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To: editor-surveyor

Absolutely false on both counts!

Where do you get this nonsense?

The Supreme Court does not set nor change definitions of anything.


The Article 2, Section 1 definition of natural born citizen has never been tested in a Court of law. What did change is the addition of the definer: “born citizen” when the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1865. (”All persons born or naturalized...”). There is a considerable body of law since the 14th Amendment which says that there are only two classifications of citizens: born and naturalized and that born citizens can be president while naturalized citizens cannot be president.

I think that it would be great if the Supreme Court would rule (”stare decisis”) on whether there is a differece between a “natural born citizen” under Article 1, Section 2 and a “born citizen” under the 14th Amendment.

The fact that the current Supreme Court has rejected hearing any of eight appeals of Obama eligibility lawsuits leads me to believe that a majority of the current court feels that “born citizens” and “natural born citizens” are identical, but who knows?


55 posted on 09/13/2010 8:25:52 PM PDT by jamese777
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To: jamese777
The fact that the current Supreme Court has rejected hearing any of eight appeals of Obama eligibility lawsuits leads me to believe that a majority of the current court feels that “born citizens” and “natural born citizens” are identical, but who knows?

It is called evading the issue.

Kenyan_parl_32

56 posted on 09/13/2010 8:33:41 PM PDT by Red Steel
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To: jamese777

> “The Article 2, Section 1 definition of natural born citizen has never been tested in a Court of law.”

.
It was not ‘tested’ but it was affirmed three times in the Federal courts in a short period, two of those in the Supreme Court. In each case the accepted definition was read into the record.


57 posted on 09/13/2010 8:40:09 PM PDT by editor-surveyor (Obamacare is America's kristallnacht !!)
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To: jamese777

Here are three cases that used the accepted definition (as per Vattel):

The Venus, 12 U.S. 8 Cranch 253 253 (1814)

Shanks v. Dupont, 28 U.S. 3 Pet. 242 242 (1830)

Minor v. Happersett , 88 U.S. 162 (1875)

And later,

United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898)
“In this case, Wong Kim Ark, the son of 2 resident Chinese aliens, claimed U.S. Citizenship and was vindicated by the court on the basis of the 14th Amendment. In this case the Justice Gray gave the opinion of the court. On p. 168-9 of the record, He cites approvingly the decision in Minor vs. Happersett:

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.

On the basis of the 14th Amendment, however, the majority opinion coined a new definition for “native citizen”, as anyone who was born in the U.S.A., under the jurisdiction of the United States. The Court gave a novel interpretation to jurisdiction, and thus extended citizenship to all born in the country (excepting those born of ambassadors and foreign armies etc.); but it did not extend the meaning of the term ‘natural born citizen.’ “
.


60 posted on 09/13/2010 8:58:24 PM PDT by editor-surveyor (Obamacare is America's kristallnacht !!)
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