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Research - Vattel & the meaning of the Constitutional term "Natural Born Citizen"
http://www.loc.gov/index.html ^ | 5/12/2010 | many

Posted on 05/12/2010 12:36:53 PM PDT by rxsid

Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 from the U.S. Constitution states:

"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."


TOPICS: Politics
KEYWORDS: certifigate; constitution; framers; naturalborncitizen; nbc; vattel
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To: admin
Jeff Winston is polluting the Vattel Research thread with his crap.

I would ask the administrator to remove Jeff's message from this thread. He has already posted it in this linked thread, and he has no legitimate purpose in polluting the Vattel research thread with it.

His point has been refuted, and He is merely doing it out of spite. The presence of unrelated and antagonistic messages makes it more difficult to search the thread for documents and quotes.

481 posted on 05/16/2013 3:13:08 PM PDT by DiogenesLamp (Partus Sequitur Patrem)
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To: DiogenesLamp
Jeff Winston is polluting the Vattel Research thread with his crap.

The title of the thread is "Vattel & the meaning of the Constitutional term 'Natural Born Citizen'."

The fact is, Vattel has no relevance whatsoever to the meaning of the Constitutional term "natural born citizen."

And actually, a discussion of that FACT is entirely relevant to the thread.

You can't point to one single source from the Founders or Framers or anyone from their entire lifetimes who EVER said that the writings of Vattel, or his opinion on what citizenship should be, had the slightest relevance at all to the meaning of "natural born citizen."

Not one single quote. Not one single source. NOT ONE.

I think that's pretty darn relevant.

His point has been refuted, and He is merely doing it out of spite.

No, the point has not been "refuted." Do you even know what the word means?

Elsewhere, you said:

This statement requires three things to be true in order for it to support Jeff's theory.

1. That Chief Justice Marshall meticulously digested every single aspect of the book with the anal retentive obsession and specific attention to the detail of which Jeff is interested in, rather than just perused it.

It is clear that Chief Justice Marshall read the book in its entirety. If he had not, he would never have said, "With this exception, I do not recollect a single statement in your book which is not, in my judgment, entirely just."

2. That Chief Justice Marshall also interpreted that quote in the book in exactly the same anally retentive manner that Jeff wants him to.

You're kidding, right?

The quote could not possibly be more clear. 1) Natural born citizenship, and Presidential eligibility, only requires citizenship by birth. 2) People who are born to citizens to US citizen parents abroad, though not born in the United States, are citizens by birth, and are therefore natural born citizens and eligible to be elected President.

There's no possible damn way to interpret it any way other than what it clearly and plainly says.

3. That it Violates what Vattel said.

Whether it violates what Vattel said, it sure as hell violates the stupid birther claim that it takes birth on US soil plus citizen parents to make a natural born citizen. There's not the slightest question about that.

Nor can you pretend that Chief Justice Marshall could have ever read that quote and just "forgotten" about it. A subject as big as who was eligible to be President? Give me a freakin' break.

No. I think it's pretty clear. Chief Justice Marshall read Bayard's book and agreed with him that your stupid birther claim is full of cr*p.

The presence of unrelated and antagonistic messages makes it more difficult to search the thread for documents and quotes.

Nonsense. You can still find any "documents and quotes" you want.

I would ask the administrator to remove Jeff's message from this thread. He has already posted it in this linked thread, and he has no legitimate purpose in polluting the Vattel research thread with it.

Oh, so you can't deal with actual facts regarding natural born citizenship and have to go crying to mama, huh?

482 posted on 05/16/2013 5:44:06 PM PDT by Jeff Winston
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To: Jeff Winston

You have crossed the threshold of obsession and are not to be taken seriously.


483 posted on 05/16/2013 7:11:28 PM PDT by DiogenesLamp (Partus Sequitur Patrem)
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To: DiogenesLamp
You have crossed the threshold of obsession and are not to be taken seriously.

That's a nice way of saying you are now hopelessly lost and can't keep up with the flood of evidence that says your BS theory is nothing more than BS.

Oh. And you're the one who's practically made a small career of pushing BS Constitutional claims.

How does it feel to face the fact that you've completely wasted the last 3 years or so? Kinda sucks, doesn't it?

Well, you'll get no sympathy from me. You might have, if you hadn't been such a jerk from the very beginning.

484 posted on 05/16/2013 7:53:40 PM PDT by Jeff Winston
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To: Jeff Winston

You find fools gold and crow about it. Go rant at somebody who cares.


485 posted on 05/16/2013 8:10:49 PM PDT by DiogenesLamp (Partus Sequitur Patrem)
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To: DiogenesLamp
UNITED STATES STEEL CORPORATION et al., Appellants, v. MULTISTATE TAX COMMISSION et al.

434 U.S. 452 (98 S.Ct. 799, 54 L.Ed.2d 682)

UNITED STATES STEEL CORPORATION et al., Appellants, v. MULTISTATE TAX COMMISSION et al.

No. 76-635.

Argued: Oct. 11, 1977.

Decided: Feb. 21, 1978.

Mr. Justice POWELL delivered the opinion of the Court.

...

Article I, § 10, cl. 1, of the Constitution—the Treaty Clause declares: "No State shall enter into Any Treaty, Alliance or Confederation . . . ." Yet Art. I, § 10, cl. 3—the Compact Clause—permits the States to enter into "agreements" or "compacts," so long as congressional consent is obtained. The Framers clearly perceived compacts and agreements as differing from treaties. 10 The records of the Constitutional Convention, however, are barren of any clue as to the precise contours of the agreements and compacts governed by the Compact Clause. 11 This suggests that the Framers used the words "treaty," "compact," and "agreement" as terms of art, for which no explanation was required 12 and with which we are unfamiliar. Further evidence that the Framers ascribed precise meanings to these words appears in contemporary commentary. 13

Whatever distinct meanings the Framers attributed to the terms in Art. I, § 10, those meanings were soon lost. In 1833, Mr. Justice Story perceived no clear distinction among any of the terms. 14 Lacking any clue as to the categorical definitions the Framers had ascribed to them, Mr. Justice Story developed his own theory. Treaties, alliances, and confederations, he wrote, genera ly connote military and political accords and are forbidden to the States. Compacts and agreements, on the other hand, embrace "mere private rights of sovereignty; such as questions of boundary; interests in land situate in the territory of each other; and other internal regulations for the mutual comfort and convenience of States bordering on each other." 2 J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States § 1403, p. 264 (T. Cooley ed. 1873). In the latter situations, congressional consent was required, Story felt, "in order to check any infringement of the rights of the national government." Ibid.

...

12

Some commentators have theorized that the Framers understood those terms in relation to the precisely defined categories, fashionable in the contemporary literature of international law, of accords between sovereigns. See, e. g., Engdahl, Characterization of Interstate Arrangements: When Is a Compact Not a Compact?, 64 Mich.L.Rev. 63 (1965); Weinfeld, What Did the Framers of the Federal Constitution Mean by "Agreements or Compacts"?, 3 U.Chi.L.Rev. 453 (1936). The international jurist most widely cited in the first 50 years after the Revolution was Emmerich de Vattel. 1 J. Kent, Commentaries on American Law 18 (1826). In 1775, Benjamin Franklin acknowledged receipt of three copies of a new edition, in French, of Vattel's Law of Nations and remarked that the book "has been continually in the hands of the members of our Congress now sitting . . . ." 2 F. Wharton, United States Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence 64 (1889), cited in Weinfeld, supra, at 458.

Vattel differentiated between "treaties," which were made either for perpetuity or for a considerable period, and "agreements, conventions, and pactions," which "are perfected in their execution once for all." E. Vattel, Law of Nations 192 (J. Chitty ed. 1883). Unlike a "treaty" or "alliance," an "agreement" or "paction" was perfected upon execution:

"[T]hose compacts, which are accomplished once for all, and not by successive acts,—are no sooner executed then they are completed and perfected. If they are valid, they have in their own nature a perpetual and irrevocable effect . . . ." Id., at 208.

This distinction between supposedly ongoing accords, such as military alliances, and instantaneously executed, though perpetually effective agreements, such as boundary settlements, may have informed the drafting in Art. I, § 10. The Framers clearly recognized the necessity for amicable resolution of boundary disputes and related grievances. See Virginia v. West Virginia, 246 U.S. 565, 597-600, 38 S.Ct. 400, 404-405, 59 L.Ed. 1272 (1918); Frankfurter & Landis, The Compact Clause of the Constitution—A Study in Interstate Adjustments, 34 Yale L.J. 685, 692-695 (1925). Interstate agreements were a method with which they were familiar. Id., at 694, 732-734. Although these dispositive compacts affected the interests of the States involved, they did not represent the continuing threat to the other States embodied in a "treaty of alliance," to use Vattel's words. E. Vattel, supra, at 192.

13

St. George Tucker, who along with Madison and Edmund Randolph was a Virginia commissioner to the Annapolis Convention of 1786, drew a distinction between "treaties, alliances, and confederations" on the one hand, and "agreements or compacts" on the other:

"The former relate ordinarily to subjects of great national magnitude and importance, and are often perpetual, or made for a considerable period of time; the power of making these is altogether prohibited to the individual states; but agreements, or compacts, concerning transitory or local affairs, or such as cannot possibly affect any other interest but that of the parties, may still be entered into by the respective states, with the consent of congress." 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries, Appendix 310 (S. Tucker ed. 1803) (footnotes omitted).

Tucker cited Vattel as authority for his interpretation of Art. I, § 10.

486 posted on 05/16/2013 8:37:48 PM PDT by DiogenesLamp (Partus Sequitur Patrem)
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To: DiogenesLamp

Link

487 posted on 05/16/2013 8:43:05 PM PDT by DiogenesLamp (Partus Sequitur Patrem)
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To: DiogenesLamp
You find fools gold and crow about it. Go rant at somebody who cares.

Fool's gold? That's stuff that at first glance looks like it's gold, but turns out to be absolutely worthless.

Sounds to me like a perfect description of the crap theory you've invested the last 3 years of your life into.

Some idiot comes up with an absolute BS theory and starts blowing smoke and claiming it's true.

And you buy into it, and spend YEARS promoting it.

It's really pretty freakin' hilarious.

And early on, people start pointing out that the whole theory doesn't jibe with history and law, and what do you do?

Do you learn anything? No, by no means.

You double down on stupid, as hard as you can go.

And people show how idiotic your claims are, and what do you do?

Do you learn anything? No, by no means.

You TRIPLE down on stupid, just as hard as you can go.

It doesn't get any better for you from here.

The documentation of your idiocy, and your BSing, and your hypocrisy, only gets better and better.

488 posted on 05/16/2013 9:30:32 PM PDT by Jeff Winston
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To: Jeff Winston

I’m going to break your theory.


489 posted on 05/16/2013 10:04:59 PM PDT by DiogenesLamp (Partus Sequitur Patrem)
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To: DiogenesLamp
I’m going to break your theory.

It's not my theory, genius.

It's the agreed-upon understanding of EVERY DAMN REAL AUTHORITY IN HISTORY, CONTEMPORARY OR OTHERWISE.

Which sure doesn't include you.

Don't you get that yet?

You might as well say you're going to going to break the theory that the earth goes around the sun, or the theory that Adolph Hitler sent his army to invade Poland, or the theory that the Constitution requires the President to be at least 35 years old.

As far as the evidence goes, I've got evidence I haven't even talked about yet. And every new discovery simply adds to what is already an absolute certainty that your stupid theory is complete BS.

I would say that I'm sorry you wasted years of your life on a BS theory. But you frankly make it very, very difficult for anyone to feel sorry for you.

If you didn't act like such a jerk, it just might be possible.

490 posted on 05/16/2013 10:20:14 PM PDT by Jeff Winston
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To: Jeff Winston

I’m not impressed.


491 posted on 05/16/2013 10:22:23 PM PDT by DiogenesLamp (Partus Sequitur Patrem)
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To: DiogenesLamp
Chief Justice John Marshall citing Vattel.

A Strange Likeness : Becoming Red and White in Eighteenth-Century North America

492 posted on 05/16/2013 10:31:52 PM PDT by DiogenesLamp (Partus Sequitur Patrem)
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To: DiogenesLamp
Marshall apparently liked to reference Vattel a LOT!

.

A Strange Likeness : Becoming Red and White in Eighteenth-Century North America

Oh, and look, more references to check out! Ziegler: "International law of John Marshall" Onuf and Onuf "Federal Union, Modern World".

Yee Haw!

493 posted on 05/16/2013 10:43:05 PM PDT by DiogenesLamp (Partus Sequitur Patrem)
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To: DiogenesLamp
I’m not impressed.

I know you're not impressed. I'm well aware.

You're not impressed by the Founding Fathers.

You're not impressed by the Signers of the Constitution.

You're not impressed by James Madison, the Father of the Constitution.

You're not impressed by Alexander Hamilton, without whom we may well not have had a Constitution.

You're not impressed by Chief Justice John Marshall, who served as Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court for 35 years beginning just 13 years after our Constitution was ratified.

You're not impressed by those who knew and talked with and walked with the George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and the other men who gave us our country.

You're not impressed by the legendary Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story.

You're not impressed by the entire assembly of all of early America's best legal experts.

You're not impressed by the US Supreme Court.

You're not impressed by Reagan Supreme Court appointee Sandra Day O'Connor.

You're not impressed with any real, recognized contemporary expert in our law.

You're not impressed with the major conservative Constitutional foundations, such as the Heritage Foundation, or National Review.

You're not impressed with anybody who actually tells you the truth.

Because, by G*d, you don't want to hear it.

So what does that make you?

I'm asking. What does that make you?

494 posted on 05/16/2013 10:46:35 PM PDT by Jeff Winston
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To: DiogenesLamp
From Ziegler's "International law of John Marshall"

John Marshall loved him some Vattel!

495 posted on 05/16/2013 10:59:28 PM PDT by DiogenesLamp (Partus Sequitur Patrem)
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To: Jeff Winston

Still ranting?


496 posted on 05/16/2013 11:01:07 PM PDT by DiogenesLamp (Partus Sequitur Patrem)
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To: DiogenesLamp
Still ranting?

No, I'm asking.

497 posted on 05/16/2013 11:02:03 PM PDT by Jeff Winston
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To: DiogenesLamp

I mean, you clearly DO NOT CARE, in the SLIGHTEST, about anything that the Founding Fathers, or their generation, or that any of the competent legal experts throughout history have to say.

Unless, of course, it agrees with a bullcrap theory that you happen to like.

So what does that make you?

It certainly doesn’t make you a patriot.

What does it make you?


498 posted on 05/17/2013 12:10:00 AM PDT by Jeff Winston
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To: DiogenesLamp
As I have been saying, that Soil thing is just a means of grabbing people and pressing them into subjugation.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

a scriptural view of the character, causes, and ends of the present war. By alexander mcleod, d.d. (1815)

499 posted on 05/17/2013 7:31:26 AM PDT by DiogenesLamp (Partus Sequitur Patrem)
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To: Jeff Winston
It certainly doesn’t make you a patriot.

Ha! "Patriot". One who loves the land of his father. You are too funny sometimes.

500 posted on 05/17/2013 7:34:22 AM PDT by DiogenesLamp (Partus Sequitur Patrem)
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