The Court does not normally take advantage of "perfect opportunities" to decide issues that it is not required to decide to adjudicate a case. If an issue is not necessary to a decision, it is not decided. That's Supreme Court Jurisprudence 101.
Therefore, by including that criteria in a definition specifically about natural citizenship, they EXCLUSIVELY limited that definition to those persons born in the country of citizen parents.
That is simply not true. The fact that they gave one particular defintion as an example does not mean that other examples do not exist. Do you even know what the case was about?
It was a case about the right of women to vote. A woman was claiming that the 14th amendment granted women additional citizenship rights that women did not have before, and that these necessarily included the right to vote. In other words, citizenship = the right to vote.
The Court rejected that argument by pointing out that women were considered full citizens even prior to the passage of the 14th Amendment, but that being a full citizen clearly did not necessarily include the right to vote. To illustrate that point, the Court pointed to the most inarguable, widely agreed upon definition of a natural born citizen -- born in this country of two citizen parents. It picked that definition not because it was the only one, but because it was the one on which everyone agreed.
The court then pointed out that even women who met that most stringent definition of Natural Born Citizen didn't have the right to vote at our founding, therefore, the right to vote was not something inherent in being a full citizen. Voting rights case dismissed.
Given that the only reason the Court looked at the NBC clause was to point to the only language in the Constitution that defined what a citizen was, and to show that voting was not inherent in citizenship, there was no reason to resolve exactly what it takes to be an NBC. Merely being able to point at those who met the tightest definition was enough to prove the point. And when there is no reason for the Court to resolve a disputed legal issue that is not essential to the case before it, it doesn't. It's basic logic, but saying that all linebackers play defense does not imply that all defensive players are linebackers. By the same token, saying that persons born in this country of citizen parents are natural born citizens does not imply that all natural born citizens are born in this country of two citizen parents.
Sorry, but this was a key part of the decision. They spent a significant amount of time ... actually went out of their way to explain why Minor's citizenship was NOT due to the 14th amendment as she contended. It would have been much more expedient to say, she's right. We have a shiny new amendment that puts in a concise and succinct form. But instead, they rejected this argument.
That is simply not true. The fact that they gave one particular defintion as an example does not mean that other examples do not exist. Do you even know what the case was about?
The definition was self-limiting: as DISTINGUISHED from foreigners and aliens. The court said there were doubts about any other citizenship at birth, but pointed to the naturalization laws to help point out where any remedy might be found. There point in this review was to examine whether the 14th amendment would be needed for women as a class. The court said:
In this respect men have never had an advantage over women. The same laws precisely apply to both. The fourteenth amendment did not affect the citizenship of women any more than it did of men. In this particular, therefore, the rights of Mrs. Minor do not depend upon the amendment. She has always been a citizen from her birth, and entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizenship. 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.
Why would the court go to the trouble of saying this. Their point is that the 14th amendment only applied to certain classes of persons born in the country (which would address those persons whose citizenship was in doubt). NBCs do NOT fall under this category and do NOT need the 14th amendment.
It picked that definition not because it was the only one, but because it was the one on which everyone agreed.
Are you even listening to yourself?? Isn't this how legal definitions are generally chosen?? And you're right. Everyone agreed. The court was unanimous. This is significant because they chose this definition DESPITE a constutional amendment that others might have seen as having broader applications. This decision limited the scope of that amendment. That limitation was acknowledged in the Wong Kim Ark decision, which said the court was "committed to the view that all children born in the United States of citizens or subjects of foreign States were excluded from the operation of the first sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment ..."
Given that the only reason the Court looked at the NBC clause was to point to the only language in the Constitution that defined what a citizen was, and to show that voting was not inherent in citizenship, there was no reason to resolve exactly what it takes to be an NBC.
Sorry, but this is gobbledy gook. The language in the constitution didn't define what a citizen was. The court said, "The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that." They found their definition by giving a near-verbatim citation of Vattel's definition from the Law of Nations. It is entirely consistent with earlier SCOTUS rulings that also cited this definition but cited it properly with Vattel. There would have been no reason to go here when they could have just accepted Minor's argument on the 14th amendment.
The court then pointed out that even women who met that most stringent definition of Natural Born Citizen didn't have the right to vote at our founding, therefore, the right to vote was not something inherent in being a full citizen. Voting rights case dismissed.
Sorry, but you're contradicting yourself now. Earlier you said, "If an issue is not necessary to a decision, it is not decided." Now you're saying that they had to pick the most stringent definition of citizen in order to make a decision about this woman's right to vote. You're not making sense. Second, the 14th amendment DID create citizenship rights that didn't exist before. That was the point of the amendment. The court said, "If the right of suffrage is one of the necessary privileges of a citizen of the United States, then the constitution and laws of Missouri confining it to men are in violation of the Constitution of the United States, as amended, and consequently void." The court didn't say, "If the right of suffrage is one of the necessary privileges of natural born citizens ..." IOW, this case could have been adjudicated WITHOUT having to look at natural born citizenship. The question is whether citizens of ANY class would have a right to vote and if a state was only limiting that right to men on the basis of their citizenship. And the court goes on to say this very thing: "The direct question is, therefore, presented whether all citizens are necessarily voters." Do you see that?? "All citizens," not citizens under the "most stringent" definition. The court addressed NBC because it was rejecting the 14th amendment in how it defines citizen. The judgment has never been overturned. The NBC definition is exclusive and is still legally intact.