Posted on 12/28/2011 5:34:17 PM PST by rxsid
"THE PUBLIUS ENIGMA: Newly Revealed Evidence Establishes That President James Madison’s Administration Required Citizen Parentage To Qualify Native-Born Persons For U.S. Citizenship.
I was recently forwarded an incredibly amazing article from the October 10, 1811 edition of The Alexandria Herald newspaper. RXSID of Free Republic sent it with a brief note, stating, “Check out this case.” The Herald article is entitled, The Case of James McClure. The author is…PUBLIUS.
Publius was the pseudonym used by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, for their anonymous authorship of The Federalist Papers. By 1811, Hamilton was dead and Jay retired. My research leads me to believe that the article was written by James Madison, but this has not been conclusively established yet. Regardless of authorship, Madison was President at the time the article was written, and it discusses the official position of his administration denying U.S. citizenship based upon simple birth in the country.
The official position of the Madison administration was that persons born in the U.S. to alien parents were not U.S. citizens. This was the ruling concerning James McClure, despite the fact that his parents had been settled in the country for many years prior to his birth. The article makes clear that the United States Minister to France, General Armstrong, refused diplomatic protection for McClure by denying he was a citizen of the United States.
This was the official decision despite McClure having been born in South Carolina in 1785 to a father who was naturalized months later in 1786. Armstrong informed the French authorities that the man was not a U.S. citizen, and McClure was left in French custody. The article by PUBLIUS indicates that Armstrong might have mis-applied the 1802 Naturalization Act, but PUBLIUS also makes clear that McClure was not a citizen by virtue of his native birth in South Carolina:
There was no statute in South Carolina in 1785 which granted citizenship to persons born there similar to Virginia’s statute mentioned in the article by PUBLIUS. Simply being a “son of the soil” was not enough, and this evidence repudiates the contention that the British common law had been adapted in all of the states after the revolution. Since there was no statute in place making those born in South Carolina citizens, McClure was not held to be a native-born citizen. That argument was utterly rejected throughout the affair.
The article goes on to question whether the 1802 act is defective in that PUBLIUS seems to believe citizenship ought to be revoked for naturalized persons who return to their original country and establish domicile there again. But the article makes clear that Madison’s administration steadfastly denied that simple birth in the United States was enough to establish citizenship. This, of course, discredits the conclusions of Justice Horace Gray in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, as well as the infamous New York Chancery opinion of Lynch v. Clark. Both cases contain erroneous assumptions that the British common law rule of jus soli governed citizenship from the very genesis of the United States.
I tracked down the original article published in the Richmond Enquirer on October 1, 1811, which was then republished in The Alexandria Gazette on October 10, 1811. Both of these newspapers were published in Virginia, Madison’s home state. Furthermore, the PUBLIUS penned article was the grand finale of nearly a year-long argument which went viral in various newspapers of the day starting in January 1811.
I have been up and down the East Coast tracking down the remaining newspaper articles on this as well as other supporting historical information. I have also consulted with professionals and am preparing an extensive section for my forthcoming book which details everything that has been unearthed.
The whole story cannot be understood by way of online searches. The internet is barren on this case. Some of the necessary information isn’t even available in the Library of Congress or National Archives.
Here are the images from the Alexandria Herald and Richmond Enquirer. The Herald scan is much easier to read than the Enquirer scan.
Leo Donofrio, Esq."
"THE PUBLIUS ENIGMA: Newly Revealed Evidence Establishes That President James Madison’s Administration Required Citizen Parentage To Qualify Native-Born Persons For U.S. Citizenship."
sfl
Leo Ping
Great find! Unfortunately I don’t think it will be of any help in our current situation.
If it can be utilyzed to prevent occurrences in the future, that will be all for the good.
Great find and excellent work!
Congrats!
Thanks for all you do. Can’t wait to read the book when published.
The Courts,Including the Supreme Court are not going to touch this case with a ten foot poll.Afterall the Ninth Circuit has already said that the American People have No standing in Bringing these cases against Obama.
Unfortunately the Government will have standing in bringing all of these devious laws into being and using the Point of a gun or the threat of imprisonment to enforce them on us.
This country is in so much trouble.
This means a law was created to naturalize anchor babies... because they were not natural born citizens.
It also means that the NBC clause must be amended to qualify Obama for the presidency. We better get moving on that amendment.
“The whole story cannot be understood by way of online searches. The internet is barren on this case. Some of the necessary information isn’t even available in the Library of Congress or National Archives. “
I have read various articles of the years which indicated that those ‘in government’ have been removing any references or legal decisions that interfere with ‘current liberal understanding’ of ‘the law’.
God bless you Leo!
This discovery makes it look like there really was a previous standard of not doing so and that it was changed by the 14th.
The law doesn’t apply to Bambi — he is one of Holder’s people and Pelosi’s people.
Got it. An obscure newspaper article overrides multiple Supreme Court decisions, not to mention constitutional amendments.
Glad to have that cleared up.
Interesting find...
You don’t have any idea of what you’re talking about. Minor vs Hapersett established legal scotus precedent that the natural born citizen definition = two citizen parents & born of this soil.
Freerepublic is such a tremendous resource and place of learning- we truly are blessed for what Jim has created her.
PS to everyone: am I the only freeper that looks forward to what Spaulding posts on this topic? Hope he chimes in on this one, it looks to be a great find.
Laughable.
I apologize; in re-reading my response, I came off pretty harsh. I just get frustrated over the issue of whether this has been ruled on or not. It clearly has, so much so that nefarious forces have seen fit to scrub online resources for the SCOTUS cases in question.
No offense intended.
Got it. Supreme Court decisions Clearly violating the Constitution and later "reversed," with or without Constitutional Amendments, prove that Supreme Court decisions are permanent and inviolate.
Got it.
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