Wrongly decided or not it is the controlling law.
There is info out there that indicates even Scalia would not be prone to overturn it.
I will just have to disagree with you. The decision was AFFIRMED WITHOUT EXCEPTION.
The dissent knew exactly what the majority was holding and you can see it in his dissent...and that is...Ark was eligible to run for President.
Did it ever occur to you that perhaps it was known that the ruling was that Ark was a natural born citizen as outlined in the brief-which would have been argued before the court - and the decision is flat out in response to that question before the court.
It had to be.
Here is the question. What is the answer.
Lower court AFFIRMED WITHOUT EXCEPTION.
Did you see any exception written??? NO.
They answered The United States of America. Ark is a natural born citizen.
It’s too bad that there isn’t a readily available record of the oral argument.
There is a possibility that is quite within reason given the mess of this decision. They intentionally had to twist and turn even their own decision in Elk to get to the outcome.
Perhaps this was one of the times they wanted to keep the whole matter confusing - or perhaps they didn’t think it was necessary since the question was already stated before them and everyone knew what it was about - or perhaps the reeason is they were inept...or any myriad of other reasons.
We don’t know. All we know is:
There is no doubt that the question before them was whether Ark was a natural born citizen as per the lower court decision.
The lower court discussed the CONTROLLING law that make Ark A NATURAL BORN CITIZEN and SCOTUS affirmed.
I've never bothered to look at the lower court, so I wasn't aware of this. If everything is indeed as you have described, then Wong Kim Ark is unjustifiable, and simply wrong from beginning to end.
On the other hand, I consider it quite possible that both the lower court and the Gray court were simply sloppy, and did not appreciate the distinction between the different classes of citizens.
In any case, holding that people born here of foreign parents are "natural born citizens" is clearly contrary to the intent of the 14th amendment. The words "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" were inserted specifically to prevent citizenship from passing to transient aliens, as is made far clearer in the Civil rights act of 1866 which was created by the Authors of the 14th amendment.
I personally think that Justice Gray and the other court was more interested in Rebuking what they perceived as "racism" than they were about accurately administering the law. Failing to mention the War of 1812, ( a singular rejection of the English Common law regarding citizenship) only makes sense if it were intentional.
In any case, it appears that you are right, and I was wrong.