“US v. Wong” — 1898
Guiding light — first.
Guiding light — tells us where to find what we're looking for.
“Minor v. Happersett” is quoted as a source in “US v. Wong”. “Minor v. Happersett” indicates where to look, and is affirmed by “US v. Wong”. Neither "resolves the issue", but “Minor v. Happersett” certainly tells us where to look:
Common Law
"Minor v. Happersett" says the following:
This is apparent from the Constitution itself, for it provides [n6] that “no person except a natural-born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President,” [n7] and that Congress shall have power “to establish a uniform rule of naturalization.” Thus new citizens may be born or they may be created by naturalization.
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 [a reference to Vattel's Law of Nations], as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction [a reference to the 14th Amendment, ratified just six years earlier, in 1868] without reference to the citizenship of their [p168] parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first.
