“What you underlined says nothing about natural born citizenship, but instead is referring to a second CLASS of citizen, of which there is doubt about their citizenship.”
No, there are not 3 or 4 classes of citizens in the US. There are citizens born, and citizens naturalized. At the time of Minor, no one doubted that someone born of citizen parents was a citizen, but some argued that foreign parents meant the person was NOT a citizen unless naturalized. That is why WKA became an issue - was a person born in the US automatically a citizen, or did he need to be naturalized.
There is no legal basis for pretending that NBC is a special category of citizenship. Vattel did NOT use the term, and the Founders did not write Vattel into the Constitution.
I didn't say there were three or four. Waite's words,which you quoted, speak for themselves: "As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first." This acknowledges TWO separate classes of citizenship by birth. The first — NBC — is the only class for which there was no doubt. Persons born in the country of foreigners was the second class of citizens, and their citizenship was in doubt.
At the time of Minor, no one doubted that someone born of citizen parents was a citizen, but some argued that foreign parents meant the person was NOT a citizen unless naturalized.
Right, it's two separate classes of citizen. The first class is what Waite called natural born citizens. He did not use this term for the second class of citizens and neither did Gray in the Wong Kim Ark decision.
That is why WKA became an issue - was a person born in the US automatically a citizen, or did he need to be naturalized.
No, actually, the treaty with China prevented Ark from naturalizing if he was not recognized as a U.S. citizen at birth. Theoretically he could have been born stateless.
There is no legal basis for pretending that NBC is a special category of citizenship.
You've already heloped prove that there is a legal basis by quoting the Waite's words in the decision. Gray reinforces Waite's words in WKA by saying the Supreme Court was "committed to the view that all children born in the United States of citizens or subjects of foreign States were excluded from the operation of the first sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment." IOW, NBC is excluded from the 14th amendment, which makes it a "special category" of citizenship.