You really scraped the bottom of the barrel to post this articel.
First of all, it was the forst SEVEN Presidents who were grandfathered in, not eight.
Martin Van Buren, the 8th President, was the first natural born President. He was born in the country in 1782 of two American citizen parents.
Second, the author cites English common law, which was not the standard used for the Constitution. Common law of England has to do with the King and the relation of subjects to the King.
The Founders used Vattel, a French author fo the Law of Nations. The Founders had just fought a war with England and were not going to have a monarchy in any shape or form. They were the first to establish a nation without a king or queen as its head.
Third, the author conflates the terms natural born citizen and citizen as if they is no difference.
Fourth, the author shows his ignorance of the McCain situation. McCain was born of two American parents while his father was serving in the military. According To Vattel, McCain’s dad was in the service of his country, which made McCain a natural born citizen, whether McCain was born in Brooklyn or in Antarctica.
Fifth, the author does not explain how Cruz was born the citizen of three different countries, and at birth, was equally a citizen of all three. There is no logic in the world that can explain that away to leave Cruz the natural born citizen of just one of them.
Sixth, the author deliberately misconstrued what Congress does in passing an act of naturalization. The rules of naturalization are by the Constitution, given to Congress alone to determine. Congress sets the rules, including the status of those born overseas to a citizen, citizens, aliens, or a citizen and an alien. If Congress has to set the rule by which your citizenship is determined, then you are naturalized, not natural born.
Not only is the author uninformed, he deliberately uses his ignorance to misinform others. He tries to cloak his misinformation by making fun of those who question Cruz’s eligibility as ignorant, yahoos, and bitter clingers.
He just insulted more Americans than Ted Cruz has.
Even if one having only one parent can make you natural born, than using Vattel and Minor v. Happensett, it is clear that place also plays a role in the definition.
Even with his HI birth certificate, real or not has not bee determined in court, Obama pretends at least to have been born in the country. Ted Cruz can not even make that claim.
Ted is an American citizen by virtue of his mother’s American citizenship. But a citizen is not the same as a natural born citizen, otherwise the words natural born would not be in the qualifications for President. Since a citizen, with no qualifier to the term, can be a Senator or a Congressman there has to be a distinction.
Ted Cruz is recognized as a natural born citizen of Canada according to the Canadian Citizenship Act of 1946.
He is also subject to the claims of Cuba,as his father was a Cuban citizen at the time of his birth. None of this appears in the article.
The purpose of the natural born term being entered in the Constitution has provenance, being requested in writing to George Washington by John Jay, who would become the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. The reason is that the Founders knew the President was also the Commander in Chief of the military, and there is only one such person with that power, while there would be more and more Congressmen and Senators as the country expanded.
It was imperative that this Commander in Chief have the highest degree of allegiance to America as the Founders could devise.
Cruz is so fixed on being President that he would willingly risk a Constitutional crisis to become one.
For a constitutional expert, that is baffling.
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