[Abd al-Rahiim]

Let me repeat my answer for the fourth time: "Are you trying to argue that because the Court 'only' ruled that Wong Kim Ark was '...at the time of his birth a citizen of the United States,' they had nothing to say about 'natural-born' citizenship? That's a disingenuous argument, at best." (emphasis added)

Did you notice that the underlined portion in my answer is from your final italicized paragraph, which I reproduce as follows?

The question presented by the record is whether a child born in the United States, of parents of Chinese descent, who at the time of his birth are subjects of the emperor of China, but have a permanent domicile and residence in the United States, and are there carrying on business, and are not employed in any diplomatic or official capacity under the emperor of China, becomes at the time of his birth a citizen of the United States, by virtue of the first clause of the fourteenth amendment of the constitution: '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.'

Thank you for proving that I had, in fact, answered your question, and that you simply failed to comprehend it.

And, yes, I do still think that Justice Gray clarified the definition of "natural-born." I reiterate a section of Wong Kim Ark that I previously quoted, as follows, and add its following section for further elucidation:

It thus clearly appears that, by the law of England for the last three centuries, beginning before the settlement of this country and continuing to the present day, aliens, while residing in the dominions possessed by the Crown of England, were within the allegiance, the obedience, the faith or loyalty, the protection, the power, the jurisdiction of the English Sovereign, and therefore every child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject unless the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign State or of an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was born.

III. The same rule was in force in all the English Colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the Constitution as originally established.

Wong Kim Ark just isn't in your favor.

[savedbygrace]

So you’ve decided to go snarky after all. Bad decision.

You have accused me of being of limited comprehension more than once. Ironically, you are proving that YOU are the one with limited comprehension.

The reason I continue to say you haven’t answered my simple question is, well, simple. You replied to my question with a question. IOW, you asked me if that was what I was arguing. You were NOT saying that was what you were agreeing to.

Now on to the main thing. Justice Gray, in writing the majority opinion in this case, was building a Proof (you have taken Logic or Geometry in school, haven’t you?) that Wong Kim Ark was a CITIZEN. He was not building a Proof that WKA was a natural-born citizen.

To that end, he pulled together all of the supportive cases and quotes related to citizenship that he could find. Some were related to citizenship, others to various sub-sets of citizenship - some to naturalized citizenship, some to native-born citizenship, and still others to natural-born subjects. There is even one quote he resorted to that differentiates between natural-born citizens, natural-born subjects, and the native-born. Imagine that.

In none of his Proof was he defining natural-born citizenship, which is a sub-set of citizenship, but rather, making the case for WKA’s citizenship. If he had been trying to define natural-born citizenship, he would have directly done so at some point. He didn’t. Every mention of natural-born citizenship is a quote from someone else.

But you won’t come to that true understanding by pulling selected quotes from the opinion. You have to read the entire opinion at one sitting to comprehend the full meaning of what Justice Gray was doing.

BTW, concerning your ‘answer’ that you repeated 4 times, Justice Gray himself didn’t say anything about natural-born citizenship. Rather, he quoted others saying different things about natural citizenship, as he built a Proof for his decision in favor of WKA’s citizenship.