 In light of this concern, as well as to protect the new grant of citizenship for former slaves from being repealed by a later Congress, the drafters of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution included a Citizenship Clause, which would entrench in the Constitution (and thereby set beyond the future reach of Congress or the courts) a guarantee of citizenship stating that "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States".The Fourteenth Amendment—including the Citizenship Clause—was ratified by state legislatures and became a part of the Constitution in 1868.The Constitution does not specifically deal with loss of citizenship.