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 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,"
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.
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. It is sufficient for everything we have now to consider that all children born of citizen parents within the jurisdiction are themselves citizens. The words "all children" are certainly as comprehensive, when used in this connection, as "all persons," and if females are included in the last, they must be in the first. That they are included in the last is not denied. In fact, the whole argument of the plaintiffs proceeds upon that idea.
NS, has seen Minor v. Happersett before and about 4 to 5 other Supreme Court cases. He knows.
I don't know if that is dicta from a case or where you got it. It's pretty close but there are a couple of distinctions.
After 476 in Western Europe, there weren't people who had rights associated with the Roman concept of "citizen"--the local authorities were Kings and their subordinate royalty and delegates. So you wouldn't have had legal principles that turned on "citizenship"--the people who lived there were subjects of the local authority. The serfs were conceptually closer to the concept of Property.
And the fundamental underlying Common Law principles were founded on "subjects" of the King of the place. If you were born there, you were his subject.
Depending on the jurisdiction, you might have had an argument if you had a couple who were citizens of one country who were visiting somewhere else and had a child but I believe, as to England, the child probably would be held to be a subject of the King of England. Although I have not researched that question and probably would if I were going to argue the case to the Court.
And there wasn't any way to get rid of being a subject. That is, there was no legal process to cut off the sovereignty of the King of the place you were born.
That's why they used the term in the Constitution--they just changed the word "subject" to "citizen" to conform to our fundamental view of sovereignty in the US.