No, that's not quite right. Minor wasn't just citing the equal protection clause, but the citizenship clause as part of her right to vote, and the court did not say it needed to know if she was a citizen at all, but whether she was a 14th amendment citizen, and whether women, as a class, had their citizenship affected by the 14th amendment. Here it is again, as expressed by the court.
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 and of the State in which she resides, she has the right of suffrage as one of the privileges and immunities of her citizenship, which the State cannot by its laws or constitution abridge.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.
That's not quite right. The court made a distinction between NBCs (born in the country to citizen parents - plural) and everyone else, who the court identified as aliens or foreigners. It said some authorities include persons born in the country as citizens, without regarding the citizenship of the parents, but for these persons, there is doubt about their citizenship. It noted that aliens could become citizens through naturalization, but that the citizenship of an alien's wife and children were dependent upon the alien becoming naturalized. Donofrio was right about one thing here: the Minor decision doesn't specifically really address whose citizenship is controlled by the 14th amendment. It just rejects the 14th amendment for those persons who are NBCs.
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.
Again, that's not quite what the court was saying. It said citizenship could be added by birth, which is evident because of the NBC clause in Art II Sec I. It doesn't say the clause establishes citizenship, but instead said the term NBC is not defined by or in the Constitution. This is a very important point because it categorically rejects the 14th amendment as somehow defining or redefing what it means to be a natural born citizen. Read the court's words:
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.
Thus, the court is saying Virginia Minor's citizenship is established by a common-law type of definition (not English Common Law, but what appears to be nearly a verbatim citation of Vattel's definition of natural citizenship).
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.
That's pretty much right. The idea is that the court looked to the Constitution to find a term that it used to establish the citizenship of an appellee, and then proceeded to define that term from outside of the Constitution. In effect, it's rejecting the 14th amendment for a certain class of citizens. The timing of this decision is noteworthy. It was the perfect opportunity to resolve the doubt they talked about by simply accepting Virginia Minor's argument. "Yes, Virginia, the 14th amendment redefines citizenship for everyone who was born or naturalized here." But they did not do this. They said in their opinion, the 14th amendment was not needed. From that point, they explain how voting is not a "privilege or immunity" or a generic right of citizenship.
Fast forward 20 some years later to the Wong Kim Ark decision. The Supreme Court looks at the Minor decision and notes that Virginia Minor was found to be a citizen under its definition if NBC. Wong Kim Ark did not meet that NBC definition, so that court decided to resolve doubts about him being a citizen by other means. The court in Wong Kim Ark directly cited Minor's definition and affirmed its citizenship criteria. It then followed the precedent of the Minor decision by purposely NOT declaring Ark to be a natural born citizen. Without the Minor decision, the court could have made a pretty compelling case that birth in the country was sufficient on its own to make somebody a natural born citizen. They did not do this.
Thus, the court is saying Virginia Minor's citizenship is established by a common-law type of definition (not English Common Law, but what appears to be nearly a verbatim citation of Vattel's definition of natural citizenship).
This may be quibbling over a point, but something within the Constitution has to define whom it covers. The Supremacy clause says so, doesn't it. If you have to look elsewhere, then the Constitution ultimately is superior to whatever is found elsewhere.
It sounds like you're saying (and pardon me for hypothetically putting words in your mouth) when "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union...and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America" to bind us, we have to look elsewhere to find out who "We" and "our Posterity" are?
To me, a common sense understanding would be that people born in the country (our Posterity) of parents who are also citizens of the country (We the people) do not need to look elsewhere to define their citizenship.
The Preamble already lays out that the purpose of the Constitution was to define a country that was meant to be passed down to "our Posterity," meaning the citizen children of citizen parents.
But that's just me. I'm not a lawyer, so what do I know?
-PJ