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No. Wong Kim Ark wasn't ruled a natural born citizen. He was ruled "a citizen" ONLY.

You clearly do not understand legal precedent.

Precedent is not made up of the final declaration only. It includes all of the core reasoning of the case.

It does NOT include side comments, but it includes all of the core reasoning used to reach the decision.

So legal precedent does NOT include (for example) the one-or-two-sentence total side comment made in Minor v. Happersett about the children of aliens. Sorry, it just doesn't.

It DOES include the dozens of pages of careful analysis and core reasoning in Wong Kim Ark, since all of that was key to and led directly to the decision in the case.

And all of that core reasoning had to do with who was and was not a natural born citizen.

Earlier, I wrote this regarding US v. Wong Kim Ark:

Here are some of the major points that the Supreme Court made in that case::

"It thus clearly appears that, by the law of England for the last three centuries, beginning before the settlement of this country and continuing to the present day, aliens, while residing in the dominions possessed by the Crown of England, were within the allegiance, the obedience, the faith or loyalty, the protection, the power, the jurisdiction of the English Sovereign, and therefore every child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject unless the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign State or of an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was born.

III. The same rule was in force in all the English Colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the Constitution as originally established."

So what is this rule, when applied in the United States? That the children of aliens are "natural born SUBJECTS?"

Not exactly. The Court also clearly specifies:

The term "citizen," as understood in our law, is precisely analogous to the term "subject" in the common law, and the change of phrase has entirely resulted from the change of government. The sovereignty has been transferred from one man to the collective body of the people, and he who before was a "subject of the king" is now "a citizen of the State."

In other words, the rule, applied in the United States, is that:

"ALIENS, WHILE RESIDING IN THE DOMINIONS POSSESSED BY THE UNITED STATES, ARE WITHIN THE ALLEGIANCE, THE OBEDIENCE, THE FAITH OR LOYALTY, THE PROTECTION, THE POWER, THE JURISDICTION OF THE COLLECTIVE BODY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, AND THEREFORE EVERY CHILD BORN IN THE UNITED STATES IS A NATURAL-BORN CITIZEN UNLESS THE CHILD OF AN AMBASSADOR OR OTHER DIPLOMATIC AGENT OF A FOREIGN STATE OR OF AN ALIEN ENEMY IN HOSTILE OCCUPATION OF THE PLACE WHERE THE CHILD WAS BORN."

That is a simple substitution of everything the Court has explicitly told us we can substitute.

First they said the SAME RULE has always applied in England and then in the United States. So if we want to know the rule in the United States, we can take the wording of that rule and substitute "the United States" every place where it originally said "England."

Then they told us that "citizen" was a PRECISE ANALOGUE to "subject." So that means that when writing out the rule as it applies in the United States, we can absolutely substitute the word "citizen" every place where we see the word "subject."

And they also told us that the sovereign, or KING has been substituted for the collective body of the people of the United States. So we can make that substitution as well, when writing out what they are telling us the rule is FOR THE UNITED STATES.

All of this is very elementary use of the English language. It is unavoidable. It is inescapable, and to pretend this is not what the Court is saying is absolutely disingenuous.

It's all very straightforward. An elementary school child could understand it.

This, then, is the ruling of the Wong Kim Ark Court:

THEREFORE EVERY CHILD BORN IN THE UNITED STATES IS A NATURAL-BORN CITIZEN UNLESS THE CHILD OF AN AMBASSADOR OR OTHER DIPLOMATIC AGENT OF A FOREIGN STATE OR OF AN ALIEN ENEMY IN HOSTILE OCCUPATION OF THE PLACE WHERE THE CHILD WAS BORN.

Wong Kim Ark was not the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign state. He was not the child of an alien enemy in hostile occupation.

It is absolutely, CRYSTAL CLEAR that Wong Kim Ark fulfilled the rule that the Supreme Court said applied here, and that had ALWAYS applied here.

This is why the dissent expressed their understanding that the majority had ruled Wong Kim Ark eligible to become President. Because it is crystal clear.

It also explains why courts have repeatedly ruled Barack Obama to be a natural born citizen, and why the Supreme Court has repeatedly refused to hear any appeals from any such cases.

Because THEY ALREADY DECIDED THE ISSUE, in 1898.

It also explains why everybody with any knowledge or authority looks upon birthers as absolute kooks and nutjobs.

Some people have argued that since the Supreme Court did not explicitly state in the ruling, "Wong Kim Ark is therefore a natural born citizen of the United States," they "fell short" of finding him a natural born citizen, and only found him to be "a citizen" instead.

This claim completely and absolutely misunderstands or misrepresents how legal precedent works.

In any Supreme Court case, the core reasoning of a case, thoroughly analyzed, holds just as much precedent-making power as the final statement.

In other words, they don't have to restate a conclusion in the final statement, if they have thoroughly argued it during the reasoning of the case, and if it is central to the final conclusion. That is the case here.

We should also note that while birthers make this "they stopped short of saying Wong Kim Ark was a natural born citizen in the final statement" claim for US v Wong Kim Ark, they take the EXACT OPPOSITE approach with their pet case, Minor v. Happersett.

That case contains roughly TWO SENTENCES of side commentary which they think supports their claim. These TWO SENTENCES are not in the final summing up statement of the case. And the status of people born to non-citizens is COMPLETELY AND ABSOLUTELY IRRELEVANT to the resolution of that case, because nobody EVER suggested that Virginia Minor was the child of non-citizen parents.

Still, they insist that those two sentence of side commentary in Minor are "binding precedent," although they are completely unsupported by any authority or argument whatsoever, although they are completely irrelevant to resolving the case, and their conclusion is not explicitly stated in the final statement.

Meanwhile, they claim that the dozens and dozens of pages of careful analysis in US v. Wong Kim Ark, although absolutely core to the case's final disposition, are entirely irrelevant.

It is 100% clear to any honest person that this is a thoroughly dishonest approach to the two cases.

Or to put it another way, it is simply a way of LYING about what these cases said.

The truth is that Minor had virtually nothing to say on the subject, and US v Wong Kim Ark handed down an absolutely clear precedent that natural born citizenship does not require citizen parents for persons born on US soil.

All of this is completely unavoidable, except by going to great contortions to twist the ruling. Which of course birthers do, every day, since that is the only way they can possibly try to maintain the fantasy.

So... you can deny it all you want. But from a legal point of view, it's crystal clear that Wong was a natural born citizen.