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To: taxcontrol
Further, SCOTUS has ruled in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898) that parentage is also not the EXCLUSIVE determinate for natural born citizenship. In the ruling, SCOTUS determined that a person born within the jurisdiction of the US, regardless of the citizenship of their parents, is a natural born citizen."

They made no such ruling. Post the relevant part of the ruling here if you are so certain.

75 posted on 03/23/2015 9:39:38 AM PDT by Godebert
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To: Godebert

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/169/649/case.html

The money quote:
“All person born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

Note, no mention of parentage. Born in the US confers US citizenship at birth, thus they do not need to be naturalized and a naturally born US citizens. That is the law of the land. Disagree with it all you want, but that IS the law of the land.


88 posted on 03/23/2015 9:53:48 AM PDT by taxcontrol
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To: Godebert
169 U.S. 649 (1898)

Are you a quadriplegic?
Or otherwise unable to google that actual case reference?

103 posted on 03/23/2015 10:06:04 AM PDT by publius911 (If you like Obamacare, You'll LOVE ObamaWeb.)
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To: Godebert; taxcontrol; publius911
taxcontrol: In the ruling, SCOTUS determined that a person born within the jurisdiction of the US, regardless of the citizenship of their parents, is a natural born citizen."

Godebert: They made no such ruling. Post the relevant part of the ruling here if you are so certain.

This has been explained to you before. But once again, here it is. In WKA, Justice Horace Gray traces the meaning of the 14th Amendment's "born . . . in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction" by noting the common law origins of the phrase:

The Constitution of the United States, as originally adopted, uses the words "citizen of the United States," and "natural-born citizen of the United States." * * * The Constitution nowhere defines the meaning of these words, either by way of inclusion or of exclusion, except insofar as this is done by the affirmative declaration that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States." In this as in other respects, it must be interpreted in the light of the common law, the principles and history of which were familiarly known to the framers of the Constitution.

So, the Court explicitly links "natural born citizen" with the 14th Amendment 'born in the U.S.' language. And it indicates that the latter (the 14th Amendment) "defines" in part the meaning of the former (natural born citizen).

In Part II of his 7-part opinion, Gray traces the history of the English common law as to the status of those born within the realm to alien parents, concluding:

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.

Then starting Part III J Gray observes:

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.

This can ONLY mean (given that shortly after the Court states "natural born subject" and "natural born citizen" to be "precisely analogous" terms) that the prevailing "rule" in the U.S. was that every child born of alien parents was a "natural born citizen." There is no plausible alternative reading here.

In Part IV the Court kicks Vattel and appeal to "international law" to the sidelines as inapposite to the domestic law question of citizenship.

In Part V the Court demonstrates how "born in the U.S. . . and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" was a formal incorporation of the common law meaning of "natural born citizen" (same jus soli rule with the same exceptions, save for the addition of the additional case of Native Americans):

The real object of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, in qualifying the words, "All persons born in the United States" by the addition "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof," would appear to have been to exclude, by the fewest and fittest words (besides children of members of the Indian tribes, standing in a peculiar relation to the National Government, unknown to the common law), the two classes of cases -- children born of alien enemies in hostile occupation and children of diplomatic representatives of a foreign State -- both of which, as has already been shown, by the law of England and by our own law from the time of the first settlement of the English colonies in America, had been recognized exceptions to the fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the country. Calvin's Case, 7 Rep. 1, 18b; Cockburn on Nationality, 7; Dicey Conflict of Laws, 177; Inglis v. Sailors' Snug Harbor, 3 Pet. 99, 155; 2 Kent Com. 39, 42.

So the SCOTUS analyzes the 14th Amendment's "born . . . in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" to be an incorporation of the common law meaning within the U.S. of "natural born citizen" (which in turn derived its meaning from the English common law "natural born subject.")

So you ask for the pertinent language? There it is. If A = B, and B = C, then it follows automatically that A = C, whether the latter is stated explicitly or not. By finding that Mr. Wong was born in the U.S., and subject to its jurisdiction, the Court was equally saying he was a natural born citizen because the Court had just analyzed "born . . . in the U.S., and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" and "natural born citizen" to mean the same thing!. Chief Justice Fuller writing in dissent grasps this, complaining how the majority opinion makes someone like Wong eligible for the presidency. It's a simple exercise in logic that seems to escape Vattel birthers.

344 posted on 03/25/2015 8:03:57 AM PDT by CpnHook
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