Posted on 03/02/2009 8:58:52 PM PST by NaturalBornConservative
By: Larry
February 27, 2009
Did you know that the Constitutional requirements to be a U.S. Congressman or U.S. Senator are different than the requirements to be U.S. President or Vice President?
The requirements may be found at the following website: click here.
The Constitutional requirements to become a U.S. Senator or Congressman include having been a U.S. Citizen for a certain number of years. And, in order to be President or Vice President, the Constitution requires that one be a Natural Born Citizen and a resident for a certain number of years.
Now is it possible that the terms Citizen and Natural Born Citizen are synonymous? Were our founding fathers just a bunch of poorly educated, bumbling idiots, who used complicated words just to confuse the masses? Do you really know the difference? Do you care about protecting, defending and upholding the United States Constitution?
Constitutional Requirements
U.S. Congressman Article I, Section 2, Clause 2 No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.
U.S. Senator Article I, Section 3, Clause 3 No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.
U.S. President Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 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.
The United States Constitution requires that Presidents (and Vice Presidents) of the United States be natural born citizens of the United States. It is undisputed that children of American citizens born in the U.S. are eligible to hold the office of President upon reaching the required age, and that persons naturalized as U.S. citizens after birth are disqualified from holding that office.
The special term "Natural Born Citizen" is used in particular as a requirement for eligibility to serve as President or Vice President of the United States.
Additionally, the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution states that: "[N]o person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States."
Grandfather provision of Article II, Section I
“…or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution…”
The grandfather provision of the Natural Born Citizen Clause thus covered the first several presidents and vice-presidents, who were citizens at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, but who had been born as British Citizens before the American Revolution. [In other words, at the time of the adoption of the Constitution no Citizen of the United States could have been a Natural Born Citizen, because their parent’s were not U.S. Citizens at the time of their birth.]
It is generally agreed that these Constitutional provisions mean that anyone born on American soil to parents who are U.S. citizens is a natural born citizen eligible to someday become president or vice-president. It is also agreed that anyone whose citizenship is acquired after birth as a result of the naturalization process or procedure is not a natural born citizen and is therefore ineligible for those two positions.
The Lineage of Barack Hussein Obama II
Barack Hussein Obama II was born to Stanley Ann Dunham, a White American from Wichita, Kansas of English and Irish descent, and Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., a Luo from Nyang’oma Kogelo, Nyanza Province, Kenya. His parents met in 1960 while attending the University of Hawaii at Mānoa, where his father was a foreign student.
Barack Hussein Obama I was a citizen of Great Britain at the time of his son’s birth. The senior Obama never became a Citizen of the United States. Obama II acquired British Citizenship at birth by virtue of this father, and later, Kenyan citizenship by virtue of his father, once Kenya won its independence.
Although Obama II’s mother was a U.S. Citizen at the time of his birth, the fact that his father was not created a condition of dual citizenship. Being born with dual citizenship disqualified Obama II from ever being considered to be a natural born citizen.
The Definition and Original Meaning
The drafters of our Constitution read Vattel’s Law of Nations, and incorporated many of its definitions into the text.
Vattel’s Law of Nations Chapter 19, § 212. Citizens and natives:
“The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. As the society cannot exist and perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights. The society is supposed to desire this, in consequence of what it owes to its own preservation; and it is presumed, as matter of course, that each citizen, on entering into society, reserves to his children the right of becoming members of it. The country of the fathers is therefore that of the children; and these become true citizens merely by their tacit consent. We shall soon see whether, on their coming to the years of discretion, they may renounce their right, and what they owe to the society in which they were born. I say, that, in order to be of the country, it is necessary that a person be born of a father who is a citizen; for, if he is born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country.”
And of Our Constitutional Republic?
In real life, a law must be changed or amended before it may be broken without punishment. What gives Barack Obama II the right to be the President of the United States?
Nothing gives him that right. You know it, I know it, Congress knows it, and the Supreme Court knows it. To date, not one single eligibility case against Obama II has been heard on the merits. That means there has been no hearing, no subpoenas, no production of evidence, nothing. Each case has been thrown out on a technicality without having been tried.
Many Americans assume that this case has been heard, and that Obama II was proven to be a Natural Born Citizen. They are wrong. If you think that the case has been tried, then I would encourage you to search. Search each and every eligibility challenge taken to court, and review the disposition of those cases. You will find that not one single case has ever been tried on the merits. Why you ask? Because as Eric Holder stated, ‘we are a nation of cowards’.
If you know the truth, and are afraid to speak it, then you sir/madam are a coward.
Sources:
http://east_west_dialogue.tripod.com/vattel/id3.html
http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/thepresidentandcabinet/a/presrequire.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural-born_citizen
http://www.lonang.com/exlibris/vattel/vatt-119.htm
http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/previous_questions.html
>The United States Constitution requires that Presidents (and Vice Presidents) of the United States be natural born citizens of the United States.<
And what about the Speaker of the House being third in line for the presidency?
Vattel based his treatise on the evvolving civil law of Europe, based in Roman law and eventually codified under Napoleon.
The Founders based the Constitution not on Roman law, but on English common law. The relevant treatise is that of Blackstone, under which every person born within the state is a subject of the King and by extension a citizen of the USA.
Your theory requires that there be three categories of US citizen: native-born but not natural born and therefore not eligible to be a US president; natural born; naturalized. In actual fact the Supreme Court and US law have always recognized only two: native (natural) born and naturalized. If Obama was born in HI he's native-born and eligible to be President.
That he's never presented definitive evidence he was born there is an entirely different subject.
This may prove to be the ONLY way we can rid ourselves of this blight called Obama. But we’d better have all our ducks in a row, and be able to conclusively PROVE it.
The scenario is virtually unimaginable, but as every day goes by, and more people suffer because of his demagoguery,
challenging his legitimacy to even be President looks like a tactic that deserves our most serious attention.
Wrong-O.
You say that there are three conditions to be a citizen.
Okay.
However,I was born in the United States to two British subjects,hence,not elegible to be POTUS,due to conflicting, or dual-citizenship.
B-HO was born to a British subject, and a minor.
So, no natural born.
The Supreme Court has never taken up the subject of Natural-Born citizens.
Yes,some of our laws were based on English Common Law,but
not citizenship.
British subjects were called subjects because they were,in fact,subjects,not citizens.
The concept of free men was wholly unknown to the British Crown.
That’s why we broke away from them in the first place.
If you desire to acquire more Knowlege about the subject,I urge you to consult Hillsdale College’s periodical Imprimus.
Archive:”Birthright Citizenship and Dual Citizenship:Harbingers of Administrative Tyranny. 7/2008
Get back to me if you read it.
The Speaker (and for that matter, any of the others in the line of succession - the President pro tem of the Senate and Cabinet secretaries) are not required to be natural born citizens, but in the even it is necessary, the line of succession would skip them and go to the next qualified person.
The Vice President must meet all the same constitutional requirements as the President - others in the ‘line of succession’ do not have to, but could not become President themselves.
So Vattel, writing on a Continent utterly dominated by absolutist monarchies, was chosen by the Founders for their definition of citizenship as opposed to Blackstone, writing abput the genuinely although imperfectly free common law.
The British monarchy of the late 18th century was light-years ahead of any continental government when it came to freedom for its subjects.
The Supreme Court, in several of its cases, while it did not specifically define “natural born,” most certainly did not split the “born in the USA” contingent into two groups, as you would like to do. In fact, in one of these decisions the dissenters argued against recognizing citizenship to a Chinese man born here to Chinese citizen parents, partially on the basis that this might result in such a man being eligible to be president. The majority decision went against them, implicitly recognizing that he would indeed be eligible for this honor.
I challenge you to find any offical ruling, stature or decision that recognizes three categories of citizenship rather than two.
I’ll read your article from Hillsdale to see if they bring anything new to the table.
He has nothing new to add to the discussion. In fact, he agress with me as to what the present state of the law is.
There is no Supreme Court decision squarely holding that children of illegal aliens are automatically citizens of the U.S. An 1898 decision, U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, held by a vote of 5-4 that a child of legal resident aliens is entitled to birthright citizenship. The Wong Kim Ark decision, however, was based on the mistaken premise that the Fourteenth Amendment adopted the common law system of birthright citizenship.
So birthright citizenship is, according to the professor, presently the law for a child with two legal resident alien parents. Obama, of course, is the child of a legal alient resident and an undisputed American citizen.
Professor Erler and you think the law was misinterpreted by the Supremes over 100 years ago. You both have every right to believe this and promote a change in the legal precedent. Bring a case and maybe the Court will overturn the original decision. But until then the law remains that Obama, if born in HI, is a native-born American citizen.
Note my tagline.
BTW, if you were born here to non-diplomat legal residents, you are perfectly eligible to be president. Let me know when you file the papers and I will consider contributing to your campaign.
Yes,please read the Imprimus article.
It did shed new light on this subject,at least for me.
It’s a gift. I can’t claim any credit, I was born with it.
I see you forgot your /sarcasm as well.
“The common law of England is not the common law of these States.” —George Mason
What Natural-Born Citizen Could Not Mean
Could a natural-born citizen simply mean citizenship due to place of birth?
Unlikely because we know one can be native born and yet not a native born citizen of this country prior to the year 1866. There were even disputes whether anyone born within the District of Columbia or in the territories were born citizens of the United States (they were referred to as “inhabitants” instead.) National Government could make no “territorial allegiance” demands within the several States because as Madison explained it, the “powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.”
Fourteenth Amendment
Whatever might had been the correct understanding of “natural-born citizen” prior to 1866, the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment certainly changes the view because for the first time we have a written national rule declaring who are citizens through birth or naturalization. Who may be born citizens is conditional upon being born “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States - a condition not required under the common law. The legislative definition of “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” was defined as “Not owing allegiance to anybody else.”
This national rule prevents us from interpreting natural-born citizen under common law rules because it eliminates the possibility of a child being born with more than one allegiance.
Natural-Born Citizen Defined
One universal point most all early publicists agreed on was natural-born citizen must mean one who is a citizen by no act of law. If a person owes their citizenship to some act of law (naturalization for example), they cannot be considered a natural-born citizen. This leads us to defining natural-born citizen under the laws of nature - laws the founders recognized and embraced.
Under the laws of nature, every child born requires no act of law to establish the fact the child inherits through nature his/her father’s citizenship as well as his name (or even his property) through birth. This law of nature is also recognized by law of nations. Sen. Howard said the citizenship clause under the Fourteenth Amendment was by virtue of “natural law and national law.”
There is no special provision. The speaker of the house falls under Article I as all other Congressmen.
Your post is about what the law should be, not what it is.
The Supremes have never ruled precisely on the "natural-born" issue, but it really isn't difficult to examine the rulings they have made and deduce how they likely would rule. Which would be that natural-born is the same as native-born, leaving us with two categories of citizenship, not three.
The Constitution itself mentions three (3) so are you saying that it doesn’t? Do you defy the words printed in black in white that are before you? Let me spell them out for you:
1. Citizen
2. Naturalized Citizen
3. Natural Born Citizen
Only one of the above applies to the offices of President and Vice President. In case you still don’t get it, that would be #3. That’s what is being discussed here, not citizenship rights, and definitely not British Common Law, which we Americans detest to this day.
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