This is a continuation of the discussion of the June 5, 2009, article titled Obama Presidential Eligibility – An Introductory Primer by Stephen Tonchen. We resume at the end of his section 4:

In 1898, in the Wong Kim Ark case, the Supreme Court reexamined the “citizenship-by-birthplace-alone” theory, but did not decide whether it applied to natural born citizenship. The Court ruled that Mr. Ark was a citizen, but did not rule that he was a natural born citizen (SCOTUS in ‘Wong Kim Ark’).

This is a major gloss over one of the most sweeping surveys of citizenship ever appearing in US jurisprudence. The question before the court was whether Wong Kim Ark, born in California of Chinese subjects at a time when racist legislation (the Chinese Exclusion Act) prohibited the Chinese from becoming naturalized citizens, was a citizen. The Court said that he was. But in the majority opinion, the Court said a great many things of importance, specifically:

1. Citing Smith v. Alabama, the court said that the Constitution is framed in the language of English Common Law
2. The Court cited English Common law, saying that those born in England are natural born subjects of England, without regard for the citizenship of their parents
3. The Court asserted the equivalence of “citizen” and “subject”.

While US v. Wong did not decide the natural born citizen question, the majority opinion leads inevitably to the conclusion that those born within the United States (except the children of ambassadors) are our natural born citizens, without regard to the citizenship of their parents. (more…)