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To: Cold Case Posse Supporter; Uncle Chip

“Yes, the 1790 Act was repealed 5 years later with the natural born Citizen language removed. They did it for a reason.”

What reason?


324 posted on 08/31/2013 7:47:59 AM PDT by 4Zoltan
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To: 4Zoltan; P-Marlowe; Cold Case Posse Supporter
What reason?

The reason was that there were American citizens living abroad at the time, some even in the diplomatic service, and this exception gave them time to adjust to the new realities of the newly adopted Constitution.

The 1790 Act created a statutory exception to the rule or definition that everyone knew to be so, thus the language:

"the children of citizens of the United States that may be born beyond sea, or out of the limits of the United States, SHALL BE CONSIDERED AS as natural born citizens".

Not "are" but "shall be considered as". It's an exception -- not a definition. The exception ended in 1795.

These words from Justice Waite in Minor vs Happersett on the matter:

“The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first. For the purposes of this case it is not necessary to solve these doubts. It is sufficient for everything we have now to consider that all children born of citizen parents within the jurisdiction are themselves citizens.“

334 posted on 08/31/2013 8:44:34 AM PDT by Uncle Chip
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