Free Republic
Browse · Search
Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article

To: edge919

You edit your quotes to make them mean something they do not. Minor specifically refused to explore the limits of the meaning of NBC. The quote in WKA came here:

“That neither Mr. Justice Miller nor any of the justices who took part in the decision of The Slaughterhouse Cases understood the court to be committed to the view that all children born in the United States of citizens or subjects of foreign States were excluded from the operation of the first sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment is manifest from a unanimous judgment of the Court, delivered but two years later, while all those judges but Chief Justice Chase were still on the bench, in which Chief Justice Waite said: “Allegiance and protection are, in this connection” (that is, in relation to citizenship),

reciprocal obligations. The one is a compensation for the other: allegiance for protection, and protection for allegiance. . . . 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 [p680] 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 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.

Minor v. Happersett (1874), 21 Wall. 162, 166-168. The decision in that case was that a woman born of citizen parents within the United States was a citizen of the United States, although not entitled to vote, the right to the elective franchise not being essential to citizenship.”

So they obviously are NOT trying to limit NBC to those born of citizen parents - all the more so since half the decision discusses why that is NOT true.

Minor screwed it up, because they were opining on a subject not at issue, and thus they took a bad translation of Vattel made in 1797, and called it common law. They screwed up BECAUSE it was ‘ober dictum’

As the WKA decision also noted:

“In weighing a remark uttered under such circumstances [the Slaughterhouse case], it is well to bear in mind the often quoted words of Chief Justice Marshall:

It is a maxim not to be disregarded that general expressions in every opinion are to be taken in connection with the case in which those expressions are used. If they go beyond the case, they may be respected, but ought not to control the judgment in a subsequent suit when the very point is presented for decision. The reason of this maxim is obvious. The question actually before the court is investigated with care, and considered in its full extent. Other principles which may serve to illustrate it are considered in their relation to the case decided, but their possible bearing on all other cases is seldom completely investigated.”


1,428 posted on 03/13/2013 9:55:40 PM PDT by Mr Rogers (America is becoming California, and California is becoming Detroit. Detroit is already hell.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1425 | View Replies ]


To: Mr Rogers
You edit your quotes to make them mean something they do not.

Again, so says the person who edited out half of the original question I asked.

Minor specifically refused to explore the limits of the meaning of NBC.

Sorry, but this simply is not true. It gave the full limits of the meaning of NBC. What it did not explore were the limits of how birth citizenship could be defined. But again, this all extraneous because you're ducking the question. The Minor court equated birth to citizen parents with "common-law," so ONE more time, where does it say this in ENGLISH common law. Focus on the actual question.

1,431 posted on 03/13/2013 10:01:13 PM PDT by edge919
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1428 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson