Posted on 12/07/2008 10:47:56 PM PST by The Watcher
What might the phrase “natural-born citizen” of the United States imply under the U.S. Constitution? The phrase has always been obscure due to the lack of any single authoritative source to confer in order to understand the condition of citizenship the phrase recognizes. Learning what the phrase might have meant following the Declaration of Independence, and following the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, requires detective work. As with all detective work, eliminating the usual suspects from the beginning goes a long way in quickly solving a case.
(Excerpt) Read more at federalistblog.us ...
The author has researched well. Although not based on case law, the logic and reasoning are clear and easy to follow and seem flawless.
An interesting read but I disagree. Natural Born Citizen means anyone who receives citizenship by birth, and not through a naturalization process.
I get this from two documents by John Jay and Hamilton provided on pg 888-889 of this paper, I think they prove beyond a reasonable doubt that anyone born a US citizen who didn’t renounce that citizenship, can be US president.
http://yalelawjournal.org/images/pdfs/pryor_note.pdf
Welcome to Free Republic.....
I think the case is compelling that it requires a person be a citizen without reliance upon any law.
That is, both parents being citizens, and birth where no other jurisdiction exists.
Those born in the US are citizens not by a law or statute, but by 14th amendment. Hence natural born citizens.
I concur, Natural born is the opposite of Naturalized. There are citizens and non-citizens. Of the citizens, you are either natural born or naturalized. This is not rocket science people.
Follow this: Obama was a dual citizen at birth by his own admission, so when his British/Kenyan citizenship expired he became solely U.S. thus naturalized not natural born ... cannot be natural born citizen if born with dividied citizenship.
Wrong, but nice try. Reach back tot he days of the founders and see what it was they were trying to acvoid in a POTUS ... divided loyalties. Having citizenship in two countries at birth is divided loyalties. If born on a ship at sea under no nation’s flag, what would determine if natural born or not? ... Both parents being American citizens would make the child a natural born citizen.
Well, at least we know if something happens and Obama does not get sworn in, he could go torture the Brits by trying to be Prime Minister!
I believe my link (pg 888-889) show the founders did not share your view of natural born citizenship. Furthermore, there is evidence that at least one former US president (Chester Arthur) was born of one non-US citizen.
The U.S. has never recognized dual citizenship. One is either a citizen or not a citizen. If one is a citizen, one is a citizen by birth (i.e., a natural born citizen), or by naturalization. There is not, nor has there ever been, a third “type” of citizenship.
Yes, the founders wanted to ensure that a President was wholly loyal to the United States, but they sought to do so by requiring that the President be a citizen from birth, not through naturalization.
Your argument sounds nice, but, frankly, it lacks Constitutional, statutory, historical, and case-law support of any kind.
I don’t no who this Jill Pryor is; her conclusions are nothing but Bull Crap. I doubt anyone has taken her writing in the Yale Law Journal seriously. It appears to me you pick a Loon to cite.
Why do you say that? Why not respond to Pryor’s argument instead of attacking the messenger by calling her a loon? Ad hominem attacks are rarely productive.
Sen. Lyman Trumbull, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, author of the Thirteenth Amendment, inserted the phrase:
“... All persons born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens.’ That means ‘subject to the complete jurisdiction thereof.’ What do we mean by ‘complete jurisdiction thereof?’ Not owing allegiance to anybody else. That is what it means ... Can you sue a Navajo Indian in court? Are they in any sense subject to the complete jurisdiction of the United States? By no means. We make treaties with them, and therefore they are not subject to our jurisdiction. If they were, we wouldn’t make treaties with them...It is only those persons who come completely within our jurisdiction, who are subject to our laws, that we think of making citizens; and there can be no objection to the proposition that such persons should be citizens ...”
Rep. John Bingham of Ohio, considered the father of the Fourteenth Amendment, confirms the understanding and construction the framers used in regards to birthright and jurisdiction while speaking on civil rights of citizens in the House on March 9, 1866:
” ... I find no fault with the introductory clause [S 61 Bill], 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...”
Read pg 888-889. I don’t care what this guy says. I care what Hamilton and John Jay said.
That is in fact the point of the lesson ... because Barack Obama by his own admission had British citizenship at birth that his father registered for him, Barack Obama could not be an American citizen naturalized until his British citizenship expired. You tell me the U.S. has never recognized dual citizenship (false, I have a cousin who is now naturalized here and still holds her Mexican citizenship) yet you expect that Barack Obama can claim British and American citizenship? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?
no = know
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