Posted on 01/20/2012 10:57:39 AM PST by GregNH
They went a little further than that. They said that women did NOT need the amendment to have the position of being a citizen, and they specifically said the 14th amendment did NOT confer citizenship on Virginia Minor because she already had it. The only way that argument stands and makes sense is by accepting that the class of citizenship that the court characterized as natural-born, was how Minor acquired her citizenship: by being born in the country to citizen parents. IMO, the Minor court went out of its way to show that natural-born citizenship was a separate class of citizenship that was neither affected by nor redefined by the 14th amendment. Gray's treatment of this case in Wong Kim Ark affirms and upholds the NBC definition by clearly emphasizing that Minor was born to citizen parents, and by saying that the 14th amendment does NOT say who shall be natural-born citizens.
The Supreme Court recognized "some authorities" to include other classes of citizens to be Natural Born Ones... is wrong and is neither supported by the composition nor by the context.
The Supreme Court understood these authorities to be outside of the realm of SCOTUS ...No, they considered these authorities to be outside the realm of certainty.
The Supreme Court cited de Vattel's Law of Nations when defining the Natural Born Citizenship definitionClose. Their definition matched close enough to be plagiarism since Vattel was not specifically cited.
The Supreme Court stated these "corner case" definitions not fitting this decision in past tense, meaning they were discussing prior definitions
The quoted term is not used at all. Perhaps you can cite the part of the decision to which you refer.
SCOTUS has defined what constitutes a Natural Born Citizen. Any other court will have to prove this definition to be wrong, or incomplete. Obama and his attorneys will have to prove to the courts their client meets this definition. The burden is now on the defendants to prove Obama is a Natural Born Citizen as we know based on this case that he does not fit the SCOTUS definition.
This is better. The natural-born citizenship definition was REFERENCED by the Supreme Court in this unanimous decision, but it was not technically defined by the Supreme Court. They used this definition to specifically characterize a class of persons who are always recognized as citizens with no doubts and linked this term specifically to the Article II requirement for presidential eligibility. That definition defeated Virginia Minor's claim of being a citizen by way of the first part of the 14th amendment. The NBC definition was used as a self-limiting characterization in the context of the Minor decision because they immediately distinguished it from persons who must rely on other means of gaining citizenship. You either fall in this class or you don't. Obama don't.
It is my opinion that this guy has NO clue.
Who cares.
Thanks, F_J. I always look forward to your posts. Keep them coming!
No. Where do you get this idea??
I think I REALLY doesn’t matter.
I agree edge919, and anyone interested enough to read this far into this thread owes it to him/herself to read the original. But, with Leo Donofrio’s guidance, I see the reasoning just a little differently. Virginia Minor thought she should have acquired the right to vote under Section 1 of the 14th Amendment. Justice Waite's approach was to show that Mrs. Minor, a citizen and a woman, had no suffrage rights before the 14th Amendment, and then to show that the 14th Amendment never mentioned suffrage.
To have jurisdiction, the Supreme Court needed to determine that Mrs. Minor was a citizen, since “equal protections of the laws” applies to “citizens.” Here is the reasoning which took some time to grasp. The only citizen defined by the Constitution was a natural born citizen. That class of citizenship was only required to be eligible to the Presidency. As Justice Gray in Wong Kim Ark pointed out, citizens have all the rights and protections of natural born citizens. What he didn't say, except by citing Justice Waite's Minor v. Happersett decsions, only natural born citizens can become President.
Each state had its own citizenship statutes, which the Constitution ordered the Congress to address, eventually, with an uniform naturalization code. Congress makes naturalized citizens, natural citizens having been defined in the Constitution. So to make a decision, not knowing who Congress would eventually include as citizens, Justice Waite used the only definition extant, that for natural born citizenship.
This brings up the old shibboleth “because it was never defined in the Constitution.” Why is that a shibboleth? Because the framers intended virtually all definitions in the Constitution to come from the common language and common law familiar to the framers. The unique role of the Supreme Court as interpreter of the Constitution meant that to decide the case, the court needed to affirm the common language and common law, as Justice Waite wrote in his decision - “At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted ...”
While it sounded tautological, Waite said that Virginia Minor was a citizen because she was a natural born citizen. That was the only path to asserting her citizenship with the authority of the federal government. The uniform naturalization code was only begun with the 14th Amendment, and Waite needed the citizenship status of Virginia before the 14th Amendment.
Some have claimed that because they weren't discussing presidential eligibility, the definition was dictum. Leo Donofrio has found contemporary precedent for interpreting the definition clarified by Minor as a general holding, applicable to natural born citizens, but I preferred the approach suggested by that great constitutional scholar, and certainly a more accomplished lawyer the Barack, William Jefferson Clinton who explained: “It depends upon what is is!” A definition specifies equality. Everyone in the class of those born on our soil to citizen parents is a natural born citizen. Everyone in the class of natural born citizens was born on our soil to citizen parents. The only reason for the appearance of that definition in the Constitution was to require that our president be chosen from that class. That class was, and is, the most populous class of citizens in the US. That is a textbook example of how precedence is established.
I also agree that Justice Gray confirms the Minor definition. Curiously, he also throws in lots of misdirection. Leo Donofrio has a fascinating analysis of many of the misleading, and a surprising number of outright incorrect assertions in Wong Kim Ark, which may well become important if and when we honestly face the legitimacy of the ruling that enabled anchor babies. Justice Gray also used a bit of sophistry deployed by Obama’s Con Law professor at Harvard, Larry Tribe, who contributed an analysis to Senate Resolution 511, Apr 2008, in which Pat Leahy, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee agreed with Judge Michael Chertoff who said “My assumption and my understanding is that if you are born of American parents, you are naturally a natural-born American citizen,”
But I digress. Justice Gray suggested that the 1790 Naturalization Act made natural born citizens of children born overseas to two citizen parents. He mentioned that there was a correction in 1795: “In 1795, this was reenacted, in the same words, except in substituting, for the words “beyond sea, or out of the limits of the United States,” the words “out of the limits and jurisdiction of the United States.” 1 Stat. 415.” That was a subtle lie. The 1795 Act completely replaced the 1790 Act, and the word natural born citizen appears nowhere in the later act. It made children born to citizen parents beyond the seas “citizens.” Since Gray probably knew of Chester Arthur's father's citizenship - Gray was a very prominent New York politician involved in all sorts of political chicanery - Gray appears to have been creating a cloud of misdirection, though maintaining plausible deniability because he cited Minor first in his decision.
That is exactly the misdirection employed by Larry Tribe and Ted Olson to assert that they thought McCain really was a natural born citizen, because he was born to citizen parents, and because of the 1790 Naturalization Act. Both Gray and Tribe are trying to distract from the written truth, that the 1790 act was fully retracted. But Tribe's statement - Tribe was on Obama's campaign committee - makes it clear that the arrogant progressives understood the Constitution, but also understood that, with McCain the opponent, Republicans would not talk about eligibility, nor admit any hearings, as were held regarding McCain's eligibility. They probably assumed that the public was not capable of understanding the legal precedent, but they made sure by having Center For American Progress Lawyers scrub the network published Supreme Court and Federal Court cases in which Minor v. Happersett was cited - Justiagate. This scrubbing ocurred during the Summer of 2008, and Justia.com was the most common site provided by Google to those searching for cases containing natural born citizen or Minor v. Happersett.
Thanks edge. I agree will everything you've said, but thought expanding the reasoning behind your comments might help anyone not as steeped in the legal history of natural born citizenship to understand the truth.
The only citizen defined by the Constitution was a natural born citizen.
I'm not sure if this is supposed to say something other than "defined" but the Supreme Court in both Minor and Ark point out that it is not defined in the Constitution and resort must be had elsewhere.
Otherwise, the thing that I think people need to understand about the Wong Kim Ark decision is that Gray did NOT have solid ground for declaring Ark to be a citizen. That's why he goes on and on and on for pages trying to justify and rationalize his decision, and some of his logic and references are not well-founded. I do give him credit, however, for respecting the unanimous Minor decision and finding a tricky way to maintain NBC as a separate class of citizenship — distinct from the 14th amendment — but with no doubt about its purpose and application.
To paraphrase the late, great Robert Jordan, I intend to continue to opine until they nail my coffin shut. :)
I'm trying to prevent confusion. What you posted would have allowed for others to argue that some authorities define natural-born citizen differently and that the court left it open that the other definitions can be used. This just isn't the case. The argument the court made would not stand if NBC could mean ANYTHING other than what it used: all children born in the country to parents who were its citizens.
I am here to assist, not to cloud.
Then consider my post a friendly observation that you didn't succeed in not clouding the issue.
For example, the Supreme Court decision clearly stated there were "outside" influences on the definition of Natural Born Citizenship.
I understand what you're trying to do, but you're giving too much credit and overstating the court's position. When they talk about "some authorities" they can't preclude the involvement of the Supreme Court, because most of the states had their own citizenship laws and the Supreme Court may have respected or upheld one of those laws, such as in Shanks v. Dupont or Inglis v. Sailors Snug Harbor. The Minor decision is very deliberate in only characterizing one class of citizens as natural-born citizens, at the exclusion of any other class, whether there are doubts or not.
'Pick the Target, Freeze It, Personalize It and Polarize It.' - Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals.
They honestly can't help themselves; they've been conditioned to respond this way.
I didn’t confuse Sweden with Switzerland. I said I wasn’t familiar with Swiss customs procedure. At best, I didn’t pay attention to the country you referenced because I was thinking of a response to the ridiculous assertion ICE waves Unaccompanied Minors through customs because grandma and grandpa are patiently waiting. The implications for a breakdown in efforts to combat Human Trafficking and Smuggling of Contraband are unfathomable.
If an American minor is abandoned at a customs and border inspection station, ICE will contact local law enforcement or make an exception due to tolerance. If a foreign national minor is abandoned at a customs and border inspection station, such as Barry Soetoro was in 1971, ICE will take the child into Federal protective custody.
I’m suggesting we know Barack “Soebarkah” Obama was removed for his mother’s US passport when she renewed it at the US Embassy in Indonesia.
That’s why it’s important for Obama to answer questions in Court, under oath ... Have you ever been issued a passport from Indonesia, Kenya or Great Britain?
Thanks Edge. I was attempting to point out that a search of the Constitution confirms what Madison and James Wilson pointed out; framers of the Constituion intentionally did not include definitions in the document, assuming that definitions were to be drawn from the common language and common law familiar to the framers and residents in the 1780s.
So, while it is true that the term wasn't defined in the Constitution, that doesn't mean that the definition was left to posterity. It was easy to find the definition in contemporaneous writing, the most famous being the most cited legal authority in American jurisprudence between 1779 and 1821 (Grotian Society Papers), Vattel’s Law of Nations, the document commended by Hamilton and Washington as their most important resource on Law of Nations, which Mark Levin won't mention among the important resources to our founders and framers. Citizenship is one of, if not the most important, the essential elements when forming a nation. Washington opened his New York office on his first day as president with only one book on his desk, Vattel's Law of Nations (I qualified Law of Nations because Vattel was not the only author on the topic, just the most readable). Jefferson made Vattel the first required text in our first law school in 1779, at William and Mary. But our sages dismiss the importance of Vattel to our founders and framers.
There is one term defined in the Constitution, treason, perhaps because its application to a republic built upon laws is a little different than it application to monarchies? But natural born citizen, jus soli and jus sanguinis, was very well known. Citizens are mentioned in the Constitution, but because each state would use the term to select representatives based upon its statutes, and the decisions about naturalization belonged in the Congress where they could be debated, there is no definition specified or implied. Natural born citizens were defined, using language commonly understood, because the framers were so concerned with allegiance for the powerful president they had defined, both chief executive and commander in chief of the military.
Astrophysics illuminated Madison's choice for me. When looking at distant objects, one is looking back in time - very far back. A presumption that physics as we understand it applied 10 or 15 billion years ago is essential. Without that assumption of invariance in physical law our observations of distant spectra can have no meaning. Similarly, if the common-language of the framers is not assumed, held constant, the principles contained in the Constitution, the intentions of its framers, cannot be understood. So I infer that the framers defined a natural born citizen by using the words for which the glossary belonged to the society of the time, as Chief Justice John Marshall affirmed, when he cited Vattel as the most concise source for the definition, and Marshall, on the ratification committee, should know what he meant when he signed the Constitution.
That was a leap, but I can find no other definition in the Constitution for any citizen of the other of the the two classes, naturalized citizens - only the exortation to Congress to define, some day, what it means. The definitions are anything but static, even today, for who are citizens. But the definition of a natural born citizen has never varied, never been mentioned in US Code, and, while there have been several dozen amendments attempted, never been reinterpreted by the Supreme Court (The Indiana Supreme Court doesn't count!)
I do see that assuming a term in common usage might not be called a definition. But as citizens were defined, and were different in each state, the Constitution said, in effect “You states don't get to argue over the qualifications for the President. He must be born on the soil of citizen parents, a resident for 14 years and 35 years old.” When it became important to a case, the court confirmed that definition. Was it not a definition before Justice Waite told us it was never doubted?
Great discussion, and reassuring to see how many are becoming aware of our foundations. I suppose we have Obama to thank for our taking such an interest as to cause more and more to read the Constitution carefully and understand what our framers intended.
I did, sorry for the typo.
I will bet you that if you talk to Mr Swensen he will tell you that he told the reporter why Obama is not eligible, but that is on the cutting room floor.
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