Yesterday I published a critical review of a document that Kurt Lash described several weeks ago as a "completed article." Within several hours, I learned that it is not in fact complete. Shortly after my critique went live, Lash posted a revised draft. The latest revisions aren't substantial. But readers should be aware that I'm firing on a moving target and that eventually, I'll have a full-length critique of his (actually) completed article.
I'll finish up with Lash's contrarian take on birthright citizenship by doing three things. First, I'll critique his bizarre treatment of the children of enslaved people and Confederates. Then I'll put to rest a claim that Lash makes about the importance of parental allegiance to the few exceptions to birthright citizenship recognized by the time of the Fourteenth Amendment's ratification. Finally, I'll discuss Lash's treatment of Indian law—roughly, the law defining and regulating the relationships between the government of the United States and that of 575 federally recognized Native nations and their citizens. Although Lash has never written anything substantial about Indian law, Indian law is the source of a crucial analogy which he uses to argue for an exception to birthright citizenship that did not exist in 1868. I'll show that the analogy doesn't work.
Loyal Slaves? Loyal Confederates?
