Why?????
No one argued that she wasn’t a citizen. Everyone agreed she was a citizen.
Whether that citizen has a right to vote is a different issue.
That was the question before the court.
What was the holding? Be Exact.
The holding was that the Constitution did not give women the right to vote. Their citizenship was irrelevant.
Definition of NBC is not pertinant to this case.
Where were the cites of cases,or the the arguments or in depth discussion. There is none because it is not relevant to the case.
Thus, obiter dictum.
They agreed she was NOT a Citizen under the 14th amendment, but that she was a citizen by having American Parents and being born in this country. (The Vattel definition of "natural born citizen.")
They also said the 14th amendment does not define "natural born citizen."
RummyChick, the best way to exploit this case is to simplify the context and the point.
A. Virginia Minor claimed a right to vote on the basis of being a 14th amendment citizen.
B. The court REJECTED this argument because she fit its definition of NBC.
C. The court recognized different classes of citizens by birth, but only ONE was characterized a natural-born: all children born in the country to citizen parents.
D. The other class of citizenship by birth has doubts that must be resolved, but not for natural-born citizens. Thus, in context, natural-born means a type of citizenship that is “without doubt,” otherwise one is naturally considered to be a foreigner or alien.
E. In rejecting Virginia Minor’s 14th amendment citizenship argument, the court says that the 14th amendment does NOT define natural-born citizenship ... and this is confirmed in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark: “In Minor v. Happersett, Chief Justice Waite, when construing, in behalf of the court, the very provision of the Fourteenth Amendment now in question, said: “The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens.”
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F. The Minor decision was UNANIMOUS. There was no dissent on how the court defined NBC. The decision and NBC definition was affirmed and upheld by the SCOTUS in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (in both the majority opinion AND in the dissent). There is NO compelling legal authority that trumps this definition.
Whether persons born in the US to non-citizen parents were “citizens” was not a question before the Minor Court because Mrs. Minor was natural-born, whereas Wong Kim Ark was not. The determination of his citizenship required the 14th Amendment, whereas Mrs. Minor’s did not. It’s important to note that the Supreme Court in Minor didn’t hold that all women born in the US were citizens. Only those born to citizen parents in the US were deemed to be citizens by the Court in Minor. Those outside the natural-born citizen “class” were subject to doubt regarding US citizenship. And the Court in Minor exercised judicial restraint by avoiding that issue. Some of those doubts were resolved in favor of US citizenship for those persons not in the class of natural-born citizens in Wong Kim Ark.
With the following sentence in MvH, the Court indicated that it had to consider Minor's citizenship.
It is sufficient for everything we have now to consider that all children born of citizen parents within the jurisdiction are themselves citizens.The Court immediately goes on to say that the basis of the plaintiff's argument is predicated upon her being a citizen.
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.In order to address the question of whether or not Minor had the right to vote, the Court had to first address the plaintiff's assertion that Minor was a citizen because that was the plaintiff's sole basis for bringing the case. The Court agreed with the plaintiff's argument that Minor was a citizen. The Court disagreed that her citizenship inherently granted her the right to vote.
Obiter dictum, as you know, is latin for "said in passing." The Court did not comment on Minor's citizenship in passing. Their determination that she was a citizen before the adoption of the 14th amendment was a basis for their holding that no citizen, male or female, had an inherent right to vote granted by the Constitution.