The Holy Grail of POTUS Eligibility Law Review Articles (re: Obama, Arthur).

naturalborncitizen ^ | 8/25/2009 | rxsid

[rxsid]

The Holy Grail of POTUS Eligibility Law Review Articles:
Mr. Obama and Mr. Arthur… Meet Attorney George Collins

Rarely, when conducting legal research does one find a historical document that is directly on point. But even more rare is to find a document which is directly on point multiple times. But that’s exactly what has happened this week. A historical document which destroys every bogus point being made by Obama POTUS eligibility supporters was recently discovered by a cracker jack team of university students from UCONN. They call themselves UNDEAD REVOLUTION.

...

as a lead in to their work, I offer you one of their superb historical finds. It’s an article from The American Law Review dated Sept./Oct. 1884. The American Law Review was a premier legal journal - the brain child of Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendel Holmes.

...

The article I am about to show you was published in The American Law Review, written by George D. Collins, Esq. Attorney Collins was the Secretary of the California Bar Association. His name was recognized nationally for cases in the federal courts and moreso due to his regular publishing of articles via The American Law review.

ARE PERSONS BORN IN THE UNITED STATES IPSO FACTO CITIZENS THEREOF?

The article provides historical opposition for every single point raised by Obama eligibility pundits and destroys all propaganda in its path.

The article is written in a clear and concise manner, easily understood by lawyers and lay persons alike. I will now introduce each relevant issue confronted in this article and then present the article in full for your review.

OBAMA POTUS ELIGIBILITY MYTHS DESTROYED BY MR. GEORGE COLLINS

MYTH #1: Chester Arthur’s British birth was known and accepted by the American people.

This article was written in Summer 1884, while Chester Arthur was still President. Since The American Law Review was such an esteemed legal publication, old Chester must have been somewhat intimidated by the report of Mr. Collins. This is because the article makes perfectly clear that to be a natural born citizen one must have been born to a US citizen father.

Chester’s father William was not naturalized until 1843, 14 years after Chester was born. This meant that Chester Arthur was a British subject at birth and was therefore not eligible to be President as was first reported at this blog back in December 2008.

It has been argued that Chester Arthur’s occupation of the White House set a legal precedent for Obama since both Chester and Barack were born of British fathers. But the public – at the time Chester was running for VP and later when he became POTUS – never knew that Chester Arthur was a British subject since he successfully lied to the public about his parental heritage.

The law review article goes into great detail concerning the issue of who exactly rises to the level of natural born citizen. It discusses law cases and legal precedent in its analysis, but it does not even mention the current President – Chester Arthur – even though Attorney Collins steadfastly denies that a person born on US soil to an alien father could be a natural born citizen.

If Attorney Collins – esteemed lawyer, Secretary of the Bar Association and nationally known legal journalist – had thought his current President at the time this article was published – Chester Arthur – was a British subject at birth, then the article would have required a discussion of that point.

But the article does not mention President Chester Arthur because Chester Arthur managed – through blatant deceit - to cover that issue up. He successfully concealed his British birth from the American people. This law review article is proof of that conclusion.

MYTH #2: Lynch v. Clark ( a New York State case, not federal) is legal precedent for Obama to be considered a natural born citizen.

Despite the fact that state court cases have absolutely no legal weight of authority in federal court, Obama eligibility supporters cite this case often. Attorney Collins tears the decision to shreds and exposes its faulty conclusions.

MYTH #3: Common law states that being born on the soil – Jus Soli – makes one a “natural born subject” and therefore every person born on US soil is a “natural born citizen”.

Attorney Collins takes this on directly and establishes clearly that there is no common law in the United States. He also explains that natural born citizens are in no way, shape or form, the same as natural born subjects.

MYTH #4: Vattell’s definition of a natural born citizen was not considered by the framers.

Attorney Collins discusses Vattell in great detail. And Collins agrees that to be a natural born citizen one must be born on the soil of parents who were themselves citizens. Collins quotes Vattell.

But more important is the fact that Collins makes it clear Vattell’s definition of “natural born citizen” was not actually Vattell’s definition.

This is very important.

The definition of “natural born citizen” was not created by Vattell in his treatise, “Law of Nations.” That treatise simply discussed the established body of law known as “the law of nations”. [Ed. Right. If I'm not mistaken, "law of nations" goes back to the days of the Roman's.] The definition of natural born citizen discussed in Vattell’s treatise was actually the definition established by the body of law known as “law of nations”.

Attorney Collins makes all of this quite clear in the article below. Now please review Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution:

The Congress shall have power…To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the Law of Nations;

The capital letters are not in reference to Vattell’s treatise, but they are in reference to the body of law Vattell wrote about – the actual “law of nations”. And that body of law - according to Attorney Collins as well as Vattell – held that a “natural born citizen” was somebody with connections to the nation for having been born on the soil as well as having been born of citizen parents. In Article 1, Section 8, we therefore have a direct recognition that the framers respected the law of nations.

DOUBLE ALLEGIANCE TO THE NATION

This is what the framers required for the Commander In Chief. Any child of immigrants from any nation could become President – as long as his parents became naturalized US citizens before that child was born on US soil. In their wisdom, the framers sought two generations of US citizenship. This discriminates against no race at all.

To be an American has nothing to do with race. It has to do with being a person cloaked in liberty – free from monarchy, free of repression, free forever.

...

If we allow persons born in the US of alien fathers to be President of the US then Kim Jong Il, Osama Bin Laden and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are all eligible to have their direct offspring become President of the United States and Commander In Chief of our Armed Forces."

The article

http://www.scribd.com/doc/19071886/Are-Persons-Born-Within-the-United-States-Ipso-Facto-Citizens-Thereof-George-D-Collins

More here:
http://naturalborncitizen.wordpress.com/2009/08/25/the-holy-grail-of-potus-eligibility-law-review-articles-mr-obama-and-mr-arthur-meet-attorney-george-collins/

[BP2]

Law of Nations is just another treatise on legal topics of the day—it isn't law; it just purports to be a summary of the author's view of what the law is; real lawyers don't cite that stuff unless they can't come up with real authority to support their argument.

The SCOTUS uses Vattel when it needs to know what the Founding Fathers rationale was for certain phrases, such as “to keep and bear arms”:

When there's really no where else to turn, "The Law of Nations" will be the primary reference used to define, in the context of the Constitution (not subsequent statutes), the term "Natural-born citizen":

[David]

The SCOTUS uses Vattel when it needs to know what the Founding Fathers rationale was for certain phrases, such as “to keep and bear arms”:

Sure. But that's not a citation as a legal precedent but rather for the purpose of defining what the intent was.

I'm not in any way critical of Law of Nations or of using it as secondary authority.

But it's a mistake to look at it as overriding legal authority of greater significant than the common law or the historical legal authorities. Cause it isn't.

On the narrow issue here ("natural born"); Law of Nations and the letters exchanged among Madison and Jefferson and Hancock are a pretty good indication that the founder's obtained and used the term by adapting the legal concept of "natural born subject" from English Common Law. I think you then ought to look at the underlying Common Law to find out what the legal rules are that would determine whether or not a given individual is or is not a "natural born".

Although I also think that on the Obama facts, there is a pretty good legal argument that he ought to flunk even if he was born in Hawaii--I doubt the Supreme Court would come down that way if the issue were presented.

I think the way you get the legal system involved to determine that he is not President is likely to require that you prove or at least make a prima facia showing that he was not born in the US. Although I will also concede that to a large extent, my view is somewhat affected by the fact that I see the evidence, secondary though it is, as pretty conclusive that he was born in Mombasa which is located in modern day Kenya.

[stuartcr]

Those are fine sentiments, shared by many. What exactly is to be done, what course of action is to be taken, that hasn’t already?

[rxsid]

Not if their father (or mother) were a foreign national at the time of their birth. They would be considered citizens, but not NBC. The child would be born with foreign citizenship (allegiance)...in the case of being born to a British Subject. We know the framers wanted to prevent such foreign influence on the position of POTUS.

[Drew68]

Not if their father (or mother) were a foreign national at the time of their birth. They would be considered citizens, but not NBC.

What specific passage in the Constitution addresses this precise definition of Natural Born Citizen and, if you can point it out to me, why did Chief Justice John Roberts willingly disregard it when he administered the Oath of Office to Obama?

[cvq3842]

LOL!

[cvq3842]

thanks

[cvq3842]

thanks

[rxsid]

Various tid bits...

Vattel's "Law of Nations" is based on "natural law." The concept of natural law has been around since the time of the Greeks.

We know that many of the founders and framers were well versed in ancient western civ.

Allegedly, Thomas Jefferson wrote to his nephew that there were three books every gentleman had to have familiarity with; Plutarch's "Lives", Livy's "History of Rome" and Virgil's Aeneid.

"Plato defines justice in the Republic as conforming to nature (Republic, IV, 444d)."

"Aristotle brings to natural law theory an essentially new contribution by deriving the concept of right from the idea of justice, the latter being the appropriate mean that the judge maintains between the parties in court (Nicom. Ethics, Book V, Ch. IV, 8)."
http://etext.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/dhi.cgi?id=dv3-04

I think attorney Apuzzo is spot on here:
The Law of Nations as U.S. Federal Common Law and Not English Common Law Defines What an Article II "Natural Born Citizen" Is
http://puzo1.blogspot.com/2009/08/law-of-nations-and-not-english-common.html

"Natural law or the law of nature (Latin: lex naturalis) is a theory that posits the existence of a law whose content is set by nature and everywhere.[1] [Ed. ex. "All men are created equal"] The phrase natural law is opposed to the positive law (which is human-made) of a given political community, society, or nation-state, and thus can function as a standard by which to criticize that law.[2][Ed. i.e. Declaration of Independence]. In natural law jurisprudence, on the other hand, the content of positive law cannot be known without some reference to the natural law (or something like it). Used in this way, natural law can be invoked to criticize decisions about the statutes, but less so to criticize the law itself. Some use natural law synonymously with natural justice or natural right (Latin ius naturale), although most contemporary political and legal theorists separate the two.

Natural law theories have exercised a profound influence on the development of English common law,[3] and have featured greatly in the philosophies of Thomas Aquinas, Francisco Suárez, Richard Hooker, Thomas Hobbes, Hugo Grotius, Samuel von Pufendorf, John Locke and Emmerich de Vattel [Ed. Both referenced during the Constitutional Convention]. Because of the intersection between natural law and natural rights, it has been cited as a component in United States Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_law

Natural law becomes more "defined" during the days of the Romans.

"Evolution of the Roman Legal System and Classical Roman Law"

"As the Roman republic grew and then transformed into an empire, its rulers faced the increasing challenge of governing an evermore diverse and far-flung population. Legal questions and disputes inevitably arose not only among Roman citizens, but with non-citizens living in or traveling through its territories, to whom the ius civile did not apply. This led to the development of the ius gentium ("law of nations") and ius naturale ("natural law")."
http://www.law.berkeley.edu/robbins/RomanLegalTradition.html

Roman law had an influence on British Common law (& Blackstone).

"By the time of the rediscovery of the Roman law in Europe in the 12th and 13th centuries, the common law had already developed far enough to prevent a Roman law reception as it occurred on the continent.[30] However, the first common law scholars, most notably Glanvill and Bracton, as well as the early royal common law judges, had been well accustomed with Roman law...
The impact Roman law had decreased sharply after the age of Bracton, but the Roman divisions of actions into in rem and in personam used by Bracton had a lasting effect and laid the groundwork for a return of Roman law structural concepts in the 18th and 19th century. Signs of this can be found in Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England,[33]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_law#Medieval_English_common_law

Historical Practice and the Contemporary Debate Over Customary International Law

"...the historical practice of both English and early American courts with respect to the law of nations."
"I. Judicial Power in the Early Republic
First, the history. Professors Bellia and Clark argue that the founding generation entertained an "initial assumption that the United States—like the states—had received the common law and thus could prosecute and punish common law crimes, including offenses against the law of nations."6 Bellia and Clark acknowledge that this assumption was widely rejected in the course of debates over the constitutionality of the Sedition Act.7 Indeed, when the Supreme Court definitively interred the doctrine of federal common law crimes in the 1812 case of United States v. Hudson & Goodwin, it could say that the question already had long been "settled in public opinion."8

A related debate in the early Republic, however, suggests even greater hostility to the idea of federal common lawmaking powers. As Justice Souter has pointed out, "the founding generation . . . join[ed] . . . an appreciation of its immediate and powerful common-law heritage with caution in settling that inheritance on the political systems of the new Republic."10 The colonial and early state governments carefully limited their reception of English common law to those principles that were applicable to local conditions.11 Citizens of the young Republic often viewed the common law with considerable hostility; after all, they had just fought a revolution to throw off English rule..."

This ambivalence played out in debates over ratification of the new national Constitution. All participants seem to have understood that the new federal Constitution did not receive the English common law as part of national law,13 unlike many of the state constitutions. Opponents of ratification went so far as to complain that the proposed document failed to guarantee common law rights.14 Federalists responded that receiving the common law into the federal Constitution would trample the diversity of the common law, as received in the several states; even worse, a federal reception would render the common law "immutable" and not subject to congressional revision.15 Hence, "the Framers chose to recognize only particular common-law concepts, such as the writ of habeas corpus, U.S. Const. Art. I, § 9, cl. 2, and the distinction between law and equity, U.S. Const., Amdt. 7, by specific reference in the constitutional text."16 They insisted, however, that any general reception of the English common law into federal law would be "destructive to republican principles."17

...More generally, the early American reaction to the common law in both the Federal Constitution and the states suggests a general suspicion of unwritten, judge-defined law and a strong preference for legislative primacy. This is quite consistent, of course, with the Framers' decision explicitly to authorize Congress to "define and punish . . . Offenses against the Law of Nations."18

Much more here:
http://www.columbialawreview.org/articles/historical-practice-and-the-contemporary-debate-over-customary-international-law

No question in my mind that the framers clearly got their definition for "Natural" born citizen from Vattel's compilation of natural law.

[rxsid]

Of course, you know the answer to your own question. See my post immediately above for the history of natural law and where the framers undoubtedly obtained their understanding of NBC and why they would have wanted NBC for POTUS and “only” citizen for Senators and Reps. There is no historical record from that time that the framers intended a person born to a foreign national father (who never obtained citizenship) should be eligible (as a dual citizen at birth) to be POTUS. There exists, evidence to the contrary. That is, they didn’t want someone who was born with foreign influence to be the Commander in Chief...and for obvious reason I would add. Other than themselves of course (thus the Grandfather clause).

[rxsid]

"why did Chief Justice John Roberts willingly disregard it when he administered the Oath of Office to Obama? "

Was a case heard and decided prior to that occurring?

Did Congress, during the certification of the E.C. votes, seek clarification on this issue? Or even raise the issue?

Of course not. In other words, he had no "legal" reason not to administer the oath. Now, some would argue that he should have recused himself on moral grounds that he knew there were "questions" out there.

It's been said that to date, no case was "ripe" and that the cases not taken up prior to Jan 20th either had the wrong plaintiff(s) or the wrong defendant(s) or both. For example, as we've since learned, the SoS's job doesn't include "vetting" the candidates. I would argue, as I'm sure many other would, that it should be their job. However, as of now, it's not. If I'm not mistaken, both Leo and Cort (who seemed to have pretty good arguments re: Roger Calero...the convicted felon green card holder being on some POTUS ballots), both sued their respective SoS. Wrong defendants. Therefore, won't get heard by SCOTUS.

[rxsid]

Oh yeah, and while the Constitution doesn't spell out the definition, and why should it as they knew the definition and the Constitution was never intended to be a dictionary..leaving MANY things within it without subsequent explicit definition, there are many courts cases that specifically refer to Vattel and some even citing his definition of born in country to two citizen parents:

"THE VENUS, 12 U.S. (8 Cranch) 253, 289 (1814) (Marshall, C.J. concurring) (cites Vattel’s definition of Natural Born Citizen)
SHANKS V. DUPONT, 28 U.S. 242, 245 (1830) (same definition without citing Vattel)
MINOR V. HAPPERSETT, 88 U.S.162,167-168 ( 1875) (same definition without citing Vattel)
EX PARTE REYNOLDS, 1879, 5 Dill., 394, 402 (same definition and cites Vattel)
UNITED STATES V WARD, 42 F.320 (C.C.S.D. Cal. 1890) (same definition and cites Vattel.)"
http://www.scribd.com/doc/17519578/Kerchner-v-Obama-Congress-DOC-34-Plaintiffs-Brief-Opposing-Defendants-Motion-to-Dismiss

Attorney Apuzzo has an excellent article on this subject (no pun intended):

"The Law of Nations as U.S. Federal Common Law and Not English Common Law Defines What an Article II "Natural Born Citizen" Is
. "..Founders also understood that even though a child may be born on U.S. soil, if he was born of a British father, the Crown of England owed that child the same protection that it owed the father. Id. at 370-71."

Should the POTUS and Command in Chief be in allegiance of or owed protection from the Crown on England because they are a governed by England? Not a good idea to have a POTUS with dual allegiance, and the framers clearly thought the same. The simplest way to remove such possibilities would be to have someone be eligible who was born to BOTH parents who were citizens of this country...owing no allegiance to another, and therefore when their child is born...that child would therefore not be bound by their parent(s) foreign allegiance or governed by another.

[LucyT]

Thanks David and rxsid.

Ping to

#36

#43

#50

[Wonder why #42 was pulled...sometimes we miss the best stuff!]

[hoosiermama]

both sued their respective SoS. Wrong defendants. Therefore, won't get heard by SCOTUS {Precisely if they had heard the case in which the SoS were they defendants, all they would have had to do is produce their "job descriptions' It does not include any more than accepting the paper work given to them by the parties.

Berg is closest IMO to getting the defendants correct...BO, DNC, Dean, Nanzi, etc. They are the parties that have conspired to defraud the American People.

[1COUNTER-MORTER-68]

Bump Dat...

[El Gato]

What specific passage in the Constitution addresses this precise definition of Natural Born Citizen

What specific passage in the Constutition defines. "bear arms", or just "arms" for that matter. What passage defines "cruel and unusual", or the exact extent of "freedom of the press"?

[Redwood Bob]

“And who was on that Supreme Court? Justice Gray who was appointed by the later found to be ineligible Arthur.”

*****************************

Chester Alan Arthur has never been “found to be ineligible” in anything other than the minds of some birthers.

[El Gato]

Consider this hypothetical. A current citizen of the US was born in the US. Both parents are US Citizens. The paternal Grandfather was an immigrant and naturalized US Citizen. However under the law of the country of his origin, the current person is also a citizen of that country. Is there an argument the current person is not eligible to serve as President? If so, having reached a signficant age of seniority, is such an argument enhanced by the fact that the current person also holds a Passport from the country of his grandfather's origin?

No, some other country's law does not matter. What matters is the citizenship status, as recognized by the US, of the parent or parents, depending on wether you are talking about the "Two parent" or "patrilinal" rule. The fact that both parents of the current person were citizens, even if one was a dual citizen, and that the current person was born in the US, makes that person a natural born citizen.

[rolling_stone]

Chester Alan Arthur has never been “found to be ineligible” in anything other than the minds of some birthers.

Umm who could find him to be ineligible besides the court of public opinion? Arthur himself lied about his birth, his fathers naturalization and he burned his records. I believe by Arthur’s own action he deemed himself ineligible. Technically you have a point that no court found him ineligible and that needs to be resolved for the present and future Presidents.