Replies

The Court in Minor did make a direct holding that Mrs. Minor was, in fact, a US citizen. The Court established her citizenship by definining the “class” of “natural-born citizens” as those born in the US to parents who were citizens. Then the Court included Virginia Minor in that class thereby deeming her to be a US citizen. And they did this by specifically avoiding the 14th Amendment and by specifically construing Article 2 Section 1.

The US Supreme Court clearly defined “natural-born citizen” by two independent remarks:

1. “…all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also.” First, the Court states that these persons are “citizens”. But then it makes a second statement about this class –

2. “These were natives or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners.” This class of citizens are part of a class defined as “natural-born citizens”. They are citizens, natural-born. This distinguishes them from all other citizens. If this were not the case, it would have been sufficient for the Court to stop at the first statement concerning their citizenship.

But the Court didn’t stop there. Because the Court was avoiding the 14th Amendment, the Court went to the second step and defined this class to be different from all other citizens. This class did not require the 14th Amendment to be US citizens.

Whether persons born in the US to non-citizen parents were “citizens” was not a question before the Minor Court because Mrs. Minor was natural-born, whereas Wong Kim Ark was not. The determination of his citizenship required the 14th Amendment, whereas Mrs. Minor’s did not.

It was held that Mrs. Minor was a US citizen – as the syllabus states in point 2 – because she was born in the US to parents who were citizens. This was the independent ground that springs forth precedent. (See Ogilvie Et Al., Minors v. United States, 519 U.S. 79 at 84 (1996)).