I would think that a person born of two US citizens would be a natural-born citizen, no matter where born. (Good luck trying to avoid taxes by saying you were never a US citizen!) It’s only recent judicial decisions that focus so much on the location of birth.
Then again, if the conclusion is that neither Obama nor McCain is eligible I can live with that. :)
Lotsa VALID QUESTIONS and NO VALID ANSWERS.
See prior FR post: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2314412/posts
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Last para from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/08/obama_failed_to_master_alinsky.html
“Leaders don’t fall from the sky without proof they ever made friends and dated girlfriends and earned grades and had businesses and wrote papers, folks. Leaders have visible trails; they have made a record of their successes and proudly show them whenever asked. Barack Obama resides in the White House without ever showing a shred of genuine evidence that he is the greatly-gifted man he and his media sycophants say he is. And 52% of the American electorate has bought this faster than they would buy a used car from a slick-suited salesman on a shady lot.
Suckers United for Change. Wow. I’m impressed.
Dr. Obama? I would sooner trust Dr. Frankenstein.”
All judicial decesions have conerned "citizenship", not "natural born citizenship. At least one lower court ruling mentions "natural born", but only because the child in question was born of two *naturalized* citizens in the US. That case was about retention of citizenship, but she was "natural born" by anyone's definition.
That there have been no cases about "natural born" should not be a surprise, the only time it could arise is in a question of eligibility to the office of President. Otherwise, natural born or native born have the same rights. Naturalized have the same rights as well, but have lower limits on how long they have been citizens in order to become Congressmen and/or Senators. (Although in theory any native born citizen, which includes natural born, will automatically meet the limits too, by virtue of the age limitations).
The Wong Kim Ark case was about place of birth, (in the US to two subjects of the Chinese Emperor) under the 14th amendment, but doesn't concern itself, nor mention, "natural born".
I think the fact that Congress passed, in 1790, "An act to establish an uniform rule of Naturalization" that stated : the children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens indicates that such children were *not* considered natural born under the original understanding of that term. Else why add to the definition? For whatever reason, the words "natural born" were left out of the 1795 act which repealed and replaced the 1790 act. I tend to think it was because they realized they could not define a Constitutional term, except by the amendment process, but that's just conjecture. The provision has not been any subsequent law and so cannot currently be in effect.
That means that the definition remains what it was, and that it did not include children of citizens, even two citizens, "born out of the limits of the United States". The 1795 act merely provided that they were citizens, and the law retains the same provision today.