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To: Kansas58

James Madison, on May 22, 1789, addressed the issues of a Contested Election, andcitizenship and birthright, in the House of Representatives.

THAT ,is totally irrelevant to the issue of Article 2 Clause 5.

People at the time of adoption of the Constitution were given natural born status and that was what Madison was talking about in specific regards to William Smith and his election to the SC State House, NOT President of the USA:

” ... a Citizen of the United States at the time of Adoption of this Constitution...”


19 posted on 02/06/2012 5:06:32 PM PST by Para-Ord.45
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To: Para-Ord.45

* William Smith and his election from SC to the House, NOT President of the USA:


20 posted on 02/06/2012 5:08:16 PM PST by Para-Ord.45
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To: Para-Ord.45

“As the President is required to be a native citizen of the United States…. Natives are all persons born within the jurisdiction and allegiance of the United States.”

James Kent, COMMENTARIES ON AMERICAN LAW (1826)


“That provision in the constitution which requires that the president shall be a native-born citizen (unless he were a citizen of the United States when the constitution was adopted) is a happy means of security against foreign influence,…A very respectable political writer makes the following pertinent remarks upon this subject. “Prior to the adoption of the constitution, the people inhabiting the different states might be divided into two classes: natural born citizens, or those born within the state, and aliens, or such as were born out of it.”

St. George Tucker, BLACKSTONE’S COMMENTARIES (1803)


“Allegiance is nothing more than the tie or duty of obedience of a subject to the sovereign under whose protection he is, and allegiance by birth is that which arises from being born within the dominions and under the protection of a particular sovereign. Two things usually concur to create citizenship: first, birth locally within the dominions of the sovereign, and secondly, birth within the protection and obedience, or, in other words, within the allegiance of the sovereign….That the father and mother of the demandant were British born subjects is admitted. If he was born before 4 July, 1776, it is as clear that he was born a British subject. If he was born after 4 July, 1776, and before 15 September, 1776 [the date the British occupied New York], he was born an American citizen, whether his parents were at the time of his birth British subjects or American citizens. 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.”

Justice Story, concurring opinion,Inglis v. Sailors’ Snug Harbor, 3 Pet. 99, 155,164. (1830)


“The 5th section of the 2d article provides, “that no person except a natural born citizen,” shall become president. A plain acknowledgment, that a man may become a citizen by birth, and that he may be born such.”

Amy v. Smith, 11 Ky. 326, 340 (Ky. 1822)


“The country where one is born, how accidental soever his birth in that place may have been, and although his parents belong to another country, is that to which he owes allegiance. Hence the expression natural born subject or citizen, & all the relations thereout growing. To this there are but few exceptions, and they are mostly introduced by statutes and treaty regulations, such as the children of seamen and ambassadors born abroad, and the like.”

Leake v. Gilchrist, 13 N.C. 73 (N.C. 1829)


“Therefore every person born within the United States, its territories or districts, whether the parents are citizens or aliens, is a natural born citizen in the sense of the Constitution, and entitled to all the rights and privileges appertaining to that capacity.”

William Rawle, A View of the Constitution of the United States, pg. 86 (1829)


23 posted on 02/06/2012 5:15:23 PM PST by Kansas58
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