Posted on 02/07/2012 11:38:23 AM PST by Red Steel
“the Founding Fathers did indeed use Vattel to form our common law.”
No, they did not.
1 - Vattel argued that the citizenship of the child was determined by the citizenship of the father, regardless of birth location. That is not and has not been true in the USA. It also was never true of England.
2 - They DID use the phrase NBC - 10 years BEFORE anyone suggested that Vattel used it. And the French word translated NBC in 1797 was ‘indigenes’ - which is also an English word, thus needing no translation at all.
English common law does not RULE US law, but the legal terms used by the Founders - and they used NBC & NBS interchangeably - have their meaning rooted in English law. That is where ALL the legal terms in use in the colonies were found, and thus is the meaning used by the Founders.
Vattel’s rules on citizenship were NOT incorporated into American law. If it had been, our citizenship would be based on the citizenship of our father, and no one would then dispute that Obama Jr is a Kenyan.
Yes, they did. You have been shown repeatedly with sourced quotes. Here is another:
I received yours of the 16th Inst. Relating to the Capture of Capt. Burnel. An Application is making to Government here to have him reclaim’d, as being taken from under the Protection of your Forts, contrary to the Law of Nations;
Benjamin Franklin To Charles Drouet, Paris, June 23 1777
Care to explain why Franklin was making and Application for release of a Captain because that capture violated the Law of Nations?
And I really hate to burst your 'translation' argument, but you DO know that many of the Founders were fluent in French, don't you? It's not like they couldn't read the original for themselves.
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You also continually disregard Tucker as 'English common law'.
I suspect that is because his numerous quotes concerning Vattel, as even the lightest amount of research will reveal Tucker's history.
He annotated Blackstone's Commentaries on the Law of England specifically outlining their effects on US Law and was appointed by Madison to the US Supreme court.
Discounting someone considered the Father of American Law just because he doesn't agree with your position makes you look foolish.
What all did they use...now that I've given you some of the answers.
“Care to explain why Franklin was making and Application for release of a Captain because that capture violated the Law of Nations?”
Because that involved INTERNATIONAL LAW. Not US law.
“You also continually disregard Tucker as ‘English common law’.”
No. I point out, however, that English common law is the source of the legal terms used by the Founders, and the definitions of those terms - which is a statement that the court have always upheld.
What they have never upheld - because it would be incredibly stupid - is that a translation made in 1797 determines the meaning of a phrase written in 1787.
A logical point. To take the logic further, why would the Founders use the Law of Nations internally, yet ignore its use internally?
The answer is, of course, they wouldn't.
Vattel's idea that 'natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens' was repeated decades later in Congress-
“[I] find no fault with the introductory clause, which is simply declaratory of what is written in the Constitution, that every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen. . . . ”
— John A. Bingham, (R-Ohio) US Congressman, March 9, 1866 Cong. Globe, 39th, 1st Sess., 1291 (1866), Sec. 1992 of U.S. Revised Statutes (1866).
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because it would be incredibly stupid - is that a translation made in 1797 determines the meaning of a phrase written in 1787.
A Subject of the King was subject to the King's whims where a Citizen is his own King.....it's why we're 'Sovereign' citizens.
It can't be that that hard of a stretch to see that a subject in Vattel's work is analogous to Citizen to the Founders.
When you can't even show, for over an hour, despite prompt replies to my other questions, that you're aware of the works outside of Vattel that the Founding Fathers used in the creation of our Nation then I have no use for you and I will heap scorn upon you at every instance till you can't show your face on these boards without being mocked with ridicule and scorn by others! (if that's even possible)
@Mr Rogers Epic Fail just so it's convenient.
Highlight, right click, view selection source, copy and paste.
"All right then, if Vattel wasn't used then what was used in the formulation of our laws?"
They based it on English Law.
"Mr. DICKENSON mentioned to the House that on examining Blackstone's Commentaries, he found that the terms, "ex post facto" related to criminal cases only; that they would not consequently restrain the States from retrospective laws in civil cases, and that some further provision for this purpose would be requisite."James Madison, August 29, 1789, "Notes on the Debates in the Federal Convention"
Alexander Hamilton told as where to find the meaning of the terms in the Constitution. In a 1795 legal brief about direct and indirect taxes, he says, "where so important a distinction in the Constitution is to be realized, it is fair to seek the meaning of terms in the statutory language of that country from which our jurisprudence is derived.”
And there is Chief Justice Marshall,
“The constitution gives to the president, in general terms, "the power to grant reprieves and pardons for offences against the United States."
"As this power had been exercised from time immemorial by the executive of that nation whose language is our language, and to whose judicial institutions ours bear a close resemblance; we adopt their principles respecting the operation and effect of a pardon, and look into their books for the rules prescribing the manner in which it is to be used by the person who would avail himself of it.” Chief Justice Marshall, in United States v. Wilson 1833
And Justice Wayne,
"At the time of the adoption of the Constitution, American statesmen were conversant with the laws of England, and familiar with the prerogatives exercised by the Crown. Hence, when the words to grant pardons were used in the Constitution, they conveyed to the mind the authority as exercised by the English Crown or by its representatives in the colonies. At that time, both Englishmen and Americans attached the same meaning to the word "pardon." In the convention which framed the Constitution, no effort was made to define or change its meaning, although it was limited in cases of impeachment."
"We must then give the word the same meaning as prevailed here and in England at the time it found a place in the Constitution. This is in conformity with the principles laid down by this Court in 30 U. S. 280, and in Flavell's Case,@ 8 Watts & Sargent 197; Attorney General's brief.” Mr. Justice Wayne in ex parte Wells 1855
And Chief Justice and Former President of the United States William Howard Taft,
"The language of the Constitution cannot be interpreted safely except by reference to the common law and to British institutions as they were when the instrument was framed and adopted. The statesmen and lawyers of the Convention who submitted it to the ratification of the Conventions of the thirteen States were born and brought up in the atmosphere of the common law, and thought and spoke in its vocabulary. They were familiar with other forms of government, recent and ancient, and indicated in their discussions earnest study and consideration of many of them but when they came to put their conclusions into the form of fundamental law in a compact draft, they expressed them in terms of the common law, confident that they could be shortly and easily understood.” Chief Justice William Howard Taft, in Ex Parte Grossman, 1925
Of course, Justice Scalia,
"I think people are concerned principally about the use of foreign law in the interpretation of the United States Constitution. Even there I have to tell you I cannot say it is never relevant. Of course, the foreign law I think is relevant is very old foreign law. Very old English law—because what is meant by the terms of our federal Constitution depended upon what Englishmen in 1791 considered due process of law, what they considered to be cruel and unusual punishments, and so forth. So I use foreign law all the time. But it is all very old English law..” Justice Scalia, February 21, 2006, Remarks at American Enterprise Institute
and
"What I look for in the Constitution is precisely what I look for in a statute: the original meaning of the text, not what the original draftsmen intended” (A Matter of Interpretation, Federal Courts and the Law, 1997)
Your quotes change nothing.
The Fundamental Theorem of Birtherism:
If birthers could read, they wouldn't be birthers.
See reply 128 on this thread.
"Mr. DICKENSON mentioned to the House that on examining Blackstone's Commentaries, he found that the terms, "ex post facto" related to criminal cases only; that they would not consequently restrain the States from retrospective laws in civil cases, and that some further provision for this purpose would be requisite."
James Madison, August 29, 1789, "Notes on the Debates in the Federal Convention"
"James R. Stoner, Jr. has identified four ways in which common law influenced the U.S. Constitution. Consistent with some of the discussions at the Convention examined above, he first observes that the common law provided some of the language of the document. He specifically cites the provisions related to habeas corpus, ex post facto laws, the provision that an individual be “natural born,” and the term “good behavior” (2003, 17). He believes that, unless otherwise stated, the presumption was that such words would continue to maintain their existing meaning." from “The Constitutional Convention of 1787: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of American Founding”, 2005, Dr. John Vile
Dr. James R. Stoner Jr. is a Constitutional Law Professor at Louisiana State University. And he is associated with Glenn Beck University.
Rogers: No, they did not.
Umm, hate to burst you bubble Rogers, but you are utterly wrong. If one actually goes to the congressional archives to see the list of books ordered placed in the congressional library, they will see that Blackstone was listed, used & cited for Article III, the judicial system as his was the best over all for setting up a system of courts. Blackstone simply was not mentioned as to citizenship as his views of subjectship & perpetual loyalty to the king were far too extreme. Blackstone worshiped the ground the king walked on. But for the record, here is proof Blackstone was not cited in regards to citizenship ...
A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774 - 1875 Farrand's Records, Volume 1
bottom of page 437 & continued on page 438: “In order to prove that individuals in a State of nature are equally free & independent he read passages from Locke, Vattel, Lord Summers—Priestly. To prove that the case is the same with States till they surrender their equal sovereignty, he read other passages in Locke & Vattel, and also Rutherford: that the States being equal cannot treat or confederate so as to give up an equality of votes without giving up their liberty”
You have to play the hand you are dealt. Hatfield had a default judgment in hand and threw it away. The judge was going to recommend that Obama be taken off the ballot - hubris and legal incompetence is a bad combination.
Do you know the difference between a hearing and a trial?
1 A It's the birth certificate that I downloaded from
2 the WhiteHouse.gov website. It's a birth certificate
3 professed to be of Barack Hussein Obama II.
I'm sure somebody will correct me if I'm wrong.
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