I'm sorry, but Minor did not settle this question. It is the longstanding practice of the court to decide only those constitutional issues which MUST be decided to address the case at hand. Minor addressed the voting rights of a woman; the final sentence of the decision reads:
"Being unanimously of the opinion that the Constitution of the United States does not confer the right of suffrage upon any one, and that the constitutions and laws of the several States which commit that important trust to men alone are not necessarily void, we affirm the judgment.
Earlier in the decision the court made clear it was NOT defining natural-born citizen, as it was not necessary to do so to decide the case at hand: [emphasis added]
"The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first. For the purposes of this case it is not necessary to solve these doubts."
A) The last sentence in the decision is NOT the only part of a decision that is binding or stands as a legal precedent. The court also said, "Certainly, if the courts can consider any question settled, this is one. For nearly ninety years the people have acted upon the idea that the Constitution, when it conferred citizenship, did not necessarily confer the right of suffrage." In this question that THIS court settled, citizenship is a key part of the decision.
B)You misunderstand what the court is saying when it says it is not necessary to solve these doubts. Its only talking about the doubts of whether the second class of persons are citizens or not. The first class of citizens had no doubts, and that's why it alone was characterized as natural-born and distinguished from anyone who must rely on other means of becoming citizens.
Ok. Good lord this is REMEDIAL, but here we go.
Do you know what an “Independent Ground” is?
Go research it, it is a legal term fyi.
I will define it here. In the SCOTUS case Ogilvie Et Al., Minors v. United States, 519 U.S. 79 (1996) found here: http://openjurist.org/519/us/79/ogilvie-v-united-states Justice Breyer wrote the Majority Opinion which stated in part:
“Although we gave other reasons for our holding in Schleier as well, we explicitly labeled this reason an ‘independent’ ground in support of our decision, id., at 334. We cannot accept petitioners’ claim that it was simply a dictum.”
What does that mean to YOU? It means that when the court discusses a certain reason as an independent ground in support of their decision, that reason, that independent ground is NOT merely Dictum. It is part of the HOLDING because it is part or all of the reason FOR the holding!
What does THAT mean to you? It means that the Minor Court in using Article 2 Section 1 clause 5 to define natural Born Citizen was the INDEPENDENT GROUND by which it avoided the 14th Amendment in defining Minor’s citizenship status.
The use of A2S1c5 was NOT dictum. It was an independent ground and this is WHY it is part of the holding.
This is where it is glaringly apparent just how handicapped the average lay person, uneducated in the law, actually IS. You do not understand the terminology, you do not recognize the structure, heck you don’t seem to realize there IS a structure, and you do not by any means recognize the IMPORT of what you are reading - in the context of the legal language and format in which it appears.
Then you make a straw argument that totally kills any street cred you might have had on this... “For the purposes of this case it is not necessary to solve these doubts.” What “DOUBTS” was the court talking about? The citizenship status of those who were NOT Natural Born Citizens! “Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first.” The FIRST being the Natural Born Citizen, born in country to two parents who were it’s citizens.
Now, best get back to thefogbow with your dish of cold crow.