The legal precedent for the Constitutional understanding of “Natural Born Citizenship” is formidable.
Source: (Culled from Mario Apuzzo’s site one of the attorneys pursuing action against Obama.)
Article II “natural born Citizen” status must be shown as of the time of birth for a person to be eligible to be President.
The meaning of an Article II “natural born Citizen” has been addressed by various United States Supreme Court and other court cases. These cases show that the Framers did not use English common law to define what a “natural born Citizen” was but rather natural law and the law of nations which became federal common law. English common law continued to be used in the several states to provide the law on property, contracts, torts, inheritance, criminal substance and procedure, and other areas, but not the law on federal matters such as national citizenship. In defining a “natural born citizen,” these cases made specific reference to the citizenship of the child’s parents at the time of the child’s birth. These cases have defined a “natural born Citizen” as a child born in the country to citizen parents which is the definition provided by Emer de Vattel in his influential and celebrated treatise, The Law of Nations, Or, Principles of the Law of Nature, bk 1, c. 19, sec. 212 (1758 French edition) (1759 first English translation).
These cases are:
The Venus, 12 U.S. (8 Cranch) 253, 289 (1814) (Marshall, C.J., concurring)
Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857)
Shanks v. Dupont, 28 U.S. 242, 245 (1830) (same definition without citing Vattel);
Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162, 167-68 (1875) (same definition without citing Vattel);
Ex parte Reynolds, 1879, 5 Dill., 394, 402 (same definition and cites Vattel);
United States v. Ward, 42 F.320 (C.C.S.D.Cal. 1890) (same definition and cites Vattel);
U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898) (favorably citing Minor v. Happersett).
The Court was very specific in defining “natives, or natural born citizens” as requiring not only birth in the country but also citizen parents and in stating that the Framers would have defined the terms as such.
Gentlemen, might you have a moment to illuminate this new arrival?