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This was always some of the danger of the bogus birther crap: That once some real evidence turned up of a wolf, people would just brush it off.

I refer particularly to the bogus Constitutional claims.

Just my 2c.

It would render the Grandfather Clause of Article II superfluous.

No, it wouldn't.

The grandfather clause was passed for the sake of men like James Wilson and Alexander Hamilton. By the doctrine of citizenship in force and in law, people like George Washington, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson - those guys were all natural born citizens.

And James Madison explained all of this, quite clearly enough.

See, this is one of the big clanging bells that signals that your theory is a crackpot one. All of the Founders and legal experts had to be "wrong" for a bunch of keyboard commandos on the internet to be right.

The First Congress, and first President. 40% of the Signers of the Constitution. Well, those guys were wrong. They didn't know what the hell they were talking about.

William Rawle, close friend of Washington, Franklin and other Framers. Well, he was a liar when it came to citizenship. Yes, some moron actually said that.

I won't mention his name, but his initials are "DiogenesLamp."

The United States Supreme Court. Well, those guys were just a bunch of hacks who didn't know what they were talking about in US v. Wong Kim Ark. Or maybe they just wanted to mess with the birthers that were going to be born in another couple of generations.

All of our early legal authorities and every textbook that's ever been written on the subject. Well, THOSE guys didn't know what they were talking about.

The entire court system of the United States. Every judge who's ever heard the Constitutional claims. All bought and paid for, or maybe threatened by Obama. Yeah, right.

Reagan's Attorney General Edwin Meese. The Heritage Foundation. Every contemporary legal scholar of any note, including all major conservative Constitutional organizations. A bunch of hacks. All of them.

Or might it be... might it just possibly be... that you bought into a bogus theory?

I don't know. What do you think?

Naw. I guess the Founders and Framers and all our early legal experts, and the US Supreme Court, and individual Justices who've commented on the matter, and every textbook ever written, and every contemporary legal authority, and all conservative Constitutional foundations, they don't really know anything about it.

The 1790 Act is in error in this regard. It would be absurd otherwise. It would render the Grandfather Clause of Article II superfluous.

In what regard?

It's not in error. They knew what they were doing.

The president and chief executive officer of The Associated Press on Sunday called the government's secret seizure of two months of reporters' phone records "unconstitutional" and said the news cooperative had not ruled out legal action against the Justice Department.

Okay. Don't talk. Sue the b******s.

Well, since the First Congress and first President were WELL aware that the Presidential qualification included being a natural born citizen, do you really think that this august group of roughly 90 men, who considered the nation’s laws in detail, and which group included 40% of those who had spent months debating and then signing the Constitution, could POSSIBLY make a mistake of the kind you suggest without SOMEBODY piping up and saying, “Excuse me. Won’t this mean kids born overseas will be eligible to the Presidency? Didn’t we mean to say that a ‘natural born citizen’ was someone born on US soil of two US citizen parents? I mean, wasn’t that the entire idea behind the phrase?”

It is simply impossible that this group, which included Madison and so many other Signers of the Constitution could have made such a glaring mistake (if “natural born citizen” means what you claim it means) unless they were all either roaring drunk, or the worst kind of idiots imaginable.

And the bill was READ AND SIGNED by President Washington.

Generally speaking, Presidents don’t sign bills lightly. They kind of like to know what’s in them, don’t you think? Or was George Washington roaring drunk that day?

“Here, Mr. President, sign this.”

And it’s not like the Act was 4,000 pages - like a Bill today might be.

It contained a total of 276 words. You can read it in less than two minutes.

And there wasn’t American Idol on TV to watch. Surely President Washington actually read a 276-word Act before he signed it into law, don’t you think?

And those who drafted it had the foresight to include the clauses,

“Provided, that the right of citizenship shall not descend to persons whose fathers have never been resident in the United States: Provided also, that no person heretofore proscribed by any States, shall be admitted a citizen as aforesaid, except by an Act of the Legislature of the State in which such person was proscribed.”

So... don’t those clauses show that they were actually thinking about what the hell the were writing?

So the fact is, one has to believe in the tooth fairy, Santa Claus and the Keebler Elves all combined, in order to imagine that this First Congress didn’t know what the hell they were saying when they wrote those words.

And that, my friend, is fatal for your little idea that the Founders and Framers meant to restrict the Presidency only to people born on US soil to two citizen parents.

It’s not the only thing that’s fatal to the idea. Not by any means. It’s only one of literally dozens of facts that aren’t in accord with the idea.

But we don’t even need those dozens of other things. This alone is fatal.

Okay, I’ll try.

That wasn’t really intended as an insult, though.

Take a step back, and imagine yourself conversing with someone who insists - absolutely insists - that the Founding Fathers - including 40% of the distinguished men who spent literally MONTHS writing the Constitution, debating every significant bit of wording and every significant passage - were as clueless or incompetent, or as drunk, as you portray them as being.

And that HE knows better than the Signers of the Constitution, who spent months drafting it, what they meant by it.

The unfortunate thing for you... is that your birther claim pretty much depends on this point. Because if the First Congress actually knew what they were doing, your entire world view is wrong.

Between the two, I think the truth is fairly obvious.

Aside from which: How is it that the entire First Congress and First President, a group of distinguished and learned men of the Founding Generation, including James Madison and 40% of the Signers of the Constitution, were so drunk and so erroneous, that they didn’t know what the Constitution meant...

And YOU do?? YOU know more about the Constitution than George Washington and the entire First Congress?

This is really what it comes down to. Birthers are total, complete buffoons, who almost never have any legal training whatsoever, who know little or nothing of history and the law, but who imagine - when push comes to shove - that not only do they know more about it than all contemporary experts... hell, they know more about it than the Founders themselves!

You, and the rest of the birthers, are simply buffoons. That’s a conclusion that I came to reluctantly. But you leave those who listen to your foolish, stupid arguments little other choice of what to conclude.

They are not gods. They make errors, as do all people.

Not like that. Not without all of them being roaring drunk.

Not even then.

The Naturalization Act of 1790 was an error...

So you're saying that President George Washington (who presided over the Constitutional Convention), and James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, and in all, 40% of those who signed the Constitution, made an obvious and glaring and sophomoric ERROR when they passed that Act?

Gee, I guess they must've all been drunk. When was that? March 26th, I think. Wow. I guess they were all so happy that springtime had come again that they pulled all the bottles out of the basement and went on a weekend-long bender.

Hell, let's pass some LEGISLATION!

And lo and behold, when they woke up about Tuesday morning with an enormous headache, they had this enormous error of a Naturalization Act.

Sorry, but that's bullsh*t. These distinguished men knew exactly what they were doing. They knew full well that they were declaring that the children born abroad to US citizens were eligible to the Presidency as well.

And their proclamation says that you and every other birther is totally, absolutely, uncategorically -

Full of it.

Your reply is not logical and does not answer my inquiry. You may be able to tell me of a case and imply from it but it does not overturn what he actually said in Shanks v. Dupont. Given what he said specifically in Shanks, it is does not logically follow that within months he overturned his own decision by the strained implication that you assert. You seem to be engaged in the tactic of attacking to divert rather than answering the question.

He didn't overturn his own decision.

I asked you to be more specific. I simply don't know exactly what you're referring to.

But I did include what I had written on Shanks earlier, which gives an overview of the issues in that case.

And no, Story didn't overturn his decision. He was very clear that "nothing was better settled at the common law" than the principle that all persons born in a country were subjects (or citizens) of that country. Except, of course, for the few historical exceptions.

But that's not in conflict with anything he said in Shanks. To suppose he radically reversed his legal doctrine within the space of a month is simply to misunderstand what he said. Supreme Court Justices don't radically reverse their legal doctrine within the space of a month or so.

Speaking of which, this is what the Heritage Foundation's Guide to the Constitution has to say about Presidential eligibility.

You know, the Heritage Foundation? "Whose mission is to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense?

Here's what THEY have to say:

The third qualification to be President is that one must be a "natural born Citizen" (or a citizen at the time of the adoption of the Constitution). Although any citizen may become a Member of Congress so long as he has held citizenship for the requisite time period, to be President, one must be "a natural born Citizen." Undivided loyalty to the United States was a prime concern. During the Constitutional Convention, John Jay wrote to George Washington, urging "a strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government; and to declare expressly that the Commander in Chief of the American army shall not be given to nor devolve on, any but a natural born Citizen." Justice Story later noted that the natural-born–citizenship requirement "cuts off all chances for ambitious foreigners, who might otherwise be intriguing for the office."

Under the longstanding English common-law principle of jus soli, persons born within the territory of the sovereign (other than children of enemy aliens or foreign diplomats) are citizens from birth. Thus, those persons born within the United States are "natural born citizens" and eligible to be President. Much less certain, however, is whether children born abroad of United States citizens are "natural born citizens" eligible to serve as President. As early as 1350, the British Parliament approved statutes recognizing the rule of jus sanguinis, under which citizens may pass their citizenship by descent to their children at birth, regardless of place. Similarly, in its first naturalization statute, Congress declared that "the children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond the sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens." 1 Stat. 104 (1790). The "natural born" terminology was dropped shortly thereafter. See, e.g., 8 U.S.C. § 1401(c). But the question remains whether the term "natural born Citizen" used in Article II includes the parliamentary rule of jus sanguinis in addition to the common law principle of jus soli. In United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), the Supreme Court relied on English common law regarding jus soli to inform the meaning of "citizen" in the Fourteenth Amendment as well as the natural-born–citizenship requirement of Article II, and noted that any right to citizenship though jus sanguinis was available only by statute, and not through the Constitution. Notwithstanding the Supreme Court's discussion in Wong Kim Ark, a majority of commentators today argue that the Presidential Eligibility Clause incorporates both the common-law and English statutory principles, and that therefore, Michigan Governor George Romney, who was born to American parents outside of the United States, was eligible to seek the Presidency in 1968.

And who wrote and edited The Heritage Guide to the Constitution? A team of distinguished staunch conservatives, led by President Reagan's Attorney General Edwin Meese, and advised by a team of distinguished staunch conservatives.

Gee. It must really suck to be on a conservative site making a LIBERAL argument ("the Constitution means what I want it to mean rather than what it says"), and having the most distinguished conservatives in the country say, in essence, that you're full of ****.

That’s because anyone who’s born a citizen, whether it’s due to being born in the US to citizen or non-citizen parents, or due to being born abroad to citizen parents, is eligible.

Again, this is only denied by idiot birthers.

I mean, you would think that if you actually had a case, you could get at least ONE significant Constitutional foundation, like the Heritage Foundation or National Review, to sign on?

Wouldn’t you?

If you have a verifiable copy, I’d like to see it.

I can tell you this as well: That same Justice Story, that very same year, within a month or so of the case you refer to, wrote:

“Nothing is better settled at the common law than the doctrine that the children even of aliens born in a country while the parents are resident there under the protection of the government and owing a temporary allegiance thereto are subjects by birth.”

He said this in Inglis v. Sailor’s Snug Harbor.

The fact that he said this indicates first of all that he thought the rule of the common law was applicable in matters of citizenship.

No?

Because if he hadn’t thought it was applicable, or at the very least, relevant, he wouldn’t have brought up the point.

And note the wording: “Nothing is better settled.”

Those are strong, forceful, decisive, absolute words.

And those words are in agreement with the opinion and with the writings of every other major authority from early America.

People talk about this stuff like there is a real legal and historical argument. In any real terms, there isn’t. There is no serious academic and no major legal authority who gives any credence at all to the birther claims.

That’s why I keep describing them as “BS.”

Just out of curiousity, have you ever read the majority opinion of Joseph Story in Shanks v. Dupont? If you have, do you recall what it says about the law which the Framers drew upon concerning matters of citizenship?

I've read the case. And I've read stuff that others have written about it, on both sides.

I don't recall what you're talking about offhand. Perhaps you can refresh my memory.

I did write this earlier about the case:

---

The Shanks case is a complicated one in which Ann Shanks was born before the Revolution, into a situation in which the People of the Colonies split up into United States citizens and English subjects. The territory in question switched back and forth between American and English hands. Shanks herself married an Englishman and moved to England. The Court was not sure whether Ann Shanks was a minor or not at the time of the American Revolution and the dividing of the American people into United States citizens and English subjects. They basically said that if she was still a minor, her father would have been able to decide for himself and his children whether they were Americans or English subjects. The case has nothing to do with a child born into an already-established country, and does not attempt to define natural born citizenship, or to restrict natural born citizenship to persons with citizen parents.

To try and use this case to prove a definition of "natural born citizen" is to completely violate the principle laid down by Chief Justice John Marshall:

It is a maxim not to be disregarded that general expressions in every opinion are to be taken in connection with the case in which those expressions are used. If they go beyond the case, they may be respected, but ought not to control the judgment in a subsequent suit when the very point is presented for decision. The reason of this maxim is obvious. The question actually before the court is investigated with care, and considered in its full extent. Other principles which may serve to illustrate it are considered in their relation to the case decided, but their possible bearing on all other cases is seldom completely investigated.”

This is a principle that gets violated a lot by those who push the "both/and" theory. Virtually every case cited by them is a misapplication of law in one way or another.

I was speaking in terms of the Constitutional arguments.

I do think that most of the forgery ones are BS too.

You should get a load of the literal chuckles associated with your efforts among those you believe yourself to be influencing.

I'm under no illusions that there's any evidence in heaven or on earth that idiot birthers would accept.

If there were, they wouldn't still be birthers.

I'm not doing it for you, genius. I'm doing it for the bystanders who wander onto these threads and can see what bull**** your arguments are.

They’re still guffawing over your homemade Venn Diagram that illustrated the gaping hole in your ever-evolving contentions far better than any opponent ever could.

You mean, this diagram, that accurately depicts the way that everybody on the planet, EXCEPT for idiot birthers, understands citizenship?

No it doesn’t. It’s just a very, very long bunch of mish mash. You still don’t answer who are you which I suspect is a troll. Every post shows you demonstrate classic troll.

Okay. You want some more information?

I am a conservative and have been a conservative my whole life. I respect and value the Constitution, and I respect and value the truth.

I feel the same way about Obama as 99% of people who post at FreeRepublic.

You can check the things I post for yourself, and see whether they're true.

I can tell you this: The vast majority of arguments made by birthers are total BS. They are not taken seriously by anybody except people who don't understand them and want to believe them.

BTW, you could learn to work smart; but I suppose that’s not possible given the long winded gas bag posts you post.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Don't go into detail, and birthers will say you don't have the facts. Go into detail and give all the facts, and birthers will say your posts are "long winded" and "convoluted."

The Supreme Court spends 50 or more pages in writing up a decision on a single point. I and others standing up to the onslaught of birther BS have been covering the entire history and law of citizenship in the United States.

Your complaint that my posts are "long winded" is a sign you may not have the tolerance for detail needed to really understand history and law. If you want to understand history and law, I suggest you build up that tolerance.

Here. I'll make it simple for you.

In the very early dawn of the term, "natural born" meant anyone born in the country, unless their parents were foreign royalty, foreign ambassadors, or members of an invading army.

As time went on, the term really expanded to include those born citizens to citizens abroad.

Every American Colony had the same rule that had always applied in England.

There is absolutely ZERO evidence that we ever changed that rule, and the Supreme Court said it applied to the United States as a whole.

The bottom line is: Anyone who is born a citizen is effectively a natural born citizen, and is therefore eligible to be President.

This includes children born in the US of citizen parents, children born in the US of non-citizen resident aliens, and children born US citizens to American citizen parents abroad.

Although some authorities aren't clear or definite on the final point (only), no widely-recognized, national-level legal authority actually disputes any of this.

Again, bottom line: If you're born a citizen, you're going to be counted as and considered to be a natural born citizen. And you are eligible to be elected President.

And it doesn't matter whether you or I like the law. That's what the law is.

You’re incapable of arguing persuasively, with spottily pieced together snippets from various pro-Obama sites that you yourself clearly do not understand, you come here, get your proverbial &$$ handed to you, resort to ad hominem and then try to wrap yourself in the flag. Predictable as grass growing, just needing cut down from time to time.

HAHAHAHAHA.

Now THAT was good for a laugh.

And I'm not just saying that. I literally chuckled.

Try to look at the big picture, Jeff. First of all, natural born citizenship status is not held in perpetuity, i.e. it can be lost with the issuance of a CLN.

Yessir. I understand that.

Did you know there are instances where dead U.S. Citizens have renounced their U.S. Citizenship?

No, I did not know that.

We know Obama was enrolled as Barry Soetoro, Indonesian National, on Jan 1, 1968. He could not have done that without a CLN issued to him prior to this time.

I believe that it's here your argument falls apart. First, you would need to prove that's legally the case. Even if you did, I've been to places like Indonesia. What's theoretically legally possible and what is actually possible are two completely different things.

Obama’s immigration file includes a Certificate of Naturalization issued in 1983.

Do you have a copy? Because if you do, things could get interesting. If you don't, as I say, it's all academic.

No one asked for personal information and no one cares.

I will repeat the questions that YOU asked, that I refused to elaborate on:

Exactly who are you?

And:

Big deal; now exactly who are you?

If that's not asking for personal information, I don't know what is.

The way you are answering or shall we say not answering questions suggest you are not a real Freeper; rather a troll.

So because I don't tell you "exactly who I am," I'm a TROLL?

People who falsely accuse others of crap - THOSE are the trolls.

So if you're going to be one, then go away.

As for truth, I doubt seriously what you post is truth. It is more like your fantasy version of the truth which usually says you a troll. Our BS meter is full out on your posts.

Do you know why you "doubt seriously" that what I post is the truth?

It's for two reasons.

Reason #1: You don't like what I post.

Reason #2: You're either too lazy, or too busy, or too unskilled, or too reluctant, to really go out there and first, pay close attention to what I've written and actually understand it, and second, to go out there are research the original sources to find out for yourself whether it's true or not.

Birthers have a universal characteristic: Either actively or passively, they embrace falsehood.

For most of them, it's probably passive. It's a belief that whatever "authority" you happen to like (because he is telling you comfortable things) is telling you the truth.

In real life, it often turns out that the person telling you things you don't actually want to hear is the one who is really your friend, and the guy with the comforting story is BSing you.

Birthers are also suckers for the line that if we, 225 years later, imagine that the Founding Fathers did such-and-such, why, it MUST be so.

But you don't determine what the Founding Fathers did by coming up with some theory you like, and then saying, by G**, the Founders must've done that.

This is a LIBERAL approach. It's not a conservative one.

And you can justify literally ANYTHING with this approach.

Because SURELY the Founding Fathers wouldn't force people to be deprived of having the fulfillment of being loved by the person they're in love with, would they?

And SURELY the Founding Fathers wouldn't want people to suffer from a lack of healthcare, would they? They would want EVERYONE to have access to healthcare. Isn't the right to life the most fundamental right the Constitution protects? Isn't that the number one thing they fought for? And freedom, and the right to the pursuit of happiness?

And SURELY the Founding Fathers wouldn't want people to have to live in fear for their lives from all of these modern, semi-automatic weapons.

So obviously, the Founding Fathers enshrined gay marriage, Obamacare and an assault weapons ban in the Constitution. I mean, OBVIOUSLY, they NEVER intended for people to just run around with these weapons that you can kill so many people with.

The fact is, using the birther approach, you can push any damn thing you want.

That's NOT how we determine what the Founding Fathers supported, and what they did not support.

We determine what they supported by what they SAID, and by what they DID. They didn't write,

No person shall be eligible to the Office of President, except one born on United States soil to two citizen parents, or a Citizen at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution.

No, they wrote:

No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President.

And those words - "natural born Citizen" - had a very specific legal meaning that was understood by everybody.

And we can know what that meaning was, by what all of the most credible and authoritative people in our society wrote and said about it. Those who were legal experts. Those who wrote entire books on the Constitution, such as William Rawle and St. George Tucker. Those who were close to the Founders and Framers, such as Philip Mazzei and the Marquis de Lafayette.

And all of those historical figures - every single one of the AUTHORITATIVE AND CREDIBLE ones - were in agreement, with themselves and with the entire tradition and law of the United States.

You don't have to take my word for it. I don't WANT you to take my word for it.

I want you to research the truth and see for yourself that what I've said is true, and stop spinning bogus theories on your OWN accord.

Does that answer for you well enough who I am?

If I were willing to set aside the Constitution, believe me, we would not be having this discussion.

I’m glad you’ll be voting for Senator Cruz if he runs.

You can do so with a clear conscience. He is eligible. No one should refuse to vote for him in the belief he isn’t.

Suffice it to say that China claimed Chinese as subjects within the United States, and this included children born to subjects.

I'll take your word for it.

US law said that persons born in the United States were US citizens, regardless of the citizenship status of their parents at the time they were born.

That in fact is exactly what the Supreme Court ruled.

And the treaties with China did not exclude children born to Chinese subjects resident here from that US law.

So you claim that the decision in Wong abrogated the treaty. But you can't point to any clause in the treaty that the decision abrogated.

In other words, your claim was complete BS. Just like I said. Because there WAS no clause in the treaty that was overruled by the Court in Wong.

Gee. This is pretty predictable. A birther says something, I say it's BS, we explore it further, and lo and behold - it turns out to be BS.

I suppose that offends your sensibilities as well.

By no means. I'm not offended by Christianity at all. In fact, I just got back from church.

The principle of citizenship that you want to pretend doesn't exist, by the way, was originally FOUNDED upon St. Paul's writings in the Bible.

Modern sentiment does not constitute a time machine that somehow reaches back and erases law we now find disagreeable, no matter how hard the left tries to leave that impression.

Then why are you trying so hard to substitute your ideas for what the Founding Fathers SHOULD have done, for what they actually did?

1. It’s clear that the Framers of the Constitution understood that Congress’ “power to establish a uniform rule of naturalization” INCLUDED the ability to specify that children born abroad to US citizen parents were to be legally counted as natural born citizens.

That might seem counter-intuitive. But iIf this had not been the case, the First Congress and First President, which included 40% of the Signers of the Constitution, would NEVER have passed a law making it so.

And it is clear that the only implication of declaring they were to be counted as “natural born” citizens, rather than merely as citizens, was that they would be eligible to be President.

Therefore it is clear that the Founders DID NOT intend to establish some rule whereby only persons born on US soil to two citizen parents would be “natural born citizen” eligible to the Presidency.

That’s clear. So the entire bogus birther claim fails on that one point.

2. EVERY recognized national authority prior to 1850, and EVERY person close to them who wrote on the meaning of the Presidential eligibility, wrote that the President had to be either “born in the United States” or “born a citizen” or a “citizen by birth.”

EVERY SINGLE ONE.

There is not ONE single recognized national authority prior to 1850 who EVER said they relied on Vattel’s idea of citizenship, or that the President had to be born on US soil of two citizen parents, or that being a natural born citizen required both.

No real evidence on its behalf, and LOTS of evidence against it, means that your claim = complete and total BS.

3. As pointed out, Gray abrogated no treaties. The treaty never specified the status of children who would be born to Chinese persons resident in the United States. By the long-standing principle of citizenship, recognized by the US Supreme Court in Wong, and historically recognized by the Founders and early legal experts (such as Rawle, who stated it absolutely explicitly), such persons were legally US citizens at and by birth - natural born citizens.

4. Madison’s letter to Washington stating that the English common law was not generally in force was a response to George Mason’s COMPLAINT that it wasn’t. His complaint was that without the common law being in force at the national level, American citizens would no longer be guaranteed the rights they had had as English subjects.

5. Notwithstanding the fact that the common law was not generally in force at the national level, Alexander Madison tells us we have to look to the English common law for the definitions of words used in the Constitution. There are many terms used in the Constitution that appear nowhere else - including:

Impeachment. Felonies. Treason. Bribery. Indictment. Cases in equity. Bankruptcy. Attainder. Writ of habeas corpus. And natural born.

And these terms appear NOWHERE else.

Not in Vattel. NOWHERE.

Their definition is solely to be found in the English common law.

6. Notwithstanding the fact that the common law was not generally in force at the national level, Vice Chancellor Lewis Sandford examined the law in detail and concluded (correctly) that the SAME RULE FOR CITIZENSHIP - the common law rule - was in force in EVERY SINGLE STATE whent the Constitution was adopted.

He correctly deduced that if the Constitution referred to “citizens” without defining the term, then the Founders must have used a term that had a MEANING. Therefore, he deduced (again, correctly) that there must have been some unwritten rule that specified exactly what the term “citizen” meant.

He quite reasonably concluded that since there was ONE AND ONLY ONE rule for citizenship that applied in each and every State that made up the United States, then the national rule MUST be the one that applied in each and every State.

And the US Supreme Court, in Wong, favorably cited his reasoning, indicating that THEY AGREED WITH HIM.

7. There are therefore two separate and equally valid LEGAL rationales for knowing what “natural born citizen” meant: The principle told us by Hamilton, that words in the Constitution have their definitions in the common law, and Sandford’s deduction that there must have been a national rule, and method for deducing what that national rule was.

Both of them end up in exactly the same place. Both of them indicate that we built our citizenship doctrine on the common law rule. And by that common law rule, it DID NOT take both birth on the soil plus citizen parents. Everyone born in the country was a member of the country (”subject” or “citizen”) unless the child of foreign royalty, foreign diplomats, or invading armies.

In practice, the common law rule also expanded the term to include those declared to be BORN members of the society (”subjects” or “citizens”) due to the fact they were born abroad to subjects or citizens. This is in perfect accordance with the action of the First Congress in declaring that such persons would be considered as natural born citizens - which, again, means they would be eligible to the Presidency.

8. There is a THIRD method for knowing what “natural born citizen” meant: Look and see what the Founders and other early legal experts wrote that illustrated the meaning of the term.

Every Founder or Framer or nationally-recognized early legal expert is in agreement with the principles I have stated.

EVERY SINGLE ONE.

9. There is a FOURTH method for getting to the meaning of natural born citizen: See what the US Supreme Court had to say about it.

You may not like Justice Gray’s Opinion (although it is in accordance with all of our Founders and Framers and early legal experts). But it is the law of the land.

And as the Congressional Research Service rightly noted, any fair reading of Wong Kim Ark recognizes that the Court (both the Majority AND the Dissent) recognized that the ruling was that Wong was a natural born citizen and eligible, on meeting the other qualifications, to be elected President.

10. The words of Representative John Bingham, Senator Lyman Trumbull, and Senator Jacob Howard have previously been twisted by birthers to mean things those gentlemen did not intend them to say. Here, you twist them again, by presenting them out of context (as birthers always do). Since these have been gone over so many times already, and since this post is so long, I am simply going to note that the birther interpretation fo their words has already been thoroughly debunked. Interested readers can search my past posts for the details.

11. The quote from Attorney General Williams seems to be new in this discussion. But like literally every major argument made by birthers, their usage of it is bogus.

The question Williams was answering was:

“Can a person who has FORMALLY RENOUNCED his allegiance to the United States and assumed the obligations of a citizen or subject of another power, become again a citizen of the United States in any other way than in the manner provided by law?”

Williams began his response by saying that a person who had renounced his allegiance had legally become an alien. He then added,

“Actual naturalization abroad would seem to be necessary to make a person born in the United States an alien.”

Note what he DIDN’T say: He didn’t say a person had to be born in the US of citizen parents in order to be a citizen. His statement strongly implies that EVERY person born in the US, regardless of the citizenship of his parents, is a citizen.

Which, of course, we know was true, with the few often-mentioned historical exceptions.

His POINT in the quote that you cite is:

“ALIENS, among whom are persons BORN HERE AND NATURALIZED ABROAD [i.e., those who were born here but renounced their citizenship], dwelling or being in this country, are SUBJECT TO THE JURISDICTION OF THE UNITED STATES ONLY TO A LIMITED EXTENT. POLITICAL AND MILITARY RIGHTS AND DUTIES DO NOT PERTAIN TO THEM.”

So Williams NEVER says that persons BORN in the US are subject to the jurisdiction of the United States in any limited extent. He says ALIENS are. But persons born in the United States ARE NOT ALIENS. THEY ARE CITIZENS.

So your quotes from Bingham and Trumbull never said what you claim. And your quote from Williams doesn’t either.

12. Why do you leave out the many, MANY authorities who make points that legitimately go directly AGAINST your BS?

Just asking.

13. Gray never claims the term “jurisdiction” is strictly territorial and not political. He interpreted the term as those who passed the Civil Rights Act and the drafted the 14th Amendment did: If you were fully subject to the laws of the United States, then you were subject to the “jurisdiction” of the United States. This excluded ambassadors, foreign royalty, invading armies, and Indians in tribes. It included citizens and resident aliens who were not members of the aforementioned exceptions.

14. I’ve already dealt with the fact that it wasn’t just North Carolina who adopted the common law rule for citizenship. It was literally EVERY SINGLE ONE of the 13 original colonies. And probably every State that joined the Union in the years following the adoption of the Constitution as well.

In any event, it is clear that if we had a national rule upon the adoption of the Constitution (and as Sandford observed, we must have had one) that rule was the same rule that applied in EVERY SINGLE ONE of the original States.

15. You incorrectly state that the rationale of a Supreme Court case, if it is incorrect, is “dicta.” This is simply not true. Whether it is correct or not, if it’s the core reasoning of the case, it is NOT dicta.

This is BASIC LAW. By claiming otherwise, you show yourself to be either ignorant of basic law, or willing to twist the basic principles of law to any contortions to try and support your stupid, false, unsupportable bogus birther claim.

Not that the rationale in Wong was incorrect. It was in accord with the citizenship rule in force at the time of the drafting of the Constitution, with the words of the Founders and Framers, with the words of every nationally-recognized legal expert, with historical usage of the term “natural born,” and with all prior case law that had spoken on the subject.

In other words: They got this particular ruling completely correct.

16. The Court in Wong clearly found Wong to be a natural born citizen. This is not contested by any court or any nationally-recognized legal expert, or by any conservative Constitutional foundation.

That being the case, YES, Wong Kim Ark is binding precedent in regard to Presidential eligibility, since Presidential eligibility hinges on the meaning of that term.

17. What is my purpose? It’s pretty damn straightforward. As a genuine conservative who values the Constitution, I don’t like people trashing the Constitution while claiming to be conservatives and doing so in the name of “conservatism.”

It is not the mission of conservatism to tear down the Constitution and our laws in order to make a futile and false attempt to declare our opponent “ineligible.”

It is the mission of conservatism to uphold the Constitution and defeat the bastard.

Under the Burlingame-Seward Treaty of 1868, Wong Kim Ark was at birth in 1873 a subject of the Emperor of China... blah, blah, blah... judicial fiat in abrogation of international treaty.

Cite the provision that says so. There is none.

Like all debating birthers, you're full of cr*p.

The Burlingame Treaty only said, "But nothing herein contained shall be held to confer naturalization upon citizens of the United States in China, nor upon the subjects of China in the United States."

Wong Kim Ark wasn't naturalized. He was BORN in the United States, and like all persons born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, he was a natural born citizen.

Call it an omission if you like, but the Burlingame Treaty did not address the status of persons born in the United States to Chinese parents.

So once again, like all debating birthers, you can't back up what you're saying.

Because if you only made statements that can actually be backed up, you wouldn't BE a debating birther in the first place.

You’re avoiding Justice Gray’s lengthy cite of Minor v. Happersett again.

Gray cited Minor for the specific purpose of saying that the Minor Court was not committed to the idea that children of aliens were "excluded from the operation of the 14th Amendment."

In other words, he cited Minor to say the Minor Court didn't necessarily think children born here of alien parents WEREN'T born citizens.

I suppose you do so because Minor is not at all supportive of your contention, since Minor clearly negates any attempt to equate 14th Amendment citizens with natural born citizens.

I've already noted 14th Amendment citizens are of two kinds: Natural born, and naturalized.

Virginia Minor was a natural born citizen. Wong Kim Ark was not.

Sorry, but the Supreme Court of the United States says you're wrong.

Here are some of the major points that the Supreme Court made in that case::

"It thus clearly appears that, by the law of England for the last three centuries, beginning before the settlement of this country and continuing to the present day, aliens, while residing in the dominions possessed by the Crown of England, were within the allegiance, the obedience, the faith or loyalty, the protection, the power, the jurisdiction of the English Sovereign, and therefore every child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject unless the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign State or of an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was born.

III. The same rule was in force in all the English Colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the Constitution as originally established."

So what is this rule, when applied in the United States? That the children of aliens are "natural born SUBJECTS?"

Not exactly. The Court also clearly specifies:

The term "citizen," as understood in our law, is precisely analogous to the term "subject" in the common law, and the change of phrase has entirely resulted from the change of government. The sovereignty has been transferred from one man to the collective body of the people, and he who before was a "subject of the king" is now "a citizen of the State."

In other words, the rule, applied in the United States, is that:

"ALIENS, WHILE RESIDING IN THE DOMINIONS POSSESSED BY THE UNITED STATES, ARE WITHIN THE ALLEGIANCE, THE OBEDIENCE, THE FAITH OR LOYALTY, THE PROTECTION, THE POWER, THE JURISDICTION OF THE COLLECTIVE BODY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, AND THEREFORE EVERY CHILD BORN IN THE UNITED STATES IS A NATURAL-BORN CITIZEN UNLESS THE CHILD OF AN AMBASSADOR OR OTHER DIPLOMATIC AGENT OF A FOREIGN STATE OR OF AN ALIEN ENEMY IN HOSTILE OCCUPATION OF THE PLACE WHERE THE CHILD WAS BORN."

That is a simple substitution of everything the Court has explicitly told us we can substitute.

First they said the SAME RULE has always applied in England and then in the United States. So if we want to know the rule in the United States, we can take the wording of that rule and substitute "the United States" every place where it originally said "England."

Then they told us that "citizen" was a PRECISE ANALOGUE to "subject." So that means that when writing out the rule as it applies in the United States, we can absolutely substitute the word "citizen" every place where we see the word "subject."

And they also told us that the sovereign, or KING has been substituted for the collective body of the people of the United States. So we can make that substitution as well, when writing out what they are telling us the rule is FOR THE UNITED STATES.

All of this is very elementary use of the English language. It is unavoidable. It is inescapable, and to pretend this is not what the Court is saying is absolutely disingenuous.

It's all very straightforward. An elementary school child could understand it.

This, then, is the ruling of the Wong Kim Ark Court:

THEREFORE EVERY CHILD BORN IN THE UNITED STATES IS A NATURAL-BORN CITIZEN UNLESS THE CHILD OF AN AMBASSADOR OR OTHER DIPLOMATIC AGENT OF A FOREIGN STATE OR OF AN ALIEN ENEMY IN HOSTILE OCCUPATION OF THE PLACE WHERE THE CHILD WAS BORN.

Wong Kim Ark was not the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign state. He was not the child of an alien enemy in hostile occupation.

It is absolutely, CRYSTAL CLEAR that Wong Kim Ark fulfilled the rule that the Supreme Court said applied here, and that had ALWAYS applied here.

This is why the dissent expressed their understanding that the majority had ruled Wong Kim Ark eligible to become President. Because it is crystal clear.

Thanks for the info, Sven.

If you have actual documentation that Obama ever lost his citizenship, it would be a good time to produce it. Otherwise... it’s all academic.

Jeff Winston, you've argued at length and continue to do so via USSC opinions of which you have no understanding. Wong Kim Ark was being denied citizenship by virtue of a treaty with China. Chinese in the US were to be excluded at the behest of the Chinese. Wong Kim Ark sued because he was denied reentry into the US due to... blah, blah, blah

I understand all of that perfectly, Mr. Genius. Believe me, I understand that, and a lot more. I've read US v. Wong Kim Ark multiple times. I've read the background on US v. Wong Kim Ark. I've read about the life of Wong Kim Ark. I've read the dissent in US v. Wong Kim Ark. Multiple times. I've read the papers the government filed to contest the citizenship of Wong Kim Ark. I've read what others have written on US v. Wong Kim Ark.

And I've now read probably every damn argument that every stupid birther has ever made to try and shoot down US v. Wong Kim Ark.

Horace Gray essentially abrogated that treaty by applying the 14th Amendment in a way that was then novel, to find that wong Kim Ark was a citizen via operation of that Amendment.

No, he didn't. Nothing in the 1868 Burlingame Treaty or the 1880 Angell Treaty that followed it was "abrogated" by US v. Wong Kim Ark.

The Chinese Exclusion Act, which came in 1882, provided "That hereafter no State court or court of the United States shall admit Chinese to citizenship."

He didn't even abrogate that. Wong Kim Ark wasn't naturalized. He was born a US citizen.

And he didn't "apply the 14th Amendment in a way that was then novel."

It's true that the 14th wasn't passed to ensure the citizenship of Chinese people born in the United States. It was passed for the purpose of ensuring the citizenship and rights of BLACK people who were born in the United States.

But the Senators and Representatives who wrote the 14th did so KNOWING FULL WELL that the children of Chinese people, born here, were going to be recognized as natural born citizens as well.

Heck, there was even a DISCUSSION of the Chinese people in California, with the member of Congress from California saying "don't worry about us, it's fine with California if we recognize that US-born Chinese people are citizens."

As for any other part of it: The Wong Court correctly said that the 14th Amendment AFFIRMED THE ANCIENT RULE OF CITIZENSHIP THAT HAD ALWAYS EXISTED IN THE UNITED STATES.

It just made sure it was applied EQUALLY to members of ALL races, not just to people of white, European ethnicity.

So, from Minor, we see that natural born citizens and 14th Amendment citizens are not synonymous. 14th Amendment citizens can be naturalized.

Okay. But those 14th Amendment citizens who are BORN citizens, rather than being NATURALIZED, are NATURAL BORN CITIZENS.

And you can't produce a single authority who ever said otherwise.

And yet here you are, again (and again), arguing that Wong Kim Ark was magically transformed into a natural born citizen when he was not even born a citizen at all under the auspices of a treaty with China that excluded him from being under the jurisdiction of the US at birth.

Nothing in either the original treaty, or its 1880 revision, said that children born here weren't US citizens, genius.

None of these arguments you're making apply to the eligibility or the lack of it, of Ted Cruz, either. They apply to known or presumed weaknesses in any eligibility claims made on behalf of Barack Obama.

Obviously you either haven't read what I've written, or you choose to simply ignore it, as I've stated multiple times in this thread alone that Cruz is eligible. In another thread I've gone into detail as to exactly why he's eligible.

Do you realize yet, that you really don't belong here, politically?

Why? Is this a site for people who want to ignore and trample on the Constitution?

That wasn't my impression.

They could have chosen to say Wong was a natural born citizen, they chose not to.

In the final summation, courts answer the question asked of them. The question was, "Is Wong Kim Ark a citizen?" So they said yes, Wong Kim Ark was a citizen.

If Wong had been running for President, or if they had been asked, "Is Wong Kim Ark a natural born citizen," then they would've said he was a natural born citizen.

All of the core reasoning was that he was a natural born citizen. Therefore, yes, the question asked of the court could be answered in the affirmative: Wong Kim Ark was a citizen.

And it's not just the final proclamation that is precedent. All of the core reasoning used to reach it, which was ALL about who was and was not a natural born citizen, is precedent as well, and binding on all future courts until and unless overturned by the Supremes.

This is fundamental law. Doesn't take a genius to understand it.

And anyone who refuses to understand it, or acknowledge it... well, let's just say that such a person isn't the brightest bulb in the box.

I wish you did have good news but good news without reality is not really news at all.

Do you know what I think?

I think you weren't being quite honest when you said you wished Cruz were eligible.

Either that, or you are REALLY deceived by all the crap that birthers have posted.

If it's the latter, then enough reading and thinking will sort you out.

If it's the former, then you'll just go on falsely pretending that you're really interested in the truth, when you aren't.

As I said, the Constitution is more important to me than political expediency.

If that were true, and if you understood the history and the law, you would be joining me in defending it.

Which constitutional authorities have been queried regarding Senator Cruz and what was their response?

Every media report on whether there might be an eligibility issue regarding Cruz, or on birthers turning their attention to him, mentions some authority. Obviously, James Bayard (and almost certainly, Chief Justice John Marshall, who was in perhaps the best position of anybody to know the legal meaning of "natural born citizen") said that people like Cruz are eligible.

And whenever any REAL authority in history has commented on the matter, the opinion has been pretty much unanimous.

You don't have to comment specifically on Ted Cruz. If someone says that being a "citizen by birth" is sufficient, then that's Cruz.

Chief Justice John Marshall, in delivering the opinion of the Court in Marbury v. Madison (1803) stated, “It cannot be presumed that any clause in the constitution is intended to be without effect; and therefore such construction is inadmissible, unless the words require it.” “Citizen,” “naturalization” and “natural born Citizen” are ALL in the Original, unamended Constitution; therefore, none can mean the same thing.

And they don't. Citizens are either people who are born citizens - those are "natural born citizens" - or they are people who become citizens after being born a citizen of somewhere else. Those are "naturalized" citizens.

So citizens include both natural born and naturalized citizens.

It's pretty simple. It's not that hard.

How do you explain why the founders made the distinct reference to "natural born" in the case of the President but did not in the case of Congress?

Because they wanted the President to be someone who had been born a citizen, rather than being someone who was NOT born a citizen of the United States.

I already said that in my opinion, it makes no sense at all if the meaning of natural born citizen includes children of foreign citizen parents. and that is wherever they were born.

You are entitled to your opinion. The Founders and Framers and their generation, and virtually all legal experts, historically and now, disagree with you.

Many of the quotes you posted were general themes and not directly intended to define or even clarify the meaning of natural born citizen.

Strictly speaking, that's true. But whether they were all directly intended to clarify the meaning of natural born citizen or not, they do.

When Alexander Hamilton says that the definitions of terms used in the Constitution are to be found in the common law, that tells us the meaning of "natural born," like the meaning of "treason," is probably going to be found in the common law. It was the only place the term occurred anyway - it certainly didn't occur in Vattel or in any English translation of Vattel until 10 years after the Constitution was written - but Hamilton's words reinforce that.

When Madison tells us that there are two kinds of allegiance that make for citizenship, parentage and place of birth, and that place of birth is "the most certain," and "what applies in the United States," that says our major rule for citizenship was jus soli. It also says that jus soli was enough. It also implies that the children born abroad of US citizens were probably citizens, too. Which turns out to be exactly the case.

When Jefferson writes a law for Virginia that is straight jus soli, it implies that jus soli was the rule.

When 40% of the Signers of the Constitution say that children born to US citizens abroad are "to be considered as natural born citizens," it says they regarded those people as eligible to the Presidency as well. And THAT says NO, it DIDN'T require birth on US soil plus two citizen parents.

When James Bayard writes an exposition of the Constitution noting that "natural born citizen" really just means "citizen by birth," and Chief Justice John Marshall writes him correcting him on roads, and then says the rest of the book is accurate, that very strongly implies that Marshall agreed that anyone who was a citizen by birth was a "natural born citizen."

When legal expert, US District Attorney, friend of Washington and Franklin, and author of prominent work on the Constitution William Rawle says that every person born within the United States, its territories or districts, whether the parents are citizens or aliens, is a natural born citizen in the sense of the Constitution, and entitled to all the rights and privileges appertaining to that capacity, that says... well, that's pretty obvious, isn't it?

Also, as I read them, many of the quotes supported my issues more than yours.

Bull****.

If that were true, you would be able to point that out, and explain it, without resorting to fallacious arguments.

But when birthers argue, they invariably resort to fallacious arguments. I've documented around 40 of them, which I intend to eventually publish all in one place.

But I am not going to grapple with you in the mud anymore.

Of course you aren't. Because historically and legally, you have no argument, and (unlike some) you seem to be smart enough to understand it's a losing battle.

I am not big on quotes. I am big on principles and common sense.

Principles are great. Common sense, most of the time, is good as well.

But if you want to know what someone did or said historically, you don't get there by saying, "Gee. This is what I would do. So this is what the Founders must have done."

And when you want to know what the law is, you go and find out what the law is. You don't say, "I would mandate that everybody must keep a firearm in their home, so that's what the law is," or "I would ban all guns, so that's what the law is."

This is the fundamental mistake of the birthers. They imagine that they can dictate what the Founding Fathers did by theory.

"Hey, here's a good theory. It's a theory I like. Therefore, this is what the Founding Fathers did. And anyone who disagrees with my pronouncement is a liar, and a troll, and a liberal, and a con man and a cad."

You don't determine what the Founding Fathers did by what you imagine they "would" have done.

You determine what the Founding Fathers did by going to the historical record and finding out... what they actually DID.

The birther tag is used often to trivialize and suppress arguments of those on our side. It is very narrow and does not invite discussion of aspects outside the birthplace of Obummer. You calling me a birther as though it helps your argument only illuminates my suspicions regarding your agenda.

Cry me a river.

I and others who have posted the truth have been falsely called liars, trolls, idiots, morons, Obama supporters, paid shills, and worse every single day of the discussion.

By birthers.

"Birther" itself isn't much of a pejorative. It's a pretty good description.

But if birthers are the object of contempt, it's because they've thoroughly earned it. First, by refusing to listen to any reason or any evidence that goes against their precious idiotic claim. Second, by acting like jerks from day one. Third, by making literally dozens of fallacious arguments. Fourth, by failing to recognize that their cause was lost literally YEARS ago.

Tell us Mr Winston... Are you an Obama supporter?

No. And frankly if I were, I would probably stand aside and laugh my butt off and just let the birthers make conservatives look bad.

By the way, I'm sure you understand your questions are insulting. Having dealt with you a little bit more now, I'm pretty sure they were intended to be.

Did you vote for him? Both Times?

Of course not, genius. I wouldn't vote for him for dogcatcher.

Do you think he is doing a good Job?

What kind of idiot question is that?

See, here's one of the places where birthers ride the rails of complete nutjob idiocy.

They imagine that if you don't think and propagandize that Obama is Constitutionally barred from being President, then by G** you must be some kind of Obama supporter.

He's probably the crappiest President in my lifetime. That still doesn't mean that the Founders ever said you had to have birth on US soil plus citizen parents to be a natural born citizen.

Because they flat-out didn't.

Is the Constitution the fundamental law of the land, or isn't it?

You don't just throw the Constitution out the window, and mangle it, and trample on it, and call those who defend it "liars," just because you happened to get a crappy President.

Why would I want that? You are avoiding the question. Only trolls and people with things to hide do that.

Oh. So I'm supposed to post my personal information to you, a total stranger who seems to dislike me simply because I post the truth on the internet? Really?

Give me a break. Go stalk somebody else.

Oh, and...

They've been brought up on the idea that any American, however humbly born, may grow up to be President.

America Expects: A Travel Diary (1940)

The mother of any boy born in this country can, and usually does, think at some time or other that he might grow up to be President of the United States.

Journey in to America (1943)

On April 12, 1945, a prime tenet of U.S. democracy, that any boy can grow up to become President, was confirmed anew. Harry S. Truman, who was born in a Missouri farm family; whose formal education ended with high school; who never...

It Happened in 1945 (1946)

The popular belief is supposed to be that any boy in the U. S. may grow up to be President if only he is patient, plucky and persistent.

Negro Digest (1946)

I suppose it just goes to prove the saying, "Any boy can grow up to be President."

Arizona Cattlelog (1952)

Even the familiar American dream that any boy can become President...

A Creative Life for Your Children (1962)

And yet the homely old saw had proved to be true: in the United States any boy can grow up to be President.

The Atlantic (1963)

So I would remind each of you that any boy born in America has a chance to grow up and be President. It may happen to you.

Public Papers of the President of the United States (1966)

The other night after Ray Scherer's television broadcast, one of Mike Mansfield's colleagues and one of my Senate friends, said to me, “Well, all my life I heard that any boy born in America had a chance to grow up and be President..."

Source unclear, but dated 1966. Ray Scherer covered the White House from Truman to Gerald Ford. Mike Mansfield was in the Senate from 1953 to 1977.

That is what the myth says: since only ability counts, not mere rank and birth, "any boy in America can grow up to be President." (Yes, any boy. Though rank and birth were not supposed to count, sex always did.)

Nixon Agonistes: The Crisis of the Self-Made Man (1970)

Let's be honest here. Isn't what you actually heard, that any boy born in America could grow up to be President?

What? This is why most here do not take you seriously.... Look at the way you conveniently frame the above.... you take a little truth, spice it with speculation and assumptions in an transparent attempt to support your weak argument.

I'm sorry. I thought you were making a reasonably sincere request. I didn't realize you were simply a committed birther, and had no desire to hear the truth.

Alexander Hamilton explained the clause:

"Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption. These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one quarter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils."

Hamilton states specifically that the CHIEF PURPOSE was to prevent FOREIGN POWERS from coming over here and getting someone into the Presidency.

This isn't the case of a child born and raised in the US to normal, immigrant parents. It's the case of some rich or royal dude from Europe coming over and worming his way in.

So Alexander Hamilton agrees with me.

In the debates on how the President was to be chosen, James Madison, "Father of the Constitution," said that if the President were elected by the legislature:

"...the ministers of foreign powers would have and make use of, the opportunity to mix their intrigues & influence with the Election. Limited as the powers of the Executive are, it will be an object of great moment with the great rival powers of Europe who have American possessions, to have at the head of our Governmt a man attached to their respective politics and interests. No pains, nor perhaps experience, will be spared to gain from the Legislature an appointmt favorable to their wishes. Germany & Poland are witnesses of this danger. In the former, the election of the Head of Empire, till it became in a manner hereditary, interested all Europe, and was much influenced by foreign interference. In the latter, altho' the elected Magistrate has very little real power, his election has at all times produced the most eager interference of foreign princes, and has at length slid entirely into foreign hands."

There was more discussion of this sort, and agreement on the point. It is clear that they feared this kind of intrigue from foreign countries when it came to the Presidency.

That a child born to immigrant non-citizen parents might one day grow up to be President? Doesn't appear.

In talking about qualifications for members of the House of Representatives:

Mr. Gerry wished that in future the eligibility might be confined to Natives. Foreign powers would intermeddle in our affairs, and spare no expense to influence them. Persons having foreign attachments will be sent among us & insinuated into our councils in order to be made instruments for their purposes. Every one knows the vast sums laid out in Europe for secret services. He was not singular in these ideas. A great many of the most influential men in Massts reasoned in the same manner.

"Natives" always meant "people born in America."

As far as I can tell, no one has ever produced ANYONE except the Swiss writer Vattel who ever used the word to require citizen parents. (Vattel also had a bunch of other nutty ideas that we didn't adopt either, including that government should control religion, could force a man to sell almost all his possessions and dictate the price he received for them, should seize people by force who had valuable skills to prevent them from leaving the country, and that the right to keep and bear arms should be restricted to the elites and the military.)

In any event, once again the concern is people being "SENT" among us from foreign countries. No concern mentioned about US-born children of immigrants.

St. George Tucker, an early federal judge, wrote in 1803 that the natural born citizen clause is "a happy means of security against foreign influence", and that "The admission of foreigners into our councils, consequently, cannot be too much guarded against."

Admission of "FOREIGNERS."

Nobody born on US soil was EVER called a "foreigner." I'm pretty sure you can't produce one single documentable instance of anyone born on US soil, at any time prior to 1850 (and probably at any time in history), of someone who was born on US soil, who was referred to by any major leader or legal expert of our country, as a "foreigner."

Foreigners were people born outside of the United States. And yes, I've studied that topic as well. So I know what I'm talking about.

So St. George Tucker, one of our most prominent early legal experts, agrees with me.

"Possibly this letter was motivated by distrust of Baron von Stuben, who had served valiantly in the Revolutionary forces, but whose subsequent loyalty was suspected by Jay. Another theory is that the Jay letter, and the resulting constitutional provision, responded to rumors that the convention was concocting a monarchy to be ruled by a foreign monarch."

No mention at all of the horror of the possibility that someone born in America of (gasp!) foreign parents might one day grow up to be President. Hmm. Charles Gordon agrees with me as well.

You claim that my statement that "they mostly feared some royal dude from England or another European country coming over here with a ton of money and a vast retinue following him, and a bunch of royal hoopla, and hoopla-ing and buying his way into the Presidency,"

takes "a little truth, spice[s] it with speculation and assumptions in an transparent attempt to support your weak argument.

Okay. I've quoted historical and scholarly sources that strongly support my claim that the Framers' main concern was foreigners (including foreign royalty) coming over here and worming their way into the Presidency, and NOT that some poor kid with immigrant parents who hadn't bothered to naturalize might some day grow up to be President.

They include James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Eldrige Gerry, and other Framers of the Constitution who took part in the discussion.

You say otherwise. Okay. It's your turn.

Produce the historical and scholarly sources that back up your position, or eat crow.

Incidentally, my "weak argument" is supported by literally every known authoritative source from early America prior to 1850.

Where's your list?

And don't give me David Ramsay, whose views on citizenship were voted down 36 to 1 by James Madison, half a dozen other Framers, and the rest of the first House of Representatives.

Sorry. I don’t give out my address.

For engaging in a normal discussion? For politely challenging you to actually produce some PROOF that my was “full of distortions?”

My goodness. Touchy, touchy.

But at your request, I’ll do my best not to post to you again.

Your post is typical birther BS. You have nothing to say to the facts, so you call names.

And anyone who disagrees with the birther BS is a “troll.” Sorry. That just doesn’t cut it.

If you have a case to make, make it. Otherwise, you just look like someone whose only capability is to call names and make ad hominem attacks.

Believe me, it doesn’t make you look brilliant.

None yet.

lololololol

Yep. That's what I thought.

We want a loyal President. The most natural and objective way to assume loyalty is through blood and soil.

Actually, the most natural and objective way to get a loyal President is to listen to what they say, pay attention to who they hang out with, and pay attention to what they do, and vote for the ones that are loyal Americans.

Doesn't include the Clintons, IMO. Doesn't include Barack Obama or John Kerry. And as far as I see, does include Ted Cruz.

It's really pretty simple.

As for the other, if you want to vote against Ted Cruz simply because he was born in Canada and his dad came from Cuba, go for it.

If he eventually runs, I won't be joining you. Seems like a sucky reason to me to turn down a good President. And legally, he's eligible.

Where to begin? Your post is so full of distortions as to unreadable to those that know the truth of the matter.

I'll say to you the same thing I say to everyone who makes such an assertion.

Prove it. You can start by naming ONE. And by PROVING that it's a "distortion."

And know that whatever bullcrap you sling, I'm going to debunk it.

Exactly who are you?

Sorry. Unfortunately, I'm taken. :-)

Just *how* did Wong Kim Ark “overrule” Minor v. Happersett?

You're right. It didn't.

It didn't, because Minor v. Happersett didn't issue a ruling on whether children of non-citizen parents were natural born citizens or not.

This isn't even close. It doesn't even take a 1st-year law student to understand it.

It only takes an honest reading of the passage and a basic understanding of how the law works.

That's why I said that Minor "would’ve been overruled by Wong anyway... if it had said something significant."

If there's a conflict, later Supreme Court decisions overrule earlier ones. This is a pretty fundamental point of law.

Precedent or the lack of it matters. WKA was without precedent, being a then-novel application of the 14A. Natural born citizenship was not determined, it was not even before the court. Mr. Wong was a citizen. Period. Anything else is assumption without any basis.

The problem here is that the entire discussion of whether Wong was a "citizen" hinged upon who was and was not a NATURAL BORN CITIZEN. And the Court discussed that for literally dozens of pages, citing reference after reference. That discussion WAS the core reasoning of the case.

That discussion used the term "natural born" around THIRTY TIMES. It may have been three dozen. It's been a while since I've counted.

And they concluded, CLEARLY, that anyone born in Wong's situation, child born on US soil to resident non-citizen parents, was a NATURAL BORN CITIZEN.

And THAT conclusion was the entire basis for pronouncing that he was a "citizen."

All of that core reasoning is binding precedent. This is why the Court won't touch any "two-citizen-parent" lawsuit with a 50-foot pole. This is why every other court simply throws EVERY such lawsuit out and cites Wong.

Because there's a clear, binding precedent here.

Birthers don't get this. They keep trying to ignore it. They keep trying to pretend it doesn't exist.

It's like pretending the earth is the center of the solar system, and ignoring the clear fact that it isn't.

OK, a different angle: how many other presidents have had dual nationality on account of having a non citizen parent?

As far as I can think of, only Obama. There might be others. I'm not sure.

And what was the ramifications?

Obama's dual citizenship at birth (which as I understand it lapsed long, long ago) is not the problem. Although he was a dual citizen of England at birth, he certainly has been no friend to our loyal allies and brethren in UK. There is not a single country we are, or ought to be, closer to, than the UK. Reagan and Thatcher, for example, were great allies. As were Roosevelt and Churchill.

Heck, the Telegraph has even run multiple articles documenting Obama's insults against Great Britain.

The problem with Obama is his philosophy. And you really can't predict that based on parentage. You can easily have people without our interests at heart born to US parents (how about the Clintons? John Kerry?) or you can have people who really appreciate America BECAUSE they heard from their immigrant parents what life was like in another country (such as Cruz, Jindal, etc.)

In any event, citizen by birth is the qualification. Citizen parents are not strictly required.

In fact, the first Republican candidate for President, John Charles Frémont, ran for President as the proud son of a Frenchman who never became a US citizen and never planned to. And yes, he signed his name with the accent over the e.

Nobody cared. It took until 2008 for a bunch of people to get excited about such a thing.

Oh, by the way: We've had Presidents who were dual citizens before. Perhaps not by birth, but 3 of our first 4 Presidents - Washington, Jefferson, and Madison - were dual citizens with France. They were made so by laws passed in France. None of them renounced the French citizenship, and all 3 served as President WHILE they were French citizens.

Yes, the first, third, and fourth Presidents of the United States were French citizens.

And nobody cared.

Which, incidentally, doesn’t mean Cruz isn’t eligible. It just means he isn’t eligible by virtue of having been born in the United States.

According to Bayard, and Marshall, and others, he IS eligible by virtue of having been born a US citizen.

“Based upon the language of Article II, Section 1, Clause 4 and the guidance provided by Won g Kim Ark , we conclude that persons born within the borders of the United States are ‘natural born Citizens’ for Article II, Section 1 purposes, regardless of the citizenship of their parents.”

Does NOT apply to Canada-born CRUZ! (or to Barry, if Kenyan born)

You're right. It doesn't.

Why don't you educate all of here as to why there is a specific term Called "Natural Born Citizen" and why this term is used only once in the constitution and just for the purpose of describing a spicific qualifications for President?

Pretty much all of the Framers of the Constitution knew automatically what "natural born" meant. There was a legal term of art, "natural born subject" that all American lawyers were well familiar with, because it was well used in the English common law, and all lawyers in early America were trained in the English common law.

The major legal textbook of the day was "Commentaries on the Laws of England" by William Blackstone, published between 1765 and 1769. It was a monumental work that influenced generations. For many American lawyers, Blackstone's Commentaries was the only legal training they received.

And I'm talking about AFTER the Revolution.

Two thirds of the Framers of the Constitution were lawyers. So they were well familiar with the common law and Blackstone. He was widely cited. Along with St. Paul and Montesquieu, he was one of the top 3 writers cited by our Founding Fathers.

The Founding Fathers cited Blackstone 16 times more often than they cited Vattel.

In fact, when the Constitution uses the words "Offences Against the Law of Nations," it is a reference to Blackstone, not to Vattel!

That "natural born citizen" became a substitute for "natural born subject," when we changed "subject" to "citizen," is not only fairly straightforward, it is supported by all available historical evidence. There is no specific historical evidence at all to support the idea that we meant Vattel's idea of citizenship by the term.

Nor would we have used the phrase "natural born citizen" if Vattel's idea had been what we meant. It would've been a sure recipe for people thinking we meant the same thing "natural born subject" had always meant, except for the difference between "subject" and "citizen."

If we had meant Vattel's idea, then we would've used Vattel's term: "indigene," which is actually a word in English as well as in French. It appears in Noah Webster's 1828 dictionary, although he doesn't give it the definition Vattel gives it!

Which once again shows that Vattel wasn't remotely as influential as some would have you believe. Webster didn't even define "indigene" using Vattel's definition.

So where did the term itself come from?

The earliest use I've found of the term "natural born subject" is in Calvin's Case (1607), although the idea definitely seems to go back further than that.

The idea was simple: If you are born in a country, then you are naturally a member of that country.

It derives from the Biblical idea that God set up governments, and believers are to be subject to the governmental authorities that God has set up.

The English interpreted this as meaning: If you were born in a country, your natural and divine obligation was to be a member of that country. It didn't matter where your parents were from.

So children born on English soil were generally "natural born subjects." But they did carve out a few exceptions. These included the children of foreign royalty, who were not certainly subjects of that realm, children of foreign diplomats, and children of invading armies. All for the same reason. These exceptions were really members of other countries.

So why did the Framers of the Constitution say the President had to be a natural born citizen? The historical consensus is that they mostly feared some royal dude from England or another European country coming over here with a ton of money and a vast retinue following him, and a bunch of royal hoopla, and hoopla-ing and buying his way into the Presidency.

You must remember the context: Just about every country in the world had a king or queen, or something very similar. That was the prevailing system of government in the civilized world. That was the way things were done.

And a lot of people thought the Framers of the Constitution might be setting up a monarchy here.

It was also common practice for royalty from country A to take over country B. Heck, the English had previously INVITED King James VI of Scotland (which was a completely separate country at the time) to come down and take over.

And he did.

So those were the fears. Nobody ever mentioned any fear that some child born in America of non-citizen parents might one day grow up to be President. It just wasn't on the radar, and they figured anyone who was born and raised here would naturally be an American.

I know some folks who moved here from another country. Their son wasn't even born here. But he's largely grown up here. He speaks his parents' language, and has been back to their country. But it's weird for him. THIS is his home.

It was even more so in the Framers' day.

Also why in that section of the constitution is there an obvious distinction between a regular citizen and a natural born citizen. Also please explain the historical reason that our wise framers included this distinction?

All evidence suggests it was at the advice of John Jay, who sent a letter to George Washington suggesting that the commander-in-chief of our army should be "a natural born Citizen." And yes, he underlined the word "born," indicating where his emphasis was. It was that no one should be trusted with the power of running our army unless he had been BORN an American citizen.

Which, by the way, did not mean born a citizen of the "United States" after there was a formal "United States" to be born in. The Founders regarded the State of South Carolina, for example, as being a continuation of the Colony of South Carolina, and those who had previously been called "natural born subjects of the Colony of South Carolina" were now, automatically, "natural born citizens of the State of South Carolina."

"Subject" had changed to "citizen," and "Colony" had changed to "State," but the political relationship with and between members of the entity known as "South Carolina" had continued unbroken.

The major difference was, they had all divorced from the English king.

All of this is explained by James Madison during the debate regarding the eligibility of William Loughton Smith, during the First Congress.

As for the difference between "citizen" and "natural born citizen," there are two kinds of citizens.

There are those who are born US citizens, and those who are not US citizens at birth, but who become so through naturalization.

Those who are US citizens at or by birth are natural born citizens, including those born citizens abroad. This is basically because the term "natural born subject" had historically expanded to include those born subjects abroad, to English subject parents. There seems to have been some discretion on the part of Parliament to say exactly who, born abroad, was and was not a subject by birth. And the Founding Fathers obviously believed that our Congress had that same discretion, because the First Congress, which (with the President) included 40% of those who signed the Constitution, exercised it!

So those who are born US citizens are natural born citizens. This is affirmed multiple times by early authorities, perhaps most clearly by James Bayard, whose exposition of the Constitution was approved by none other than Chief Justice John Marshall.

Those who are not born citizens, but who become citizens through naturalization after birth, are naturalized citizens. They are not natural born citizens and are not eligible to be President.

Yes, read carefully posts 126 and 135.

And it’s not odd that they only briefly dealt with Minor v. Happersett. It said very little, wasn’t on the topic of the case at hand, didn’t say the little it did say with any authority to back it, and would’ve been overruled by Wong anyway, even if it had said something significant.

Really. Just because a bunch of people decide they WANT to interpret a couple of throwaway lines of dicta as some big court precedent, doesn’t make it so. The legal world pays not the slightest attention to those lines in dicta, except to say to birthers that it doesn’t say what they keep claiming.

That’s a nice picture. Which one is you? Are you on the right?

First, I note that Ankeny specifically noted:

"the [Minor] Court left open the issue of whether a person who is born within the United States of alien parents is considered a natural born citizen."

They also noted:

The Court in Wong Kim Ark reaffirmed Minor in that the meaning of the words “citizen of the United States” and “natural-born citizen of the United States” “must be interpreted in the light of the common law, the principles and history of which were familiarly known to the framers of the constitution.”

So Ankeny noted (rightly) that the Minor Court said the meaning of natural-born citizen came not from Vattel, but from the common law.

So if you want to cite Ankeny as an authority, then you HAVE to agree that 1) Minor said no such BS as you claim, and 2) Minor said the meaning of natural born citizen comes not from Vattel, but from the common law.

So which will it be? Ankeny, or no Ankeny?

Either way, heads or tails, the birther claim loses.

Pro-Ankeny: You have to agree that claiming Minor set a precedent for natural born citizenship is just BS, and that the meaning of "natural born citizen" comes from the common law, and then you can make your point about Ankeny saying Wong didn't declare Wong to be a natural born citizen.

Or, you can give up the point about Wong.

But the birther claim loses ANYWAY.

They said:

We note the fact that the Court in Wong Kim Ark did not actually pronounce the plaintiff a “natural born Citizen” using the Constitution's Article II language is immaterial.

That's a fair description. The Court didn't say "Wong Kim Ark is a natural born citizen."

But the entire rationale that they used to find him a "citizen" defined who a NATURAL BORN CITIZEN was. And they CLEARLY found, prior to their final pronouncement, that a person born in Wong's situation was a NATURAL BORN CITIZEN.

Ankeny also said:

Based upon the language of Article II, Section 1, Clause 4 and the guidance provided by Won g Kim Ark , we conclude that persons born within the borders of the United States are “natural born Citizens” for Article II, Section 1 purposes, regardless of the citizenship of their parents.

In other words, the Ankeny Court ruled that what Wong Kim Ark DID say was quite sufficient to conclude that Wong was a NATURAL BORN CITIZEN.