Hmmm...quoting Secretary of States, or the US Supreme Court...who gets to say what the Constitution means?
Further, I learned a long time ago that birthers parrot supposed cases without ever learning the facts. Unhappily, a search of “Ludwig Hausding” turns up a lot of birther parroting. Both of those examples seem to come from “A Digest of the International Law of the United States”, and both seem to involve people living in foreign countries as citizens of those foreign countries, who then claimed US citizenship to avoid military service.
If you have a fuller treatment of their cases, and in particular a court case involving them, please cough it up.
They were both born in the U.S.
The U.S. Secretaries of State rulings were that they were NOT U.S. citizens because they were subject to a foreign power at the time of their birth in the U.S.
Can you shed any more light on the fact that those two men, though BORN IN THE U.S., were ruled by the federal government to NOT be U.S. citizens at birth?
You’ll be glad to know I found the details. They were mentioned in the DISSENT of WKA. DISSENT. As in “LOSING SIDE” of a court case. IOW, over 100 years ago, those cases were REJECTED by the US Supreme Court.
“And to the same effect are the rulings of Mr. Secretary Frelinghuysen in the matter of Hausding, and Mr. Secretary Bayard in the matter of Greisser.
Hausding was born in the United States, went to Europe, and, desiring to return, applied to the minister of the United States for a passport, which was refused on the ground that the applicant was born of Saxon subjects temporarily in the United States. Mr. Secretary Frelinghuysen wrote to Mr. Kasson, our minister:
You ask “Can one born a foreign subject, but within the United States, make the option after his majority, and while still living abroad, to adopt the citizenship of his birthplace? It seems not, and that he must change his allegiance by emigration and legal process of naturalization.” Sections 1992 and 1993 of the Revised Statutes clearly show the extent of existing legislation; that the fact of birth, under circumstances implying alien subjection, establishes, of itself, no right of citizenship, and that the citizenship of a person so born is to be acquired in some legitimate manner through the operation of statute. No statute contemplates the acquisition of the declared character of an American citizen by a person not at the time within the jurisdiction of the tribunal of record which confers that character.
Greisser was born in the State of Ohio in 1867, his father being a German subject and domiciled in Germany, to which country the child returned. After quoting the act of 1866 and the Fourteenth Amendment, Mr. Secretary Bayard said:
Richard Greisser was no doubt born in the United States, but he was on his birth “subject to a foreign power,” and “not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.” He was not, therefore, under the statute and the Constitution a citizen of the United States by birth, and it is not pretended that he has any other title to citizenship.
2 Whart.Int.Dig. 399.”
That was the LOSING SIDE, quoting what the State Department had done. That is not binding precedence, nor did it persuade the US Supreme Court, which rejected it 6-2 (McKenna took no part in the consideration or decision of the case).
You might consider this case:
REGAN v. KING, Registrar of Voters
No. 22178-S
District Court, N.D. California, S.D.
49 F. Supp. 222; 1942 U.S. Dist.
July 2, 1942
Plaintiff, a citizen of the United States and of the State of California, a registered voter of San Francisco, sues the Registrar of Voters of the City and County of San Francisco, alleging that more than “2600 Japanese of the full blood born in the United States and the State of California, of alien parents born in the Empire of Japan,” are erroneously registered to vote in San Francisco. He further alleges that his rights and privileges as an elector, secured to him by law, are impaired by permitting ineligible persons [Japanese] to exercise the rights and privileges of electors of the State of California. He prays that the Registrar be directed to strike the names of all Japanese from the register of voters on the ground that they are enemy aliens, citizens of Japan, and therefore ineligible to citizenship and the right to vote.
Defendant Registrar answers that Japanese born here are citizens of the United States and as such are entitled to be registered as voters, and asks to be dismissed with his costs.
This case is exceptional because the sole question it presents to this court is one which has been definitely decided by the United States Supreme Court: Is a person of the Japanese race, born within the United States, a citizen? The question has been answered in the affirmative in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649, 18 S.Ct. 456, 42 L.Ed. 890; Morrison v. California, 291 U.S. 82, 54 S.Ct. 281, 78 L.Ed. 664; and Perkins v. Elg, 307 U.S. 325, 59 S.Ct. 884, 83 L.Ed. 1320.
Counsel for plaintiff frankly stated that he was asking this court to overrule the leading case of United States v. Wong Kim Ark, supra, because he believed the decision was erroneous. Since the decision was rendered it has been twice cited with approval by the Supreme Court in Morrison v. California, supra, and in Perkins v. Elg, supra. In the Morrison case Justice Cardozo, speaking for the Court, said [291 U.S. 82, 54 S.Ct. 283, 78 L.Ed. 664]: “A person of the Japanese race is a citizen of the United States if he was born within the United States.” In the Perkins case, Chief Justice Hughes delivering the opinion, it was held that a child born here of alien parentage becomes a citizen of the United States.
It is unnecessary to discuss the arguments of counsel. In my opinion the law is settled by the decisions of the Supreme Court just alluded to, and the action will be dismissed, with costs to the defendant.