When did this happen? I have been participating in this debate for at least three years and I will tell you that it has not happened. I have seen attempts to do so - but I have never seen one that did so without willful intellectual dishonesty, selective citation, ignoring of historical material of the greatest relevance, elevation of nonsense and the application of utter illogic.
FATHER... please. We no longer live in a patriarchy. Women's rights abolished legal patriarchal responsibility.
This comment is truly ignorant. The word that Vattel uses is (in English) PARENTS. Sure, that includes fathers as a necessary subset, and in colonial America fathers were paramount. But the rules never was either parent. It was both. Even if the rule was fathers only, that that would still be true as we don't get to play fast and loose with the meanings and intentions of the Framers just because our sensibilities have changed over the years.
Do I think that Obama will be removed before the end of his term? Of course not. I am a realist. But just because the majority is lazy, cowardly, weak minded or disinterested does not mean that we have to play deaf dumb and blind to the plain meaning of the Constitution.
He had 2 chances to bring up Obama Sr not counting all of the court cases that have been dismissed without comment. Just curious, when was the last time a Supreme Court overturned an action by a sitting Chief Justice? Seems like something that doesn't happen everyday...
“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 (1795)
“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)
“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 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 (1829)
6. Upon principle, therefore, I can entertain no doubt, but that by the law of the United States, every person born within the dominions and allegiance of the United States, whatever were the situation of his parents, is a natural born citizen.
Lynch v Clarke, 1844
US law has never followed Vattel on citizenship, nor would Vattel have expected it to. Vattel wrote on international law, and made the point that what he was writing didn’t hold true in 1758 England.