... but NOT natural-born citizens, and only citizens by being born to resident aliens in order to satisfy the subject clause.
Your attempt to point to the New Jersey case as some great contradiction shows how desperate your attempt to avoid the plain reading of WKA gets.
The Court cites with approval the pre-14A case of Lynch v. Clarke:
It's called dicta, and it wasn't so compelling that the NJ court could abandon the residency criteria for the parents. Out of all the citations that Gray gives in the Wong Kim Ark decision, notice how he deftly avoids giving ANY direct citation from Lynch. Gray wasn't stupid.
This comment is further proof you can't read a case beyond quote-mining particular passages.
It was undisputed that the purpose of the 14A was to make those blacks who had been born here citizens. The Court is making the point that if blacks born in the U.S. are citizens, then certainly white persons born here (like Mr. Benny) must be citizens at birth, too.
Yes, when and if born to resident aliens in satisfaction of the subject clause; nothing here says natural-born citizen.
Because a Court will always ground its decision on the strongest priniciple, and while the NJ Court appears to agree with the Lynch decision, the 14th Amendment furnishes the stronger argument upon which to base its ruling. The Court is simply focusing on the stronger of two consistent principles.
You're not helping yourself. The Minor court was presented an argument based on citizenship under the 14th amendment. Notice it didn't go into a discussion of permanent residence to satisfy the subject clause. Minor punted the 14th amendment entirely. The stronger principle for Minor is being a natural-born citizen. This principle doesn't apply at all in the NJ decision nor for Wong Kim Ark.
But I'll repeat my summary, just for fun:
Your summary is contradicted in the actual Supreme Court decisions. Gray affirmed Minor's citizenship holding. Luria affirmed the citizenship holding in Minor was directly releated to Article II eligibility.
And the way J. Gray made his "compelling argument" led the dissent complain the majority just made someone like Mr. Wong presidential eligible.
Except there was nothing in the majority argument that made someone like Ark eligible. The dissent was responding to a suggestion made in the appeal based on dicta in the lower court decision. Otherwise, the dissent AGREED on the majority's principle for making someone like Ark a citizen. The majority's affirmatiion of Minor's NBC definition clearly excluded Ark from eligibility.
And nothing in what you quote speaks about the common law. So my point holds true: the common law discussions in Parts II and III have nothing to do with the mention of the treaty in Part VI.
Your comments on common law are irrelevant. You said the court wasn't buttressing against a treaty challenge and I showed where they did.
You just skip past it and cut it out of your reply and pretend it doesn't exist.
Nonsense. You're trying to connect unconnected dots. I have a direct citation that specifically uses the term "natural-born citizen." It has a specific definition. NOTHING in what you quoted refers to natural-born citizen. Yes, England had a jus soli-based law that made children natural-born subjects, BUT it still required absolute obedience to the crown on the part of the parents. There's no analogy to this in the Constitution or U.S. law. The common law required perpetual obedience to the crown. There's no analogy to this in the U.S. The terms "subject" and "citizen" may be "precisely analogous," but the terms natural-born subject" and "natural-born citizen" are NOT. The Minor court relied on the law of nations, not English common law to define natural-born citizen. Ark cannot be a natural-born citizen, so Gray had to find a SEPARATE principle and satisfy the subject clause to supersede the treaty with China. He clearly avoids calling Ark a natural-born citizen. I know you want it to say this, but is just is NOT there.
LOL. The opinion begins at p. 649. The so-called "definition" quote comes at p. 680, midway through Part V. The opinion ends at p. 705. Most of the "natural born" references come back in Parts II and III.
Yes, but the only natural-born citizen references are to the Constituion and then to the Minor decision. And you're making my point for me. Gray went 25 pages on dicta AFTER he gave's Minor's definition. That's longer than the Minor decision was in its entirety. Do you honestly not understand that Gray had a huge legal conundrum. Should it be that difficult to define birth citizenship under the 14th amendment??
But let me ask: if this case (as you suppose) has nothing to do with consideration of Mr. Wong being "natural born," why are there over 30 references to "natural born" in the opinion?
Because it's a common phrase in English common law, and this where Gray went to create what he called "citizenship by birth" under the 14th amendment. He couldn't use "natural-born citizen" because there was a unanimous Surpreme Court decision that exclusively defined it in a manner that excluded Ark.
And this follows Gray's citation to Smith v. Rhodes:
Smith v Rhodes was commenting on the Supreme Court's holding in Shanks v Dupont, which affirmed that under the treaty of 1783, persons born in the U.S could be natural-born subjects of Great Britain, and NOT natural-born citizens. It was dependent on the allegiance (citizenship) of the parents. And this is what helps further destroy any notion that Wong Kim Ark could be a natural-born citizen.
Yes, Gray is affirming that in his view "natural born subject" and "natural born citizen" are corresponding, analogous terms.
Except that HE never actually says this NOR does the citation which was actually explaining the DIFFERENCE between these terms. It's talking about people born in the U.S. Not everyone born in the U.S. is born a U.S. citizen under that citation. The 14th amendment changes this, but only in terms of being a citizen and not being a natural-born citizen. That is excluded as Gray notes in his nod to Minor "the Constitution does NOT say who shall be natural-born citizens." You can't have it both ways.
I assert there is but one answer to that question: the "same rule" was that "every child born of alien parents was a natural born citizen."
Sorry, but Gray never says anywhere in the decision. I admire a good imagination, but that's all this is: imaginary.
And I predict your answer to this question will be a model of evasion and/or incoherence. But do try.
IOW, you're creating an excuse to be intellectually dishonest before I even reply. Sorry, but that's pathetic. Expect better of yourself. Read the decision. And try to answer this question. If Gray believed what YOU want to believe, why does he mention Virginia Minor being born to citizen parents in the holding of the Minor decision?? What would be the point??
Benny v. O'Brien doesn't say Mr. Benny WASN'T a natural born citizen. It cites Lynch v. Clarke with apparent admiration for its exhaustive treatment. The Court just found it unnecessary to go in that direction given this case was arising after passage of the 14th Amendment. And the NJ Courts lists as exceptions to the "subject to" clause "[p]ersons born in this country of foreign parents who are temporarily traveling here, and children born of persons resident here in the diplomatic service of foreign governments. Such children are, in theory, born within the allegiance of the sovereign power to which they belong or which their parents [plural] represent."
Obama having had a citizen mother and a father who was here as a resident student (not "temporarily traveling here") would no doubt pass muster with the NJ Court, too.
Once again, your attempt to throw up diversions fails.
It's called dicta, and it wasn't so compelling that the NJ court could abandon the residency criteria for the parents. Out of all the citations that Gray gives in the Wong Kim Ark decision, notice how he deftly avoids giving ANY direct citation from Lynch. Gray wasn't stupid.
Gray cites to Lynch three times, and the first of those is in direct support for Gray's contention (Part III of the opinion) that the U.S. had always followed the "same rule" as England, recognizing that children born here of alien parents were natural born citizens. Gray points out that the Lynch case was the first case where this "ancient and fundamental rule" was even questioned:
all children born within the dominion of the United States of foreign parents holding no diplomatic office became citizens at the time of their birth does not appear to have been contested or doubted until more than fifty years after the adoption of the Constitution, when the matter was elaborately argued in the Court of Chancery of New York and decided upon full consideration by Vice Chancellor Sandford in favor of their citizenship. Lynch v. Clark, (1844) 1 Sandf.Ch. 583.
Minor punted the 14th amendment entirely.
No it didn't. Most of the discussion in the opinion centers around the question whether the 14th Amendment secured to someone like V. Minor the right to vote as one of the "P&I's" of citizenship. It observes that Minor's citizenship existed prior to enactment of the 14A and that (most significantly) citizenship did not then entail the right to vote. The 14th Amendment secures citizenship rights for all persons "born or naturalized in the U.S, and subject to its jurisdiction" (which would include Mrs. Minor), but the Amendment doesn't augment those rights to include rights which didn't previously exist.
Your summary is contradicted in the actual Supreme Court decisions. Gray affirmed Minor's citizenship holding.
But Gray didn't say the Minor court answered the question as to persons born of alien parents. In fact, Gray includes in his quote the portion where J. Waite says the Court is NOT answering that question. "For the purposes of this case, it is not necessary to solve these doubts.."
Luria affirmed the citizenship holding in Minor was directly releated to Article II eligibility.
Luria affirmed Minor's statement that "native" citizens are presidential eligible. Luria left out the bit in Minor about "citizen parents" that mesmerizes you. So the question under Luria is "per the SCOTUS, who are "native-born" citizens?" The SCOTUS decision in Minor tells us that children born here of citizen parents are "native-born." And the SCOTUS decision in Wong Kim Ark tells us that persons born here of alien parents are "native born," too:
"[I]t is beyond doubt that, before the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 or the adoption of the Constitutional [p675] Amendment, all white persons, at least, born within the sovereignty of the United States, whether children of citizens or of foreigners, excepting only children of ambassadors or public ministers of a foreign government, were native-born citizens of the United States.
Except there was nothing in the majority argument that made someone like Ark eligible.
So basically the reader here is forced to a choice: either 1) both Chief Justice Fuller and Justice Harlan subscribed to a dissenting opinion which complained the majority opinion effectively makes someone like Mr. Wong (born of alien parents) presidential eligible, but both of them were too stupid to realize that nothing in the majority opinion actually said that, or 2) they both read "The same rule was in force in all the English Colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the Constitution as originally established," both see this statement follows immedately after "every child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject," and both conclude that the majority is point blank saying "every child born in the U.S. of alien parents was a natural born citizen" because that conclusion is inescapable> The dissent was urging Vattel be applied as the rule of decision. The dissent lost the battle as to the meaning of "natural born citizen."
The dissent was responding to a suggestion made in the appeal based on dicta in the lower court decision.
Horsecrap. The dissent doesn't mention the lower court opinion at all. When Fuller writes "I submit that it is unreasonable to conclude that "natural-born citizen" applied to everybody born within the geographical tract known as the United States, irrespective of circumstances" the "conclusion" he's objecting to is that of the Majority. That's what dissents do!. They take issue with the majority opinion reasoning and decision.
Your arguments smack of desperation and denial.
Otherwise, the dissent AGREED on the majority's principle for making someone like Ark a citizen.
This statement is pure stupidity. You cannot POSSIBLY have read the dissent and make this statement.
The dissent disagreed with the majority's conclusions 1) that our original Constitution's citizenship provisions traced to English/feudal law, arguing for Vattel instead and 2) that the 14th Amendment confers citizenship on children of aliens, arguing that while blacks were not subject to a foreign power, aliens who have not renounced allegiance to their homelands are still so subject. In short, the dissent disagrees with the majority on both principles upon which Gray established Wong's citizenship.
Nonsense. You're trying to connect unconnected dots.
Unconnected? Dude, you're in La-La Land here. The two statements I'm trying to get you to connect and explain are in consecutive sentences of the opinion. They couldn't possibly be any closer connected. Sheesh.
The terms "subject" and "citizen" may be "precisely analogous," . .
If I beat you over the head enough, small progress is made . .
. . . but the terms natural-born subject" and "natural-born citizen" are NOT.
You may not think so, but clearly J. Gray and the majority think so insofar as ascertaining birth status goes.
•That's the reason for the discussion about why Consitutional terminology, including "natural born citizen" (which he specifically cites) "must be interpreted in the light of the common law, the principles and history of which were familiarly known to the framers of the Constitution."He's supporting his argument that, as to children of aliens, "the same rule" applied as to "natural born citizen" as applied to "natural born subject."
•That's the reason Gray sets out to ascertain the meaning of "natural born citizen" by first tracing (Part II) its predecessor "natural born subject."
•That's the reason why Gray devotes Part III to showing that the "same rule" applied as to "natural born citizen."
•That's the reason why in Part III Gray puts NBS and NBC in side by side comparision in the Rhodes quote ("All persons born in the allegiance of the King are natural-born subjects, and all persons born in the allegiance of the United States are natural-born citizens. ")
•That's the reason Gray cites to the NC Supreme Court to say "subject" and "citizen" are "precisely analogous" terms.
The Minor court relied on the law of nations, not English common law to define natural-born citizen.
The statement in Minor you hinge your entire argument on begins "At common law . . "
Law of Nations? No, the Court mentions no such thing.
You even manage to screw up an argument based on your favorite sentence.
Ark cannot be a natural-born citizen,
Here, you're borrowing from Fuller's dissent. This is his argument. That argument LOST.
Do you honestly not understand that Gray had a huge legal conundrum.
And what legal conundrum is that? It's not that Wong can't be a NBC on account of Minor. For the upteenth time, Minor didn't purport to answer the question of NBC as to persons born of alien parents. It notes that matter is an open issue, states it has no need to address it in that case, and leave the question for another day. That day arrives with WKA, and Gray is free to answer the question the Minor court didn't answer.
Should it be that difficult to define birth citizenship under the 14th amendment??
It was a case of first impression (legal parlance for "the question hadn't come up in this way before.") So Gray undertakes to research and analyze it well. The "subject to" clause was a conundrum. If the dissent is correct that children born here of alien parents who have not renounced all ties to their homeland are not "subject to" U.S. jurisdiction and thus not citizens, then a sort of legal oddity might persist where the likes of Julia Lynch are ruled citizens under the common law, but children of non-white alien parents are ruled not-to-be citizens, despite the 14A. In which case, the 14A has failed to achieve its purpose. It's still a two-tiered citizenship world.
Gray I think perceives this problem and takes great pains to make the argument that carries the votes attain the winning majority.
Except that HE never actually says
That Gray makes a clear comparision between NBS and NBC to arrive at "the same rule"as to birth status of children of alien parents is obvious to me, to the two dissenting judges, to courts like Ankeny, and to all the other courts that have looked at WKA as to Obama and without the least hesitation cited WKA as proof Obama was NBC.
Your the only one who can't see this. It's not that you otherwise couldn't. It's just that you're desperately trying to prove a pre-conceived outcome and the WKA is the case that keeps being held up against your position.
Sorry, but Gray never says anywhere in the decision. I admire a good imagination, but that's all this is: imaginary.
He does, for those of us who know what he meant by "the same rule." Hardly, imaginary. He clearly meant something by that statement. And read in context, there's only one "rule" he could POSSIBLY mean: the rule that "every children born in the U.S. of alien parents was a natural born citizen."
You disagree. Yet you punt on answering the question yourself. That's how debate and discussion works. When there is disagreement, each side offers its view and supports that view with arguments to prove which view is the better-reasoned. Here, I have the interpretation and the argument to support it. You run away and throw up lots diversions and static.
It's called "cognitive dissonance."
IOW, you're creating an excuse to be intellectually dishonest before I even reply.
It's not an excuse. It's called a "remarkably accurate prediction." I predicted you wouldn't answer the question, and you didn't.
And try to answer this question.
I'm not playing this game where you duck questions and then turn around and demand I answer yours. You answer mine; then I'll answer yours. Fair enough? But I'll give you a hint as to my forthcoming answer: always ask "reading the citation in context, what point is the judge trying to support when he quotes the other case? Here's another hint: if you remain "mesmerized" you'll miss the point.
So, with that in mind, here it is again. Gray at the conclusion of Part II summarizes:
"therefore every child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject:"
Then in the immediate next sentence starting Part III he states:
"the same rule was in force in all the English Colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the Constitution as originally established."
Let's see if you are capable of connecting these two consecutive sentences and can answer this question: what "rule" was it that J. Gray is saying was "the same" in the U.S. which prevailed under the original Constitution?
If you merely wish to reply with "I don't know what he means by 'the same rule,'" I'll stop asking the question.