Posted on 05/08/2013 8:03:24 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
In one of my first essays for NRO back in 2005 (“Are You an Originalist?”), I selected the Constitution’s “natural born Citizen” criterion for eligibility to be president—a provision that then seemed at the time to be beyond the distorting effects of political bias—to illustrate that everyone intuitively recognizes the common-sense principle at the heart of the interpretive methodology of originalism: namely, that the meaning of a constitutional provision is to be determined in accordance with the meaning that it bore at the time that it was adopted. The public debate in 2008 over whether John McCain, having been born in 1936 in the Panama Canal Zone to parents who were American citizens, was a “natural born Citizen” ratified my point, as virtually all commentators purported to undertake an originalist inquiry.
I hadn’t seen any reason to comment on the left-wing “birther” attacks on Senator Ted Cruz’s eligibility to be president. Cruz was born in Canada in 1970 to a mother who was then an American citizen. Under the laws then in place, he was an American citizen by virtue of his birth.
As this Congressional Research Service report sums it up (p. 25; see also pp. 16-21), the “overwhelming evidence of historical intent, general understandings [in 18th-century America], and common law principles underlying American jurisprudence thus indicate[s] that the most reasonable interpretation of ‘natural born’ citizens would include those who are considered U.S. citizens ‘at birth’ or ‘by birth,’ … under existing federal statutory law incorporating long-standing concepts of jus sanguinis, the law of descent.” In other words, there is strong originalist material to support the semantic signal that “natural born Citizen” identifies someone who is a citizen by virtue of the circumstances of his birth—as distinguished from someone who is naturalized later in life as a citizen. (In McCain’s case, the dispute turned on whether he was indeed an American citizen by virtue of his birth—or was instead naturalized a citizen under a law enacted when he was eleven months old. For more, see law professor Gabriel Chin’s lengthy article making the case against McCain.)
To my surprise, the New Republic’s Noam Scheiber tries to argue that Cruz’s embrace of constitutional originalism somehow means that Cruz can’t determine that he is a “natural born Citizen.” But the only evidence that Scheiber offers for this position is the assertion (which Scheiber mischaracterizes as a concession) by a non-originalist law professor in an MSNBC interview that the proposition that a person is a “natural born Citizen” if he is a citizen by virtue of his birth “isn’t really clear cut if you limit yourself to the actual wording of the Constitution” (that’s Scheiber’s paraphrase) but instead depends on “how our understandings have evolved over time.” Scheiber both overlooks the powerful originalist evidence in support of Cruz’s status as a “natural born Citizen” and misunderstands how originalist methodology operates. (In public-meaning originalism, you don’t “limit yourself to the actual wording of the Constitution,” and you don’t find yourself lost simply because the Constitution “never defines what ‘natural born’ means.” You instead look to the public meaning of the term at the time it was adopted.)
My point here isn’t to contend that the originalist evidence points entirely in one direction. As law professor Michael Ramsey observes in a post that I’ve run across while finalizing this post (a post that also takes issue with Scheiber), there are originalist scholars who don’t “find the argument entirely conclusive.” But Scheiber’s piece is a cheap whack at Cruz as well as a cheap whack at originalism.
The question (not really directed at you but I thought you’d like the find) was partly rhetorical, partly sarcastic, and partly to make the point that the court as you said “arrived at their decision based on what they wanted”. I think that’s exactly the case.
These oaths are listed in the Statutes of the Realm vol 1 as 17 Edw. 2.
The Purpura v. Obama judge did indeed cite passages from the precedential authority that he relied upon. If you had bothered to read the decision before pontificating from ignorance you would have known that.
Note to Jeff: the thread topic is not other posters.
DiogenesLamp glibly dismisses Founders and Framers, those who were close to them and in perfect position to know what they meant, and an entire Who's Who of the greatest legal authorities of early America:
He pretends that little several-counties-judge Samuel Roberts, who had no responsibilities in regard to national law and who cited no authority other than his own opinion, and David Ramsay, who was slapped down 36-to-1 by a group including Madison and 5 other signers of the Constitution, are authoritative, while brushing off every REAL authority in early America who ever spoke on the issue.
Because all of THOSE clearly say that he's full of BS.
That makes DiogenesLamp a FRAUD, and it makes what he posts on this topic a truckload of BS.
I don't know about you, but I'm not good with people coming on FreeRepublic and posting Constitutional fraudery, and calling the legitimate words of our Founders, Framers and real early America leaders "horse sh*t," as this guy did.
I did NOT quote James Wilson in the message to which you are responding.No, but you quoted him elsewhere.
One thing about you, you have a knack for introducing confusion, but then again, that is the enemy of truth, is it not?
You are the biggest fraud on FreeRepublic.
I asked you earlier what your motivation was. You never answered. I think you're simply a type of troll. You come on here pretending to be about truth, and then almost everything you say is false or otherwise twisted.
I think it's some kind of idiotic game for you.
How an adult would post:
I did NOT quote James Wilson in the message to which you are responding.No, but you quoted him elsewhere.
If you want anyone to read your posts or to take you seriously, post like an adult.
When I say that DiogenesLamp is "the biggest fraud on FreeRepublic," I have an extensive FACTUAL basis for making that statement.
And anybody who's interested can verify the facts and see that for themselves.
It's not "juvenile" to call a fraud a fraud. And DiogenesLamp is a fraud. This is not even a close call.
The nature of his fraud (as well as his disdain for our actual Founders and early legal experts) is clearly illustrated by the fact that he calls all of our best early legal authorities "a load of utter horse sh*t",. while insisting that the weakest of possible authorities "prove" his claim.
The nature of his fraud is clearly illustrated by the fact that whenever a court case even LOOKS like it MIGHT support his claim, he proclaims that it has "conclusively" proven his point.
But someone can produce a DOZEN court cases that clearly negate his point (as well as 30 legitimate early legal authorities) and those are all "worthless."
DL can defend himself.
Sifting through the insults in your posts I see repeated references to state cases & statutes, none of which have any bearing on an Article II natural born citizen. Does that make you a fraud?
Show the passages. Again, the burden is on you to show this and not make somebody else hunt for it. I’ve given you several opportunities and you keep dodging.
Posting a dozen errors doesn't make those errors correct. Besides none of those cases nor "early legal authorities) trump a UNANIMOUS Supreme Court precedent: all children born in the country to parents who were its citizens.
In the early United States, a United States citizen was someone who was a citizen of any state.
How the States, and their governments, and their courts, understood "natural born citizen" is CERTAINLY relevant to what everybody understood that it meant.
The Declaration of Independence
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.— That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed
The True Law of Free Monarchies: Or The Reciprocal and Mutual Duty Betwixt a Free King and His Natural Subjects
James I
The True Law of Free Monarchies: Or The Reciprocal and Mutual Duty Betwixt a Free King and His Natural SubjectsAs there is not a thing so necessary to be known by the people of any land, next the knowledge of their God, as the right knowledge of their alleageance, according to the form of government established among them, especially in a Monarchy (which form of government, as resembling the Divinitie, approacheth nearest to perfection, as all the learned and wise men from the beginning have agreed upon; Vnitie being the perfection of all things,)...
First then, I will set down the true grounds, whereupon I am to build, out of the Scriptures, since Monarchy is the true pattern of Divinitie, as I have already said: next, from the fundamental Lawes of our own Kingdom, which nearest must concern us: thirdly, from the law of Nature, by divers similitudes drawn out of the same: and will conclude syne by answering the most waighty and appearing incommodities that can be objected.
The Princes duty to his Subjects is so clearely set down in many places of the Scriptures, and so openly confessed by all the good Princes, according to their oath in their Coronation, as not needing to be long therein, I shall as shortly as I can run through it.
Kings are called Gods by the propheticall King Dauid, because they sit upon GOD his Throne in the earth, and have the count of their administration to give unto him. Their office is, To minister Justice and Judgement to the people, as the same David saith: To advance the good, and punish the evil, as he likewise saith: To establish good Lawes to his people, and procure obedience to the same, as divers good Kings of Judah did: To procure the peace of the people, as the same David saith: To decide all controversies that can arise among them as Solomon did: To be the Minister of God for the weale of them that doe well, and as the minister of God, to take vengeance upon them that do evill, as S. Paul saith. And finally, As a good Pastour, to goe out and in before his people as is said in the first of Samuel: That through the Princes prosperitie, the peoples peace may be procured, as Jeremie saith.
And therefore in the Coronation of our own Kings, as well as of every Christian Monarchy they give their Oath, first to maintain the Religion presently professed within their country, according to their laws, whereby it is established, and to punish all those that should presse to alter, or disturbe the profession thereof; And next to maintain all the lovable and good Laws made by their predecessours: to see them put in execution, and the breakers and violaters thereof, to be punished, according to the tenour of the same: And lastly, to maintaine the whole country, and every state therein, in all their ancient Priviledges and Liberties, as well against all forreine enemies, as among themselues: And shortly to procure the weale and flourishing of his people, not onely in maintain- ing and putting to execution the olde lowable lawes of the countrey, and by establishing of new (as necessitie and evil maners will require) but by all other meanes possible to foresee and prevent all dangers, that are likely to fall vpon them, and to maintain concord, wealth, and civilitie among them, as a loving Father, and careful watchman, caring for them more then for himselfe, knowing himselfe to be ordained for them, and they not for him; and therefore countable to that great God, who placed him as his lieutenant over them, vpon the perill of his soul to procure the weale of both soules and bodies, as far as in him lieth, of all them that are committed to his charge. And this oath in the Coronation is the clearest, civil, and fundamentall Law, whereby the Kings office is properly defined.
By the Law of Nature the King becomes a naturall Father to all his Lieges at his Coronation: And as the Father of his fatherly duty is bound to care for the nourishing, education, and virtuous government of his children; even so is the king bound to care for all his subiects. As all the toile and paine that the father can take for his children, will be thought light and well bestowed by him, so that the effect thereof redound to their profite and weale; so ought the Prince to doe towards his people. As the kindly father ought to foresee all inconvenients and dangers that may arise towards his children, and though with the hazard of his owne person presse to prevent the same; so ought the King towards his people. As the fathers wrath and correction vpon any of his children that offendeth, ought to be by a fatherly chastisement seasoned with pitie, as long as there is any hope of amendment in them; so ought the King towards any of his Lieges that offend in that measure. And shortly, as the Fathers chiefe ioy ought to be in procuring his childrens welfare, rejoycing at their weale, sorrowing and pitying at their evil, to hazard for their safetie, travell for their rest, wake for their sleepe; and in a word, to thinke that his earthly felicitie and life standeth and liveth more in them, nor in himselfe; so ought a good Prince think of his people.
As to the other branch of this mutuall and reciprock band, is the duety and alleageance that the Lieges owe to their King: the ground whereof, I take out of the words of Samuel, cited by Gods Spirit, when God had given him commandement to heare the peoples voice in choosing and annointing them a King. And because that place of Scripture being well understood, is so pertinent for our purpose, I have insert herein the very words of the Text.
- Now therefore hearken to their voice: howbeit yet testifie vnto them, and shew them the maner of the King, that shall raigne ouer them.
- So Samuel tolde all the wordes of the Lord vnto the people that asked a King of him.
- And he said, This shall be the maner of the King that shall raigne ouer you: he will take your sonnes, and appoint them to his Charets, and to be his horsemen, and some shall runne before his Charet.
- Also, hee will make them his captaines ouer thousands, and captaines ouer fif- ties, and to eare his ground, and to reape his haruest, and to make instruments of warre and the things that serue for his charets:
- Hee will also take your daughters, and make them Apothicaries, and Cookes, and Bakers.
- And hee will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your best Oliue trees, and giue them to his seruants.
- And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your Vineyards, and giue it to his Eunuches, and to his seruants.
- And he will take your men seruants, and your maid-seruants, and the chiefe of your young men, and your asses, and put them to his worke.
- He will take the tenth of your sheepe: and ye shall be his seruants.
- And ye shall cry out at that day, because of your King, whom ye haue chosen you: and the Lord God will not heare you at that day.
- But the people would not heare the voice of Samuel, but did say: Nay, but there shalbe a King ouer vs.
- And we also willbe all like other Nations, and our King shall iudge vs, and goe out before vs, and fight our battels.
That these words, and discourses of Samuel were cited by Gods Spirit, it needs no further probation, but that it is a place of Scripture; since the whole Scripture is cited by that inspiration, as Paul saith: which ground no good Christian will, or dare deny. Whereupon it must necessarily follow, that these speeches proceeded not from any ambition in Samuel... But by the contrary it is plaine, and evident, that this speech of Samuel to the people, was to prepare their hearts before the hand to the due obedience of that King, which God was to give vnto them; and therefore opened up unto them, what might be the intollerable qualities that might fall in some of their kings, thereby preparing them to patience, not to resist to Gods ordinance: but as he would have said; Since God hath granted your importunate suit in giving you a king, as yee have else committed an errour in shaking off Gods yoke, and over-hastie seeking of a King; so beware yee fall not into the next, in casting off also rashly that yoke, which God at your earnest suite hath laid upon you, how hard that ever it seeme to be: For as ye could not have obtained one without the permission and ordinance of God, so may ye no more, for he be once set over you, shake him off without the same warrant. And therefore in time arme your selves with patience and humilitie, since he that hath the only power to make him, hath the onely power to vnmake him; and ye onely to obey, bearing with these straits that I now foreshew you, as with the finger of God, which lieth not in you to take off.
All men are created equal - versus - kings are gods, a natural Father to all his Lieges upon his Coronation, and the duty and allegiance that the Lieges owe to their King is from the words of Samuel cited by Gods Spirit
Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11: Brown v. United States
... only true of actions, that they are not condemned ipso jure, for other things also belonging to the enemy may be concealed and escape condemnation.” Vattel says, that “the sovereign can neither detain the persons nor the property of those subjects of the enemy who are within his dominions at the time ...
Article 4, Section 2, Clause 1: Corfield v. Coryell
... state to which it belongs, to be used by them according to their necessities, or according to the laws which regulate their use. “Over these,” says Vattel (book 1, c. 20, §§ 235, 246), “sovereignty gives a right to the nation to make laws regulating the manner in which the common goods are to be used
Article 4, Section 2, Clause 2: Case of Jose Ferreira dos Santos
... crimes, he says, they are connived at, unless otherwise agreed on, by treaty. In this doctrine, Vattel, asserts the right and obligation, in case of great crimes; but speaks only as to the subjects of the country, on which the demand is made.
Article 1, Section 8, Clause 4 (Bankruptcy): House of Representatives, The Bankrupt Bill
... it a fair conclusion that it was used in that sense. He then called the attention of the Committee to one of the rules of construction laid down by Vattel, B. II. chap. 17, section 276.
Article 4, Section 2, Clause 1: Bayard v. Singleton
... of persons who were sent out of this State under a particular act of our General Assembly, are not applicable to this case. That the case in Vattel, of the majority of the inhabitants of any country deliberately dissolving their old government, and setting up a new one, is neither in reason, nor in ..
The Founders Constitution
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/index_beta.html
“Show the passages. Again, the burden is on you to show this and not make somebody else hunt for it. I’ve given you several opportunities and you keep dodging.”
In Wong Kim Ark,Justice Gray wrote at great length about the understanding of the term “natural born”and its common law meaning, probing English authorities and concluding that the “law of England for the last three centuries, beginning before the settlement of this country,and continuing to the present day, . . . every child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject, unless the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign state, or of an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was born. The same rule was in force in all the English colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United Statesafterwards, and continued to prevail under the Constitution as originally established.”This position as to the common law meaning is in accord with Justice Joseph Story’s statement, concurring in Inglis v. Trustees of Sailors’ Snug Harbor, 28 U.S. (3 Pet.) 99,7 L. Ed. 617 (1830), “Nothing is better settled at the common law than the doctrine that the children, even of aliens, born in a country, while the parents reside there under the protection of the government, and owing a temporary allegiance thereto, are subjects by birth.” See Wong Kim Ark, 160 U.S. at 660, 18 S. Ct. at 461. In Wong Kim Ark, the Court also cited Justice Swayne’s comment in United States v. Rhodes, 1 Abbott 26,40, 41 (1860).
All persons born in the allegiance of the king are
natural-born subjects, and all person born in the allegiance
of the United States are natural-born citizens. Birth and allegiance go together. Such is the rule of the common law, and
it is the common law of this country, as well as of England.
The Wong Kim Ark Court then stated:
We find no warrant for the opinion that this great principle
of the common law has ever been changed
in the UnitedStates. It has always obtained here
with the same vigor,and subject only to the same exceptions [children ofambassadors, etc.], since
as before the Revolution.
[Wong Kim Ark, supra, at 169 U.S. 662-663, 18 S. Ct.
at 462].
The Georgia Secretary of State recently denied a similar challenge to Mr. Obama’s status as a natural born citizen in Farrar, et al. v. Obama, OSAH-SECSTATE-CE-1215136-60-MAHIHI, where Georgia State Administrative Law Judge Mahili relied upon Ankeny and Wong Kim Ark for his ruling that the President was indeed a natural born citizen.
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The Wong Kim Ark decision was preceded by Minor v. Happersett, 88 (21 Wall.) U.S. 162, 167, 22L.Ed. 627 (1874), where the Supreme Court stated that while the Constitution did not say “in words” “who shall be natural-born citizens” there were “some authorities” who held that “children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents” were citizens. The Court concludes that it was not necessary to decide that issue in Minor. Wong Kim Ark more directly addresses the issue of who is “natural-born” although it is acknowledged that neither of these cases involved the use of the term in connection with a presidential candidate and the unique Constitutional requirements for holding that office. Nevertheless, the Wong Kim Ark ruling certainly goes very far in defining the term and its meaning in this country. And the decision does not suggest that the common law rule identified therein only applied at the state level and not on a national basis, as counsel here claims.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/88936737/2012-04-10-NJ-Purpura-Moran-v-Obama-Initial-Decision-of-ALJ-Masin-Apuzzo
Okay. I agree.
None of that changed the historical and legal definition of "natural born."
Almost all of the cases you cited had to do with international and maritime law. I have repeatedly said that Vattel was recognized as an authority on those subjects, and was quoted as such.
Doesn’t mean the Founders paid the least bit of attention to Vattel when he said the government should control religion (goodbye, 1st Amendment), that the government should be able to forcibly seize valuable workers to prevent them from leaving the country (goodbye, 4th Amendment), that only elites and military should be permitted to keep and bear arms (goodbye, 2nd Amendment), or that citizens had to be born to citizen parents.
They didn’t. That’s not what “natural born” ever meant.
The King’s natural subjects are so because the King is God’s lieutenant on earth. Lieges owe fealty by the words of God as cited by Samuel. It is God’s will that Lieges obedience is due the King. Fealty is a yoke which God hath laid upon you (Lieges).
This is straight from a King of England.
Like the current Imperial President, the kings tended to like doctrines that gave them as much power as possible.
The 1st Amendment comes from Vattel
There are no natural born subjects of the United States, there are no subjects of the United States of any sort, just as there are no natural born citizens in England. Yet you insist that subject is interchangeable with citizen and natural born is equally interchangeable. Natural born citizen is a unitary phrase, no part of it can be changed without changing the whole. Nevertheless, stipulating for this post...
James I, King of England, tells us who his natural subjects are, that their obedience is commanded by God, that he is their King by the will of God, that it is his right and duty to rule over them.
Are there such natural citizens in the United States? Is there any one person who rules over us by the will of God?
The answer is an emphatic “no”.
The foundational principles of the United States are that all are created equal and government derives its powers from the consent of the governed, not by a king claiming it is the will of God that he should rule and you should bow.
A natural born subject is in no way similar to a natural born citizen.
The foundational principles of the United States are not found in the Colonies, they are new principles. New principles for a new government, a government that is without antecedent government. A government that is a mixture of federal and national, by necessity it draws on the law of nations: respecting the sovereign states as well as internationally. The power of naturalization is not found in the Colonies/States, but in the new government.
“Almost all of the cases you cited had to do with international and maritime law.”
Do you mean the navigation of the lakes, rivers and streams within the United States?
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