Posted on 12/14/2009 7:02:03 AM PST by Danae
Students of history know that history repeats itself, and today we are reliving the past of 1880’s. Some of the similarities between the 21st President and the 44th are startling, and the ramifications are huge.
(Snip)
During the campaign of 1880, questions were asked about Chester’s birth place, but just as today, those doing the research were looking in the wrong direction. Arthur’s father, William Arthur was a British citizen at the time of the future President’s birth. Born in Ballymena, Ireland in 1796 he would not become a Naturalized citizen until August 31st, 1843. No one ever checked into his immigration status at the time of his son’s birth. Chester Arthur, 14 at the time his father was naturalized, and would surely have known this. Sound somewhat familiar?
(Snip)
Today, a direct and startlingly similar situation exists between President Arthur and President Obama. The 44th President was also born to a British citizen, not a naturalized citizen of the United States. For the same reasons both Presidents were not eligible for the office, the only difference lay in Barack Obama’s public admission of his father’s status:
(Excerpt) Read more at examiner.com ...
LAW AND PROCEDURE VOLUME VII (1903)
WILLIAM MACK And HOWARD P. NASH
THE AMERICAN LAW BOOK COMPANY
1.Children Of ALIENS. The child of a citizen father and of an alien mother is a citizen; but one born of an alien father and of a citizen mother is not a citizen.
This appears to be the international view of Obama’s citizenship:
Article 2. An illegitimate child which, during its minority, is acknowledged by its father only, or simultaneously by its father and its mother, or whose parentage is settled by the same judgment with regard to both, follows the nationality of its father on the day of its birth; if it has been acknowledged only by its mother, it takes the nationality of the latter, and retains it even when its father recognizes it later. (RESOLUTIONS OF THE INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL LAW (1916))
“According to US law as laid out in the Foreign Affairs manual, children born abroad are citizens by statute aka act of Congress.”
Why didn’t this state: born abroad are NATURAL BORN citizens by statute????
here are the links:
http://www.archive.org/details/resolutionsofins00inst
http://www.archive.org/details/cyclopedialawan00mackgoog
“OK, so children born to soldiers overseas are not natural born, and that would include John McCain, correct? “
Correct.
OK, so Barry Goldwater wasn’t an NBC either, right? And this is backed up how?
OK, so Barry Goldwater wasn’t an NBC either, right? And this is backed up how?
“two forms of citizenship “
but not two forms of Natural Born Citizens
IIRC, Arizona was a territory when Goldwater was born.
“And what defines what a natural born citizen is?”
Been posted numerous times. You’ve ignored every one. I’ts a block that noone will ever get passed.
It’s called a closed mind.
Yet that is clearly NOT the law of the US, as the 14th Amendment runs counter; being born on US soil grants citizenship. I don't think anyone here would doubt that.
And in United States v. Wong Kim Ark the Supreme Court stated:
The constitution nowhere defines the meaning of these words [citizen and natural born citizen], either by way of inclusion or of exclusion, except in so far as this is done by the affirmative declaration that 'all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.
So the Court turned to English common law:
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, and 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.
Emphasis added. So by English common law, the basis for our legal tradition, a child born of alien parents on US soil is a natural born citizen. This is from the latest case to actually reach the USSC and deal with the subject of citizenship.
As was the Panama Canal Zone when McCain was born.
AZ was sovereign territory of the US when Goldwater was born, his parents were subject only to the US, they had no allegiance to any other sovereignty, and held US citizenship with all political rights thereto, thus Goldwater was a natural born citizen
In this thread we’ve had 3 different definitions of what an NBC, all from birthers. So far, there isn’t a real definition from the birthers about what constitutes an NBC.
McCain was not born in the canal zone, he was born in the Republic of Panama and the birth index records of the canal zone have proven this fact, as well as McCain’s original long form birth certificate.
Who is Barack Obama? Plenty of people have requested his birth information. Is he even Stanley Ann’s child? Nobody knows, and it is not for the want of asking. He’s not telling.
I can tell you what it ain’t. The child of a non-citizen father. Period.
yes, it was clearly the law:
http://www.heritage.org/research/legalissues/lm18.cfm
It is today routinely believed that under the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, mere birth on U.S. soil is sufficient to obtain U.S. citizenship. However strong this commonly believed interpretation might appear, it is incompatible not only with the text of the Citizenship Clause (particularly as informed by the debate surrounding its adoption), but also with the political theory of the American Founding.
It is time for Congress to reassert its plenary authority and make clear, by resolution, its view that the “subject to the jurisdiction” phrase of the Citizenship Clause has meaning of fundamental importance to the naturalization policy of the nation.
The Original Understanding of the Citizenship Clause
The Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment provides that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”[1] As manifest by the conjunctive “and,” the clause mandates citizenship to those who meet both of the constitutional prerequisites: (1) birth (or naturalization) in the United States and (2) being subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.
The widely held, though erroneous, view today is that any person entering the territory of the United States—even for a short visit; even illegally—is considered to have subjected himself to the jurisdiction of the United States, which is to say, subjected himself to the laws of the United States. Surely one who is actually born in the United States is therefore “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and entitled to full citizenship as a result, or so the common reasoning goes.
Textually, such an interpretation is manifestly erroneous, for it renders the entire “subject to the jurisdiction” clause redundant. Anyone who is “born” in the United States is, under this interpretation, necessarily “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States. Yet it is a well-established doctrine of legal interpretation that legal texts, including the Constitution, are not to be interpreted to create redundancy unless any other interpretation would lead to absurd results.[2]
The “subject to the jurisdiction” provision must therefore require something in addition to mere birth on U.S. soil. The language of the 1866 Civil Rights Act, from which the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment was derived, provides the key to its meaning. The 1866 Act provides: “All persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States.”[3] As this formulation makes clear, any child born on U.S. soil to parents who were temporary visitors to this country and who, as a result of the foreign citizenship of the child’s parents, remained a citizen or subject of the parents’ home country was not entitled to claim the birthright citizenship provided by the 1866 Act.
The jurisdiction clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is somewhat different from the jurisdiction clause of the 1866 Act, of course. The positively phrased “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States might easily have been intended to describe a broader grant of citizenship than the negatively phrased language from the 1866 Act, one more in line with the modern understanding. But the relatively sparse debate we have regarding this provision of the Fourteenth Amendment does not support such a reading.
When pressed about whether Indians living on reservations would be covered by the clause since they were “most clearly subject to our jurisdiction, both civil and military,” for example, Senator Lyman Trumbull, a key figure in the drafting and adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, responded that “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States meant subject to its “complete” jurisdiction, “[n]ot owing allegiance to anybody else.”[4] And Senator Jacob Howard, who introduced the language of the jurisdiction clause on the floor of the Senate, contended that it should be construed to mean “a full and complete jurisdiction,” “the same jurisdiction in extent and quality as applies to every citizen of the United States now”[5] (i.e., under the 1866 Act). That meant that the children of Indians who still “belong[ed] to a tribal relation” and hence owed allegiance to another sovereign (however dependent the sovereign was) would not qualify for citizenship under the clause. Because of this interpretative gloss, provided by the authors of the provision, an amendment offered by Senator James Doolittle of Wisconsin explicitly to exclude “Indians not taxed,” as the 1866 Act had done, was rejected as redundant.[6]
The interpretative gloss offered by Senators Trumbull and Howard was also accepted by the Supreme Court—by both the majority and the dissenting justices—in The Slaughter-House Cases.[7] The majority in that case correctly noted that the “main purpose” of the clause “was to establish the citizenship of the negro” and that “[t]he phrase, ‘subject to its jurisdiction’ was intended to exclude from its operation children of ministers, consuls, and citizens or subjects of foreign States born within the United States.”[8] Justice Steven Field, joined by Chief Justice Chase and Justices Swayne and Bradley in dissent from the principal holding of the case, likewise acknowledged that the clause was designed to remove any doubts about the constitutionality of the 1866 Civil Rights Act, which provided that all persons born in the United States were as a result citizens both of the United States and of the state in which they resided, provided they were not at the time subjects of any foreign power.[9]
Although the statement by the majority in Slaughter-House was dicta, the position regarding the “subject to the jurisdiction” language advanced there was subsequently adopted as holding by the Supreme Court in Elk v. Wilkins.[10]
Fact is we do not know if he’s even a citizen. What we do know is that he was adopted at age 6 by Lolo Seotoro and became, by his own school records, a citizen of Indonesia.
His legal birth certificate (not original but legal) would not show Barack Hussein Obama III as his father, it would show Lolo. A person who is adopted can not go back into court as an adult and say, I no longer want my adopted father as my legal father, change it.
He can change his name, not his legal parentage unless, Lolo gave up custody and Daddy came over from Kenya and re-adopted his son.
So, when did Barack change his name legally back to Obama, in what court, when and how?
When did he give up his Indonesian and British Citizenship and take full US Citizenship?
On what countries passport did he travel on before age 18 and as an adult? This is very relevant; while we can discuss what exactly is a NBC (I take John Jay’s definition as the most credible) a persons passport is accepted internationally and vetted fully in our law as being one of the few documents that proves the country a person is a citizen of.
I’ve yet to have a “anti-birther” be able to answer a single one of those questions.
How anyone can look at this mans background and not have serious questions is beyond me. How anyone can support him is even more incredible.
He is a citizen, but not a natural born citizen and could not run for POTUS.
If they were born on a US Military Base, US Territory, they are Natural Born Citizens. If they were not born on US territory they are not. I have heard that McCain was born in Colon Panama, if I have my information correct. Which means that he would not be an NBC as Colon is well outside the Panama Canal Zone... and the reason he got a Nonbinding senate resolution. It also explains why the GOP did not tear Obama apart on the issue. THEIR guy had the same problem!
But I don’t know McCains history, I have not seen his birth certificate. If you know where a copy is that is legit that would solve that problem.
But to answer your question, no McCain would not have been an NBC if indeed he was born outside the Panama Canal Zone.
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.