The quoted English precedent to establish that WKA was a “natural born subject” and “as much a citizen” as the child of citizens. If your misstatement was not an error than it was a deliberate untruth.
There is no provision under U.S. law for any type of citizenship or any way of gaining citizenship other than being a “natural born citizen” or a “naturalized citizen”. There is no third category of citizenship established in the Constitution or under U.S. statute law.
You keep citing one phrase out of WKA without researching the case in which it was taken from. You take one tiny portion & make it as if it was holding when it was not:
Calvin’s Case (7 Coke, 1, 6 James I). Among the principles settled in that case and which have remained unquestioned since are these: (1) that natural allegiance does not depend upon locality or place: that it is purely mental in its nature, and cannot therefore be confined within certain boundaries; or to use the language of Coke that “liegeance and faith and truth which are her members and parts are qualities of the mind and soul of man, and cannot be circumscribed within the predicament of ubi.”
Further research confirms that the US did not merely replace the term subject with citizen.
Dictum in 8 Peters’ Reports, 658 : “ It is clear there can be no common law of the United States. When, therefore, a common law right is asserted, we must look to the state in which the controversy originated.”
Dictum, 1 Blackford, 205 : “The common law of England is not in the United States, as a federal government.”
There is no rule of law in the United States, by which it is laid down that the form, structure and organization of the government of the United States is to be interpreted by the principles of the common law of England. That portion of the common law which related to the form of government of England was expressly set at defiance in the declaration of independence.
The principles of the government were founded in pure reason which was the immutable, eternal and universal law of mankind. On this same rule are founded the principles of international law which govern the intercourse between independent societies and involved in the question of intercourse is that of expatriation. “ Our knowledge of international law is not taken from the municipal code of England, but from actual reason and justice, and from writers of known wisdom, and they are all opposed to the doctrine of perpetual allegiance.” 9 Op. Atly-Genl. 356.
That passage does NOT mention Wong Kim Ark. It's background. They're explaining what was said in a 1607 court case followed immediately by what was said by an essayist, but when they get to the conclusion of the decision, they do NOT ... again, NOT ... call WKA a natural born citizen. Your dots don't connect. Sorry. Better luck next time.
There is no third category of citizenship established in the Constitution or under U.S. statute law.
Actually, the Constitution does not define these terms.
The only terms listed are "citizen" and "natural born citizen". But, that does not mean that those are the ONLY types.
The Constitution also ONLY specifies Congress to establish a uniform rule of naturalization.
And, Blackstone [from which the Founding Fathers derived their understanding] defines four types of inhabitants within a nation.
1. Alien: a non-subject who owes allegiance to the sovreign and to whom the sovreign owes protection - so long as the alien is inhabited within England. Status and responsibilities of same cease when the alien leaves the realm.
2. Denizen: a subject born within the realm [or naturalized by legislation] having been granted all of the rights of a natural born subject - EXCEPT that of holding high office. This would include any child born with a dual allegiance.
3. Naturalized subject: an alien who has been named a subject by the legislature or the sovreign. He cannot inherit property, but his descendants can as long as they are natural born within the dominion.
4. Natural born subject: any child, regardless of parentage, being born within the dominion of the sovreign AND owing ONE AND ONLY ONE allegiance to that same sovreign.
The categories of citizens that the Framers established in the Constitution is “natural born Citizen” and “citizen of the United States.” With respect to citizenship, the Framers gave Congress only the power to “naturalize” persons to become “citizens of the United States.” Hence, any person that is made a citizen by Congress that is not by the natural circumstances of his or her birth a “natural born Citizen” is necessarily a naturalized citizen and consequently a “citizen of the United States” but not a “natural born Citizen.”
In Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1856), the United States Supreme Court said that slaves and their descendents, whether free or not, were not members of American society even though born on United States soil and unlike the American Indians subject to the jurisdiction thereof. Hence, the Court said that they were not “citizens of the United States.’ To correct that ruling, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866. With this Act, Congress first declared what a “citizen of the United States” was. The Act declared citizens of the United States “all persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed.” 14 Stat. 27; Rev. Stat. Sec. 1992. Hence, this Act removed from citizenship any factor related to color, race, or past condition of servitude. Because of the controversial nature of the Act, Congress saw fit to introduce and have passed a constitutional amendment which would protect what the Act sought to accomplish from the political whims of future Congresses and state governments. We know that this Act became the precursor to the Fourteenth Amendment.
In Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.S. 303, 310, 25 L.Ed. 664 (1879), in commenting upon what the purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment was, our U.S. Supreme Court said:
“Its aim was against discrimination because of race or color. As we have said more than once, its design was to protect an emancipated race, and to strike down all possible legal discriminations against those who belong to it. To quote further from 16 Wall., supra: ‘In giving construction to any of these articles [amendments], it is necessary to keep the main purpose steadily in view.’ ‘It is so clearly a provision for that race and that emergency, that a strong case would be necessary for its application to any other.’”
The amendment was needed to remove any doubts regarding whether blacks could be United States citizens. But the amendment only allowed these slaves and their descendents to become a member of the United States community by making them United States citizens. The intent and purpose of the amendment was to provide equal citizenship to all Americans either born on United States soil or naturalized therein and subject to the jurisdiction thereof. It did not grant “natural born Citizen” status. The Amendment’s framers were familiar with how the Constitution in many places and the Naturalization Act of 1790 (used “natural born citizens”) and 1795 (changed the statute to read just “citizens of the United States”) distinguished between a “natural born citizen” and a “citizen of the United States.” If the Amendment were to grant “natural born Citizen” status, it would have told us that a born citizen thereunder was a “natural born Citizen” and not only a “citizen of the United States.” It also would not have equated a born citizen thereunder to a naturalized citizen, for a naturalized citizen is not eligible to be President. Hence, the Amendment only confers “citizen of the United States” status, as that is the exact clause used by the Amendment itself and that is the same clause that appears in Articles I, II, III, IV and Amendments Eleven, Fourteen, Fifteen, Nineteen, Twenty-Four, and Twenty-Six of the Constitution and in various Congressional Acts. It just conveys the status of “citizen of the United States,” and as we have also seen from how the First and Third Congresses handled the Naturalization Acts of 1790 and 1795, being a “citizen of the United States” does not necessarily mean that one is a “natural born Citizen.” Indeed, both Minor v. Happersett (1875) and U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) expressly told us that the meaning of a “natural born Citizen” is not found in the Fourteenth Amendment or any other part of the Constitution but rather in the common law. The Supreme Court decided these cases after we adopted the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868 and the Court in both cases was asked to decide if the subject person was a “citizen of the United States” under the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Fourteenth Amendment only tells us who may become members of the community called the United States, i.e., those born on U.S. soil or naturalized and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are U.S. citizens, “and nothing more.” Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162, 166, 22 L.Ed. 627, 21 Wall. 162 (1874). The Fourteenth Amendment gave the status of “citizen of the United States” to all those persons born in the United States or naturalized therein and “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” As to born citizens, the Amendment was not needed to make anyone a “natural born Citizen,” for that status was conferred upon a child by natural law and the law of nations. On the other hand, the Amendment was needed to clarify who may be a “citizen of the United States.” Under the probable meaning of the Amendment, it simply removed race, color, and condition of servitude from the application of the natural law and law of nations definition of a “citizen” and a “natural born citizen.” As the “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” clause is currently interpreted, which interpretation is questionable and highly debated, the Amendment went as far as to take Congress’s power to “naturalize” a child born in the United States of parents who were not citizens (one parent or both not citizens or even legal residents) as expressed by it in the 1866 Act and constitutionalized the status of that child to a “citizen of the United States.” Additionally, a Fourteenth Amendment born “citizen of the United States” does not need to go through any formal naturalization process as does a person wanting to be a “citizen of the United States” but who was not born a “citizen of the United States” under any Congressional Act. This more liberal rule can be better understood when we consider that Vattel informed that England was an exception to the general rule for being born a native or indigenes, in that in England the “single circumstance of being born in the country naturalises the children of a foreigner,” Vattel, at Sec. 214.
What is important to understand when questioning Obama’s eligibility to be President is that neither the Fourteenth Amendment nor any Congressional Act makes one a “natural born Citizen.” Rather, what their provisions create is at a maximum a born or naturalized “citizen of the United States” who are equal under the law. They do not create a “natural born Citizen.” Since the citizenship clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is supposed to mirror Congress’s 1866 Act, the Amendment makes one a born citizen through the Constitution who under the 1866 Act would have been a born citizen by naturalization by Congress and by so doing it produced only a “citizen of the United States” and not a “natural born Citizen.” Since Congress had neither the power nor intent to make anyone a “natural born Citizen” under the 1866 Act and the Amendment merely followed the path of that Act, the Fourteenth Amendment also would not have made anyone a “natural born Citizen.” What this all means is that all “natural born citizens” are “citizens of the United States,” but not all “citizens of the United States” are “natural born Citizens.”
To have the special status of “natural born Citizen,” a child needs to necessarily satisfy the birth conditions of that special status, i.e., born in the country to two citizen parents. These are two factors that occur naturally and need no law to be so recognized.
For my full article on this topic, see my essay, Obama - Maybe a Citizen of the United States but Not a Natural Born Citizen, at http://puzo1.blogspot.com/2010/03/obama-maybe-citizen-of-united-states.html
Mario Apuzzo, Esq.