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To: Jeff Winston
If they didn't have natural born citizenship already, by virtue of being born here.

That is not what the naturalization statutes say, that is what YOU say.

Whenever a person was born in any of the states, whether his parents were citizens or not, that person was a natural born citizen.

The power to define a uniform rule of naturalization is given by the Constitution to the Federal government, states' citizenship statutes are immaterial.

ALL of the early States of the United States generally adopted the common law in all areas in which it didn't conflict with their own statutes.

Again: immaterial - and for the same reason.

The United States has not adopted English common law.

It is not declared by the Constitution to be a part of the law of the United States.

There is no statute declaring it to be a part of the law of the United States.

There is no judicial power to declare it to be a part of the law of the United States.

The constitution declares, that "this constitution and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made or which shall be made under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land." - The English common law is nowhere in sight.

114 posted on 04/02/2013 3:13:04 PM PDT by Ray76 (Do you reject Obama? And all his works? And all his empty promises?)
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To: Ray76
The power to define a uniform rule of naturalization is given by the Constitution to the Federal government, states' citizenship statutes are immaterial.

And that power to define a uniform rule of naturalization has never been held to apply to any person born in the United States and subject to United States jurisdiction.

123 posted on 04/02/2013 4:44:01 PM PDT by Jeff Winston
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To: Ray76
The United States has not adopted English common law.

That's certainly true in a broad and general sense, on the federal level, although most states have adopted a good deal of the common law.

But Alexander Hamilton and the Supreme Court have both told us that the Constitution was written in the language of the legal system that was in place at the time, and the terms in it were derived from our English heritage and the English common law.

And Vice Chancellor Sandford in Lynch v. Clarke (1844) would disagree with that statement in regard to natural born citizenship.

“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. ”

The United States Supreme Court approvingly quoted Sandford's decision in US v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), and they said essentially the same thing: That the same rule had always applied, first in England, then in the Colonies, then in the United States after Independence, then in the United States after the establishment of the Constitution.

125 posted on 04/02/2013 4:48:24 PM PDT by Jeff Winston
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