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To: Danae
"It is an established maxim, that birth is a criterion of allegiance. Birth, however, derives its force sometimes from place, and sometimes from parentage; but, in general place is the most certain criterion; it is what applies in the United States." -- James Madison, 1789

"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).

66 posted on 04/28/2011 8:27:34 AM PDT by Conscience of a Conservative
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To: Conscience of a Conservative
Uh....you must be a DU plant. Yeah, that must be it. Or something....

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....

68 posted on 04/28/2011 8:48:25 AM PDT by Bruce Campbells Chin
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To: Conscience of a Conservative
John Jay’s letter to Washington (in his role as chairman of the Constitutional Convention): “Permit me to hint whether it would not be wise and seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of foreigners into the administration of our national government; 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.”

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."

76 posted on 04/28/2011 4:30:21 PM PDT by sourcery (If true=false, then there would be no constraints on what is possible. Hence, the world exists.)
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