In Minor v. Happersett, Chief Justice Waite, when construing, in behalf of the court, the very provision of the Fourteenth Amendment now in question, said: “The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that.”
This specifically says the 14th amendment does NOT define what it means to be a natural born citizen. This DIRECTLY negates the question that was being addressed: whether the child of foreign nationals is a citizen via the 14th amendment. From this point forward, NBC is NOT mentioned again for about 30 paragraphs, where it says:
All persons born in the allegiance of the King are natural-born subjects, and all persons born in the allegiance of the United States are natural-born citizens.
This quote is in reference to people who were born IN THE UNITED STATES. It shows that you could be born in the United States and NOT automatically be a natural born citizen because one could be born in the allegiance of another country. Those persons in this example were natural born subjects, NOT natural born citizens.
There's a reason why Gray's decision did not stop where you stopped copying and pasting. His argument was not sufficient to declare Wong Kim Ark to be a citizen and Gray knew it. He proceeded to build an argument on a common-law definition of citizenship that was NOT the same definition used by the SCOTUS in defining NBC. He had to defend that definition AND he had to justify that non-citizen parents would meet the subject clause of the 14th amendment, which is why he went on to explain how they had permanent residence and domicil. Nowhere in that decision is Wong Kim Ark declared to be a natural born citizen. Nowhere.
No, the 14th does not define NBC. I never said it did.
In your quote, you left off the next sentence:
“In Minor v. Happersett, Chief Justice Waite, when construing, in behalf of the court, the very provision of the Fourteenth Amendment now in question, said: “The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that.” And he proceeded to resort to the common law as an aid in the construction of this provision. “
Hmmm...so the Supreme Court says the meaning of NBC is found in common law. Not Vattel.
They then take many paragraphs to discuss the meaning of NBS. Why?
“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.”
What? NBS prevails under the Constitution? Yes, since NBS = NBC. As they say after further review of NBS:
“In United States v. Rhodes (1866), Mr. Justice Swayne, sitting in the Circuit Court, said:
All persons born in the allegiance of the King are natural-born subjects, and all persons born in the allegiance of the United States are natural-born citizens. Birth and allegiance go together. Such is the rule of the common law, and it is the common law of this country, as well as of England. . . . We find no warrant for the opinion [p663] that this great principle of the common law has ever been changed in the United States. It has always obtained here with the same vigor, and subject only to the same exceptions, since as before the Revolution.”
Hmmm....”all persons born in the allegiance of the United States are natural-born citizens.”
That follows, if NBS = NBC.
Let me repeat it, since birthers have problems reading:
“All persons born in the allegiance of the King are natural-born subjects, and all persons born in the allegiance of the United States are natural-born citizens.”
Let me post it in fuller detail:
“All persons born in the allegiance of the king are natural born subjects, and all
persons born in the allegiance of the United States are natural born citizens. Birth
and allegiance go together. Such is the rule of the common law, and it is the
common law of this country, as well [**18] as of England. There are two exceptions,
and only two, to the universality of its application. The children of ambassadors are in
theory born in the allegiance of the powers the ambassadors represent, and slaves, in legal
contemplation, are property, and not persons. 2 Kent, Comm. 1; Calvin’s Case, 7 Coke,
1; 1 Bl. Comm. 366; Lynch v. Clarke, 1 Sand. Ch. 583.”
It goes further, and specifically REJECTS one of the OP’s ridiculous assertions:
“To make one of domestic birth a citizen is not naturalization, and
cannot be brought within the exercise of that power. There is a universal agreement of
opinion upon this subject. [**26] Scott v. Sanford, 19 How. [60 U.S.] 578; 2 Story,
Const. 44.”
http://www.scribd.com/doc/20825887/United-States-v-Rhodes-27-f-Cas-785-1866
“His argument was not sufficient to declare Wong Kim Ark to be a citizen and Gray knew it.”
If WKA was not a NBC, there was no reason whatsoever to discuss it for half the decision. They did because it was relevant, and the dicta has held without exception since due to the power of its argument.