Ted Cruz and that ‘natural born citizen’ requirement: What were the Founding Fathers afraid of?

Washington Post ^ | January 15 at 8:47 AM | Fred Barbash

[RC one]

The Founding Fathers’ insistence that the presidency be limited to “natural born citizens” was based on their openly expressed fear that “foreigners were disloyal,” as law professor Malinda L. Seymore has written.

As Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution declared: “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 ….” (Italics added) A loophole for themselves, as Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story wrote 46 years later, was created “out of respect to those distinguished revolutionary patriots, who were born in a foreign land, and yet had entitled themselves to high honours in their adopted country. A positive exclusion of them from the office would have been unjust to their merits, and painful to their sensibilities.”

[Up Yours Marxists]

True. However, we all need to come to grips with the reality the qualifications of the presidency was never intended to be vetted by We the People. Congress was satisfied with Obama’s royal ancestry.

The founding fathers assured the elite royalty families would be protected at the highest levels of government in order to continue to rule us peons. Otherwise they wouldn’t have instituted the electoral college.

[meadsjn]

Quite the opposite.

[Cold Heat]

A natural born citizen, according to the founder's understanding, is someone born on US soil as evidenced by ...

You can stop right there. Congress gave no definition.

Original intent requires you to look into what natural born meant in British common law prior to the Constitution, which should tell you what they thought it meant when they used the term to provide some security for the fledgling country against intentional exploitation by a foreign power.

If you do that you will most certainly see that your definition is incomplete and therefor wrong.

The definition in common law does not exclude foreign born with a citizen Father. natural born is defined not as a place, but as a status that is transferrable from father to son. In some cases the old common law writings mentioned both birthright citizenship, which is a place, and conferred citizenshipwhich is a status and not dependant on place, but the status of the parent.

Constitutionally, in more modern times the exclusion of the mother would be unconstitutional due to the equal protection rights that came with constitutional status for women.

Thus Ted Cruz received his status from his mother, a natural born citizen of the US.

Original intent also forces you to conclude that this was all about national security at the time. Children of British expats in the US, born in the US would be natural born citizens if your definition was valid. So what kind of security would that be?

In addition to conferring natural born status, the parent needed to have resided in the US for 14 years prior, and needed to be of majority age. (21years)

This provided the country with enough security to nearly guarantee that a foreign power would not easily exploit the natural born citizen, a prerequisite to run for office as president of the US.

[Up Yours Marxists]

By all means, name all the presidents who cannot be traced back to a king.

If what you say is true, there should be many presidents and vice presidents who are related to John Q Public.

[Cold Heat]

Folks, this is not rocket science.

OK....lets assume we take that definition where two citizen natural born parents are required. If so....then trump does not qualify for president either.

[GeaugaRepublican]

Do you think there is any less risk today of foreign agents infiltrating our executive branch and undermining our sovereignty and our constitution than there was in 1787?

_______

You are correct. We need a nationalist outlook now more than ever. It is surprising how many don’t seem to care. We should not allow our candidates to ignore this requirement. Of course others might say “”What difference... at this point, what difference does it make?

[Godebert]

Original intent requires you to look into what natural born meant in British common law prior to the Constitution, which should tell you what they thought it meant when they used the term to provide some security for the fledgling country against intentional exploitation by a foreign power.

Original intent? I got your original intent, right here:

Note the reference to Natural Law in the first sentence of our Declaration of Independence.

It is crystal clear that the Founding Fathers used the Natural Law definition of 'natural born Citizen' when they wrote Article II. By invoking "The Laws of Nature and Nature's God" the 56 signers of the Declaration incorporated a legal standard of freedom into the forms of government that would follow.

President John Quincy Adams, writing in 1839, looked back at the founding period and recognized the true meaning of the Declaration's reliance on the "Laws of Nature and of Nature's God." He observed that the American people's "charter was the Declaration of Independence. Their rights, the natural rights of mankind. Their government, such as should be instituted by the people, under the solemn mutual pledges of perpetual union, founded on the self-evident truth's proclaimed in the Declaration."

The Constitution, Vattel, and “Natural Born Citizen”: What Our Framers Knew

The Laws of Nature and of Nature's God: The True Foundation of American Law

The Supreme Court of the United States has never applied the term “natural born citizen” to any other category than “those born in the country of parents who are citizens thereof”.

MINOR V. HAPPERSETT IS BINDING PRECEDENT AS TO THE CONSTITUTIONAL DEFINITION OF A NATURAL BORN CITIZEN.

Neither the 14th Amendment nor Wong Kim Ark make one a Natural Born Citizen

The Harvard Law Review Article Taken Apart Piece by Piece and Utterly Destroyed

Citizenship Terms Used in the U.S. Constitution - The 5 Terms Defined & Some Legal Reference to Same

"The citizenship of no man could be previous to the declaration of independence, and, as a natural right, belongs to none but those who have been born of citizens since the 4th of July, 1776."....David Ramsay, 1789.

A Dissertation on Manner of Acquiring Character & Privileges of Citizen of U.S.-by David Ramsay-1789

The Law of Nations or the Principles of Natural Law (1758)

The Laws of Nature and of Nature's God: The True Foundation of American Law

Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Volume 20 - Use of The Law of Nations by the Constitutional Convention

[meadsjn]

Hamilton held the attitude you suggest, for a while, that aristocrats should rule over the people. He was disabused of this attitude by the vast majority of the framers, and went on to write his 1/3 of the Federalist Papers, fully supporting the concept of “We The People” as the ultimate sovereign entities in these united States.

[meadsjn]

That is not the definition used by the Framers. English common law was not part of this discussion during the Constitutional Convention. Vattel's book was retrieved especially for the discussion, likely at the recommendation of Thomas Jefferson, who was in France that entire summer.

The Vattel definition used by the Framers: a natural born citizen is one who is born in the country (jus solis), to parents (plural) who are citizens (jus sanguinis), at the time of the birth.

[Cold Heat]

Your understanding of natural or common law at the time is incorrect.

I’ll leave it at that.

[RC one]

You can stop right there. Congress gave no definition.

The definition can be partially discerned from article II, section I, clause 5 easily enough. this understanding was elaborated on by St. George Tucker (who passed the Virginia Bar on the verge of the Revolution). He said:

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, which, wherever it is capable of being exerted, is to he dreaded more than the plague. The admission of foreigners into our councils, consequently, cannot be too much guarded against; their total exclusion from a station to which foreign nations have been accustomed to, attach ideas of sovereign power, sacredness of character, and hereditary right, is a measure of the most consummate policy and wisdom. …The title of king, prince, emperor, or czar, without the smallest addition to his powers, would have rendered him a member of the fraternity of crowned heads: their common cause has more than once threatened the desolation of Europe. To have added a member to this sacred family in America, would have invited and perpetuated among us all the evils of Pandora’s Box.

Of Article II, section I, clause 5, Supreme Court Justice Joseph story said this 46 years after the adoption of the constitution:

A loophole for themselves was created out of respect to those distinguished revolutionary patriots, who were born in a foreign land

It doesn't get much clearer than that my friend.

[Up Yours Marxists]

Hamilton was but one of many. If you have some free time, I recommend diving into the convention notes found at the library of congress. It’s quite fascinating learning what the framers really thought during the construction of the Constitution.

Either way, Hamilton got his wish. All but 1 president had royal blood tracing back to the English crown on his father’s side, and that president was none other than Martin Van Buren. Even though his direct paternal bloodline traced back to the Dutch crown, his grandfather on his mother’s side was linked to William the Conqueror. Ironic? Coincidence? Or design. You choose.

[Godebert]

Your understanding of natural or common law at the time is incorrect. I'll leave it at that.

I'll take that as you waving a white flag, and then running away.

[Cold Heat]

The Vattel definition used by the Framers: a natural born citizen is one who is born in the country (jus solis), to parents (plural) who are citizens (jus sanguinis), at the time of the birth.

This is hilarious!

You do know that you are disqualifying Trump with that definition, do you not?

[Cold Heat]

Nope, if you want my argument on this before I get back to this forum, you can look at my comments over the last couple of day or so,,,

If not, I have to go.

[bjorn14]

Yes he does. His father was born in the the US and is mother was naturalized about 5 years before he was born.

[Godebert]

You do know that you are disqualifying Trump with that definition, do you not?

Both of Donald Trump's parents were United States Citizens at the time of his birth. He qualifies as a natural born Citizen.

[Godebert]

I accept your unconditional surrender.

[meadsjn]

Both of Trump’s parents were citizens at the time of his birth, and he was born in the USA.

[cynwoody]

“What were the Founding Fathers afraid of?”
Obama.

The Founders were concerned about the likes of Maximilian I of Mexico.

Never in their wildest dreams could they have imagined that a traitor such as Obama would surface and twice be elected President!

There is no way to write a filter into a constitution that would reliably filter out such vermin.