Your position isn't very strong if you have to remove parts in order to satisfy your viewpoint…I've explained why there's a legal precedent expressed in Minor and you're trying remove the parts of the syllabus that agree with me.
Edge, misstating my position will not support your argument. You are smart enough to know my proposed removal of Section 2. of the syllabus was offered solely to encourage you to focus on the relevant portions of the decision.
Most readers will understand the court would not have taken the case if Minor had not been a citizen; the fact she was even an ordinary citizen prompted the court to decide the issue of whether the Constitution or the 14thA gave her the right to vote. There were no arguments heard on NBC, they were not necessary, Minor qualified as a citizen. Nor did the decision apply only to natural born citizens.
If you change your argument from “the court decisively ruled on NBC” (which it did not for reasons stated here and upthread) to “there is legal precedent”, as you seem to do above, then we agree.
Indeed, Minor has enormous legal value to our NBC argument.
What exactly is the difference between "legal precedent" and the court "decisively ruling" on NBC??
Most readers will understand the court would not have taken the case if Minor had not been a citizen; the fact she was even an ordinary citizen prompted the court to decide the issue of whether the Constitution or the 14thA gave her the right to vote.
The 14th amendment IS the Constiution. There's no "or."
There were no arguments heard on NBC, they were not necessary, Minor qualified as a citizen.
You're missing the point. Minor's citizenship argument was based on the 14th amendment. That argument was rejected by the court because they viewed her as a natural born citizen, NOT a 14th amendment citizen.
Nor did the decision apply only to natural born citizens.
No one said it did.
Here's why Minor is decisive. Read this comment from Ex Parte Lockwood (thanks to danae for pointing it out):
In Minor v. Happersett, 21 Wall. 162, this court held that the word 'citizen' is often used to convey the idea of membership in a nation, and, in that sense, women, if born of citizen parents within the jurisdiction of the United States, have always been considered citizens of the United States, as much so before the adoption of the fourteenth amendment of the constitution as since; but that the right of suffrage was not necessarily one of the privileges or immunities of citizenship before the adoption of the fourteenth amendment, and that amendment did not add to these privileges and immunities.
Notice the part underlined. It's giving what the court held in Minor and then quotes the syllabus almost verbatim — in particular, the part you removed. The legal precedent about citizen parents is quoted as decisive in these two cases (counting WKA). Why would you choose to deny that??
Good point on the semantics. I will have to think about that. Thanks!