The 14th Amendment one of the three Amendments known as the the reconstruction amendments were ratified in the 5 year period directly after the Civil War. These amendments were intended to restructure the United States from a country that was half slave to a wholly free nation. It is incorrect to include these amendments under the same category as those written by our "Founding Fathers" since Abraham Lincoln albeit a great president, was after all our 14th. The 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments were Ratified between 1865 and 1870 several decades after the Constitution was ratified. It is clear that the citizenship clause was intended to combat the Dred Scott v. Sandford ruling that dictated that black slaves were not U.S. Citizens.
They, both the Founding Fathers as well as the legislators in 1868 could not have imagined a time were pregnant immigrants would hurry to our borders in order to gain citizenship and welfare. With this in mind it makes perfect sense to update the constitution in the proper way to account for this worldly change in attitude and circumstance. This is why our founding fathers left us a built in mechanism for updating the U.S. Constitution so we may keep up with the times when needed.
I do not personally agree with the concept that the U.S. Constitution is "living and breathing", as most who use this terminology allude to change the meaning of the words within the document and not the document itself. The document can be amended, but this does not change the meaning of the words within or the original intention of those who wrote the words. You must ALWAYS, consider that the writers of any text actually intended when they wrote the words you can not simply apply current understanding to words written 100 years ago.
"Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in the distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government."
-James Madison
Cheers,
Mike
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