Posted on 02/13/2013 2:25:37 PM PST by Cold Case Posse Supporter
For Immediate Release 2/13/2013
There is substantial interest in creating a film adaptation of the Terry Lakin Story, "OFFICER'S OATH."
This is a poignant, heroic story that must not be forgotten, or falsely relegated to the "conspiracy theory" chapter in the annals of our national history.
Terry knowingly sacrificed his military career, endured a court-martial, and ultimately spent nearly half a year in Leavenworth Prison simply for standing up for the Constitution he pledged to uphold and defend. His story is detailed in the book "An Officer's Oath," which is recommended reading for anybody who reveres this country and the Constitution by which we were successfully governed for so many years.
Officer's Oath tells the sometimes harrowing, sometimes inspirational true story of Doctor and 17-year U.S. Army veteran, Lt. Col. Terry Lakin, who sacrificed his distinguished military career--and his very freedom--to preserve the integrity of the United States Constitution.
(Excerpt) Read more at commandertaffy.com ...
Bookmarked.
Houston, we have a stalker.
Ok, thanks for the head’s up. Apologies for misrepresenting you.
1 - Birthers claim a native citizen means one born of alien parents in the USA. They know it does NOT require citizen parents. In reality, NBC and native citizen are interchangeable, but you are the first birther I’ve seen admit it.
2 - WKA goes into great detail on NBC, because it says NBC = natural born subject. I know you do not understand that, but pretty much everyone else who reads it does.
3 - Minor is NOT legal precedent on citizenship. It is persuasive precedent for the idea that there are two types of citizenship - native & naturalized. As they wrote here in Minor:
“Before its adoption the Constitution of the United States did not in terms prescribe who should be citizens of the United States or of the several States, yet there were necessarily such citizens without such provision. There cannot be a nation without a people. The very idea of a political community, such as a nation is, implies an [p166] association of persons for the promotion of their general welfare. Each one of the persons associated becomes a member of the nation formed by the association. He owes it allegiance and is entitled to its protection. Allegiance and protection are, in this connection, reciprocal obligations. The one is a compensation for the other; allegiance for protection and protection for allegiance.
For convenience it has been found necessary to give a name to this membership. The object is to designate by a title the person and the relation he bears to the nation. For this purpose the words “subject,” “inhabitant,” and “citizen” have been used, and the choice between them is sometimes made to depend upon the form of the government. Citizen is now more commonly employed, however, and as it has been considered better suited to the description of one living under a republican government, it was adopted by nearly all of the States upon their separation from Great Britain, and was afterwards adopted in the Articles of Confederation and in the Constitution of the United States. When used in this sense it is understood as conveying the idea of membership of a nation, and nothing more.
To determine, then, who were citizens of the United States before the adoption of the amendment it is necessary to ascertain what persons originally associated themselves together to form the nation, and what were afterwards admitted to membership.
Looking at the Constitution itself we find that it was ordained and established by “the people of the United States,” [n3] and then going further back, we find that these were the people of the several States that had before dissolved the political bands which connected them with Great Britain, and assumed a separate and equal station among the powers of the earth, [n4] and that had by Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, in which they took the name of “the United States of America,” entered into a firm league of [p167] friendship with each other for their common defence, the security of their liberties and their mutual and general welfare, binding themselves to assist each other against all force offered to or attack made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretence whatever. [n5]
Whoever, then, was one of the people of either of these States when the Constitution of the United States was adopted, became ipso facto a citizen — a member of the nation created by its adoption. He was one of the persons associating together to form the nation, and was, consequently, one of its original citizens. As to this there has never been a doubt. Disputes have arisen as to whether or not certain persons or certain classes of persons were part of the people at the time, but never as to their citizenship if they were.
Additions might always be made to the citizenship of the United States in two ways: first, by birth, and second, by naturalization. This is apparent from the Constitution itself, for it provides [n6] that “no person except a natural-born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President,” [n7] and that Congress shall have power “to establish a uniform rule of naturalization.” Thus new citizens may be born or they may be created by naturalization.”
Minor then goes on and specifically refuses to define NBC, other than to say that no one disputes the idea that someone born in the USA of citizen parents is one. However:
“For the purposes of this case it is not necessary to solve these doubts. It is sufficient for everything we have now to consider that all children born of citizen parents within the jurisdiction are themselves citizens.”
I know you don’t understand what Minor wrote, which has always been persuasive precedent only. Minor held:
“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.”
“You are aware, I trust, that the State Department is on record saying that Obama was never a citizen of Indonesia?”
Yes. The State Department is also on record stating Amb. Stevens was killed as a result of a video produced in the United States. Obama and Hillary starred in a video apologising to the people of Libya for the insulting video after Amb. Stevens was murdered.
The proof is there. You choose to swallow the lies of the amdinistration rather than accept the fact Obama is not eligible to be President.
Another poster was correct. The State Department’s official position is that Obama was never a citizen of Indonesian. That will be the State Department’s official position until it isn’t their official position, if ever.
Some of believe we should be subjugated to the administration and some of us believe the administration works for the American people. Lies are never helpful.
The proof is there. You choose to swallow the lies of the amdinistration rather than accept the fact Obama is not eligible to be President.
Another poster was correct. The State Department’s official position is that Obama was never a citizen of Indonesian. That will be the State Department’s official position until it isn’t their official position, if ever.
Some of believe we should be subjugated to the administration and some of us believe the administration works for the American people. Lies are never helpful.
“The proof is there.”
__
Then why the refusal to tell us where we can find it?
Thanks, Edge. That is a very informative post.
Speaking of insanity, the idea that the Framers would have preferred a person w divided loyalties to occupy the highest office in the land over one w undivided loyalties—now that is truly insane. I make allowances for those who genuinely do not comprehend ‘divided loyalties’ in this context. But for anyone who grasps the concept to imagine the Framers purposely enshrined the right to become POTUS to the children of foreigners—again, one word: insane.
“I make allowances for those who genuinely do not comprehend ‘divided loyalties’ in this context.”
__
And I’m sure your allowances are fully appreciated.
But for some of us who have had trouble comprehending just what this context is, I would still appreciate your helping us understand what you have in mind.
In the following hypothetical examples, which of the candidates have divided loyalties?
1) Candidate A was born and raised in the United States. Never even traveled abroad. And his parents were both U.S. citizens, having naturalized the day before he was born, and he decides at age 50 to run for President.
2) Candidate B was born and raised in the United States. Never even traveled abroad. And his parents were both U.S. citizens, but didn’t naturalize until the day after he was born, and he decides at age 50 to run for President.
3) Candidate C was born in the United States to two citizen parents. Shortly after his birth, his parents renounced their U.S. citizenship and moved to North Korea, where they became active members of the community and raised their son there. But he retained his U.S. citizenship, returned permanently to live in the U.S. at age 35, and at age 50 decides to run for President.
Which of these have divided loyalties? Which are eligible under the Constitution to serve as President?
I think it’s a straightforward question, and I’d really appreciate a straightforward answer.
Here is a suggestion worth its weight in gold. In the future, if you want a genuine dialogue w someone, how about not demeaning, insulting, miscontruing and otherwise acting like a jerk in your first one or two posts to that party. You’ll find if you treat your fellow human beings w basic courtesy and respect you get far better results than if you shovel nastiness at them by the truckload.
Overall only a tiny percentage of human beings enjoy being misrepresented, insulted and otherwise demeaned—if even that. [This is People Skills 101.] The majority don’t appreciate such treatment in any way, shape or form. You had your chance to act like a decent, mature adult. You took the opportunity to become so nasty as to preclude further communication. So take your vileness to someone w a higher tolerance for it.
Providing, of course, you can find such a person. Happy hunting.
Of course. As expected, you won’t give a straightforward answer to a straightforward question.
And I can’t say that I blame you. Given your remarks on this subject in the past, it is clear that you don’t have anything remotely resembling a sensible answer. I recall that you refused to answer a similar question from Mr Rogers.
So you can pretend that you didn’t answer it because your wittle feelings got hurt. But for one who claims to be delighted to espouse his values, you grow strangely silent when a specific explanation is requested.
Maybe some will be fooled by that kind of dance. Happy hunting.
Sorry, but this is gobbledygook. NBC and native were "equated" by the Minor court to mean "all children born in the country to parents who were its citizens." Obots, like YOU, are the ones who claim "native citizen" means one born of alien parents ... but that is NOT the same as natural-born, which you know, but won't admit.
2 - WKA goes into great detail on NBC, because it says NBC = natural born subject.
No, actually it does no such thing. Mr. Rogers goes into great detail trying to pretend this is what is said in WKA, but there is absolutely NOTHING in WKA that says this. Period.
3 - Minor is NOT legal precedent on citizenship.
This is absolutely false and you know it. Minor was quoted on citizenship in WKA, as "all children born in the country to parents who were its citizens" followed by the holding which WKA said, "The decision in that case was that a woman born of citizen parents within the United States was a citizen of the United States," .... Minor was affirmed as a citizenship case in Ex Parte Reynolds AND in Luria v. United States, when the latter specifically tied the citizenship holding to Art. II presidential eligibility. You're simply in ignorant denial.
It is persuasive precedent for the idea that there are two types of citizenship - native & naturalized.
You're showing one more time that you can't read very well. Minor is "persuasive precedent" for the idea that there are MORE THAN two types of citizenship, and your own citation shows this VERY CLEARLY:
Whoever, then, was one of the people of either of these States when the Constitution of the United States was adopted, became ipso facto a citizen
Okay, which type of citizen is that?? Naturalized or native?? Next, Minor says:
Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their [p168] parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first.
This shows there are two classes of citizens based on who was born in the United States, but only ONE of these classes could be called citizens without any doubts ... and that class was EXCLUSIVELY characterized as "natives" and "natural-born citizens." The other class was not and could not be because doubts have to be resolved. This creates a FOURTH type of citizenship which is due to satisfying the subject clause of the 14th amendment. That's what WKA discussed in detail and they used their review of natural-born subjects to resolve doubts for this fourth type of citizen.
I know you don’t understand what Minor wrote, which has always been persuasive precedent only.
Sorry, but I've already given the ways that the SCOTUS recognized that Minor was a precedent in defining NBC. This is made very clear in WKA as it cites Minor's citizenship being due to birth in the country to citizen parents, which was NOT enough to give her voting rights. Unlike Ark AND Obama, the court held that Minor's citizenship made her eligible to run for president. It's time to acknowledge the truth and quit spreading ignorance and misdirection. all children born in the country to parents who were its citizens.P
WKA quotes Minor twice:
In this as in other respects, it must be interpreted in the light of the common law, the principles and history of which were familiarly known to the framers of the Constitution. Minor v. Happersett, 21 Wall. 162; Ex parte Wilson, 114 U.S. 417, 422; Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616, 624, 625; Smith v. Alabama, 124 U.S. 465. The language of the Constitution, as has been well said, could not be understood without reference to the common law. Kent Com. 336; Bradley, J., in Moore v. United States, 91 U.S. 270, 274. [p655]
In Minor v. Happersett, Chief Justice Waite, when construing, in behalf of the court, the very provision of the Fourteenth Amendment now in question, said: “The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that.” And he proceeded to resort to the common law as an aid in the construction of this provision. 21 Wall. 167...
...That neither Mr. Justice Miller nor any of the justices who took part in the decision of The Slaughterhouse Cases understood the court to be committed to the view that all children born in the United States of citizens or subjects of foreign States were excluded from the operation of the first sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment is manifest from a unanimous judgment of the Court, delivered but two years later, while all those judges but Chief Justice Chase were still on the bench, in which Chief Justice Waite said: “Allegiance and protection are, in this connection” (that is, in relation to citizenship),
reciprocal obligations. The one is a compensation for the other: allegiance for protection, and protection for allegiance. . . . 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 [p680] 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. It is sufficient for everything we have now to consider that all children born of citizen parents within the jurisdiction are themselves citizens.
Minor v. Happersett (1874), 21 Wall. 162, 166-168. The decision in that case was that a woman born of citizen parents within the United States was a citizen of the United States, although not entitled to vote, the right to the elective franchise not being essential to citizenship.
Since the case involved a woman born in the USA, raised in the USA, having lived her entire life in the USA, with 2 citizen parents, NO ONE had any reasonable question about her citizenship.
Here is what Minor was about:
” In this state of things, on the 15th of October, 1872 (one of the days fixed by law for the registration of voters), Mrs. Virginia Minor, a native born, free, white citizen of the United States, and of the State of Missouri, over the age of twenty-one years, wishing to vote for electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, and for a representative in Congress, and for other officers, at the general election held in November, 1872, applied to one Happersett, the registrar of voters, to register her as a lawful voter, which he refused to do, assigning for cause that she was not a “male citizen of the United States,” but a woman. She thereupon sued him in one of the inferior State courts of Missouri, for wilfully refusing to place her name upon the list of registered voters, by which refusal she was deprived of her right to vote.
The registrar demurred, and the court in which the suit was brought sustained the demurrer, and gave judgment in his favor; a judgment which the Supreme Court affirmed. Mrs. Minor now brought the case here on error.”
Minor was a voting rights case, not a citizenship case.
WKA definitely DOES equate NBC & NBS:
“It thus clearly appears that, by the law of England for the last three centuries, beginning before the settlement of this country and continuing to the present day, aliens, while residing in the dominions possessed by the Crown of England, were within the allegiance, the obedience, the faith or loyalty, the protection, the power, the jurisdiction of the English Sovereign, and therefore every child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject unless the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign State or of an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was born.
III. The same rule was in force in all the English Colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the Constitution as originally established.
In the early case of The Charming Betsy, (1804) it appears to have been assumed by this court that all persons born in the United States were citizens of the United States, Chief Justice Marshall saying:
Whether a person born within the United States, or becoming a citizen according to the established laws of the country, can divest himself absolutely of [p659] that character otherwise than in such manner as may be prescribed by law is a question which it is not necessary at present to decide.
2 Cranch 64, 119.
In Inglis v. Sailors’ Snug Harbor (1833), 3 Pet. 99, in which the plaintiff was born in the city of New York about the time of the Declaration of Independence, the justices of this court (while differing in opinion upon other points) all agreed that the law of England as to citizenship by birth was the law of the English Colonies in America. Mr. Justice Thompson, speaking for the majority of the court, said:
It is universally admitted, both in the English courts and in those of our own country, that all persons born within the Colonies of North America, whilst subject to the Crown of Great Britain, are natural-born British subjects.
3 Pet. 120. Mr. Justice Johnson said: “He was entitled to inherit as a citizen born of the State of New York.” 3 Pet. 136. Mr. Justice Story stated the reasons upon this point more at large, referring to Calvin’s Case, Blackstone’s Commentaries, and Doe v. Jones, above cited, and saying:
Allegiance is nothing more than the tie or duty of obedience of a subject to the sovereign under whose protection he is, and allegiance by birth is that which arises from being born within the dominions and under the protection of a particular sovereign. Two things usually concur to create citizenship: first, birth locally within the dominions of the sovereign, and secondly, birth within the protection and obedience, or, in other words, within the allegiance of the sovereign. That is, the party must be born within a place where the sovereign is at the time in full possession and exercise of his power, and the party must also, at his birth, derive protection from, and consequently owe obedience or allegiance to, the sovereign, as such, de facto. There are some exceptions which are founded upon peculiar reasons, and which, indeed, illustrate and confirm the general doctrine. Thus, a person who is born on the ocean is a subject of the prince to whom his parents then owe allegiance; for he is still deemed under the protection of his sovereign, and born in a place where he has dominion in common with all other sovereigns. So the children of an ambassador are held to be [p660] subjects of the prince whom he represents, although born under the actual protection and in the dominions of a foreign prince.
3 Pet. 155. “The children of enemies, born in a place within the dominions of another sovereign, then occupied by them by conquest, are still aliens.” 3 Pet. 156.
Nothing is better settled at the common law than the doctrine that the children, even of aliens, born in a country while the parents are resident there under the protection of the government and owing a temporary allegiance thereto, are subjects by birth.
3 Pet. 164.
In Shanks v. Dupont, 3 Pet. 242, decided (as appears by the records of this court) on the same day as the last case, it was held that a woman born in South Carolina before the Declaration of Independence, married to an English officer in Charleston during its occupation by the British forces in the Revolutionary War, and accompanying her husband on his return to England, and there remaining until her death, was a British subject within the meaning of the Treaty of Peace of 1783, so that her title to land in South Carolina, by descent cast before that treaty, was protected thereby. It was of such a case that Mr. Justice Story, delivering the opinion of the court, said:
The incapacities of femes covert, provided by the common law, apply to their civil rights, and are for their protection and interest. But they do not reach their political rights, nor prevent their acquiring or losing a national character. Those political rights do not stand upon the mere doctrines of municipal law, applicable to ordinary transactions, but stand upon the more general principles of the law of nations.
3 Pet. 248. This last sentence was relied on by the counsel for the United States as showing that the question whether a person is a citizen of a particular country is to be determined not by the law of that country, but by the principles of international law. But Mr. Justice Story certainly did not mean to suggest that, independently of treaty, there was any principle of international law which could defeat the operation of the established rule of citizenship by birth within the United States; for he referred (p. 245) to the contemporaneous opinions in Inglis v. Sailors’ Snug Harbor, [p661] above cited, in which this rule had been distinctly recognized, and in which he had said (p. 162) that “each government had a right to decide for itself who should be admitted or deemed citizens,” and, in his Treatise on the Conflict of Laws, published in 1834, he said that, in respect to residence in different countries or sovereignties, “there are certain principles which have been generally recognized by tribunals administering public law” [adding, in later editions “or the law of nations”] “as of unquestionable authority,” and stated, as the first of those principles, “Persons who are born in a country are generally deemed citizens and subjects of that country.” Story, Conflict of Laws, § 48.
The English statute of 11 & 12 Will. III (1700). c. 6, entitled
An act to enable His Majesty’s natural-born subjects to inherit the estate of their ancestors, either lineal or collateral, notwithstanding their father or mother were aliens,
enacted that “all and every person or persons, being the King’s natural-born subject or subjects, within any of the King’s realms or dominions,” might and should thereafter lawfully inherit and make their titles by descent to any lands
from any of their ancestors, lineal or collateral, although the father and mother, or father or mother, or other ancestor, of such person or persons, by, from, through or under whom
title should be made or derived, had been or should be “born out of the King’s allegiance, and out of is Majesty’s realms and dominions,” as fully and effectually, as if such parents or ancestors “had been naturalized or natural-born subject or subjects within the King’s dominions.” 7 Statutes of the Realm, 90. It may be observed that, throughout that statute, persons born within the realm, although children of alien parents, were called “natural-born subjects.” As that statute included persons born “within any of the King’s realms or dominions,” it, of course, extended to the Colonies, and, not having been repealed in Maryland, was in force there. In McCreery v. Somerville, (1824) 9 Wheat. 354, which concerned the title to land in the State of Maryland, it was assumed that children born in that State of an alien who was still living, and who had not been naturalized, were “native-born citizens of the [p662] United States,” and, without such assumption, the case would not have presented the question decided by the court, which, as stated by Mr. Justice Story in delivering the opinion, was
whether the statute applies to the case of a living alien ancestor, so as to create a title by heirship where none would exist by the common law if the ancestor were a natural-born subject.
9 Wheat. 356.
Again, in Levy v. McCartee (1832), 6 Pet. 102, 112, 113, 115, which concerned a descent cast since the American Revolution, in the State of New York, where the statute of 11 & 12 Will. III had been repealed, this court, speaking by Mr. Justice Story, held that the case must rest for its decision exclusively upon the principles of the common law, and treated it as unquestionable that, by that law, a child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject, quoting the statement of Lord Coke in Co.Lit. 8a, that,
if an alien cometh into England and hath issue two sons, these two sons are indigenae, subjects born, because they are born within the realm,
and saying that such a child “was a native-born subject, according to the principles of the common law stated by this court in McCreery v. Somervlle, 9 Wheat. 354.”
In Dred Scott v. Sandford, (1857) 19 How. 393, Mr. Justice Curtis said:
The first section of the second article of the Constitution uses the language, “a natural-born citizen.” It thus assumes that citizenship may be acquired by birth. Undoubtedly, this language of the Constitution was used in reference to that principle of public law, well understood in this country at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, which referred citizenship to the place of birth.
19 How. 576. And, to this extent, no different opinion was expressed or intimated by any of the other judges.
In United States v. Rhodes (1866), Mr. Justice Swayne, sitting in the Circuit Court, said:
All persons born in the allegiance of the King are natural-born subjects, and all persons born in the allegiance of the United States are natural-born citizens. Birth and allegiance go together. Such is the rule of the common law, and it is the common law of this country, as well as of England. . . . We find no warrant for the opinion [p663] that this great principle of the common law has ever been changed in the United States. It has always obtained here with the same vigor, and subject only to the same exceptions, since as before the Revolution.
1 Abbott (U.S.) 28, 40, 41.
The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, speaking by Mr. Justice (afterwards Chief Justice) Sewall, early held that the determination of the question whether a man was a citizen or an alien was “to be governed altogether by the principles of the common law,” and that it was established, with few exceptions,
that a man born within the jurisdiction of the common law is a citizen of the country wherein he is born. By this circumstance of his birth, he is subjected to the duty of allegiance which is claimed and enforced by the sovereign of his native land, and becomes reciprocally entitled to the protection of that sovereign, and to the other rights and advantages which are included in the term “citizenship.”
Garder v. Ward (1805), 2 Mass. 244, note. And again:
The doctrine of the common law is that every man born within its jurisdiction is a subject of the sovereign of the country where he is born, and allegiance is not personal to the sovereign in the extent that has been contended for; it is due to him in his political capacity of sovereign of the territory where the person owing the allegiance as born.
Kilham v. Ward (1806), 2 Mass. 236, 265. It may here be observed that, in a recent English case, Lord Coleridge expressed the opinion of the Queen’s Bench Division that the statutes of 4 Geo. II, (1731) c. 1, and 13 Geo. III (1773), c. 21, (hereinafter referred to) “clearly recognize that to the King in his politic, and not in his personal, capacity is the allegiance of his subjects due.” Isaacson v. Durant, 17 Q.B.D. 54, 65.
The Supreme Court of North Carolina, speaking by Mr; Justice Gaston, said:
Before our Revolution, all free persons born within the dominions of the King of Great Britain, whatever their color or complexion, were native-born British subjects; those born out of his allegiance were aliens. . . . Upon the Revolution, no other change took place in the law of North Carolina than was consequent upon the transition from a colony dependent on an European King to a free and sovereign [p664] State; . . . British subjects in North Carolina became North Carolina freemen; . . . and all free persons born within the State are born citizens of the State. . . . The term “citizen,” as understood in our law, is precisely analogous to the term “subject” in the common law, and the change of phrase has entirely resulted from the change of government. The sovereignty has been transferred from one man to the collective body of the people, and he who before as a “subject of the king” is now “a citizen of the State.”
State v. Manuel (1838), 4 Dev. & Bat. 20, 24-26.
That all children born within the dominion of the United States of foreign parents holding no diplomatic office became citizens at the time of their birth does not appear to have been contested or doubted until more than fifty years after the adoption of the Constitution, when the matter was elaborately argued in the Court of Chancery of New York and decided upon full consideration by Vice Chancellor Sandford in favor of their citizenship. Lynch v. Clark, (1844) 1 Sandf.Ch. 583.
The same doctrine was repeatedly affirmed in the executive departments, as, for instance, by Mr. Marcy, Secretary of State, in 1854, 2 Whart.Int.Dig. (2d ed.) p. 394; by Attorney General Black in 1859, 9 Opinions, 373, and by Attorney General Bates in 1862, 10 Opinions, 328, 382, 394, 396.
Chancellor Kent, in his Commentaries, speaking of the “general division of the inhabitants of every country under the comprehensive title of aliens and natives,” says:
Natives are all persons born within the jurisdiction and allegiance of the United States. This is the rule of the common law, without any regard or reference to the political condition or allegiance of their parents, with the exception of the children of ambassadors, who are in theory born within the allegiance of the foreign power they represent. . . . To create allegiance by birth, the party must be born not only within the territory, but within the ligeance of the government. If a portion of the country be taken and held by conquest in war, the conqueror acquires the rights of the conquered as to its dominion and government, and children born in the armies of a State, while [p665] abroad and occupying a foreign country, are deemed to be born in the allegiance of the sovereign to whom the army belongs. It is equally the doctrine of the English common law that, during such hostile occupation of a territory, and the parents be adhering to the enemy as subjects de facto, their children, born under such a temporary dominion, are not born under the ligeance of the conquered.
2 Kent Com. (6th ed.) 39, 42. And he elsewhere says:
And if, at common law, all human beings born within the ligeance of the King, and under the King’s obedience, were natural-born subjects, and not aliens, I do not perceive why this doctrine does not apply to these United States, in all cases in which there is no express constitutional or statute declaration to the contrary. . . . Subject and citizen are, in a degree, convertible terms as applied to natives, and though the term citizen seems to be appropriate to republican freemen, yet we are, equally with the inhabitants of all other countries, subjects, for we are equally bound by allegiance and subjection to the government and law of the land.
2 Kent Com. 258, note.”
Let me repeat:
And if, at common law, all human beings born within the ligeance of the King, and under the King’s obedience, were natural-born subjects, and not aliens, I do not perceive why this doctrine does not apply to these United States, in all cases in which there is no express constitutional or statute declaration to the contrary. . . . Subject and citizen are, in a degree, convertible terms as applied to natives, and though the term citizen seems to be appropriate to republican freemen, yet we are, equally with the inhabitants of all other countries, subjects, for we are equally bound by allegiance and subjection to the government and law of the land.
No kidding. I've established this several times. It quotes Minor to define NBC as "all children born in the country to parents who were its citizens." And this quote specifically contradicts what you claim about WKA equating NBC with NBS. All you have is BS.
In Minor v. Happersett, Chief Justice Waite, when construing, in behalf of the court, the very provision of the Fourteenth Amendment now in question, said: “The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens.
The 14th amendment does NOT say who shall be natural-born citizens ... therefore NBS can NOT be NBC. Period. Learn it. Understand it.
Since the case involved a woman born in the USA, raised in the USA, having lived her entire life in the USA, with 2 citizen parents, NO ONE had any reasonable question about her citizenship.
Doofus, you just quoted another case explaing how Minor dealt with citizenship. You're arguing against yourself. And you're missing an important point. Viriginia Minor claimed to be a citizen via the 14th amendment which is what she claimed gave her voting rights. The court rejected the citizenship argument and thus the voting argument. It was a package deal. Why else did they say anything about citizen parent??
“The 14th amendment does NOT say who shall be natural-born citizens ... therefore NBS can NOT be NBC.”
That is NOT what the court said, tho, is it? It said:
“In Minor v. Happersett, Chief Justice Waite, when construing, in behalf of the court, the very provision of the Fourteenth Amendment now in question, said: “The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that.” And he proceeded to resort to the common law as an aid in the construction of this provision. 21 Wall. 167.”
A paragraph later, they go on to analyze the meaning of NBC, using the common law meaning of natural born subject since, after all:
“The same rule was in force in all the English Colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the Constitution as originally established.”
The same rule:
1 - In the English Colonies
2 - at Independence
3 - In the US prior to the Constitution, and
4 - continued UNDER the Constitution, which can only be true if NBC = NBS.
I don’t post this to you, edge, because you are not sane. But anyone who reads should read WKA for themselves:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0169_0649_ZO.html
It's EXACTLY what the court said. Read it. Learn it. Comprehend it.
“In Minor v. Happersett, Chief Justice Waite, when construing, in behalf of the court, the very provision of the Fourteenth Amendment now in question, said: “The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens.
The 14th amendment IS the Constitution. The Minor court went outside of the Consitution to define NBC and it is saying specifically that the 14th amendment does NOT define it.
A paragraph later, they go on to analyze the meaning of NBC, using the common law meaning of natural born subject since, after all:
The next paragraph is NOT about NBC. It doesn't use the term at all in what you've quoted. You've got to quit lying.
I posted a link so that anyone who is sane & who can read can read it for themselves.
“The Minor court went outside of the Consitution to define NBC and it is saying specifically that the 14th amendment does NOT define it.”
No one said the 14th defined the meaning of NBC, but that its meaning is found in COMMON LAW. It was a legal term, well known to the Founders, in its natural born subject form.
“In Minor v. Happersett, Chief Justice Waite, when construing, in behalf of the court, the very provision of the Fourteenth Amendment now in question, said: “The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that.” And he proceeded to resort to the common law as an aid in the construction of this provision. 21 Wall. 167.
In Smith v. Alabama, Mr. Justice Matthews, delivering the judgment of the court, said:
There is no common law of the United States, in the sense of a national customary law, distinct from the common law of England as adopted by the several States each for itself, applied as its local law, and subject to such alteration as may be provided by its own statutes. . . . There is, however, one clear exception to the statement that there is no national common law. The interpretation of the Constitution of the United States is necessarily influenced by the fact that its provisions are framed in the language of the English common law, and are to be read in the light of its history.
124 U.S. 478.
II. The fundamental principle of the common law with regard to English nationality was birth within the allegiance, also called “ligealty,” “obedience,” “faith,” or “power” of the King. The principle embraced all persons born within the King’s allegiance and subject to his protection. Such allegiance and protection were mutual — as expressed in the maxim protectio trahit subjectionem, et subjectio protectionem — and were not restricted to natural-born subjects and naturalized subjects, or to those who had taken an oath of allegiance, but were predicable of aliens in amity so long as they were within the kingdom. Children, born in England, of such aliens were therefore natural-born subjects. But the children, born within the realm, of foreign ambassadors, or the children of alien enemies, born during and within their hostile occupation of part of the King’s dominions, were not natural-born subjects because not born within the allegiance, the obedience, or the power, or, as would be said at this day, within the jurisdiction, of the King.
This fundamental principle, with these qualifications or [p656] explanations of it, was clearly, though quaintly, stated in the leading case, known as Calvin’s Case, or the Case of the Postnati, decided in 1608, after a hearing in the Exchequer Chamber before the Lord Chancellor and all the Judges of England, and reported by Lord Coke and by Lord Ellesmere. Calvin’s Case, 7 Rep. 1, 4b-6a, 18a, 18b; Ellesmere on Postnati, 62-64; S.C., 2 Howell’s State Trials, 559, 607, 613-617, 639, 640, 659, 679.
The English authorities ever since are to the like effect. Co.Lit. 8a, 128b, Lord Hale, in Hargrave’s Law Tracts, 210, an in 1 Hale P.C. 61, 62; 1 Bl.Com. 366, 369, 370, 374; 4 Bl.Com. 74, 92; Lord Kenyon, in Doe v. Jones, 4 T.R. 300, 308; Cockburn on Nationality, 7; Dicey Conflict of Laws, p. 173-177, 741.
In Udny v. Udny, (1869) L.R. 1 H.L. Sc. 441, the point decided was one of inheritance, depending upon the question whether the domicil of the father was in England or in Scotland, he being in either alternative a British subject. Lord Chancellor Hatherley said: “The question of naturalization and of allegiance is distinct from that of domicil.” P. 452. Lord Westbury, in the passage relied on by the counsel for the United States, began by saying:
The law of England, and of almost all civilized countries, ascribes to each individual at his birth two distinct legal states or conditions: one, by virtue of which he becomes the subject of some particular country, binding him by the tie of natural allegiance, and which may be called his political status; another by virtue of which he has ascribed to him the character of a citizen of some particular country, and as such is possessed of certain municipal rights, and subject to certain obligations, which latter character is the civil status or condition of the individual, and may be quite different from his political status.
And then, while maintaining that the civil status is universally governed by the single principle of domicil, domicilium, the criterion established by international law for the purpose of determining civil status, and the basis on which
the personal rights of the party, that is to say, the law which determines his majority or minority, his marriage, succession, testacy or intestacy, [p657] must depend,
he yet distinctly recognized that a man’s political status, his country, patria, and his “nationality, that is, natural allegiance,” “may depend on different laws in different countries.” Pp. 457, 460. He evidently used the word “citizen” not as equivalent to “subject,” but rather to “inhabitant,” and had no thought of impeaching the established rule that all persons born under British dominion are natural-born subjects.
Lord Chief Justice Cockburn, in the same year, reviewing the whole matter, said:
By the common law of England, every person born within the dominions of the Crown, no matter whether of English or of foreign parents, and, in the latter case, whether the parents were settled or merely temporarily sojourning, in the country, was an English subject, save only the children of foreign ambassadors (who were excepted because their fathers carried their own nationality with them), or a child born to a foreigner during the hostile occupation of any part of the territories of England. No effect appears to have been given to descent as a source of nationality.
Cockburn on Nationality, 7.
Mr. Dicey, in his careful and thoughtful Digest of the Law of England with reference to the Conflict of Laws, published in 1896, states the following propositions, his principal rules being printed below in italics:
“British subject” means any person who owes permanent allegiance to the Crown. “Permanent” allegiance is used to distinguish the allegiance of a British subject from the allegiance of an alien who, because he is within the British dominions, owes “temporary” allegiance to the Crown. “Natural-born British subject” means a British subject who has become a British subject at the moment of his birth.” “Subject to the exceptions hereinafter mentioned, any person who (whatever the nationality of his parents) is born within the British dominions is a natural-born British subject. This rule contains the leading principle of English law on the subject of British nationality.
The exceptions afterwards mentioned by Mr. Dicey are only these two:
1. Any person who (his father being an alien enemy) is born in a part of the British dominions, which at the time of such [p658] person’s birth is in hostile occupation, is an alien.
2. Any person whose father (being an alien) is at the time of such person’s birth an ambassador or other diplomatic agent accredited to the Crown by the Sovereign of a foreign State is (though born within the British dominions) an alien.
And he adds:
The exceptional and unimportant instances in which birth within the British dominions does not of itself confer British nationality are due to the fact that, though at common law nationality or allegiance in substance depended on the place of a person’s birth, it in theory, at least, depended not upon the locality of a man’s birth, but upon his being born within the jurisdiction and allegiance of the King of England, and it might occasionally happen that a person was born within the dominions without being born within the allegiance, or, in other words, under the protection and control of, the Crown.
Dicey Conflict of Laws, pp. 173-177, 741.
It thus clearly appears that, by the law of England for the last three centuries, beginning before the settlement of this country and continuing to the present day, aliens, while residing in the dominions possessed by the Crown of England, were within the allegiance, the obedience, the faith or loyalty, the protection, the power, the jurisdiction of the English Sovereign, and therefore every child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject unless the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign State or of an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was born.
III. The same rule was in force in all the English Colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the Constitution as originally established...”
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0169_0649_ZO.html
“The same rule was in force in all the English Colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the Constitution as originally established.”
“The same rule was in force in all the English Colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the Constitution as originally established.”
“The same rule was in force in all the English Colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the Constitution as originally established.”
“The same rule was in force in all the English Colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the Constitution as originally established.”
Read it as many times as it takes you for comprehension. I’m guessing a million...
Assume for the moment that edge919 is correct and that the holding in Minor is both citizenship and voting rights.
Take this passage from Minor:
“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. It is sufficient for everything we have now to consider that all children born of citizen parents within the jurisdiction are themselves citizens.”
Now consider the same passage with the single line “These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners.” removed.
“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. 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. It is sufficient for everything we have now to consider that all children born of citizen parents within the jurisdiction are themselves citizens.”
The opinion of the court is not changed. Minor is still considered a citizen and she still has no right to vote.
Now consider this statement from the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals,
“What is at stake in distinguishing holding from dictum is that a dictum is not authoritative. It is the part of an opinion that a later court, even if it is an inferior court, is free to reject. So instead of asking what the word “dictum” means we can ask what reasons there are against a court’s giving weight to a passage found in a previous opinion. There are many. One is that the passage was unnecessary to the outcome of the earlier case and therefore perhaps not as fully considered as it would have been if it were essential to the outcome. A closely related reason is that the passage was not an integral part of the earlier opinion—it can be sloughed off without damaging the analytical structure of the opinion, and so it was a redundant part of that opinion and, again, may not have been fully considered. Still another reason is that the passage was not grounded in the facts of the case and the judges may therefore have lacked an adequate experiential basis for it; another, that the issue addressed in the passage was not presented as an issue, hence was not refined by the fires of adversary presentation. All these are reasons for thinking that a particular passage was not a fully measured judicial pronouncement, that it was not likely to be relied on by readers, and indeed that it may not have been part of the decision that resolved the case or controversy on which the court’s jurisdiction depended (if a federal court).” United States of America v. John Allan Crawley, 837 F.2d 291
https://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2/837/837.F2d.291.87-1967.html
The single sentence “These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners.” is “not an integral part of the earlier opinion—it can be sloughed off without damaging the analytical structure of the opinion”. It is dicta and not binding on the lower courts.
Which is what Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach said during that state’s ballot challenge.
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