While searching for information on the Wong Kim Ark decision this week and Mario Apuzzo’s convoluted incorrect interpretation of the case I was wondering what contemporary attorneys might have had to say about the case. I came across an article in the Literary Digest from 1899 about the Fourteenth Amendment and the current state of citizenship law. The Literary Digest published condensed versions of articles from newspapers, magazines, and other sources around the country and the world, and was one of the leading magazines in its prime. Funk & Wagnalls published it from 1890 until 1938.
The article concerned lectures on the Fourteenth Amendment and citizenship presented by New York attorney William Dameron Guthrie. Mr. Guthrie had quite an impressive resume and career. From Wikipedia:
William Dameron Guthrie (1859, San Francisco, California – 1935) was an American lawyer and educator. He was educated in Paris, in England, and at the Columbia Law School (1879-80). In his practice before the United States Supreme Court he argued the income tax, California irrigation, Illinois inheritance tax, oleomargarine, and Kansas City stockyards rate cases. He was Storrs lecturer at Yale University in 1907-08 and was Ruggles Professor of Constitutional Law at Columbia University from 1908-22. Besides his contributions to periodicals on legal and political subjects, he was author of Lectures on the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution (1898) and Introduction to American Constitutional Law (1913).
Guthrie served as president of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York from 1925 to 1927. Guthrie also served as a lawyer to the Rockefeller family.
Here is the text of the article [emphasis added]
Source: The Literary Digest – Funk and Wagnalls 1899
Page 185
CITIZENSHIP IN THE UNITED STATES II
PERTINENT to questions of citizenship arising in connection with our new acquisitions of territory, is the contention there are two separate kinds of citizenship, and that the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution guarantees throughout the United States, fundamental rights of citizenship, including voting rights of citizens of the United States. This point of view is held by William D Guthrie (one of the counsel in the income tax case), whose conclusions from exhaustive study of Supreme Court decisions, appear in lectures before the (Yale) Dwight Alumni Association which have just been published under the title “The Fourteenth Amendment”. Guthrie maintains that under the rules of constitutional interpretation, the amendments lay down general principles which must be observed; that the Mississippi plan of eliminating negro suffrage, for instance, is unconstitutional and that whenever a case directly involving the abridgment of privileges and immunities of citizens shall reach the supreme court, rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendment will be upheld.
On constitutional interpretation Mr. Guthrie says
“In construing constitutional provisions the particular or occasion out of which they grew is never controlling. The grievance or occasion may no longer exist; but the remains effective to govern and regulate analogous. Thus altho as a matter of fact the protection of the colored race was uppermost in the minds of the people when they adopted the Fourteenth Amendment, nevertheless its provisions, embodied in the organic law, became a general rule of civil and political, and established a fixed standard of governing individual rights and liberties applicable to all and to all conditions.
We quote at further length from Mr. Guthrie’s exposition of the Fourteenth Amendment.
“The first sentence provides that ‘all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside’. This provision changed the origin of federal citizenship. Prior thereto, no one could be a citizen of the United States unless a citizen of a State according to the state constitution or laws. He is now a citizen wholly irrespective of state legislation, and simply by reason of birth in the United States or naturalization under federal laws. There is therefore a twofold citizenship under our system namely federal citizenship and state citizenship. The qualifications of citizenship under state laws may be different from those required under the federal Constitution and there are rights as citizens of the United States which do not appertain to state citizenship.
“The phrase ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof’ in this clause has occasioned considerable difficulty. If the parents of a child born in the United States were citizens the meaning was clear. But what was to be the status of a child born in the United States of Indians or of Chinese or other alien parentage? In the leading case of Elk v Wilkins it was decided that an Indian born a member of one of our Indian tribes still existing and recognized as such even tho he had voluntarily separated himself from his people, and taken up his residence among the white citizens, but who did not appear to have been naturalized or taxed, was not born in the United States subject to the jurisdiction thereof, and was not a citizen. He was born subject to the jurisdiction of his tribe. This decision left in uncertainty the legal status of all others born in the United States of alien parentage. Was their citizenship to be determined by the common-law of locality of birth or was the rule of the civil law as to the allegiance of the parents to control? This question was not settled until a few weeks ago thirty years after the amendment adopted thus showing how slowly constitutional law develops the life of a nation. The common law rule has been finally affirmed by the Supreme Court in the recent case of the United States v Wong Kim Ark. The Supreme Court held that a child born in this country of Chinese parents domiciled here is a citizen of the United States by virtue of the locality of his birth. The whole subject is discussed at length in the opinions of this case. The effect of this decision is to make citizens of the United States, by virtue of the Fourteenth Amendment, all persons born in United States of alien parents and permanently domiciled here, except the children of the diplomatic representatives of foreign powers; and therefore, a male child born here of alien Chinese subjects is now eligible to the office of President, altho his parents could not be naturalized under our laws.
Mr. Guthrie correctly analyzed the Wong Kim Ark decision and what it meant just weeks after the majority opinion was delivered by Justice Gray. He also recognized that the decision settled a festering controversy (manifested by Justice Waite’s comment in the dicta of the Minor v Happersett case) as to just who were the citizens by birth or the natural born citizens. As Guthrie inferred the WKA ruling said that common-law, by place was the primary factor in determining who were natural born citizens.
Anyone who is old enough to remember the old Rowan and Martin’s Laugh In show of the late 60’s would get a kick out of this. So the next time your favorite Birther starts quoting de Vattel and tells you a natural born citizen must have two citizen parents tell them they are plain wrong and “go look that up in your Funk and Wagnalls!”
[Updated 6/29/2012] I did a bit more research on William D. Guthrie. In case you think he was some lightweight of an attorney think again (Mario Apuzzo said Guthrie was wrong in this article for example). At age 35 he was already a partner in a prestigious New York law firm. In 1894 he was one of the key attorneys along with Joseph Choate, who led a series of successfully court battles in what was known collectively as The Income Tax Cases, that led to the income tax passed by Congress in 1894, known as the Wilson-Gorman Tariff Act, being declared unconstitutional when the cases where consolidated to become Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan and Trust Co. This eventually led to the necessity of amending the Constitution before any income tax could be levied again. This was accomplished with the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment in 1913. Let’s just say if Guthrie were alive today he would be a hero of the current anti-tax group of Republicans that includes most Birthers. Oh the irony!
[Updated 7/3/2012 – More icing on the cake] The lecture by William D. Guthrie following the Supreme Court decision in Wong Kim Ark wasn’t the only article to recognize the ruling made Wong a natural born citizen. I found this article published in the American Law Register and Review written in 1896 after the favorable US District Court ruling. The article states beginning on page 206
Citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment – A decision one of the district courts of California delivered on the third of January brings to the consideration of the legal profession a not only of great importance but one also of much nicety. One Wong Kim Ark, was born in 1873, in the State of California, of parents who, though at that time residents here, were subjects the Emperor of China. His parents continued to reside here 1890, when they took permanent leave. Wong Kim Ark remained in the United States until 1894 when he departed on a visit to the land of his race. In August 1895, he returned, and applied to the Collector of the Port to be permitted to land, and his application was refused upon the sole ground that was not a citizen of this country. Upon this refusal, a petition for a writ of habeas corpus was filed for him in the district court where it was held by Morrow, J. that having been born here, he was, by virtue of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, a natural born American citizen and was being unjustly restrained of his right to return to this country.
On the very same page the writer discusses the conflict between the common law and the “international law” interpretation of citizenship by birth and specifically notes that Minor v Happersett did not settle the issue because the court refused to decide it:
At Common Law if the parent be under the actual obedience of the king and the place of the child’s birth be within the king’s obedience as well as in his dominion the child becomes a subject of the realm. But by International Law birth follows the political status of the father and of the mother when the child is illegitimate. So that it is quite evident that the proper solution of the difficulty rests upon the discernment of the true scope of the meaning of the word jurisdiction as it appears in the Constitution in the clause referred to.
This case is not altogether a new one but has been previously decided in three cases in inferior courts, Lynch v Clark ,1 Sandf Ch NY 583 1844,; Gee Fook Sing v United States, 49 Fed Rep 146 1892; In re Look Tin Sing, 21 Fed Rep 905 1884; in the last of which the opinion was rendered by the present Justice Field of the Supreme Court all three adopting the Common Law rule viz that birth within the realm is conclusive. The question seems never to have been before the Supreme Court of the United States for decision. It has however been incidentally there and in one case, Minor v Happersett, 21 Wall 168 1874, they refused to decide the point and in another The Slaughtcr House Cases, 16 Wall 73 1872, they,by a dictum, construe the clause in direct conflict with the decision of Field J when in the lower court. It is worthy of note that Justice Field dissents in the latter case.
The article goes on to discuss the need for the Supreme Court to settle the question for once and for all who was a citizen by birth, a natural born citizen, for once and for all. The question was finally settled less than two years later in the landmark decision. The definition of who was “natural born” is derived from Blackstone’s common law, and not de Vattel’s “international law” interpretation. I urge the reader to check out both sources. You can see that the legal minds of the day understood that Wong Kim Ark was ruled to be a natural born citizen, and that the case settled a question left open in Minor.
RC Radio Blog 
That quote was extremely hard to read, looks like it’s missing words mid-sentence or just been transcribed in a rush?
Thanks for catching that. Google OCR didn’t do a very good job. I will clean it up when I have time. It missed all the punctuation and many complete words. I just fixed the first paragraph.
OK, I think I fixed all the errors in the OCR of the article that I could find. There may be some missing punctuation here or there.
Reality Check,
William Dameron Guthrie could have been a brilliant attorney, but he should not have so hastily commented on the meaning of Wong Kim Ark.
First, Mr. Guthrie demonstrates that he did not understand the constitutional difference between a “natural born Citizen” and a “citizen.”
Second, he also demonstrates that he did not understand that Wong Kim Ark did not change the original meaning of a “natural born Citizen.”
Third, he also errs in adding to Wong’s holding anything about only males being eligible to be President.
Actually, the prevailing legal opinion after the lower court decision was that Wong Kim Ark was a natural born citizen so Guthrie was just repeating what had been commonly accepted for the entire history of the country – a citizen at birth was a natural born citizen. As Guthrie observed the Wong Kim Ark case and the Fourteenth Amendment ended the controversy over whether children of most aliens were natural born citizens.
I will be appending the article to include new information I have recently uncovered.
Reality Check,
Nothing like trying to win an argument by begging the question
You must have just learned that term. You have been using it like a new toy the last few days at OCT. Unfortunately, you are not using it correctly.
No, Guthrie was just a smart attorney who knew that since WKA was ruled a native born citizen that equates to natural born status – something every attorney in the country knew then and knows today except two or three with a hopeless case of confirmation bias.
When I am not busy I will post the other source.
Edited 7/3 – I just updated the article to add another opinion that WKA was found to be a natural born citizen base on the district court ruling.
Note to Mario Apuzzo:
I will not reply to comments you write at your blog concerning my articles here. If you expect a reply you need to leave those comments here. I notice that you have yet to produce even one article to support your views on either Minor or WKA that was written in the same time period.
At Mario Apuzzo’s blog a commenter named “Doublee” seems befuddled:
“Raisondete” tried to help out poor befuddled Doublee:
Then our friend Mario stepped in it:
Raisondete responded quickly:
But Mario supporter Mick can explain it:
😆
I knew we were right and I knew we were good. But I didn’t know we even control “The Google”. Maybe that is the explanation why Mario Apuzzo cannot find one single article from the late 19th century that supports his silly claims that the Supreme Court in Minor ruled that only citizens born in US soil to two citizen parents were natural born citizens and that in Wong Kim Ark they ruled him to be a “citizen of the United States” but not a natural born citizen. Yep, that would explain it. Google has purged all those articles just like Justia purged all those citations to Minor. On the other hand Mario just might be wrong.
I love the way just dismisses articles like the ones quoted above by saying “Guthrie was wrong” yet he cannot find a single source to support his views from the same period.
I note that after almost a year has passed that Mario Apuzzo has been unable to find a single contemporary scholarly article that says that the Supreme Court defined the term natural born citizen to require two citizen parents in the Minor v Happersett case. Nope he cannot find even one. The first person to come up with this completely wrong interpretation of MvH was Leo Donofrio in 2008.
Reality Check,
For your information, I first wrote on Minor v. Happersett on January 2, 2009, arguing that Obama was not a “natural born Citizen” and therefore ineligible for President because of how Minor defined a “natural-born citizen.” Robert Stevens posted my article at the web site of Attorney Orly Taitz on the same day. The article as originally written by me may be read at Ms. Taitz’s web site at http://drorly.blogspot.com/2009/01/obama-cannot-be-natural-born-citizen.html. I also have discussed the Minor case in great length all over my blog.
Also, for you information the “natural born citizen” argument was first cited and discussed in recent times by P.A. Madison, before anyone else. http://www.federalistblog.us/2008/11/natural-born_citizen_defined/ On November 8, 2008, he wrote an article in which he argued that under natural law and the law of nations, which the Founders and Framers embraced, a “natural born Citizen” is a child born to a citizen father anywhere in the world.
My position differs in that I maintain that a “natural born Citizen” is a child born in the United States or its jurisdictional equivalent to parents (plural) who are both either “natural born Citizens” or “citizens of the United States.” I first wrote on December 20, 2008: “I maintain that as it applies to being President and Commander in Chief of the United States, “natural born Citizen” means that you have to be born on U.S. soil to a mother and father who are both U.S. citizens when you are born. If one of the child’s parents is not a U.S. citizen when he or she is born, that child is not a ‘natural born Citizen.’” http://puzo1.blogspot.com/2008/12/two-constitutional-obstacles-obama-has.html.
If you were the one who first wrongly interpreted the dicta in Minor to define that only those with two citizen parents are natural born citizens and wish to claim credit for that bit of discredited nonsense then be my guest. Donofrio actually began writing about Minor v Happersett as early as December 2008 but he was not yet stating that it was definitive re natural born citizen. Leo posted this reply to Steve Marquis on his blog on December 19,2008 but later scrubbed it, probably because he later climbed down the rabbit hole on Minor with a fellow New Jersey attorney. The link I provided was from the Internet Wayback Machine. Discussions about the two citizen requirement theory and de Vattel first appeared on Free Republic in November and December 2008. So did you first learn about Minor from Leo? I suppose it was inevitable that a Birther would read Minor incorrectly and claim it defined natural born citizenship. By late 2008 it was apparent the “born in Kenya” meme was going no where and a new tactic was needed by desperate Birthers.
What is interesting is that if you had this great revelation about Minor why you didn’t even bother to cite the case when you filed Kerchner v Obama just two weeks later? 😆
How has that argument about Minor fared in the courts? Oh wait, we know how well it worked out for you don’t we? That’s not all. Others like David Farrar in Georgia (mentioned only for reference since the Georgia courts ruled that Malihi’s Birther freak show should never have been allowed), Kenneth Allen in Arizona, Tracy Fair in Maryland, and Michael Jackson in Illinois have argued Minor and the “two citizen parent” nonsense and been told it was wrong.
I take it your comment is a tacit admission that no one interpreted Minor the way most Birthers now do until Barack Obama came along and it was invented out of thin air in 2008? Gee, can’t you find even one mention anywhere from 1874 to say, 1898 that said the court defined the term natural born citizen in Minor v Happersett? I think I know the reason you cannot find such a reference. It is the elephant in the living room. It is because you are wrong.
Reality Check,
You are quite of fabricator.
(1) We heard from the Obots which includes you about how the Birthers allegedly invented the two-U.S. citizen parent argument only after Obama released his alleged long-form birth certificate on the internet in April 2011. Now you tell us that the theory was invented in late 2008. So which one is Professor?
[RC: No I have always said it was invented in 2008. You are making up crap like you usually do Mario.]
(2) You state I never cited Minor v. Happersett in the Kerchner complaint. You really are ignorant about the legal process. A complaint is not the place an attorney cites legal cases. The cases are cited in legal briefs. Check my Kerchner legal briefs and you will see it there.
[RC: You really are a first class liar aren’t you Mario? Let’s look for example at your Second Amended Complaint in Kerchner filed on February 20, 2009. You cited the following cases:
Hollister v. Soetoro
The Washington Post v Robinson
Agnew v Muskie
United States Term Limits v Thornton
Wrotnowski v Bysiewicz
Stamper v Untied States
Roy v Federal Election
Marquis v Reid
Hollander v McCain
Lightfoot v Bowen
Robinson v Bowen
Constitution Party v Lingle
Martin v Lingle
Cohen v Obama
Donofrio v Wells
Barenblatt v United States
McGrain v Daugherty
Watkins v United States
N.A.A.C.P. v Button
Texas v United States
That is 20 cases you cited in the second amended complaint and not one citation of Minor v Happersett. If you wish to continue to comment here your next comment will be an apology for calling me a liar Mario. ]
(3) I see that you are still having difficulty reading the English language. Here is what the unanimous U.S. Supreme Court clearly said in Minor:
“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.
This passage was quoted verbatim in Wong Kim Ark at page 679-80. This definition of a “natural-born citizen” was provided by our U.S. Supreme Court. This is the supreme law of the land. So you can cite all the other “authorities” (Attorney General, Secretary of States, law professors, politicians, etc.) or lower courts which might have a different opinion. The U.S. Supreme Court trumps them all.
The unanimous U.S. Supreme Court in Minor in defining a “natural-born citizen” made no reference to any English common law. And they surely did not use Blackstone’s definition of an English “natural born subject,” which contains no requirement for citizen parents. Rather, they used Vattel’s Section 212 definition of a “natural-born citizen,” which does require both birth in the country and citizen parents. What I find hard to believe is how can a university professor such as you not have the ability to read and comprehend simply written English.
[RC: And you cannot find a single article published after the Minor decision that supports that claim can you? It is you who cannot read the plain language in Minor. The court was noting that the question of citizenship for all cases had not been settled and it was not the issue in Minor. Justice Gray cited Minor v Happersett twice in the majority opinion in Wong Kim Ark. The first citation was early in the opinion to show that in Minor, Smith v Alabama, and several other cases the court had previously said they needed to turn to common law to define the meaning of terms used in the Constitution. The second citation of Minor, which you love to quote was for the exactly opposite purpose that you dishonestly try to portray. Gray quotes your favorite portion of Minor to show that the court had not excluded all children born in the United States of citizens or subjects of foreign States from citizenship. Here is the paragraph immediate preceding the quote from Minor:
So Gray said the court agreed that Minor had not excluded children like Wong from birthright citizenship. Minor is cited for those two purposes. Your reading of Gray’s opinion is quite breathtaking in its dishonesty or outright stupidity on your part in light of the fact that it has been pointed out to you multiple times by Dwight Sullivan, John Woodman, and Squeeky Fromm to name a few. Of course all you have to do is read the Ankeny decision to understand why the Wong Kim Ark decision is controlling in the definition of natural born citizen and the current President’s eligibility. ]
(4) Your statement that the “natural born Citizen” issue was not invented until 2008 is absurd. It was contended that Chester Arthur (born in 1829 in Vermont (maybe in Canada) to non-U.S. citizen parents) was not a “natural born Citizen.” The following candidates were also challenged as not being “natural born Citizens:”
[RC: You misquoted me. I said the idiotic interpretation of Minor was invented after Obama’s election in 2008 (or early 2009 if you actually came up with it) out of desperation as it became clear the President Obama was indeed born in Hawaii and not in Kenya as a few idiots claimed. You can’t produce even one article from the time after I Minor that supports your view of the case. I can produce multiple articles dating from 1898 on that support my view of Wong Kim Ark. The there all of the court decisions that you like to conveniently ignore.
Yes, there have been questions about certain candidates eligibility but in almost every case it revolved around foreign birth. You mentioned Chester Arthur. The rumors that were passed around concerned Arthur’s place of birth not his parentage. The first Republican party nominee, John Charles Fremont’s father was a French citizen and his eligibility was not questioned. It is unclear whether Spiro Agnew’s father had naturalized before he was born. No one questioned whether Agnew was an natural born citizen. As always you are wrong and easily shown to be wrong, Mario]
Christopher Schürmann (born in 1848 in New York to two non-U.S. citizen parents);
Charles Evans Hughes (born in 1862 in the U.S. to two non-U.S. citizen parents);
Barry Goldwater (born in 1909 in Arizona territory);
George Romney (born in 1907 in Mexico to two U.S. citizen parents);
Lowell Weicker (born in 1931 in France to two U.S. citizen parents);
Róger Calero (born in 1969 in Nicaragua to two non-U.S. citizen parents); and
John McCain (born 1936 in Panama to two U.S. citizen parents).
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural-born-citizen_clause .
[RC: Most of these were controversies about persons born abroad or in US territories. Some were never even questioned. The controversy about Hughes consisted of one article written by Breckenridge Long and went nowhere. Are you actually offering this in answer to my challebge? How pathetic. Try again Mario – after you apologize that is. ;)]
(5) As far as the post-Obama lower courts that you cite, they are all lower courts. Moreover, their rulings are in direct conflict with both Minor and Wong Kim Ark’s definition of a “natural-born citizen.” Finally, we have not yet heard from the U.S. Supreme Court on Obama’s eligibility.
[RC: We have heard through their refusals to take cases where his eligibility was questioned. ]
So, Reality Check, it looks like your efforts at convincing the public on the definition of a “natural born Citizen” will just keep failing. Try again.
[RC: Says the attorney whose only “win” was to escape monetary sanctions in the Third Circuit after they completely kicked out his case and who got his clock cleaned by a wet be hind the ears young attorney in Pupura. Right.
I replied to Mario’s latest nonsense inline. Unless he issues an apology for calling me a liar when I was clearly right he will no longer be allowed to comment here.
Is this the same public who elected President Barack Obama? Twice? Somebody did fail to convince the public but it ain’t RC. Mario certainly has an odd definition of success.
I think Mario’s “public” refers to the 5 or 6 regular readers of his blog.
Well, y’know, we had to have SOMETHING to do after the big “Santorium” google hits campaign! Keeping this one on the down-low though was pretty hard… oops! I’ve said too much!
Yes, shush!
Hi RC!!!
Love the new blog format!!! If you like the 1896 ALR article, get a load of the 1898 one published after WKA. Eight pages of pure smackdown against the Birfers:
http://books.google.com/books?pg=PA555&lpg=PA555&dq=law+review+articles+wong+kim+ark&id=_kgZAAAAYAAJ&ots=0VY-iUaXIu#v=onepage&q=law%20review%20articles%20wong%20kim%20ark&f=false
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Thank you Squeeky! I like this theme too. It is nice and clean. The article looks great. I will read it tonight in more detail.
Guess what Mario Apuzzo cannot find? He can’t find a single article like this from the period that agrees with his goofy theories. I have dared him to produce any articles that say Minor defined NBC or that Justice Gray said Wong could not run for president some day. He has nothing.
Apuzzo has gone even more into the weeds on Amazon on the Lakin book comments. He believes John McCain is an NBC but he cannot admit it is because of jus sanguinus alone. If he did that it would blow up his theory. So he has concocted this weird notion that because the parents were serving in the military it magically puts them on US soil anywhere! Of course even that is flawed because Roberta McCain was not in the military. I am beginning to think Mario is a stealth Obot just trying to make the Birthers look stupid. His plan is working.
He need not look further than the dissenting judge in US v Wong Kim Ark, or the appellant’s brief.
But again, Mario has to do mental ‘gymnastics’ to ignore these clear statements.
Poor birthers, history and legal precedent have no respect for their biases….
So far he has not only convinced the public but he has to support of various courts, starting all the way back with United States v Wong Kim Ark.
You really do not realize that your arguments were raised in both courts and plainly rejected? Or are you still looking for the source texts?
It sounds like Mario certainly failed to convince Prof. Kuck, host of the Immigration Hour radio program.
One you start with a false premise, the ‘explanations’ become more and more contrived. A good example of where confirmation bias results in ever more bizarre arguments (sic).
Mario Appuzo said:
I have already shown Mario’s statement was untruthful and that he cited 20 cases (without citing Minor) in his amended complaint filed in the aforementioned case. I will allow Mario to post to answer the following question: Could he please point me to the brief he filed in the Kerchener v Obama case before Judge Simandle where he cited Minor v Happersett?
Poor Mario, tangled in his own web.
I went back and reviewed the district court docket for Kerchner v Obama. I had forgotten about some of the funny things that happened in that case. It seemed to take a long tome for Apuzzo to get all the defendants properly served. I know; we have seen that before haven’t we? :LOL: Then the US Attorney filed for an extension of time to reply to the complaint. Apuzzo filed an opposition to the extension and a bunch of Birthers, including Pamela Barnett, wrote letters to Judge Simandle to ask him to the deny the extension request. Judge Simandle issued orders striking every one of those letters from the record. You could tell he was not amused with the ex parte contacts.
The case was briefed in August with a motion to dismiss filed by the USA. On October 1 Apuzzo sent a whiny letter to Judge Simandle asking why he had not rendered a decision with the Usurper sitting in the White House and Presidenting and all that. About two weeks later Simandle issued a smack-down decision.
Mario never ceases to be a source of much entertainment
“The heart and soul of plaintiffs’ action is the question of whether President Barack H. Obama (“Obama”) is an Article II “natural born Citizen” which, having satisfied the other eligibility requirements, would make him eligible to be the President and Commander in Chief of the United States. Neither the Fourteenth Amendment, nor any U.S. Supreme Court decision, nor any Act of Congress has changed the original common law definition of an Article II “natural born Citizen” (to be distinguished from a “citizen of the United States”) which is that the natives or indigenes or “natural born citizens” are those children “born in the country, of parents who are citizens.” E. de Vattel, The Law of Nations, bk 1, c. 19, sec. 212 (1758) (1759 first English translation); The Venus, 12 U.S. (8 Cranch) 253, 289 (1814) (Marshall, C.J., concurring) (cites Vattel’s definition of natural born citizens); Shanks v. Dupont, 28 U.S. 242, 245 (1830) (same definition without citing Vattel); Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162, 167-68 (1875) (same definition without citing Vattel); Ex parte Reynolds, 1879, 5 Dill., 394, 402 (same definition and cites Vattel); United States v. Ward, 42 F.320 (C.C.S.D.Cal. 1890) (same definition and cites Vattel); U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898) (only declared under the Fourteenth Amendment a child born on U.S. soil to foreign parents and subject to the jurisdiction of the United States a “citizen of the United States” and not an Article II “natural born Citizen” and Fuller, C.J, dissenting confirming Vattel’s definition of a “natural born Citizen” ); Keith v. U.S., 8 Okla. 446; 58 P. 507 (Okla. 1899) (common law rule that the offspring of free persons followed the condition of the father was applied to determine the citizenship status of a child born to a white father, a citizen of the United States, and half-breed Indian mother, with the court not even mentioning the Fourteenth Amendment as being applicable probably because of the Indian status of the child ); Rep. John Bingham (in the House on March 9, 1866, in commenting on the Civil Rights Act of 1866 which was the precursor to the Fourteenth Amendment: “[I] find no fault with the introductory clause [S 61 Bill], which is simply declaratory of what is written in the Constitution, that every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen. . . . ” Cong. Globe, 39th, 1st Session, 1291 (1866)); Sen Jacob Howard (the framer who co-wrote the Fourteenth Amendment citizenship clause stating in 1866 that the citizenship clause of the Fourteenth Amendment excluded persons born in the United States who were foreigners, aliens, or who belonged to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers. Congressional Globe, 39th Congress, 1st Session, May 30, 1866, p.2895, 2nd col.)) Plaintiffs are requesting that the Court enforce the United States Constitution, the supreme law of the land, and not allow Obama to amend the Constitution by usurpation. U.S. Const. art. VI, cl. 2; George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796.
Kerchner v. Obama, Brief of Plaintiff, pp. 1-3, filed in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, Civil Action No. 1:09-cv-00253, before Hon. Jerome B. Simandle.
Reality Check, what has gotten into you? Are you feeling well?
The first and only first time you cited Minor in the district court case then was in a reply brief you filed in opposition to the governments motion to dismiss. That was a mere sentence. You cited at least 20 cases in your second amended complaint (and the complaint is where you are supposed to make you case) and had no citation to the all so important Minor case. So when you said you only cite cases in “briefs” were you truthful or not? I rest my case. No wonder you have lost every case.
Mario’s ideas were litigated more than a century ago in United States v Wong Kim Ark, and rejected by the Courts.
Mario is still trying to figure out how he could have missed that minor detail… In the mean time, courts have also rejected Mario’s musings.
Which means that of course Mario is claiming victory…
Such a darling..
The problem is that this was litigated in United States v Wong Kim Ark and rejected, when the court observed that the term had to be understood in light of common law, which never had included jus sanguinis, but rather granted birthright citizenship to anyone born on soil, subject to our jurisdiction.
Where have you been Mario? You know all this very well and yet, you continue to argue against the Supreme Court’s rulings.
Hilarious…
What’s hilarious is that you are both hugely wrong but incapable of allowing in a little light of truth that would blind you and dispel the hallucinations that you enjoy having and promoting.
The Wong opinion doesn’t support either of your positions because it doesn’t pertain to natural citizenship, and it doesn’t grant citizenship to children of any foreigners except immigrants. They were probably 90%+ of the foreigners in America, with visitors in the single digits. The very rare child of a foreign visitor was not dealt with under the Wong opinion, yet both of your sides refuse to acknowledge that fact. What the heck is the matter with ya’ll? Facts is facts!
You must not have read the opinion and the briefs and the lower court.
Poor Adrien.
I bet you cannot even describe the Wong opinion and the arguments that led to the decision.
Adrien still arguing that he knows better than SCOTUS? What a joke he’s become!
Well, he is not alone… Others argued the same in Wong Kim Ark and the court rejected their follies.
The fact that a definition of a natural born Citizen is missing from the US Const. wasn’t an oversight, or a simple laps in judgement. The founders, framers and ratifiers of the US Const. knew perfectly well what a ‘natural born’ subject was before the American revolution.
After the War of Independence, the republican constitutional theory conceived of the individual as a Citizen and assigned sovereignty to the people. Therefore, to find the proper definition of a “natural born citizen”, we must look at this enigmatic phrase, not through the eyes of a subject, but through the eyes of a sovereign.
As sovereigns, our children would inherit their sovereignty from their fathers (partus sequitur patrem). As sovereigns, our offspring would also be natural born subjects wherever their birth occurred.
This definition of an Art. II, §1, cl. 4 natural born Citizen was reinforced by the provisions listed in the first Naturalization Act of 1790. Being the first after the US Const. was ratified only a few short months earlier, most scholars see this definition as the closest definition of a natural born Citizen the delegates to the 1787 constitutional convention had in mind when they unanimously adopted the phrase into the US Const., apparently without debate.
ex animo
davidfarrar
David Farrar said
Well that paragraph was OK but then you devolved into your magic sovereign citizen bullcrap.
The people who wrote the Constitution were well aware of what the term natural born had meant for over 100 years in English common law. That is why several state documents used the terms “natural born subject” and “natural born citizen” interchangeably after the Declaration and even after the ratification of the Constitution.
No, the language of the Naturalization Act of 1790 does not help your case either as you, Apuzzo, and others have been shown many times.
“we must look at this enigmatic phrase, not through the eyes of a subject, but through the eyes of a sovereign.”
Have you seen President Washington’s 1790 letter to the Roman Catholic clerics? He ends the letter with “[a]nd may the members of your society in America, animated alone by the pure spirit of Christianity, and still conducting themselves as the faithful subjects of our free government, enjoy every temporal and spiritual felicity.”
What with all the hoopla over becoming President, he must have forgot about the War of Independence.
NBC wrote: “You must not have read the opinion and the briefs and the lower court.
Poor Adrien.
I bet you cannot even describe the Wong opinion and the arguments that led to the decision.”
Thanks for taking pity on me mommy. I truly do need your sympathy and you are soooo good to give it. Aaaaah, and I just love the little pat on the head from the grown-up.
Speaking of being grown-up, when is your intellect going to find its way into the adult world?
If you want to do a comparison of comprehension, I suggest you turn your attention to my home page. Make a good faith effort to read the list of expositions that I’ve penned on the subject of citizenship, and then compare that to those that you’ve written. I’m sure that that’s the last thing you want to do because you don’t want to be seen as the rank amateur that you are in the arena of natural law and its legal implications.
btw, any progress on demonstrating that the document used to produce the WH pdf is not a normal, run-of-the-mill paper counterfeit like all of the other millions of counterfeits in the world? I thought not.