Posted on 01/09/2016 10:58:04 AM PST by sunrise_sunset
My theory is that they put the phrase in the 1790 act out of habit from using the term, but the then extant philosophers of natural law pointed out to them that Congress had no power over what is "natural", and in the subsequent revision of 1795, they corrected this oversight.
Possibly people also pointed out that it would be interpreted as granting foreign born children the ability to become President, and perhaps the congress, on second thought, didn't want to go that far.
And if the 1790 act chose to give a description of what a NBC was and subsequent acts never chose to rescind that definition I will go with the precedent.
This is not true. Natural Born Citizens existed after July 4, 1776 without any resort to statute law. It is obvious that their existence is not dependent upon statute law.
Therefore, someone who's citizenship *is* dependent upon (subsequent to 1776) statue law, cannot be the Natural Born citizens which the founders spoke of in 1787.
Note that the first two presidents, Washington and Adams, were known for signing bills into law which both Madison and Jefferson argued were not reasonably based on constitutionally delegated powers.
In fact, note that probably one of the reasons that Madison is generally regarded as the father of the Constitution is that he was given a front-row-center seat at the Conventional Convention so he could record the discussions on paper.
On the other hand, I suspect that retired military genius George Washington, the president of the Constitutional Convention, got bored with some of the discussions and let his mind wander back to the battle field.
Supreme Court does say Congress has the power of naturalization. The law that made Cruz a citizen is an act or statute of naturalization without any action or endeavor from an individual.
The “they†in 1790 were, many of them, at tyne Convention or involved in its ratification. In 1795, the membership has changed substantially.
The 1790 act did not give a description of what a Natural Born Citizen was. It simply said that those born in Foreign countries to an American Father would be "considered as natural born citizens. "
It means Adopted Children would be treated as if they were blood offspring. It doesn't mean that they were.
Washington was more politician than General. A first-rate politician, a second-rate general.
I am not an expert on this. Nor do I wish to debate the finer points of those two acts. I do want to point out there were naturalization acts passed well into the 1980’s (I think.)
You have to look at this in its totality, up to the most recent changes.
Anyway, we’ve already had one foreigner as president. Why not another? (Rhetorical and sarcastically alert!)
I thought the constitution gave Congress or the States the right to make the determination of who was a citizen. Therefore, they would have the right to make that determination.
I had three children born at Landstuhl Army Hospital in Germany. The place was a baby-factory and probably forty babies a month were “dropped†there. So there are (by my reckoning )more than 20,000 Americans who are not qualified to be president according to their theory. What gets me is that these people are reading back the 14th Amendment into the original document.
Washington is said to have discouraged political parties so I question that.
And since SCOTUS has never ruled on the definition of NBC we have only the Congressional definition signed into Law by the President of the United States. This definition has never been overruled by Congress or the Courts.
“If the understanding that citizens born abroad to us citizens have always been natural-born,...”
Wouldn’t this mean that it should be understood that the children of foreigners born abroad in the USA are born with the citizenship of their parents and not US citizenship? As by giving those children US citizenship, one would think it would work that children of US citizens born abroad would not be US citizens? The mirror doesn’t reflect the image...
Unfortunately, neither of those snippets of law clear up the one parent or two parent question.
Maybe so but ‘naturalization’ is not a ‘natural’ act.
The law varies from one country to the next, regarding citizenship at birth. Always has.
In all seriousness, and not to get off topic too much: But have you ever been at any government meeting. Trying to sit through a Selectmens’ meeting is torture.
Can you imagine how boring many of these discussions must have been. Arguments between philosophy majors and lawyers sound like a horrible way to spend an afternoon.
OK, that's it, I see where you are at. I won't be responding to you anymore. It's like trying to talk to a liberal.
My sister was born in Tokyo in 1954. Because she was not born in the army hospital, she held dual citizenship until she was 21. Sounds cool. But it was a pain in the ass the first time she needed to prove citizenship for her passport. For some reason the would not accept her army paperwork, so she had to get docs from the Japanese Embassy.
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