You need to think about this for a minute. Why would court suggest this?? All you're doing is trying to come up with a clever way of not saying that Minor "rejected" her argument. "A citizen without benefit"??? Really???
Nice try but the Court in Minor V. Happersett didn’t define natural born citizenship either.
Sorry, but it did so very clearly. It asked who the citizens of the U.S were and how they became citizens. It introduced the term NBC from Art. II and THEN it said: "it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens ..." Yes, the quote is truncated but the sections before and after do not change that this IS a definition and a direct characterization of the definition with the application of the term "natural-born citizens." It also clearly said "The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens." The 14th amendment is part of the Constitution. It does NOT say who shall be natural-born citizens. This only leaves ONE class of citizens that fits the definition.
Again, this was not a case to prove her citizenship; it was a voting rights case.
Citizenship was a central part of the case. The court listed as part of HER argument, and this was affirmed more than 20 years later in WKA when it includes the establishment of Minor's citizenship as part of the holding:
Minor v. Happersett (1874), 21 Wall. 162, 166-168. The decision in that case was that a woman born of citizen parents within the United States was a citizen of the United States, although not entitled to vote, the right to the elective franchise not being essential to citizenship.
Do you NOT see the highlighted part above?? And your dismissal of Minor as a citizenship case is also disprove another 15 years after Wong Kim Ark in Luria v. United States:
Under our Constitution, a naturalized citizen stands on an equal footing with the native citizen in all respects save that of eligibility to the Presidency. Minor v. Happersett, 21 Wall. 162, 88 U. S. 165; Elk v. Wilkins, 112 U. S. 94, 112 U. S. 101; Osborn v. Bank of United States, 9 Wheat. 738, 22 U. S. 827.
That's 18 SCOTUS justices who affirmed that Minor was at least in part a citizenship case, but the Luria quotes proves it was a precedent on Art. II presidential elgibility while no citation of WKA is anywhere to be found on this issue.
As Minor, if she had been a male citizen of Missouri – born or naturalized, would have been eligible to vote, it didn’t matter how she became a citizen. Are you saying that the Court in Minor v. Happersett was saying that “NBC’s” had different voting rights from say a naturalized citizen?
No, I didn't say that at all. I said they didn't need to define her citizenship to define her voting rights, yet they did define her citizenship and they did reject the 14th amendment in conferring citizenship on her and others born in the country to citizen parents, both before and SINCE the adoption of the 14th amendment.
“The “doubt” the court mentioned it the Dicta was whether a person, male or female born here regardless of the citizenship of their parents were “Natural Born Citizens”, not that they were not citizens at all.”
They didn't say this. They said there was doubt that such persons could be considered as citizens. The sentence that mentions NBCs is used EXCLUSIVELY to characterize the first class of persons for who there is NO DOUBT they are citizens.
Note that like the Framers, the Court used “native” and “natural born” to mean the same thing.
Yes, and BOTH instances are defined as "born in the country to parents who were its citizens." This doesn't help your case.
Note the word “native” is used, not “natural”.
Yet in the cases that are cited (again notice the omission of Wong Kim Ark), native is only defined in Minor as "all children born in the country to parents who were its citizens." Again, this doesn't help your case.
Yes and No. The Court said they were “citizens”.
AND the court characterized her citizenship as being due to birth to citizen parents AND it exclusively characterized that as natural-born citizenship. Think about it this way: This court was willing to define Minor's (and all women born to citizen parents) as being eligible to the office of president, but they would not recognize a right for them to vote. If the 14th was controlling AND if it defined NBC, then there should have been no need to specify a definition of citizenship based on citizen parents. The question you need to ask yourself is why they did this unless it was material distinction.
No. The Court in WKA simply affirmed that Minor was a citizen but Kim Wong Ark’s case, unlike Minor’s, was a citizenship case under the 14th and not a voting rights case; in particular a citizenship with respect to The Chinese Exclusion Act that was passed 14 years after the Fourteenth Amendment.
You've already noted the court did not give Minor what you called the "benefit" of citizenship under the 14th amendment. IOW, you admit the decision is about defining her citizenship AND you admit the 14th amendment was not operative. The reason is because she was born to citizen parents, and you're not addressing the reason why they did this. Think about it.
Kim Wong Ark was not running for POTUS BTW.
Neither was Minor, but the court still went to Art. II to reject her 14th amendment citizenship claim.
I would also like to ask you a rather simple question, that is that if a person was born in the U.S. after the adoption of the Constitution but prior to the 14th Amendment, their citizenship not otherwise having been grandfathered in by virtue of having been residents of the U.S. at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, they were not slaves or native Indians, children of foreign diplomats – did those persons who were born here whose parents were immigrants and not naturalized citizens at the time of their birth and until sometime after said children reached the age of majority - were they ever required to become “naturalized” citizens?
This is a simple question?? I had to read it a couple of times. IIUC, I don't know what the residency and immigration laws were, but they weren't consistent from state to state. That was the benefit of the 14th amendment, but obviously it still left questions open, hence cases like Slaughterhouse, Elk, Minor, Wong Kim Ark ... etc.
So, in your “esteemed legal opinion”, was my brother born a citizen?
The SCOTUS cases say what they say. If your brother fit the 14th amendment, great. If someone needs the 14th amendment to be a citizen, that is fine, but as the court said, the 14th amendment does NOT say who shall be natural-born citizens. I'm not going to further analyze you and your family's citizenship status because you're trying to use it as an emotional wedge to an argument that isn't in your favor.
