President Trump, Complete Lincoln’s Covenant of Actual Freedom
A Respectful Appeal to Pause, Withdraw, or Reframe Trump v. Barbara Until the Chattel Children Are Heard
The Honorable Donald J. Trump
President of the United States
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Re: Trump v. Barbara — A Lincoln-Level Opportunity to Complete the Work of Actual Freedom
Dear Mr. President:
“The Executive Government of the United States… will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.”
— President Abraham Lincoln, Emancipation Proclamation
“Whenever the President of the United States shall have reason to believe that offenses have been or are likely to be committed against the provisions of this act… it shall be lawful for him, in his discretion…”
— Civil Rights Act of 1866, Section 8
A Respectful Word to a President Who Desires Lincoln’s Mantle
Mr. President, I write with respect, urgency, and hope. I do not write as an enemy, nor as one seeking to embarrass you. I write as one who desires to help you fulfill what you yourself have openly desired: to stand in the presidential lineage of Abraham Lincoln.
You have often expressed admiration for Lincoln. I take that desire seriously. Indeed, I believe it may be providentially connected to the matter now before the Supreme Court in Trump v. Barbara.
Lincoln declared freedom. Reconstruction secured citizenship. But the heirs of that freedom were not yet fully able to read, understand, or claim what had been written for them.
Now, in this generation, that may finally change.
2. My Connection to This Matter
For many years, Professor John Eastman has been my mentor on this matter of birthright citizenship. I also understand him to be one of the constitutional minds who have influenced your attention to this issue.
As a lay scholar and advocate, I have long regarded myself as his Number One Protégé in this specific field: the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the Fourteenth Amendment, birthright citizenship, and the original federal citizenship of the chattel children.
Many times, the Proff. And I have spoken with each other on this matter.
But I write beyond scholarship.
I write as one of the chattel children — one of the living heirs of those whose bondage, emancipation, forced illiteracy, denied personhood, and restored citizenship gave rise to the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Fourteenth Amendment.
This Is Not Merely an Immigration Case
Mr. President, Trump v. Barbara is being publicly treated as an immigration case. It is that, in part. But beneath the immigration question lies a deeper constitutional matter: the original purpose of national birthright citizenship after slavery.
Before America decides the citizenship claim of the child of a foreigner, America must finally understand why the child of a freedman had to be constitutionally secured in citizenship by birth.
That is the hidden matter. That is the unfinished matter. That is the Lincoln matter of which he speaks as “the great task remaining before us”.
Lincoln’s “Actual Freedom” Still Lives
President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation was not merely a war measure. It placed the Executive Government of the United States, including military and naval authority, under a continuing obligation to “recognize and maintain” the freedom of the formerly enslaved, and to do no act repressing “any of them” in their efforts toward actual freedom.
That phrase — any of them — is deeply personal. It reaches each freed person. It reaches each child of that freedom. It reaches the living heirs who now rise seeking not symbolic freedom only, but actual freedom through constitutional knowledge.
The Civil Rights Act of 1866 gave statutory body to that freedom.
Section 8 recognized presidential authority when offenses had been, or were likely to be, committed against the Act. Section 9 authorized the use of land and naval forces where necessary to enforce its due execution.
Section 10 placed the courts within the enforcement structure.
Lincoln declared the covenant. Reconstruction wrote the remedy. The presidency inherited the duty.
The Heirs Could Not Yet Read the Inheritance
At the time of the Emancipation Proclamation, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the Fourteenth Amendment, and the later Enforcement Acts, the subject beneficiaries were overwhelmingly illiterate — not by nature, but by force of law, terror, and public policy.
For approximately 245 years, the enslaved were denied literacy, family security, mobility, self-determination, lawful standing, and personhood.
The law was written for them, but most could not yet read it fully.
The remedy was secured for them, but most could not yet fully understand it.
The inheritance was established, but the heirs were not yet equipped to claim it.
Now the Time Has Come
Now, for the first time in United States history, the chattel children possess enough literacy, communication capacity, technological access, and civic awareness to begin understanding what was written for their actual freedom.
The world’s communication systems can quickly carry this message.
America is in its 250th year since the Declaration of Independence.
And you, Mr. President, have placed birthright citizenship before the nation in a way no modern President has done.
Had you not raised this matter in 2015, and had you not continued to press it now, this deeper constitutional question might have remained buried beneath custom, confusion, and public ignorance.
Therefore, respectfully, you opened the door.
Now you have the opportunity to complete the act.
The Request: Pause, Withdraw, Suspend, or Reframe
Mr. President, I respectfully urge you not to allow Trump v. Barbara to proceed merely as a divisive immigration battle while the original federal citizens remain unnamed, unheard, and uninformed.
Pause it. Withdraw it. Suspend it. Or publicly reframe it.
Use this moment to initiate an unprecedented national Campaign of Awareness, Knowledge, and Education for Federal Citizens — especially the chattel children, the original remedial people whose ancestors made Lincoln’s proclamation, the Civil War, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and the Fourteenth Amendment necessary.
This Is Not Reparations as Commonly Misunderstood
This is not a demand for reparations in the misunderstood political sense. It is far greater, having more authority and power by which the richness of the American Promissory Note, as Martin Luther King, Jr., prophesies in “I Have A Dream”.
It is not a shakedown. It is not an attack on immigrants. It is not an attack on Maria Barbara. It is not an attack on you.
It is an expectation rooted in constitutional succession, presidential duty, national healing, and the sacred demand of actual freedom.
Why Both Outcomes Can Still Harm the Chattel Children
If Barbara wins, the chattel children may still lose by invisibility, if birthright citizenship is preserved while we remain unnamed as the original remedial people.
If you win, the chattel children may still lose by vulnerability, if birthright citizenship is narrowed without clearly protecting the original federal citizens whose constitutional identity was first secured through Reconstruction.
And if the nation continues this debate without educating us, we lose by ignorance.
That is why this case must not be decided over our heads.
The True Republican and Reconstruction Legacy
Mr. President, this action would honor Abraham Lincoln, Lyman Trumbull, Thaddeus Stevens, Charles Sumner, John Bingham, Jacob Howard, and the other Reconstruction architects who sought to preserve the Union, end slavery’s legal order, and secure national citizenship.
They wrote remedial federal laws for a people who had been denied the tools to understand them.
We thank and salute them. But now the heirs must be taught what was written. That is the true work of the original Republican Party.
That is the true GOP inheritance.
America’s Golden Age Cannot Ignore This Foundation
You have spoken of America’s Golden Age. But no Golden Age can be fully true while the foundational matter of the chattel children remains unresolved, unrecognized, and untaught.
Without this work, the phrase “Golden Age” risks becoming hollow.
With it, however, your Golden Age could become a constitutional awakening, a racial healing, a civic restoration, and a witness before the nations.
Such a campaign would benefit federal citizens by awakening dignity, discipline, lawful identity, and responsibility.
It would benefit the nation by addressing racial confusion at its root.
It would benefit immigrants by clarifying the difference between America’s Reconstruction inheritance and modern immigration policy.
It would benefit the world by showing that America, under God, can still correct itself.
And it would benefit your legacy by placing you not merely among Lincoln’s admirers, but among those who helped complete Lincoln’s unfinished work.
A Fruit Worthy of Repentance
Christians have prayed over you. They have laid hands on you. They have asked God to guide you, protect you, and use you for His purposes.
Perhaps this is one answer to those prayers.
Congress has already acknowledged slavery and Jim Crow as grave national wrongs in HR #194, 2008, Congressional Apology For Slavery and Jim Crowism. But an apology without action remains incomplete.
This action would be different. It would be Presidential. It would be Constitutional. It would be Lincolnian. It would be morally just. It would be a fruit worthy of repentance. It would be Christ-like. Jesus certainly would appreciate a literacy campaign for the illiterate, so that, among other writings, they can read the Bible, Torah-Tanakh.
A Matter Before Mankind and Almighty God
The Emancipation Proclamation ended with Lincoln invoking “the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God.”
That means the matter was never merely political. It was before the nations. It was before Heaven.
So is this one.
No President is above the Constitution. No Court is above the Supreme Judge. No generation is excused from its appointed responsibility.
Final Appeal
Mr. President, you are positioned at a rare crossing of time, law, race, faith, and history.
You may allow Trump v. Barbara to remain a divisive immigration fight, or you may lift it into a national Reconstruction awakening.
You may be remembered as the President who narrowed birthright citizenship, or as the President who helped the chattel children finally understand the birthright citizenship first secured because of them.
This is not only about winning Trump v. Barbara. This is about keeping the Republic. It is about America’s 250th season.
It is about whether the descendants of those once forced into illiteracy will now be assisted by the Executive Government of the United States in their effort toward actual freedom.
And it is about whether you, President Donald J. Trump, will become the Second Lincoln, not by slogan, but by completion.
Therefore, for the sake of the chattel children, the Union, the Constitution, the Declaration’s appeal to the Creator, and America’s standing before mankind and Almighty God, I respectfully ask you:
Pause, withdraw, suspend, or reframe Trump v. Barbara until the original federal citizens are informed, heard, and no longer constitutionally invisible.
Help us enter actual freedom. Help us keep the Republic. Help complete what Lincoln began.
Respectfully submitted,
Ted Hayes
Mr. Citizen Patriot
Justiceville / EXODUS II
American Federal Citizen Advocate
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