Only if you accept the definition which you have offered here which is not encapsulated in US Law anywhere. Few people would agree with it, especially at this point in the election cycle.
If that’s the best we got I say we drop it and move on to something else.
It would make sense to get our Congress people to define NB in the law, and provide for the FEC or state Sec. of State’s to verify eligibility.
You are not going to get any court to make up case law based around an obscure 18th century legal dictionary that has the effect of removing an elected President.
Maybe you need a new hobby?
What are you talking about Jack?
I'm Canadian, and even I know this.
I dislike disingenuous people.
Section 1 of Article Two of the United States Constitution sets forth the eligibility requirements for serving as President 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; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States. ”
The grandfather provision of the “natural born Citizen” clause provides an exception to the “natural born” requirement for those persons who were citizens at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, but had been born as British subjects before the American Revolution (or were born after the Revolution, but before 1787). Without this exception, ten subsequent presidents would have been constitutionally ineligible to serve.[1]
Additionally, the Twelfth Amendment states that: “[N]o person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.” The Fourteenth Amendment, adopted in 1868, defines a “Citizen” of the United States, but not necessarily a “natural born Citizen.” Its Citizenship Clause provides that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are Citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_born_citizen_of_the_United_States
Only if you accept the definition which you have offered here which is not encapsulated in US Law anywhere. Few people would agree with it, especially at this point in the election cycle.
If that’s the best we got I say we drop it and move on to something else.
It would make sense to get our Congress people to define NB in the law, and provide for the FEC or state Sec. of State’s to verify eligibility.
You are not going to get any court to make up case law based around an obscure 18th century legal dictionary that has the effect of removing an elected President.
Maybe you need a new hobby?
***
The Constitution is just that ... and we must abide by it - whether people agree with it or not.
Congress CANNOT define NBC by legislation, since it is in the Constitution - there are only 2 ways to define it:
1. By Constitutional Amendment defining it.
or
2. By SCOTUS determination of the existing phrase.
Congress could, however, pass legislation to provide for the verification of eligibility.
But, in Obama’s case, say for 2012, they would have to get a determination from SCOTUS as to the definition of NBC (in absence of a Constitutional Amendment).
I agree with you, Vattel’s 18th century definition is entirely too restrictive but, in absence of precedence, the courts have to look to the Founding Fathers’ intent in order to arrive at a decision.
Their intent will be found in English Common Law, upon which most of our law is based.
To argue otherwise, you would then have to throw out habeas corpus, right to confront accusers, trial by jury of peers, etc.
English Common Law has 2 requirements - birth within the sovreign’s dominion and loyalty to that sovreign and that sovreign only.
You mean like this one that is encapsulated in the Naturalization Act of 1790:
"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".