Posted on 04/27/2011 7:25:39 PM PDT by westcoastwillieg
Time to turn to the real issue, 'Does Obama qualify as ‘natural-born'?
The issue with Obama’s eligibility not only involves his place of birth but also whether he qualifies as a 'natural-born-citizen'.
After Obama played his 'Trump' card his supporters are trying to divert voters away from the 'natural-born' issue and obfuscate the definition of 'natural-born'.
It is generally believed the Founders considered 'natural-born' to mean born in country to parents who were citizens at the time of the person's birth.
As Holmes said to Watson, "The game is afoot." Attempts have already been made to use 'native-born' interchangeably with 'natural-born' and, as yet, there is no Supreme Court decision nor does the constitution define 'natural-born'.
While Obama has shown his birth certificate it proves that his father was not a citizen but the jury hasn't decided if he qualifies as 'natural-born'.
I have more than an incorrect interpretation of Natural Born Citizen. Obama isn’t one and never was. A dual citizen can never be a Natural Born citizen. The ONLY time a person born with another nationality ( mom and dads) along with that of say Virginia, was the instant after the Constitution was ratified bringing the USA into being until the last grandfathered in citizen died. After that, you had to be born under the sole jurisdiction of the USA in order to be an NBC. The ratification of the constitution made everyone a naturalized citizen, and only then. That grandfathering would not have been NECESSARY if it only took being born on the soil, because it included those with foreign parents. If foreign parents were ok, then many would have qualified,but that’s not what the founders did is it?
Well good luck with your case. I tried to tell you that court precedent would strike you down in a heartbeat, but if you’ve got time to kill...
What court precedent? WKA didn’t SET that precedent.’it didn’t even address natural born citizenship.’it only differentiated it from citizen. Not to mention you are quoting the dissent... And from a man who got onto USSC by nomination by Chester Arthur. Yea, I can see why he wrote a’s he did. If Chet was an unconstitutional POTUS, then Grey would have been off the bench. Golly, do you think in the days of Tammany Hall and crony politics that Grey wouldn’t try to protect his benefactor? Nah.
There is no court precedent for NBC. that’s why we are here on this issue.
IOW a wise country would never have granted her citizenship because she had no respect for our founding principles. She was an English socialist who loved the monarchy. Go figger.
Anyway, that makes me NOT an NBC? Heck, if I wanted, I could join the Sons of the American Revolution (through my father's mother to some guy who immigrated to Maine in the 17th century.)
Oh well, darn! Time to disband the exploratory committee. Thank you for your support. Your contributions will be returned except for the packing and handling fees which are going to pay for my trip to Vegas after this exhausting campaign.
"And the constitution itself contains a direct recognition of the subsisting common law principle, in the section which defines the qualification of the President. "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," &c . The only standard which then existed, of a natural born citizen, was the rule of the common law, and no different standard has been adopted since. Suppose a person should be elected President who was native born, but of alien parents, could there be any reasonable doubt that he was eligible under the constitution? I think not. The position would be decisive in his favor that by the rule of the common law, in force when the constitution was adopted, he is a citizen." -- Lynch v. Clarke, 3 N.Y. Leg. Obs. 236, 1 Sand. Ch. 583 (1844).
"Nothing is better settled at the common law than the doctrine that the children even of aliens born in a country while the parents are resident there under the protection of the government and owing a temporary allegiance thereto are subjects by birth." -- Inglis v. Trustees of Sailor's Snug Harbor, 28 U.S. 99 (1830) (Storey, J.)
"We start from the premise that the rights of citizenship of the native-born and of the naturalized person are of the same dignity and are coextensive. The only difference drawn by the Constitution is that only the 'natural born' citizen is eligible to be President." -- Schneider v. Rusk, 377 U.S. 163 (1964).
"The first section of the second article of the Constitution uses the language "a natural-born citizen". It thus assumes that citizenship may be acquired by birth. Undoubtedly, this language of the Constitution was used in reference to that principle of public law, well understood in the history of this country at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, which referred Citizenship to the place of birth. At the Declaration of Independence, and ever since, the received general doctrine has been, in conformity with the common law, that free persons born within either of the colonies, were the subjects of the King; that by the Declaration of independence, and the consequent acquisition of sovereignty by the several States, all such persons ceased to be subjects, and became citizens of the several States" -- Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857) (Curtis, J., dissenting).
Or, the founders put in the grandfathering clause because they wanted to ensure that the founders themselves - some of whom were not born on U.S. soil (e.g., Hamilton) - would be eligible to be President.
The idea some have that the writings of a Swiss legal theorist should be given legal precedent over English law at the time of Independence is absurd to anyone who knows anything about the legal history of this country. But that won't stop 'em from trying....
Am at work responding on my cell phone, so can’t give expansive reply. However, the same laws that apply to illegal immigrants who cross the border to drop a baby so the child becomes an “anchor baby” apply in the case of Obama. In fact, the mother is the determinant parent, not the father. Mother is in US, has baby, child is a natural born citizen. I’m a conservative. I so agree with most conservative positions on issues. But this one is a loser. Wish conservatives would drop it. Makes us look very foolish. Much, much bigger issues to confront.
My friend, NO ONE WAS ELIGIBLE. Forget about the founders, NO ONE WAS ELIGIBLE for POTUS with out the grandfather clause because the United States didn’t EXIST until the constitution was ratified. The Colonies became States, and the specific sovereignty they had before that ceased to exist.
The grandfather clause was there because no one was a citizen or had parents born there until it happened. It had nothing to do with the founders specifically. Sheesh. Maybe you should read something like Roberts Rules, or some other Parliamentary guide.
Oh, so you are saying that Mom and Dad’s citizenship just disappears? That children do NOT inherit the citizenship of their parents? Dude, Logic 101... take a look at it.
OK, so without the grandfather clause, no one was eligible because the United States didn’t exist prior to ratification, so no one could have been a “natural born citizen” of the United States. Agreed.
The point is, that would have been true, regardless of whether “natural born citizen” depends on birthplace, parentage, or both. If birthplace determines “natural born citizen” status, then no one could have been a “natural born citizen,” because no one had been born in the United States 35+ years prior. If parentage determines “natural born citiszen” status, then no one could have been a “natural born citizen,” because no one could have been born to United States citizen parents 35+ years prior. So, trying to argue that the existence of a grandfather clause proves that “natural born citizen” status depends on parentage is incorrect.
Both the Arthur precedent and the most court Supreme Court rulings, notably the U.S. v. Kim Wong Ark case of 1898 are totally against your theory.
The court was quite clear in the Kim Wong case that he had ALL the same rights as any other citizen. Both this case and the Arthur precedent are totally against you.
Those words irrefutably establish the fact that the Framers were worried about the undivided loyalty of the President, and thought that the requirement that he be a natural born citizen would be sufficient to prevent anyone with foreign allegiance (anyone who could be claimed as a subject or citizen of a foreign sovereign) from serving as President. But how could that be, if "natural born citizen" differs from "natural born subject" solely in the difference between a subject and a citizen? A British "natural born subject" could have multiple nationalities, and owe allegiance to multiple sovereigns. And many nations claim anyone with at least one parent (sometimes it must be the father, sometimes it must be the mother, sometimes both) who is a citizen or subject of that nation as a citizen/subject also.
Therefore, it is beyond any possibility of dispute that the only way the "natural born citizen" requirement can prevent a person from having allegiance to a foreign sovereign is if its meaning is the same as the one de Vattel defined and labelled "les naturel, ou indigenes," and which a professional translator translated into English as "natural born citizen" just a few short years after the "natural born citizen" requirement was written and ratified in the new US Constitution. Literally and normatively, the words "les naturel, ou indigenes" mean "the natural ones, the natives." So why did the translator render them into English as "natural born citizen," unless it was his expert opinion that the meaning of "natural born citizen" in the Constitution matched the meaning of the concept defined by de Vattel, where de Vattel specifies the purest form of citizenship as requiring both jus soli and jus sanguinis—with BOTH parents being citizens?
Clearly, if both your parents are citizens (or subjects) of the same sovereign, and you were born in that same sovereign's territory, then and only then is it impossible for any foreign sovereign to have a claim to your allegiance under the law of nations as commonly understood. John Jay's request to Washington makes no sense otherwise. If that reasoning is sound, then "natural born citizen" must have been intended to have the same meaning as de Vattel defined for his term-of-art phrases "les naturels, ou les indigenes."
That wasn’t the context of the conversation.
Natural Born Citizenship is determined by a combination of three things, all of which have to be the same. Mother’s citizenship, Father’s Citizenship, and Place of birth.
All must be of the same nation in order to be a Natural Born Citizen of that Nation. This person was born under the sole jurisdiction of ONE nation, and has zero possibility of any other citizenship.
You cannot logically state that the Citizenship of Mom goes away, certainly not today, nor that of Dad. The citizenship of a parent doesn’t just disappear. The place someone was born, if on foreign soil may or may not confer automatic citizenship, but certainly creates the likelihood of dual citizenship. No one argues that an anchor baby doesn’t inherit his Mexican parents citizenship! He is Mexican and American.
So place matters, Parents matter, and in Natural Born Citizenship all three matter.
But more importantly, being President of the US is NOT a right. It's a privilege, one created and granted by the Constitution. Similarly, the right to vote is actually a privilege granted by the Constitution. And there is no right to vote for President, not even to vote for Presidential electors. The Constitution grants the States the power to choose Presidential electors in whatever manner the State legislature specifies by law—which does not have to involve citizens (or anyone else) voting.
As for the "Arthur precedent," there is no such thing. Without a court decision, there is no legal precedent. Without the public and Congress knowingly allowing Arthur to serve in spite of the fact his father was a British subject, there is no de facto precedent, either. And we know beyond any reasonable doubt that neither the public nor Congress knew about Arthur's father not being a citizen, because of an article published in The American Law Review in 1884, while Arthur was President.
The article was written by George D. Collins, Esq. Attorney Collins was the Secretary of the California Bar Association. His name was recognized nationally for cases in the federal courts and moreso due to his regular publishing of articles via The American Law review. The article was entitled "ARE PERSONS BORN IN THE UNITED STATES IPSO FACTO CITIZENS THEREOF?", and was an in depth discussion and review of the legalities of US citizenship.
The article makes a compelling case that "natural born citizen" means exactly what de Vattel meant by "les naturels, ou indigene": persons born on the soil of a nation both of whose parents were citizens of that same nation. But here's the point: There is no way the article could have been written, or published by the American Law Review, while the current sitting President is shown by the article to clearly fail the Constitutional requirement of being a natural born citizen, unless it was not generally known that such was the case. No way in Dante's Inferno could any such thing have happened, especially not in 1884!
You are utterly refuted.
No, those words establish that the Framers (in particular, John Jay) were concerned about the “admission of foreigners into the administration of our national government.” By my reading of Jay’s letter, they were concerned about the possibility of a foreigner immigrating to the U.S., becoming a naturalized citizen, and then running for President. Madison (the father of the Constitution) said it himself - in the U.S., place, not parentage, matters.
You, sir, are not intellectually honest, and here’s why:
John Jay first expresses a general concern about foreigners in the administration of the government, which is immediately followed (in the same sentence!) by the words “and to declare expressly that the command in chief of the American army shall not be given to, nor devolve on any but a natural born citizen.” The construction allows of no other intellectually honest interpretation but that Jay was asserting that the explicit requirement that the President be a natural born citizen was the foremost measure that should be taken to prevent foreigners playing any managerial, ministerial or executive role in the administration of the national government.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.