So much for anchor babies, huh? But..But the supreme court can make anyone a citizen, right? Wrong. Congress is given plenary power of naturalization by the Constitution.
Posted on 01/28/2018 4:18:28 PM PST by ProgressingAmerica
Timelines are devastating to progressivism.
Over the years, progressive historians have done a good job of insulating their ideology from the question of "when did this happen", by taking quotes out of context, using the power of omission, and other trickery, in order to retroactively cook the books and make some things seem older than they actually are.
The theory of the living and breathing constitution falls under this umbrella. Yet if you examine the history of progressivism itself, you once again see all of their lies on full display.
You needn't look any further than the platform of the Progressive Party. That's right. The progressives were so fed up with how difficult it was to pass amendments that the concept was embedded into their own party platform. That platform says:
AMENDMENT OF CONSTITUTIONThe Progressive party, believing that a free people should have the power from time to time to amend their fundamental law so as to adapt it progressively to the changing needs of the people, pledges itself to provide a more easy and expeditious method of amending the Federal Constitution.
Not living and breathing. All of this is very important to understand. The progressives don't want it to be more widely known that this is a doctrine that they themselves cooked up out of whole cloth. They need it to seem as if it simply "just always was".
Now, here is what former president Roosevelt wrote in explaining this:
We propose to make the process of Constitutional amendment far easier, speedier, and simpler than at present.
But this is unnecessary with a living document. No amendment is needed, that whole process can simply be circumvented with judges. He even admits this. He says:
We do not confine ourselves to mere scolding. We do not merely denounce what we do not like. We have a definite plan which has been outlined above. The courts are continuously by their decisions annulling laws which the people desire to have enacted. They are in effect continually amending the Constitution against the deliberate intent of the people who made the Constitution. Judicial amendment to the Constitution is fatally easy. Popular amendment is so difficult that at best it needs ten or fifteen years to put it through. The theory of the Constitution against which we protest takes away from the people as a whole their sovereign right to govern themselves. It deposits this right to govern the people in the hands of well meaning men who either are not elected by the people, or at least are not elected for any such purpose, who cannot be removed by the people, and who too often perversely pride themselves on having no direct responsibility to the people.
Mmmm, give me more of that propaganda. Now, many people who can't stand progressivism could find themselves sucked into this, because on the surface it sounds like really good candy. But the context is so, so important here.
Former president Roosevelt is BITCHING about the fact that as the progressives were proposing and attempting unconstitutional, totalitarian legislative BS: the courts put a halt to it. That's right! The courts in his day stood against progressivism and stood for Liberty and the Constitution. Imagine that! Courts that actually honored and respected the Constitution. Now, suddenly, that paragraph looks just as poisonous to you as it does to me. It's a paragraph that only a dictator could love.
How much better would America be if we had our courts from 100 years ago. It would be great. Constitution up! Liberty up! Tyranny down, down, down. Put it on the ash heap of history.
Now, don't think I'm only saying that it was just the Bull Moosers who put a target upon the Constitution as the finest toilet paper that money cannot buy. Frank Johnson Goodnow, a man whose ideas were highly regarded by Woodrow Wilson, who served as President of Johns Hopkins, wrote the following: (alternate)
The question which has been chosen for discussion this morning is: Can a practically unamendable constitution, adopted in the conditions and under the influences of the political thought prevailing at the end of the eighteenth century, be adapted by judicial interpretation to the needs and thought of the twentieth century without causing us to lose the advantages which are commonly regarded as attached to a written constitution?
So you see, this debate was raging amongst progressives and they increasingly came to believe that the courts were their best course for amending the constitution without ever amending it. It's devilishly, deviously brilliant. No really. How do you do something without doing it? Progressives ask this question of themselves all the time whenever they seek to impose their authority over you and your family, no matter how much you try to prevent it's happening.
Just to show that it wasn't just the high profile progressives, don't forget about Herbert Quick. Quick, who was a supporter of Wilson, also sought a way to get around that pesky, unamendable, not-living constitution. And again, in my last post I discussed Rexford Guy Tugwell, another very important progressive, who also was upset about how immovable the Constitution was.
Now, last but not least, the most important one to consider is the words of Woodrow Wilson. In 1908, when the concept of the living constitution was first introduced, Wilson pointed out the following:
The trouble with the theory is that government is not a machine, but a living thing. It falls, not under the theory of the universe, but under the theory of organic life. It is accountable to Darwin, not to Newton. It is modified by its environment, necessitated by its tasks, shaped to its functions by the sheer pressure of life. No living thing can have its organs offset against each other as checks, and live. On the contrary, its life is dependent upon their quick cooperation, their ready response to the commands of instinct or intelligence, their amicable community of purpose. Government is not a body of blind forces; it is a body of men, with highly differentiated functions, no doubt, in our modern day of specialization, but with a common task and purpose. Their cooperation is indispensable, their warfare fatal. There can be no successful government without leadership or without the intimate, almost instinctive coordination of the organs of life and action. This is not theory, but fact, and displays its force as fact, whatever theories may be thrown across its track. Living political constitutions must be Darwinian in structure and in practice.
During the 1912 campaign, Wilson refined his beliefs. If you contrast his book to this speech, there are only merely subtle differences. But one difference is so important:
Government is not a body of blind forces; it is a body of men, with highly differentiated functions, no doubt, in our modern day, of specialization, with a common task and purpose. Their cooperation is indispensable, their warfare fatal. There can be no successful government without the intimate, instinctive coordination of the organs of life and action. This is not theory, but fact, and displays its force as fact, whatever theories may be thrown across its track. Living political constitutions must be Darwinian in structure and in practice. Society is a living organism and must obey the laws of life, not of mechanics; it must develop.All that progressives ask or desire is permission — in an era when “development” “evolution,” is the scientific word — to interpret the Constitution according to the Darwinian principle; all they ask is recognition of the fact that a nation is a living thing and not a machine.
You notice how in the beginning, he kind of just throws the idea out there about a living constitution based on Darwinian thought instead of that of Newton? He has a lot to say about it in the abstract, but in the second instance he is forceful. Full of conviction. The nation will die unless the constitution is living and breathing, there is no doubt about it that Wilson believes this fully in 1912. But note the contrast between the two. They've made progress, but the question is, progress from what? If the constitution was already living and breathing right from the start, why would so many progressives have been harping and carping to begin with? That, right there, their whining is the point.
I've spent a lot of this writing putting together a contrast of before and after, but actually, Wilson does it far better. He does so the best. Wilson, in admitting that the Constitution is actually Newtonian as originally formulated, is stating that the Constitution is not living and breathing. A machine cannot just change it's shape and form,(Maybe they will one day, but they do not now) you have to "revise" it somehow, by bolting on a new piece. You have to work on it, amend it, by having something mechanically changed, such as the mechanics of a Constitutional Revision Committee; such as an amendment process.
This is why we need to know the history of progressivism, because it is quite distinctly to our advantage. You can tell both in reading these short clips, and even moreso if you opened the links and read additional words, that the progressives knew right from the beginning how they would implement their idea of the living constitution. They just needed to get into office for enough years to nominate enough judges to see it through.
“The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. 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.”
Not that we need some Scrotus case to define what is plainly obvious to all people with 3 brain cells to rub together... Natural born Citizen is a person born to U.S. citizen parents on U.S. soil. No positive law needed. No conflicts. A person who can’t be anything else. Naturally.
Children of foreigners are not natural born citizens.
Marbury did not open the door. That’s a lie of progressivism.
It seems to baffle so many, even here on FR, when it is clearly obvious.
the entire apparatus of gov’t ( federal, state, county, and local ) cost 7% of GDP in 1912
today it’s 42%
I saved this from some blog awhile back:
“From 1790 to 1855, constitutionally legislated Naturalization law properly required a U.S. citizen father to produce a U.S. citizen child.
Let that sink in a bit. There was NO JUS SOLI, even from the British . . . from 1772 and earlier, a British father having a child on U.S. soil produced a British subject (natural born in fact).
Where did Jus Soli come from? A century or more of British control over the colonies, that is all. The states did not have jurisdiction, the British crown did.
Come 1866 and the Civil Rights Act, and months later the introduction of the 14th Amendment, with the Preamble, ‘a child born in the United States.’
That bill and amendment was to correct the lack of jus sanguinis nationality and specific to cases of children born of freed slaves, who were property/chattel, not citizens. Therefore, the Bill and Amendment had to introduce, i.e., fall back on Jus Solis (born in the United States) and the lack of any subjection to foreign power of the father to guarantee U.S. citizenship at birth to the children of former slaves.
Then comes Wong Kim Ark, a child born of aliens and a Chinese national at birth. Only Treaty and Act prevented Wong Kim Ark, born in the U.S., from following existing Alien and Nationality Act (Naturalization law) and as an adult apply for citizenship.
So, instead of exerting constitutional authority over Treaty, Wong Kim Ark misinterpreted the 14th Amendment to create citizenship-at-birth for those already born with alien nationality. That was in 1898, and citizenship conferred solely from a mother didn’t come until the 1920/30s.
The result was the corruption of our nationality laws, the virtual invasion of our borders by Mexico, Central and South America . . . and the misapprehension that any child born on U.S. soil is not only a citizen, but eligible to be president.
In an era when Congress is finally faced with Immigration Reform, or lose the United States electorate to the Democrats through illegal immigration . . . this Distinction is Essential!
A ‘native born’ citizen is a jus sanguinis child who happened to also be born in the United States. Logically, the the ‘native’ is a subset of the class ‘citizen born,’ not the determinative value.
In 1790, both the British and U.S. relied on the citizenship of the father, not the place of birth.
Place of birth was only introduced by SCOTUS in Wong Kim Ark because freed slaves had no nationality to confer to their children. Without a citizen father, as required by 99-years of U.S. legislated act, the Gray decision raised Jus Soli from the grave of feudalism and violated Chinese law, treaty, and U.S. legislated act.
In other words, there was no ‘natural law of jus soli’ until the artifices of Wong Kim Ark resurrected it . . . and in my opinion created a ‘zombie’ law of dual nationalities and conflicts of law.
In this time of calls for Immigration Reform, the question of Article II eligibility takes on a greater import.
The flaw in Mr. Apuzzo’s analysis, in the article and commentary, is his reliance on the 14th Amendment as defined by WKA. To the point, Mr. Apuzzo accepts the reasoning that ‘domicile’ determines ‘jurisdiction.’
Now, in tax and probate law ‘domicile’ does indeed determine ‘jurisdiction,’ but NOT in NATIONALITY LAW; not from 1790 to 1855, and only from the WKA court did such a radical and liberal holding become ‘law.’
The real question is did the 14th Amendment depart in any way from the 1866 Civil Rights Act? The language of the 1866 Act was clear giving citizen rights to children born of freed slaves: “born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power.”
The jurisdiction/subjection to a foreign power only came from the nationality of the father.
So, did the 14th Amendment, proposed only months after passage of the 1866 Act, liberalize or change/expand the meaning of ‘not subject to any foreign power’ to ‘born and domiciled in the United States?’
WKA’s ‘domicile’ reasoning, expanding the original meaning and purpose of the 14th Amendment has become enculturated, i.e., idiomatic, that any child born in the Uhited States is a citizen at birth, regardless of the nationality of the resident or non-resident father, legitimate or illegitimate (Obama, Jr. was illegitimate).
‘Natural Born Citizen’ was not idiomatic, but a ‘term of art.’
‘Ignoratis Terminus Artis Ignoratur et Ars.’
In other words, a natural born citizen was, without doubt, a child of two U.S. citizens, i.e., born without alienage that required force of law (naturalization) to determine which nationality had jurisdiction.
Whoops, I meant to cut off the latter half of that. Assorted posts and thoughts.
“The children of aliens, born here in England, are, generally speaking, natural-born subjects, and entitled to all the privileges of such. In which the constitution of France differs from ours; for there, by their jus albinatus, if a child be born of foreign parents, it is an alien.”
If one believes the founders who wrote the Constitution used this common law explanation as the basis, this would make any person born within the United States, or any person born within United States territories, even to alien parents, or those born outside of the United States to an American father, natural born citizens.
===============
In United States v. Wong Kim Ark, plaintiffs asked the Supreme Court to address the issue of whether an individual born within the United States to foreign parents was a “natural born citizen”.[13] The Court found that the defendant was an American natural born citizen by virtue of being born within the United States, regardless of the nationality of his parents.[14]
We are not England.
British subjects are not natural born citizens.
That was provided as context. The USSC decision I posted following that couldn’t be more clear. Anyone born in the US is a natural born citizen.
To be a bit more precise:
GDP 1929 104 Billion. Total of state,local, and federal purchases of goods and services 9.6 Billion or about 9%
GDP 2016 GDP 18.6 Trillion. Total of state, local, and federal purchases of goods and services 3.28 Trillion or about 17.6% (Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis)
GDP is defined as the Market Value of All Final Goods and Services produced in the US during the year 2016. So government expenditures includes salaries of all government employees and the purchase of goods by government agencies, desks, pens, ships, tanks etc.
Transfer payments such as Social Security payments, welfare payments etc are NOT included in output. But when included as part of the federal budget you are correct about 42% of GDP.
Oh, I know it’s controversial, but what is, is.
“In response to public reaction against immigration[120] and fears that U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants could serve as links to permit legal residency and eventual citizenship for family members who would otherwise be ineligible to remain in the country, bills have been introduced from time to time in Congress which have challenged the conventional interpretation of the Citizenship Clause and have sought (thus far unsuccessfully) to actively and explicitly deny citizenship at birth to U.S.-born children of foreign visitors or illegal aliens.”
Forgot to link -—
They were not asked to establish eligibility for President.
They decided Wong on citizenship.
Children born to foreign nationals who are here legally are citizens, but since they have multiple nationalities they are not natural born citizens.
So much for anchor babies, huh? But..But the supreme court can make anyone a citizen, right? Wrong. Congress is given plenary power of naturalization by the Constitution.
It also was not infected with the 16th and 17th Amendments. The 18th Amendment was also given to us by the Progressives, but it was repealed by the 21st Amendments. Now we need a 28th Amendment repealing those other two amendments.
Please leave the goalposts where they are. Presidential eligibility doesn’t determine whether a person born in the US is a natural citizen as such and in itself. The court decision spelled it out. Anyone born here is a natural born citizen; parental nationality is irrelevant.
That’s not what the left means by living and breathing. The whims of ‘interpretation’ by leftist judges and dem politicians.
We do have a way of amending the Constitution...through a laborious amendment process. It’s difficult by design.
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