rialcniseloc Says:
June 27, 2011 at 6:56 AM
If I read this right, it appears that the argument that the Minor statement is dicta not precedent, would be based on the fact that this case was about womens right to vote not the issue of citizenship and a defintion of dicta is defined as opinions not necessarily related to the ruling of the actual case and in this case it was about voting, not whether she was a citizen.
Does the dicta argument have any leg to stand on? Seems like a loophole.
ed. Read my article again… the dicta contention has no leg to stand on. Before the Court could get to voting rights, they had to establish that she was a US citizen. In doing so (which the first two points of the syllabus does focus on), they made precedent. The case is famously known for holding that she (and all women) are equal citizens to men. – Leo"
“The case is famously known for holding that she (and all women) are equal citizens to men. – Leo”
...which they couldn’t reach without defining her NBC status, which they clearly did!
The Ivy League law professors and journals must be “evading” citation of this precedent setting case, as I believe Justice Thomas would say.
There is just no other way to say it than that Donofrio is flat-out wrong, and thus is every birther that has cut-n-pasted him on this point.
1) In the opening paragraph of the MvH opinion Waite is crystal clear that the only question before the Court was whether the privileges and immunities of citizenship included suffrage. It was the only question decided by the Missouri State Supreme Court, and it was the only question the USSC had any intention of determining.
2) Here is the holding of the Court in MvH in its entirety. There is nothing regarding Minor's citizenship in it:
Being unanimously of the opinion that the Constitution of the United States does not confer the right of suffrage upon any one, and that the constitutions and laws of the several States which commit that important trust to men alone are not necessarily void, we AFFIRM THE JUDGMENT.
3) Minor's citizenship was conceded by the defense all the way back in the original pleadings filed in the St. Louis County courthouse. From the original statement and brief:
It is admitted, by the pleadings, that the plaintiff is a nativeborn, free white citizen of the United States, and of the State of Missouri
Minor's citizenship was never challenged, never debated, never denied, never questioned, never argued. And courts are not generally in the habit of answering questions they are not asked (well, OK, activist courts are often accused of doing so, but by all account's Waite's was no activist court).
4) Only a US citizen would have standing to bring a case on citizen rights. Had Minor's citizenship at any point been in doubt she would have been denied standing, told to first go prove her citizenship, then come back and refile MvH. The very fact that the case made it all the way to the SCOTUS is compelling evidence that Minor's citizenship was never an issue.
There is just no evidence anywhere to suggest that Minor had to assert her citizenship in Minor, nor did she.