Yes, they DID define NBC "exhaustively" ... Justice Waite gave every known way to become a citizen in the United States including naturalization of alien men, women and minors. Only one set of circumstances was defined as natural-born citizen: "all children born in the country to parents who were its citizens." They used this definition to reject Virginia Minor's argument of being a citizen by virtue of the citizen clause of the 14th amendment. What other purpose did it serve to say anything about children of citizen parents when Minor didn't claim to be born to citizen parents??
“What other purpose did it serve to say anything about children of citizen parents when Minor didn’t claim to be born to citizen parents??”
It served whatever purpose the judge had for it. Not everything they say is directly tied to the decision. It’s called obiter dictum, and it can spin off into irrelevancy easily. In this particular case, her presidential eligibility was not at issue. If they rejected her claim, obviously she was not eligible for the presidency any more than citizenship, so I hardly see how they danced around citizen parents and the 14th amendment had to do with who’s a NBC besides the children of two citizens, aside from not her.
There were not out to exhaustively define NBC status, and didn’t. They did not say outright that native borns aren’t NBCs.