Original French version of Vattel's Law of Nations:
Emer de Vattel, Le droit des gens, ou Principes de la loi naturelle, vol. 1 (of 2) [1758]
From Chapter XIX, 212 (page 248 of 592):
Title in French: "Des citoyens et naturels"
To English: "Citizens and natural"
French text (about citizens): "Les citoyens sont les membres de la societe civile : lies a cette societe par certains devoirs et soumis a son autorite, ils participent avec egalite a ses avantages."
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To English: "The citizens are the members of the civil society: linked to this society by certain duties and subject to its authority, they participate with equality has its advantages."
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French text (about "natural" born citizens): "Les naturels, ou indigenes, sont ceux qui sont nes dans le pays, de parens citoyens"
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To English, gives this: "the natural, or indigenous, are those born in the country, parents who are citizens"
The last translation regards citizens who were "natural born." Pretty straight forward to me.
“the natural, or indigenous, are those born in the country, parents who are citizens”
I guess I don’t see how that one sentence in a book would lead to everyone assuming that the phrase “natural born citizen” refers to someone who is a citizen by birth AND has TWO citizens for parents.
A) It doesn’t use the phrase “natural born citizen”
B) It wasn’t intended as a legal dictionary, and
C) there is another and obvious source for NBC that IS a legal definition, and it specifically allows for two alien parents.
That doesn’t make you wrong. I think a sample of quotes from the time indicates that both views were held, and no one thought to define which was being used.
Would the SCOTUS try to force removal of a sitting President over a phrase that had more than one original meaning? I think not, particularly when they have an escape provided for them by WKA and other like rulings.
Nor do I think Congress would act, even if the Supreme Court DID rule one must have two citizen parents to be a NBC. They would amend the Constitution, and the states would ratify it. Just IMHO.
Amazing replies from you, rxsid, bushpilot1, El Gato, Uncle Chip, and others. This is the colloquium where we prepare ourselves to teach the truth to others.
I'm reminded often of a wonderful mathematician at U.T. Austin, R.L. Moore, who assigned students theorems to be proved more than half of which were false. The result was three or four Fields Medals (the Nobel equivalent for mathematics), and many famous mathematicians. The trolls help us by seeking the weaknesses in our arguments. There are few weaknesses left, and any of you could immediately convince an audience that truth and logic was on your side (trolls are not not motivated by truth but by a goal, and some, by being paid; we don't argue with egos).
Just a couple of comments: Subjects are not citizens in U.S. law. American Indians were subjects, protected but not presumed to have allegiance to the republic, and certainly not eligible to public office.
From George D. Collins in The American Law Review; Sep/Oct 1884:
There is nothing in the Constitution to indicate the the term “citizen” was used in reference to the common-law definition of “subject,” nor is there an act of Congress declaratory of the common-law doctrine, and the subject of citizenship being national, questions relating to it are to be determined by the general principles of the law of nations.
What the principle of international law is in respect to this particular question, we will now inquire. Vattell thus defines natural born citizen: “The native or natural citizens are those born in the country of parents who are citizens:” and he continues: “As the society can not exist and perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers and succeed to all their rights.”
There is nothing new here for you historians, but this is yet another confirmation that our legal system accepted law of nations as our common law.
I haven't time today, nor my son's photographic memory, but there is a supreme court decision in which the term subject and common law interpretations are dismissed as irrelevant for our federal legal foundation. Probably, one of you will recall the case and justice.
I do encourage all of you to take your knowledge outside the relatively polite environment of Free Republic because your knowledge of the truth will help to make us free. Most citizens do not know the truth. It is clear that media figures are afraid of going it alone. The will be isolated and ridiculed. But if we can pry open the door, they may follow. I believe we cannot let a blatant attack on presidential requirements go unchallenged. Obama’s colors are become clear to the naive. But ineligibility should not be allowed to succeed by tacit approval.
If anyone can see a path to proposing a Constitutional Amendment, like the one proposed by Orrin Hatch in 2003 to make Schwarzenegger eligible, that might be tactic to break the veil of silence in the legislature. Hatch, of course, now denies that he understands the Vattel/Marshall definition. He is, of course, lying, but so are the rest who all signed Senate Res. 511 in 2008 asserting the two citizen parents component of natural born citizenship in order to insure that they would face McCain, who might as well have been working for the Democrats. For them, politics is their security, their path to bonus income. For us the Constitution guarantees our freedom to each create our own security. Know any Congressmen who might be willing to try to pass an amendment to make Obama eligible? What do we think chances are it would pass? Polls showed Hatch with about 30% support. But the issue would be brought to the public to decide!