Posted on 01/09/2016 7:58:16 PM PST by Joachim
The 1952 Act?
Did you ever consider they might have assumed the meaning was quite clear to all. At the time, and I am surprised the issue was not visited, Vattel was the recognized expert in international law and even the title of his treatise mentions natural law.His theories laid the foundation of modern international law and political philosophy. He was also a Diploma and a Philosopher. George Washington, John Jay, and Benjamin Franklin attest to his influence on the founding Fathers. Blackstone published An Analyses of the laws of England in 1756. Vattel published in 1758.
I was reading an autobiography from one of the Tuskeegee Airman, 1st Lt. H. Jefferson who was a POW in one of the Luftwaffe Stalags. He was interrogated by a German Army Oberleutnant who spoke absolutely idiomatically perfect US English. He told Jefferson that the reason for his perfect English was that he had been born a German citizen and had emigrated to the US when he was 10 years old. His parents had naturalized, and he subsequently became a US citizen by virtue of his parent’s naturalization.
He was visiting Germany as a 21 year old and was trapped there by Hitlers declaration of war on the US on Dec 11, 1941. He was interned for several months as an enemy alien, and was later drafted into the German Army as a Volksdeutch citizen. He fought on the Russian front, was wounded, recuperated and was reassigned to the Italian front in early 1944, where he fought against the US and British forces. Wounded again he was assigned to duty as a POW interrogator, where he met Lt. Jefferson.
After the war, while being detained as a POW, charges against him of treason were weighed by the US attorney. After careful study, it was determined that Germany DID have a legal claim on his allegiance, and that he was a legit German soldier, especially since the man had never taken an oath of loyalty to the US as an adult.
This may be an unusual case, but it serves to illustrate the complications of divided allegiances that the framers sought to avoid with the office of POTUS, and by creating the natural born citizen requirement and having NO other legal allegiances.
Yup
Well, there were certainly some requirements.
From the Immigration and Naturalization Service’s website:
“Until the Act of October 10, 1978, persons who had acquired U.S. citizenship through birth outside of the United States to one U.S. citizen parent had to meet certain physical presence requirements to retain their citizenship. This legislation eliminated retention requirements for persons who were born after October 10, 1952. There may be cases where a person who was born before that date, and therefore subject to the retention requirements, may have failed to retain citizenship.�⹠[4] “
http://www.uscis.gov/policymanual/HTML/PolicyManual-Volume12-PartH-Chapter3.html
What exactly were the “retention requirements” of the 1952 Act?
But this does not apply to an aspirant for the presidency as it discusses citizenship, not Natural Born Citizen. Not the same.
Wrong.
the founders knew and understood exactly the meaning of NBC, because, in the common law of the time, it was defined by Vattel is his treaties ‘The Law of Nations’ Book 1 ...
http://www.constitution.org/vattel/vattel_01.htm
CHAP. XIX.
OF OUR NATIVE COUNTRY, AND SEVERAL THINGS THAT RELATE TO IT.
§ 212. Citizens and natives.
The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. As the society cannot exist and perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights. The society is supposed to desire this, in consequence of what it owes to its own preservation; and it is presumed, as matter of course, that each citizen, on entering into society, reserves to his children the right of becoming members of it. The country of the fathers is therefore that of the children; and these become true citizens merely by their tacit consent. We shall soon see whether, on their coming to the years of discretion, they may renounce their right, and what they owe to the society in which they were born. I say, that, in order to be of the country, it is necessary that a person be born of a father who is a citizen; for, if he is born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country.
Here is the golden sentence:
“The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens.”
Every single author of the U.S. Constitution understood this definition, AND THAT IS THE REASON IT WAS USED ... Unlike the “uber-intellectual” fools of today, who think they are smarter than the founders and dismiss or else pervert and to the point of absurdity the very natural purpose for having such a phrase.
Note the reference to Natural Law in the first sentence of our Declaration of Independence.
It is crystal clear that the Founding Fathers used the Natural Law definition of 'natural born Citizen' when they wrote Article II. By invoking "The Laws of Nature and Nature's God" the 56 signers of the Declaration incorporated a legal standard of freedom into the forms of government that would follow.
President John Quincy Adams, writing in 1839, looked back at the founding period and recognized the true meaning of the Declaration's reliance on the "Laws of Nature and of Nature's God." He observed that the American people's "charter was the Declaration of Independence. Their rights, the natural rights of mankind. Their government, such as should be instituted by the people, under the solemn mutual pledges of perpetual union, founded on the self-evident truth's proclaimed in the Declaration."
The Constitution, Vattel, and Natural Born Citizen: What Our Framers Knew
The Laws of Nature and of Nature's God: The True Foundation of American Law
The Supreme Court of the United States has never applied the term natural born citizen to any other category than those born in the country of parents who are citizens thereof.
The Harvard Law Review Article Taken Apart Piece by Piece and Utterly Destroyed
Citizenship Terms Used in the U.S. Constitution - The 5 Terms Defined & Some Legal Reference to Same
"The citizenship of no man could be previous to the declaration of independence, and, as a natural right, belongs to none but those who have been born of citizens since the 4th of July, 1776."....David Ramsay, 1789.
A Dissertation on Manner of Acquiring Character & Privileges of Citizen of U.S.-by David Ramsay-1789
The Law of Nations or the Principles of Natural Law (1758)
The Laws of Nature and of Nature's God: The True Foundation of American Law
The Biggest Cover-up in American History
Supreme Court cases that cite natural born Citizen as one born on U.S. soil to citizen parents:
The Venus, 12 U.S. 8 Cranch 253 253 (1814)
Vattel, who, though not very full to this point, is more explicit and more satisfactory on it than any other whose work has fallen into my hands, says: The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives or indigenes are those born in the country of parents who are citizens. Society not being able to subsist and to perpetuate itself but by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights.
Shanks v. Dupont, 28 U.S. 3 Pet. 242 242 (1830)
Ann Scott was born in South Carolina before the American revolution, and her father adhered to the American cause and remained and was at his death a citizen of South Carolina. There is no dispute that his daughter Ann, at the time of the Revolution and afterwards, remained in South Carolina until December, 1782. Whether she was of age during this time does not appear. If she was, then her birth and residence might be deemed to constitute her by election a citizen of South Carolina. If she was not of age, then she might well be deemed under the circumstances of this case to hold the citizenship of her father, for children born in a country, continuing while under age in the family of the father, partake of his national character as a citizen of that country. Her citizenship, then, being prima facie established, and indeed this is admitted in the pleadings, has it ever been lost, or was it lost before the death of her father, so that the estate in question was, upon the descent cast, incapable of vesting in her? Upon the facts stated, it appears to us that it was not lost and that she was capable of taking it at the time of the descent cast.
Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857)
The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. As society cannot perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their parents, and succeed to all their rights.' Again: 'I say, to be of the country, it is necessary to be born of a person who is a citizen; for if he be born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country. . . .
Minor v. Happersett , 88 U.S. 162 (1875)
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.
United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898)
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.
Perkins v. Elg, 307 U.S. 325 (1939),
Was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that a child born in the United States to naturalized parents on U.S. soil is a natural born citizen and that the child's natural born citizenship is not lost if the child is taken to and raised in the country of the parents' origin, provided that upon attaining the age of majority, the child elects to retain U.S. citizenship "and to return to the United States to assume its duties." Not only did the court rule that she did not lose her native born Citizenship but it upheld the lower courts decision that she is a "natural born Citizen of the United States" because she was born in the USA to two naturalized U.S. Citizens.
But the Secretary of State, according to the allegation of the bill of complaint, had refused to issue a passport to Miss Elg 'solely on the ground that she had lost her native born American citizenship.' The court below, properly recognizing the existence of an actual controversy with the defendants [307 U.S. 325, 350] (Aetna Life Ins. Co. v. Haworth, 300 U.S. 227 , 57 S.Ct. 461, 108 A.L.R. 1000), declared Miss Elg 'to be a natural born citizen of the United States' (99 F.2d 414) and we think that the decree should include the Secretary of State as well as the other defendants. The decree in that sense would in no way interfere with the exercise of the Secretary's discretion with respect to the issue of a passport but would simply preclude the denial of a passport on the sole ground that Miss Elg had lost her American citizenship."
The Supreme Court of the United States has never applied the term natural born citizen to any other category than those born in the country of parents who are citizens thereof.
Citizenship Terms Used in the U.S. Constitution - The 5 Terms Defined & Some Legal Reference to Same
"The citizenship of no man could be previous to the declaration of independence, and, as a natural right, belongs to none but those who have been born of citizens since the 4th of July, 1776."....David Ramsay, 1789.
In defining what an Article II natural born Citizen is, we do not seek to read into the Constitution that which was not intended and written there by the Framers. Despite popular belief, the Fourteenth Amendment does not convey the status of natural born Citizen in its text nor in its intent. Some add an implication to the actual wording of the Fourteenth Amendment by equating the amendments citizen to Article IIs natural born Citizen. But nowhere does the 14th Amendment confer natural born citizen status. The words simply do not appear there, but some would have us believe they are implied. But the wording of the Amendment is clear in showing that it confers citizenship only and nothing more.
Neither the 14th Amendment nor Wong Kim Ark make one a Natural Born Citizen
A Dissertation on Manner of Acquiring Character & Privileges of Citizen of U.S.-by David Ramsay-1789
The Law of Nations or the Principles of Natural Law (1758)
The Laws of Nature and of Nature's God: The True Foundation of American Law
The Biggest Cover-up in American History
Mark Levin Attacks Birthers: Admits He Hasn't Studied Issue; Declares Canadian-Born Cruz Eligible
Not much information exists on why the Third Congress (under the lead of James Madison and the approval of George Washington) deleted "natural born" from the Naturalization Act of 1790 when it passed the Naturalization Act of 1795. There is virtually no information on the subject because they probably realized that the First Congress committed errors when it passed the Naturalization Act of 1790 and did not want to create a record of the errors.
It can be reasonably argued that Congress realized that under Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, Congress is given the power to make uniform laws on naturalization and that this power did not include the power to decide who is included or excluded from being a presidential Article II "natural born Citizen." While Congress has passed throughout United States history many statutes declaring who shall be considered nationals and citizens of the United States at birth and thereby exempting such persons from having to be naturalized under naturalization laws, at no time except by way of the short-lived "natural born" phrase in Naturalization Act of 1790 did it ever declare these persons to be "natural born Citizens."
The uniform definition of "natural born Citizen" was already provided by the law of nations and was already settled. The Framers therefore saw no need nor did they give Congress the power to tinker with that definition. Believing that Congress was highly vulnerable to foreign influence and intrigue, the Framers, who wanted to keep such influence out of the presidency, did not trust Congress when it came to who would be President, and would not have given Congress the power to decide who shall be President by allowing it to define what an Article II "natural born Citizen" is.
Additionally, the 1790 act was a naturalization act. How could a naturalization act make anyone an Article II "natural born Citizen?" After all, a "natural born Citizen" was made by nature at the time of birth and could not be so made by any law of man.
Natural Born Citizen Through the Eyes of Early Congresses
Harvard Law Review Article FAILS to Establish Ted Cruz as Natural Born Citizen
And 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 natural born Citizens:
.................................................
And the children of citizens......plural, ????????????????
Thank you so much for your time and effort in posting that information. The problem is that Cruz supporters won’t even read it, they jump right over because it doesn’t support their wishes. The rest of us appreciate it and understand it. Ted Cruz is not a natural born citizen.
The uniform definition of “natural born Citizen” was already provided by the law of nations and was already settled.
.......................................................
The Law of Nations published in 1758 by E. de Vattel.
The Act of 1790 was superseded by the Naturalization Act of 1795, which extended the residence requirement to five years, and by the Naturalization Act of 1798, which extended it to 14 years. The 1798 act was repealed by the Naturalization Law of 1802.
The Fourteenth Amendment in 1868 granted citizenship to people born within the United States AND SUBJECT TO ITS JURISDICTION, regardless of their parent’s race, citizenship or place of birth; but it excluded untaxed Indians living on reservations.
The Naturalization Act of 1870 extended “the naturalization laws” to “aliens of African nativity and to persons of African descent.”
In 1898 the Supreme Court decision in United States v. Wong Kim Ark granted citizenship to an American-born child of Chinese parents. All persons born in the United States since United States v. Wong Kim Ark have been granted citizenship although the Supreme Court has never explicitly ruled on the matter.
But the key is that all of these decisions and statutes affect ACTS OF NATURALIZATION, which by definition are not the same issue as NATURAL BORN citizen.
More pointedly, a statute cannot override a constitutional requirement. The only way a requirement of the U.S. Constitution may be legitimately changed is through the amendment process.
An internet forum is a great place to educate voters so that they may vote with knowledge on the issues..
Exactly.
You are simplistic. Period.
By definition, the act of naturalization is required because one is not natural born. In any case, a statute cannot override a constitutional requirement. The Constitution can only be changed through the amendment process.
“...under Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, Congress is given the power to make uniform laws on naturalization and that this power did not include the power to decide who is included or excluded from being a presidential Article II “natural born Citizen.” While Congress has passed throughout United States history many statutes declaring who shall be considered nationals and citizens of the United States at birth and thereby exempting such persons from having to be naturalized under naturalization laws, at no time except by way of the short-lived “natural born” phrase in Naturalization Act of 1790 did it ever declare these persons to be “natural born Citizens.”
The uniform definition of “natural born Citizen” was already provided by the law of nations and was already settled. The Framers therefore saw no need nor did they give Congress the power to tinker with that definition. Believing that Congress was highly vulnerable to foreign influence and intrigue, the Framers, who wanted to keep such influence out of the presidency, did not trust Congress when it came to who would be President, and would not have given Congress the power to decide who shall be President by allowing it to define what an Article II “natural born Citizen” is.
Additionally, the 1790 act was a naturalization act. How could a naturalization act make anyone an Article II “natural born Citizen?” After all, a “natural born Citizen” was made by nature at the time of birth and could not be so made by any law of man.”
Very interesting.
There can be no doubt that through vast parts of American history Ted Cruz would not have qualified as a citizen from birth. Near as I can tell he wouldn’t have before 1934 at the earliest.
The controlling law governing him because of the circumstances of his birth was the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1952, which contained retention requirements for those like Cruz. I’ve been trying to figure out what those requirements were, but haven’t quite tracked that down yet. Someone with a great deal of expertise in this area told me earlier that it had to do with a requirement that they take an oath of loyalty upon attaining the age of 18, but that the retention requirements were done away with by Congress in 1978. I know that the latter part is true. I found on the Immigration and Naturalization Services website.
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