... from the Slaugtherhouse Cases as I already said. Miller wrote the decision for that decision. I didn't realize you needed that spelled out for you because it was already understood since I was refering Slaughterhouse. You really need to pay attention. And I said it was about the exceptions in that case, which you promptly cited. You're making my argument for me.
Gray then proceeds to call this statement " wholly aside from the question in judgment and from the course of reasoning bearing upon that question. It was unsupported by any argument, or by any reference to authorities, and that it was not formulated with the same care and exactness as if the case before the court had called for ..."
Right. Again, you're making my argument for me. This is why Gray pointed out the Minor and Elk decisions. The exceptions or exclusions that were listed in Slaughterhouse were not comprehensive. What you're missing or intentionally left out is that the only part of the exceptions that Gray actually took exception to was that consuls were not the same as "foreign ministers." He accepted the other exceptions and added the exclusions from Minor (NBCs) and from Elk (Indians - subjects of foreign States); except that the latter, he argued, were "alien nations" and not "foreign states" (note that he quotes no authority for this declaration. Rather ironic after he criticized Miller for the same thing).
Then comes your claim based on a butchered quote, where the real quote says the opposite - the Justices did not understand the court to be committed to the view that either children born in the US of citizens or of foreign subjects were excluded from the 14th amendment.
My claim is NOT based on a butchered quote. The only thing that is "butchered" is YOUR understanding of what this quote actually says. This quote still says the Court was committed to the view that chidren born in the US of citizens or foreign subjects were excluded from the 14th amendment. That Miller did NOT understand two years ealier does NOT change the facts that he and the rest of the Slaugherhouse judges voted unanimously to exclude citizens from the birth clause of the 14th amendment. It's time for you to quit ignoring the facts.
Justice Gray quoted several cases and authorities, many of which directly or indirectly specified children of foreigners born in the US as natural born citizens.
Sorry, but this is factually untrue. Out of all your bullet points, only one specifically mentions the term natural-born citizens, but in that quote, it does NOT say anything about the children of foreigners. It's talking about the children of the inhabitants of the U.S. at the time of the founding of this country. It noted that persons born on U.S. soil could be either natural-born citizens (if born to parents who adhered to the U.S.) OR natural-born subjects (if the parents adhered to the crown. Under this citation, it makes Obama a natural-born subject of Great Britain/Kenya.
So I'll see your quote from Minor v. Happersett which explicitly said the case would not resolve the doubts, and raise you several cases or authorities quoted by Gray which affirm that the US follows English common law in this matter.
Sorry, but Gray affirmed the quote and definition of NBC from Minor. He only used English common law as a justification for the 14th amendment ... AND he specifically noted that the 14th amendment does NOT say who natural-born citizens are ... specifically by citing Minor. Read it. Learn it. Understand it.
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."
Do you understand?? When construing the 14th amendment (the Constitution) Gray acknolwedges that Justice Waite said the Constituion does NOT say who shall be natural-born citizens. Gray says Waite used common law as an aid, but the definition of NBC used by Waite is NOT from English common law.
... all children, born in a country of parents who were its citizens, became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners.
By affirming that Virginia Minor was a citizen by virtue of being born in the country to citizen parents, Gray upheld the Minor decision and its NBC definition. Notice that he did NOT ever call Wong Kim Ark a natural-born citizen. He couldn't because he wasn't.
You are the one who is embarrassing themselves, by cutting and pasting words and phrases from here and there without any context or meaning or even simple logic. All to try to mislead people here about the law, on purpose.
Your theory that people who are born in America to two citizen parents are NOT covered by the 14th Amendment is something I have been reading about:
Note: The militia myth is that the Fourteenth Amendment created a distinct category of citizen, distinct from native born white militia members, consisting of non-whites and immigrants - and later women, so that the American population is divided between “preamble citizens” who are citizens of individual states but not necessarily citizens of the US nor subject to federal law, and “14th Amendment citizens” who are covered by federal law and who may not have the inherent rights. This myth is discussed in Koniak, When Law Risks Madness, 8 Cardozo Studies in Law and Literature 65 (1996), which also covers some other militia-type notions.
See what your kind of thinking is called—madness.
This quote still says the Court was committed to the view that chidren born in the US of citizens or foreign subjects were excluded from the 14th amendment.
when the real quote says
That neither Mr. Justice Miller nor any of the justices who took part in the decision of The Slaughterhouse Cases understood the court to be 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 is manifest from a unanimous judgment of the Court...I realize the language is a bit complex for you, but again:
What you're missing or intentionally left out is that the only part of the exceptions that Gray actually took exception to was that consuls were not the same as "foreign ministers." He accepted the other exceptions
Read it again. He used the consul/foreign minister issue as an example showing that care had not been used ("apparent from") and went on to adress the "subject to the jurisdiction" issue:
that it was not formulated with the same care and exactness as if the case before the court had called for an exact definition of the phrase is apparent from its classing foreign ministers and consuls together -- whereas it was then well settled law, as has since been recognized in a judgment of this court in which Mr. Justice Miller concurred, that consuls, as such, and unless expressly invested with a diplomatic character in addition to their ordinary powers, are not considered as entrusted with authority to represent their sovereign in his intercourse with foreign States or to vindicate his prerogatives, or entitled by the law of nations to the privileges and immunities of ambassadors or public ministers, but are subject to the jurisdiction, civil and criminal, of the courts of the country in which they reside.
Out of all your bullet points, only one specifically mentions the term natural-born citizens
But they specifically mention English common law don't they? And state that the US follows the English common law in this matter - jus soli. And English common law says that the born on the soil = natural born.
Gray affirmed the quote and definition of NBC from Minor.
Oh? Where did he affirm that he saw this as the definition of NBC? Or do you think just by quoting it (as he did the Napoleonic codes) that meant he agreed with everything he quoted?
He only used English common law as a justification for the 14th amendment
And that's probably the nuttiest thing you've said so far. He had no need to justify the 14th amendment, it was already the law of the land. He quoted quite a bit about birth and natural born - I suppose that was about the 14th amendment also?