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To: BP2
As A.W. Dicey, one of the chief references in the famed "US vs. Kim Wong Ark" case, states in "Conflict of Laws":

"A child whose father's father (paternal grandfather) was born within the British dominions is a natural-born British subject, even though the child's father and the child himself were not born within the British dominions."

If you are going to bring up US v. Wong Kim Ark, you should mention that the majority opinion actually implies that Obama is a natural born citizen of the United States (assuming he was born here):

"It thus clearly appears that by the law of England for the last three centuries, beginning before the settlement of this country, and continuing to the present day, aliens, while residing in the dominions possessed by the crown of England, were within the allegiance, the obedience, the faith or loyalty, the protection, the power, and the jurisdiction of the English sovereign; and therefore every child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject, unless the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign state, or of an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was born. III. The same rule was in force in all the English colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the constitution as originally established."

40 posted on 03/25/2010 8:37:29 AM PDT by wideminded
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To: wideminded; Fred Nerks; null and void; stockpirate; george76; PhilDragoo; Candor7; rxsid; ...

If you are going to bring up US v. Wong Kim Ark, you should mention that the majority opinion actually implies that Obama is a natural born citizen of the United States (assuming he was born here) ...

"It thus clearly appears that by the law of England for the last three centuries, beginning before the settlement of this country, and continuing to the present ... "

* And I'm telling you that (Leftist) analysis and use of US vs. Kim Wong Ark is fundamentally flawed. *

Just as the 2008 DC v. Heller SCOTUS Opinion on “to keep and bear arms” overturned nearly 70 years of Lower Court Opinions and Local/State laws stemming from the badly-written and incomplete 1939 US v Miller SCOTUS Opinion, a future SCOTUS Opinion will clarify Justice Gray's 1898 US vs. Kim Wong Ark Opinion and his historical analysis therein.

See, the quote you offered, "It thus clearly appears that by the law of England ..." was first published in the unrefined 1896 First Edition of A.W. Dicey's "Conflict of Law." Justice Gray used the two-year-old First Edition version of Dicey's book in his 1898 US vs. Kim Wong Ark analysis (Gray used other weak references to make his point in his 1898 US v. Ark Opinion, too, like Binney's 1853 "Alienigenae of the United States" ... a pamphlet, LOL). However, in Dicey's Second Edition of "Conflict of Law" published in 1908 and subsequent editions, you will NOT find that quote from Dicey.

Dicey "corrected" himself later ... which is likely why Dicey’s “Conflict of Laws” has only been referenced EIGHT times in ALL of the searchable US Supreme Court Opinions on record.

You'll find that Dicey, after further analysis, said THIS in his 1908 Second Edition of “Conflict of Laws”:

"A child whose father's father (paternal grandfather) was born within the British dominions is a natural-born British subject, even though the child's father and the child himself were not born within the British dominions." (This DIRECT IMPACTS Obama and his lineage to his British father).

In 1932, an older and wiser A. W. Dicey wrote:

“To any critic of Blackstone, as to any student of English law, I unhesitatingly give this advice: Begin your study by reading Blackstone's Commentaries. Keep in mind that the book describes English law as it stood towards the end of the eighteenth century.”



This methodology has been re-affirmed by the SCOTUS and Constitutional expert time and time again to determine the Framer's Original Intent. As attorney and law expert John W. Guendelsberger pointed out in 1992 regarding US v Wong Kim Ark (169 U.S. at 653):
“In particular, the Court noted the Constitution's requirement that the President be a “natural-born citizen,” a condition whose meaning could be derived only by reference to English common law in existence at the time – see US v Wong Kim Ark (1898), referencing Minor v. Happersett (1874).


Blackstone has been referenced thousands of times by the US Supreme Court to define the Framer's Original Intent. Blackstone's Commentaries has stood the test of time.


So ... what does Blackstone say about British subjects and Allegiance?

“When Barack Obama Jr. was born on Aug. 4,1961, in Honolulu, Kenya was a British colony, still part of the United Kingdom’s dwindling empire. As a Kenyan native, Barack Obama Sr. was a British subject whose citizenship status was governed by The British Nationality Act of 1948.
That same act governed the status of Obama Sr.‘s children
.


66 posted on 03/25/2010 10:17:44 AM PDT by BP2 (I think, therefore I'm a conservative)
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To: wideminded
If you are going to bring up US v. Wong Kim Ark, you should mention that the majority opinion actually implies that Obama is a natural born citizen of the United States (assuming he was born here):

"It thus clearly appears that by the law of England for the last three centuries, beginning before the settlement of this country, and continuing to the present day, aliens, while residing in the dominions possessed by the crown of England, were within the allegiance, the obedience, the faith or loyalty, the protection, the power, and the jurisdiction of the English sovereign; and therefore every child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject, unless the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign state, or of an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was born. III. The same rule was in force in all the English colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the constitution as originally established."

I agree with you on that. Reading the entire case, the Court repeatedly uses citizen and natural-born citizen interchangeably.

131 posted on 03/28/2010 4:31:08 PM PDT by fightinJAG (Are you a Twitter activist? Freepmail me & let's talk.)
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To: wideminded
"It thus clearly appears that by the law of England for the last three centuries, beginning before the settlement of this country, and continuing to the present day, aliens, while residing in the dominions possessed by the crown of England, were within the allegiance, the obedience, the faith or loyalty, the protection, the power, and the jurisdiction of the English sovereign;

On the other hand, a couple of fact distinctions pop out. For one thing, the entire discussion on aliens has to do with those who were under the "allegiance/protection" to the Sovereign by virtue of "residing" in the dominions. It's not clear that Obama's father was a resident alien, much less that he had domicile in the U.S. at the time of Obama's birth.

IOW, there may be an argument that his connection to the U.S. was more tenuous than the connection explicitly contemplated between the alien and the British crown that conferred subject-hood on offspring.

Also, did the British have a status comparable to our naturalized citizenship status? If not an explicit process, it may be argued that this recognizes a de facto naturalization process. Again, Obama's father never was a de facto naturalized American citizen.

Finally, the Dicey passage you responded to makes clear that, at the time the Constitution was written, citizenship passed from the father. And, IIRC, it's been established that in 1961, the child of a British subject was also a British subject at birth. While U.S. laws by 1961 may have allowed citizenship to be determined by the mother, I suppose there still may be a question of whether the constitutional provision can be "modernized" without question, or whether the descent of citizenship from the father (or only from the father) had some material purpose bearing on a president's "full qualification" that must be preserved.

In particular, what of the case where the father does not have any connection with the U.S.? What if, in Wong Kim Ark, the mother was a resident alien of the U.S. but the father had at all times been a resident of China? And China also recognized the child as a Chinese citizen? And this child did not just want the usual acoutrements of U.S. citizenship, he was elected President of the United States? I don't think caselaw necesssarily answers the question of whether a statute can come along and make the father's citizenship completely irrelevant to a president-elect's "full qualification.".

Finally, and this is o/t in some ways, it's interesting to note that the reason for the British rule on citizenship was to build and control the Empire. It was animated purely by the need to have as many people as possible in far-flung places loyal to the Crown and subject to the authority of the Crown (and subscription!). Empire-building and law and order. Those rationales have nothing to do with who the Founders thought might or might not be suitable to serve as POTUS.

135 posted on 03/29/2010 6:44:17 AM PDT by fightinJAG (Are you a Twitter activist? Freepmail me & let's talk.)
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