The Cruz Threat

National Review ^ | 8/15/2013 | Robert Costa

[Jeff Winston]

I doubt his Constitutional eligibility for the Presidency.

Don't. According to the major Constitutional authorities of the early United States, who knew our Founding Generation and many of the Founding Fathers themselves personally, "natural born citizen" really just means "born a citizen." And Cruz is perfectly eligible.

[Jeff Winston]

And we face reality. Look. I’m the biggest birther there is. But the fact is - this is settled law. Ted Cruz is a Natural Born Citizen.

Thank you for facing reality, though a birther.

Of course, I would argue that you haven't fully faced reality yet. The reality is, when the Founding Fathers used the term "natural born citizen," they were using a term that had already come to mean simply "anyone who was born a citizen."

Even if you can't fully accept that, though, thank you for embracing a Ted Cruz candidacy.

[Paine in the Neck]

According to the major Constitutional authorities of the early United States, who knew our Founding Generation and many of the Founding Fathers themselves personally, "natural born citizen" really just means "born a citizen." And Cruz is perfectly eligible.

I do not agree and I'd like to hear of your sources. It is plain by the text of Art. I that they thought a 'citizen' and a 'natural born citizen' were separate things.

[Servant of the Cross]

I'd like to hear of your sources.

Click on the link at post #2. It is from jeffwinston on another thread.

[Jeff Winston]

I do not agree and I'd like to hear of your sources. It is plain by the text of Art. I that they thought a 'citizen' and a 'natural born citizen' were separate things.

It is obvious that a "citizen" and a "natural born citizen" are different things. A "natural born citizen" is a particular KIND of citizen. It is someone who became a citizen at birth.

People who went through a naturalization process after birth are citizens, too. But those are not natural born citizens.

[Jeff Winston]

The quote from Bayard, in his exposition of the Constitution that approved and praised by Chief Justice Marshall, by Justice Story, by Chancellor Kent and other leading legal experts of the early 1800s, is one source but it is not the only source.

Take also for example this quote from William Rawle, one of our top tier of early legal experts. Rawle was very close personally to George Washington, Ben Franklin and other core Founders of the United States.

In fact, Rawle served as a kind of expert or consultant on the topic of immigration (which is very closely related to citizenship) to Franklin’s Society for Political Inquiries in the preparatory run-up to our Constitutional Convention. This group was an arm of the core group of Founders who put the Revolution together. And it was pretty much busting out the seams with Framers of the Constitution and other important Founders.

Here’s what Rawle had to say:

“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.”

Why was this? It is because such persons were BORN CITIZENS, and the term “natural born citizen” really just meant someone who was born a citizen.

There’s more than that. The entire First Congress, with President Washington, specified that children born overseas to US citizen parents were very specifically to be considered as natural born citizens.

With President Washington, this group included nearly half of the Framers of the Constitution.

And they would never have made such a specification if they hadn’t a) intended such persons to be eligible to be President, and b) believed that Congress had the power to specify which persons born overseas to US citizen parents were citizens by birth, natural born citizens, and therefore eligible to the Presidency on reaching the other qualifications.

There’s more than that. But that’s enough.

And no major authority in the early United States who ever said that there was any class of person born a citizen who was not a natural born citizen. No major authority of the early United States ever said that it took both citizen parents and birth on US soil to be a natural born citizen, or to be eligible to be President. It just doesn’t exist.

[First_Salute]

You are correct, but I’m going to add to it, using a little different wording from a previous post of mine:

To be a “natural born citizen” of the United States, requires that

a)*both* parents be loyal to the United States, and *that* status can be: *both* demonstrated and proved, and without mystery; and

b) the child must be born on U.S. soil, and without mystery.

“Natural born” does not mean “born naturally.”

“U.S. soil” includes U.S. territories, structures of state, and vehicles of state. A “structure of state” would be a U.S. Consul or even a U.S. Mission (if the Consul or Ambassador is present). A “vehicle of state” would be *the car* or *the aircraft* of the U.S. Ambassador *with the Ambassador present.* A “vehicle of state” is also any *active* U.S. military ship on land, at sea, or in the air.

In the case of Barack H. Obama, he is not eligible, because his father had little-to-none (if any) demonstrated loyalty to the U.S.A., plus in fact, you will find that his father had *proven* loyalties elsewhere, in addition to not being a U.S. citizen.

In the case of Ted Cruz, he was not born on U.S. soil ... and I am uncertain about, at the time of his birth, what the loyalty of his father was.

The definition and examples of U.S. soil that I use, are those enumerated - strictly - for federal law enforcement and protection of individuals under our Constitution and federal statutes, when I was on duty.

Whether or not a foreign power would recognize *our* soil abroad, I sure did, as we were directed and instructed with regard to “Here is your authority; learn it; know it; be able at all times to state it” under direct orders from the President of the United States (I admit that once upon a time, somebody painfully reminded me). Federal lawyers might hem and haw because of their politics stateside, ie the State Department might go wobbly, but you would get all the protection we could provide, if you made your way to U.S. territory, as defined above.

There *has to be both* allegiance of both parents, as you say, and birth on U.S. soil, to satisfy the Constitutional distinction: a “natural born citizen,” as I have understood these matters.

That is the *strict* understanding of mine. Others promote a looser understanding that does not require “on U.S. soil,” because they are thinking of the more general “born overseas / born abroad to one U.S. parent” status that makes the child at birth, a citizen of the U.S.A., but they ignore the distinction enumerated in our Constitution.

I remain with the strict observation of “natural born citizen.” Because I was, way back when, and have remained since, loyal to the principles of original intent and enumeration of powers, that are both limitations upon government excursions into extra-Constitutional space. These restrictions and our respect for them, restrained us as federal agents. I was particularly unwilling to “make up things as we go along.” I liked very much, being so conservative and not over-stepping the boundaries.