I disagree with the way the author presents this argument, and I strongly object to the notion that only an Obama supporter would challenge his position.
Much of American law was derived from English common law. But it does not follow that anything said to be derived from common law should be seen as "the exact same thing," because that ignores the fact that common law was modified in the colonies and in the writing of the Constitution.
The most basic principle of citizenship under common law is that someone born within the nation's borders is, at birth, a citizen. The Constitution doesn't limit natural born citizenship by defining it, so the best definition we have is that a natural born citizen is one who is not naturalized, but a citizen by birth.
You'll have a very hard time convincing any court otherwise.
quotes and links to founding era documents stating this as fact please
The most basic principle of citizenship under common law is that someone born within the nation's borders is, at birth, a citizen.
No the most basic principle is that one must be born in the territory to parents who are citizens. You quote feudal law made by man. May I suggest you go and read the declaration & the Constitution again. We have laws based on God's law which is the law of nature which is the law of nations.
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
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. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government.
Did you read anywhere in my essay that I said only an Obama supporter would challenge my position?
Does not common sense tell us that anyone who argues a legal position that supports Obama’s eligibility is also in effect supporting him? We surely cannot say the opposite. And we surely cannot say that the person is neutral. So what is your point?
Your statement about “[m]uch of American law” deriving from English common law adds nothing to addressing the real issue which is did the Framers mean to have national citizenship derive from English common law? Do not tell me about English common law in the States and all that sort of stuff. Address national citizenship.
Your statement about how English common law has been modified also adds nothing. Many of us know that and so what.
Your final opinion about the “most basic principle of citizenship” is just that. Your opinion. You have every right to an opinion. But you are just simply repeating a sound bite without providing any legal support for your position. Moreover, what controls Obama’s eligibility is the correct definition of an Article II “natural born Citizen” not a “citizen.” You are not even addressing the correct issue.
As far as the courts go, we just do not know until we get there.
Tell that to Founder George Mason. He more or less walked out on the Convention and refused to put his hand to the Constitution, because he literally said it overturned the common law. If it overturned the common law, in the mind of one as learned as Mason, then it did.
Mason suffered a lengthy and painful rift with old friend and neighbor George Washington over this matter. Madison attempted to be a go-between to heal the rift. Mason was held in very high regard in that era, as among the best minds present.
This effort to, what, placate Mason did lead to the immediate amendment of the Constitution to include a Bill of Rights, modelled after Mason's own efforts for his native State of Virginia, on the upside.
To the extent that the English common law is embodied at all at the Federal level, you have Mason, Madison and the Bill of Rights to thank for it. It existed nowhere else in the Constitution, and that extends to any definition of citizenship, natural-born or otherwise.