You are misreading the complaint. Based on a provision of the Missouri state constitution which declared "Every male citizen of the United States shall be entitled to vote," Reese Happersett, a Missouri state registrar, had refused to allow Virginia Minor to register to vote, "assigning for cause that she was not a 'male citizen of the United States,' but a woman."
Note that Missouri was explicitly denying suffrage not on the charge that Minor wasn't a citizen, but that she wasn't a he.
So Minor sued, complaining that because she was a citizen the Missouri provision was in violation of her 14th Amendment guarantee to "privileges and immunities of citizens", one of which was suffrage. At no point from the original pleading through the Supreme Court ruling was Minor's citizenship ever questioned, nor was she ever called upon to defend it.
Here's the opening sentence of Minor v Happersett:
The question is presented in this case whether, since the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, a woman who is a citizen of the United States and of the State of Missouri is a voter in that state notwithstanding the provision of the constitution and laws of the state which confine the right of suffrage to men alone.
Note what Waite states the question put before the Court to: not "Is a woman a citizen?" but "Is a a woman who is a citizen entitled to suffrage?" Minor said, "yes" because suffrage was one of the "privileges of citizens" guaranteed by the 14th Amendment. Had Minor's citizenship not been assumed at any point along the way, in fact, her suit would quite possibly have simply been dismissed on lack of standing.
Waite continues:
From the opinion [of the Missouri Supreme Court], we find that [this question] was the only one decided in the court below, and it is the only one which has been argued here. The case was undoubtedly brought to this Court for the sole purpose of having that question decided by us, and in view of the evident propriety there is of having it settled, so far as it can be by such a decision, we have concluded to waive all other considerations and proceed at once to its determination.
The only question asked and answered in MvH is whether suffrage was one of the 14th Amendment "privileges". So said Waite. Minor's citizenship was never questioned, and the Supreme Court had no intention of answering it in any other fashion than by simply assuming it.
Here's the full text of Minor v. Happersett so you can check my citations:
http://supreme.justia.com/us/88/162/case.html
If you have a source that reads Minor differently, I'd love to see it.
No, not at all.
At no point from the original pleading through the Supreme Court ruling was Minor's citizenship ever questioned, nor was she ever called upon to defend it.
You need to read the whole decision. You've ignored several parts. You also need to read this thread better because I've already cited the part where the court acknowledges that Virginia Minor argued she was a citizen under the 14th amendment
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 underlined part above is the birth clause from the 14th amendment. Minor is citing this clause to establish herself as a citizen, but the court rejected it.
...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.
Do you understand now?? The court said she was already a citizen as she met the court's definition of natural born citizen: all children born in the country to parents who were its citizens. If what you think was true, the court wouldn't have spent the first half of the decision discussing citizenship ... but it did.