Posted on 01/13/2011 2:23:49 PM PST by bushpilot1
Finzer v. Barry, 798 F. 2d 1450 - Court of Appeals, Dist. of Columbia Circuit 1986
The above clearly states..the Law of Nations, written in the Constitution is from Vattel.
Thank you.
It was deciding one issue on INTERNATIONAL law.
It was assumed by the framers and ratifiers of the Constitution that our obligations under international law would be honored. In the course of their rebellion, the American colonies were quick to assure the world that the "law of nations [would be] strictly observed."
You are really an act of art! This case throws out Vattel and declares that US law supercedes international law ... in this case. This case proves that you have no idea what you are posting but are just cutting and pasting from birther sites.
Too bad you can't thank me for the entire post.
Direct quotes from legal cases are 'birther sites'??? You're getting more and more desperate.
Too bad you can't thank me
?
As to what is a natural born subject, Blackstone went on to say that any person, freeman or alien, except those of diplomats who were born in the realm of the King of England was a natural born subject. There is a problem with a simple substitution of citizen in place of subject, that some people think are synonymous. In England, not all natural born subjects of the Crown can become the King. This is reserved for a very small subset of natural born subjects called the royalty. This is drastically dissimilar to the American concept that any Natural Born Citizen can become President. Under Blackstone’s subjects only a very, very small subset of Natural Born Subjects could rise to be King, the American Presidency is drawn from the largest class of citizens, the natural born. Like the analogy of a field of clover, the Founding Fathers were not looking for that elusive genetic mutation of a four-leaf clover, they were looking for the common, naturally occurring three-leaf clover to be President.
So because we don't have a king, the Founders accepted Vattel's theory? It's not really a convincing argument.
The part about the sailors was interesting. British impressment of American sailors was a reason for the war of 1812. But it's not entirely convincing that we went to war because the British extended citizenship or subjecthood to the children of British nationals and took those sailors off our ships. How would they know where your parents had been born? That they took naturalized US citizens who had been born in Britain off our ships would have been reason enough to get angry at them.
Chancellor James Kent was a leading 19th century authority on US law, maybe the leading authority. You can find his Commentaries on American Law on Google Books. He contrasts natural-born citizens versus naturalized citizens. He doesn't make a distinction between "native born" and "natural born" citizens. So far as I can make out "natural born" was his way of saying "native born" in 20th century language.
The other great legal authority in early 19th century America, Justice Joseph Story, writes about why the President must be a natural born citizen. Some people take this as a verification of Vattel's theory. But Story writes about ambitious foreigners who might come here, become citizens, and mount presidential campaigns. He doesn't talk about where the parents of born citizens were born or whether they were nationalized. I suppose one can read Story either way, but his book is no proof that the Vattel theory was accepted.
K-Stater: If the court was referring to Vattel's book then wouldn't 'law of nations' be capitalized?
More to the point, Vattel based his legal theory on natural law, not common law.
Good find!
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