Because this keeps getting brought up again and again. Agree or disagree if you want.
Thank you so much, altho I am not sure it will help :(
Levin is wrong.
He is willing to throw out the Constitution to make Cruz seem eligible.
The Senate resolution for McCain cited TWO citizen parents as the reason he was eligible.
1. Constitutional Convention – “Born a Citizen” v “Natural Born Citizen”:
When developing a new U.S. Constitution for the United States of America, Alexander Hamilton submitted a suggested draft on June 18, 1787. In addition, he also submitted to the framers a proposal for the qualification requirements in Article II as to the necessary Citizenship status for the office of President and Commander in Chief of the Military.
Alexander Hamilton’s suggested presidential eligibility clause:
No person shall be eligible to the office of President of the United States unless he be now a Citizen of one of the States, or hereafter be born a Citizen of the United States.
Many of the founders and framers expressed fear of foreign influence on the person who would in the future serve as President of the United States since this particular office was singularly and uniquely powerful under the proposed new Constitution. This question of foreign influence was elevated when John Jay considered the additional power granted to the Presidency during times of war, that is when he serves as Commander in Chief of the military. Jay felt strongly that whoever served as President and Commander In Chief during times of war must owe their sole allegiance to and only to the United States.
Because this fear of foreign influence on a future President and Commander in Chief was strongly felt, Jay took it upon himself to draft a letter to General George Washington, the presiding officer of the Constitutional Convention, recommending/hinting that the framers should strengthen the Citizenship requirements for the office of the President.
John Jay was an avid reader and proponent of natural law and particularly Vattel’s codification of natural law and the Law of Nations. In his letter to Washington he said that the Citizenship requirement for the office of the commander of our armies should contain a “strong check” against foreign influence and he recommended to Washington that the command of the military be open only to a “natural born Citizen”. Thus Jay did not agree that simply being a “born Citizen” was sufficient enough protection from foreign influence in the singular most powerful office in the new form of government. Rather, Jay wanted to make sure the President and Commander In Chief owed his allegiance solely to the United States of America. He wanted another adjective added to the eligibility clause, i.e., ‘natural’. And that word ‘natural’ goes to the Citizenship status of one’s parents via natural law.
Below is the relevant change to Hamilton’s proposed language detailed in Jay’s letter written to George Washington dated 25 July 1787:
Permit me to hint, whether it would be wise and seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government; and to declare expressly that the Command in Chief of the American army shall not be given to nor devolve on, any but a natural born Citizen.
See a transcription of Jay’s letter to Washington at this link.
Upon receiving Jay’s letter, General Washington passed on the recommendation to the convention where it was adopted in the final draft. Thus Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution, the fundamental law of our nation reads:
Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of U.S. Constitution as adopted 17 September 1787:
No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
There you have the crux of the issue now before the nation and the answer.
Hamilton’s suggested presidential citizenship eligibility requirement was that a Citizen simply had to be ‘born a Citizen’ of the USA, i.e., a Citizen by Birth. But that citizenship status was overwhelmingly rejected by the framers as insufficient. Instead of allowing any person “born a citizen” to be President and Commander of the military, the framers chose to adopt the more stringent requirement recommended by John Jay, i.e., requiring the Citizen to be a “natural born Citizen“, to block any chance of future Presidents owing allegiance to other foreign nations or claims on their allegiance at birth from becoming President and Commander of the Military.. Therefore, the President of the United States must be a “natural born citizen” with unity of citizenship and sole allegiance to the United States at birth. [SOURCE CREDIT]
So why do we keep hearing about the President only needing to be “born a citizen”? Well, let’s start with the fallacy of the 14th amendment trumping Article II -
2. The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted 9 July 1868:
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
The intent and purpose of the (14th) amendment was to provide equal citizenship to all Americans either born on U.S. soil or naturalized therein and subject to the jurisdiction thereof. It does not grant “natural born Citizen” status. It only confers “citizen” status, as that is the exact word used by the Amendment itself and that is the same word that appears in Article I, II, III, and IV of the Constitution. It just conveys the status of “citizen,” and as we learned from how the Framers handled the Naturalization Acts of 1790 and 1795, being a “citizen” does not necessarily mean that one is a “natural born Citizen.”
The Fourteenth Amendment only tells us who may become members of the community called the United States, i.e., those born on U.S. soil or naturalized and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are U.S. citizens. The amendment was needed because under Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1856), slaves and their descendents, whether free or not, were not considered as being members of that community even though born on U.S. soil and unlike the American Indians subject to the jurisdiction thereof. But the amendment only allowed these slaves and their descendents to become a member of the U.S. community by making them U.S. citizens. Once those persons or anybody else (e.g. Wong Kim Ark) so became a member of the U.S. community (became a U.S. citizen by birth on U.S. soil or through naturalization), then that person could join with another U.S. citizen and procreate a child on U.S. soil who would then be an Article II “natural born Citizen.”
Hence, during the Founding, the original citizens created the new Constitutional Republic. Through Article II’s grandfather clause, they were allowed to be President. Their posterity would be the “natural born Citizens” who would perpetuate the new nation and its values. These “natural born Citizens,” born after the adoption of the Constitution, would be the future Presidents.
Subsequently, a “natural born Citizen” was created by someone first becoming a member of the United States (a U.S. citizen) by birth on its soil to a mother and father who were U.S. citizens or if not so born then through naturalization, and then joining with another similarly created U.S. citizen to procreate a child on U.S. soil. The product of that union would be an Article II “natural born Citizen.”
After the Fourteenth Amendment, it became sufficient to be a citizen if one were merely born on U.S. soil or naturalized and subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S. That U.S. citizen would then procreate with another similarly created U.S citizen and produce a “natural born Citizen.”
As we can see, becoming a U.S. citizen is only the first step in the process of creating a “natural born Citizen.” The second step is the two U.S citizens procreating a child on U.S. soil. It is these “natural born Citizens” who can someday be President or Vice President of the United States. Stated differently, a President must be a second generation American citizen by both U.S. citizen parents. A Senator or Representative can be a first generation American citizen by naturalization or birth. It is the extra generation carried by a President which assures the American people that he/she is born with attachment and allegiance only to the United States.
http://www.art2superpac.com/issues.html
“I still don’t think Obama was born in Hawaii, but it is a moot point, because at least one parent was a US citizen”
We discussed this ad nauseam at the time. His mom was not 18 so she could not confer US citizenship.
Here’s my understanding of this pretty piece of mischief:
0bie was touted to have been African or Indonesian-born in one of his college applications. (I am not going to post links; you can easily look it up.) He used his supposed foreign-born status to obtain cheap college. (I’ve known people who did this. In the 1980s someone actually told me to do it.)
His so-called birth cert says he was born in Hawahawahawaii.
So either he is foreign born as noted in his college app OR he was born in Hawaii.
You can’t have your ham/pineapple pizza and eat it, too.
There might be a statute to that effect but it still must align with The U. S. Constitution. Has it ever been challenged before the USSC? If not, the statute exists in a legal limbo - the operating law that could have its foundation pulled out from underneath with a USSC opinion against it. Personally, I don’t think that the statute would be overruled by the USSC.
BTTT
If the law is so clear, then why did Barry commit fraud by producing fake birth docs?
Let’s not forget, Larry Sinclair’s boyfriend was adopted by an Indonesian. There is no record of Barry Soetoro ever applying for US citizenship, which means he is still an Indonesian.
It has also been adjudicated multiple times that someone born on U.S. soil to parents that are legally within the United States are natural born citizens (and this also matches the definition of the term from the time it was written).
It has not been adjudicated this is the case if the parents were not legally within the US.
If one of your parents was a US citizen, which is the case in all four examples, you are a natural born US citizen.
That simply isn't true, and the statute says no such thing. If you have only one citizen parent and are born overseas, there are a variety of other requirements laid out in the statute if you are to be considered to be a citizen at birth. That being said, I 100% agree with the idea that "natural born citizen = citizen at birth, for all the reasons that have been stated exhaustively here for more than a decade.
I seem to remember reading about when John Quincy Adams’s wife was expecting a child while her husband was abroad on a diplomatic mission, that the family made it a point to get Mrs. Adams back to mainland USA so that the child was born on American soil and was thus eligible to be a future POTUS. I think Levin is wrong.
By this definition another notable American Natural Born Citizen was Winston Churchill. Too bad no one told him, he might have been able to beat Roosevelt.
Nope.
I’m surprised anybody still gives a whit about birtherism stuff. Kind of like revisiting the Paris Hilton trial. But to each his own. - shrug -
LOL! I give you credit for posting this.
Well he’s simply wrong.
At this point, ideology, not kings, is more important than birthplace. I would trust legal immigrants who understand, respect and adhere to the Constitution over those with Mayflower ancestors on both sides of their family who hate America, its principles and its ideals.
And if you believe that, you're wrong too.
Statutes cannot rewrite the meaning of natural born citizen.
It requires a constitutional amendment to do that.
Nowhere in that statute does it define "natural born Citizen". And since the constitution predated that statute, it's important to determine what the founding fathers meant when they used the term "Natural born citizen". Because you can't define away the words of the constitution by statute.
This Harvard Law review article agrees with you. but it doesn't really list the "All the sources routinely used to interpret the Constitution " it claims supports that definition.
On the Meaning of “Natural Born Citizen”
However, the 1758 Laws of Nations which was known to be available to the founding fathers clearly defines it as " The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens."
http://www.kerchner.com/protectourliberty/goatsledge/20081212%20Law%20of%20Nations.pdf
So until a court of law (SCOTUS) actually defines the original intent of the term, there is room for various interpretations.
It matters, because nobody is checking eligibility for office. We've had a green card holder get on the ballots for President in the general election in several states. And though he likely would be challenged and ruled ineligible, he siphoned off legitimate votes.
Roger Calero green card holder for president on ballots in 2004 and 2008
We need the requirements clearly defined and both Federal and states should be verifying eligibility prior to the ballots with enough time for challenges and appeals to be raised.