1. How do YOU address the fact that the Minor judges did not REACH (which is a new word I just learned about legal stuff) the issue of children born here of foreigners???
2.Why do YOU think the Minor court defined NBC, when the Minor Court people did not say so in either the decision or the syllabus. AND Why do you think the Minor Court decided the 14th amendment made a NEW CLASS of citizenship, when those judges did not say so in either the syllabus or the decision???
3. What gives YOU the right, as a single solitary person, who is not a lawyer or judge, to tell people here about a legal theory which says that Mark Rubio and Bobby Jindal are NOT eligible to run for president or VP, WITHOUT TELLING EVERYBODY HERE, that this is just your theory, and maybe they should get a second opinion from a real lawyer, because courts disagree with you??? Because that sounds reasonable to me, that you should tell people this.
Here is the syllabus FROM THE MINOR COURT to make it easier for you about what they did decide:
1. The word "citizen" is often used to convey the idea of membership in a nation.
2. In that sense, women, of born of citizen parents within the jurisdiction of the United States, have always been considered citizens of the United States, as much so before the adoption of the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution as since.
3. The right of suffrage was not necessarily one of the privileges or immunities of citizenship before the adoption of the fourteenth amendment, and that amendment does not add to these privileges and immunities. It simply furnishes additional guaranty for the protection of such as the citizen already had.
4. At the time of the adoption of that amendment, suffrage was not coextensive with the citizenship of the States; nor was it at the time of the adoption of the Constitution.
5. Neither the Constitution nor the fourteenth amendment made all citizens voters.
6. A provision in a State constitution which confines the right of voting to "male citizens of the United States," is no violation of the Federal Constitution. In such a State women have no right to vote.
Where are the numbers 7 and 8 or more you think are there??? Wouldn't they be there if they ruled it, because those same Minor Judges believe:
So important a change in the condition of citizenship as it actually existed, if intended, would have been expressly declared.
1. The did reach the issue. The children of foreigners were either recognized by some authorities as citizens (with doubts) or they were naturalized under the Naturalization Act of 1790, which it talks about.
2. The syllabus recognizes that Minor’s decision was in part due to being born to citizen parents. Did you not read the syllabus before you posted it?? Second, where does it say the 14th amendment makes a “New class” of citizenship??
3. I’m only pointing out what the cases say. You need to argue against the citations not against the messenger.
4. You need to read the syllabus you posted. Items No 1. and No. 2 show that this case was about citizenship as well as voting rights. Further, it says in No. 2 that NBCs have always been considered citizens as much SINCE the adoption of the 14th amendment as before its adoption. IOW, the 14th amendment is irrelevant to the citizenship of NBCs. Thanks for helping me prove the point yet again. By now, it’s really time for you to admit you’re understanding was wrong. You’ve helped me to prove it.
The Plaintiffs do not mention the above United States Supreme Court authority in their complaint or brief;
I don't have access to the brief that was filed by the Plaintiffs. I don't know if the Indiana Appeals Court is accurately characterizing the argument made by the plaintiffs, although they certainly did mischaracterize it in at least one glaring aspect. That aside, this made me realize that, while Vattel is clearly a compelling authority on natural law of nations, in order to make a strong case in court, the focus needs to be on what the Supreme Court has said instead of Vattel or anyone else.
The other thing is that the more I read WKA and noticed it didn't declare the defendant to be an NBC that I started to notice how influential the Minor decision was. I had only seen the main quote from Minor, so upon further inspection, that was when I noticed that Minor rejected the 14th amendment citizenship clause for NBCs. Then, with that context, it starts making the overkill-of-a-case make sense that Gray laid out.
Under the principle of stare decisis, the Supreme Court shows great legal deference to previous decisions. This is for practical reasons. The law becomes very messy if the court frequently overturns previous decisions. It could lead to lawlessness and contempt for the judicial system. This happens enough with lower courts, so it has to be minimized by the SCOTUS.
Second, it's very difficult to justify overturning a unanimous decision. On one hand, there's a relatively well-established tradition of citizenship at birth on the basis of jus soli, but on the other hand, we have a court decision that made a point of rejecting the scope of citizenship as pertains to a Constitutional amendment. The court's reasoning in Minor contradicts the alleged common-law tradition.
The challenge then is how to uphold this so-called tradition and simultaneously NOT overturn a unanimous decision. This is why Gray goes to great lengths to look at common law, look at early citizenship cases, look at post-14th amendment citizenship cases and then look at post-14th amendment cases involving Chinese subjects.
The dissent in WKA rejected citizenship for a child born to Chinese subjects because of a treaty with the Chinese. If Gray was going to override that treaty, he couldn't do it with an arbitrary and oversimplified definition of citizenship, and he had to be careful not to overturn previous cases. Thus, he started creating shades of Gray with different terms of citizenship. NBC is reserved for those person as defined in Minor. The subject clause is refined from the Slaghterhouse, Minor and Elk cases. The treaty with China is superceded by establishing an "ancient and fundamental" rule that gives teeth to the Constitution, in particular the 14th amendment to be able to override a treaty despite the fact that the Constitution puts treaties on the same legal level as the Constitution and laws arising under the Constitution. There would be no clear supremacy of the 14th amendment, UNLESS the rule in effect is larger than the Constitution. That's what Gray tried to invoke, but in the process he left NBC untouched. He did NOT need it and he did NOT use the term in any way, shape or form to describe Ark or any person whose citizenship is dependent on the 14th amendment.