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To: bluecat6

Minor v. Happersett has been cited for the Supreme Court in Obama eligibility appeals. The Supreme Court hasn’t yet been convinced.
Because U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark came 24 years after Minor, Wong has been considered the definitive ruling on the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment and not Minor. Wong has been cited more than 1,000 times; Minor, not so much.

The government asked the Supreme Court to rule in Wong: “Are Chinese children born in this country to share with the descendants of the patriots of the American Revolution the exalted qualification of being eligible to the Presidency of the nation, conferred by the Constitution in recognition of the importance and dignity of citizenship by birth?” If so, then verily there has been a most degenerative departure from the patriotic ideals of our forefathers; and surely in that case American citizenship is not worth having.”
http://librarysource.uchastings.edu/library/research/special-collections/wong-kim-ark/AppellantsBrief.pdf The Government (Appellant) Brief: US v Wong Kim Ark (page 18 of 20 of the pdf) Page 34 of the original


112 posted on 08/23/2013 7:51:55 PM PDT by Nero Germanicus
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To: Nero Germanicus
Because U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark came 24 years after Minor, Wong has been considered the definitive ruling on the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment and not Minor. Wong has been cited more than 1,000 times; Minor, not so much.

EXCEPT by the Supreme Court itself that cited Minor in strict reference to presidential eligibility, but NOT Wong Kim Ark. The number of times Wong Kim Ark is cited by courts doesn't trump the Supreme Court's unanimous and direct reference to presidential eligibility.

Under our Constitution, a naturalized citizen stands on an equal footing with the native citizen in all respects save that of eligibility to the Presidency. Minor v. Happersett, 21 Wall. 162, 88 U. S. 165; Elk v. Wilkins, 112 U. S. 94, 112 U. S. 101; Osborn v. Bank of United States, 9 Wheat. 738, 22 U. S. 827.

This is fatal to any notion that Wong Kim Ark is the controlling decision since Ark makes the same distinction that is mentioned in this sentence. The reason is because Wong Kim Ark answered the question you quoted from the government by deferring to the Minor decision on its definition of natural-born citizen.

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."

- - -

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 ...

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 [p680] 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.

IOW, the Wong Kim Ark decision categorically excluded any and all persons from being natural-born citizens if not born in the country to citizen parents. Those who rely on the 14th amendment for citizenship had to satisfy the subject clause by being born to parents with permanent residence and domicil. Cruz doesn't meet these conditions nor does Obama.

114 posted on 08/24/2013 12:29:20 AM PDT by edge919
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