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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

Posted on 06/22/2024 8:28:44 AM PDT by 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.


TOPICS: History; Society
KEYWORDS: citizen; epigraphyandlanguage; genealogy; godsgravesglyphs; helixmakemineadouble; irrelevant; martinvanburen; naturalborn; president; readtheconstitution; speciousargument; theybirthedus
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To: SeekAndFind
Thomas Jefferson was born in Va.
21 posted on 06/22/2024 8:50:54 AM PDT by Robert DeLong
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To: SeekAndFind
This is not how the Founders thought of it. They were natural born citizens of Virginia etc. and hence natural born citizens of the United States.

"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"

No one thought that Washington was ineligible under the first part of this clause. The second part was arguably added for Alexander Hamilton, not for the seven first presidents.

https://joyinger.expressions.syr.edu/citizenship/origins-and-interpretation-of-the-presidential-eligibility-clause-in-the-u-s-constitution/

22 posted on 06/22/2024 8:51:45 AM PDT by edwinland
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To: SeekAndFind
The author is hiding something. There’s no mention in the article of the Van Buren Boys, a notorious NYC street gang that terrorized George Costanza.


23 posted on 06/22/2024 8:53:28 AM PDT by Leaning Right (The steal is real.)
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To: SeekAndFind
John Adams was born in Quincy Massachusetts
24 posted on 06/22/2024 8:54:31 AM PDT by Robert DeLong
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To: SeekAndFind
James Madison was born in King George Va.
25 posted on 06/22/2024 8:55:51 AM PDT by Robert DeLong
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To: TBP

That has to be what the peculiar phrase, “natural born citizen,” means. The United States were formed from the original 13 colonies, so in the transitional generation or two after the war, people born in the colonies but before the United States was created had to be deemed eligible for the Presidency.


26 posted on 06/22/2024 8:56:06 AM PDT by maro (MAGA!)
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To: SeekAndFind
James Monroe was born in Westmore County Va.
27 posted on 06/22/2024 8:58:28 AM PDT by Robert DeLong
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To: SeekAndFind
John Quincy Adams like his father was born in Quincy Massachusetts also
28 posted on 06/22/2024 9:02:26 AM PDT by Robert DeLong
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To: bigbob

Are you referencing natural Born Citizen


29 posted on 06/22/2024 9:04:13 AM PDT by Steven Tyler
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To: SeekAndFind

Much ado about nothing. Those early elected men were born in the New World Raised in the New World and culturally Americans.


30 posted on 06/22/2024 9:05:05 AM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar ( Government is not reason, it is not eloquence-it is force!--G. Washington)
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To: xoxox
Perhaps, but I’ll bet they shared common ancestry with most of the poplulation.

Doesn't fly with me. I'll take Vivek as president over Elizabeth Warren or Gavin Newsom.
31 posted on 06/22/2024 9:07:16 AM PDT by AnotherUnixGeek
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To: del griffith

I would like to visit the Van Buren place in that area. It would be part of a trip in which I would also go and see Fort Ticonderoga, then the Van Buren in Kinderhook, and also the FDR library and museum in Hyde Park. Believe that the Vanderbilt mansion is also near to that area as well (would make for another interesting place to see).


32 posted on 06/22/2024 9:08:59 AM PDT by OttawaFreeper ("The Gardens was founded by men-sportsmen-who fought for their country" Conn Smythe, 1966 )
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To: Organic Panic
Hmmmm. Setting up the precident to elect illegal aliens as president?

Seems possible but the anti-MAGA's have already been successful in their attempt to disregard the unmistakable language the founders used.

The founders clearly understood there could be no NBC as of the first day of the new nation and allowed for everyday Citizens to occupy the highest office in the country.

See tagl;ine.

33 posted on 06/22/2024 9:10:16 AM PDT by frog in a pot ("a (NBC), or Citizen of the (US), at the time of the Adoption of this Const." - has a meaning.)
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To: AnotherUnixGeek

“ I’ll take Vivek as president over Elizabeth Warren or Gavin Newsom.”

BTTT


34 posted on 06/22/2024 9:12:41 AM PDT by Chgogal (To paraphrase Biden: You vote Democrat? Then you ain't smart.)
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To: AnotherUnixGeek

So would I.


35 posted on 06/22/2024 9:17:13 AM PDT by No name given (Anonymous is who you’ll know me as)
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To: SeekAndFind
Andrew Jackson was born between North & South Carolina

So, while technically bone were bornin America due to the fact that America didn't exist, all that preceded Martin Van Buren, were every bit as American born as was Martin Van Buren. In fact some were instrumental with the creation of the nation that Martin Van Buren was born into.

So it's a moot point that is trying to make it seem that they were not Natural Born Citizens, but they were indeed Natural Born Citizens. They were not born in a foreign nation and then migrated and were citizens of the and what would later undergo a name change as a new nation on planet earth.

36 posted on 06/22/2024 9:17:35 AM PDT by Robert DeLong
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To: SeekAndFind
I didn't read this article after it erroneously stated that George Washington wasn't born in America.

George Washington was born on February 22, 1732, on his father's plantation on Pope's Creek in Virginia's Westmoreland County.

George Washington's parents were also born in America and that fact fulfills the constitutional requirement that presidential candidates must be "natural born citizens", that is to say, both parents are citizens.

37 posted on 06/22/2024 9:18:20 AM PDT by MosesKnows
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To: MosesKnows

RE: I didn’t read this article after it erroneously stated that George Washington wasn’t born in America.

Where in the article did it say that?


38 posted on 06/22/2024 9:20:43 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: AnotherUnixGeek

Was refuting the presumptive argument — that first prez’s were “foreigners.”


39 posted on 06/22/2024 9:22:25 AM PDT by xoxox
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To: maro

proto-natural born citizens, so to speak. Born in the United States before there was a United States.


40 posted on 06/22/2024 9:24:26 AM PDT by TBP (Decent people cannot fathom the amoral cruelty of the Biden regime.)
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