As for Wong Kim Ark:
http://www.oilforimmigration.org/facts/?p=6665
Read the original sources. They are understandable. When Wong Kim Ark is raised, that is a common Obot smokescreen. Horace Gray was appointed by the only other usurper to sit in the White House, Chester Arthur, and his decision only applied to citizens, not natural born citizens. It is a confusingly-written document, but eventually cites Minor v. Happersett in which Vattel is cited. Since Wong Kim was never presumed to be a natural born citizen – he was born in San Francisco but of non-citizen parents – natural born citizenship was not at issue, and not determined. Some think Gray was creating smoke to protect his appointee.
As for Lynch v. Clark:
Lynch v. Clark, (1844) 1 Sandf.Ch. 583 (NY) is a New York state jurisdiction case, which therefore is not definitive for federal jurisdiction, and in particular the Supreme Court.
As for practice, your arguments do *nothing* to explain why *both* Chester Arthur and Barack Obama took pains to hide their formal legal status as children of non-US-citizen parents. You also do not contest any of the founding documents or the founding fathers, who seem to favor Vattel’s definition over the English Common Law definition of a natural born *subject* and subsequent and possibly erroneous (from the point of view of the founding fathers) *equivalence* of the terms NBC and NBS.
(Standard disclaimer, IANAL...)
First, all decisions are limited strictly to what is needed. That includes all the decisions that birthers quote as well. The opinion of the court, explaining the decision, is dicta. When birthers quote the Venus case out of context, they are quoting dicta, not the formal ruling.
Dicta influences other courts, or not - depends on how well the dicta is done.
“There are multiple subtypes of dicta, although due to their overlapping nature, legal practitioners in the U.S. colloquially use dicta to refer to any statement by a court that extends beyond the issue before the court. Dicta in this sense are not binding under the principle of stare decisis, but tend to have a strong persuasive effect, either by being in an authoritative decision, stated by an authoritative judge, or both. These subtypes include:
* dictum proprium: A personal or individual dictum that is given by the judge who delivers an opinion but that is not necessarily concurred in by the whole court and is not essential to the disposition.
* gratis dictum: an assertion that a person makes without being obligated to do so, or also a court’s discussion of points or questions not raised by the record or its suggestion of rules not applicable in the case at bar.
* judicial dictum: an opinion by a court on a question that is directly involved, briefed, and argued by counsel, and even passed on by the court, but that is not essential to the decision.
* obiter dictum in Latin means “something said in passing” and is a comment made while delivering a judicial opinion, but it is unnecessary to the decision in the case and therefore not precedential (although it may be considered persuasive).”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictum
You will note the dicta in the Minor case, often used by birthers to prove their point, is “gratis dictum: an assertion that a person makes without being obligated to do so, or also a court’s discussion of points or questions not raised by the record or its suggestion of rules not applicable in the case at bar”. The judge mentions it in passing, having heard no arguments about it, and then leaves it because it doesn’t apply to the case at hand.
In Lynch and WKA, we have “judicial dictum: an opinion by a court on a question that is directly involved, briefed, and argued by counsel, and even passed on by the court, but that is not essential to the decision”. The courts heard arguments, and based their final ruling on the arguments in their opinion.
The dicta from Lynch and later WKA has been very influential because of the power of the argument. Natural born subject had a very well defined meaning. At independence, all NBS in the colonies automatically became natural born citizens, with no exceptions or changes. The state courts and legislatures began making the change in terminology. When the Constitution was written, were the Founders thinking about Vattel’s indigene, and merely forgot to say indigenous? Or were they thinking about their state laws and the well known and well defined term ‘natural born subject’, which had been used in colonial law for over a hundred years?
Lynch and later WKA decided they were thinking about the well defined term NBS, and NOT Vattel’s term ‘indigene’. That has carried weight in the courts because it makes sense. And for 160+ years, courts have ruled IAW the Lynch decision and for 110+ years the WKA decision.
“As for practice, your arguments do *nothing* to explain why *both* Chester Arthur and Barack Obama took pains to hide their formal legal status as children of non-US-citizen parents.”
You mean we didn’t know before 2009 that Obama’s father was a man named Obama? Tell me - just what last name do you think Obama ran under...
“As for practice, your arguments do *nothing* to explain why *both* Chester Arthur and Barack Obama took pains to hide their formal legal status as children of non-US-citizen parents.”
That’s just nuts. Barack Obama wouldn’t shut up about his Kenyan father. He wrote a freekin’ book about it. His first major speech to a national audience was his 2004 Keynote at the Democratic National Convention. After the thank-yous, the speech began, “Tonight is a particular honor for me because, let’s face it, my presence on this stage is pretty unlikely. My father was a foreign student, born and raised in a small village in Kenya.”
Everyone but cave-dwellers knew Obama’s father was a foreigner. And the Chief Justice of the United States swore him in as our 44’th President (twice!).