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To: Obama Exposer
But isn’t it dicta in Minor v Happersett defining a natural born citizen where it states that a citizen is born of citizen parents?

No, it IS dicta because the characterization and definition were specifically used to reject Virginia Minor's argument of being a citizen via the 14th amdendment, from which she claimed she derived her right to vote as one of the privileges and immunities of being 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 court used the NBC definition to explain that women had always been citizens and did NOT need the 14th amendment for rights as a citizen. The definition of NBC is critical to that argument:

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.
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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.
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The words "all children" are certainly as comprehensive, when used in this connection, as "all persons," and if females are included in the last they must be in the first. That they are included in the last is not denied. In fact the whole argument of the plaintiffs proceeds upon that idea.
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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.

I left out some of the extra discussion so you can get right to the heart of the Minor court's arguments. Let's summarize:

A) Minor claims that women are part of "all persons" in the 14th amendment.

B) The court says we have a citizenship definition prior to and beyond the 14th amendment (characterized as NBC), which says "all children."

C) Minor's argument is defeated because women are already included as "all children," thus they do NOT need the 14th amendment to be citizens and to derive their rights, priveleges or immunities.

D) When Waite says there are "doubts" about the second class of citizenship (children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents), he's using it as a way to separate NBC as a class that is distinct from the 14th amendment (because that second class MATCHES the 14th amendment type of citizenship at birth).

E) If the 14th amendment could be used to define NBC, there's no reason for the court to reject Minor's argument or to bring up a class of citizenship based exclusively on citizen parents.

We know this is not just dicta, because more than 20 years later, Justice Gray applies this logic and acknowledges:

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.""

When construing the 14th amendment, the Supreme Court said it does NOT say who shall be natural-born citizens. Its definition of citizenship matches the class of citizenship for which there was doubt. The first class of citizenship had no doubt, and it was specifically characterized as "natural-born citizenship" in order to satisfy what the term means in Article II of the Constitution.

The definition for NBC is not contained in the Constituiton nor in statutory law, but we have one class of citizenship characterized as natural born in a UNANIMOUS Supreme Court ruling. What compelling legal authority would allow that definition to be applied to anything BEYOND the children born in the country of citizen parents, when TWO Supreme Court cases refused to do so??

17 posted on 01/19/2012 10:14:06 AM PST by edge919
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To: edge919

Quick correction. The first part of my reply should say: “It is NOT dicta “ ... sorry for leaving out the NOT.


18 posted on 01/19/2012 10:16:01 AM PST by edge919
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To: edge919

Thanks for the clarification edge919!!


19 posted on 01/19/2012 1:37:56 PM PST by Obama Exposer
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