First of all Minor v Happersett was made moot by passage of the 19th amendment.
Secondly the phrasing in the ruling: “Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first. For the purposes of this case, it is not necessary to solve these doubts.” is a dicta, in legal terms for those of you in Rio Linda a side note with no legal weight.
Minor v Happersett made mention that there were some doubts by some as to the citizenship status of persons born in the United States to parents were not citizens at the time of their birth, the important and relative statement by the SCOTUS was that “for purposes of this case, it is not necessary to solve these doubts”. In other words the SCOTUS in Minor v Happersett did not and never made a ruling on whether or not a person born in the United States to non-citizen parents were natural born or not, they only made passing mention that “some” had doubts and stated it was irrelevant in this case anyway.
And a subsequent ruling by the SCOTUS - United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898) ruled otherwise.
Wow. Very dishonest statement. The court stated that:
“The Constitution does not in words say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that 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. Some authorities go further and include as CITIZENS children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first. For the purposes of this case, it is not necessary to solve these doubts. It is sufficient for everything we have now to consider that all children born of citizen parents within the jurisdiction are themselves citizens. “ Read that passage very carefully, and you will see that the US Supreme Court clearly defined “natural-born citizen” by two independent remarks:
1. “…all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also.” First, the Court states that these persons are “citizens”. But then it makes a second statement about this class -
2. “These were natives or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners.” This class of citizens are part of a class defined as “natural-born citizens”. They are citizens, natural-born. This distinguishes them from all other citizens. If this were not the case, it would have been sufficient for the Court to stop at the first statement concerning their citizenship.
But the Court didn’t stop there. Because the Court was avoiding the 14th Amendment, the Court went to the second step and defined this class to be different from all other citizens. This class did not require the 14th Amendment to be US citizens.
Whether persons born in the US to non-citizen parents were “citizens” was not a question before the Minor Court because Mrs. Minor was natural-born, whereas Wong Kim Ark was not. The determination of his citizenship required the 14th Amendment, whereas Mrs. Minor’s did not.