And which Supreme Court case confirmed that? Was the case law before or after the 14th Amendment? Just wondering...
The Supreme Court has NEVER definitively defined the term "natural born citizen". The closest they ever came was in Minor v. Happersett [88 U.S. 162] in 1875 after the 14th Amendment was ratified [1868]. It said, in part:
" ... 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 parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first ..."
So, a child born on US soil to two parents who are themselves US citizens IS DEFINITELY a natural born citizen. However, the Supreme Court has NEVER made this determination as to a child born on US soil of alien parents - it has merely ruled whether this other type of child is a citizen [he is].
In fact, in Minor v. Happersett, although the Supreme Court acknowledged that a child born on US soil to US citizen parents was a natural born citizen, it DID NOT declare Minor [the plaintiff] to be natural born in the decision. The Supreme Court sidestepped this issue, saying that a natural born citizenship determination was not germaine to the case [which was a voting rights case].
If you read further in the Minor decision, they talk about the original naturalization acts in the United States, such as 1790 and 1804, in which the citizenship of children of aliens is dependent on whether the parents are naturalized. To me, this shows that our founders rejected the so-called English common law notion of natural born subjects. Second, if you read Shanks v. Dupont, they acknowledge you can be native born, but not be a U.S. citizen, depending on whether your allegiance adhered to the British crown. But even if you accept English common law, that the children of aliens could be natural born subjects, that was dependent on whether the alien parents remained in the country. Wong Kim Ark talks about this and it's why they make permanent residence for the parents a factor in determing that the plaintiff was a citizen at birth. Obama's father, of course, was not an immigrant nor a permanent U.S. resident, so he wouldn't even meet the Wong standard for being a citizen of the United States.
Yes it has.
Natural Born CitizenU.S. v. Wong Kim Ark
U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark's (1898) importance is that it is the first case decided by the Supreme Court that attempts to explain the meaning of "natural born citizen" under Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution. Natural born citizen is similar to the meaning of what a natural born subject is under Common Law in England. That is one of the reasons why the framers specifically included a grandfather clause (natural born Citizen OR a Citizen of the United States, at the time of adoption of this Constitution). The founding fathers knew that in order to be president, they had to grandfather themselves in because they were British subjects. If they didn't, they could not be President of the U.S. The holding in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark states that Wong Kim Ark is a native-born citizen. If you look at the fact of Wong Kim Ark being born in San Francisco, CA, of Chinese parents, that holding is correct.
In U. S. v Wong Kim Ark, the court thoroughly discussed "natural born citizen," and in doing so, Justice Gray quoted directly from the holding in a prior Supreme Court case, Minor v. Happersett