Bruce, I’ll assume your point about “Natural Born Citizen” not being mentioned in the Venus case is well-intentioned. Perhaps you didn’t know that Emmerich de Vattel, being French,wrote in French. I suppose your argument could be expanded to claim that Vattel himself never mentioned “The Law of Nations.”
Justice Henry Livingstone (the Aide-de- Camp to General Benedict Arnold prior to his defection), writing the unanimous decision in “ The Venus, 12 U.S. 8 Cranch 253 253 (1814)” quoted the entire 212th paragraph of Vattel’s French edition, on page 12 of his ruling, using his own translation.
” Vattel, who, though not very full to this point, is more explicit and more satisfactory on it than any other whose work has fallen into my hands, says:
“The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives or indigenes are those born in the country of parents who are citizens. Society not being able to subsist and to perpetuate itself but by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights.”
As mentioned in earlier posts, Ben Franklin stated that Vattel was referenced frequently during the Constitutional Convention.
You may find it useful to read the informative posts above to see if you think Livingston’s “natives” and “indigenes” are the equivalent of “Natural Born Citizen.”
If you read farther,
United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898), and
Minor v. Happersett , 88 U.S. 162 (1875) being later cases, specifically do use the term “Natural Born Citizen”.
No, I'm quite familiar with that. I'm also very familiar with writing and reading legal briefs, and know that you deserve to lose your credibility if you misrespresent what a case said. Teh case itself was written in English, and whomever wrote that article specifically stated that all four of the cited cases contained his preferred definition of the term "natural born citizen". And that is simply false. The case does not use that phrase, nor is the meaning of that phrase even relevant in that case.
Moreover, even if the case did say that, it would be incredibly weak dicta given that the "natural born citizen" question was not even at issue. The issue in that case concerned people who were naturalized as citizens after birth. The distinction between someone who was born a citizen because they were born in the U.S., and whether or not such a person qualified as a "natural born citizen" was not at issue, and so the Court's decision cannot fairly be read as decided an issue that was not before it.
Now, whether the overall argument about "natural born citizens" is correct is a different issue that has been debated to death. I jumped into this thread only because of the specific clam that four Supreme Court cases cited that definition, which is simply false.