No, but the obvious source that the Court is quoting does. All your left with is an inconsequential objection over the use of an article before the noun.
The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens.It DOES NOT PROVIDE ANY KIND OF RESTRICTIVE DEFINITION. And this is plain, basic English.
The context makes it restrictive because the Court considered every known way to become a citizen. Only those born to citizens were characterized as natural-born because the Court was fulfilling what the term natural-born means in Article II:
The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that.
IOW, they gave an answer to a question.
Note what the Court distinguished natives/natural born citizens FROM: ALIENS OR FOREIGNERS.
Absolutely. This is framed in the perspective of natural law. Those persons who did not meet this definition are natural aliens or foreigners and can only become citizens through other means.
There isn't the slightest sign or hint of someone who was born a citizen, who isn't a natural born citizen.
Yes, there is ... and you quoted it:
Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first.
The "first" was exclusively characterized as natural-born. The second are persons who must have doubts resolved in order to be citizens. Think. Why would the court say there are doubts about this class, especially if they could be considered to be natural-born?? Why not just move the sentence that says "These were natives, or natural-born citizens"???
And there's not a single judge, or a single credible legal authority in the entire country who understands Minor to say what you and the other birthers claim it says.
Wong Kim Ark cited and affirmed this definition. It's why they categorically and completely avoided calling Wong Kim Ark a natural-born citizen. Luria v. United State cites Minor and not Wong Kim Ark as precedent on presidential eligibility. That makes 18 Supreme Court justices who agreed on this idea.
It is absolutely clear that the Court is referring to the phrases "natural born Citizen" and "Citizen of the United States."
Do you even think these things through before you post them. You're trying to salvage an argument about natural-born citizen by saying that "citizen of the United States" must be defined "in the light of the common law"?? Don't be ridiculous. Further, the rest of the quote after this part goes directly into a citation of the Minor decision, which Gray says was "the very provision of the Fourteenth Amendment now in question." The only thing that was in question was the citizen provision of the 14th amendment. Natural-born citizen was NOT in question because it was exclusively defined in Minor. And it clearly says that natural-born citizen is defined OUTSIDE of the Constitution, thus outside of the 14th amendment.
This means that the Wong Kim Ark decision is acknowledging the exclusive criteria that Minor used to define NBC. If it wasn't exclusive, then the definition of NBC would not have been outside of the Constitution. The only other criteria that could have applied ... you know, the class for which doubts must be resolved ... is categorically rejected from defining NBC.
The Supreme Court made a SIDE COMMENT - which is known as DICTA and is not authoritative - in The Slaughterhouse Cases that made it seem as if they thought people born in the United States of alien parents weren't citizens.
No, the Ark court took issue with Slaughterhouse because it erroneously lumped in consuls with its exclusions to the Subject clause of the 14th amendment. Gray was trying to rough out all the previous precedents regarding the 14th amendment. He's not discussing natural-born citizenship at this point. He's arguing that consuls are subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S. under the 14th amendment.
consuls, as such, and unless expressly invested with a diplomatic character in addition to their ordinary powers, are not considered as entrusted with authority to represent their sovereign in his intercourse [p679] with foreign States or to vindicate his prerogatives, or entitled by the law of nations to the privileges and immunities of ambassadors or public ministers, but are subject to the jurisdictionThe Wong Court quoted Minor v. Happersett to say, look. It's clear that the previous Supreme Court wasn't issuing any kind of ruling that children born here of alien parents are not subject to US jurisdiction (which is the only way they wouldn't be included as born citizens through the language of the 14th Amendment.
Talk about "incoherent." Certainly the Minor court did NOT rule on the subject clause, but that same court did exclude "all children born in the United States of citizens"... "from the operation of the first sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment." The Minor court didn't exclude these children because of the subject clause. It excluded them because it said "there were necessarily such citizens without such provision." Those persons born without such provision were exclusively characterized as natural-born citizens. It was a unanimous decision. Justice Gray could not ignore a unanimous holding. He had to find another means for establishing citizenship for Wong Kim Ark because he could not do it as a natural-born citizen. This is why this part of Wong Kim Ark is the final time that the term natural-born citizen is used, while the decision continues for another 25 pages.
The Court wanted to first establish that Virginia Minor, though a woman, was a United States citizen. This was relevant to the case, because if she wasn't a citizen, then she had no right to vote.
They could have done this by accepting her 14th amendment citizenship argument. They did not. If what you wanted to believe about Rawle and Bayard was true, they didn't need to talk about Minor or anyone being born to citizen parents. But they did.
We don't know about the children of aliens born here. Maybe they're citizens, too, but we're not going to talk about that because it isn't relevant to Virginia Minor's case. So let's move on."
They didn't move on. Have you not read Minor v. Happersett?? The next four paragraphs talk about how aliens, and the children of aliens, can become citizens.
You couldn't possibly come up with a comment that is more clearly dicta. It's just a side comment. And it is CLEARLY that.
It's not a side comment. The Wong Kim Ark decision gave the holding in Minor:
The decision in that case was that a woman born of citizen parents within the United States was a citizen of the United States ...
There it is again. Born of citizen parents. It's not a side comment. It's part of the holding. And you're STILL not dealing with the question I'm asking. Why do these courts feel compelled to include birth to citizen parents?? The only way that's relevant is because it exclusively satisfies the definition of natural-born.
Ah. So it's "obvious" that the Court is quoting Vattel.
Only it isn't. They themselves indicate their their source for the meaning of "natural born citizan" is THE COMMON LAW.
THE COMMON LAW. NOT SOME UNNAMED WRITER ON INTERNATIONAL LAW, WHO RANKED 30TH ON THE LIST OF WRITERS WHO INFLUENCED THE FOUNDERS.
Look, you're an idiot. You twist things to say what they obviously don't say, and then defend that. You assume that the Supreme Court is referring to an obscure passage in Vattel when it's obvious they aren't. You insist that something that was clearly not a definition WAS a comprehensive definition. You insist that something that was OBVIOUSLY and indisputably - to anyone with the slightest modicum of legal awareness - a SIDE COMMENT, was "the holding." That's IDIOTIC. And you further insist that something that would've clearly been overruled by a later comprehensive analysis of citizenship, wasn't. Once again, THAT'S IDIOTIC.
Beyond that, there is not a single competent interpreter of the law who sees things the way you do.
I don't really know what else to say, except that you are wasting people's time, including mine, with complete idiocy.
Really. Complete and total idiocy.
And this is the legacy of the birthers. A massive excursion into the popularization of utter stupidity.