Posted on 07/03/2011 7:26:19 PM PDT by sourcery
Yes, and the answer is that until the 14th Amendment was passed and then finally applied for the first time (on this particular question) by the Court in Wong Kim Ark, it was NOT the case that anyone born in the US was Constitutionally a citizen. What was true, and what the Court meant (read carefully, now) was that US law generally granted citizenshp to anyone born here. But the law that did that was Congressional statute, which Congress had the authority to make law solely by reason of the Constitutional grant of authority to "make uniform rules regarding naturalization."
If the Constitution directly granted citizenshp to whomever was born here before the passage of the 14th Amendment, then why was the Amendment passed in the first place with the citizenship clause? Of course, the 14th Amendment has more to say, and so has other effects. What's the reason for its first clause? Remember, Marbury vs. Madison requires that every clause in the Constitution must have substantive effect. We are not allowed to assume the first clause of the 14th is redundant or does not change the law in some way.
sourcery “It’s clear you have no law degree, or you’d understand the difference between dicta and a holding.”
What’s clear, sourcery, is that you are desperately grasping for anything that will let you deny that Obama is president. Neither you nor I are constitutional scholars. One of us is pretending to be.
What of the Court’s opinion WKA is dicta? Last I heard, legal scholars were still arguing that. Your pretension to such expertise is pure fantasy. Parts of WKA that I quoted here have been cited by other courts and real legal scholars.
The Court of Appeals of Indiana took WKA as “guidance”, if not binding precedent, on the very issue in question here. The three-judge panel unanimously agreed: “Based upon the language of Article II, Section 1, Clause 4 and the guidance provided by Wong Kim Ark, we conclude that persons born within the borders of the United States are ‘natural born Citizens’ for Article II, Section 1 purposes, regardless of the citizenship of their parents.” [Ankeny v. Daniels]
No. I sincerely hope that the SCOTUS does not take up this issue until after Obama leaves. Then, and only then, would it be safe for the SCOTUS to rule he never was President. I suspect the Conservatives on the Court have decided the same, probably for the same reasons.
Lawyers and judges disagree all the time regarding what is and is not dicta. And it's common for courts (and legal briefs) to cite dicta in support of their rulings or pleadings. If it's dicta, it's not binding, but it can still be persuasive—either because of who said it, or by the force of the words themselves.
What was true, and what the Court meant (read carefully, now) was that US law generally granted citizenshp to anyone born here. But the law that did that was Congressional statute, which Congress had the authority to make law solely by reason of the Constitutional grant of authority to "make uniform rules regarding naturalization."Can you show me one or more Congressional statutes from before the 14'th Amendment that that granted citizenship to those born in the U.S.? I'd like to see them, because I doubt your history here.
If the Constitution directly granted citizenshp to whomever was born here before the passage of the 14th Amendment, then why was the Amendment passed in the first place with the citizenship clause?Because before the 14'th Amendment, citizenship by birth on the soil was governed by the individual states. The Civil War Amendments, the 13'th, 14'th, and 15'th, shifted power from the states to the federal government.
sourcery wrote: “Ankeny v.s Daniels will be overruled as in contradiction to the controlling Supreme Court precedent in Minor”
Ah, so now you are citing *imaginary* court decisions.
No, just predicting. And even including some humor. Lighten up, man.
OK, then out of the dozen or more conservative constitutional law foundations, name one who supports this idea. There is a reason why birthers have no ‘credulity.’
The lower court used incorrect language. The Supreme Court corrected the error by restating the question before the court to be (beginning of the opinion):
The question presented by the record is whether a child born in the United States, of parents of Chinese descent, who, at the time of his birth, are subjects of the Emperor of China, but have a permanent domicil and residence in the United States, and are there carrying on business, and are not employed in any diplomatic or official capacity under the Emperor of China, becomes at the time of his birth a citizen of the United States by virtue of the first clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution
The Court very correctly continues by never once uttering the phrase “natural born citizen” anywhere in the opinion.
Wong Kim Ark has been cited more than 1000 times in subsequent court decisions and as recently as 2009 concerning the natural born citizen status of Barack Obama.
The Indiana Court of Appeals ruled that it was constitutional for Obama to receive Indiana’s Electoral College votes as a natural born citizen and they based their decision, in part, on the precedent established in Wong Kim Ark.
At the Supreme Court, Justice Scalia has written in several concurrences that there are only two forms of US citizenship for all Americans: born citizenship and naturalized citizenship. There is no difference in the law between a Citizen of the United States at birth and a “natural born citizen.”
sourcery: “Actually, before the 14th Amendment, US citizenshp was limited to two classes: Those granted citizenshp by Congressional statute (which included some of those born on US soil, since there was in fact a statutory provision for that case,) and those who had natural citizenship without recourse to Congressional statute.”
I guess that means you read your own citations and found that you were wrong. On the other hand, when I wrote “before the 14’th Amendment” I overlooked the Amendment’s immediate predecessor, the Civil Rights Act of 1866.
N00b, having nothing to say is not the same as saying a negative on the issue. But we understand your need to push the current talking points strategy perhaps thought up by David Axelgreasy.
From that link:
Eligibility for office of President
According to the Constitution of the United States only natural born citizens are eligible to serve as President of the United States or as Vice President. The text of the Constitution does not define what is meant by natural born: in particular it does not specify whether there is any distinction to be made between persons whose citizenship is based on jus sanguinis (parentage) and those whose citizenship is based on jus soli (birthplace)
“No, just predicting. And even including some humor. Lighten up, man.”
Lighten up? In case you haven’t noticed, I think you guys are hilarious.
“All else is either dicta”
Yet you birthers quote Minor, which didn’t even try to determine citizenship, other than to note the woman was a citizen before the 14th Amendment passed!
The “dicta” in WKA is a recital of court cases starting from the time of the colonies, showing how NBC was used in the law. It isn’t making a decision, just showing why no one had questioned it before.
True. So everythng depends on the semantics of "natural born citizen." An issue for which the Constitutional authority to decide rests with the Supreme Court. Who decided in Minor that it means "born in the US to parents who were citizens."
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