Ankeny's Error: Virginia Minor could run for president; Wong Kim Ark could not

Indiana Appeals Court ^ | 2/5/2012 | edge919

[edge919]

In the ballot hearing in Georgia, Judge Malihi cited Ankeny v. Daniels from the Indiana Appeals Court to define natural-born citizen, using jus soli criteria to declare Barack "No Show" Obama to be eligible for Georgia's primary ballot, despite the lack of actual legal evidence to prove whether or not Barry was even born in the United States or not. That aside, the ruling is based on an errant conclusion.

Keeping things simple, the best way to emphasize why Minor v. Happersett is the one & only legal precedent and Wong Kim Ark is not, is to use Ankeny v. Daniels to show where it admits that its rationale is flawed. The Indiana Appeals Court admits there was an NBC definition in Minor:

"Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution governs who is a citizen of the United States. It provides that “[a]ll persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States . . . .” U.S. CONST. amend XIV, § 1. Article II has a special requirement to assume the Presidency: that the person be a “natural born Citizen.” U.S. CONST. art. II, § 1, cl. 4. The United States Supreme Court has read these two provisions in tandem and held that “[t]hus new citizens may be born or they may be created by naturalization.” Minor v.Happersett, 88 (21 Wall.) U.S. 162, 167 (1874). In Minor, written only six years after the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified, the Court observed that:

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 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.

First, there's a clear error. Ankeny says the 14th amendment and Article II were read in tandem. This is false. The 14th amendment was used by Virginia Minor in an argument to claim she was a citizen, and from that citizenship she had a right to vote through the privileges and immunities clause. The Supreme Court rejected that her citizenship was due from the 14th amendment. But before they got to Article II, they covered the other way you could become a citizen ... by self-declaration and political unification.

Whoever, then, was one of the people of either of these States when the Constitution of the United States was adopted, became ipso facto a citizen -- a member of the nation created by its adoption. He was one of the persons associating together to form the nation, and was, consequently, one of its original citizens.

This is kind of important, because it rejects the English common law theory of natural-born citizenship AND it rejects the trite argument that the courts have only recognized two ways to become a citizen. When the country was formed, those persons loyal to the United States were the original citizens and their children were natural-born citizens. But by treaty, those persons loyal to the crown and their children, even those born on U.S. soil AFTER the declaration of Independence were natural-born subjects. This was formalized through the Treaty of 1783. Thus, the Constitution, being established only four years later was not going to use a standard of citizenship that allowed anyone born on the soil to be president. This explains why the Minor court said that "all children born in the country to parents who were its citizens" was the "nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar" ... it matches the Law of Nations, and it's why the court characterized this type of citizenship EXCLUSIVELY as natural-born citizen. By using this definition, this would have made Virginia Minor legally capable of running for president even though the court denied she had a right to vote.

Ankeny argues that Minor "contemplates only scenarios where both parents are either citizens or aliens, rather in the case of President Obama, whose mother was a U.S. citizen and father was a citizen of the United Kingdom." A) This is false, because Minor contemplated several combinations of factors related to citizenship including split nationalities:

... in 1855 it was further provided that any woman who might lawfully be naturalized under the existing laws, married, or [p169] who should be married to a citizen of the United States, should be deemed and taken to be a citizen. [n11]

From this it is apparent that from the commencement of the legislation upon this subject alien women and alien minors could be made citizens by naturalization, and we think it will not be contended that this would have been done if it had not been supposed that native women and native minors were already citizens by birth.

The Minor court considered every combination it considered to be relevant, but it purposely and willfully only characterized ONE class of persons as natural-born citizens: those born in the country to citizen parents.

B) The other reason Ankeny's conclusion is false is because the Minor distinction of children born to citizen parents serves no purpose if not tied to how natural-born citizenship is exclusively defined. The characterization is self-limiting: "as distinguished from aliens or foreigners." For those latter persons to be citizens, they must rely on other means of citizenship such as through the Constitution or statutory law. If jus soli was enough to be a natural-born citizen, then the court could have simply accepted Minor's 14th amendment argument, but they did NOT ... and Ankeny admits it:

In Minor, written only six years after the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified, the Court observed that:

The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens.

The 14th amendment is part of the Constitution, so this means that the 14th amendment does NOT define NBC. This destroys Ankeny's assumption that jus soli is enough to be an NBC. U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark says this same thing, and it cites and affirms the Minor definition of NBC. The Ark case knew it could not apply the NBC definition to Wong Kim Ark, so it relied on applying common law, with some stipulations. Ankeny cites some of that common law, but it was dicta.

Ankeny claimed that "Thus, the [Minor] Court left open the issue of whether a person who is born within the United States of alien parents is considered a natural born citizen." I've already shown this is false, but it's important to understand that under Ankeny's logic, Wong Kim Ark ALSO left this question open. And they admit it, by way of footnote:

We note the fact that the Court in Wong Kim Ark did not actually pronounce the plaintiff a “natural born Citizen” using the Constitution‟s Article II language is immaterial. For all but forty-four people in our nation‟s history (the forty-four Presidents), the dichotomy between who is a natural born citizen and who is a naturalized citizen under the Fourteenth Amendment is irrelevant. The issue addressed in Wong Kim Ark was whether Mr. Wong Kim Ark was a citizen of the United States on the basis that he was born in the United States.

Wong Kim Ark was NOT declared to be a natural-born citizen. Again, using Ankeny's logic, this means the question is "left open." Why rely on a case that does not declare its subject an NBC, when the other one does?? Ankeny says it's immaterial to all but 44 people, which were all the people who were president, but this is false. The NBC criteria is to protect the public by trying to ensure we have a president who is less subject to foreign entanglements ... and that criteria would be material to ANYONE and EVERY ONE who wants to run for president.

[edge919]

The citation that I omitted outlines the default procedure. Get on Westlaw if you need proof.

What citation?? How would I know what you omitted??

But, forget my comments. Certainly a Russian educated dentist with an internet law degree is the best attorney for this job.

Yes, we get it. You don't like Orly. Who exactly said Orly is the best attorney for THIS job??? Is that another citation you omitted?? Like her or not, she got both the ALJ and the SoS to uphold her subpoena to a sitting president.

[elvis-lives]

This is the last post to someone too dense to bother with any longer. In my post containing the direct quotation from the ruling, the quotation that you editted to try to suipport your ridiculous argument, I parenthetically refer to “Citation” that I omitted from the text. This cites to the rules of procedure for the administrative court and it explains the procedure for default. I had assumed that you had some sort of savvy in regards to legal research, obviously I was wrong. Don’t bother posting to me again.

[edge919]

Somewhere between your head and the keyboard, the thoughts are getting lost. And if you don’t want someone to reply to you, don’t post anything to begin with.