George Washington Consulted the Legal Treatise "Law of Nations" during his First Day in Office

"George Washington Consulted the Legal Treatise "Law of Nations" during his First Day in Office
Friday, April 23, 2010

There was a news account recently that President George Washington 'borrowed' the legal reference book "Law of Nations or Principles of Natural Law" and never returned it to the library in New York and now owes a huge past due fine on that book. This new current events story ties into the importance of that book to George Washington and the other founders. Attached is an image and an the account what the new President was doing with the book in 1789 in New York. The new President was found consulting that book by visitors to his office on his first day in office after the inauguration of him in New York in 1789.

New York was then the capital of the USA. See attached highlighted section of the history book, This Was New York, The Nation's Capital in 1789, by Monaghan & Lowenthal, published by Books for Libraries Press of Freeport NY. I have a copy of this rare book. But it can also be viewed online at Google's book site.

The Law of Nations by Vattel is a very important legal treatise and was very important to the founding of our nation. It was first published in 1758. The Law of Nations is mentioned in our Constitution in Article I, Section 8. The "Law of Nations or Principles of Natural Law" which is its full name was the preeminent legal treatise of the last half of the 1700s and was depended on heavily by the Revolutionary Patriots in the founding of our nation. Benjamin Franklin cited that it was being heavily used during the Constitutional Conventions when he received three new copies of the newest circa 1775 edition from the editor Dumas in Europe. And John Jay the 1st Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court cited it often. This legal book was cited many times by the various U.S. Supreme Courts in the 1800s and much of it became the common law of our land via Supreme Court decisions citing the wisdom conveyed in this book."

HOW CAN A NATURAL BORN CITIZEN'S STATUS BE "GOVERNED" BY GREAT BRITAIN?

“When Barack Obama Jr. was born on Aug. 4,1961, in Honolulu, Kenya was a British colony, still part of the United Kingdom’s dwindling empire. As a Kenyan native, Barack Obama Sr. was a British subject whose citizenship status was governed by The British Nationality Act of 1948. That same act governed the status of Obama Sr.‘s children.

http://fightthesmears.com/articles/5/birthcertificate.html

Factcheck.org goes on to say this about Obama Sr., Jr. and the British Nationality Act of 1948:

In other words, at the time of his birth, Barack Obama Jr. was both a U.S. citizen (by virtue of being born in Hawaii) and a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies (or the UKC) by virtue of being born to a father who was a citizen of the UKC.

http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/does_barack_obama_have_kenyan_citizenship.html

Even the modern day State Department rules discusses the problems associated with dual citizenship:

7 FAM 081: U.S. Policy on Dual Nationality:
(e)While recognizing the existence of dual nationality, the U.S. Government does not encourage it as a matter of policy because of the problems it may cause. Dual nationality may hamper efforts by the U.S. Government to provide diplomatic and consular protection to individuals overseas. When a U.S. citizen is in the other country of their dual nationality, that country has a predominant claim on the person.
...
the U.S. Supreme Court has stated that dual nationality is a "status long recognized in the law" and that "a person may have and exercise rights of nationality in two countries and be subject to the responsibilities of both." See Kawakita v. United States, 343 U.S. 717 (1952).

http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/86563.pdf

So, back to the question: "HOW CAN A NATURAL BORN CITIZEN'S STATUS BE "GOVERNED" BY GREAT BRITAIN?"
It can't. Of course not. Yet, right there, on his campaign web site F.T.S., it's stated that a foreign government "governed" Barry from birth and the reason it did, was that Barry inherited that foreign citizenship by way of his foreign national father (no matter where he was born), a fact backed up by Factcheck.org. Assuming, of course, that Sr. was his legal father at birth.
How, then, could he possibly be a "Natural Born Citizen" of the U.S.?
Barry Soetoro, the divided citizen at birth!

Barack Obama a/k/a Barry Soetoro *	NOT Obama / Soetoro

* This assumes HI birth.

http://www.jeffersonsrebels.blogspot.com

Furthermore: Hawaii's Territorial Law, Chapter 57 - "VITAL STATISTICS, I", shown beginning pg 23 of 29, (the law in effect in 1961) allowed the parents (or grandparents or other relative) of baby's born anywhere in the world to be eligible to apply for a Hawaiian birth certificate. A mailed-in form (without mention of a hospital, doctor, or midwife) signed by one of his grandparents (who forged the parent signature(s)) would have been enough to set up a birth record and a birth certificate at the Dept of Health. The Dept of Health would (presumably) then have automatically sent the names of the parents, their address as given on the mailed-in form , the gender of the child, and the date of birth to the Honolulu Advertiser and Star-Bulletin. The address given for the parents in the newspaper announcements is actually, however, the August 1961 home address of Obama’s maternal grandparents Stanley and Madelyn Dunham [6085 Kalanianaole Highway], and not the 1961 home address of Barack Obama, Sr. [625 11th Ave].) This notification would then have automatically generated the newspaper announcements. (This was the practice of the Honolulu Advertiser and Star-Bulletin at the time).

Bottom line: Even IF (big IF) he was born in HI, he inherited his father's foreign citizenship as well, making him a US citizen by US law and the subject of the crown of her majesty the Queen of England by inheritance and England's law. He could not be considered a Natural Born Citizen as known by and as intended by the framers.

Common law, natural law, and the law of nations are different names and approaches for what might be called the Western consensus on what law is, or should be.

They are based on classical philosophy and on Judaeo-Christian morality and theology. All of them rely on the idea that there is such a thing as objective good and evil and objective justice, free from subjective opinion and selfish desires.

Our whole civilization is based on such principles, and cannot stand in the face of political leaders who think that the law is whatever they want or whatever they choose it to be.

This goes way back beyond the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—to St. Thomas Aquinas, to St. Augustine, to St. Paul the Apostle, to Aristotle and Cicero, and to many others on whose ideas our civilization was built. And finally, as the Founders suggested, it is owed to that God whose law is written in our hearts.

Needless to say, this is not something that modern liberal jurists are likely to understand.

"wondering when John Jay wrote the letter to Washington..requesting natural born citizen be added..did he translate the meaning to him..do we know if Jay knew French?"

June 18th, 1787 - Alexander Hamilton suggests that the requirement be added, as: "No person shall be eligible to the office of President of the United States unless he be now a Citizen of one of the States, or hereafter be born a Citizen of the United States." Works of Alexander Hamilton (page 407).

July 25, 1787 (~5 weeks later) - John Jay writes a letter to General Washington (president of the Constitutional Convention): "Permit me to hint, whether it would be wise and seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government; and to declare expressly that the Commander in Chief of the American army shall not be given to nor devolve on, any but a natural born Citizen." [the word born is underlined in Jay's letter which signifies the importance of allegiance from birth.] http://rs6.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/hlaw:@field%28DOCID+@lit%28fr00379%29%29:

September 2nd, 1787 George Washington pens a letter to John Jay. The last line reads: "I thank you for the hints contained in your letter"
http://www.consource.org/index.asp?bid=582&fid=600&documentid=71483

September 4th, 1787 (~6 weeks after Jay's letter and just 2 days after Washington wrote back to Jay) - The "Natural Born Citizen" requirement is now found in their drafts. Madison's notes of the Convention
The proposal passed unanimously without debate

While most of the founders could not speak French, many could read French. Regarding John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the United States, he studied French in his youth. So yes, he was one who could read French.

On the contrary, we know many of the founders could NOT speak French...yet many of them could READ French:

Original French version of Vattel's Law of Nations:

Emer de Vattel, Le droit des gens, ou Principes de la loi naturelle, vol. 1 (of 2) [1758]

From Chapter XIX, 212 (page 248 of 592):
Title in French: "Des citoyens et naturels"
To English: "Citizens and natural"

French text (about citizens): "Les citoyens sont les membres de la societe civile : lies a cette societe par certains devoirs et soumis a son autorite, ils participent avec egalite a ses avantages."
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To English: "The citizens are the members of the civil society: linked to this society by certain duties and subject to its authority, they participate with equality has its advantages."
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French text (about "natural" born citizens): "Les naturels, ou indigenes, sont ceux qui sont nes dans le pays, de parens citoyens"
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To English, gives this: "the natural, or indigenous, are those born in the country, parents who are citizens"

Yes. When Paul was taken captive for preaching Christianity, he said, “Civus Romanus sum.” “I am a Roman citizen.” As a result he could not be summarily punished, or even put to the question, but had to be sent to Rome and tried there.

I don’t know if we know all of the details of how he was a Roman citizen. We know also that before he was converted and his name was changed from Saul to Paul, that he was Jewish.

Rome in some ways was like America. The founders appear to have been a group of people who got together from various backgrounds and decided to found a city state together. They actually decided to divide themselves into arbitrary tribes, but they were not really tribal in the way most people of the time were. So Greeks, Jews, Gauls, and others could, in the right circumstances, become Roman citizens.

...we know many of the founders could NOT speak French...yet many of them could READ French:

I would change the word "many" in your first sentence to "most". Other wise I agree completely.

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