Just look at the holding or the conclusion of the 1898 WKA decision. Justice Gray only "Affirmed" Wong Ark a citizen and not a natural born citizen. Here it is in black and white and highlighted in yellow.
Just look at the holding or the conclusion of the 1898 WKA decision. Justice Gray only "Affirmed" Wong Ark a citizen and not a natural born citizen. Here it is in black and white and highlighted in yellow.
“Justice Gray only ‘Affirmed’ Wong Ark a citizen and not a natural born citizen”
Duh. The issue at stake was whether he was a citizen, not whether he was eligible to be president. But basic reasoning skills inform us that since there is no such thing as a born citizen who is not eligible to be president (the qualification being natural born citizenship), Wong Kim Ark was.
“Justice Gray only “Affirmed” Wong Ark a citizen and not a natural born citizen.”
Which proves nothing, because he wasn’t running for President and they were only deciding on citizenship.
At the same time, there is quote after quote making CLEAR that ‘natural-born citizen’ is just another term for those who acquire citizenship at time of birth.
Since the Constitution does not specify what the requirements are to be a "citizen" or a "natural born citizen", the majority adopted the common law of England:
The court ruled:
It thus clearly appears that by the law of England for the last three centuries, beginning before the settlement of this country, and continuing to the present day, aliens, while residing in the dominions possessed by the crown of England, were within the allegiance, the obedience, the faith or loyalty, the protection, the power, and the jurisdiction of the English sovereign; and therefore every child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject, unless the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign state, or of an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was born.
III. The same rule was in force in all the English colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the constitution as originally established.
