Posted on 01/09/2016 10:58:04 AM PST by sunrise_sunset
1790 Naturalization Act:
"..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..."
1795 Naturalization Act:
"...the children of citizens of the United States, born out of the limits and jurisdiction of the United States, shall be considered as citizens of the United States..."
Placemark.
Which is why they created the Amendment process for people who wish to modify the eligibility requirements for the Presidency.
Now of course this doesn't mean they can change the meaning of "natural citizen", it just means that they can remove it as a requirement.
That's why they punted on abolishing slavery in 1788.
They didn't really punt on it. They actually incorporated a clause in the Constitution that protected it. That made it virtually impossible to get rid of it so long as a single state allowed it.
They should have stuck with their principles and insisted on following the principle expressed in the Declaration of Independence, that "All men are created equal, and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. "
But pragmatism won the day. You know, the same sort of pragmatism that you are always so intent on expressing. :)
That is Blackstone's wishful thinking, or projection. Natural law would be silent on those principles, because they do not exist in natural law. That is why man sought to establish them.
I do agree that even natural law is written by men. As I wrote in my previous, maybe you saw it, maybe not, Blackstone said that natural law wasn't written anywhere, and it was up to men to "discover" it. IIRC, he admits these discoveries are possibly flawed. That said, i think it's fair to say that all rational, non-psychopathic/sociopathic people think the Golden Rule is correct. But, it's no more natural than any other law, pointing to it is nothing more than a cudgel to get people to think your (legal) system is fair.
Omg
Omg.. The “resort” is obvious. Determine what the phrase meant AT THE TIME OF THE ADOPTION OF THE CONSTITUTION. Can Congress just decide to interpret the Constitution any way that it wants? Uh... NO.
Congress has steadfastly stayed out of the natural born citizen debate for the last eight years. There has never even been one congressional hearing on the topic.
All the action on this issue has been via the judicial branch, both state and federal.
I made this prediction about 30 months ago about Cruz. Particularly number “two” and parts of number “one” that looks like may come true. You saw it. ;-)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/3049029/posts?page=173#173
I should have mentioned that Congress DID pass two non-binding resolutions that related to natural born citizenship, but they were symbolic only: Senate Resolution 511 (110th Congress) acknowledged John McCain as a natural born citizen and House Resolution 593 (109th Congress) recognized that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961.
Notice:
1790 Act: “An Act to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization.”
1795 Act: “An Act to establish an uniform rule of Naturalization; and to repeal the act heretofore passed on that subject.”
Both are explicitly stated to be naturalization acts.
Notice too:
For “the children of citizens of the United States that may be born beyond Sea, or out of the limits of the United States” to acquire citizenship required a naturalization act.
I miss reading (ha ha, I mean reading obsessively) on FR. Maybe I’ll come back.
The research done here was amazing. I learned so much, wish I could repeat it to convince others.
> Natural born = citizen by birth and not requiring naturalization process.
Natural born = citizen by birth and not by statute.
Politics is not confined to party politics. Washington had more than ten years of experience in the affairs of Virginia as well as experience in the war with France. A classic politician of the Roman sort. In English terms, from the same social strata as Cromwell. King George is said to have been astonished, though, when Washington refused to act as Cromwell had, Urged by the army to act against Congress, he refused and offered his command back to Congress. THAT is the sort of politician Washington was.
And a law which had nothing to do with the meaning of Natural-born citizen.
The Founders did. That's probably why they used Blackstone as a starting point, not a blueprint.
But some late incidents having given rise to an opinion, that the common law of England, is not only the law of the American States, respectively, according to the mode in which they may, severally have adopted it, but that it is likewise the law of the federal government, a much wider field for investigation is thereby opened; of the importance of which, the general assembly of Virginia, at their session in the winter of 1799, have thus expressed their sentiments, in behalf of themselves, and their constituents.
"It is distressing to reflect, that it ever should have been made a question, whether the constitution of the United States on the whole face, of which, is seen so much labour to enumerate and define the several objects of federal power, could intend to introduce in the lump, in an indirect manner, and by a forced construction of a few phrases, the vast and multifarious jurisdiction involved in the common law; a law filling so many ample volumes; a law overspreading the entire field of legislation; a law that would sap the foundation of the constitution, as a system of limited, and specified powers."
St. George Tucker Blackstone's Commentaries
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They even thought enough of Vattel to use public monies -
Journal of the Senate of the United States of America / Monday / March 10, 1794 / Volume 2 / page 44
Ordered, That the Secretary purchase Blackstone's Commentaries, and Vattel's Law of Nature and Nations, for the use of the Senate.
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsj&fileName=002/llsj002.db&recNum=42&itemLink=D?hlaw:13:./temp/~ammem_LF5V::%230020043&linkText=1
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Just as the Founders sometimes used Blackstone, they based the Declaration of Independence on Biblical concepts - because that's what the people were most familiar with.
But when it came the the Constitution, they used Vattel's Law of Nations, Or, Principles of the Law of Nature, Applied to the Conduct and Affairs of Nations and Sovereigns.
My daughter was born to Americans parents in an Army hospital in Landstuhl Germany. I as a person of German descent was by German law qualified to apply for German citizenship. From reading some of the “theories†here I suppose that that means she is not a native of the United States. To me it all boils down to this: because the Constitution does not define the word, it only rules out absolutely a person who like John Peter Altgeld, whose parents were both German-born and who came to the USA when he was 2 years old.
It can get crazy. I personally know of one case where an unaccompanied wife of an enlisted guy had a child born at Landstuhl. Because she was under 18, the consulate at Frankfurt would not give her a passport for the child. The law was so worded that her congressman had to get a private bill pass which identified her as an American citizen. Because she was not on his orders, she did not fall under the SOFA. His commander went to bat for him,went all the way to headquarters and got new orders cuts for him. But that was after the private bill passed.
Natural law as understood by jurists is not the same as the laws of physics.
“A person born out of the jurisdiction of the United States can only become a citizen by being naturalized, either by treaty, as in the case of the annexation of foreign territory, or by authority of congress, exercised either by declaring certain classes of persons to be citizens, as in the enactments conferring citizenship upon foreign-born children of citizens, or by enabling foreigners individually to become citizens by proceedings in the judicial tribunals, as in the ordinary provisions of the naturalization acts.” U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649, 702-703
The guts have pretty well been ripped out, the constitution now being volumes of law composed by SCOTUS, plus whatever governments can get away with.
Brave New World.
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