Let us now examine what Obamas enablers are peddling on this blog. They must and do attack the Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1875) decision on two fronts. First, they argue that the definition of a natural-born citizen given by the Court is dicta and therefore not binding precedent. But they are wrong. In Minor, the U.S. Supreme Court had to decide whether Virginia Minor, a woman, was a citizen in order to determine whether as a citizen she enjoyed a constitutional right to vote under the privileges and immunities clause of Article IV. So the Court reasoned that once she was shown to be a citizen, it did not matter that she was a woman, unless Missouri could still disqualify a woman from voting because being a citizen did not guarantee any person the right to vote. It does not matter whether the Court chose to say that Minor was a natural born Citizen or just a citizen. Either way, Virginia Minor would advance to the next step in the analysis which was whether as a citizen she had the right to vote which Missouri could not abrogate. The Court chose the natural-born citizen path. It thoroughly analyzed and considered what a natural-born citizen was and after saying that it is a child born in the country to citizen parents, found that Virginia Minor was a natural-born citizen and therefore also a citizen. After the Court told us what a natural-born citizen was, it then made the comment about there being doubts as to whether a child born in the country to alien parents was even a citizen. The Court said that it was not necessary for it to decide that question and it did not because Virginia Minor was a natural-born citizen which necessarily also made her a citizen. So the focus of the Courts decision regarding citizenship was in defining who the original citizens and the natural-born citizens were. The Court did not and did not have to answer the question about who was a citizen under the Fourteenth Amendment which in the question that it raised involved deciding whether a child born in the jurisdiction of the United States but to alien parents was born subject to the jurisdiction thereof. We know that this latter question concerning who was a citizen under these circumstances was answered by U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark in 1898 which also confirmed Minors definition of a natural-born citizen and analyzed whether such a child was born subject to the jurisdiction of the United States under the Fourteenth Amendment.
So as we can see, Minors analysis and discussion about citizenship was central to the Courts answering the question of whether Virginia Minor was a citizen which it answered by telling us that she was a natural-born citizen which automatically made her a citizen also. Hence, Minors discussion and decision on what a natural-born citizen is was central to the Courts holding regarding citizenship (as I explained the other holding concerned whether voting was a privilege and immunity originally guaranteed by the constitutions privileges and immunities clause) and not dicta.
Read more:
http://puzo1.blogspot.com/2011/10/how-obamas-enablers-mislead-public-on.html