You don't seem to get it. Virginia Minor claimed citizenship via the 14th amendment and the court rejected her claim. Read the damn decision:
The argument is, that as a woman, born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, is a citizen of the United States ...
That is a quote of the citizenship clause of the 14th amendment. Again, the court rejected this claim.
...in our opinion, it did not need this amendment to give them that position ...
The fourteenth amendment did not affect the citizenship of women any more than it did of men.
... the rights of Mrs. Minor do not depend upon the amendment.
The amendment prohibited the State, of which she is a citizen, from abridging any of her privileges and immunities as a citizen of the United States; but it did not confer citizenship on her.
Minor was using the 14th amendment's equal protection aspect to claim the right to vote.
The court said before we decide that, we have to know that she is a citizen at all, because only citizens can vote.
The court said that Article II Section 1 establishes the phrase "natural born citizen." The court also said that natural born citizen was commonly understood at the time of the Framers to be a child born in the country of two citizen parents of the country.
The court observed that some authorities also consider a child of one citizen parent to be a citizen (absent the descriptive "natural born"), but since that situation doesn't exist with Minor, there is no need to resolve the issue of a single-citizen parent conferring citizen status to a child in order to settle the issue of whether she can vote.
The court concluded that the 14th amendment's naturalization aspect did not apply to Minor, because her citizenship was established via Article II Section 1.
The argument that Donofrio is making is that the court stipulated to the definition of "natural born citizen" in order to determine that Minor was a citizen first (a natural born citizen specifically), and then used that stipulation to proceed with the direct issue before them.
Donofrio is claiming that in so stipulating, the court established a precedent on the definition of "natural born citizen."
Is that a fair summary of the discussions in this thread?
-PJ
No. She claimed the 14th amendment gave her the right to vote under the equal protection clause.
I don’t expect to convince a blind man, but here is the decision in full for anyone who doubts me:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0088_0162_ZO.html
“Being unanimously of the opinion that the Constitution of the United States does not confer the right of suffrage upon any one, and that the constitutions and laws of the several States which commit that important trust to men alone are not necessarily void, we AFFIRM THE JUDGMENT.”
“Again, the court rejected this claim.
...in our opinion, it did not need this amendment to give them that position ...”
What a mess. The Court agreed that her argument for citizenship was sufficient, but noted that it was not necessary. That kind of thing happens all the time. Lawyers occasionally get surprised by which points the Court regard as key, so they deliberately err on the side of caution and over-argue the overt.
I’m not claiming to be a legal authority. I’m not. The issue here is fantasy versus reality. Leo Donofrio devoted his formidable intellect to deluding himself, and that much he did. You are free to embrace the theories of losing attorney Leo Donofrio. Self-delusion is one’s right, but not a winning strategy.