Supreme Court Affirms Lincoln on Equality

By John A. O'Brien

Sunday, July 12, 2026

Denver, Colorado

A recent executive order challenged the principle that all people born in this country are citizens. On Wednesday, July 1, the Supreme Court affirmed that, yes, “children born in the United States to parents unlawfully or temporarily present are ‘subject to the jurisdiction’ of the United States and are citizens at birth under the 14th Amendment.'” The majority opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts and a concurring opinion by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson are both extraordinary history lessons that should be required reading. They called upon Abraham Lincoln as a star witness.

In Trump v. Barbara, the Court apologized for the Dred Scott v. Sandford decision (1857), calling it “odious.” In it, the chief justice said, “this Court departed from the common law and adopted a view that blood, not soil, determined citizenship” and held that people of African descent could not be citizens of the United States. This decision, Roberts wrote, “was met with shock.” He noted that Abraham Lincoln assailed the finding as “an astonisher in legal history” and swore to undo what the Court had done.

Roberts acknowledged that “with the Dred Scott decision, this Court imposed the Southern States’ beliefs onto the nation.” And this was wrong. He wrote that the people would eventually overrule the Court through the outcome of the Civil War and would finally adopt “the vision of our common humanity” as expressed by Lincoln and Frederick Douglass.   

Once Lincoln became president, his attorney general, Edward Bates, defined the administration’s position in a landmark opinion that declared “every person born in the country is, at the moment of birth, prima facie a citizen.” Lincoln made his support for this view very clear during his lifetime, and Congress made it law with the Civil Rights Act of 1866. Lincoln’s friend, Senator Lyman Trumball, declared that the act covered even the despised “gypsies and Chinese,” confirming the intention of Congress that under this bill, “even the infant child of a foreigner born in this land is a citizen.” Chief Justice Roberts wrote that these were the sentiments enshrined in the 14th Amendment. It was specifically designed to refute the Dred Scott decision and instill a principle that was to be applied to all and for which any change would be “beyond the legislative power.”

In a concurring opinion, Justice Jackson recalled that Lincoln believed the promise of liberty and equality in the Declaration of Independence “was held sacred by all, and thought to include all.” She wrote that “Lincoln expressly and intentionally linked the fate of Black Americans and immigrants and noted that the nation’s future hinged on a universal definition of citizenship that excluded neither.” To Lincoln, “the Declaration’s promise that all men are created equal was the electric cord that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together.”    

The Supreme Court decision in Trump v. Barbara was a well-timed affirmation of a sacred American principle that was so dear to Lincoln, with which to celebrate the 250^th birthday of the United States.