The case that actually established the existing precedent was US v Wong Kim Ark, in 1898. That precedent is that pretty much any child born on US soil is a natural born citizen. And that is settled law. No credible authorities on either side of the aisle give any credence to claims otherwise.
Mr. Winston, you may be confusing a few, though the level of discourse for this thread is refreshingly well informed. Still, I’ll correct a few misstatements; Minor v. Happersett is all about natural born citizenship, because that was the only class of citizen defined in the Constitution. The case is clearly written, and clearly reasoned, and unequivocal.
The 14th Amendment nowhere mentions the term ‘natural born citizen’, and thus can have had no effect upon it. The Supreme Court doesn’t allow decisions to infer changes in other decisions. Reinterpretation must be explicit, and the author of the 14th Amendment, John Bingham, in his two addresses to the House, while explaining his amendment, explicitly tells us who are natural born citizens; “I find no fault with the introductory clause [S 61 Bill], which is simply declaratory of what is written in the Constitution, that every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen….” Exactly the interpretation cited by John Marshall, and by Morrison Waite, and by John Jay, and by Charles Evans Hughes, all chief justices.
In Wong Kim Ark Justice Gray cites Minor v. Happersett and quotes the passage in its entirety. Though he wanders through British Common law, he returns to find that Wong Kim, born to domiciled aliens in San Francisco, is a citizen, but not a natural born citizen. Read the end of the decision. The argument is a mess, and that may have been Justice Gray’s intention. It leads in irrelevant directions but returns to the only decision possible, because it rests on the 14th Amendment, which never mentions natural born citizenship.
Glad to see you on the thread!
Great reply, but a casual reader might fail to note that the first paragraph of your reply is a quote from the person you are replying to, but that you unintentionally omitted the quotation marks...