I read further than I wanted, but definitely stopped at:
“...The Constitution says that the status of parents is irrelevant....”
Bull. Nothing but revisionist history. His explanation had nothing to do with the context of the Constitution. Only people who have never read The Federalist Papers and the Founders' letters would believe this.
Read my tagline. Will not vote for the ineligible Rubio, or the ineligible Obama.
This NBC stipulation is grossly unfair to those unfortunate babies born from a test tube via anonymous sperm donor. How to prove the father is a citizen?
Before revisiting Minor, we must revisit Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898) to review a clearly erroneous statement made by Justice Gray concerning the prior holding in the Minor case:
“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. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that.’ “ (Wong Kim Ark at 655.)
This unfortunate remark by Justice Gray contains a clearly erroneous statement. The Supreme Court in Minor did not construe the 14th Amendment as to the issue of citizenship. Gray is absolutely wrong.
The Court in Minor construed Article 2 Section 1, not the 14th Amendment. For over a century, it has been wrongly assumed that the Court in Minor did construe the 14th Amendment, and that the holding of Minor was later superseded by Wong Kim Ark. This is not correct.
A more careful reading of the Supreme Court’s opinion in Minor makes it clear that it did not construe the 14th Amendment with regard to the citizenship of the woman who wished to vote. The question presented was whether, since the adoption of the 14th Amendment, women had gained the right to vote.
The Supreme Court in Minor held that nowhere in the Constitution, including the 14th Amendment, was anyone, man or woman, granted a right to vote. And it was only this part of the Minor case which was superseded by the 19th Amendment.
The other issue decided by the Court in Minor required the Supreme Court to determine if the woman was, in fact, a US citizen. As to this determination, the Court did not construe the 14th Amendment. In fact, the Court specifically avoided construing the 14th Amendment with regard to her citizenship. Instead, the Supreme Court in Minor chose to construe Article 2 Section 1:
“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 …
“The fourteenth amendment did not affect the citizenship of women any more than it did of men. In this particular, therefore, the rights of Mrs. Minor do not depend upon the amendment. She has always been a citizen from her birth, and entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizenship. The amendment prohibited the State, of which she is a citizen, from abridging any of her privileges and immunities as a citizen of the United States; but it did not confer citizenship on her. That she had before its adoption.
If the right of suffrage is one of the necessary privileges of a citizen of the United States, then the constitution and laws of Missouri confining it to men are in violation of the Constitution of the United States, as amended, and consequently void. The direct question is, therefore, presented whether all citizens are necessarily voters.
JUDICIAL RESTRAINTJUDICIAL RESTRAINT
It’s important to note that the Supreme Court in Minor did not hold that all women born in the US were citizens. Only those born to citizen parents in the US were deemed to be citizens by the Court in Minor.
Since the Court was not required to construe the 14th Amendment – as to Mrs. Minor’s citizenship – the Court refrained from doing so. Instead, the Court construed Article 2 Section 1 as an independent ground by which the Court determined that Mrs. Minor was a natural-born citizen since she had been born in the US to parents who were citizens.
Those outside the natural-born citizen “class” were subject to doubt regarding US citizenship. And the Court in Minor exercised judicial restraint by avoiding that issue. When Wong Kim Ark was decided in 1898, some of those doubts were resolved in favor of US citizenship for those persons not in the class of natural-born citizens. But that case did not open the class of natural-born citizens to include persons born in the US without citizen parents.
With regard to this being binding precedent, the important point here is that Virginia Minor’s citizenship had to be established by the Court before it could move on to the voting issue. Establishing her citizenship was part of the holding. Had Mrs. Minor not been determined by the Supreme Court to be a US citizen, the Court would not have reached the issue of whether US citizens are granted a right to vote. The Court would have exercised the same judicial restraint it exercised in avoiding the 14th Amendment issue. On this point, the Court stated:
“Thus, by the Constitution, the judicial power of the United States is made to extend to controversies between citizens of different states. Under this, it has been uniformly held that the citizenship necessary to give the courts of the United States jurisdiction of a cause must be affirmatively shown on the record. Its existence as a fact may be put in issue and tried. If found not to exist, the case must be dismissed.”
WONG KIM ARK DID NOT EXPAND THE CLASS OF NATURAL BORN CITIZENS.
The Court in Wong Kim Ark did not expand the class of natural-born citizens defined in Minor. The simplest way to put it is thus:
If Wong Kim Ark had been a natural-born citizen, then the Supreme Court would never have reached the 14th Amendment issue (just as it didn’t reach it in Minor.)
That is the simplest way to accurately state the issue. Read it again:
If Wong Kim Ark had been a natural-born citizen, then the Court would never have reached the 14th Amendment issue (just as it didn’t reach it in Minor.
) Since Wong Kim Ark didn’t fit into the class of natural-born citizens as defined by Minor, the Court looked to the 14th Amendment to grant him US citizenship.
HOLDING EQUALS PRECEDENT
The direct holding of the Supreme Court in Minor set a binding precedent. Those pretending that the Supreme Court’s direct construction and definition (in Minor) of the natural-born citizen clause is dicta are mistaken. They need to review the first two points of the syllabus, which state:
“1. The word “citizen ” is often used to convey the idea of membership in a nation.
2. In that sense, women, if 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.” (Emphasis added.)
Check the words “if born of citizen parents” again. They are stated at the very top of the syllabus and more than once in the Opinion of the Court. This is a direct holding of the case. It is clearly precedent. For it not to be precedent, the Court could not have held that Mrs. Minor was a US citizen. But since that determination was part of the holding, the grounds by which they made that determination are precedent, not dicta.
It’s important to note that the Supreme Court in Minor did not hold that all women born in the US were citizens. Only those born to citizen parents in the US were deemed to be citizens by the Court in Minor.
Since the Court was not required to construe the 14th Amendment – as to Mrs. Minor’s citizenship – the Court refrained from doing so. Instead, the Court construed Article 2 Section 1 as an independent ground by which the Court determined that Mrs. Minor was a natural-born citizen since she had been born in the US to parents who were citizens.
Those outside the natural-born citizen “class” were subject to doubt regarding US citizenship. And the Court in Minor exercised judicial restraint by avoiding that issue. When Wong Kim Ark was decided in 1898, some of those doubts were resolved in favor of US citizenship for those persons not in the class of natural-born citizens. But that case did not open the class of natural-born citizens to include persons born in the US without citizen parents.
With regard to this being binding precedent, the important point here is that Virginia Minor’s citizenship had to be established by the Court before it could move on to the voting issue. Establishing her citizenship was part of the holding. Had Mrs. Minor not been determined by the Supreme Court to be a US citizen, the Court would not have reached the issue of whether US citizens are granted a right to vote. The Court would have exercised the same judicial restraint it exercised in avoiding the 14th Amendment issue. On this point, the Court stated:
“Thus, by the Constitution, the judicial power of the United States is made to extend to controversies between citizens of different states. Under this, it has been uniformly held that the citizenship necessary to give the courts of the United States jurisdiction of a cause must be affirmatively shown on the record. Its existence as a fact may be put in issue and tried. If found not to exist, the case must be dismissed.”
About Chester Arthur
Nobody knew about his father...
He hid that wee fact...
and Chester himself may have been boorn in Canada and not Vermont
and funny that the author chose to leave out Willard Mitt Romney with his Mexico born father George..
Thank you. bttt
Article 1, Section 2 - delineating the requirements for a person to become a member of the House of Representatives [emphasis added].
No person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.
Article 1, Section 3 - delineating the requirements for a person to become a member of the Senate [emphasis added].
No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
Article 2, Section 1 - delineating the requirements for a person to become President of the United States [emphasis added].
____________________________________________
The author of this piece is quite clearly NOT able familiar with the most basic of legal principles (i.e. that words in a statute have meaning), and is quite possibly not able to comprehend simple English. As the very words of the Constitution state, there is a DIFFERENT standard for one to become a member of either house of Congress on the one hand, versus that necessary to become a President. Since the main body of the Constitution was written by the same person in 1787, ratified by the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and ratified unanimously by the then-existing states of the Union between 1787 and 1789, it is beyond any question that the differing textual requirements are there for a reason. I would submit that the reason is because the drafters of the Constitution wanted to be as sure as was humanly possible that any future POTUS would be loyal to this country, and ONLY to this country - by dint of not only being a citizen, not only having been a citizen from birth, but by having both of his parents be citizens (i.e. of undivided loyalty) at the time that the future POTUS was born, so that this person would likely never have experienced divided loyalties. Of course, that is just my supposition, and is frankly irrelevant - all that matters is the words, and their meaning at the time.
The meaning of "Natural Born Citizen" at the time that the Constitution was drafted is defined by the Common Law of that era and, as many have pointed out here and elsewhere, that means being born in this country (or under its jurisdiction) to parentS who are citizens at the time of your birth.
I am a NBC, since I was born in NYC to 2 citizen-parents. My children are not, since my wife/their mother was not yet a U.S. citizen - and the fact that she is now a U.S. citizen does not change that fact barring a Constitutional Amendment.
In conclusion, the writer of the article above is "full of shit" (that's a technical legal term roughly translated as "doesn't know WTF he's talking about" or, alternatively, "dead wrong").
Any Republican that supports the DREAM act does not belong any where near the White House. If Romney had any cajones, he would get Gov Brewer to be his running mate.
Uh.....no!
just amend the constitution and create a third form of citizen which requires at either the mother or father be a citizen of the usa.
Apply it to all future births and the debate is done.
Found this while searching, taking no credit myself.
FYI...Fremont’s parents were NOT married, thus he was born illegitimate & the father’s citizenship did NOT factor in. His mother was still married to Pryor(arranged marriage) at the time as Pryor refused to giver her a divorce. Fremont’s parents didn’t marry until the old geezer died in 1838 when Fremont was 20 years old.
Want to spread rumors, better be able to back them up with facts, not crap aka misinformation cut & pasted from drconspiracy or politjab.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1272/is_2700_132/ai_108791284/
Fremont was born in Savannah, Ga., in 1813, the illegitimate son of Anne Beverley Whiting. She ran away flora a pressured marriage of convenience to elderly Major John Pryor and fell in love with a Frenchman named Jean Charles Fremon, who contemporary research suggests was a small-time politician from Quebec, Canada. Fremon possessed a number of skills, and he taught French at the esteemed William and Mary College and later at an exclusive school in Richmond, Va. He engaged in a series of secret trysts with Whiting and, when rumors of her infidelity turned into public facts, Fremon was forced to resign. Following an own confrontation with Pryor, the couple ran away together, eventually winding up in Savannah, where Charles was born. Although Anne’s family credentials went back to the American Revolution, she was virtually ostracized by the class-conscious southern society. She didn’t marry Fremon until Pryor died.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Frémont
Frémont’s mother, Anne Beverley Whiting, was the youngest daughter of socially prominent Virginia planter Col. Thomas Whiting. The colonel died when Anne was less than a year old. Her mother married Samuel Cary, who soon exhausted most of the Whiting estate. At age 17 Anne married Major John Pryor, a wealthy Richmond resident in his early 60s. In 1810 Pryor hired Charles Fremon, a French immigrant who had fought with the Royalists during the French Revolution, to tutor his wife. In July 1811 Pryor learned that Whiting and Fremon were having an affair. Confronted by Pryor, the couple left Richmond together on July 10, 1811, creating a scandal that shook city society.[6] Pryor published a divorce petition in the Virginia Patriot, in which he charged that his wife had “for some time past indulged in criminal intercourse”. Whiting and Fremon moved first to Norfolk and later settled in Savannah, Georgia. Having recently inherited slaves valued at $1,900, Whiting financed the trip and purchase of a house in Savannah by their sale. When the Virginia House of Delegates refused Pryor’s divorce petition, it was impossible for the couple to marry. In Savannah Whiting took in boarders while Fremon taught French and dancing. On January 21, 1813, their first child, John Charles Fremont, was born.[7] Their son was illegitimate, a social handicap which he overcame later with his marriage to the daughter of a powerful U.S. senator.
12 posted on 10/09/2010 6:05:29 PM PDT by patlin (Ignorance is Bliss for those who choose to wear rose colored glasses)
>> The first presidential nominee of the Republican Party, in 1856, was John Charles Fremont. <<
Come on, that was different. The Democrats certainly would never have challenged the standing of a Republican candidate back THEN. (/sarcasm)
</sarcasm>
We are doomed!
Nice try but no cigar.
He usually could be found on the Civil War threads calling Southerners Nazis, democrats and traitors. He got zotted for being a garden variety liberal troll.
Good, I’m glad all that is cleared up. Rubio was born on US soil. Period, end of story.
Just like any Hispanic who waddles into a San Diego hospital to birth her child or the Korean moms that visit on 3-month shopping visits, their children are American citizens. Can’t say I like that much latitude, these days, but thems the rules, like it or not.
Eligibility for election to a federal office doesn’t change the equation.
Actually Insane John is a natural born citizen because his American born parents were stationed overseas and serving the United States Armed Forces in Panama at the time John was born. I recall grade school in Ramstein 1966. My sister was born there and they clearly taught us that she had all rights including the right to be President.