Posted on 06/22/2024 8:28:44 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Baraq Obama has only one thing in common with the first 7 presidents.
5.56mm
"Subjects" before, "Citizens" after. (After 1776.)
They deliberately changed the term of attachment to the nation from Monarchy to Republican.
Nobody was born a "Citizen" prior to 1776. (Except people in Switzerland, the only Republic in the world at the time.)
The residents of Van Buren County, Missouri, were so upset over Van Buren's Free Soil stance that they changed the name of their county to Cass County (after Lewis Cass, the Democrat nominee in 1848).
I think Ragusa (Dubrovnik) was a Republic in 1776.
Perhaps, but not necessarily. An interesting footnote on who is or is not a citizen in the early days of the country is the curious case of Thomas Paine.
Paine was born in England in 1737, and emigrated to the United State (Pennsylvania) in November 1774 with the help of Benjamin Franklin. As a pamphleteer, Paine wrote Common Sense in 1776 to inspire the colonists to support independency, and between 1776 and 1783 he wrote a series of pamphlets called The American Crisis to keep Americans supportive of the Revolutionary War.
Did this make Paine a citizen of the United States because he had emigrated here prior to the Declaration of Independence and was present throughout the entire war for independence? In 1781, the state of New York recognized Paine's services to the nation by granting him an estate in New Rochelle, NY (there is a museum in his honor there today).
As a Founding Father, Paine held several prominent positions in the newly formed United States:
A close friend of Morris in the Continental Congress was Gouverneur Morris (no relation) of New York. This would become a factor later in Paine's life
Back to 1781 and the Laurens mission to France, he and Paine left Boston for France on February 11, 1781 and arrived on March 9 where they met up with Benjamin Franklin. The three of them convinced King Louis XVI to provide additional funding and military support for the Revolutionary War. Laurens and Paine returned to the United States on June 6.
In 1783, Paine bought his only piece of real estate, a house in New Jersey that he lived in on and off for the rest of his life. In 1785, Paine was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society.
After the conclusion of the Revolutionary War, Paine began dabbling with scientific experimentation leading him to design a new style of iron bridge. A version of his design was built across the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia. In 1787, Paine returned to Paris with a wooden model of his new bridge design, and then to London where he had a 110 foot iron model forged and constructed for public display in May 1790. This personal project of Paine's took him out of the country during the drafting and ratification of the United States Constitution.
Does this mean that Paine was not a citizen of the United States because he was out of the country during the ratification of the Constitution?
In December 1793, Paine was again in France supporting the French Revolution and was arrested by Robespierre as a foreign conspirator during the Reign of Terror. The Minister of the United States to the French Government just happened to be none other than Gouverneur Morris, who declined to rescue Paine from prison stating that he was not an American citizen. Paine was eventually released after James Monroe replaced Gouverneur Morris as the American Minister.
Fast-forward to May 1807, Thomas Paine was denied the right to vote in the New Rochelle NY election by local election official Elisha Ward, who cited the refusal of Gouverneur Morris to "reclaim" Paine when he was imprisoned in France. Paine wrote a letter to former New York Governor and now Vice President George Clinton asking for relief, accusing Ward and three other people of being Tories who supported the British during the Revolutionary War who eventually became election inspectors in New Rochelle.
Ultimately, Paine got no relief, likely because he offended so many people during the post-Revolution and French Revolution periods.
It is interesting to see how "fragile" American citizenship was in the early days. When you compare Thomas Paine to Robert Morris, they were born within a few years of each other, both emigrated to the United States (Morris as a teen, Paine as an adult), and both served in the Continental Congress, Morris served in the United States Senate. Yet it was Paine's citizenship that was questioned and ultimately rescinded, if not legally then politically by ostracization from powerful people who turned against Paine. It is also an early example of the "long knives" of politicians who remember slights from long ago and exact their revenge much later when the opportunity arises, as with Paine and the two Morrisses.
Here is the full text of the letter that Thomas Paine wrote to George Clinton. It mentions the subject matter in the original post.
To George Clinton May 4, 1807NEW YORK,
RESPECTED FRIEND:
Elisha Ward and three or four other Tories who lived within the British lines in the Revolutionary war, got in to be inspectors of the election last year at New Rochelle. Ward was supervisor. These men refused my vote at the election, saying to me: "You are not an American; our minister at Paris, Gouverneur Morris, would not reclaim you when you were imprisoned in the Luxembourg prison at Paris, and General Washington refused to do it." Upon my telling him that the two cases he stated were falsehoods, and that if he did me injustice I would prosecute him, he got up, and calling for a constable, said to me, "I will commit you to prison." He chose, however, to sit down and go no farther with it.
I have written to Mr. Madison for an attested copy of Mr. Monroe's letter to the then Secretary of State Randolph, in which Mr. Monroe gives the government an account of his reclaiming me and my liberation in consequence of it; and also for an attested copy of Mr. Randolph's answer, in which he says: "The President approves what you have done in the case of Mr. Paine." The matter I believe is, that, as I had not been guillotined, Washington thought best to say what he did. As to Gouverneur Morris, the case is that he did reclaim me; but his reclamation did me no good, and the probability is, he did not intend it should. Joel Barlow and other Americans in Paris had been in a body to reclaim me, but their application, being unofficial, was not regarded. I then applied to Morris. I shall subpoena Morris, and if I get attested copies from the Secretary of State's office it will prove the lie on the inspectors.
As it is a new generation that has risen up since the declaration of independence, they know nothing of what the political state of the country was at the time the pamphlet Common Sense appeared; and besides this there are but few of the old standers left, and none that I know of in this city.
It may be proper at the trial to bring the mind of the court and the jury back to the times I am speaking of, and if you see no objection in your way, I wish you would write a letter to some person, stating, from your own knowledge, what the condition of those times were, and the effect which the work Common Sense, and the several members of the Crisis had upon the country. It would, I think, be best that the letter should begin directly on the subject in this manner: Being informed that Thomas Paine has been denied his rights of citizenship by certain persons acting as inspectors at an election at New Rochelle, etc.
I have put the prosecution into the hands of Mr. Riker, district attorney, who can make use of the letter in his address to the Court and Jury. Your handwriting can be sworn to by persons here, if necessary. Had you been on the spot I should have subpoenaed you, unless it had been too inconvenient to you to have attended.
Yours in friendship,
THOMAS PAINE.
One day earlier, Paine sent a letter to James Madison seeking documents supporting his description of events relayed in the original post.
To James Madison May 3, 1807NEW YORK,
SIR:
When Mr. Monroe came Minister from the United States to the French Government I was still imprisoned in the Luxembourg by the Robespierre party in the convention. The fall of Robespierre took place a few days before Mr. Monroe reached Paris, and as soon as Mr. Monroe could make his own standing good, which required time on account of the ill conduct of his predecessor Gouverneur Morris, he reclaimed me as an American citizen, for the case was, I was excluded from the convention as a foreigner and imprisoned as a foreigner. I was liberated immediately on Mr. Monroe's reclamation.
Mr. Monroe wrote an official account of this to the secretary of state, Mr. Randolph, and also an account of what he had done for Madame LaFayette who was also imprisoned, distinguishing the one to be done officially, and the other, that for Madame LaFayette, to be done in friendship. In Mr. Randolph's official answer to Mr. Monroe's letter, he says as nearly as I recollect the words, "The President [Mr. Washington] approves what you have done in the case of Mr. Paine." My own opinion on this matter is, that as I had not been guillotined Washington thought it best to say what he did.
I will be obliged to you for an attested copy of Mr. Monroe's letter and also of Mr. Randolph's official answer so far as any parts of them relate to me. The reason for this application is as follows,
Last year 1806 I lived on my farm at New Rochelle, State of New York; a man of the name Elisha Ward was supervisor that year. The father of this man and all his brothers joined the British in the war; but this one being the youngest and not at that time old enough to carry a musket remained at home with his mother.
When the election (at which the supervisor for the time being presides) came on at New Rochelle last year for Members of Congress and Members of state assemblies, I tendered my tickets separately distinguishing which was which, as is the custom; each of which Ward refused, saying to me "You are not an American Citizen." Upon my beginning to remonstrate with him, he replied, "Our minister at Paris, Gouverneur Morris, would not reclaim you as an American Citizen when you were imprisoned in The Luxembourg at Paris, and General Washington refused to do it."
I accordingly commenced a prosecution against him last fall and the court will set the 20th of this May. Mr. Monroe's letter to the secretary and the secretary's official answer are both published by Mr. Monroe in his views of the conduct of the executive printed by Benjn Franklin Bache. But as a printed book is not sufficient evidence an attested copy from your office will be necessary.
As to Gouverneur Morris, the fact is, that he did reclaim me on my application to him as Minister, but his reclamation of me did me no good, for he could hardly keep himself out of prison, neither did he do it out of any good will to me.
THOMAS PAINE.
-PJ
Semantics, matters not.
The Declaration of Independence is a foundational document of the United States, adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776. It declared the 13 American colonies’ independence from Great Britain and established the United States of America as a sovereign nation.
As such, they were no longer subjects of the King, but were instead citizens of a country they had established, as far as they were concerned. They still had to fight the King to solidify that proclamation, but that doesn't change the fact that they were no longer subjects, but were rightfully citizens. When that become solidified by their defeat of the British. Their citizenship in the United States carried forth as if they had always been citizens, nut mere subjects of the King of England, and they possessed the authority to ordain that to be so.
So, you may be done, but you aren't the winner of this debate.
Thus citizens before, and citizens after the Constitution was crafted and adopted by all of the states, of the now established United States of America.
New York City traces its origins to Fort Amsterdam and a trading post founded on Manhattan Island by Dutch colonists around 1624. The settlement was named New Amsterdam in 1626 and was chartered as a city in 1653. The city came under English control in 1664 and was temporarily renamed New York after King Charles II granted the lands to his brother, the Duke of York,[24] before being permanently renamed New York in November 1674. New York City was the U.S. capital from 1785 until 1790.
New York City traces its origins to Fort Amsterdam and a trading post founded on Manhattan Island by Dutch colonists around 1624. The settlement was named New Amsterdam in 1626 and was chartered as a city in 1653. The city came under English control in 1664 and was temporarily renamed New York after King Charles II granted the lands to his brother, the Duke of York,[24] before being permanently renamed New York in November 1674. New York City was the U.S. capital from 1785 until 1790.
“Natural born citizen” didn’t mean anything different from “citizen from birth” to them.
Ramaswamy, was born in the U.S. to two noncitizens, which means he gained citizenship through birthright, though he noted that his parents immigrated to the country legally.That means his situation is problematic as I see it. He travelled back to India with his non-citizen parents many times through the years since he was born.
No matter what may come, he would have to have divided loyalties.
The strawman of comparing Vivek Ramaswamy to Gavin Newsom has nothing to do with the situation. The situation is Vivek Ramaswamy against any natural born citizen and in that he is lacking.
You claiming that does not make it true.
Nor does your claiming the opposite. It’s a gray area that the founders didn’t resolve. Still, the best guess is that they were following Anglo-Saxon legal thinking rather than French or Swiss (assuming that what Vattel has been interpreted as saying even was standard French or Swiss legal doctrine, which isn’t certain either).
All that can be true and yet my point, as carefully drafted (”This is not how the Founders thought of it.”) is accurate, as can be shown by the working of the Constitution:
Here is the dilemma that I find in a statement like this.
Today, "birthright" is interpreted to mean citizenship at birth (born here).
I would suggest that in the 1790s, travel in and out of the United States was impossible for most citizens. Only the most wealthy (or ambassadors of the United States) could afford passage on sailing ships to England or France for a six-week voyage under hardship conditions. If someone did manage to obtain such passage, they would stay in Europe for years before returning to the United States.
Regarding jus soli or jus sanguinis, people's lineage to the land was well-known. I would think that to be true of most people in the 1790s; the townspeople of any town in the post-colonial United States would have known who begat whom through the generations (they used to document that in family Bibles), and so "land" was a proxy for citizenship by parentage, too.
That means they knew who the newcomers were, too. Many people could trace their ancestry back to the first settlers of the colonies. Given that people didn't travel far distances back then, "land" and "parentage/ancestry" were synonymous in practice.
It's my belief that "born here" as the sole determinant in "natural born citizen" in 1789 had a completely different interpretation than "born here" does in 2024.
-PJ
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. On the other hand, what is relevant is the citizenship of their parents
Arguably the initial presidents could have been NBC's had they been born to parents who were citizens of the ratifying states prior to 1787 - but clearly the founders did not agree with that view and thought they had to provide two separate options with the latter applicable to only those candidates alive at the adoption. If a candidate was not alive on the first day of the nation, the NBC requirement applied.
B. Modern Scholarly Interpretations of Early American UnderstandingsThe Natural Born Citizen Clause as Originally Understood1. The Common Law
As this Article demonstrates, the evidence points to only one conclusion: the
Framers constitutionalized the common law notion of “natural born”—not the
notion expanded upon by the English naturalization statutes—into Article II.
Nonetheless, most commentators currently addressing this question contend
that the Framers adopted a broader view. These authors posit that children
born abroad to American parents satisfy the constitutional requirement.181 In
addition to relying on a mistaken understanding of the English statutes, current
American pundits suggest a few other creative arguments to support their view.
However, none can be substantiated.
First, numerous scholars who claim that the Framers adopted an expansive
view of “natural born” use the example of John Jay’s children.182 Jay, of
course, was the man who suggested to George Washington that the
Commander-in-Chief should be a natural born citizen.183 In the words of one
modern jurist, “[c]ertainly Jay did not mean to bar his own children, born in
Spain and France while he was on diplomatic assignments, from legal
eligibility to the presidency.”184 However, this reasoning does not withstand
scrutiny. Assuming arguendo that Jay had presidential aspirations for his
children, the common law was no bar to them. Children born to those on
diplomatic missions abroad were natural born citizens.185
Another attempt to establish the broader interpretation points to a different
presidential requirement for support: the candidate must have lived in the
United States for a minimum of fourteen years.186 The writer, Gordon,
speculates that “[i]f the Framers were speaking only of the native-born, this
limitation would hardly have been necessary.”187 This conclusion ignores the
alternative explanation that everyone born in the United States is a natural born
citizen, even those children whose parents are only here temporarily. The
residency requirement ensures that such children could not become candidates
for the American presidency as adults after being raised in a different
country.188 Without considering this rationale, the commentator opines, “[The
residency requirement] seems consistent with a supposition that the ‘natural-
born’ qualification was intended to include those who had acquired United
States citizenship at birth abroad.”189 In short, the author rejects an
explanation completely in accord with the understanding expressly stated by
the Framers in favor of a hypothetical explanation that “seem[ingly]” backs up
his own “supposition,”190 without offering a shred of evidence.
A third approach includes an author who attempts to establish that the
Constitution incorporates the broader view of “natural born.” The writer
correctly notes that it was “common in the states after independence, upon the
adoption of their constitutions and statutes, to incorporate both the common
law of England, as well as the statutory laws adopted by Parliament and
applicable in the colonies up until a particular date.”191 These state laws are
known as “reception statutes.”192 Directly following this accurate assertion,
the author incorrectly implies that the federal government also adopted a
modified version of the common law:There is thus some argument and indication that it was common for a “modified” English common lawmodified by long-standing provisions of English statutory law applicable in the coloniesto be among the traditions and bodies of law incorporated into the laws, applications, usages, and interpretations in the beginning of our nation.193The commentator, citing the Gordon article,194 predictably makes the same
mistake. Like Gordon, the writer concludes that the broad view of the term
“natural born” was long-standing in England.195 However, more importantly,
the author fails to mention that Congress did not enact a reception statute.
Therefore, that the states adopted some English statutes is irrelevant when
discussing the meaning of the Constitution.
Several authors claim the language of the Clause is confusing. They suggest
that perhaps the Framers did not adopt the common law meaning of the phrase
or that the original meaning is unknowable. For example, one states that “[t]he
notion of a ‘natural born citizen’ was likely a term of art derived from the idea
of a ‘natural born subject’ in English law . . . . But the Constitution speaks of
‘citizens’ and not ‘subjects,’ introducing uncertainties and ambiguities . . . .”196
As discussed above, however, early Americans considered the two terms to be
analogous.
Other pundits speculate that “natural born” is not synonymous with “native
born.”197 Natives are those individuals born within the country’s borders, and
therefore, use of the term “natural” instead indicates to these authors that the
Framers must have meant something different. With no evidence, these writers
assume the phrase includes children born abroad to American citizens.198 Of
course, myriad statements by early American jurists use the terms “natural
born” and “native born” interchangeably.199 In fact, Chancellor Kent defined
“natives” as “what the common law terms natural-born subjects.”200
I think the arguments based on this article have diverged from the real point.
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?
The first seven Presidents were citizens of their respective states on the day the nation was born, making them automatically natural-born when the nation was naturally born. At the founding of the nation, the citizenship of their parents was irrelevant -- all original citizens were, by definition, natural born.
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. They did not. This was an eligibility clause for the presidency, not a grant of citizenship to people in the United States at the time of ratification. All it did was grant people who became citizens in their states between July 5, 1776 and June 21, 1788 an exception to the "natural born citizen" requirement to become President.
Think of it this way: the Constitution has a ban on "ex post facto" laws, meaning that no law can be passed that retroactively puts someone in conflict with it. The "natural born citizen" requirement to become President can be seen as an ex post facto law to anyone who was a first-generation child of immigrants to the United States after July 4, 1776. 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.
The "natural born citizen" requirement to become President would only be fully operative to people born in the United States after June 21, 1788.
-PJ
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