Kan. GOP Sec. of State Moving on Obama Birther Nov. Ballot Challenge

Less than two months before Election Day, a group of Kansas Republicans, led by a voter ID law advocate, is moving on a withdrawn challenge which may result in President Obama being removed from the ballot.

Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who has embraced forcing voters to produce ID at the polls, said Sept. 13 that he will preside over a Kansas Board of Objections Sept. 17 meeting where a Manhattan, Kans. veterinary professor Joe Montgomery, questioned Obama’s birthplace and the citizenship of his father.

Kobach said that the board is obligated to do a thorough review of the questions raised by Montgomery about Obama’s birth certificate and not make “a snap decision."

However, Montgomery on Sept 14 withdrew his objections, stating that the Kansas roots of Obama’s mother and grandparents, apparently in his opinion, satisfies the U.S. Constitution’s “natural-born citizen” requirement for the presidency,.

The president's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, and maternal grandparents, Stanley and Madelyn Dunham, were Kansas natives.

The complaint withdrawal came after Kobach made requests to officials in Hawaii, Arizona and Mississippi for copies of the president’s birth records. The birth certificate controversy has been settled in those states and Obama is on those states’ ballots.

In spite of the withdrawal, Kobach said he nevertheless doesn’t believe the matter is dead. "I don't think it's a frivolous objection,” according to Kobach, an unofficial advisor to GOP presidential challenger Mitt Romney’s campaign. "I do think the factual record could be supplemented."

The objections board includes Attorney General Derek Schmidt and Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer, both Republicans. Current polls indicate that in Kansas, Romney is the current favored candidate at this point in the presidential race.

“It is an established maxim that birth is a criterion of allegiance. Birth however derives its force sometimes from place and sometimes from parentage, but in general place is the most certain criterion; it is what applies in the United States; it will therefore be unnecessary to investigate any other.” James Madison, The Founders’ Constitution Volume 2, Article 1, Section 2, Clause 2, Document 6 (1789) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “It is an established maxim, received by all political writers, that every person owes a natural allegiance to the government of that country in which he is born. Allegiance is defined to be a tie, that binds the subject to the state, and in consequence of his obedience, he is entitled to protection… The children of aliens, born in this state, are considered as natural born subjects, and have the same rights with the rest of the citizens.” Zephaniah Swift, A system of the laws of the state of Connecticut: in six books, Volumes 1-2 of A System of the Laws of the State of Connecticut: In Six Book, pg. 163,167 (1795) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “that a man born within the jurisdiction of the common law is a citizen of the country wherein he is born. By this circumstance of his birth, he is subjected to the duty of allegiance which is claimed and enforced by the sovereign of his native land, and becomes reciprocally entitled to the protection of that sovereign, and to the other rights and advantages which are included in the term “citizenship.” Garder v. Ward, 2 Mass. 244 (1805) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “The doctrine of the common law is that every man born within its jurisdiction is a subject of the sovereign of the country where he is born, and allegiance is not personal to the sovereign in the extent that has been contended for; it is due to him in his political capacity of sovereign of the territory where the person owing the allegiance as born.” Kilham v. Ward 2 Mass. 236, 26 (1806) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “Our statutes recognize alienage and its effects, but have not defined it. We must therefore look to the common law for its definition. By this law, to make a man an alien, he must be born without the allegiance of the commonwealth ; although persons may be naturalized or expatriated by statute, or have the privileges of subjects conferred or secured by a national compact.” “This claim of the commonwealth to the allegiance of all persons born within its territories, may subject some persons who, adhering to their former sovereign and residing within his dominions, are recognized by him as his subjects, to great inconvenience, especially in time of war, when two opposing sovereigns may claim their allegiance. But the inconvenience cannot alter the law of the land. If they return to the country of their birth, they will be protected as subjects.” Ainslie v. Martin, 9 Mass. 454, 456, 457 (1813). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “And if, at common law, all human beings born within the ligeance of the King, and under the King’s obedience, were natural-born subjects, and not aliens, I do not perceive why this doctrine does not apply to these United States, in all cases in which there is no express constitutional or statute declaration to the contrary. . . . Subject and citizen are, in a degree, convertible terms as applied to natives, and though the term citizen seems to be appropriate to republican freemen, yet we are, equally with the inhabitants of all other countries, subjects, for we are equally bound by allegiance and subjection to the government and law of the land.” James Kent, COMMENTARIES ON AMERICAN LAW, pg. 258 (1826) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “As the President is required to be a native citizen of the United States…. Natives are all persons born within the jurisdiction and allegiance of the United States.” James Kent, COMMENTARIES ON AMERICAN LAW (1826) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “That provision in the constitution which requires that the president shall be a native-born citizen (unless he were a citizen of the United States when the constitution was adopted) is a happy means of security against foreign influence,…A very respectable political writer makes the following pertinent remarks upon this subject. “Prior to the adoption of the constitution, the people inhabiting the different states might be divided into two classes: natural born citizens, or those born within the state, and aliens, or such as were born out of it.” St. George Tucker, BLACKSTONE’S COMMENTARIES (1803) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “Allegiance is nothing more than the tie or duty of obedience of a subject to the sovereign under whose protection he is, and allegiance by birth is that which arises from being born within the dominions and under the protection of a particular sovereign. Two things usually concur to create citizenship: first, birth locally within the dominions of the sovereign, and secondly, birth within the protection and obedience, or, in other words, within the allegiance of the sovereign….That the father and mother of the demandant were British born subjects is admitted. If he was born before 4 July, 1776, it is as clear that he was born a British subject. If he was born after 4 July, 1776, and before 15 September, 1776 [the date the British occupied New York], he was born an American citizen, whether his parents were at the time of his birth British subjects or American citizens. Nothing is better settled at the common law than the doctrine that the children even of aliens born in a country while the parents are resident there under the protection of the government and owing a temporary allegiance thereto are subjects by birth.” Justice Story, concurring opinion,Inglis v. Sailors’ Snug Harbor, 3 Pet. 99, 155,164. (1830) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “The 5th section of the 2d article provides, “that no person except a natural born citizen,” shall become president. A plain acknowledgment, that a man may become a citizen by birth, and that he may be born such.” Amy v. Smith, 11 Ky. 326, 340 (Ky. 1822) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “The country where one is born, how accidental soever his birth in that place may have been, and although his parents belong to another country, is that to which he owes allegiance. Hence the expression natural born subject or citizen, & all the relations thereout growing. To this there are but few exceptions, and they are mostly introduced by statutes and treaty regulations, such as the children of seamen and ambassadors born abroad, and the like.” Leake v. Gilchrist, 13 N.C. 73 (N.C. 1829) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “Therefore every person born within the United States, its territories or districts, whether the parents are citizens or aliens, is a natural born citizen in the sense of the Constitution, and entitled to all the rights and privileges appertaining to that capacity.” William Rawle, A View of the Constitution of the United States, pg. 86 (1829) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “From the close of the revolutionary war to the time of the adoption of the constitution of the United States, all persons born in this country became citizens of the respective States within whose jurisdiction they were born, by the rule of the common law, unless where they were prevented from becoming citizens by the constitution or statutes of the place of their birth.” American Jurist and Law Magazine, January, 1834 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “Before our Revolution, all free persons born within the dominions of the King of Great Britain, whatever their color or complexion, were native-born British subjects; those born out of his allegiance were aliens. . . . Upon the Revolution, no other change took place in the law of North Carolina than was consequent upon the transition from a colony dependent on an European King to a free and sovereign State; . The term ‘citizen,’ as understood in our law, is precisely analogous to the term ’subject’ in the common law, and the change of phrase has entirely resulted from the change of government. The sovereignty has been transferred from one man to the collective body of the people, and he who before as a ’subject of the king’ is now ‘a citizen of the State.” State v. Manuel, 4 Dev. & Bat. 20, 24-26 (1838) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “It requires all senators to be thirty years old, and prohibits any but a natural born subject from being president.” State v. Foreman, 16 Tenn. 256, 335–36 (1835). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “and that no person except a natural born subject can be a governor of a State, or President of the United States.” The Law Library, Vol. 84, pg. 50 (1854) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “The common law principle of allegiance was the law of all the States at the time of the Revolution and at the adoption of the Constitution, and, by that principle, the citizens of the United States are, with the exceptions before mentioned, such only as are either born or made so, born within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States or naturalized by the authority of law, either in one of the States before the Constitution or, since that time, by virtue of an act of the Congress of the United States. The right of citizenship never descends in the legal sense, either by the common law or under the common naturalization acts. It is incident to birth in the country, or it is given personally by statute. The child of an alien, if born in the country, is as much a citizen as the natural born child of a citizen, and by operation of the same principle…. But the law of France rejects the principle of the English law, and of our own laws, that birth within the limits and jurisdiction of France, makes a Frenchman, or a natural-born citizen or subject of France, absolutely,…” Horace Binney, American Law Register, 2 Amer.Law Reg.193, 203, 204, 206, 208 (February 1854). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “Alligience”: It is natural, acquired, or local. Natural allegiance is such as is due from all men born within the United States; acquired allegiance is that which is due by a naturalized citizen. It has never been decided whether a citizen can, by expatriation, divest himself absolutely of that character. Bouvier Law Dictionary (1843) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “That all natural born citizens, or persons born within the limits of the United States, and all aliens subject to the restrictions hereinafter mentioned, may inherit real estate and make their pedigree by descent from any ancestor lineal or collateral…” January 28, 1838, Acts of the State of Tennessee passed at the General Assembly, pg. 266 (1838) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “The term citizen, was used in the constitution as a word, the meaning of which was already established and well understood. And the constitution itself contains a direct recognition of the subsisting common law principle, in the section which defines the qualification of the President… The only standard which then existed, of a natural born citizen, was the rule of the common law, and no different standard has been adopted since. Suppose a person should be elected President who was native born, but of alien parents, could there be any reasonable doubt that he was eligible under the constitution? I think not. ” Lynch vs. Clarke (NY 1844) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “Every person, then, born in the country, and that shall have attained the age of thirty-five years, and been fourteen years a resident within the United States, is eligible to the office of president.” Lysander Spooner, The Unconstitionality of Slavery, pg. 119 (1845) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “It is the very essence of the condition of a natural born citizen, of one who is a member of the state by birth within and under it, that his rights are not derived from the mere will of the state.” The New Englander, Vol. III, pg. 434 (1845) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “This is called becoming naturalized; that is, becoming entitled to all the rights and privileges of natural born citizens, or citizens born in this country.” Andrew White Young, First lessons in Civil Government, pg. 82 (1856). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “The first section of the second article of the Constitution uses the language, ‘a natural-born citizen.’ It thus assumes that citizenship may be acquired by birth. Undoubtedly, this language of the Constitution was used in reference to that principle of public law, well understood in this country at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, which referred citizenship to the place of birth.” Justice Curtis, dissenting, Dredd Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “The Constitution itself does not make the citizens, (it is. in fact,made by them.) It only intends and recognizes such of them as are natural—home-born—and provides for the naturalization of such of them as were alien—foreign-born—making the latter, as far as nature will allow, like the former. …” ‘ Attorney General Bates, Opinion of Citizenship, (1862) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “All persons born in the allegiance of the king are natural-born subjects, and all persons born in the allegiance of the United States are natural-born citizens. Birth and allegiance go together. Such is the rule of the common law, and it is the common law of this country, as well as of England. There are two exceptions, and only two, to the universality of its application. The children of ambassadors are in theory born in the allegiance of the powers the ambassadors represent, and slaves, in legal contemplation, are property, and not persons.” Justice Swayne, United States v. Rhodes, 1 Abbott, US 28 (Cir. Ct. Ky 1866) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “in like manner every one who first saw the light on the American soil was a natural-born citizen ; but the power of naturalization, which, under the king, each colony had claimed to regulate by its own laws, remained under the confederacy with the separate states.” George Bancroft, History of the United States, from the Discovery of the American Continent: The American Revolution., pg. 439 (1866) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “Every person born within the United States, its Territories, or districts, whether the parents are citizens or aliens, is a natural-born citizen of the United States in the sense of the Constitution…Natural-born subjects are such as are born within the dominions of the crown of England; that is, within the ligeance, or, as it is generally called, the allegiance of the King; and aliens are such as are born out of it.” …… “It makes a man a subject in England, and a citizen here, and is, as Blackstone declares, ‘founded in reason and the nature of government’ … The English Law made no distinction … in declaring that all persons born within its jurisdiction are natural-born subjects. This law bound the colonies before the revolution, and was not changed afterward.” ‘ Rep. Wilson, 1866 Civil Rights Act debates. 10 Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., lst Sess. 1115, 1117 (1866) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “By the common law of England, which is in force in this country, and which may be assumed as also the law of all the European states, persons within the jurisdiction of the government, or limits of the territory, are either natives, or aliens. Natives are those born within the national jurisdiction; aliens are born without that jurisdiction. The exception to this almost universal rule, are the foreign-born children of ambassadors, who are assumed to carry with them the jurisdiction of the nation which they represent. As a general principle of the English and American law, all native-born, free persons, of whatever age, sex, and parentage, are citizens.” John Norton Pomeroy, Introduction to Municipal Law, pg. 419 (1865) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “As matter of law, does anybody deny here, or anywhere, that the native-born is a citizen, and a citizen by virtue of his birth alone ?” Senator Morrill, Cong. Globe, 1st Sess. 39th Congress, pt. 1, pg. p. 570 (1866). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “Mr. Thayer, of Pennsylvania, said that the bill was an enactment simply declaring that all men born upon the soil of the United States shall enjoy the fundamental rights of citizenship.” Cong. Globe, 1st Sess. 39th Congress, pt. 1, p. 1151 (1866). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “What is a citizen but a human being who, by reason of his being born within the jurisdiction of a government, owes allegiance to that government?” Congressman Broomall, Cong. Globe, 1st Sess. 39th Congress, pt. 1, pg. 1262 (1866). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “A Natural Born Citizen.” — Not made by law or otherwise, but born… “Natural Born Citizen” recognizes and reaffirms the universal principle common to all nations, and as old as political society, that the people born to a country do constitute the nation, and, as individual, are natural members of the body politic…Every person born in the country is, at the moment of birth, prima facie a citizen.” George Washington Paschal, THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES DEFINED AND CAREFULLY ANNOTATED, (1868) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “By the terms of the Constitution he must have been a citizen of the United States for nine years before he could take a seat here, and seven years before he could take a seat in the other House ; and, in order to be President of the United States, a person must be a native-born citizen. It is the common law of this country, and of all countries, and it was unnecessary to incorporate it in the Constitution, that a person is a citizen of the country in which he is born….I read from Paschal’s Annotated Consitutution, note 274: “All persons born in the allegiance of the king are natural born subjects, and all persons born in the allegiance of the United States are natural born citizens. Birth and allegiance go together. Such is the rule of the common law, and it is the common law of this country as well as of England. There are two exceptions, and only two, to the universality of its application. The children of ambassadors are, in theory, born in the allegiance of the powers the ambassadors represent, and slaves, in legal contemplation, are property, and not persons.” Sen. Trumbull (author or the Civil Rights Act of 1866), April 11, 1871, Cong. Globe. 1st Session, 42nd Congress, pt. 1, pg. 575 (1872) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “All persons born in the limits and under the actual obedience of the United States were its “natural-born citizens”; and it is in this sense that the phrase is used in section one of article two of the constitution.” John Joseph Lalor, Cyclopædia of political science, political economy, and of the political history of the United States, Volume 2, pg. 948 (1883) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “So, also, any person born of a foreign father in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, may be a natural- born American citizen, if he choose. In these doubtful cases the person may choose the country of his father or the country of his birth. So that a person may be a natural-born citizen of the United States, without being a native of the United States.” Albert Orville Wright, An Exposition on the Constitution of the United States, (31st Ed.) (1888). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “There is no uniform rule among nations by which the nationality of effect of birth a person may be determined from the place of his birth. England and America claim all who are born within their dominions as natural-born subjects or citizens, whatever may have been the parents’ nationality.” Henry Wheaton, Elements of International Law, 1889 edition. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “Natural-born Citizens, those that are born within the jurisdiction of a national government; i.e., in its territorial limits, or those born of citizens, temporarily residing abroad.” William Cox Cochran, The student’s law lexicon: a dictionary of legal words and phrases : with appendices, Pg. 185 (1888) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “Citizens are either natural-born or naturalized. One who is born in the United States or under its jurisdiction is a natural-born citizen without reference to the nationality of his parents. Their presence here constitutes a temporary allegiance, sufficient to make a child a citizen.” Theodore Dwight, Edward Dwight, Commentaries on the law of persons and personal property, pg. 125 (1894) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “Citizens may be divided into two classes : natural born and alien born. Natural-born citizens are of two kinds: native born—those born of either American or alien parents within the jurisdiction of the United Slates, and foreign born—those born of American parents without the Jurisdiction of the United States.” John Clark Ridpath, The standard American encyclopedia of arts, sciences, history, biography, geography, statistics, and general knowledge, Volume 8, pg 3058 (1897). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “The children of aliens, born in America or in England, are entitled to all the privileges of natural-born citizens.” William Story, Edmund Bennett, A treatise on the law of sales of personal property, pg. 17 (1871) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “The common law rule upon the subject of citizenship by birth 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 under the articles of confederation, and continued to prevail under the constitution as originally adopted;8 with this qualification, however, that, prior to the adoption of the fourteenth amendment to the constitution, neither the negroes of the African race, who, at the time of the Declaration of Independence, had been imported into this country and sold and held as slaves, nor their descendants, whether they had become free or not, were embraced within the rule.” Chrisenberry Lee Bates, Federal Procedure at Law: A Treatise on the Procedure in Suits at Common Law, pg. 195 (1908). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “[t]he Constitution of the United States, as originally adopted, uses the words ‘citizen of the United States,’ and ‘natural-born citizen of the United States…the Constitution nowhere defines the meaning of these words….in this as in other respects, it must be interpreted in the light of the common law, the principles and history of which were familiarly known to the framers of the constitution…The interpretation of the Constitution of the United States is necessarily influenced by the fact that its provisions are framed in the language of the English common law, and are to be read in the light of its history.” U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark,169 U.S. 649,654 (1898) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “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. 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.” U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark,169 U.S. 649,658 (1898) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “The notion that there is any common law principle to naturalize the children born in foreign countries, of native-born American father and mother, father or mother, must be discarded. There is not, and never was, any such common law principle. Binney on Alienigenae, 14, 20; 2 Amer.Law Reg.199, 203…Here is nothing to countenance the theory that a general rule of citizenship by blood or descent has displaced in this country the fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within its sovereignty.” U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark,169 U.S. 649,671,673 (1898) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “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.” U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark,169 U.S. 649,693 (1898) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “It was contended by one of the learned counsel for the United States that the rule of the Roman law, by which the citizenship of the child followed that of the parent, was the true rule of international law, as now recognized in most civilized countries, and had superseded the rule of the common law, depending on birth within the realm, originally founded on feudal considerations….There is, therefore, little ground for the theory that, at the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, there as any settled and definite rule of international law, generally recognized by civilized nations, inconsistent with the ancient rule of citizenship by birth within the dominion….Here is nothing to countenance the theory that a general rule of citizenship by blood or descent has displaced in this country the fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within its sovereignty…..So far as we are informed, there is no authority, legislative, executive or judicial, in England or America, which maintains or intimates that the statutes (whether considered as declaratory or as merely prospective) conferring citizenship on foreign-born children of citizens have superseded or restricted, in any respect, the established rule of citizenship by birth within the dominion.” U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark,169 U.S. 649, 666, 668, 673, 674 (1898). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “Every person born -within the United States, its territories or districts, whether the parents are citizens or aliens, is a natural born citizen, within the sense of the Constitution, and entitled to all the rights and privileges pertaining to that capacity. Town of New Hartford v. Town of Canaan, 5 Atl. SCO, 3(!4, 54 Conn. 39 (citing Rawle, Const. U. S. p. 86). See also. Lynch v. Clarke (N. Y.) 1 Sandf. Ch. 584, 2 Kent, Comni. (9th Ed.): McKay v. Campbell (U. S.) 16 Fed. Cas. 157; Field, Int Code, 132; Morse, Citizenship, 203).” Judicial and Statutory Definitions of Words and Phrases, pg. 4664 (1904) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “As anyone born in the dominion of the king was ipso facto the king’s subject, so anyone born on American soil now became a natural born American citizen.” Samuel Macclintock, Alienage And Citizenship, Illinios Law review, pg.503 (1908) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “The rule of the common law is that citizenship turns upon the place of birth, and that one born within the jurisdiction, even though of alien parents, is a citizen by birth, or, as the Constitution expresses it, a natural-born citizen; and this rule has been very generally recognized and enforced by all the departments of the government.” Raleigh C. Minor, Address on the Citizenship of Individuals …, PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INTERNATIONAL LAW (1910) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “NATURAL BORN CITIZENS. A natural-born citizen of the United States is one who is a citizen by reason of his place of birth or the citizenship of his father. The two classes of naturalized and natural born citizens are thus mutually exclusive, and together constitute the entire citizen body of the United States. ” Andrew C. McLaughlin & Albert Bushnell Hart ( Ed.), CYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN GOVERNMENT Vol. 2 (1914). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “NATURAL-BORN CITIZEN. A person whose citizenship derives from the nation where he or she was born.” Kenneth Robert Redden, Enid Veron, Modern Legal Glossary, pg. 263 (1980) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “Natural-born citizens can acquire that status by being born in the United States, on the basis of jus soli…” William Carroll, Norman Smith, American Constitutional Rights: cases, documents, and commentary, pg. 130 (1991) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “The requirement that the president be a “natural born” citizen implies that the framers recognized the principle of jus soli. According to this doctrine – literally meaning the “right to land or ground” – citizenship results from birth within a national territory.” Kermit Hall, The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States, pg. 24 (1992) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “Americans are accustomed to the concept of automatic citizenship granted to persons born in the United States, who are called “natural-born citizens…” Joseph M. Bessette, American Justice, Volume 1‎ – Page 129 (1996) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “Natural-born citizens are people born in the United States.” David Heath, the Presidency of the United States, pg. 8 (1999) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “Natural Born Citizenship Clause. The clause of the U.S. Constitution barring persons not born in the United States from the presidency.” Black’s Law Dictionary, eigth edition (1999) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “Under the longstanding English common-law principle of jus soli, persons born within the territory of the sovereign (other than children of enemy aliens or foreign diplomats) are citizens from birth. Thus, those persons born within the United States are “natural born citizens” and eligible to be President. Much less certain, however, is whether children born abroad of United States citizens are “natural born citizens” eligible to serve as President …”In United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), the Supreme Court relied on English common law regarding jus soli to inform the meaning of “citizen” in the Fourteenth Amendment as well as the natural-born-citizenship requirement of Article II, and noted that any right to citizenship through jus sanguinis was available only by statute, and not through the Constitution. ” Edwin Meese, et al, THE HERITAGE GUIDE TO THE CONSTITUTION (2005) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “What is a natural born citizen? Clearly, someone born in the United States or one of its territories is a natural born citizen. ? Statement of Senator Orrin Hatch, United States Senate Judiciary Committee, October 5, 2004. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “It is clear that a child born within the physical borders of the United States and subject to the jurisdiction of the United States is eligible to run for President.” Statement of Senator Nickles, United sates Senate Judiciary Commitee, October 5, 2004. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “If the Panama Canal Zone was sovereign U.S. territory at the time of Senator McCain’s birth, then that fact alone would make him a “natural born” citizen under the well-established principle that “natural born” citizenship includes birth within the territory and allegiance of the United States…” Letter by Theodore Olson and Laurence Tribe, reported in 154 Cong. Rec. S3645-46 (Apr. 30, 2008). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “United States citizens born to parents subject to United States jurisdiction in one of the fifty states are unquestionably natural born citizens. Even the narrowest reading of the Fourteenth Amendment dictates that all current states are in the United States. This is true regardless of parental citizenship, unless a child’s parents are protected by the full immunity extended to foreign diplomats and their families, or they are enemy combatants.” Sarah Helene Duggin & Mary Beth Collins, ‘Natural Born’ in the USA: The Striking Unfairness and Dangerous Ambiguity of the Constitution’s Presidential Qualifications Clause and Why We Need to Fix It, 85 B.U. L. Rev. 53, 90-91 (2005). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “United States citizens born to parents subject to United States jurisdiction in one of the fifty states are unquestionably natural born citizens. Even the narrowest reading of the Fourteenth Amendment dictates that all current states are in the United States. This is true regardless of parental citizenship, unless a child’s parents are protected by the full immunity extended to foreign diplomats and their families, or they are enemy combatants.” Sarah Helene Duggin & Mary Beth Collins, ‘Natural Born’ in the USA: The Striking Unfairness and Dangerous Ambiguity of the Constitution’s Presidential Qualifications Clause and Why We Need to Fix It, 85 B.U. L. Rev. 53, 90-91 (2005) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “It is now generally assumed that the term “natural born” is synonymous with “native born.” “It [therefore] is clear enough that native-born citizens are eligible [for the presidency] and that naturalized citizens are not.” There is a general agreement among commentators, whether or not they are advocates of an originalist approach to constitutional interpretation, that “whether someone born of American parents abroad would be considered a natural born citizen” is an open question.” Lawrence Freedman, An Idea Whose Time Has Come–The Curious History, Uncertain Effect, and Need for Amendment of the “Natural Born Citizen” Requirement for the Presidency, 52 St. Louis U. L.J. 137, 143 (2007) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “The most straightforward argument is that “natural born” was a well recognized term of art, based upon the most commonly applied principle of traditional British common law dating from the 16th century. These distinguished between citizenship by birth and being “natural born” for purposes of such questions as the right to inherit and the right to hold certain offices. Under those common law rules children of British citizens born anywhere other than on English soil generally were eligible for birthright citizenship; however, they didn’t generally inherit their English parents own “natural-born” status. Because of these disabilities, Parliament made occasional exceptions, granting some (but not all) of the rights of “natural born” citizens to persons born overseas. If we applied the common law rules in force at the time of the Founding, McCain fails to meet the “natural born” requirement for the Presidency. John McCain was not born on American soil; rather, he was born at a U.S. military base in the Panama Canal Zone.” J. Rebekka Bonner, “Why John McCain Needs The Living Constitution” on Balkinization, May 15, 2008 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “The undebated provision that the President be “natural born” was, however, again ambiguous. As Madison observed in 1789, there were two conceptions of citizenship by birth available to the framers. Birth derived its “force” as a “criterian of allegiance … sometimes from place,” as in the common-law tradition of jus soli expounded by Coke and Blackstone, and “sometimes from parentage,” from birth to one or more citizens, a position known as the jus sanguinis and endorsed by Vattel and Burlamaqui…..But in keeping with the nativistic tone of the debate over these clauses, and not with the Constitution’s predominant liberal republicanism, it was almost certainly the common-law criterion of place of birth that the delegates meant to install, as Madison later asserted. It thus perpetuated the older view of “natural” civic membership in a way that conformed to xenophobic sentiments.” Rogers M. Smith, CIVIC IDEALS: CONFLICTING VISIONS OF CITIZENSHIP IN U.S. HISTORY (Yale University Press, 1999) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “It is clear that under the English common law this term ‘natural born’ meant ‘native born.’… It was this genuine ‘native-born’ citizen … to which the framers of the Constitution referred when they used the term ‘natural-born citizens’ as one of the qualifications for the President” McElwee, unpublished article reprinted in 113 Cong. Rec. 15,875 at 15,876 (1967) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “Native: A natural-born subject or citizen; a citizen by birth; one who owes his domicile or citizenship to the fact of his birth within the country referred to.” Black’s Law Dictionary 6th Addition (1994). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “Throughout this country’s history, the fundamental legal principle governing citizenship has been that birth within the territorial limits of the United States confers United States citizenship. The Constitution itself rests on this principle of the common law. …The phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” was meant to reflect the existing common law exception for discrete sets of persons who were deemed subject to a foreign sovereign and immune from U.S. laws, principally children born in the United States of foreign diplomats, with the single additional exception of children of members of Indian tribes. Apart from these extremely limited exceptions, there can be no question that children born in the United States of aliens are subject to the full jurisdiction of the United States. And, as consistently recognized by courts and Attorneys General for over a century, most notably by the Supreme Court in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, (6) there is no question that they possess constitutional citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment.” Walter Dellinger (AAG), Statement before the Subcommittees on Immigration and Claims and on the Constitution of the House Committee on the Judiciary (Dec. 13, 1995) http://nativeborncitizen.wordpress.com/natural-born-quotes/

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