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To: RegulatorCountry

I’d like for you to explain, just how this Amendment magically altered a Constitutional eligibility requirement for the office of President.

**The 14th Amendment says there are TWO types of citizens: born and naturalized.

Such a contention is especially curious, since the specific term “natural born citizen” nowhere appears in the relevant findings of Ark itself.

** How can you say that? Natural-born appears 33 (that’s thirty-three) times in the MAJORITY decision.

And, am I under a mistaken impression myself, that Minor v. Happersett confirmed the very understanding of the meaning of the term “natural born citizen” that you’re contending was somehow altered by the 14th Amendment some years previously?

** Wong (1898) supersedes Minor.


7,180 posted on 08/05/2009 11:24:15 PM PDT by Technical Editor
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To: Technical Editor
**The 14th Amendment says there are TWO types of citizens: born and naturalized.

And how many types of born citizens are there? And how many types of naturalized citizens are there? It's not as if, by mentioning born and naturalized, this Amendment enumerated the only allowed types of citizenship. There clearly are citizens naturalized by statute. There are naturalized citizens who undergo a process of naturalization. There are citizens born of nonresident aliens, who are not anything but citizens per the plain language of the Amendment. There are citizens born overseas of citzen parents, per the language from 1795. There are citizens born on US soil of citizens, who are natural born citizens.

The 14th extended the rights and obligations of citizenship to former slaves. It did not in any way redefine the requirements for eligibility to the office of President.

Wong Kim Ark was not found to be a natural born citizen. Show me where the decision states that he was. You can't, because he wasn't.

Therefore, there was nothing in Ark to "supercede" Happersett. What is problematic for your contention, regarding the purported impact of the 14th, is that Happersett provides a definition for the term natural born citizen that is not conducive at all, to such a contention. Two citizen parents, plural, born of the soil, and never in doubt.

7,190 posted on 08/05/2009 11:40:11 PM PDT by RegulatorCountry
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To: Technical Editor
The 14th amendment's “born or naturalized” clause makes perfectly good sense when one understands the concept of subset. Natural born citizens are a subset of “persons born... in the United States”. But there is some overlap between “citizen at birth” via statute, who may be born outside the US, and “citizens at birth” via the 14th amendment's “born in the United States” clause. Someone born of a US Citizen parent and a foreign parent, where the US parent had met the necessary residency requirement, would be “citizens at birth”, but naturalized, since naturalization is all Congress has the power to define via statute. While persons “born in the US” are “citizens at birth” via the 14th amendment, no statute law required.
7,193 posted on 08/05/2009 11:44:05 PM PDT by El Gato ("The Second Amendment is the RESET button of the United States Constitution." -- Doug McKay)
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