Hmmmmm.....
I've got a hardcopy of the case, U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649(1898) in my hands, 33 pages of about font size 6 print, but I have this statement below is highlighted on page 2.
Verbatim. "Mr Justice GRAY, after stating the facts in the foregoing language, delivered the opinion of the court."
Scratching head.... :-0)
U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898)
Wong Kim Ark was born in San Francisco to Chinese parents around 1870 (the exact date is uncertain due to discrepancies among the various sources). In 1895, upon his return from a visit to China, he was refused entry by US customs officials, who asserted that despite his having been born in the US, he was a subject of the Chinese emperor and not a US citizen.
At this time, US law (the “Chinese Exclusion Acts”) severely limited Chinese immigration and barred people of Chinese ancestry from becoming naturalized US citizens — and it was argued, on this basis, that Wong was ineligible to be considered a US citizen, in spite of his having been born in the US.
The Supreme Court disagreed, ruling on a 6-2 vote that Wong Kim Ark was in fact a US citizen. The court cited the “citizenship clause” of the 14th Amendment, which states that all persons born (or naturalized) in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens. Although the original motivation for this language in the 14th Amendment was to secure citizenship for the freed Negro slaves, the court held that the clause clearly applied to “all persons”, regardless of their race or national origin.
The court rejected outright the idea that the Chinese could be singled out for special treatment in this respect. “To hold that the fourteenth amendment of the constitution excludes from citizenship the children born in the United States of citizens or subjects of other countries,” the majority wrote, “would be to deny citizenship to thousands of persons of English, Scotch, Irish, German, or other European parentage, who have always been considered and treated as citizens of the United States.”
As for the question of being “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States — i.e., the relationship between a person and a government whereby one “owes obedience to the laws of that government, and may be punished for treason or other crimes” — the Supreme Court observed that English common law (legal tradition inherited from Britain by the US) had long recognized only two jurisdictional exceptions to the principle of ius soli (citizenship by birth on a country’s soil): namely, (a) foreign diplomats, and (b) enemy forces in hostile occupation of a portion of the country’s territory. Since neither of the above exceptions applied to Wong Kim Ark’s parents, the court held that he was unquestionably a US citizen by virtue of his having been born in the US.
The fact that, under the Chinese Exclusion Acts, Wong’s parents could not become US citizens — or even that Wong himself would not have been eligible for naturalization in the US on account of his race — was simply irrelevant in light of the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause. The Constitution was superior to statutes such as the Chinese Exclusion Acts; these acts of Congress, according to the Supreme Court, “cannot control [the 14th Amendment’s] meaning, or impair its effect, but must be construed and executed in subordination to its provisions.”
It should be noted, however, that the Supreme Court did not question the validity of the Chinese Exclusion Acts as such.
"The fourteenth amendment of the constitution, in the declaration that 'all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside,' contemplates two sources of citizenship, and two only,-birth and naturalization. Citizenship by naturalization can only be acquired by naturalization under the authority and in the forms of law. But citizenship by birth is established by the mere fact of birth under the circumstances defined in the constitution. Every person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, becomes at once a citizen of the United States, and needs no naturalization. A person born out of the jurisdiction of the United States can only become a citizen by being naturalized, either by treaty, as in the case [169 U.S. 649, 703] of the annexation of foreign territory, or by authority of congress, exercised either by declaring certain classes of persons to be citizens, as in the enactments conferring citizenship upon foreign-born children of citizens, or by n abling foreigners individually to become citizens by proceedings in the judicial tribunals, as in the ordinary provisions of the naturalization acts."
"The power of naturalization, vested in congress by the constitution, is a power to confer citizenship, not a power to take it away. 'A naturalized citizen,' said Chief Justice Marshall, 'becomes a member of the society, possessing all the rights of a native citizen, and standing, in the view of the constitution, on the footing of a native. The constitution does not authorize congress to enlarge or abridge those rights. The simple power of the national legislature is to prescribe a uniform rule of naturalization, and the exercise of this power exhausts it, so far as respects the individual. The constitution then takes him up, and, among other rights, extends to him the capacity of suing in the courts of the United States, precisely under the same circumstances under which a native might sue.' Osborn v. Bank, 9 Wheat. 738, 827. Congress having no power to abridge the rights conferred by the constitution upon those who have become naturalized citizens by virtue of acts of congress, a fortiori no act or omission of congress, as to providing for the naturalization of parents or children of a particular race, can affect citizenship acquired as a birthright, by virtue of the constitution itself, without any aid of legislation. The fourteenth amendment, while it leaves the power, where it was before, in congress, to regulate naturalization, has conferred no authority upon congress to restrict the effect of birth, declared by the constitution to constitute a sufficient and complete right to citizenship.
No one doubts that the amendment, as soon as it was promulgated, applied to persons of African descent born in the United States, wherever the birthplace of their parents might have been; and yet, for two years afterwards, there was no statute authorizing persons of that race to be naturalized. If the omission or the refusal of congress to permit certain [169 U.S. 649, 704] classes of persons to be made citizens by naturalization could be allowed the effect of correspondingly restricting the classes of persons who should become citizens by birth, it would be in the power of congress, at any time, by striking negroes out of the naturalization laws, and limiting those laws, as they were formerly limited, to white persons only, to defeat the main purpose of the constitutional amendment.
The fact, therefore, that acts of congress or treaties have not permitted Chinese persons born out of this country to become citizens by naturalization, cannot exclude Chinese persons born in this country from the operation of the broad and clear words of the constitution: 'All persons born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.