Martin Van Buren was the first President born in the United States: The First Seven Presidents Were Not American Citizens at Birth

History Facts ^ | 06/22/24

[SeekAndFind]

None of the United States Presidents in the first 61 years of the nation’s existence were actually born in the country they led. The reason for this is simple enough: The first seven U.S. Presidents — George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, and Andrew Jackson — were all born before 1776, and therefore before the United States was an independent nation.

The first President who could actually claim to have been born a U.S. citizen was the country’s eighth President, Martin Van Buren. Van Buren was born in 1782 in Kinderhook, New York, which also makes him the first native of the Empire State to be elected to the presidency.

Before becoming President in 1837, Van Buren served as Vice President under Andrew Jackson (who himself was born in 1767 in a territory disputed between the British colonies of North and South Carolina). Jackson’s endorsement helped elevate Van Buren to the nation’s highest office.

However, his presidency was marked by a severe economic downturn, which sunk his bid for a second term. He was defeated in his campaign for reelection by William Henry Harrison, who was born in Virginia in 1773, making him the last U.S. President to come into the world a subject of the British Empire.

English was Martin Van Buren’s second language.

Martin Van Buren may have been the first President born in the United States, but his first language wasn’t English — it was Dutch. His family’s roots in Kinderhook, New York, extended back before the nation’s founding, and even before New York was a British colony. Van Buren could trace his heritage to Dutch immigrants who settled in the Kinderhook area in 1631, when New York was known as New Netherland. Even after control of the colony passed from the Dutch to the English, Kinderhook remained an overwhelmingly Dutch community, and the young Van Buren grew up speaking the Dutch language until he learned English in school, and became fluent in his teens.

[frog in a pot]

I think the arguments based on this article have diverged from the real point.

Agreed

The question, to me, is who became a natural born citizen via the ratification of the Constitution and who was already a natural born citizen via the Declaration of Independence? Who were the "gap" citizens?

What difference might that have on today's reading of the Const? I do not believe either document altered or influenced the definition of NBC.

At the founding of the nation, the citizenship of their parents was irrelevant -- all original citizens were, by definition, natural born..

With that one could conclude you do not believe NBC requires parent citizens; in effect we are arguing different issues.

Where I believe your statement that I cited at the top is misguided (and your whole post, frankly) is the notion that "they became citizens" via this clause in the Constitution.

You are correct, it was a poor choice of words. It should have read “their citizenship was recognized during the Constitutional Convention.

Think of it this way: the Constitution has a ban on "ex post facto" laws…
Therefore, this exception to the "natural born citizen" requirement was necessary to keep it from becoming an ex post facto punishment to recent citizens who were governed under the Articles of Confederation and the constitutions of the several states.

IMO, not relevant because the latter documents had no laws regarding the creation of a federal presidency. Those earlier citizens had no vested interests, etc.

The "natural born citizen" requirement to become President would only be fully operative to people born in the United States after June 21, 1788.

Agreed (after stripping "fully" and correcting the date to the last day of the Convention.

Now let’s go to perhaps the core of your argument. You state:
At the founding of the nation, the citizenship of their parents was irrelevant –

Bear in mind that we had just concluded a bloody and expensive war with England, that our countryside's were full of subjects yet loyal to the Crown with long family histories, along with that John Jay’s July 25, 1787 letter to G Washington during the Convention warning of the need to avoid foreign influence.

That letter reportedly triggered an expansion of the Art II eligibility clause from “citizen” alone to include the NBC clause.

In your opinion, has parental citizenship of our nation’s Commander-in-Chief ever been relevant?

[Political Junkie Too]

With that one could conclude you do not believe NBC requires parent citizens; in effect we are arguing different issues.

You are applying a too narrow context to my statement.

I said "At the founding of the nation..." My point was that "everyone" was a natural born citizen at that time and so parental claims were irrelevant AT THAT TIME.

IMO, not relevant because the latter former documents had no laws regarding the creation of a federal presidency. Those earlier citizens had no vested interests, etc.

It is relevant because whether the citizens knew they had an interest or not, it was there. The Constitution had to be self-consistent; it could not ban ex post facto laws and then include an ex post facto law. People who were citizens prior to the ratification of the Constitution were grandfathered into the natural born citizen qualification for President, even if they were first generation children of immigrant parents.

...and correcting the date to the last day of the Convention.

No, I was correct. The Constitution specifically says "at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution," not the conclusion of the Convention. The Constitution was signed in convention on September 17, 1987 but wasn't ratified by the states until June 21, 1788 after New Hampshire ratified it.

In your opinion, has parental citizenship of our nation’s Commander-in-Chief ever been relevant?

I refer you back to my earlier statement. I was speaking about the first seven Presidents and anyone who was a citizen at the Founding. If you want to take my point further, all living "parents" became natural born, too, because they were also original citizens.

Honestly, I take this last quote of yours as a taunt. Surely you read my earlier post about land being a proxy for parentage in the early days of restricted travel. Surely you've read my prior posts on all the other NBC threads where I cited Thomas Paine's writings about the natural born citizen requirement in his 1791 book The Rights of Man, and surely you're familiar with my posts on the Preamble that lays out the thinking of the Framers regarding ensuring the security of ourselves and our Posterity, so you should already be familiar with my position on the natural born citizen requirement.

-PJ

[MosesKnows]

The headline.

[DiogenesLamp]

Semantics, matters not.

You are trying to brush it aside as a "semantic" issue, and it is not. There is, and always was, a very real and distinct difference between a "Citizen" and a "Subject."

"Subject" is Monarchist, and requires all the inherent foundational principles of Monarchy, up to and including "perpetual allegiance" to the King. Common law only deals with Monarchy principles, not Republican Principles.

Therefore, *OUR* "citizen" is not based on Common law, it is based on natural law principles consistent with Republican government.

Our understanding of "Citizen" comes from Vattel, not British common law regarding "Subjects."

[DiogenesLamp]

Furthermore, you ignored the fact that they had declared independence, and I had failed to mention that, which stated they were no longer subjects of the King of England, but were instead now citizens of the emerging nation of The United States of America.

I have not ignored that at all. This aspect which you now mention is precisely my point. We ceased being "Subjects", defined by British Common Law, and we became "Citizens", defined by Natural Law.

You will note that the Declaration of Independence itself specifies we are following "the law of nature, and of nature's God..."

We tossed out British Common law regarding the nature of our citizens. Some people revived it (William Rawle, et al) and led others to believe it was the model for "citizen", but this is incorrect. Our model for "citizen" is natural law as articulated by Vattel.

[DiogenesLamp]

You introduce an interesting nuance of the definition of NBC. The citizenship of the initial several presidents, of course, is not relevant - they became citizens the minute the gavel finally dropped in the 1787 Constitutional Convention.

July 4, 1776. The courts have consistently held that American citizenship began the day Congress officially declared Independence from England.

One such court case is Inglis v. Trustees of Sailor's Snug Harbor, 28 U.S. 99 (1830).

[SeekAndFind]

Nothing in the headline mentioned George Washington

[Robert DeLong]

Because you incorrectly stated that they went from being subjects to being citizens when the Constitution was created, but as I stated that transformation occurred under the Declaration of Independence. By the time of the adoption of the Constitution, they were citizens, who migrated into the now established nation of the United States of America as not merely citizens, but Natural Born Citizens if indeed they were born into the lands now defined as the United States of America, even if that birth had occurred prior to the actual existence as the now named landmass.

Martin Van Buren, was the first president born in the country under that name change. But History.com is trying very hard to undercut our first 7 presidents as not being NBC, do so as they are leftists who want to put the NBC qualification into question.

[DiogenesLamp]

Because you incorrectly stated that they went from being subjects to being citizens when the Constitution was created, but as I stated that transformation occurred under the Declaration of Independence.

I said no such thing. You are mistaking what other people have said for something I said. I have always maintained that we became "citizens" under the Declaration of Independence.

[Robert DeLong]

I said no such thing.

I am not going to follow the conversation back to prove that you did.

[frog in a pot]

Thank you for the link.

Per the first sentence in your quote of my remarks, the other poster did present an avenue that had been bothering me for a while and I wanted to pursue that point but the thread went off the tracks.

That is that there was an abundance of NBC presidential candidates available when the Const. was first approved and signed. That caused me to wonder why they thought it necessary to provide what could be called a "mere citizen" option in their NBC clause.

There could be a couple of reason, but I have finally decided (I think) that fact really doesn't lend anything to our current effort to determine which of two NBC theories should be applied.

I prefer the parental citizenship definition, naturally; with the national security perspective they had vis-a-vis England there is no reason we should conclude they chose the weaker of the two definitions.

[DiogenesLamp]

There could be a couple of reason, but I have finally decided (I think) that fact really doesn't lend anything to our current effort to determine which of two NBC theories should be applied.

If you haven't seen it before, this page from an early 1800s Pennsylvania Law book pretty much verifies that the intent was to adopt the Vattel meaning of "natural born citizen." The book flat out states that it comes from Vattel.

[Jane Long]

🙃

[Political Junkie Too]

the other poster did present an avenue that had been bothering me for a while and I wanted to pursue that point but the thread went off the tracks.

Hey... I resemble that remark!

-PJ

[Mr. Jeeves]

Well, exactly. A guy born in a tiny village in Africa who actually believes in the Constitution and Bill of Rights will make a far better President than a white progressive born in Massachusetts. The NBC thing is wildly overrated.

[MosesKnows]

George Washington was among the first seven.