Posted on 07/18/2012 2:31:08 PM PDT by WXRGina
Worn-out-html-hands PING!
Another excellent offering from Ms. Publius Huldah!
Mark
Has a precedent been set by Obama? He of the fraudulent birth certificate and Kenyan father.
Neither parents were illegal aliens, in fact both were in the US with the permission of the US Govt.
“Neither parents were illegal aliens...”
That isn’t relevant in this instance.
The question is whether the parents were citizens.
I.e., were they born here or had they sworn an oath of allegiance to the U.S. via a citizenship process?
Did you read the whole piece?
Rubio’s parents did not receive their naturalized citizenship until several years AFTER Rubio was born. Just because they are in the country “with the permission of the US Govt” does not make them naturalized citizens.
Rubio is NOT a natural born citizen.
It most certainly is relevant. There is no requirement in the Constitution that both parents had to be citizens.
Even the fine print is enlightening. Under the article, down past the comment section is this nugget of gold:
"We don't intend to turn the Republican Party over to the traitors in the battle just ended. We will have no more of those candidates who are pledged to the same goals as our opposition and who seek our support. Turning the party over to the so-called moderates wouldn't make any sense at all." - Ronald Reagan, Nov. 10, 1964If we had only listened to Ronald Reagan.
You didn’t read the article did you?
When the drafters distinguished between the citizenship requirements for Senators and House members and those for the President and VP they used the term “natural born citizen”. They did not have in mind a mere citizenship requirement for the latter, who would or might also serve as the commander in chief.
The term used for the two highest offices was, at the time, well understood to mean “born of two citizen parents.
If the issue was the intention of the parties regarding the definition of a term used in a contract, it wouldn’t be much of a case.
But one suspects you know that.
Have a nice evening.
You’re welcome! Ms. Publius Huldah is a marvelous teacher and scholar of our Constitution and founding documents.
You’re so right that we should have listened to President Reagan!
Thanks for a most exellent post.
I suggest you ping the “brilliant constitutional scholar” Mark Levin, whose freeper name is “holdonnow”.
excellent... FR’s spell check doesn’t.
You're welcome. Ms. Publius Huldah's papers are always packed with pure, brain muscle-building, information protein!
I suggest you ping the “brilliant constitutional scholar” Mark Levin, whose freeper name is “holdonnow”.
Done!
I didn’t even catch the typo! We often “see” what we assume we’re seeing. :-)
Our founders might indeed have understood Vattel in the way this thread suggests. That’s not what they said in plain text. Incorporating Vattel by inference is NOT strict construction.
If our founders meant that both parents be should be citizens, they should have explicitly said that.
Both Jindal and Rubio are eligible to run. Even if you could have made an argument otherwise before, Obama sets the precedent that NBC means citizen at birth, period.
The NBC argument has been settled. Vattel lost.
If there is any government where prerogatives might with apparent safety be entrusted to any individual, it is in the federal government of America. The president of the United States of America is elected only for four years. He is not only responsible in the general sense of the word, but a particular mode is laid down in the constitution for trying him. He cannot be elected under thirty-five years of age; and he must be a native of the country.Yes, Paine did use the term "native of the country." Does this mean "native born" instead of "natural born?" We have to look at the following statements to answer that question.In a comparison of these cases with the Government of England, the difference when applied to the latter amounts to an absurdity. In England the person who exercises prerogative is often a foreigner; always half a foreigner, and always married to a foreigner. He is never in full natural or political connection with the country, is not responsible for anything, and becomes of age at eighteen years; yet such a person is permitted to form foreign alliances, without even the knowledge of the nation, and to make war and peace without its consent.
But this is not all. Though such a person cannot dispose of the government in the manner of a testator, he dictates the marriage connections, which, in effect, accomplish a great part of the same end. He cannot directly bequeath half the government to Prussia, but he can form a marriage partnership that will produce almost the same thing. Under such circumstances, it is happy for England that she is not situated on the Continent, or she might, like Holland, fall under the dictatorship of Prussia. Holland, by marriage, is as effectually governed by Prussia, as if the old tyranny of bequeathing the government had been the means.
The presidency in America (or, as it is sometimes called, the executive) is the only office from which a foreigner is excluded, and in England it is the only one to which he is admitted. A foreigner cannot be a member of Parliament, but he may be what is called a king. If there is any reason for excluding foreigners, it ought to be from those offices where mischief can most be acted, and where, by uniting every bias of interest and attachment, the trust is best secured. But as nations proceed in the great business of forming constitutions, they will examine with more precision into the nature and business of that department which is called the executive. What the legislative and judicial departments are every one can see; but with respect to what, in Europe, is called the executive, as distinct from those two, it is either a political superfluity or a chaos of unknown things.
Paine refers to Engish examples in order to define this. Paine cites "foreigner" and "half a foreigner" as the oppposite to "full natural" connection to the country. So, what is "half a foreigner?"
It seems to me that "half a foreigner" is a person with one parent who is a citizen and one parent who is not. This person does not have have a "full natural... connection with the country."
Paine wrote plainly of why the Framers did not want "half-foreigners" to be president, and why only people with a "full natural... connection with the country" were allowed to become President.
Paine was widely recognized as the most influential writer of the time of Independence because of his plain writing style that resonated with the common person.
Paine's description of the meaning of Article II was written in 1791, and I take it to be reflective of the common understanding of the time. This was, after all, written just two years after the ratification of the Constitution. If Paine said that natural born citizens meant both parents were citizens, then that was the plain meaning.
-PJ
So how does Vattel -- less cited than Pufendorf or Grotius, Hobbes or Rousseau, and far less cited than Blackstone or Coke -- all of a sudden end up being the one and only authoritative source for the Founders' thinking about citizenship?
This does not argue for or against the article, but Alexander Hamilton remained in New York the entire time of drafting the Constitution. He showed up on the final day only to sign his name to the document.
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