

The reason the proponents of the original thirteenth amendment drafted it was to add an inherent protection to the United States from outside influence. Those drafters understood completely what Dr. Mundell would utter nearly two hundred years later at a conference where the topic of debate was none other than the globalization of government and the economy. Money is a component of sovereignty, and he who owns it is the true sovereign. Anyone using a federal reserve note cannot make the claim of ownership of the note. If he could he wouldn’t be liable for an income tax.his writer just recently was surfing the net (msn.com) and found a link “What Some Famous People Say About Taxes.”  The source of the quotes is from the Encarta World English Dictionary. In this list of humorous quotations was one that was more ominous. It is attributed to former President Ronald Reagan, who said “The taxpayer is someone who works for the federal government but doesn’t have to take a civil service examination.”

So was that supposed to be a joke?

What was created and defined by the adoption of the fourteenth amendment? What new kind of citizen was born? In reality, nothing was changed. No new citizen was created because the truths held evident in 1776 are as true today as they were then. Even after the bankruptcy was declared in 1933, a divided Supreme Court in Ashton v. Cameron County was settled on one issue. A sovereign state was not capable of even voluntarily joining into a bankruptcy. If the sovereignty of such a state is only existent because it is empowered by its sovereign Citizens then those Citizens are incapable of being debtors in the Chapter 11 U.S. Corp. Such a Citizen could swear an oath and pledge himself to an office of trust in the United States but he would lose such citizenship if he pledged allegiance to the bankruptcy and accepted privileges arising there from. Those who masterminded the Federal Reserve and the Social Security Act of 1935 knew this conundrum all too well. It is for these reasons that births began to be “registered” and names began appearing in all CAPITAL LETTERS.  If one goes to the U.S. Government Style Manual, Chapter 3, Capitalization, at § 3.2, one can find the prescribed rules for proper names.

There is no text, manual, or book of any kind this writer has found that prescribes, under the rules of English grammar, the complete capitalization of every letter of a proper name. If you are one who has learned that Social Security is a trust and that the all capital letter name is the name of a trust (a fictitious entity or person under the law) then you know already who the fourteenth amendment “citizen” is. If you don’t then go pull out the social security card in your wallet. Printed on that card is the name of the federal employee who is subject to the jurisdiction thereof and is liable for income tax. Why? Because he is a federal employee that the former president and movie actor quoted above was blatantly identifying. This federal employee is paid in federal reserve notes. This is the debtor, that entity the folks in redemption refer to as the “strawman.” Does it make sense now how you are the creditor under the UCC-1 financing statement? If not, then you need to go back to page one of this essay and start reading again. Then go read the Ashton case word for word, both the majority and the minority opinions. If you still don’t get it then you sure as heck shouldn’t go into court and try to make this case yet.

So many in the patriot movement, so disillusioned on the one hand with the shape government is in, get filled with a sort of liberty euphoria when they discover the 1041 tax form, or the UCC-1, or the land patent. They find out that they do not really need a driver’s license at all and want to run out and take the plates off their car and start operating in the de jure system again. Well, that is fine except for one thing. The majority out there don’t know that a de jure system even exists. Your local clerk at the Department of Transportation not only has no idea that there really is more than one kind of citizenship, he will actually call you names for daring to suggest it (don’t laugh, this actually happened in Saint Paul last February). Does the Secretary of State even know? If you want to know for sure, write her and ask her. Does Jesse Ventura know he is likely nothing more than the elected head of a corporation under the umbrella of the bankrupt federal corporation called the United States Government? Maybe.

The bottom line is this, if you are waiting for government to reform itself you are going to be waiting until the sun runs out of gas. The only reformers out there are the ones taking the time to read this essay and doing something with it. Are you guaranteed to win in court once you have sufficiently boned up on this stuff?  No more than you are guaranteed to reach the summit of Pike’s Peak no matter how many hours you train on a rock climbing wall. But there is one certainty you can count on. If you don’t try, and others like you don’t continue to try, there will be no one out there to execute the reform we all so desperately seek.

My father used to read me a story by Dr. Suess when I was young. It was called The Lorax. The Lorax was a little furry creature that tried in vain to save a forest from a growing conglomerate that didn’t care about the environment upon which it depended for survival. At the end of the story the Lorax flies off into the clouds, leaving behind a pile of stones upon which is carved one word….UNLESS. That one word laid out the moral of the whole story. It is a moral that embodies the heart of what a “Citizen” is truly called to consider if he truly cherishes the sovereignty bestowed upon him by natures’ God. The moral goes like this…

 “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,

nothing is going to get better. 

It’s not.”

Copyright Family Guardian Fellowship