On to other things...
Therefore, as Supreme Court Justice Waite, in Minor v Happersett, as well as Justice Grey, in Elk v Wilkins concluded, there are but two paths the citizenship, either by birth or by statute. Children who are born to an alien father/mother on US soil, are citizens by statute, not by birth.
I completely agree with your second sentence. USC 8 (statute) governs aliens and naturalization.
So here is where you need to lead me by the hand...
If birth and statute are the "only" two ways to citizenship then where does the 14th Amendment fall? It's not a "statute" as it's an amendment to the Constitution.
Why did even Justice Waite have to first consider whether or not Minor fell under that amendment in ascertaining her citizenship status?
Is it that the principle of "jus solis" alone is the determining factor in order for the 14th Amendment to apply?
I'll come back to that later
So here is where you need to lead me by the hand...
If birth and statute are the “only” two ways to citizenship then where does the 14th Amendment fall?
Let's start by 1st addressing what the 14th Amendment was drafted for by going to the end of the 1st clause of it:
“No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law.”
Does the above say anything about increasing the citizenry? NO. What it tells us is that the rights of those born or naturalized, and both who are equally subject to the political jurisdiction(laws of citizenship) are not to be deprived of the freedoms that come with that citizenship. Thus the 14th is not a law for creating citizens, it is a law to protect the rights of the already existing citizens as defined by A1(naturalized) & A2(born). The opening statement is merely a declaratory statement in regards to who the 14th is meant to protect.
Why did Justice Waite have to first consider whether or not Minor fell under that amendment in ascertaining her citizenship status?
Here is the quote from Waite's opinion:
There is no doubt that women may be citizens. They are persons, and by the Fourteenth Amendment “all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” are expressly declared to be “citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.” But in our opinion it did not need this amendment to give them that position...
To determine, then, who were citizens of the United States before the adoption of the amendment, it is necessary to ascertain what persons originally associated themselves together to form the nation and what were afterwards admitted to membership.
Looking at the Constitution itself, we find that it was ordained and established by “the people of the United States,” ...
that had by Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, in which they took the name of “the United States of America,” entered into a firm league of
Page 88 U. S. 167
friendship with each other for their common defense, the security of their liberties, and their mutual and general welfare, binding themselves to assist each other against all force offered to or attack made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretense whatever ...
Disputes have arisen as to whether or not certain persons or certain classes of persons were part of the people at the time, but never as to their citizenship if they were.”[end quote]
From here Waite goes back to A1 & A2 of the Constitution because it was never questioned who the citizenry of the US was, but there was a dispute as to how it applied to the states. Some states allowed women to vote, some did not. Some states allowed blacks to vote and some did not. The reason being, the states were given constitutional power over all aspects of voting, including determining who could vote & who couldn't.
But what was the real crux of the Minor case? It was a 14th Amendment rights, not citizenship case. There was no doubt that Minor was a citizen and Justice Waite walked that out very meticulously via his expounding on A1 & A2. But the crux of the case fell on the plaintiff claiming that the 14th gave her the right to vote. Minor claimed that since she was not allowed to vote, then that meant she was being denied her right citizen. But alas, voting was not a right under the US Constitution.
One must also keep in the forefront of their minds that this was the beginning of the socialist progressive women's lib movement that would eventually lead to the decay of the family as one unit that we are faced with today. This socialist movement brought forth the 19th amendment which I personally feel needs to be abolished because it is a tool by which societies are destroyed rather than held together. Justice Wilson in his commentaries expounds on the importance of elections and how the character and knowledge of a voter either keeps a nation together or tears it apart and how a house divided is not a stable foundation in order to keep a nation united.
Thus did the court have to determine if Minor was a U.S. citizen according the the U.S. Constitution in order to make a determination of 14th Amendment rights, yes. And the court decided correctly by going to the parts of the Constitution that the 14th defines. The court then went on and ruled according to the 14th, that suffrage was not a Constitutional right protected by the 14th Amendment, thereby leaving in tact the intent of the founders of the 14th as it was meant to be. A protection Amendment, not an amendment to create an increase in citizenship by creating a new class of citizens. Born & naturalized were put in the 14th to declare what persons under A1 & A2 the US constitution is bound to protect and what those protections are which are life, liberty & property. It is merely an amendment that directly points us back to the 2nd paragraph of the Declaration of Independence. Nothing more, nothing less.