So you're saying the entire weight of early legal authority is irrelevant to knowing when it comes to what the Founders intended?
In any event, the 2-sentence statement in Minor was clearly dicta. It was an absolute side comment, and had little to do with anything. This is not contested by any significant legal authority in history.
The definitive ruling came in 1898 when the Supreme Court decided US v. Wong Kim Ark, and that ruling affirms the historical understanding.
As usual, you are spreading disinformation on Free Republic.
Article I, Section 1 and Clause 2; Section 3 and Clause 3, clearly state that to be a Representative or a Senator one must be a citizen.
Three types of citizenship are recognized by our government: native born; naturalized; and citizen-by-statute (derived citizenship from parents). All have equal rights. All can serve in Congress, either as a Representative in the House, or as a Senator in the Senate.
The following link will take you to the government’s own Immigration Service web page describing the three types of citizenship.
http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.eb1d4c2a3e5b9ac89243c6a7543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=a2ec6811264a3210VgnVCM100000b92ca60aRCRD&vgnextchannel=a2ec6811264a3210VgnVCM100000b92ca60aRCRD
Note: Natural born Citizen is NOT a type of statutory citizenship.
Natural born is ONLY an eligibility requirement for the U.S. Presidency per Article II, Section 1, clause 5, of the U.S. Constitution, and requires the President to be born in the United States (jus solis) AND of two citizen parents (jus sanguinas).
The definition of natural born Citizen appears in the holding of SCOTUS’s unanimous decision of Minor v. Happersett (1874).
Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1875), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the Constitution did not grant women the right to vote.
The Minor v. Happersett ruling was based on an interpretation of the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court readily accepted that Minor was a citizen of the United States, but it held that the constitutionally protected privileges of citizenship did not include the right to vote.
SCOTUS rejected Minor’s argument that she was a citizen under the 14th Amendment of the U.S.Constitution, and examined her eligibility, concluding that she belonged to the class of citizens who, being born in the U.S. of citizen parents, was a natural born Citizen, and not covered by the 14th Amendment.
This holding has been used in 25 consequent SCOTUS decisions since 1875.
Hodking in Minor is precedent.
In 1996, the US Supreme Court’s majority opinion by Justice Breyer in Ogilvie Et Al., Minors v. United States, 519 U.S. 79 (1996), stated that when the Court discusses a certain reason as an independent ground in support of their decision, then that reason is not simply dictum.
“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 petitioner’s claim that it was simply a dictum.”
The Minor Court’s construction of Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5, of the United States Constitution was the independent ground by which the Court avoided construing the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause.
Therefore, such construction is precedent, not dicta, despite POTUS eligibility not being an issue. The Court determined it was necessary to define the class of natural-born citizens, and the definition is current legal precedent.
No one has the RIGHT to be President.