ARKENY V. GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF INDIANA
The Minor case has been severely misconstrued in the Arkeny opinion issued by the Indiana Court of Appeals. That court quoted Minor’s natural-born citizen language, then stated:
“Thus, the Court left open the issue of whether a person who is born within the United States of alien parents is considered a natural born citizen.”
False. The Minor Court did not leave that question open. Nowhere in the Minor opinion does it state that the class of persons who are natural-born citizens is an open question. The Arkeny Court has it backwards.
The Supreme Court in Minor stated that the “citizenship” of persons who were not natural born citizens was an open question.
That is the most important sentence I’ve ever written at this blog. So please read it again. [edit: emphasis added] The “citizenship” of those born to non-citizen parents was a question that the Minor Court avoided. But they avoided that question by directly construing Article 2 Section 1. In doing so, the Supreme Court in Minor defined the class of persons who were born in the US to citizen parents as “natural-born citizens”.
Since Minor, no Amendment has been adopted which changes that definition, and no other Supreme Court case has directly construed Article 2 Section 1. ”.
A closer reading of Minor and Happersett ... Donofrio is correct. The Supreme Court cites "some authorities" (Commie Fogblowers of the time) that a class of persons born in the jurisdiction are NBC, but not them, and they do construe in their opinion the natural born citizen clause in the US Constitution in deciding Minor as a citizen. We missed this for years...
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From MINOR V. HAPPERSETT, 88 U. S. 162 (1874)
"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
Page 88 U. S. 168
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."
-end snip-
It was good to see this case taken down by Donofrio.
The opinion in this case was a pure smokescreen.
As for the ruling...it was only this...”affirmed”. Thats it. No other legal ruling was made in that case.
Any time that ridiculous Ankeny decision gets shown
for the flimsy piece of fluff it was is so good.
A couple of rules to follow, when citing legal precedents.
1. Don't try to make a case say something that it clearly does not.
2. If you are dishonest enough to violate Rule # 1, don't be so dull witted as to include in your excerpt a line, For the purposes of this case, it is not necessary to solve these doubts, that explicitly contradicts the point you are trying to make.
So, Minor holds that a person born in a country, to two parents who are citizens of that country, is a natural born citizen. Was that ever, I mean ever, in doubt? Minor also raises the issue of whether a person born in a country, to two parents who are not both citizens of that country, is a natural born citizen, and concedes that there is a division of authority on that point, but holds For the purposes of this case, it is not necessary to solve these doubts.
So, far from resolving thus issue, Minor merely states that it is an issue. Something we all already knew.