You do understand that the decision does NOT end at this point. This might not even be halfway through the decision. You also need to acknowledge that this part says NOTHING about natural born citizens. There's a reason why Gray chooses to use a different term here. It's explained by reading ahead in the decision where Gray finally gets to the Minor decision and gives the binding definition of NBC that he could not use for Wong Kim Ark.
So, before the 14th was adopted, “all white persons, at least, born within the sovereignty of the United States, whether children of citizens or of foreigners, excepting only children of ambassadors or public ministers of a foreign government, were native-born citizens of the United States”.
It's a nice broad statement, but once again, it purposely AVOIDS using the term natural born citizen. If the decision stopped here, then your interpretation might make sense. As we know, it does NOT stop here and eventually disproves your assertion.
Yes, I know you pretend native born and natural born are not equivalent, but they are used interchangeably by the court.
No, if you've followed my posts, I explain that as the court formally defined native in Minor, it required birth to citizen parents, the same as natural born. Later in the decision, after the formal NBC definition is affirmed, Gray stops using both terms altogether in favor of a new term, "citizenship by birth" that is entirely dependent on the 14th amendment to define it.
For example, “treated it as unquestionable that, by that law, a child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject, quoting the statement of Lord Coke in Co.Lit. 8a, that, if an alien cometh into England and hath issue two sons, these two sons are indigenae, subjects born, because they are born within the realm, and saying that such a child “was a native-born subject, according to the principles of the common law stated by this court in McCreery v. Somervlle, 9 Wheat. 354.” What does that say? “a child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject” and then “such a child “was a native-born subject”. The same child is called natural-born & native-born.
If the question before the court was how to determine English law, then this would mean something. English common law required actual obedience to the crown. U.S. law does not. Whether these terms are more interchangeably used in English law is irrelevant since Gray finally settles on an official definition of NBC from Minor.
Again: The Supreme Court of North Carolina, speaking by Mr; Justice Gaston, said: Before our Revolution, all free persons born within the dominions of the King of Great Britain, whatever their color or complexion, were native-born British subjects; those born out of his allegiance were aliens. . . . Upon the Revolution, no other change took place in the law of North Carolina than was consequent upon the transition from a colony dependent on an European King to a free and sovereign [p664] State; . . . British subjects in North Carolina became North Carolina freemen; . . . and all free persons born within the State are born citizens of the State. . . . The term “citizen,” as understood in our law, is precisely analogous to the term “subject” in the common law, and the change of phrase has entirely resulted from the change of government. The sovereignty has been transferred from one man to the collective body of the people, and he who before as a “subject of the king” is now “a citizen of the State.” Note they use “native-born British subjects” in the same manner they use NBS.
Again, this takes no precedence over the Minor definition, and it's not entirely accurate. The first charter of North Carolina recognized persons born there as denizens and lieges, not subjects.
... our heirs and successors, do straightly enjoin, ordain, constitute and command, that the said province of Carolina, shall be of our allegiance, and that all and singular the subjects and liege people of us, our heirs and successors, transported or to be transported into the said province, and the children of them and of such as shall descend from them, there born or hereafter to be born, be and shall be denizens and lieges of us ...Again: Chancellor Kent, in his Commentaries, speaking of the “general division of the inhabitants of every country under the comprehensive title of aliens and natives,” says: Natives are all persons born within the jurisdiction and allegiance of the United States. This is the rule of the common law, without any regard or reference to the political condition or allegiance of their parents, with the exception of the children of ambassadors, who are in theory born within the allegiance of the foreign power they represent. . . “
Again, overridden by Minor.
Natives uses the same definition as NBC.
There's nothing here that says anything about NBC.
Section 5 begins a new section in the decision: “V. In the forefront both of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution and of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the fundamental principle of citizenship by birth within the dominion was reaffirmed in the most explicit and comprehensive terms.” Now attention switches from NBC/NBS/native born subject/citizen to the 14th.
You're not reading the words that are being used. Gray has now started using the term "citizenship by birth." He had to do this because of the Minor definition of NBC that did NOT apply to Wong Kim Ark.
You proceed to get it backwards. You say, “Gray makes a point here that this list can’t be assumed to be comprehensive and that you have to look at other cases when certain aspects of an issue aren’t examined.” Actually, the Slaughterhouse case said that “The phrase, “subject to its jurisdiction” was intended to exclude from its operation children of ministers, consuls, and citizens or subjects of foreign States born within the United States.”
This part precedes the section where Gray says the court was unanimously committed to excluding NBC from the citizen clause of the 14th amendment. Go back and re-read what I wrote.
Notice a distinct change from everything else in WKA. Before it was only the kids of ambassadors & foreign armies who were excluded. Slaughterhouse expanded that to include the children of “citizens or subjects of foreign States” - and WKA overturns that part of Slaughterhouse.
Not entirely. Gray added a stipulation that persons who had permanent residence and domicil were indeed subject to the United States and therefore satisfy the subject clause. He walked a fine line here. He did not overturn ANY part of Minor.
First, it points out that the phrase appears as dicta, and not very good dicta at that. It says: “This was wholly aside from the question in judgment and from the course of reasoning bearing upon that question. It was unsupported by any argument, or by any reference to authorities, and that it was not formulated with the same care and exactness as if the case before the court had called for an exact definition of the phrase” and “In weighing a remark uttered under such circumstances, it is well to bear in mind the often quoted words of Chief Justice Marshall: It is a maxim not to be disregarded that general expressions in every opinion are to be taken in connection with the case in which those expressions are used. If they go beyond the case, they may be respected, but ought not to control the judgment in a subsequent suit when the very point is presented for decision.”
Gray is setting the backdrop for his citation of Minor. He used the Marshall quote to say the Slaughterhouse decision was not comprehensive. I believe I've already explained this.
They then go on to show that even the court that decided the Slaughterhouse case did not believe 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” by citing your favorite: Minor.
That's not what the court is saying. It's noting that the Slaughterhouse case was not comprehensive because the court didn't address these other issues yet. They did not understand that when those issues were addressed that it would end up excluding NBCs and Indians from the citizen clause of the 14th amendment. The court that was split in Slaughterhouse was NOT split in Minor, which is why he says the Court was commited to this view. This commitment set a precedent that prevented Gray from declaring WKA to be an NBC.
Anyone prior to WKA could use Slaughterhouse as a basis to reject citizenship for the children of aliens. WKA overturns that basis, rejecting it. They then turn to Elk v. Wilkins, and point out it only applies to Indians, who are considered members of a nation inside the USA boundaries.
This is one of the weaker arguments in WKA. Gray sort of brushes this aside, saying, "besides children of members of the Indian tribes, standing in a peculiar relation to the National Government, unknown to the common law ..." "UNKONW TO THE COMMON LAW"??? This is Gray's lazy way of saying he's just going to ignore this, but he covers his but by creating a domicil requirement, which is where he heads next in the decision. Again, there's no mention from here forward of "natural-born citizen" or even "native-born citizen"... and for good reason. He mentions natives a few times, but in a different context.
They said the passing of the 14th Amendment did not create her a citizen since she already WAS a citizen beyond any question. There is not a 14th Amendment citizenship, and a separate NBC citizenship.
Sorry, but YOU are wrong as usual. Gray said NBC was defined OUTSIDE of the Constitution while "citizenship by birth" was defined BY the Constitution via the 14th amendment. He did this by citing Minor. It didn't matter that Minor was "a citizen beyond any question," as you phrased it. The question of suffrage was for ALL citizens, so the court didn't NEED to consider citizenship beyond any question. This would have applied to even those whose citizenship was in doubt. The reason they took the time to define NBC was because the court did NOT accept V. Minor's argument of being a citizen per the 14th amendment. I know it's a radical concept to you, they rejected the 14th amendment for not only Minor but for women as a class.
As the courts have said time & again, there are two sources of citizenship, and only two - birth, and naturalization.
Yes, two sources does not preclude subtypes of citizenship from each source. This point means nothing because persons can have citizenship collectively conferred at birth without being native-born/natural-born. Part of what you quote from Elk v. Wilkins mentions this.
Thus you have in Kwock Jan Fat v. White, ...
Absolutely nothing more than repeating an errant statement by the Commissioner of Immigration. This doesn't overrule Minor's definition.
And in Minor:
You've done nothing more than quote Waite's set-up for his definition of NBC, which is verbatim match of Vattel.
In Baumgartner v. United States, 322 U.S. 665 (1944):
Nothing here overrides Minor.
In Oyama v. California, 332 U.S. 633 (1948)
In Klapprott v. United States, 335 U.S. 601 (1949)
Again, there's nothing here that overrides Waite's definition as presented in Minor.
Native and natural born are interchanged, and the alternative to being native/natural born is to be naturalized. Two categories.
Nothing you presented in these obscure citations used suggests that native-born does NOT mean born to citizen parents. Without that, it means nothing and Minor is still not overridden.
“No, if you’ve followed my posts, I explain that as the court formally defined native in Minor, it required birth to citizen parents, the same as natural born.”
No, it doesn’t. It expressly says they are NOT trying to determine what NBC or native means.
I know you don’t understand that, but every state & every court does.
For those not familiar, here is the passage:
Additions might always be made to the citizenship of the United States in two ways: first, by birth, and second, by naturalization. This is apparent from the Constitution itself, for it provides [n6] that “no person except a natural-born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President,” [n7] and that Congress shall have power “to establish a uniform rule of naturalization.” Thus new citizens may be born or they may be created by naturalization.
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. Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their [p168] parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first. For the purposes of this case it is not necessary to solve these doubts. It is sufficient for everything we have now to consider that all children born of citizen parents within the jurisdiction are themselves citizens.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0088_0162_ZO.html
To repeat for emphasis
“For the purposes of this case it is not necessary to solve these doubts.”
“Whether these terms are more interchangeably used in English law is irrelevant since Gray finally settles on an official definition of NBC from Minor.”
No, he does not and cannot, since Minor found “it is not necessary to solve these doubts.”
Also...do you realize that a decision that comes after Minor would expand or clarify Minor, or expressly reject it - as they rejected the Slaughterhouse decision. Minor cannot overrule a later decision - particularly when Minor found “it is not necessary to solve these doubts.”
You write
“It’s noting that the Slaughterhouse case was not comprehensive because the court didn’t address these other issues yet. They did not understand that when those issues were addressed that it would end up excluding NBCs and Indians from the citizen clause of the 14th amendment.”
Actually, they told the Slaughterhouse decision to pound sand:
This was wholly aside from the question in judgment and from the course of reasoning bearing upon that question. It was unsupported by any argument, or by any reference to authorities, and that it was not formulated with the same care and exactness as if the case before the court had called for an exact definition of the phrase is apparent from its classing foreign ministers and consuls together — whereas it was then well settled law, as has since been recognized in a judgment of this court in which Mr. Justice Miller concurred, that consuls, as such, and unless expressly invested with a diplomatic character in addition to their ordinary powers, are not considered as entrusted with authority to represent their sovereign in his intercourse [p679] with foreign States or to vindicate his prerogatives, or entitled by the law of nations to the privileges and immunities of ambassadors or public ministers, but are subject to the jurisdiction, civil and criminal, of the courts of the country in which they reside. 1 Kent Com. 44; Story Conflict of Laws § 48; Wheaton International Law (8th ed.) § 249; The Anne (1818), 3 Wheat. 435, 445, 446; Gittings v. Crawford (1838), Taney 1, 10; In re Baiz (1890), 135 U.S. 403, 424.
In weighing a remark uttered under such circumstances, it is well to bear in mind the often quoted words of Chief Justice Marshall:
It is a maxim not to be disregarded that general expressions in every opinion are to be taken in connection with the case in which those expressions are used. If they go beyond the case, they may be respected, but ought not to control the judgment in a subsequent suit when the very point is presented for decision. The reason of this maxim is obvious. The question actually before the court is investigated with care, and considered in its full extent. Other principles which may serve to illustrate it are considered in their relation to the case decided, but their possible bearing on all other cases is seldom completely investigated.
Cohens v. Virginia (1821), 6 Wheat. 264, 399.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0169_0649_ZO.html
They then cited Minor as evidence that the court had NOT excluded children of foreigners as citizens - although the Slaughterhouse case specifically did so.
WKA overturned Slaughterhouse.
But these discussions all took place AFTER the NBC/NBS discussion found in Parts 2, 3 & 4. And parts 5 & 6 did not overturn parts 2,3 & 4. WKA uses a two prong attack - the NBC clause in 2-4, and the 14th in 5 & 6.
No, you don’t understand that. Everyone else does.
Again, you can squeal about my interpretation, but you cannot get around the fact that 50 states, Congress, the Supreme Court & every Congressman (and the GOP & Rush Limbaugh) agree with me, and disagree with you.
And you cannot deny it, because Obama is recognized as President by all 50 states, the GOP, Congress, the Supreme Court, and everyone else in the real world. Only in WND-land does Minor agree with you, and WKA have nothing to do with the NBC clause.