When was the amendment to the Fourteenth Amendment never intended to impose any new restrictions upon citizenship or to prevent any persons from becoming citizens?

As appears upon the face of the amendment, as well as from the history of the times, this was not intended to impose any new restrictions upon citizenship, or to prevent any persons from becoming citizens ... who would thereby have become citizens according to the law existing before its adoption.

Id. at 675-76, 18 S.Ct. at 467 (emphasis added).

Writing in a pre-Fourteenth Amendment case, ⁸ Inglis v. Sailor's Snug Harbour, 28

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