[BuckeyeTexan]

I agree that your definition is the proper one and the only right one. However, in Minor v. Happersett, Justice Waite refers to citizens other than those born here to citizen parents who may also be natural born citizens. He says that with regard to the first group there is no doubt as to their status and that there has been doubt with regard to the second group. Doubt does not equate to an absolute determination. That's why we need a SCOTUS ruling. Our preferred definition is not outlined in the Constitution.

[parsifal]

Testing

[El Gato]

However, in Minor v. Happersett, Justice Waite refers to citizens other than those born here to citizen parents who may also be natural born citizens.

Actually that is no what he wrote.

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.

He stated that persons born within the country of citizen parents were citizens, and then went on to say that they were natural born. What he questions is the very citizenship of those born in the US of foreign parents, but admits that some include them as "citizens", but never mentions "natural born citizens" in conjunction with the second group.