“Is not this section of the about ALIENS and only ALIENS?”
No. Just by its title it is also about “nationality,” and the nationality of children born to aliens yet possessing certain qualities is the U.S.
Rxsid quoted John Bingham’s clear statement to the house about the definition of who is a natural born citizen. Bingham never addressed natural born citizenship in S.61, which was the bill which resulted in the 14th Amendment, because it was never in doubt - never questioned. Any observations about Section 8 US Code have no foundation for conflating “native-born” citizens, such as American Indians, who weren't even made citizens by the 14th Amendment, with natural born citizens. Congressman Bingham cites Vattel in his address to the 39th Congress, (The Globe, 1866 pg1293), to explain who are citizens, but the framers left naturalization laws to be negotiated later in Congress, Article 1 Section 8, and that is just what Senate 61 was all about, stimulated by the realities of the Civil War.
Bingham explains:
1 say with some few exceptions every State In the Union does make some discrimination between citizens of the United States, either by its constitution or it statute laws, in respect of civil rights on account of race Or color. I desire. to call the attention of the House to the fact that the honorable gentleman who reported this bill in the Senate, and for whom I have the highest respect had the candor to admit to me the other day that the franchise of office,according to all the authorities, is a civil right, and in my opinion by every fair interpretation of the Constitution it can rightfully be conferred upon no man in any State save upon a citizen of the United States.
Naturalization laws in virtually every state, even his own Ohio, differed, almost all excluding everyone but white men, who were the only citizens defined in their respective naturalization laws. The states were therefore in conflict with the Declaration's assertion that 'all men' possessed inalienable rights. That is why the only definition for a class of citizenship in the Constitution is found in Article II. Until the first constitutional government had settled down, the question of who were citizens was not superseded by federal law. The parent citizens of natural born citizens were citizens based upon which of the states they immigrated to or were born in. There was no states rights issue in prescribing the ‘never doubted’ (a statement unquestioned by the justices on Minor, who made “born on the soil to parents who were its citizens” positive law. The first couple of passes made by Congress to affirm 'Civil' rights guaranteed by the Constitution did not even mention granting citizenship to those born on sovereign soil. Congressmen knew they were giving up state sovereignty by giving up naturalization statutes, but this was the end of the Civil War, and they also knew they had just lost a terrible war. So the definition of who were citizens changed. As Justice Waite explained, "about citizens there were doubts, but never as to the former".
Chief Justice Waite, to confirm Virginia Minor's status as a ‘citizen’ needed to have the common law definition for natural born citizen locked into the concrete of precedence. Rememember, almost every state had different naturalization laws. He took extra care to affirm that because Mrs Minor was a natural born citizen, she was a citizen. The 14th Amendment, based upon “a Uniform rule for naturalization,” Article 1 Section 8, opened the door for Section 8 US Code Naturalized citizens, who were naturalized at birth, native-born, but not natural born citizens, like Obama, Rubio, McCain, and Jindal.
A familiar red herring goes “but Minor didn't say that someone born to a citizen father and a mermaid mother couldn't be natural born!” The words of constitutional scholar, who also taught law at the U of Arkansas, Bill Clinton, are concise. “It depends upon what is is.” Had Justice Waite not intended exclusivity, he would have said "These included natives, or natural-born citizens..." and not "These were..." These justices were not illiterate. (There is a better ‘proof’, of my exclusivity argument pointed out by Leo Donofrio, and which I am too lazy to look up.) Including Chief Justice Marshal's citation of Vattel's statement, there were at least a dozen other uses of the definition before Minor v. Happersett, and all concurred with the 'never doubted' Waite confirmation. That is known as common-law. There were two dozen citations of Minor's definition, including Wong Kim Ark, after Minor v Happersett.
Someone, probably Tublecane, suggested that subjects and natural born subjects are not differentiated in English law. One characteristic of English law - the English don't have a Constitution - is that for most issues, serious research can turn up a counterexample. Law is not the foundation of their government; England is a Monarchy, though one that has evolved enormously since King George. The English don't permit anyone but a natural born subject to be a member of parliament. Subjects are naturalized. We have had naturalized citzens as Secretaries of State and Defense and our Congress is full of naturalized citizens. Today we even have a naturalized man in the White House, but there is hope that a return to respect for the Constitution will correct that obvioius mistake.
As bluecat6 pointed out with an example - and there are millions of valid examples - our framers anticipated attempts to undermine our republic. They would have laughed at the suggestion that the child of Sudanese nationals, born in a cave in Arizona to parents hiding until the opportunity came to kill nonbelievers, might have been given a scholarship to attend U of California where he studied microbiology in preparation creating nerve gas for prosecuting the Jihad. He regularly attended the Wahhabi Mosque in Fremont, but at 35, according to Tublecane, would be eligible to run for the presidency. From the example provided by Barack, he could hide all of his personal documents, and would regardless be a 14th Amendment citizen - an ‘anchor baby’ - eligible, according to Bret Bair and Tublecane, equivalent to a natural born citizen.
Finally, the prologue from Bret Bair, concerning the ‘puzzle’ presented by our framers: Ask anyone who uses the disclaimer “Because it was never defined in the Constitution” to name any term of art, any term, defined in the Constitution. Only one term was modified by the Constitution, ‘treason’, because of its particular application to our republic, and probably for other reason which someone here can no doubt expand upon. Our framers were literate men, all prior British subjects, who knew from experience that words change in time. The ‘Enlightenment’ which inspired the creation of the application of natural law was recorded by authors over almost two thousand years. To understand the intent of those philosophers required understanding the language familiar to the original authors, which explains why many if not most of our framers were familiar, and often fluent, in French, German, Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. How many of our leaders today reflect such erudition? The Constitution was written, as Justice Waite expressed so concisely in Minor, “At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar.” To understand it one doesn't listen to Axelrod or Bret Bair. It is necessary to read our framers, justices, and scholars from the time of the framers, to understand any term written in the Constitution. ‘Natural born citizen’ has not changed in hundreds of years, but current political operatives would like you to think it has.
One of the Obots misrepresented natural born citizenship as having been invented with the 1787 writing of the Constitution. Vattel, writing in 1758 explained the term, which is thousands of years old. The phrase, ‘natural born citizenship’, is only one associated with the definition, born on the soil of parents who were its citizens’, which doesn't mention the entity to which the soil belonged. i.e. The definition applies generally to nation states. It is sometimes described as “both jus soli and jus sanguinis citizenship.” Whether one uses birthright citizenship, or natural born citizenship, or native citizenship, or indigenous citizenship doesn't matter. Those are symbols we associate with the meaning, which is about a child born on sovereign soil to parents with the sole allegiance required for citizenship.
The claim that 14 years residence opens doors to other definitions is simply ignorance. The official Congressional historian during the Continental Congress, and one of the annual presidents of The States United, was Dr. David Ramsay, who explained that the 14 year residence clause was to insure that candidates for the presidency had been in the Colonies at least three years before the Revolution. Ramsay explained, in his Dissertation on Citizenship, "Citizenship is the inheritance of the children of those who have taken a part in the late revolution; but this is confined exclusively to the children of those who were themselves citizens." There was only state-by-state naturalization until 1867, so anyone running for the presidency before there were natural born citizens, and having been contiguously resident, would be well known, and his allegiances easily ferreted.
Suggestion: Read Minor v. Happersett. It is a treatease on citizenship. To hear all the obot issues argued and answered, from the lawyer who was the first to expose Chester Arthur's ineligibility, since Arthur used the familiar hide the birth certificate ploy to distract people, read Leo Donofrio’s blog. Leo is so disgusted with the corruption of our legal system, lack of courage and dishonesty of judges that he has suspended his law license. Donofrio shared his research as he honestly analyzed cases, disovering in the process that there was a large contingent of attorneys working to keep the citations to Minor v. Happersett a secret. The Center for American Progress knew the law and did excellent work to conceal it from the public. To follow the careful unfolding of the historical record read Mario Apuzzo’s blog. Good law is not unlike mathematics. Both are based upon intuition in that the axioms for both must be, as Descartes explained “Clear and distinct to the human reason.” Obots mostly know the truth, and thus their tactic is to lead people on goose chases. The proof is when a theorem can be constructed of axioms (or assuming its contrary results in a contradiction) or when an assertion comforms to the legal axioms provided in our Constitution. Minor v. Happersett is all you need to know. It has never been questioned, and Congress has no authority to interpret, or reinterpret a Supreme Court decision.
Bret Bair is not paid to think, or read; but if he is not ignorant, he does not want to lose his job. There are many like him. The Congressman who honestly admitted that Congress was afraid to address eligibility is showing progress. He must see from the probes of Rubio's eligibility that the public is not so naive as both party's strategists presume. Nathan Deal of Georgia said it, and was run out of Congress. Judge Thomas told us the court was avoiding the issue, but Obama's appointments will keep Scotus from hearing an eligibility appeal, even when Marshal said they must hear issues related to interpretation. Every Senator signed SR511, ‘born to citizen parents’, in April 2008. We must remember that every legislator but Deal has been complicit, and every one knows the truth. Free Republic is replacing the major media because it still manages to provide a forum where honesty is practiced by some, and dishonesty is tested by those with the time and will to learn the truth. (Which reminds to make my donation to keep it alive!)