Author: Abel Boyer
Publisher: printed by John Mary Bruyset, 1768
Original from the Complutense University of Madrid
Digitized: Jul 27, 2009
Length: 716 pages
Subjects: Foreign Language Study / French
Posted on 05/12/2010 12:36:53 PM PDT by rxsid
Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 from the U.S. Constitution states:
"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; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty five years, and been fourteen Years a resident within the United States."
Bump to your post. Never a doubt never a question. Too bad the trolls here lie and play ignorant.
Hear hear!
Found: http://books.google.com/books?id=OmtHAAAAYAAJ
Point being, as bushpilot1, RedSteel and other's have shown, the time frame from around Vattel's early editions and the framing of the Constitution...there were MANY resources which used the definitions of Natural and Native (and the French Naturel) interchangeably.
From: http://books.google.com/books?id=bXsCAAAAQAAJ
Wonder how the dictionary defines Kind and its relationship to natural.
We know natural born citizen means more than born to citizen parents and jus soli.
When John Jay wrote to Washington...”foreigners”..does it mean..any one who is not a descendant of the original citizens.
Have located several references to this but will not post in this forum.
There is a on going effort to deceive the public Obama is a natural born citizen. I play around with the birth certificate drama..but always pay attention to the NBC.
We limit our selves to born on the soil and two parents but are afraid to dwell into the word natural and its meaning with born citizen.
From: http://books.google.com/books?id=xZUPAAAAQAAJ
Collection: The Liberator
Publication: THE LIBERATOR
Date: January 23, 1836
Title: Extracts from Gov. Gayle's message, accompanying the requisition.
Location: Boston, Massachusetts
Extracts from Gov. Gayle's message, accompanying the requisition.
"...It has been improperly admitted by writers in the South, who have engaged in discussing this subject, that the constitution and laws of the United States, in regard to fugitives from justice, do not authorize a demand for the delivery of these incendiaries, to the States whose laws they have violated. This opinion has been embraced under the erroneous impression, that the rules of strict construction which with great propriety, apply to certain parts of the constitution, must necessarily, apply to all others. They do not appear to have observed the obvious distinction between those provisions of this instrument which transfer powers to the general government, and those which confirm and enlarge the rights of the States, as they existed previous to its formation. When the States achieved their independence, they had no rules to regulate their intercourse with each other, but such as could be derived from the law of nations. This law as laid down by Vattel in relation to offenders is, that a sovereign 'ought not to suffer his subjects to molest the subjects of others, or to do them an injury; much less should he permit them audaciously to offend foreign powers..."
LEGISLATIVE. COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS.
In SENATE, Feb., 1838.
The Joint Committee to whom was referred ' so much of the Governor's address as relates to the resolutions of Rhode Island concerning the annexation of Texas to the Union. ' and to whom were also referred the petition of Asa Stoughton and others, legal voters of the town of Gill, and sundry other petitions of many thousand citizens of this Commonwealth, praying the Legislature ' to protest without delay against the annexation of Texas to this Union ,' have attended to the duty assigned them, and beg leave respectfully to
REPORT:
"...The limits of the 'United States,' were definitely fixed by the treaty of peace of 1783. These limits consisted not only of organized States, but also of territories, which had no state governments, but were the dependencies and property of the United States. By the ordinances of the federal Congress passed previously to the adoption of the constitution, it was determined that these territories should be formed into new states upon certain conditions therein specified. At the time of that adoption, they were still merely territories, though within the well recognized limits of the United States. Some provision would of course be made in the constitution for their admission into the Union, in fulfilment of the pledge of Congress. The creation of new states within the limits of the United States, then, undoubtedly was an object, and your Committee believe it was the only object, of the clause in question. Such would seem, indeed, to be the fair meaning of the words, taken by themselves in reference to the circumstances. But this construction is greatly fortified by an examination of other parts of the constitution, its general scope and design, and by applying those universally admitted rules of interpretation, which tend to develope the intention of its framers. In order to determine whether the words should have the more enlarged or the more limited sense, we should, in the first place, consider the nature and objects of the constitution, 'as apparent from the structure of the instrument, viewed as a whole. ' (1 Story's Comm. 387.) 'We ought' (says Vattel , in treating of the rules of construction,) 'to consider the whole together in order perfectly to conceive the sense of it, and to give to each expression not so much the signification it may receive in itself , as that it ought to have from the thread and spirit of' the instrument. (Vattel B. 2 ch. 17, §285.).
The preamble of the constitution is the best exponent of 'its nature and objects,' of 'its spirit and scope.' It is in these words: 'We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union , establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to OURSELVES and OUR POSTERITY, do ordain and establish this Constitution FOR the United States of America.' This preamble explains, briefly and clearly, the objects and nature of the Constitution. It states by whom it was made; for whom it was made; and over whom it was intended to diffuse its blessings. There is not a suggestion, which looks to or supposes any farther participation in its powers or obligations than by those included within the 'United States', (whose territory was defined by the treaty of peace,) and any enlargement of these to further limits would be to extend them without its scope, and beyond its objects. It would be, indeed, the establishment without authority of 'another frame of government radically different' from our own. When, therefore, general words are used in other parts of the instrument, they are to be construed in reference to, and are to be limited by, this exposition of its general principles and purposes. For 'we should take the words in the sense that agree with the subject and matter. If the subject or the matter treated of will not allow that the terms should be taken in their full extent, we should limit the sense accordingly.' (Vattel , B. 2, ch. 17, § 295.) ..."
"...The executive of Virginia, under date of October 4, 1839, acknowledges the receipt of this answer from Gov. Seward, and after recapitulating the substance of it, proceeds as follows:
Now, sir, these doctrines are so completely at war with what I understand to be the law of nations governing the intercourse, the rights and obligations of separate and foreign countries, and by consequence, yet more inconsistent with the friendly and federal relations of these States, as prescribed by a Constitution of government fully considered and freely adopted by each in its sovereign capacity, that I cannot agree by remaining silent to be considered as acquiescing for a moment in their correctness. According to the laws of nature and of nations, every independent community of people has an undoubted right to form for itself a civil society— to construct its own form of government— to devise and enact its own system of laws— to conduct its internal or municipal regulations in such manner as may best conduce to its own happiness and prosperity— and to establish by treaty or otherwise all such political relations and commercial arrangements with other countries, as may not be in conflict with the universal principles of justice, and the rights of other nations. It thus becomes a free, independent and sovereign State, and assumes its proper station among the great family of nations. Neither the government nor the citizens of any other country can rightfully interfere with its municipal regulations in any way. 'It is an evident consequence of the liberty and independence of nations, (says Vattel ,) that all have a right to be governed as they think proper, and that no State has the smallest right to interfere in the government of another. Of all the rights that can belong to a nation, sovereignty is doubtless the most precious, and that which other nations ought the most scrupulously to respect, if they would not do her an injury.' The citizens of no other country are in any wise bound to put foot upon her soil; but if they choose of their own free will to do so, they become at once entitled to the protection, and subject to the penalties of her laws; and during their sojourn are in duty bound to deport themselves as good and orderly members of the society to which they have thus temporarily attached themselves. Should they choose to pursue a different course, however, by injuring the citizens, destroying or purloining their property, and violating the laws, they then forfeit their right of protection, and subject themselves to the punishment affixed by the supreme authority to their offences.
According to Vattel , page 162: 'If the offended State has in her power the individual who has done the injury, she may, without scruple, bring him to justice and punish him. If he has escaped and returned to his own country, she ought to apply to his sovereign to have justice done in the case. And since the latter ought not to suffer his subjects to molest the subjects of other States, or to do them an injury , much less to give open audacious offence to foreign powers, he ought to compel the transgressor to make reparation for the damages or injury, if possible, or to inflict on him an exemplary punishment; or finally, according to the nature and circumstances of the case, to deliver him up to the offended State, to be there brought to justice. '
In strict accordance with these views, are those expressed by a very able and distinguished citizen of your State, James Kent, in the first volume of his commentaries, page 36. 'It has sometimes been made a question how far one government was bound by the law of nations, and independent of treaty , to surrender, upon demand, fugitives from justice, who having committed crimes in one country, flee to another for shelter. It is declared by the public jurists, that every State is bound to deny an asylum to criminals ; and upon application and due examination of the case, to surrender the fugitive to the foreign State where the crime was committed. The language of the authorities is clear and explicit; and the law and usage of nations rest on the plainest principles of justice. It is the duty of the government to surrender up fugitives upon demand, after the civil magistrate shall have ascertained the existence of reasonable grounds for the charge, and sufficient to put the accused upon his trial. Thus, then, it is seen, even in reference to nations not bound by treaty or confederated by compact, that the usage of surrendering fugitives from justice is observed and cherished in the most liberal spirit. But the principle is greatly enlarged in its application to those countries situated near each other, and whose citizens are engaged in constant negotiations or frequent intercourse the one with the other. In such cases the duty of each sovereign to restrain his subjects from interfering with those of the other, becomes indispensably necessary to secure the blessings of peace, and to avoid the evils of a constant state of war. Hence Vattel , page 183, observes, 'The matter is carried still further in States that are more closely connected by friendship and good neighborhood. Even in cases of ordinary transgressions, which are only subjects of civil prosecution, either with a view to the recovery of damages , or the infliction of a slight civil punishment , the subjects of two neighboring States are reciprocally obliged to appear before the magistrate of the place where they are accused of having failed in their duty..."
City of Jefferson, January 27, 1842.
... The people of the slaveholding States have freely shed their blood and expended their money in defence of the Union; ay, even in defence of the territories . . . which they have since suffered such grievous wrongs. They have, without a murmur, consented to the expenditure of vast sums of the national treasury, for the protection and defence of those States; and they are now willing to suffer any privation, and to undergo any sacrifice, for the preservation, in its integrity, of the national Constitution.
According to the decisions of the judicial tribunals of some of the non-slaveholding States, if a citizen of a slaveholding State enter with his slave any of those States, the slave becomes free, and cannot be forced to return. Until within a few years, a law prevailed in several of the European States [Edit: Blackstone?], vesting the effects of deceased foreigners in the sovereign, to the exclusion of foreign heirs. 'Why,' exclaims the eloquent Vattel , 'does there still remain any vestige of so barbarous a law in Europe, which is now so enlightened and so full of humanity?' In some of the States of this Union, we find a law equally barbarous— a law which sets at defiance both comity and justice. Such laws are indeed calculated to render us alien in feeling and in interest.
...Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
THOMAS REYNOLDS.
The Rev. Arthur Granger, Pastor of South Congregational Church, Middletown, Connecticut, and others."
"...Vattel , in several places, is very explicit on the right of a sovereign power to admit what aliens he pleases within his dominion, and under what restrictions.
...
But whatever folly and fatuity may bring about elsewhere, South Carolina entered the Union a slaveholding State, and as such she will continue unaffected by the terms of the Union. She declines to defend her position, because she admits no authority to question it. She is as absolutely beyond inquiry as Russia in relation to her boors, or subjugated Poland, or England, in relation to her Irish population, her starving operatives, or her millions of enslaved and conquered natives of India, held in cruel bondage, not by the rod of a driver, but the bayonets and cannon of her mercenaries. On these matters each State is responsible only to heaven, by the laws of nature and of nations.'
This ground is supported by strong quotations from Vattel..."
Collection: African American Newspapers
Publication: THE NATIONAL ERA
Date: July 7, 1859
Title: INTERNATIONAL LAW
Location: Washington, D.C.
"INTERNATIONAL LAW.
We proceed to present authorities in corroboration of the views heretofore and elsewhere in this day's issue advanced on this subject. We omit further particular reference to the Koszta case, of which we treated at length two weeks ago. It will be sufficient at present to allude to the fact, that in that case President Pierce's Administration took ground diametrically opposite to that occupied by the present Administration. Mr. Marcy, the Secretary of State, laid it down that not only naturalized citizens are entitled to the protection of this Government when travelling abroad, but that mere denizens who have come here and declared their intention of becoming citizens, or who have acquired a domicile, are entitled to such protection. The phraseology of Mr. Marcy will clearly embrace even free negroes, as their condition is defined by the Dred Scott's decision. Even that down-trodden race could according to Mr. Marcy and the Pierce Administration, claim the intervention of the Federal Government for their protection! What, then, after the high position assumed by the Pierce Administration on this question, will the world think of the disgraceful abandonment of it by Mr. Buchanan and Gen. Cass? It is humiliating to think of. The Governments of Europe will regard our public functionaries as at once blustering braggarts and arrant cowards. We being our citation of authorities with the following, from the New York Express, a Know Nothing paper. The case as stated is a strong one, and we regret that is was not taken as a precedent by General Cass, instead of completely surrendering the rights of a large class of our fellow-citizens, even before those rights were brought into question by foreign Governments:
"A PRECEDENT AGAINST SECRETARY CASS.
"The Koszta case is not the only precedent. Here is what Mr. Fillmore's Administration claimed on our side, and what Louis Napoleon yielded on their, only six years ago: "Francis Allibert, a native of the Department de Var, in the south of France, left there during the drawing the conscription in 1839, and was actually drawn as a conscript, and was therefore an echape de la conscription. He arrived at New Orleans, made the usual application for citizenship, and was duly naturalized in 1845. He was successful in business in Louisiana, and in July, 1852, after an absence of nearly fourteen years, he returned to his family in his native village, and, under the vigilant police in France, he was arrested in twenty-four hours after his return. He immediately wrote to Mr. Hodge, the nearest American consul. The latter, that he might the better attend to the case, immediately requested that Mr. Allibert might be brought to Marseilles, which request was promptly acceded to by the General-in-chief commanding the military division. He was there brought before the Tribunal de Guerre as an insoumis, and condemned. Mr. Allibert was willing to pay four thousand frances for a substitute, but Mr. Hodge would not allow him even to make the offer, but, obtaining a rehearing of his case, appeared in person before the Tribunal de Guerre, and pleaded the case; and after two trials, and a detention of six months, he was acknowledged an American citizen, and order came from the Minister of War at Paris, directing his release. Mr. Hodge gave him a passport, which was vised by the police, and with which he remained some weeks with his family, travelled through France, and embarked at Havre, on his return to the United States. "The correspondence on file in the Department of State gives the full details of the case, and Mr. Everett, the Secretary of State under Mr. Fillmore, on the 3d of March, 1855, (the last day he was in office,) wrote a complimentary letter to Mr. Hodge, in which he says: "The Department was gratified to learn that Mr. Allibert, whose arrest and imprisonment as an insoumis , although a naturalized citizen of the United States, as mentioned in your communications, has been released. This is undoubtedly due to the firm and decided stand maintained throughout the long controversy in your official correspondence with the authorities on the subject. "'It is much to be desired that this case my be considered as a precedent, as you intimate, and that hereafter naturalized citizens of the United States may visit France without danger of arrest for military service. In this event, a hurtful source of irritation and unfriendly feeling will be avoid.' "Now, if Millard Fillmore, Edward Everett, Louis Napoleon, and the French Ministry, in 1852 and 1853, decided that a Frenchman actually drawn as a conscript was exempt from service because of his American naturalization, might not the present Administration, the par excellence friend of naturalized foreigners, have looked into these latter and of course more authoritative precedents, before writing their Le Clerc and Hofer letters? "When the French Government yields her local laws, we ought not to force our citizens into her conscript service." The Philadelphia Press quote various authorities tending to show that the right of expatriation is now new dogma, but an old recognised principle in international law. We avail ourselves of some of these authorities. The Greeks and Romans held to the right of expatriation, and the high authority of Cicero is quoted as follows: In the case of L.C. Balbus, the subject came necessarily under his notice. Balbus, an inhabitant of Gades, (Cadiz,) had been made a citizen of Pompey. His right to be thus naturalized was questioned. He was defended by Cicero, in whose oration there are expressions which indicate a liberal and generous spirit, and an ardent attachment to that liberty which the friends and enemies of the orator were, at that time, alike conspiring to subvert. "The whole subject of this controversy," says this distinguished philosopher and patriot, "and of my address, belongs to the common right of expatriation. There is nothing in it connected with religion or compact; for I lay it down as an universal truth, that there is no nation, in any region of the earth, however separated from the Roman people by altercation and hatred, or however united by friendship and benevolence, by whom we are forbidden to make citizens of their own people. "O, glorious right! by the Divine favor, obtained for us by our ancestors in the commencement of the Roman name; by which no man can be a citizen of more than one Commonwealth; by which no man can be compelled to leave it against his will, nor remain in it against his inclination. This is the firmest foundation of our liberty, that every man should have an absolute power to retain or abandon his rights, at his election." Wicquefort, in the 11th section and 1st book of the Ambassador, affirms that a prince may employ strangers in his embassies, even in their own country." All difficulty on this subject (he observes) will be removed by deciding the question whether a subject can, without crime, withdraw himself from the subjection and obedience which he owes to the society under which he was born." This, he affirms, the subject may certainly do; and he represents the right of expatriation as being allowed by the laws of France, Spain, the Netherlands, and Germany. The Czar forbids this to his subjects, as do others in some provinces in the North; but he adds that is because the former are slaves, and the latter belong to the soil. He further says: "In England, the subjects are under a stronger and more particular obligation to the sovereign than elsewhere, in virtue of a right which they there call allegiance but this does not prevent the English from withdrawing from the kingdom without the permission of the King; and when they have established themselves elsewhere, neither the authority of the King nor the laws of the kingdom have any farther power over them." Heineccius, book 2, sec. 230, holds the right of expatriation to be clear. He says: "Again, since one is a subject, in regard that he constitutes, with others, one republic, into which he willingly enters, it follows from thence that one cease to be a citizen so soon as he willingly removes with that design from his native country, and joins himself to another State, settling there his fortune and family, unless the laws forbid subjects to remove." That also was the opinion of Puffendorf, book 8, ch. 11: "Where the liberty of removal hath been promiscuously allowed, and the subject settle himself and his effects under the protection of a foreign State, the Commonwealth which he left hath no longer any authority over him." Locke also denied the English doctrine of perpetual allegiance because of birth- On Gov., vol. 2, p. 207. Vattel mentions three cases, says the Press, in which this right of expatriation exists in defiance even of a positive local law to the contrary: 1. Where the subject cannot find subsistence at home. 2. Where society fails in its obligations to him. 3. Where there is any oppression in matters of conscience. These however, are but examples of a much wider rule, viz: The right of every man to promote his own happiness; and he, and not his sovereign, is the only and exclusive judge of what will best promote that. Byukershock, ch. 2, (whose translator, Duponceau, had expatriated himself, says: "If there be no law to prohibit expatriation, it is lawful for a subject to transfer his allegiance. And this (he says) is the case wherever the country is not a prison." The Press also cites 1 Blackstone's Commentaries, 374, to show that naturalization in England, and also under the civil law, placed the alien on the same footing with the native born subject. A statute of Queen Anne naturalized all foreign Protestants. In the reigns of Georges II and III, foreign seamen who should serve two years in a British merchant ship or ship of war were naturalized as British subjects by that act, even without an oath of allegiance. Naturalization in England, says Woodeson, "confers the full and unqualified privileges of a subject born within the King's dominions. (vol. 1, p. 232 ) and Blackstone says, "he is put exactly in the same state as if he had been both in the King's legiance.- Vol. 1, 374. So, too, by the civil law: "Naturalization makes the persons naturalized of the same condition with the natives."- Demot, part 2, p. 11, sec. 9. While Secretary of State under Washington. Mr. Jefferson wrote to Mr. Morris, our Minister to Paris, respecting Mr. Genet: "Our citizens are certainly free to divest themselves of that character by emigration, and other acts manifesting their intention, and may then become the subjects of another Power, and free to do whatever the subjects of that Power may do."- Am. State Papers, vol. 1. p. 169. "
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.