Posted on 01/12/2024 11:30:39 PM PST by CDR Kerchner
Re: 115 - And yet, no one has recently brought an action to the USSC using these arguments. NO ONE.
Why is that? I think you hit the nail on the head.
So who are people trying to convince? Some people on FR? Who else?
They are hard to read, and hard to get loaded on my machine. I have a slow connection and an old browser.
But I will look through the rest to see if I see any mention of James McClure.
Due to the serious nature of what McClure was doing in Europe, I cannot believe Armstrong did not discuss the matter with Madison.
answer WHY the Founders found it necessary to distinguish between natural born Citizens and just anyone born here?
The Founders of 1776 are not relevant. The Framers of 1787 found it convenient to write a Constitution and consolidate the existing 13 rules of naturalization to one Federal rule. As they were creating a much more powerful central government, they found it convenient to protect against alien born persons attaining control of the U.S. government or armed forces.
The Hamilton Plan phrased it in the simple English of a non-lawyer. "No person shall be eligible to the office of President of the United States unless he be now a Citizen of one of the States, or hereafter be born a Citizen of the United States. The lawyers used the legal term of art from the English law, natural born. A natural born subject or citizen is one who becomes a subject or citizen at birth, as opposed to any time after birth.
They did not, as you say, distinguish between natural born citizens and just anyone born here. They distinguished between those born aliens and those born citizens. The only ones born here and not born citizens are those born to a parent who enjoys immunity from our laws, such as an accredited diplomat. In that case the child has derivitive immunity and is considered to have been born in the sovereign territory of the parent.
Naturalization is a legal process for aliens that occurs only at some time subsequent to birth. Natural born citizens are those who acquire citizenship at birth due to the circumstances of their birth.
I doubt any of those letters will have anything to do with the James McClure case for one simple reason: all of them are dated from 1813 or later.
General Armstrong ceased being our ambassador to France as of September of 1810; his next posting afterward was as James Madison’s Secretary of War from 1813 to 1814 (which I’m sure all of these letters relate to).
The matter of James McClure’s claims of American citizenship whilst being imprisoned in France ceased to be within Armstrong’s purview after 1810; in like manner, it wouldn’t have been a military matter that would have merited a response or opinion from Armstrong whilst he was head of the U.S. War Department.
In other words, "These are not the droids you are looking for."
140 Letters (text) - Armstrong to Madison
- - - - -
213 Letters (text) - Madison to Armstrong
Founders/Framers, okay pedant, totally different people right?
“They did not, as you say, distinguish between natural born citizens and just anyone born here.”
The hell they didn’t! They SPECIFICALLY wrote into the Constitution the requirement for President “Natural born Citizen”.
None of your ‘Hamilton Plan’ obscuration bs is in the Constitution is it?
“Silly Lawsuits” Not a single ...”
Can you not understand that no lawsuits have been heard’ idjit!
You and pusher(apt) believe any baby dropped by Chicom moms, Mexican cartels, Somali muslim terrorsts, MS-13 putas, Hamas and Londinistan muslim jihadists are NaturalBornCitizens elegible for the Presidency ? IDIOTS!
-fJRoberts-
Founders/Framers, okay pedant, totally different people right?
Not totally, but largely. The Framers were a youthful group. At the founding many would have been minors or just past the age of majority. The Framing era produced the Articles of Confederation. Citizenship law was State law, and there were thirteen different flavors.
The hell they didn’t! They SPECIFICALLY wrote into the Constitution the requirement for President “Natural born Citizen”.
Natural born connotes "at birth." It is taken directly from English law. Even when you have no idea what you are talking about, you say it with great birther conviction.
BIRTHER SCORECARD (last updated 2015)
https://tesibria.typepad.com/whats_your_evidence/birther%20case%20list.pdf
Original decisions, total cases: 226
Birther wins: 0
Total appellate court rulings: 120+
Birther wins: 0
Total supreme court rulings: 35
Birther wins: 0
All the courts are wrong and only you know the trufe.
Without resorting to the 70+ years and more later revisionist reinterpretation by jurists who were not privy to the construction and adoption of the UnitedStates Constitution, WILL YOU PLEASE coherently answer WHY the Founders found it necessary to distinguish between natural born Citizens and just anyone born here?
I answered your question. It was not the Founders, it was the Framers, and they did not distinguish as you claim. They distinguished citizens at birth from aliens at birth. You don't like the answer. Take your drivel to court. Maybe the three hundredth time will be the charm.
Wong Kim Ark at 169 U.S. 662-63:
In United States v. Rhodes (1866), Mr. Justice Swayne, sitting in the Circuit Court, said: "All persons born in the allegiance of the King are natural-born subjects, and all persons born in the allegiance of the United States are natural-born citizens. Birth and allegiance go together. Such is the rule of the common law, and it is the common law of this country, as well as of England. . . . We find no warrant for the opinion that this great principle of the common law has ever been changed in the United States. It has always obtained here with the same vigor, and subject only to the same exceptions, since as before the Revolution."
Don’t keep going with that “English Law” bullSchiff !
You’re as bad as PenceOfShiite JohnRoberts
The Framers must damn well have been “youthful” to be issuing rulings in 1866, IDJIT !
This was allegedly written by James Madison when he was president.
For the source of this allegation before it was laundered, here is the 199-page Amicus Brief where said allegation appeared:
Kerchner and Laudenslager v. Obama, Brief on Behalf of Objectors, Karen L. Kiefer, Esq; On the Brief: Mario Apuzzo, Esq.
At page 58:
Support for my position is found in an old article that has just recently surfaced. An internet researcher by the name rxsid of Free Republic has recently found this article and provided it to Attorney Leo Donofrio who has recently published the article at his blog athttp://naturalborncitizen.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/alexandria-herald.pdf.
This old article was published by Publius on October 7, 1811, in The Alexandria Herald, concerning the “Case of James McClure,” which “made a great deal of stir in the U. States.” Mr. Donofrio infers that, given that “Publius” was the pseudonym used by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay in the Federalist Papers and that in 1811 Hamilton was dead and Jay retired, Publius is really James Madison. The Publius article states that McClure was born in the United States on April 21, 1785. His father was a British subject at the time of his birth.
At page 59:
The names of James McClure and John Rodman appear as names existing in Chester County, South Carolina in the estate papers of Thomas Gillespie, who died in 1808.
http://genforum.genealogy.com/sc/chester/messages/211.html
As noted back in 2012:
While it may be accurate that the names of James McClure and John Rodman appear in the papers of Thomas Gillespie, that John Rodman is most certainly not the John Rodman relevant to the letter of 1811. The cited South Carolina Rodman1 married Mary Jane Gillespie, the sister of Thomas Gillespie2 and died in South Carolina in 1832.3 The relevant John Rodman was a New York attorney, as I will show.John Fenno founded and published the Gazette of the United States4 in New York City in 1789, moved to Philadelphia, and after several name changes became the United States Gazette.5 It was a Hamiltonian Federalist paper, and Alexander Hamilton contributed financial assistance and articles under various pseudonyms.6 James Madison and Thomas Jefferson urged Philip Freneau to found the National Gazette,7 an opposing paper also in Philadelphia.
John Rodman (the relevant one) married Harriet Fenno,8 the daughter of John Fenno.
John Rodman returned from France around 1811.9 Completely fluent in French,10 in 1814 he published his book, The Commercial Code of France, translated from the French,11 with explanatory notes, and a complete analytical index. Rodman was the District Attorney for New York County from 1815-1817.12 Gulian Verplanck, a Congressman from New York, was his brother-in-law.13 David Bailie Warden was a consul to Paris who was removed by Minister to France Gen. John Armstrong in 1810.14 Armstrong in turn was replaced in 1810.15 Warden had some useful connections to the likes of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Eliza Parke Custis16 (granddaughter of Martha Washington). Using his connections, Warden returned to France in 1811.17 Warden gave “aid in the personal affairs of New York attorney and merchant John Rodman (1775-1847) during his stay in France prior to 1811.”18
Following a lengthy visit to France with his daughter, Rodman returned to the United States in 1818.19 In May 1821, President Monroe appointed Rodman to the position of collector of the port of St. Augustine, Florida.20 In 1822, he wrote to his daughter, “I have had a complete set of the Spanish laws in six large volumes sent to me from the Havana. These books I am obliged to study in the original, as the Spanish laws, in civil causes, are still in force here.”21
Rodman left his collector position around 1845 and returned north. He died in New Brunswick, New Jersey in February, 1847.22
James Bowdoin was Ambassador to Spain. While in France, he requested that Armstrong seek an invitation for him to a birthday event for the emperor. The French declined as such invitations were for accredited ministers to France and Bowdoin was only accredited to Spain. Bowdoin complained to Armstrong. Armstrong responded at length, ending with “General Armstrong hopes that Mr. B will hereafter look out for some new subject upon whom to discharge the irritations of ill-health or ill humor. He is completely weary of being the subject of either.”
In a dispatch to Madison, Armstrong indicated “he had received information that an agent in Madrid named McClure, representing a company of Liverpool merchants, was attempting to purchase the Floridas for eleven million dollars, allegedly to establish a huge slave depot there.” That may, or may not, have been the same McClure subsequently detained as an English prisoner of the French.
What is critical to understand about the McClure case and how Publius resolved the question of whether McClure was a “Citizen of the United States” is that it supports my position in which I have steadfastly argued that the early naturalization acts applied not only to children born out of the United States but also to children born in the United States and treated any child born in the United States to alien parents to be an alien also. Given these Congressional statutes, we can reasonably conclude that our nation did not adopt the English common law jus soli concept of citizenship, but rather the law of nation’s jus sanguinis.This appears to be based on that same scholarship and research which suggested that two random dudes named Rodman and McClure mentioned in the papers of some random dude named Gillespie, was relevant and indicative of due diligence.
https://tesibria.typepad.com/whats_your_evidence/birther%20case%20list.pdf
Original decisions, total cases: 226
Birther wins: 0
Total appellate court rulings: 120+
Birther wins: 0
Total supreme court rulings: 35
Birther wins: 0
brnpusher scorecard exactly like ‘no 2020 election fraud’ cases heard
Forget all the McClure stuff. It is so convoluted and the motivations are so confusing that nothing is as it seems. Both Madison and Armstrong wanted McClure kept in a French prison for reasons not related to his citizenship.
In July, 1807 Madison wrote to Armstrong that the negotiations with Spain for the purchase of the Floridas might have to be suspended if war with Britain came about.
“In this state of things the President taking into consideration the objections to an application of the public funds to objects not immediately connected with the public safety, instructs you to suspend the negotiation for the purchase of the floridas, unless it shall be agreed by Spain, that payment for them shall in case of a rupture between Great Britain and the United States be postponed till the end of one year after they shall have settled their differences; and that in the mean time no interest shall be paid on the Debt.” Madison to Armstrong July 15th, 1807
Armstrong then wrote to Madison about a plan to purchase the floridas before the U.S. could.
“There is now at Madrid a naturalized American, with respect to whom and his business, it becomes my duty to put you on the alert. This Man’s name is McClure. He is at once the Cap. of an American registered Ship and a proprietor in East Florida, characters not very reconcileable. Professing to have much intimacy with the Prince of Peace and a great variety of means to accomplish his objects with that Minister, he organized (as I am credibly informed) while here, a society for the purpose of out-bidding the U. S. in the purchase of the Floridas. The extent to which they proposed to go was eleven millions of dollars, ten of which were to be given to Spain and one to the Prince of P___e as a doceur. The subscription was left here to be filled, while he proceeded to Madrid & prepared things and persons for its arrival. This information was given by A. Vail, a consul of the U. S. for the port of L’Orient, to a person of respectability whom he invited to join in the Speculation & who communicated it to me. Vail is the Agent of McClure in prosecuting a prize cause here. You will best know, what use can be made of this discovery at Madrid.” Armstrong to Madison, September 4th, 1807
Armstrong himself was accused of land speculation in Florida which he denied. The U.S. consul Aron Vail mentioned in Armstrong’s letter away also speculating in Florida real estate. His widow filed a claim with Congress after the Adams-Onís Treaty with Spain gave the Floridas to the US.
The National Archives has the following letter which resolved the McClure case.
Joel Barlow Esq. Department of State
Paris Nov. 27, 1811
Sir
I have the honor to enclose several affidavits and certificates just handed to me by Mr. Cheves the Representative in Congress from the City of Charleston proving that James McClure now detained in France as a British Prisoner of War was born in Charleston since the Revolution. To these Papers is annexed a Certificate of W[illiam] Johnson Esq. one of the Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States before whom the affidavits were taken stating “that agreeable to the laws and usage of the United States, the said affidavits and Certificates are sufficient to establish the fact that James M McClure above named is a Citizen of the United States.” As such he must be considered by this Government. You will therefore interpose your good offices in his behalf and obtain his release from confinement as soon as possible.
I have [the honor]
James Monroe
Justice William Johnson in his dissent in Shanks v DuPont wrote this about the laws of South Carolina - “By an act of the state passed in 1712, the common law of Great Britain was incorporated into the jurisprudence of South Carolina. In the year 1782, when this descent was cast, it was the law of the land …”
You better go get a law license...ASAP. Or at least attend a few semesters of law school. The “FR School of Law” has very few that have ever passed a bar exam. And the rate of prediction of outcomes is abysmal - worse than Judge Napolitano.
This is exactly correct. But they were using "citizenship" as the excuse to do it.
“There is now at Madrid a naturalized American, with respect to whom and his business, it becomes my duty to put you on the alert. This Man’s name is McClure....
This is the communication I previously discovered. I don't recall seeing Madison's response.
Madison's inaction in directing Armstrong to reclaim McClure implies that Madison was okay with McClure being held on a pretense.
What *I* gathered from this is that Madison was willing to ignore principles for political benefit. I see this again with Madison's 40 year later letter rejecting the claims that He and the Virginia ratification committee made in their ratification statement. (That Virginia could resume the powers they gave up.)
I count this as two examples of Madison talking out of both sides of his mouth.
Madison appears to be willing to advocate whatever course of action he sees as most politically beneficial to Himself.
*THAT* is the part I will find interesting, but i've never been able to find it before.
Woodpusher has found a treasure trove of documents from this era, and Madison's response may very well be among them.
I would think Madison's response would be part of the official record, but the thought occurs to me that he may have sent Armstrong directions outside of official channels, in which case we might not see them.
Madison clearly wanted to keep McClure on ice in France, but he might not be willing to say so or say why in an official dispatch.
I interpret what you are saying as more proof our legal system is seriously dysfunctional. Common sense just doesn't apply within it's structure.
You are more able to predict the outcome of any case simply by learning who appointed the Judge rather than by any fact of law.
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