“What possible rationale can be used to argue that the founders, who had just concluded a bloody struggle with England, would allow those of non-citizen parents to hold the highest office in the nation?”
The Founders allowed naturalized citizens in the House. The Founders allowed naturalized citizens to serve in the Senate.
And this may surprise you, but the Founders allowed actual non-citizens to serve on the Supreme Court. There’s no requirement that members of the President’s Cabinet be U.S. citizens either.
So naturally, Birthers argue, the Founders didn’t care about one’s OWN citizenship at birth for any other governmental office, but were desperately concerned with one’s PARENTS’ citizenship at birth for the President! And rather than actually state that outright, they decided to use a term that every successive generation interpreted as ‘citizenship at birth,’ until a poker player who used to think he was God’s prophet revealed the Founders’ TRUE definition.
As you will see below, much of your post is irrelevant and IMO the balance is unpersuasive.
You mockingly state: ...the Founders didn’t care about one’s OWN citizenship at birth for any other governmental office, but were desperately concerned with one’s PARENTS’ citizenship at birth for the President!
Let me help you with the rationale. Only one of those governmental offices you refer to was to serve as the commander in chief of the nation’s armed forces. Consider here the founders understood future presidential candidates could well have had immediate family ties to Europe or even England; hence my reference above to the bloody struggle just concluded with England.
You further offer: And rather than actually state that outright, they decided to use a term that every successive generation interpreted as ‘citizenship at birth’…
1. You probably do realize that the ratifiers did indeed “actually state” the NBC requirement in the case of the President’s qualifications; and later amendment extended those to the office of the VP. And, resist as you may, the language of Minor expressly confirms, with no doubt, the meaning of the ratifiers. You probably also note that no other governmental office was expressly limited to a NBC.
2. What is important is the meaning the ratifiers gave to the term and not some vague “successive generation(s)”.
Have a nice evening.
Not every generation. Just the stupid ones after 1898. At the time of the Founders, animosity and distrust toward foreigners in positions of trust was somewhat pronounced. Here is George Washington on the subject.
“You are not to enlist any person who is not an American born, unless such person has a wife and family, and is a settled resident of this country.” George Washington, Given at headquarters, at Cambridge, this 10 July, 1775.
.
In a letter from Gen. Washington to Col. Spotswood, dated in 1777, in a publication entitled “Maxims of Washington,” p. 192, the following passage occurs: –
“You will therefore send me none but natives, and men of some property, if you have them. I must insist that in making this choice you give no intimation of my preference for natives, as I do not want to create any individual distinction between them and foreigners.”
.
“The General has great Reason; and is highly displeased, with the Negligence and Inattention of those Officers, who have placed as Centries at the out-posts, Men with whose Character they are not acquainted. He therefore orders, that for the future, no Man shall be appointed to those important Stations, who is not a Native of this Country, or has a Wife, or Family in it, to whom he is known to be attached. This Order is to be consider’d as a standing one and the Officers are to pay obedience to it at their peril.” - 11 Fox, Adj. Gen. of the day. 9
.
“Dear Sir: I take the liberty to ask you what Congress expects I am to do with the many foreigners that have at different times been promoted to the rank of field-officers, and by their last resolve two of that of colonels? These men have no attachment for the country further than interest binds them. Our officers think it exceedingly hard, after they have toiled in the service and have sustained many losses, to have strangers put over them, whose merit perhaps is not equal to their own, but who effrontery will take no denial. It is by the zeal and activity of our own people that the cause must be supported, and not by the few hungry adventurers. I am, &c., GEO. WASHINGTON.”
.
“Dear Sir: The design of this is to touch cursorily upon a subject of very great importance to the well-being of these states, much more so than will appear at first sight – I mean the appointment of so many foreigners to offices of high rank and trust in our service.
The lavish manner in which rank has hitherto be bestowed on these gentlemen, will certainly be productive of one or the other of these two evils, either to make us despicable in the eyes of Europe, or become a means of pouring them in upon us like a torrent, and adding to our present burden. But it is neither the expense nor the trouble of them I most dread; there is an evil more extensive in its nature and fatal in its consequence to be apprehended, and that is, the driving of all our officers out of the service, and throwing not only our own army, but our military councils, entirely into the hands of foreigners. …
The expediency and policy of the measure remains to be considered, and whether it is consistent with justice or prudence to promote these military fortune-hunters at the hazard of our army. Baron Steuben, I now find, is also wanting to quit his inspectorship for a command in the line. This will be productive of much discontent. In a word, although I think the Baron an excellent officer, I do most devoutly wish – that we had not a single foreigner amongst us, except the Marquis de Lafayette, who acts upon very different principles from those which govern the rest.
Adieu. I am, most sincerely yours, GEORGE WASHINGTON.”
.
‘Cease, sons of America, lamenting our separation. Go on and confirm, by your wisdom, the fruits of our joint councils, joint efforts, and common dangers; reverence religion; diffuse knowledge throughout your lands; patronize the arts and sciences; let liberty and order be inseparable companions. Control party spirit, the bane of free government; observe good faith to, and cultivate peace with, all nations; shut up every avenue to foreign influence; contract rather than extend national connections; rely on yourselves only; be Americans in thought, word and deed. Thus will you give immortality to that union which was the constant object of my terrestrial labors; thus will you preserve undisturbed, to the latest posterity, the felicity of a people to me most dear; and thus will you supply (if my happiness is now ought to you) the only vacancy in the round of pure bliss high Heaven bestows’.
Methinks I see his august image, and hear falling from his venerable lips these deep-sinking words“; –
Recollections of George Washington by Henry Lee in Washington’s funeral oration before the House of Congress on December 26, 1799.
http://undeadrevolution.wordpress.com/
We also have Minor VS Happerset’s definition, requiring parent citizens. This also predates Donofrio.
John Jay eviscerates your first points, excluding foreigners from the presidency by using the NBC term.
What Natural-Born Citizen president would appoint an alien to the Supreme court? (Other than Obama ... I could see him appointing his cousin in Kenya.) If being born on US soil is the only qualification for natural born citizen and thus the presidency, then current US citizenship is not required to acquire the presidency. We have people born here who then return to their parents country and take on inherited foreign citizenship from their parents, as minors, and then continue as such as adults. Though they never exercise any US citizen rights, they are qualified to be president under the “Born In the USA” definition. Obamas Indonesian citizenship as a child , and possibly as an adult, do not disqualify him under this definition. The Constitution effectively bypassed.
This is what we have. It matters not how we got here. We now effectively bypass the founders intent of the constitution. We live with the results: A man in the white house who legitimately calls Kenya his home country. Who involves himself in their elections. Who has provided AlQaida with SAM's from Libya so that he could brag about liberating an African country the next time he's back home in Kenya, while showing off his latest Aids test results to his fellow countryman.
Regardless, we all can see the results are a threat to all US citizens.