The story is that it's not just Minor, but 25 other cases that refer to Minor. Did you not notice that?
The allegation in this story is that the references were removed while still tagging the articles as being complete texts.
Regardless of your opinion on the significance of the citations, do you deny that these changes took place?
-PJ
Again, since there are multiple sites that carry cases, having just one site do something screwy would have no impact.
And no, I’m not certain I believe it. IIRC, the original article on this goes back to a truther, and they are not known for honesty.
But lets suppose it did. Since it remains easy to access Minor on other sites, and since the Minor citation on that cite continues to have the text that birthers claim is critical, and since no lawyer agrees that Minor determined the extent of the meaning of NBC - probably because the decision specifically says they did not - what is the point?
For a hundred years, lawyers concluded that someone with an alien parent could, if born in the USA, run for President. That wasn’t a conspiracy to elect someone who had not been born.
Some examples:
“And if, at common law, all human beings born within the ligeance of the King, and under the King’s obedience, were natural-born subjects, and not aliens, I do not perceive why this doctrine does not apply to these United States, in all cases in which there is no express constitutional or statute declaration to the contrary. . . . Subject and citizen are, in a degree, convertible terms as applied to natives, and though the term citizen seems to be appropriate to republican freemen, yet we are, equally with the inhabitants of all other countries, subjects, for we are equally bound by allegiance and subjection to the government and law of the land.”
James Kent, COMMENTARIES ON AMERICAN LAW (1826)
“The country where one is born, how accidental soever his birth in that place may have been, and although his parents belong to another country, is that to which he owes allegiance. Hence the expression natural born subject or citizen, & all the relations thereout growing. To this there are but few exceptions, and they are mostly introduced by statutes and treaty regulations, such as the children of seamen and ambassadors born abroad, and the like.”
Leake v. Gilchrist, 13 N.C. 73 (N.C. 1829)
“Therefore every person born within the United States, its territories or districts, whether the parents are citizens or aliens, is a natural born citizen in the sense of the Constitution, and entitled to all the rights and privileges appertaining to that capacity.”
William Rawle, A View of the Constitution of the United States (1829)
““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 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.”
State v. Manuel (1838)
“The term citizen, was used in the constitution as a word, the meaning of which was already established and well understood. And the constitution itself contains a direct recognition of the subsisting common law principle, in the section which defines the qualification of the President… The only standard which then existed, of a natural born citizen, was the rule of the common law, and no different standard has been adopted since. Suppose a person should be elected President who was native born, but of alien parents, could there be any reasonable doubt that he was eligible under the constitution? I think not. ”
Lynch vs. Clarke (NY 1844)
“All persons born in the allegiance of the king are natural-born subjects, and all persons born in the allegiance of the United States are natural-born citizens. Birth and allegiance go together. Such is the rule of the common law, and it is the common law of this country, as well as of England. There are two exceptions, and only two, to the universality of its application. The children of ambassadors are in theory born in the allegiance of the powers the ambassadors represent, and slaves, in legal contemplation, are property, and not persons.”
Justice Swayne, United States v. Rhodes, 1 Abbott, US 28 (Cir. Ct. Ky 1866)
““Natural-born Citizens, those that are born within the jurisdiction of a national government; i.e., in its territorial limits, or those born of citizens, temporarily residing abroad.”
William Cox Cochran, The student’s law lexicon(1888)
“Natural Born Citizenship Clause. The clause of the U.S. Constitution barring persons not born in the United States from the presidency.”
Black’s Law Dictionary, eigth edition (1999)
““Under the longstanding English common-law principle of jus soli, persons born within the territory of the sovereign (other than children of enemy aliens or foreign diplomats) are citizens from birth. Thus, those persons born within the United States are “natural born citizens” and eligible to be President. Much less certain, however, is whether children born abroad of United States citizens are “natural born citizens” eligible to serve as President …”
THE HERITAGE GUIDE TO THE CONSTITUTION (2005)
This is not something that just came up with Obama in 2008. And no, Minor did NOT settle things in the mid-1800s, so there was no reason to scrub it.
Do websites sometimes lose stuff? Well, that has happened on our church website. And it usually comes back when they fix whatever went wrong. It doesn’t take a conspiracy to explain links going bad or stuff being dropped for a time from a website.