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 ...
“Converse with fence posts much?”
Seems like I do that alot here, lately. Stupid Obamabots.
I refer to them as obamanoids, obama annoyance droids ... or some sort of rectal vascular malady, your choice.
Then Obamanoids it is.
you are correct on every point, so glad we agree
So I've noticed.
Thank you kind good Knight!
The Constitutional term is undefined as it is.
There isn't one, the only law that ever touched on the matter directly, the Uniform Naturalization Act of 1790, was repealed 5 years later and replaced with a law that dropped the "natural born" language.
The Naturalization Laws dealt with naturalization, not who is natural born. The only reference in any of them to natural-born citizenship applied to those born overseas and not those born in the U.S. itself. They are irrelevant to the question at hand.
Absent language defining the term in the Constitution itself, one must look elsewhere for a definition. Vattel is one possibility, English Common Law, as documented by Blackstone is another. Still another would be discussions in the Constitutional Convention indicating the understood meaning, but if there were any, they have been lost.
And absent that then one looks two Supreme Court decisions like the Ark and Elg cases, which make it clear that natural-born citizenship status is not dependent on the nationality of the parents.
Congress has no power to define "natural born", so any person who is a citizen strictly because of a statute passed by Congress must logically be considered, for Constitutional purposes to be "Naturalized at birth".
But Congress does have the power to create uniform rules of naturalization. Part of that is identifying who doesn't need to be naturalized, in other words who is a natural-born citizen.
“Common sense was not unheard of back then. It’s obviously scarce nowadays.”
You apparently fault today’s common sense for thinking that to be a natural born citizen means you are born a citizen. I think that’s a testament to the sense of today.
NS: This is false! There is nothing “clear” in the actual decision (not dicta) in either case to support NBC status for the children of a foreign citizen father. The matter is clearly unresolved as proved by repeated attempts in congress to clarify the issue, which have failed!
The Ark decision did not declare Ark to be NBC, only to be a citizen with the same citizen rights as an NBC. Elg's parents were both US citizens at her birth so there was no foreign nationality issue at birth in Elg. Neither case is on point with Obama's situation.
I will grant you that the mash-up of the Ark dicta and decision that invites conflation of "natural born subject" with "natural born citizen" has led many, if not most legal scholars to conclude that Ark was NBC, but it is hardly "clear" as you repeatedly assert. That facts of Elg simply don't apply so it can't contribute clarity at all.
You needn't reply to me as I fully expect you to persist in claiming it is "clear" that Obama is NBC regardless of rampant uncertainty proved, as I said, by repeated congressional efforts to achieve further clarity.
“Screwdrivers are every bit as much a handtool as a hammer which imlies to me that both screwdrivers and hammers are HAMMERS????????? LOL”
Once again you completely fail in your attempt at an analogy. In this case, “handtool” would be citizen and “hammer” would be, what?, natural born citizen? Ah, but no, the quote we were talking about equated citizens born of citizen parents and native born citizens, both of which it said were every bit the same as eachother. Meaning they were every bit as much handtools as eachother. No one would ever say a native born citizen was a child of citizen parents, or in other words a “hammer,” because it obviously isn’t.
All the quote ever said was that both are handtools. They are both of the class “handtool,” and the “hammer” is not a class itself (and has no prerogatives in and of itself) but a subdivision of the larger class “handtool”. Here’s an analogy: Screwdrivers and hammers are to handtools as native and citizen-born children are to natural born citizens.
By the way, you haven’t ever demonstrated how it can be true that native born and citizen-born children are every bit as much citizens as eachother if one is eligible to be president while the other is not. For presidential eligibility is based on citizenship status. Indeed, the only legal difference between classes of citizens is whether or not they are eligible to be president. That’s the only legal difference between naturalized and natural born citizens, as everyone knows. Again, I ask, if native and citizen-born are every bit as much citizens as the other, where does that leave room for one to be president and the other not?
“There are NO circles in a natural born citizen circle. Unless you want to separate men and women.”
But in the very least you can admit that there COULD be circles within the natural born citizen circle, which in and of itself blows to hell all you bluster about native born citizens having a seperate name proving that they are a seperate class.
“Stupid Obamabots.”
What’s it like to live in a world where everyone who disagrees with you is an agent of The Enemy?
“you are correct on every point, so glad we agree”
Isn’t agreement fun? Granted, if there was none this board would disappear.
“There is nothing ‘clear’ in the actual decision (not dicta) in either case to support NBC status for the children of a foreign citizen father.”
He’s going by what seems clear to me, as well. Namely, that “natural born citizen” means “citizen from birth,” as opposed to naturalized citizens.
I disagree. Justice Gray stated, "The foregoing considerations and authorities irresistibly lead us to these conclusions: the Fourteenth Amendment affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory, in the allegiance and under the protection of the country, including all children here born of resident aliens, with the exceptions or qualifications (as old as the rule itself) of children of foreign sovereigns or their ministers, or born on foreign public ships, or of enemies within and during a hostile occupation of part of our territory, and with the single additional exception of children of members of the Indian tribes owing direct allegiance to their several tribes. The Amendment, in clear words and in manifest intent, includes the children born, within the territory of the United States, of all other persons, of whatever race or color, domiciled within the United States. Every citizen or subject of another country, while domiciled here, is within the allegiance and the protection, and consequently subject to the jurisdiction, of the United States."
Since the Constitution identifies only two forms of citizenship then citizen by birth or citizen at birth or native born citizen are all synonymous with natural-born citizen.
You needn't reply to me as I fully expect you to persist in claiming it is "clear" that Obama is NBC regardless of rampant uncertainty proved, as I said, by repeated congressional efforts to achieve further clarity.
Sorry to disappoint but I disagree with all your conclusions. The Elg decision does NOT make it clear that both parents were citizens. The Ark decision does make him a citizen by birth, AKA natural-born citizen. About all that is missing is something from you defining all the different classes of citizenship you claim exist.
I reply only for the benefit of new readers that may be confused by your obfuscations. Note that Non-Sequitur's statement above that "The Ark decision does make him a citizen by birth, AKA natural-born citizen." is a perfect non-sequitur.
Your long quote from Justice Gray refers only to the 14th amendment. Justice Waite's dicta declaring continuing "doubt" as to the NBC status of a subclass of those born on US soil was in the Minor case that was decided after the 14th passed, so Waite and SCOTUS did not consider the 14th to have resolved the NBC issue as you erroneously conclude.
Justice Waite's three classes of citizen are:
1. naturalized
2. born on US soil to two US citizens, a "NO DOUBT" NBC
3. born on US soil, foreign father, "DOUBT" AS TO NBC.
There are your frequently requested three classes. They all have equal citizen rights, but only NBC has a totally separate right to be POTUS.
Gray's decision in Ark only explicitly confirmed the citizen status, not the NBC status of Ark. Gray's decision doesn't include the term "natural born citizen". So Gray took Waite's third class and affirmed only citizenship for that class, but not explicit NBC status, despite language in dicta about "natural born subjects" under common law.
You are flat-out wrong about Elg. Here is a direct quote from the Elg Opinion confirming that Elg's father (and thus mother by law) was a US citizen when Elg was born (and not on point with Obama):
"Miss Elg was born in Brooklyn, New York, on October 2, 1907. Her parents, who were natives of Sweden, emigrated to the United States sometime prior to 1906, and her father was naturalized here in that year."
http://supreme.justia.com/us/307/325/case.html
Thus Elg was clearly a "no doubt" NBC in the second of three categories set out by Waite. Obama can't benefit from anything in Elg because unlike Elg, his father wasn't a citizen when he was born.
No it is not, the definition is just disputed. Nothing in the Constitution is without meaning.
The Naturalization Laws dealt with naturalization, not who is natural born. The only reference in any of them to natural-born citizenship applied to those born overseas and not those born in the U.S. itself. They are irrelevant to the question at hand.
My point exactly, you cannot look to any Statute to define the term, and Congress cannot lawfully pass one.
But Congress does have the power to create uniform rules of naturalization. Part of that is identifying who doesn't need to be naturalized, in other words who is a natural-born citizen.
So even though they can't pass a law defining a Constitutional term, they can?
I don't think so.
Wrongo NS! It's right up front.
Mr. Chief Justice HUGHES delivered the opinion of the Court. The question is whether the plaintiff, Marie Elizabeth Elg. who was born in the United States of Swedish parents then naturalized here, has lost her citizenship and is subject to deportation because of her removal during minority to Sweden, it appearing that her parents resumed their citizenship in that country but that she returned here on attaining majority with intention to remain and to maintain her citizenship in the United States.
Elg relies on the similar case, Steinkauler (1879), wherein the person in question was born in the US to naturalized parents who then returned to Germany and took up their former citizenship, taking their son with them.
But in both cases, the child was born of parents who were citizens at the time, and in the US. Both Elg and Steinkauler were Natural Born Citizens, and Miss Elg was explicitly declared to be so. Mr. Steinkauler was said to have two citizenships, one natural, one acquired.
“both of which it said were every bit the same as eachother. “
Nope, didn’t say that. Read it again.
“if native and citizen-born are every bit as much citizens as the other, where does that leave room for one to be president and the other not?”
They are both citizens, for sure, just not both Natural Born Citizens. NBC is the requirement, not citizenship.
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.