“Your reasoning is flawed, as was the Court’s reasoning in the Kim case.”
Good luck trying to overturn 110 year old Supreme Court precedent.
“All the quotations you have reproduced are dicta that were and remain irrelevant to the court’s finding in the case,”
On the contrary, the court was pointing out that the 14th amendment concept of citizenship by soil was rooted in English common law ... and lo and behold, the WAY English common law called persons in that situation was “natural-born subjects”.
“I do not believe that the court even one time used the term “natural born” in Kim.”
You are wrong. My quotes showed so. the phrase was used multiple times.
“Your assertion that I would have the court rely on the reasoning of a foreigner is simply insincere and disingenuous.”
You are the insecure one. If you had a better argument or actual *US CASE LAW* or Supreme Court precedent, you would use it. You dont. So you try to impress with a Swiss theorists definition of what it should mean. It has zero bearing and zero meaning in a US court of law. Or should. Maybe you can impress Justice Ginsberg. No real constitutionalist would be impressed.
“I would have the Court rely on the intent of the Framers, and it was upon Vattell that the Framers relied in their formulation of the phrase Natural Born.”
That’s not so. The framers used legal terms of art that were derived from English common law. The English common law uses and derivative US court cases were what was referenced in Supreme Court’s Kim ruling.
You are deliberately ignoring the clear and obvious.
I have pointed to a recent brief by former Bush Solicitor General Ted Olson. I’ll restate the obvious and clear blackstone definition, it is so obvious one has to be deliberately obtuse not to acknowledge its influence on the Article II definition. See here, Ted Olson’s brief wrt McCain’s eligibility, given to US Senate in March 2008:
http://leahy.senate.gov/issues/Judiciary/McCainAnalysis.pdf
If the Panama Canal Zone was sovereign
U.S. territory at the time of Senator McCain’s birth, then that fact alone would make him a
“natural born” citizen under the well-established principle that “natural born” citizenship
includes birth within the territory and allegiance of the United States. See, e.g., Wong Kim Ark,
169 U.S. at 655-66. The Fourteenth Amendment expressly enshrines this connection between
birthplace and citizenship in the text of the Constitution. U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1 (”All
persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are
citizens of the United States .... “) (emphases added). Premising “natural born” citizenship on
the character of the territory in which one is born is rooted in the common-law understanding
that persons born within the British kingdom and under loyalty to the British Crown-including
most of the Framers themselves, who were born in the American colonies-were deemed
“natural born subjects.” See, e.g., 1 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws a/England
354 (Legal Classics Library 1983) (1765) (”Natural-born subjects are such as are born within the
dominions of the crown of England, that is, within the ligeance, or as it is generally called, the
allegiance of the king .... “).
Well, I concede that Wong Kim Ark opened the door to a very unnecessary debate by its wrongheaded and lying approach to the issue of birthright citizenship.
I say lying because the Court was disingenuous, as you are, when you say “the court was pointing out that the 14th amendment concept of citizenship by soil was rooted in English common law ... and lo and behold, the WAY English common law called persons in that situation was “natural-born subjects”.
The 14th Amendment was NOT based on the Common Law and its authors were explicit in this, as were the Framers of the Constitution. When the Court in Wong Kim Ark reached back to find precedent in the Common Law on this matter they were thumbing their noses at the Framers of the Constitution, the Authors of the 14th Amendment, and all legal precedent up to that time.
This case is really abominable law and the issues it addresses are ripe for revisiting.