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To: Munz
Minor v Happersett never approached the question of native born Vs natural born. It was not the question nor was it part of the answer. The question was about women voting. It declared women citizens jsut as men based upon where they were born.

Sorry, but this wrong. Virginia Minor sued for suffrage because she claimed she was a 14th amendment citizen.

"The argument is, that as a woman, born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, is a citizen of the United States and of the State in which she resides, she has the right of suffrage as one of the privileges and immunities of her citizenship, which the State cannot by its laws or constitution abridge."

The Supreme Court rejected her citizenship claim because she was a natural born citizen.

"But, in our opinion, it did not need this amendment to give them that position. Before its adoption the Constitution of the United States did not in terms prescribe who should be citizens of the United States or of the several States, yet there were necessarily such citizens without such provision."

To explain, it goes on to give a definition of natural born citizens with the requirements of jus soli and jus sanguinis criteria.

"The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, 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, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners."

Justice Waite clarifies again that he rejects Minor's claim of 14th amendment citizenship because she is already a citizen (by virtue of meeting his definition of natural born citizen).

"The fourteenth amendment did not affect the citizenship of women any more than it did of men. In this particular, therefore, the rights of Mrs. Minor do not depend upon the amendment. She has always been a citizen from her birth, and entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizenship. The amendment prohibited the State, of which she is a citizen, from abridging any of her privileges and immunities as a citizen of the United States; but it did not confer citizenship on her."

Justice Gray affirms this part of the decision, that Minor's citizenship is determined by jus soli and jus sanguinis factors.

"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, ...

Gray cited Minor's definition of natural born citizen verbatim. Those factors did NOT apply to Wong Kim Ark. Therefore Gray invented a concept that he called "citizenship by birth" which is the citizenship deriving from the 14th amendment. It is different from natural born citizenship. Gray notes that NBC is defined outside the Constitution while Citizenship by Birth is defined BY the Constitution, specifically the 14th amendment.

"In Minor v. Happersett, Chief Justice Waite, when construing, in behalf of the court, the very provision of the Fourteenth Amendment now in question, said: 'The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that.'"

"But citizenship by birth is established by the mere fact of birth under the circumstances defined in the Constitution."
The intent of the court was to define who had the right to vote. Not who had the ability to hold the highest office in the land.

Sorry, but this fails on examination of the Minor decision, in which the very reason for defining natural born citizen was to explain what the Constitution means in Art II, Sec I.

"This is apparent from the Constitution itself, for it provides [n6] that 'no person except a natural-born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President, ...'"

192 posted on 02/16/2011 2:34:49 AM PST by edge919
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To: edge919

Okay, I have spent enough time on this issue.
I read the entire transcript and what you fail to realize apparently is that the entire INTENT of the decision was to determine if a woman can vote or not. To claim anything else is just digging and stretching too far. By the courts own admission:

“For the purposes of this case it is not necessary to solve these doubts. It is sufficient for everything we have now to consider that all children born of citizen parents within the jurisdiction are themselves citizens. “

All they were interested in was the suffrage issue and not the determination of what was a natural born or native born. They really didn’t care. For them, the most part of the decision was stating that citizens are citizens. They were deciding if males or females were separate in their rights to vote.

TO illustrate that they say:

These provisions thus enacted have, in substance, been retained in all the naturalization laws adopted since. In 1855, however, the last provision was somewhat extended, and all persons theretofore born or thereafter to be born out of the limits of the jurisdiction of the United States, whose fathers were, or should be at the time of their birth, citizens of the United States, were declared to be citizens

Yet that is the exact phrase of a natural born citizen.
They are ambiguous on making any determination and offer several different excerpts to make the case that it doesn’t matter in this case.

Again, as you i am sure read, but did not quote. The court stated what it’s INTENT was in it’s decision.

“The Constitution does not define the privileges and immunities of citizens. For that definition we must look elsewhere. In this case we need not determine what they are, but only whether suffrage is necessarily one of them. “

Again: “In this case we need not determine what they are, but only whether suffrage is necessarily one of them.”

They are telling you a second time that they are not making any decision on privileges, immunities or even defining. Just making a decision on suffrage.

As for the last paragraph, you need to take the entire quote in context of what they are saying. Without it you miss the intent.

“Additions might always be made to the citizenship of the United States in two ways: first, by birth, and second, by naturalization. This is apparent from the Constitution itself, for it provides6 that ‘no person except a natural-born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President,’7 and that Congress shall have power ‘to establish a uniform rule of naturalization.’ Thus new citizens may be born or they may be created by naturalization. “

It is a good if you want to piecemeal your argument that all citizens are equal, native are the same as natural born. But as i said it is intentionally ambiguous. They did not want to make a decision on what a natural born citizen was nor did they want to make a decision on what a native citizen was. They wanted to illustrate that it didn’t matter in the context of what they were deciding .. that is suffrage.

So I don;t know exactly what your point is, or what you are deriving from this. But as a case law for an argument in court it wouldn’t weigh very heavily because of the ambiguity or the fact that they claim in two separate instances that they are NOT deciding these matters. They are only concerned with Suffrage.

Now please .. if you want to continue this. I am okay with it. But state your position clearly, I don’t need or have the time to spend my days looking up case law.
A bit more than quoting a few lines from a decision would be appreciated. As in how you think it applies or why it does not.

Again, I urge you to look at the intent of the decisions. When a court says it is NOT deciding what is or is not a natural born citizen, it really doesn’t help clarify anything.

So again, what is your point in this please?


227 posted on 02/17/2011 9:59:37 AM PST by Munz (All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.)
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