14th Amendment Birthright Citizenship & The Law of Statelessness

ConstitutionallySpeaking ^ | April 10, 2011 | Linda Melin

[patlin]

Good points. The founding fathers were not so opposed to the King, but to what he represented. The king held himself as all powerful as God. He believed God gave him that power and he used it against the people of the kingdom. This is very evident in reading the federalist papers as well as the constitutional convention debates.

The founders had become highly keen of the fact that God never gave one man all that power. It was inherent in every human being, a natural right to rule over ones self & his family. They were also very aware of English history when the king had no power except that of commander of the army. All other powers resided with the people & the heads of the households of the society. This is also why marrying someone of similar values & beliefs is so important. The breakdown in the family unit today can be directly attributed to the feminist movement and women thinking they can be equal to men in all aspects. The movement ushered in a new found selfishness that spread to the children.

I never want nor hope to be equal to my husband in every sense of the term. I respect & cherish his dominance on several levels. We instilled these values into our children and today they are/were better people for it. Our son is gone but he left a lasting impression on the lives he touched and our daughter who is in pre-med while working full-time enjoys a healthy level of respect from her peers as well as her boss & professors.

[patlin]

That innumerate power existed prior to the 1790 Act. It is the only power over citizenship Congress was given. Therefore, any citizens Congress creates are citizens by statute, not by nature. As I said, they did not contemplate being dragged into a war so soon or the ramifications of it. The Constitution is not a perfect document, but it is as perfect as there will ever be. Where the problem lay is with taking the power of immigration & naturalization out of the hands of the state governments and placing it with the federal government. It wasn't such a smooth process as some states had left it up to the state courts to decide and therein was the problem. A few judges who continued to cling to feudal law were legislating from the bench. A doctrine I don't think we will ever be rid of because of the nature of humans to prefer one type of government over the other. Some people simply don't think individuals can think for themselves or their children in these areas and therefore believe the government is the parent. Well, if that is so, if that is the law & doctrine of the US since its founding, then I demand that the US government immediately pay us back all the money we spent raising their children.

[RegulatorCountry]

That innumerate power existed prior to the 1790 Act. It is the only power over citizenship Congress was given.

Correct. And so, the 1790 Act was unconstitutional, was it not?

[bvw]

Well, you don’t have to hold that the female is subservient to understand or appreciate the value of having one vote per household. As the widow Taft demonstrated it could be a woman’s vote. Let the household decide.

[patlin]

The Act itself wasn't unconstitutional. The US Govt, in that Act proclaimed to the world and all US States that “jus sanguinis” encompassed with exclusive allegiance either at birth or naturalization was the guiding force behind the definition of US citizenship. As I said, what they didn't contemplate was foreign nations under feudal law ignoring the right of expatriation and therefore claiming children of foreigners to be theirs as if those feudal governments were the parents. This is where the treaties come in. “Natural born” was removed in 1790 to avoid further embarrassment due to the existence of feudal law in other countries. Natural born is “jus sanguinis”, however “jus soli” may come into play depending on the birth location of the child. If the child was born in a foreign nation that did not rule under the feudal law of “jus soli”, then there was no question.

The question only came into play for those born in countries under feudal law and that is where statute law applies. They were/are children by statute because at the moment of their birth, they were considered members of a foreign nation. The are children who could never be left stateless if the US denied them citizenship because they already had an existing foreign citizenship.

[patlin]

LOL, true. How sad it is that in so many houselholds today, the spouses votes cancel wach other out. How is civilized society suppose to continue to exist this way? It won’t for very long from what I am seeing happening today.

[RegulatorCountry]

The Act itself wasn't unconstitutional.

Congressional overreach in attempting to legislate beyond the power enumerated to them by the Constitution is by definition unconstitutional. It was an authority that they did not possess, and therefore the Act was repealed and replaced in 1795 by another Act with the "natural born citizen" language deleted, and just "citizen" in it's place.

That was within the power enumerated, and Constitutional. It was not repealed as that of 1790 was repealed. Seems pretty clear to me. It was recognized as unconstitutional.

[bvw]

How sad it is that in so many houselholds today, the spouses votes cancel wach other out. How is civilized society suppose to continue to exist this way?

A local boy who returned from a top-notch Swiss high School was the first to point this sad fact out to me. The dark side of woman's sufferage is that as it has been implemented it has been a significant contributor to the destruction of the family and the impoverishment of many woman with the shackles of single motherhood.

The lessons of the voting right gained by the Widow Taft should be known be all. One vote per household!

[patlin]

I get where you are coming from. I just don't happen agree with it because of the extensive study of all the historical works of the founding generation. The citizens determine who were the natural born, they were/are the children born to 2 citizen parents regardless of location of birth per the common law of nature & nations. Little did they know until it was implemented they they would have to readdress the issue to take into account the old feudal law. Go figure, a Congress that didn't get it right, right out of the starting gate. The founders were very wise men, but they were hardly perfect and neither was their 1st legislative actions. They made many mistakes. To deny natural born status to a child born abroad to American parents, a child who was never recognized by the foreign country as a member of that society, as Tucker would say, is utterly absurd. Was Moses any less an Israelite because he was born in Egypt? Should he have been denied the leadership because of it? He was claimed by the Egyptians under false pretenses that were not the doctrine of nature, biut the actions of man or rather a deceitful woman. I would hate to imagine what the world would look like today if he had been denied that role.

[patlin]

AMEN!

[RegulatorCountry]

It violated the Constitutional power enumerated to that legislative body, patlin. Simple as that. The division of powers is also highly desireable in order to avoid placing too much authority in one institution or individual. This collided with natural law in the instance of the 1790 Act; the Act was repealed and replaced with that of 1795, which did not violate enumerated powers.

That the first Congress believed the matter to need addressing, with that Congress being composed of many Founders, clearly indicates that Original Intent did not include individuals born abroad as natural born citizens.

[patlin]

The Congress violates nothing if the child born abroad is not recognized as a member of that foreign society. Period. It was the threat of feudal “jus soli” doctrine that they had to deal with. Have you read the records? Or are you going off of someone else’s opinion. What is your source? I would like to research it further.

[RegulatorCountry]

It’s merely self-evident from the power enumerated to Congress. A natural born citizen is not naturalized and the status cannot be legislated. The 1790 Act attempted to do so in error and in violation of the powers enumerated to that body under the Constitution. The error was corrected in 1795.

[patlin]

I asked for a reference to back that claim. Why don’t you provide it? Let me see for myself why you think I am wrong. Without that, your argument has no base of fact, it is merely supposition.

[patlin]

Permit me to add to that last reply.

It is merely self-evident that a child born on foreign soil to American citizen parents, a child who by the laws of the foreign country is not a citizen thereof, is a natural born citizen.

[patlin]

Permit me to add to that last reply.

It is merely self-evident that a child born on foreign soil to American citizen parents, a child who by the laws of the foreign country is not a citizen thereof, is a natural born American citizen

[RegulatorCountry]

I’m not supposing that Congress is restricted to the creation of “an uniform rule of Naturalization” regarding citizenship matters under the Constitution, patlin.

My source is the Constitution itself. It’s there for anyone to read, yourself included.

I’m not supposing that natural born citizens cannot be created by statute, either.

You are aware of this as well.

[Danae]

You are 100% misunderstanding me. I said he can’t be. Chill girlfriend.

[patlin]

Danae,

You said he could claim it. That is utterly not true and that is what I was responding to. I can not with in good conscious let that false statement stand uncorrected.

[Danae]

I would be willing to bet that George Romney could call the Mexican consulate and ask to become a Mexican Citizen and stand a good chance of getting it due to the fact he was born there.

I stand by that.

Do I know that for sure? nope. It’s a guess on my part.