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To: sourcery

Your quote from Wong Kim Ark does not say what you claim it does. The phrase it uses is “natural born subject.” It uses that phrase for the very good reason that it’s not ruling (making a precedential holding) about US law, rather is making a dictum about British law (about which it has no authority to rule precedentially.)


In the US government’s briefs for Wong Kim Ark, the government asked:
“The question presented by this appeal may be thus stated: Is a person born within the United States of alien parents domiciled therein a citizen thereof by the fact of his birth? The appellant maintains the negative, and in that behalf assigns as error the ruling of the district court that the respondent is a natural-born citizen.” (p.2)

The government went on to ask:
“Are Chinese children born in this country to share with the descendants of the patriots of the American Revolution the exalted qualification of being eligible to the Presidency of the nation, conferred by the Constitution in recognition of the importance and dignity of citizenship by birth? (p. 34).
http://www.scribd.com/doc/23965360/Wong-Kim-Ark-US-v-169-US-649-1898-Appellants-Brief-USA

The majority opinion in Wong did go on to say: “’Subject’ and ‘citizen’ are, in a degree, convertible terms as applied to natives; and though the term ‘citizen’ seems to be appropriate to republican freemen, yet we are, equally with the inhabitants of all other countries, ’subjects,’ for we are equally bound by allegiance and subjection to the government and law of the land.’”


74 posted on 07/04/2011 7:48:11 PM PDT by jh4freedom (Mr. "O" has got to go.)
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To: jh4freedom
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.

77 posted on 07/04/2011 7:59:07 PM PDT by sourcery (If true=false, then there would be no constraints on what is possible. Hence, the world exists.)
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