Supreme Court Precedent Regarding the Definition of Natural Born Citizen
(Unedited)
I get more questions about United
States v. Wong Kim Ark than any other case. Recently, Steve
Marquis wrote to me and asked for a clarification about this. Steve is
the person who first sued the Washington Secretary of State back in
October. I was inspired by Steve’s action to file my own suit.
I now find this all irrelevant
since if the court was ever going to uphold the Constitution, it would have
done so by now on this issue. As I’ve stated in comments to my last blog
(which was satire people), you have no Constitution and you have no “Supreme”
court. You have a filthy corrupted snake pit which tried to protect
itself from responsibility for this issue by using clerks like brutal
praetorian guards.
But, out of respect for Steve’s
effort and the overall confusion this case has caused on the natural born
citizen issue, I’ve written the following explanation thereto in the hope that
the current court will receive no historical cover from Wong Kim Ark
as none is due.
In Wong Kim Ark, the
court thoroughly discussed “natural born citizen”. And in doing so,
Justice Gray quoted directly from the holding in a prior Supreme Court case,
Minor
v. Happersett. The following passage is a quote from Minor
as quoted by Justice Gray in Wong Kim Ark:
” ‘At common law, with the
nomenclature of which the framers of the constitution were familiar, it was
never doubted that all children born in a country, of parents who were its
citizens, became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were
natives or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens
or foreigners. 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. For the purposes of this case, it is not
necessary to solve these doubts. It is sufficient, for everything
we have now to consider, that all children, born of citizen parents within the
jurisdiction, are themselves citizens.’ Minor v. Happersett (1874) 21 Wall.
162, 166-168.”
(Emphasis added.)
Look at that, you have Justice
Gray citing the court in Minor who are themselves citing the “Laws
of Nations” definition (they didn’t directly cite that treatise but the
definition used is taken therefrom) of natural born citizen = person born
in US to “citizen parents” = nbc .
In Minor, they clearly
established who was a “natural born citizen” beyond any doubt, a definition
that does not include Obama. As to persons born in the US to foreign parents
they said, as directly quoted in Wong Kim Ark by Justice Gray, “As
to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first.“
[UPDATE: 12:11 PM
...(thanks to reader "rossalgondamer" for pointing out the
following). The Court in Minor refused to say that a person born in
the US to parents who were foreigners was a " natural born citizen" -
as I've stated in the original post here - but the reader points out that the Minor
court also refused to say whether such a person was even a "citizen"
at all.
I will add to the
reader's comment by pointing out that Justice Gray in Wong Kim Ark
cited Minor, but Minor doesn't really support the holding in Wong
Kim Ark, it's just that Gray's opinion makes it look like it does.
US History desperately
needs to consider whether Justice Gray's appointment by Chester Arthur infected
the opinion he wrote in Wong Kim Ark, since that opinion looks more and more
dodgy every day in that it has the appearance of sanitizing Chester Arthur's
citizenship problems as to POTUS eligibility since his father was not
naturalized until Chester was 14, as we recently discovered, and therefore
Chester Arthur was a British subject at the time of his birth, just like Obama.
]
For the purposes of Minor
and Wong Kim Ark, the Supreme Court didn’t need to reach the “natural
born citizen” issue as neither person was running for President, so they
rightfully punted by limiting their holdings to the issue of
whether each person was a “citizen”.
But they discussed the “natural
born citizen” issue thoroughly. Justice Gray in Wong Kim Ark
quoted this EXACT passage from Minor. And in doing so, Justice
Gray and the court punted on whether Wong Kim Ark was a “natural born
citizen” specifically limiting their holding to state that the person was a “citizen”.
There’s a clear
distinction made in the Wong Kim Ark case between “natural born
citizens” and “citizens”. Justice Gray’s majority opinion said Wong Kim
Ark was a “Citizen” but went no further than that. He cleverly evaded the
issue of whether a person born in the US to parents who weren’t citizens was a
“natural born citizen” although a lazy reader of the case might come away with
the wrong impression. (Intentional?) Since Wong Kim Ark wasn’t
running for President, they were able to punt:
“The evident intention, and the
necessary effect, of the submission of this case to the decision of the court
upon the facts agreed by the parties, were to present for determination the
single question, stated at the beginning of this opinion, namely, 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
domicile 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. For the reasons above stated, this court is of opinion that the
question must be answered in the affirmative. ” (Emphasis added.)
They held that Wong Kim Ark was a
“citizen” but they did not hold that he was a “natural born citizen”. And
Justice Gray thoroughly discussed the definition of “natural born citizen” in
his review of the Minor case wherein the Supreme Court in Minor
adopted the Laws
of Nations definition of “natural born citizen” as being the only
definition which is free of doubt.
I have stated over and again that
the Wong Kim Ark decision supports the argument that Obama is not a
natural born citizen in that the court clearly had the chance in the Wong
Kim Ark opinion to define “natural born citizen” as being inclusive of
persons born in the United States to foreign parents… but they didn’t.
And so, as is so very clearly
established by the supreme court in Minor and Wong Kim Ark,
there are now, and have always been, doubts about whether people born in the US
to foreign parents are “natural born citizens”, or, as the Court in Minor discussed,
whether such persons are even “citizens”.
Certainly, since Minor
came down in 1873 and the Supreme Court then refused to confirm or deny whether
persons born in the US to foreign parents were even citizens, then at the time
Chester Arthur ran for Vice President in 1880, the issue of whether he was even
a citizen was in doubt. The issue of whether he was a “natural born
citizen” therefore leaves no doubt. He wasn’t, and either is Obama.
But this isn’t the same United States. Back then we had a Constitution.
Now we don’t.
Those “doubts” mentioned in Minor
needed to be discussed and adjudicated by the current supreme court. But
they didn’t have the right stuff to take the issue on. And that makes
them neither supreme nor even willing to live up to their oath of office to
uphold the Constitution.
Shame on them. Shame on
this court who lacked the courage to do their job by taking on this tough issue
and having it out in open court. Not one of them had the decency to at
least issue an opinion to the nation as to why the applications were denied.
Instead of respecting the
citizens who took time, money and risk to bring these actions, those citizens
were subjected to the most bizarre clerical behavior this lawyer of seventeen
years has ever seen or could ever imagine.
This current
supreme court is a blasphemy to justice. They have no honor. They
disgust me in every fiber of my being, a sick joke to a sick country in their
silly robes and ruffles. Neither Obama nor McCain was eligible. Calero was
obviously not eligible having been removed from the ballots in five states.
The Secretaries of
several States claim no authority to remove names from ballots or to determine
who is eligible to be President, but five of them did just that as to
Calero. He was the official Socialist Workers Party candidate for
President, but the party was forced to remove his name and substitute that of
James Harris in five states.
Is this just racism
vs. Latin Americans or what?
McCain’s birth
certificate proves he was born in Colon
Hospital, city of Colon, Panama. Colon is a big city in Panama and
Colon Hospital was not part of any military installation. Calero was born
in Nicaragua.
Word up. (See image above.)
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