Obama's McCain resolution demands 'American' parents

Perhaps it's a good thing that the U.S. Senate didn't take up a resolution on Barack Obama's status as a "natural born Citizen" in 2008 – as members did for GOP candidate Sen. John McCain while both were seeking the U.S. presidency.

The Democrat might not have qualified under the requirements the Senate, including Obama, a co-sponsor and then-senator, put in the resolution, including the demand that the candidate have "American citizen" parents.

The candidates' circumstances were not the same: Questions were raised over McCain's eligibility under the Constitution's demand that a president be a "natural born Citizen," because he was born to American citizen military parents while they are on assignment overseas.

Be the first to get the new eligibility book signed by Jerome Corsi and help get TV commercials on the air to bust this issue wide open!

The specific allegations have been placed online by YouTube participate PPSimmons, who previously has analyzed and provided commentary on the issues of eligibility to the presidency:

Questions over Obama's have arisen because of his almost total concealment of documentation from his life – including his passport records, kindergarten records, Punahou school records, Occidental College records, Columbia University records, Columbia thesis, Harvard Law School records, Harvard Law Review articles, University of Chicago articles, Illinois State Bar Association records, Illinois State Senate records and schedules, medical records, Obama/Dunham marriage license, Obama/Dunham divorce documents, Soetoro/Dunham marriage license and adoption records.

“there is no thought given to a person born a dual citizen”

Frankly, the Founders didn’t give it thought. Remember, the original draft of the Constitution didn’t have the NBC clause, just a residency clause. The revision by the “Committee of Style and Arrangement” added the NBC clause as published on 4 Sept, 13 days before the signing and after many of the delegates had left.

Also, under the grandfather clause, a naturalized citizen (John Laurance - born in England) was once next in line behind the VP for the Presidency. That may or may not have been an oversight, but it certainly indicates they weren’t as paranoid about foreign influence as some here suggest.

Given that they were less than rigorous in demanding NBC status, it doesn’t seem too far fetched to say they didn’t think about the case of a foreign country claiming a hold on someone born in the USA.

It does raise an interesting question: Could a Jew born in the USA of US citizens but a dual citizen of Israel legally hold the Presidency? my guess is yes.

From Perkins v Elg:

“On reviewing the pertinent points in the case, including the Naturalization Treaty of 1868 with North Germany, 15 Stat. 615, the Attorney General reached the following conclusion:

“Young Steinkauler is a native-born American citizen. There is no law of the United States under which his father or any other person can deprive him of his birthright. 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; but the father, in accordance with the treaty and the laws, has renounced his American citizenship and his American allegiance and has acquired for himself and his son German citizenship and the rights which it carries and he must take the burdens as well as the advantages.”

Notice - a native-born (aka natural born) citizen of the US, also holding German citizenship and living in Germany from the age of 4, but “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...”

I went thru the top 100 books in Google book, and this is all I found:

In Leake v Gilchrist supra it is said that the assignee of the debt by the administrator appointed at the domicile of the deceased could maintain an action here

North Carolina reports: cases argued and determined in the Supreme ...: Volume 126 - Page 627

Leake v Gilchrist 13 NC 2 Dev L 73 sustaining power of a foreign administrator having possession of bond to assign such bond giving assignee power to sue in his own name

The American decisions: cases of general value and authority ..., Volume 11
By John Proffatt, Abraham Clark Freeman,

In Leake v Gilchrist 1829 13 NC 2 Dev L 73 a foreign administrator appointed in South Carolina in March having possession of a bond assigned it in September to the plaintiff who brought a suit upon it in North Carolina where administrators of the estate had been appointed in April It was held that the plaintiff was entitled to recover as the bond was assets where found

American law reports annotated, Volume 10

the early case of Leake v Gilchrist 13 NC 2 Dev L at page 85 They all lead us to the conclusion that a foreign creditor cannot by the operation of any law of his own state acquire any preference over resident creditors in the administration of assets which are situated here

Lawyers’ reports annotated, Book 70

In Leake v Gilchrist 2 Dev 75 it was broadly and distinctly held that debts due by specialty follow the person of the obligee and are assets of the domicile In that case an assignment by the administrator of the domicile in South Carolina of a bond on a citizen in North Carolina was recognized as valid and brought by the assignee in North Carolina was sustained.

Reports of cases heard and determined by the Supreme Court of ...: Volume 14 - Page 581

Not much to go on for checking context and applicability!

>The 1790 law concerned those born to US parent overseas or on the high seas.<

No, you misinterpreted - Clearly they make provisions for foreigners to become naturalized citizens. Them to be parents of children who at birth here are citizens as well.

All you need to do is back up a paragraph or two from what you have been quoting. It is all there.
The overseas thing is in addition to all the other stuff.

You apparently skipped over all the provisions for people to naturalize, them to have children who are citizens, and those citizens to have children who are then natural born citizens.

Read it again, start further back Chapter III section 1. Any alien being a free white person ....... etc etc etc

Yes, the Naturalization Act covered all naturalization. The part birthers often take out of context is the part that in 1790 read that a natural born citizen was one born to two citizen parents overseas or on the high seas. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve been told the act defines NBC as requiring two citizen parents, or that Senate Resolution 511 requires all NBC to have two citizen parents.

The WKA decision noted:

” “The acquisition,” says Mr. Dicey, (p. 741) “of nationality by descent is foreign to the principles of the common law, and is based wholly upon statutory enactments.”

It has been pertinently observed that, if the statute of Edward III had only been declaratory of the common law, the subsequent legislation on the subject would have been wholly unnecessary. Cockburn on Nationality 9. By the [p671] statute of 29 Car. II, (1677) c. 6, § 1, entitled “An act for the naturalization of children of His Majesty’s subjects born in foreign countries during the late troubles,” all persons who, at any time between June 14, 1641, and March 24, 1660, “were born out of His Majesty’s dominions, and whose fathers or mothers were natural-born subjects of this realm” were declared to be natural-born subjects. By the statute of 7 Anne, (1708) c. 5, § 3, “the children of all natural-born subjects, born out of the ligeance of Her Majesty, her heirs and successors” — explained by the statute of 4 Geo. II, (1731) c. 21, to mean all children born out of the ligeance of the Crown of England

whose fathers were or shall be natural-born subjects of the Crown of England, or of Great Britain, at the time of the birth of such children respectively . . . . shall be deemed, adjudged and taken to be natural-born subjects of this kingdom, to all intents, constructions and purposes whatsoever.

That statute was limited to foreign-born children of natural-born subjects, and was extended by the statute of 13 Geo. III, (1773) c. 21, to foreign-born grandchildren of natural-born subjects, but not to the issue of such grandchildren; or, as put by Mr. Dicey, “British nationality does not pass by descent or inheritance beyond the second generation.”

English common law made NBS of all born within the realm, while acts of Parliament gave NBS status to those born of two English parents while abroad. Our 1790 Naturalization Act followed Parliament’s example - another case of our laws following English law.

But within the realm, all children born of parents in amity with the government were NBS, and since the courts have regularly found that NBS = NBC, differing only in country...a NBC would include all children born to parents in the USA. Of course, the Founders COULD have chosen to follow a different path, but they didn’t.

Something I only learned yesterday is that the NBC clause of the Constitution wasn’t in the original draft. The “Committee of Style and Arrangement” added the NBC clause to the draft published on 4 Sept, 13 days before the signing and after many of the delegates had left.

That doesn’t make it in any way invalid. What is valid is what the states ratified, and they ratified the Constitution with the NBC clause in it. However, since the first draft only had a residency clause for the President, it seems safe to assume the Founders didn’t consider it a major point.

And if the Founders wanted to change the basis of born citizenship from the common law all colonies and states had followed, it seems likely they would have mentioned it in some way, or used a different wording than one found in common law. IMHO.

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