Leo’s case is different.
I’m not going to rehash his main point, plenty of relevant discussion out there.
Retroactively? Wouldn't they be making law?
-PJ
Great, so the kids of illegal aliens can run for President then.
Uh, no chance in Hell. The Supreme Court cannot amend the Constitution, and that is exacty what it would take for this to ever happen.
I have read at another thread that he may not be the biological son of Stanley Dunham. If he is not, he would not be a U. S. citizen regardless of the COLB or BC.
Rep. Bingham commenting on Section 1992 said it means “every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen.” This national law does not endow upon any person allegiance through birth alone as was the custom under the old English common law practice but only recognizes citizenship of those born to parents who do not owe allegiance to another nation. In other words, national law prevented the creation of conflicting dual citizenships between other nation’s citizens.
Secretary of State Bayard ruled under Section 1992 of U.S. Revised Statutes in 1885 that although Richard Greisser was born in the United States, his father at the time of his birth was a subject of Germany, and thus, Richard Greisser could not be a citizen of the United States. Furthermore, it was held his father was not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States under the Fourteenth Amendment.
The constitutional requirement for the President of the United States to be a natural-born citizen had one purpose according to St. George Tucker:
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.
Additionally, Charles Pinckney in 1800 said the presidential eligibility clause was designed “to insure … attachment to the country.”
What better way to insure attachment to the country then to require the President to have inherited his American citizenship through his American father and not through a foreign father. Any child can be born anywhere in the country and removed by their father to be raised in his native country. The risks would be for the child the return in later life to reside in this country bringing with him foreign influences and intrigues.
Therefore, we can say with confidence that a natural-born citizen of the United States means those persons born whose father the United States already has an established jurisdiction over, i.e., born to father’s who are themselves citizens of the United States. A person who had been born under a double allegiance cannot be said to be a natural-born citizen of the United States because such status is not recognized (only in fiction of law). A child born to an American mother and alien father could be said to be a citizen of the United States by some affirmative act of law but never entitled to be a natural-born citizen because through laws of nature the child inherits the condition of their father.
Well, you might think that way, but that would only apply from here on out.
You’re probably right, unfortunately. The Supreme Court is a bunch of wusses and they are not likely to stand up for the constitution even though that’s why we put them there.
I do think they’ll split the baby in some way. Yours is one way. Here’s another: They find that Obama’s status as naturalized/natural is undetermined and they instruct the Electoral College to consider that when they make their votes. It’s like the judge’s instructions to a jury before deliberation. The end result would be no effect, Obama retains the presidency, the constitution is not upheld, and they hang their hats on something superfluous. If it is not here or your position that they hang their hats, it will be some other similar wobbly spot.