Top US International Lawyer Defines "Natural Born Citizen" in 1904

I was going to write an seperate article regarding this, but due to time constraints, I am just going to post this long hidden from public domain article regarding eligibilty requirements of those attaining to the office of POTUS. You can click the link at the end of the article to further read why a general definition of 'Native born' does not equate to 'Natural born' and how the DRONES try to obfuscate the debate in order to make them sound like they are equal on all levels. _________________________________________________

NATURAL-BORN CITIZEN OF THE UNITED STATES: ELIGIBILITY FOR THE OFFICE OF PRESIDENT

As a wide-spread interest attaches to the discussion of the meaning and scope of the constitutional provision in respect to eligibility for the office of president of the United States, I submit some views in this relation which may be opportune.

The question is often asked: Are children of citizens of the United States born at sea or in foreign territory, other than the offspring of American ambassadors or ministers plenipotentiary, natural-born citizens of the United States, within the purview of the constitutional provision? After some consideration of the history of the times, of the relation of the provision to the subject-matter and of the acts of congress relating to citizenship, it seems clear to the undersigned that such persons are natural-born, that is, citizens by origin; and that, if otherwise qualified, they are eligible to the office of president. In respect to the citizenship of children of American parentage, wherever born, the principle of ius sanguinis seems to be the American principle; that is to say, the law of hereditary, rather than territorial allegiance, is recognized, which is modern, as distinguished from the ancient, and at one time, common-law principle of jus soli. If the provision was as sometimes inaccurately cited, namely, that the president must be “a native-born citizen,” there might be no question as to its meaning. But the framers generally used precise language; and the etymology actually employed makes the meaning definite. Its correspondent in English law, “natural-born subject,” appears in constitutional history and parliamentary enactments; and there it includes all children born out of the king’s allegiance whose fathers were natural-born subjects; and the children of such children (i. e., children whose grandfathers by the father’s side were natural-born subjects), though their mothers were aliens, are now deemed to be natural-born subjects themselves to all intents and purposes, unless their said ancestors were attainted or banished beyond sea for high treason, or were at the birth of such children in the service of a prince at enmity with Great Britain. At the time of the adoption of the Constitution, immigration was anticipated and provisions for naturalization would immediately follow the establishment of the government. Those resident in the United States at the time the Constitution was adopted were made citizens. Thereafter the president must be taken from the natural-born citizens. If it was intended that anybody who was a citizen by birth should be eligible, it would only have been necessary to say, “no person, except a native-born citizen”; but the framers thought it wise, in view of the probable influx of European immigration, to provide that the president should at least be the child of citizens owing allegiance to the United States at the time of his birth. It may be observed in passing that the current phrase “native-born citizen” is well understood; but it is pleonasm and should be discarded; and the correct designation, “ native citizen” should be substituted in all constitutional and statutory enactments, in judicial decisions and in legal discussions where accuracy and precise language are essential to intelligent discussion.

The earliest act of congress to establish a uniform rule of naturalization (March 26, 1790) contained the following clause: “And the children of citizens of the United States that may be born at sea or out of the United States, shall be considered as natural-born citizens.” The draft of this act has been credited to Mr. Jefferson, although his authorship has been questioned; and his reputed relationship to it may be ascribed to the fact that he was the author of the original naturalization acts in the Constitution of Virginia, and was an ardent supporter of a wise system of naturalization laws before and after he became President. But whoever drew the act followed closely the various parliamentary statutes of Great Britain; and its language in this relation indicates that the first congress entertained and declared the opinion that children of American parentage, wherever born, were within the constitutional designation, “natural-born citizens.” The act is declaratory; but the reason that such children are natural born remains; that is, their American citizenship is natural—the result of parentage—and is not artificial or acquired by compliance with legislative requirements. The second act of naturalization (January 29, 1795), which was reported and probably drawn by Mr. Madison, chairman of a select House committee, enacted “That the children of persons duly naturalized dwelling within the United States, and being under the age of twenty-one years at the time of such naturalization, and the children of citizens of the United States born out of the limits and jurisdiction of the United States shall be considered as citizens of the United States.” As carried forward in the Revised Statutes, the provision reads: “All children heretofore born or hereafter born out of the limits and jurisdiction of the United States, whose fathers were or may be at the time of their birth citizens thereof are declared to be citizens of the United States; but the rights of citizenship shall not descend to children whose fathers never resided in the United States.” This provision, as its terms express, is declaratory; it is not the statute that constitutes children of American parentage citizens; it is the fact of American descent, the jus sanguinis, that makes them citizens at the moment of birth—a fact which, for sufficient and convenient reasons, the legislative power of the State recognizes and announces to the world.

If there was ambiguity, the rights and privileges of children of American parents dependent upon constitutional guarantee would demand recognition; and constitutional guaranties in favor of such persons might not be restricted or denied by congress.

To return to the constitutional requirement in respect to eligibility for the office of president, let us inquire what was the obvious purpose and intent of the limitation? Plainly, it was inserted in order to exclude “aliens” by birth and blood from that high office, upon considerations which naturally had much weight at the time of the adoption of the Constitution. It was scarcely intended to bar the children of American parentage, whether born at sea or in foreign territory. Where it was said in the old books that an alien is one born out of the king’s or State’s dominions or allegiance, this must be of the limits understood with some restrictions. A forced or restricted construction of the constitutional phrase under consideration would be out of harmony with ‘modern conceptions of political status, and might produce startling results. It remains to be decided whether a child of domiciled Chinese parents, born in the United States, is eligible, if otherwise qualified, to the office of president and to all the privileges of the Constitution. And it would be a strange conclusion, in another aspect, if the child of American parents, born in China, should be denied correspondent rights and privileges in the United States.

A natural-born citizen has been defined as one whose citizenship is established by the jurisdiction which the United States already has over the parents of the child, not what is thereafter acquired by choice of residence in this country.

Our conclusion is that the child of citizens of the United States, wherever born, is “a natural-born citizen of the United States,” within the constitutional requirement; and, as such, if possessed of the other qualifications, would be eligible for the office of president of the United States.

click on link above to go to the article defining the different definitions of 'Native born'.

1.The Courts haven’t even looked at the merits of NBC yet.

2. English Common Law has to do with the relations of subjects to their Monarch.

3. We are U.S. citizens, Parsy; never anyone’s ‘subjects’.

The definition of the term, “natural born citizen”, was entered into the Congressional record of the House on March 9, 1866, in comments made by Rep. John Bingham on the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which was the precursor to the Fourteenth Amendment. He repeated Vattel’s definition when he said:
“[I] find no fault with the introductory clause, which is simply declaratory of what is written in the Constitution, that 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. . . . ” — John A. Bingham, (R-Ohio) US Congressman, March 9, 1866 Cong. Globe, 39th, 1st Sess., 1291 (1866), Sec. 1992 of U.S. Revised Statutes (1866).

In other words, anyone born in the U.S.A. to citizen parents is a natural born citizen.

Here is the true precedent from a most liberal professor. Read it and weap:

In a recent Illinois Public Law & Legal Theory written by Professor Lawrence B Solum of the U of IL, College of Law, Chicago, Solum further explains why the English common law definition of ‘natural born subject was not the definition adopted by the Framers for the Sovereign citizens of the United States of America.

[Blackstone Commentaries (1765): When I say, that an alien is one who is born out of the king’s dominions, or allegiance, this also must be understood with some restrictions. The common law indeed stood absolutely so; with only a very few exceptions: so that a particular act of parliament became necessary after the restoration, for the naturalization of children of his majesty’s English subjects, born in foreign countries during the late troubles. And this maxim of the law proceeded upon a general principle, that every man owes natural allegiance where he is born, and cannot owe two such allegiances, or serve two masters, at once. Yet the children of the king’s ambassadors born abroad were always held to be natural subjects: for as the father, though in a foreign country, owes not even a local allegiance to the prince to whom he is sent; so, with regard to the son also, he was held (by a kind of postliminium) to be born under the king of England’s allegiance, represented by his father, the ambassador. To encourage also foreign commerce, it was enacted by statute 25 Edw. III. st. 2. that all children born abroad, provided both their parents were at the time of the birth in allegiance to the king, and the mother had passed the seas by her husband’s consent, might inherit as if born in England: and accordingly it hath been so adjudged in behalf of merchants. But by several more modern statutes these restrictions are still farther taken off: so that all children, born out of the king’s ligeance, whose fathers were natural-born subjects, are now natural-born subjects themselves, to all intents and purposes, without any exception;...]

[F.E. Edwards, Natural Born British Subjects at Common Law, 14 Journal of the Society of Comparative Legislation 314 (1914): The pro- position that British Protectorates, and consequently any less interest of the Crown, should be excluded from our definition of the King’s protection, is supported by Sir William Anson, who declares that birth within such a region is not sufficient to found a claim for British natural-born status. The real test of whether a given territory is part of the British Dominions is that it must have passed openly, completely, and unequivocally into the possession of the Crown.]

[Solum: If the American conception of “natural born citizen” were equivalent to the English notion of a “natural born subject,” then it could be argued that only persons born on American soil to American parents would have qualified. This might lead to the conclusion that McCain would not be a constitutional natural-born citizen, because the Panama Canal Zone was not the sovereign territory of the United States, but was instead merely subject to its administrative control.

The language of the Constitution recognizes a distinction between the terms “citizen” and “subject”. For example, in Article III Section 2, which confers “judicial power” on the federal courts, “citizens” of the several states are differentiated from “citizens” or “subjects” of foreign states—corresponding to the distinction between diversity and alienage jurisdiction. In the framing era, these two terms reflected two distinct theories of the relationship between individual members of a political community and the state.

In feudal or monarchical constitutional theory, individuals were the subjects of a monarch or sovereign, but the republican constitutional theory of the revolutionary and post revolutionary period conceived of the individual as a citizen and assigned sovereignty to the people.

The distinction between citizens and subjects is reflected in Chief Justice John Jay’s opinion in Chisholm v. Georgia, the first great constitutional case decided after the ratification of the Constitution of 1789:

[T]he sovereignty of the nation is in the people of the nation, and the residuary sovereignty of each State in the people of each State…

[A]t the Revolution, the sovereignty devolved on the people; and they are truly the sovereigns of the country, but they are sovereigns without subjects…]

As you can see, in England there are two very distinct meanings of ’natural born’ subject. In one hand there is the broader view & in the other there is the view of the laws of nations. What the liberal progressive constitutionalists use is the broader view and thus disregard the fact that at some point, even England used the law of nations. The Framers also knew of England’s use of the law of nations and were very aware of its importance when establishing a new nation. It has also been proven that the Law of Nations was in the hands of the Framers at the time of the drafting of the Declaration of Independence.

And as pointed out above, please do not come back with the same old lame references to Blackstone & English common law, we know for a fact from the very 1st SCOTUS Justice Washington appointed, a Justice who was only 2nd to Madison in the drafting of the Constitution that the definition for US citizens was not derived from English common law, but on the law of Nations which is the law of nature:

“The law of nature, when applied to states and political societies, receives a new name, that of the law of nations. This law, important in all states, is of peculiar importance in free ones. The States of America are certainly entitled to this dignified appellation…But if the knowledge of the law of nations is greatly useful to those who appoint, it surely must be highly necessary to those who are appointed…As Puffendorff thought that the law of nature and the law of nations were precisely the same, he has not, in his book on these subjects treated of the law of nations separately; but has every where joined it with the law of nature, properly called so…the law of nature is applied to individuals; the law of nations is applied to states.”

Wilson, in his 1st commentaries, blasts Blackstone’s theory by citing that the definition of ’subject’ per English common law according to Blackstone was not the definition of ‘citizen’ as adopted by the framers of the US Constitution. A ’subject’ is ruled by an all powerful central government/monarchy and the under the new Constitution of the United States, the central government’s power is derived from the people, the citizens.

Wilson also wrote the very 1st SCOTUS decision in Chisolm which is cited to this day as to the powers of the central government. He also was no right-wing conservative where the limits of the central government were concerned. Wilson felt that the Constitution did not go far enough in giving broader powers to those in Washington, but he KNEW the premise of the Constitution and stood behind it in every decision he made, regardless of his political philosophy.

Somebody else posted this the other day. Here is the problem. This stuff has already been petty well decided. There was a 1898 case Wong Kim Ark, which defined NBC en route to its decision. If you want to read Wong in full, here is the link:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0169_0649_ZO.html

Now, many people want to bounce all over the place on the Wong language and I have spent probably close to 40 hours, according to some of my birther fans, trying to show people what the case means, and what the language is and what the context is.

If you get lost on Wong, holler and I send you a few things.

Or, if you think after reading Wong, that it don’t apply to Obama and the NBC question, then there is a very easy answer. There was a November 2009 case in Indiana which used Wong to decide that Obama was an NBC. You may not like it, but that’s probably what any court is going to do.

Now within the last few months, another court has decided this way. So it ain’t just me. Here’s the case. Only five or six pages are applicable. Pages 12-18, as I recall. And it is easier to read than Wong, Its got a “Natural Born Citizen” heading where the discussion begins.

http://www.in.gov/judiciary/opinions/pdf/11120903.ebb.pdf

Now if you read this, you will note that a couple of Plaintiffs filed “pro se” that is without a lawyer. They did their own legal work, and LO AND BEHOLD, they somehow completely miss the Wong case. A Supreme Court Case which is in every legal analysis of the issue.... they miss. Somehow, these two guys find the Vattel, stuff, which ain’t exactly falling off the book shelves. This is why I doubt the sincere motives of some of these people. Nobody who is honest just kinda misses the biggest case out there on the issue. But, this Court reminds them about Wong!

Vattel isn’t really even LAW. Its Vattel listing out some of the laws of the world and talking about them. It would be the same as citing the “Law for Dummies” book as law itself. The more knowledgeable types should know better. And, behave better. And, most of us don’t want the United Nations or World Courts trumping our rights as Americans. But some people think it is OK to open that door with their “laws of nations” arguments. Go figure...

But, lets look at this recent decision in a little more detail. Remember, this is from the November 2009 Indiana case. It is not binding on any Federal court, but the reasoning is probably what any court will follow. In essence, the Birthers made their arguments. The Court sent them packing, to wit:

The Birther’s Argument (based on Vattel and the usual speeches from whoever they find):

Contrary to the thinking of most people on the subject, there’s a very clear distinction between a ‘citizen of the United States’ and a ‘natural born citizen.’(page 12)

(Now for the next 5 plus pages, the Court lets them know all about WONG. A string of cases and cites from Wong running all the way back to 1608 England!)

Now the Court is ready to rule:

The Court’s Smackdown of the Birthers :
( Short answer: No, there isn’t any difference!)

The longer answer:

Based upon the language of Art. II, Section 1, Clause 4 and the guidance provided by Wong Kim Ark, we conclude that persons born within the borders of the United States are “Natural Born Citizens” for Art. II, section 1. purposes, regardless of the citizenship of the parents.” (Page 17)

That’s pretty straightforward. The Birthers got one thing right-—the thinking of MOST PEOPLE is that there isn’t a difference between “citizen” (non-naturalized) and a “natural born citizen.” AND, this is NOT LIBERAL RADICAL law. For Heaven’s sake, this case incorporates the established law for over 400 years, from 1608 and maybe earlier through to 2009. And 1608.....that’s well before Saul Alinsky and Hippies and Ted Kennedy

parsy, who hopes this helps

Re Translated: If a court decides a case which conflicts with my opinion, then they are “lazy and easily influenced by incorrect decisions.”

Nice work if you can get it. People who go to court don’t have the luxury of ignoring the law. Read again in my little blurb above.

Do I need to write this in a fairy tale or bedside story mode?

Once upon a time there were three little Birthers. One, went to court in Indiana and tried to win an NBC case without talking about Wong. The big bad court huffed and puffed and blew the little pig out of his court room.

The second little piggie, er Birther, went to court and told the judge the Wong Court was lazy and stupid and so was any court that relied on them. The big bad wolf, er Court huffed and puffed and blew the Birther out of the courtroom.

The third little Birther, had listened to a wise old Wolf named parsy, who said, Little Pig, you may not like Wong, but you had better find some way to distinguish your case from that one, or you’ll be blown away in the courtroom.

So, the third little Birther, thought and thought and read and read, and he realized that he just didn’t have a prayer. Instead of wasting his time on useless Birther stuff, he left the movement. Immediately, his life improved and he didn’t spend all his time trying to swim upstream. He met a nice little female ex-birther.

They went over to the wise old Wolf’s house and partied and drank Wild Vines Blackberry Merlot. The wise old Wolf played Puff the Magic Dragon on his guitar for them, and the two little piggies, er birthers fell in love and woke up the next morning in the spare bedroom. They decided to get married and lived happily ever after. The Wise Old Wolf gave away the bride at the wedding.

The other two birthers never did get it. They spent years and years in fruitless appeals and became too old to reproduce. Or even think about it. They became no fun to hang out with and eventually the two little birthers moved to a desert isle, where they sat and grumbled and rolled around in slop the rest of their days.

They didn’t live happily ever after.

parsy, who is trying to save you from this fate.....

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