>>>”The term was hardly vague! It was well understood by their study of natural law, in fact to them it was self-evident.”
Yes it was vague. It would have been nothing for them to simply put it in the Constitution. How hard would that have been? They could have settled the matter, just as they did for the President not being allowed to be naturalized, and many other things they actually chose to specify, but in this case they didn’t. For some relatively common situations, including one parent a citizen and the other not, and of American parentage but not born on American soil, when they could have.
You say it was all just understood by them. But they knew things changed. They weren’t ignorant of history or the law and lawyers, they had the example of the United States before them with her history as separate colonies and wars and yet they passed on strictly laying out in the law what “natural born” meant. It would definitely always mean not naturalized, but “natural-born” would be up for interpretation, including legally, and have much to do with changes in the law on who a citizen even was.
I’ll say a little more on that by mentioning Barack Obama, who you referred to in another reply to me.
I spent lots of time on his citizenship issue back in 2008. And like many people, including journalists investigating the matter, I was surprised to learn that candidates didn’t have to go through some application process or any way legally prove their eligibility. In fact, it was hard to legally challenge their eligibility. So why didn’t the Constitution writers make settling things easier, and actually just leave a process that the candidates would have to go through to prove their eligibility? It’s not impossible that Chester Arthur was indeed born in Canada, so why not, with so many Americans who could actually prove their American-soil birth, just leave a legal process that forces candidates to prove their eligibility, rather than leave a system without such a process and that actually makes it difficult to challenge the candidate’s eligibility?
And on the Obama situation, I looked into it very carefully, as I said, because of the possibility that he was indeed born in Kenya on a visit by his mother, and in that case the laws on CITIZENSHIP in that particular year (which were changed, I believe, the very next year) would not have made him a citizen. In that case, someone who is not even a citizen can’t be “natural-born.” There were the questions about him reportedly having two different places of birth in Honolulu, as sources even on Wikipedia didn’t agree, and possibly him being treated as a foreign student in college, and in going to Afghanistan. There were also questions that seemed legitimate to me about his birth certificates that were released, including if they were possible forgeries as questions were raised about them not having the proper formats, for instance. So if he didn’t have American citizenship and was raised from birth with the understanding that he wasn’t American, then that and some sort of coverup later to keep a lid on documents showing that fact so he could run would certainly be relevant. Yet the courts even were resistant to investigating that, and to doing things like forcing him to release school records.
In Ted Cruz’s case, though, his birth is clear. The whole situation is clear, without anyone needing to dig around in Canada or ask to see his long-form birth certificate. And the laws of granting citizenship were such that he was clearly a CITIZEN at BIRTH.
I really think the forest is being missed for the trees here, and something definite is being superimposed when it wasn’t made definite in the first place. Even in the Minor case from the late 1800’s, the Supreme Court justice notes that NBC wasn’t defined in the Constitution. The Constitution writers understood the significance of not defining NBC, especially in terms of opening it up to SOME ongoing legal interpretation. But one situation would be precluded, and that’s the most important one, naturalized citizens.
I understand that the Constitution writers put the “natural born” provision in for the sake of allegiances. There is no other reason for it than that.
But again, the most effective thing they could do was to disallow naturalized citizens which they did.
But not defining “natural born” would allow for the country to change without the need for possibly amending the Constitution on this question, which is always a danger.
Here’s an example. African-Americans weren’t “natural-born citizens” although they were natural-born because they weren’t legally regarded as CITIZENS. Once they were citizens, though, then the “natural-born” requirement applied to them. That’s a case where the changing of “citizen” affected who is “natural-born.” So is the change made in citizenship that possibly applied to Barack Obama if he was actually born in Kenya.
And another thing on the forest and the trees. Having fought several wars and seen people with different allegiances during the Revolutionary War, and no doubt changing allegiances, the “not naturalized” implication of “natural born” was the big thing to the Constitution writers. That is still, unequivocally, with us today. There are people born citizens, and people naturalized. As I’ve mentioned, my father was one of the latter.
So I’ll put it to you in these ways. What is the evidence that “natural-born” wasn’t meant to be interpreted differently if other laws and circumstances changed?
Why wasn’t a mechanism left for making sure presidents were natural-born, and challenging them?
How much of what makes you an American comes from the soil you were born on, versus the knowledge of your birth citizenship, the citizenship of your parents, and where you’ve lived and for how long?
Jumping back in a little late here thanks for the redirect to your again very thoughtful comment, but I think what you’re missing is that Cruz is a naturalized citizen. How do we know? Because in order to determine that he is a citizen we have to look at a naturalization statute. Jus soli (born on U.S. soil) and jus sanguinis (born to two U.S. citizens) are a given: all of those kids have been considered citizens at birth for centuries if not longer by generally accepted principles of common law without reference to any statute. But when you get to born abroad with divided loyalties, that’s always been subject to statutes that granted citizenship in some cases, not in others, in some times, and not in other times. That’s a naturalized citizen, citizen by statute.
Long reply, but the answer lies in your last paragraph.
How much from the soil makes you natural born? Except for possibly those born of diplomats and others in the service of their country to TWO citizen parents, all of it. For a great analysis of the jus solis requirement look up constitution.org for presidential eligibility.
Few people have the skill to do this kind of constitutional analysis. Many more think of the result they wish to have and cherry pick only what they need to reach it. You should question whether you are of the latter.
T. Cruz is so out of the park with his non natural born status he will be denied the opportunity of being the first known foreign born president under the terms of Article II. The question is how much damage will he cause in the succor of his political vanity.
Respectfully, . . .