Give it a rest, any remaining Birthers are seen as people who also think they were abducted by aliens.
Thank you. Part of me wishes these birther stories would be purged from this site because they're making the rest of us look like morons.
US citizenship law distinguishes between birth citizenship and naturalized citizenship. There's no distinction within those who were born as US citizens as to whether they are are natural born or not. For anyone who believes otherwise, please post the valid sections of US code which back up that argument.
0bama was born in Hawaii to a woman who was a US citizen. He is a natural-born citizen. We don't like that, but it is the truth. Case closed.
That isn’t the definition of natural born. Both parents must be citizens so that there is no divided loyalty.
If "natural born citizen" is a synonym for "citizen," then there is no reason for adding the exception "or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution." None at all. Being a citizen is not sufficient, unless you happened to be alive when the Constitution was adopted.
So what, then, is a "natural born citizen"?
The argument is made that "natural born citizen" means the same thing that "natural born subject" means in English common law, except for the differences in meaning between a subject and a citizen. That idea is easily falsified:
The English common law did not distinguish between a "natural born subject" and a naturalized subject. "The English common law provided that an alien naturalized is "to all intents and purposes a natural born subject." Co. Litt. 129 (quoted and cited in United States v. Rhodes, 27 F.Cass. 785, 790 (1866).). Under English common law, once a person became naturalized, he or she was deemed to be a "natural born subject." Hence, under English common law a naturalized citizen was considered a "natural born subject."
Hence, giving the "natural born Citizen" clause the same meaning as a "natural born subject" would have allowed a naturalized citizen to be eligible to be President of the new Republic. But Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 mandates that only a "natural born Citizen" is eligible to be President. The clause is written as "No person except . . . shall be eligible . . ." which means that one must be a "natural born Citizen" in order to be eligible to be President, with no exceptions other than for those who were citizens when the Constitution was adopted.
The way we have interpreted the "natural born Citizen" clause since the beginning of the Republic, a naturalized citizen is not eligible to be President. But assuming the "natural born Citizen" clause had the same meaning as a "natural born subject," with the Constitution as written it would not have conveyed in any manner that a naturalized citizen was not eligible to be President. No where do we find in the Constitution any statement that a naturalized citizen is not eligible to be President. To reach this conclusion, we have always relied upon the "natural born Citizen" clause itself which we have compared with the fact that the Framers prescribed in Article I that naturalized citizens were eligible to be Senators ("nine Years a Citizen of the United States") and Representatives (seven Years a Citizen of the United States") . The manner in which the Framers provided that Senators and Representatives needed to be "Citizen of the United States" for only a certain amount of years shows that the naturalized citizen class was included within "Citizens of the United States" and not within "natural born Citizens." This shows that naturalized citizens were not part of "natural born Citizens."
So equating the meaning of a "natural born Citizen" to a "natural born subject" would have allowed naturalized persons to be President, a result that we have rejected from the beginning of the Constitutional Republic. Such a meaning would have created an exception to the "natural born Citizen" clause which would have eviscerated the clause itself. Additionally, since Congress has the power under Article I, Section 8, Clause 4 to make uniform the naturalization laws, such a meaning would have given Congress the power to decide who could be President by simply changing the naturalization requirements. The Framers, fearing that Congress would allow foreign influence to creep into the office of President if it were given the power to select the President, did not give Congress such power.
But the argument is also made that "natural born citizen" differs from "natural born subject" in only 2 ways: 1) The difference in meaning between a subject and a citizen, and 2) "natural born citizen," unlike "natural born subject," excludes naturalized citizens. But this also is easily falsified:
Firstly, as soon as a second difference is posited, the entire rationale for the argument collapses utterly. That rationale is based on the premise that US citizenship law derives directly from English common law regarding who is or is not a British subject. But if "natural born citizen" differs in meaning from "natural born subject" in any way other than is required by the fact that the US has citizens and Britain has subjects, that invalidates the only premise and justification for defining the US term based on the definition of the British term. It breaks the symmetry, and sets the precedent that the meaning can differ in other ways as well. In other words, if the meaning of the two terms differ in at least one respect other than the difference between subject and citizen, what prevents them from being different in yet a third way? Or a fourth? And so on, ad infinitum.
Secondly, the historical facts are clear and undeniable, and are strongly supported by Supreme Court rulings: English common law was the basis for the common law of the original British colonies, and then of the original States of the Union, but was not the basis for the common law of the United States Federal government.
The framers rejected the notion that the United States was under English Common Law, “The common law of England is not the common law of these States.” —George Mason one of Virginia’s delegates to the Constitutional Convention.
One reason such is the case is because the US was founded as a Constitutional Republic, not as a monarchy. The founding principles were different, and in fact were an explicit rejection of key foundational principles of English law and English government. Another issue was simply that each colony was founded at a different time, adopted English common law as its own at the moment of its founding, but then evolved its own common law going forward, independently of Great Britain and the other colonies. So there was no common "common law" among the founding States!
Finally, words and terms of art have the meanings they do because of their utility in the culture and society that uses them. New words and phrases are created with particular meanings, and existing words and phrases are given new meanings, because those new meaning serve the purposes of those who use them, and old meanings no longer do. So that raises the question of the purpose or intent of the purely American term "natural born citizen," especially in the context of the new Constitutional Republic being created by those at the Constitutional Convention.
The reason for the "natural born subject" requirement is established by John Jay’s letter to Washington in his role as chairman of the Constitutional Convention: “Permit me to hint whether it would not be wise and seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of foreigners into the administration of our national government; and to declare expressly that the command in chief of the American army shall not be given to, nor devolve on any but a natural born citizen.”
Those words irrefutably establish the fact that the Framers were worried about the undivided loyalty of the President, and thought that the requirement that he be a natural born citizen would be sufficient to prevent anyone with foreign allegiance (anyone who could be claimed as a subject or citizen of a foreign sovereign) from serving as President. But how could that be, if "natural born citizen" differs from "natural born subject" solely in the difference between a subject and a citizen? A British "natural born subject" could have multiple nationalities, and owe allegiance to multiple sovereigns. And many nations claim anyone with at least one parent (sometimes it must be the father, sometimes it must be the mother, sometimes both) who is a citizen or subject of that nation as a citizen/subject also.
Therefore, it is beyond any possibility of dispute that the only way the "natural born citizen" requirement can prevent a person from having allegiance to a foreign sovereign is if its meaning is the same as the one de Vattel defined and labelled "les naturel, ou indigenes," and which a professional translator translated into English as "natural born citizen" just a few short years after the "natural born citizen" requirement was written and ratified in the new US Constitution. Literally and normatively, the words "les naturel, ou indigenes" mean "the natural ones, the natives." So why did the translator render them into English as "natural born citizen," unless it was his expert opinion that the meaning of "natural born citizen" in the Constitution matched the meaning of the concept defined by de Vattel, where de Vattel specifies the purest form of citizenship as requiring both jus soli and jus sanguinis—with BOTH parents being citizens?
Clearly, if both your parents are citizens (or subjects) of the same sovereign, and you were born in that same sovereign's territory, then and only then is it impossible for any foreign sovereign to have a claim to your allegiance under the law of nations as commonly understood. John Jay's request to Washington makes no sense otherwise. If that reasoning is sound, then "natural born citizen" must have been intended to have the same meaning as de Vattel defined for his term-of-art phrases "les naturels, ou les indigenes."
Irrefutable point: Consider again Article II, section 1, pa. 5: "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States." That limits who may be President to persons who meet the following requirements:
Why did the Constitutional Convention include that last exception, allowing those who were citizens at the time the Constitution was adopted to be President? The ONLY POSSIBLE REASON FOR THAT EXCEPTION IS THAT WITHOUT IT, NO ONE COULD CONSTITUTIONALLY BECOME PRESIDENT, BECAUSE NO ONE COULD SATISFY THE CONSTRAINT OF BEING A NATURAL BORN CITIZEN.
Before answering that question, consider the case of Congressman Smith. He was born in South Carolina before the American Revolution. At the time of the Revolution, he was not yet an adult. His parents were British loyalists, and fought against the Revolution. But after the Revolution and the adoption of the Constitution in 1787, he was elected to Congress. But his right to be seated was challenged on the basis that he was not a citizen, due to the actions of his parents.
James Madison himself spoke in defense of the fact that Mr. Smith was a citizen. The reasoning he used is decisive with respect to understanding the reason for the exception in the Constitution to the "natural born citizen" requirement.
Madison essentially argued that Mr. Smith was a citizen because of where he was born, and because he was a minor when his parents sided with the British loyalists against the American Revolutionaries. He focused on that point, because he obviously felt that any adult who sided with the British loyalists would not qualify as citizens, regardless of where they were born (he explains the reason for that.) Bear in mind that the Constitution allows naturalized citizens to serve in Congress, there is no requirement that one have "birthright citizenship" (whose normative definition means either "jus soli" OR "jus sanguinis" citzenship (OR, not AND.)) But Madison nevertheless argued that Mr. Smith was a citizen from birth, by reason of his place of birth alone, and explicitly not due to his parentage, because (as Madison argues) his parents never were US citizens at all.
Madison's argument prevailed, and Mr. Smith was seated as a Congressman. The Congress accepted Madison's argument that Mr. Smith had birthright citizenship solely due to the location of his birth in South Carolina—when South Carolina was British Colony, and not yet a State of the United States. By that same logic, most residents of the US at the time the Constitution was adopted were native citizens of the US by their place of birth alone.
If "natural born citizen" means "born on US soil, with parents who were US citizens when their child was born," then it would in fact be true that no one alive at the time could have satisfied the "natural born citizen" requirement, in which case there is a good reason for the exception.
But if "natural born citizen" means essentially the same as "natural born subject" (differing only to the extent that a citizen differs from a subject, and also excluding those whose citizenship was acquired by naturilization) then any citizen of the US at the time the Constitution was adopted would satisfy the "natural born citizen" requirement, so there would be no need for the exception, and its inclusion in the Constitution makes no sense. No sense at all.
“0bama was born in Hawaii to a woman who was a US citizen. He is a natural-born citizen. We don’t like that, but it is the truth. Case closed.”
Try again:
The House of Representatives definition for “natural born Citizen” was read into the Congressional Record after the Civil War, without contest!
“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 Sess., 1291 (1866))”
Parent’s is PLURAL, not one BOTH. Obama’s father was NOT a US citizen, so no, Obama is NOT a natural born citizen. Obama’s father’s allegience was to a foreign country.