Now with this new research on the Binney boo-boo it appears Leo has made a convincing case that the much quoted “as much a citizen” passage was deleted as bogus in peer review at the law journal that published the final third edition of the paper.
As a result Leo is now taking the position that WKA was wrongly decided in even making WKA a citizen!
For those wanting to cut to the chase, here is the key section of Leo's piece as it relates to the WKA ruling:
quote
The note in the ALR version appears on pg. 13, and you can see that the following passage was stripped from the final edition:
“The right of citizenship never descends in the legal sense, either by the common law, or under the common naturalization acts. It is incident to birth in the country, or it is given personally by statute. The child of an alien, if born in the country, is as much a citizen as the natural-born child of a citizen, and by operation of the same principle.”
Justice Gray relied on this deleted, and discredited passage, not only on pgs. 665-666 of the Wong Kim Ark opinion, but he also relied on it in the holding, on pg. 693.
end quote
"WEll DUH" as the 14th was not an act to create an additional path to citizenship, it is an act to protect against the denial of citizens as defined by A1 & A2. It's nice to see him finally admit it and in doing so he has gained some of my respect back. Not all, just some. I'll wait and see where he takes it from here and if he really stands for or against our founding principles.