Right, but I think it's whether his parents are U.S. citizens not his parents place of birth.
“Natural born doesn’t refer to the candidate’s place of birth; natural born refers to the place of birth of both of the candidate’s parents.
Right, but I think it’s whether his parents are U.S. citizens not his parents place of birth.”
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I finally realized about a year or so ago what “natural born” and “natural born citizen” means...
I grew up in Eastern Virginia (quite a few years ago), where many say the local lingo is, or was, still very similar to the King’s English from the Revolution days.
I remember one kid yelling at another, saying, “Yo’ Momma’s a thief! Yo’ Daddy’s a thief! You a “natural born” thief!”.
(Yes, these were white children. People forget that Southerners, whether black or white, sometimes have a particular patois...)
So, “natural born” doesn’t mean where one was born, but the status of one’s parents. A “natural born citizen” would be someone whose parents are both citizens, then. Too bad all the highly paid lawyers in DC or English professors have forgotten so much of our mother tongue...
FYI, Mark Levin had some good info about this, saying how we can blame John McCain and the RNC for Obama:
McCain wasn’t actually born at the US base in Panama, but as the base hospital was being repaired, his mother had to go downtown for the birth. Rather than letting the DNC make a big deal of this publicly during the 2008 campaign, McCain and the RNC privately agreed to not EVER make a big deal about Obama’s place of birth... Thank you, again, John McCain and the eGOP! /s
Incorrect. It has strictly to do with the parents’ place of birth.
The reason the founders added the natural born requirement to the president and not the congress is because the founders did not want a president with the potential of a divided allegiance.
The founders were very methodical in their vision for America. The founders wrote the Constitution in clear concise English grammar and it is inadvisable to second-guess the founders’ intent.
While I agree with this, I think the Founders' concern would go further. Even if both parents are born U.S. citizens, if they both choose to reside in a foreign country, especially Great Britain, and give birth to a child and raise the child in Great Britain, with the child maturing and residing in Great Britain past the age of 35, then I don't think the Founders would consider such a person fit to be President.
Benedict Arnold and his wife Peggy Shippen were both born in what became the U.S. I don't know if there was ever any formal proceeding which stripped Arnold of his citizenship. Loyalists weren't welcome after the Revolution but I'm not familiar with any process which stripped them of citizenship.
If Arnold and his wife gave birth to a child in Great Britain, would that child be a U.S. citizen? Would our Founders have considered that person eligible to be President?