Birthers and Perkins V Elg

"Young Steinkauler is a native-born American citizen.

Right -- and a natural born citizen as well. One can be native born [soil] and not natural born [soil and parentage], but whoever is natural born [soil and parentage] is also native born. Young Steinkauler, by Vattel's definition, was both.

I don't think they did consider her parents citizenship status.

Sure they did. They noted that her father had been naturalized before her birth. Therefore she was both a native born citizen by birth on American soil and a natural born citizen because by birth on American soil and of American parentage. Elg was also both.

So they equate her native born citizenship (which I think we all agree is citizenship based on birth in the US) with natural born citizenship. The government thought she had lost native born status, but the Court found the lower court had correctly said she retained NBC.

They didn't equate them. The government tried to deny her native born status, but the Court restored not only her native born status but raised her to an NBC status.

They quote approvingly of him being “native born” and that status allows him to run for President.

Unless they were being very sloppy, if they agreed with your concept, they should have said that he was both native born and natural born, and the latter allowed him to run for President.

It is possible for a court to write sloppy, but that normally isn’t assumed to be the case in a Supreme Court decision.

I agree with you about how it ought to be, but disagree with you on how I think a court will rule based on this decision. I also think no court will rule unless forced to by a carefully thought out case that leaves them no other option.

They made up their own definition: native born. The case supports the Vattel natural born definition — two parents who are citizens giving birth to a child citizen on our soil. The case has nothing to do with defining presidential requirements, nor is it an amendment to the constitution. So whether they erred or not does nothing to change the original Constitutional definition.

Anyone who wants it changed is going to have to amend the constitution, or find a preponderance of Supreme Court cases addressing a change to the presidential requirements issue, not monkey around with definitions to suit their desires.

I still believe billboards around the country with the presidential requirements and the original definition of natural born citizen would do plenty to get this case resolved once and for all.

No comparison. Both cases are different. Also, Barry's situation is more than where he was born. He may not have had US citizenship due to his childhood in Indonesia.

Aside from all of this, I believe he is the only president to have spent his formative years on foreign soil. Military children born or being stationed overseas (such as McCain) are different situations.

Obama was never raised with respect and love for this country! He did not grow up saying the pledge, or singing ‘God Bless America’ - that is for sure. His only religious teachings were Muslim, and, from all accounts, his mother and grandparents were atheists and leaned toward communism.

He is what the founding fathers wanted to avoid when they said natural born. They knew that a child not raised in this society would not have the reverence and respect for the history of the country. That is why Barry bows to other leaders...he is not really an American in his heart. His allegiance lies elsewhere. It is his goal to weaken America. Our founding fathers did not want this type of person to be elected. We may as well open the doors to the whole world for our presidency if this situation is not addressed and addressed thoroughly. I believe this will set a precedent, and we will have make an amendment to our constitution to further clarify eligibility. At the very least, an amendment will have to written that all candidates must provide a legal birth certificate.

The Supreme Court has not thoroughly examined Obama’s eligibility in an transparent manner with attorneys from both sides presenting their arguments in open court for the American public to fully see, hear, and read. ( Please excuse me if my non-lawyering language is not perfect enough for you.)

If this should come about, I would completely accept the Supreme Court's decision regarding Obama’s natural born status.

But...I believe you missing the entire point of my post. It is **NOT**just Obama’s eligibility.

Obama’s eligibility has merely focused a bright spotlight on a fundamental flaw in our system of self-governance. Surely, in the future there will be **other** constitutional issues that need and deserve resolution and the common citizen will be frustrated in finding clarification because all three branches of government will not acknowledge that the common citizen has “standing” to pursue resolution.

This needs to be fixed. I am a realist, however, and if it were fixed it would mean that those in the three branches of government would lose power, so therefore, I doubt it will be fixed. At best ( maybe) we will get piecemeal legislation . For example, Arizona requiring that candidates prove their eligibility before having their names placed on the ballot.

Both parents were originally Swedish. The father was naturalized as a US citizen the year before Marie was born. It is unclear to me if her mother was ever naturalized - one sentence would indicate yes, the other no. Some say the mother would have been automatically naturalized when her husband was...and I don't know how naturalization law read at the time. The summary states " A child born here of alien parentage becomes a citizen of the United States."

I told you yesterday what the score was with Elg and of course you didn't believe me. Elg's mother became a US citizen when her husband was naturalized as a US citizen. See 1855 Naturalization Act.

Her parentS were both US citizens at her birth and Ms. Elg was born in the United States. She meets the de Vattel definition as a Natural Born Citizen.

You're grasping at straws.

I told you yesterday what the score was with Elg and of course you didn't believe me. Elg's mother became a US citizen when her husband was naturalized as a US citizen. See 1855 Naturalization Act.

Her parentS were both US citizens at her birth and Ms. Elg was born in the United States. She meets the de Vattel definition as a Natural Born Citizen.

You're grasping at straws.

"They made up their own definition: native born."

This is the role of the Supreme Court, or so it has been since Marbury.

"Anyone who wants it changed is going to have to amend the constitution, or find a preponderance of Supreme Court cases addressing a change to the presidential requirements issue, not monkey around with definitions to suit their desires."

Amend the Constitution? Why? There is no definition of natural-born in the Constitution (or in the US Code, for that matter), just as there is no definition of "speech" in the Constitution. But, when the Supremes extended speech to photographs and moving pictures, no one had to amend the Constitution. That is the role of the Supreme Court - to interpret the Constitution. Interpretation includes defining 18th Century language in a contemporary setting.

“He may not have had US citizenship due to his childhood in Indonesia.”

Totally incorrect. Nothing that happened to him in Indonesia between 6 and 10 has any relevance to his citizenship status (including natural born) here.

“Obama was never raised with respect and love for this country!”

Irrelevant for the purposes of law. Many natural born citizens are evil people who hate America. Bill Ayers is a natural born citizen who hates America.

I have a slightly different question about his eligibility. Since the president has amassed a huge group of lawyers to protect his previous work history and college history, what is the possibility that he’s hiding that info because he committed fraud (if he was actually a US citizen), by applying for resources for college by stating that he was a “foreigner” ..??

And .. if that is true, did he LIE about his status, or was he really a foreigner ..??

I just became curious about this because it seemed that the documents that were being hidden were mostly related to his education .. and I just can’t help but wonder if he lied about his status in order to receive grants to school - grants that he would not have been eligible for as a “natural born citizen”.

On April 1st - a story was floated (supposedly as an April Fool’s joke), that Occidential had released Obama’s application (under the FOIA) and the application stated that he listed himself as a “foreigner”. While it was reported that this article was put forth by AP, I never could find any disclaimer by AP that they didn’t write the story .. nor did AP seek after the person who purportedly lied about AP putting forth the story. Weird.

To me .. this makes it even more curious.

If this is ever proven - that he listed himself as a foreigner - when he was actually a natural born citizen - I do believe that is FRAUD - and after all this time, is that still punishable ..??

"He may not have had US citizenship due to his childhood in Indonesia."

I have no earthly idea how you can even begin to believe such an insane statement. In America, it is impossible to lose one's citizenship. It is also - as a practical matter of law - for minor children to lose their US citizenship.

The abdication of citizenship is a laborious and active, not passive, course of events. It cannot be "lost", it may only abdicated, and then only under very specific circumstances.

So if we compare Marie with Barry, ...

Not quite.
From your lead above:

Notice that "native born" is used as sufficient basis that "He can return to America at the age of twenty-one, and in due time, if the people elect, he can become President of the United States..."

The Court makes no distinction between "native born" and "natural born citizen".

Being born of a Naturalized Father enabled the designation "natural born" to the child [Young Steinkauler] born in the US.

Barry does not qualify, by his own admission.

Buckeye is correct. US law used to automatically naturalized the wife of any US citizen. This means that at the time that of Marie's birth she would have been a Natural Born Citizen because both of her parents were US citizens. So under the law before about 1925, Marie would be a NBC. The old law made the wife of a US Citizen automatically a US citizen without any need for Naturalization, which made it almost impossible for a married couple to not have an NBC child since both parents were always US citizens. (Back then citizenship was also in most circumstances inherited from the father because it was considered to be the natural order of things. This principle of bestowing citizenship through the father dates back to the Roman Empire and beyond. (In fact, this principle only begins to change after the advent of women's suffrage and the feminist movement begins to cause confusion in the established norms, but I digress).

Obama's case is a bit different than Marie's situation since her parents were doubtlessly US citizens at the time of her birth in the US. Also, citizenship law had changed significantly and had been radically reinterpreted by the courts in the years from 1930-1970. In fact, laws were changed to the point of making it difficult to even determine what an NBC was. The courts and Congress allowed dual citizenship, and marriages of mixed citizenship to be possible, which is something that the Constitution had never conceived of. These things made it difficult to know which parent was the controlling factor in inheriting Natural born US citizenship. In Obama's case one parent was not eligible to pass on US citizenship outside of the US, while the other was not a US citizen at all.

Before the Civil War and when the Constitution was written, a person became a citzen in only 2 ways A)by blood to US citizen parents or B)by naturalization. The 14th amendment changed that by adding a vague definition of Ius Soli which now adds the possibility of obtaining US citizenship by place of birth rather than by blood. The problem is that inheriting US citizenship by blood is clearly NBC but obtaining it by place of birth is not defined as NBC in the 14th amendment. Wong Kim Ark tried to deal with this question. It established that Wong was a US citizen, but not whether he was an NBC.

Buckeye is correct. US law used to automatically naturalized the wife of any US citizen.

The Naturalization Act of 1855.

"In 1855 allowed alien women to acquire citizenship by marrying a United States citizen, or upon his naturalization. A woman’s citizenship was directly tied to that of her husband. Women and children automatically received naturalization upon the husband or father’s naturalization. "

They quote approvingly of him being “native born” and that status allows him to run for President.

But, once again, like Elg, they are also considering the citizenship status of his father at the time of his birth when they came to that conclusion, as quoted from the case here:

"The facts were these: one Steinkauler, a Prussian subject by birth, emigrated to the United States in 1848, was naturalized in 1854, and in the following year had a son who was born in St. Louis."

So as the Court noted, he was a "native born citizen" whose father was a citizen of the U.S. before he was born. So then by all means, by virtue of those two factors, he could run for the Presidency. Those two factors together qualify him as a Article II natural born citizen per Vattel.

"They made up their own definition to apply to the case at hand. The case has absolutely nothing to do with natural born citizen requirement to become president of the United States."

Such is the import of any SCOTUS decision. The Supreme Court only rules on the "case at hand", right?

The principle of judicial review was established over 200 years ago with a case about judicial appointments. But, that principle has been applied to every case since - almost all of which have NOTHING to do with judicial appointments.

This is why the Supremes are so judicious with the granting of cert, because despite the merits of the individual case before them, whatever they hold as a matter of law, will be applied to all subsequent cases. So, they cherry-pick the cases that best allow them to establish precedent. Thousands of appellants petition for certiorari, but about 100 (on average) are granted cert. Why is that?

If you ever have time, you should search for the number of cases where Roe v. Wade is cited, that have absolutely NOTHING to do with abortion rights. You might be surprised how frequently Roe - and its principle of "right to privacy" comes up.

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.