patlin,
I thought that you and I were done feuding but I see that I was mistaken.
It is some coincidence that your treatment of my position on the meaning of a “natural born Citizen” is so similar to that of Jedi. Like I told Jedi, it might be a good idea to read my writings before posting on the internet what my position is or is not on the definition of an Article II “natural born Citizen.” Your “compliment” that I do “great work” rings so hollow and insincere given that you state falsehoods regarding my position and attack me with no basis.
You say that I have “consistenly neglected the natural right of ‘expatriation’ in [my] arguments & writings.” Here is what I wrote on my blog in August 20, 2009:
“The English common law had no concern for whether a person consented to be declared a “natural born subject.” This phenomenon was made much worse by the British not allowing any “natural born subjects” to expatriate and forcing them to be bound to the King for life through their perpetual natural allegiance. The English common law provided for perpetual natural allegiance which a subject could never renounce (once a British subject always a British subject). The English common law did not allow for a “natural born subject” to elect upon becoming of age another citizenship. English common law did not recognize a “natural born subject” as losing his or her allegiance to the King through the act of naturalizing in another country. But U.S. common law and statutes provided that an alien or U.S. citizen could expatriate and become a different citizen from that which he/she was born. For the Founders, consent was the foundation of citizenship. It was through that consent that the Founders expected U.S. citizens to give their absolute and sole allegiance to the U.S. This consent which was expressed as a transfer of allegiance to the U.S. was also critical to an alien becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen. It was expatriation that allowed foreigners to come to America, naturalize, and procreate a child on U.S. soil, which allowed that child to be born with sole allegiance and loyalty to the U.S. and eligible to be President. The Founders’ knowledge of consent as the basis for citizenship and acceptance of expatriation and election of citizenship upon becoming of age, had their source in the law of nations and not in the English common law which did not involve itself with these concepts.”
Mario Apuzzo, Esq.
August 20, 2009
Mario Apuzzo, ‘The Law of Nations or Principles of Natural Law’ as U.S. Federal Common Law Not English Common Law Define What an Article II Natural Born Citizen Is (August 20, 2009)
http://puzo1.blogspot.com/2009/08/law-of-nations-and-not-english-common.html
Here is what I wrote on May 19, 2010:
“A “natural born subject” under English common law could never renounce his or her allegiance. Mannie Brown explained the “old common-law doctrine Nemo potest exuere patriam by quoting Lord Coke in Calvin’s Case: “Ligeance is a true and faithful obedience of the subject due to his Sovereign. This ligeance and obedience is an incident inseparable to every subject; for as soon as he is born he oweth by birth-right ligeance and obedience to his Sovereign.” Mannie Brown, Expatriation of Infants, University of Toronto Press 97 (1939). But as we have seen above, in his 1799 citizenship law Jefferson wrote that a person could exercise his “natural right of expatriating himself” “whensoever” he saw fit to do so. Jefferson included in his law a right in a person to relinquish his citizenship in a manner prescribed by law. This right was known as the right to expatriate which was not only alien to English common law but forbidden by it. Jefferson’s idea that a person could renounce allegiance to the country of his or her birth was so accepted by early Congresses and society that Congress codified this right by passing the Naturalization Act of 1795 (1 Stat. 414, c. 20), which provided persons naturalizing in the United States to absolutely renounce and abjure all allegiance to any foreign prince or state and to support the Constitution. Over the years, there continued a debate in the courts whether an American citizen could expatriate himself or herself. The matter was finally settled in 1868, when Congress passed the Expatriation Act of 1868 and Representative Woodward of Pennsylvania proclaimed that by doing so Congress had driven feudalism from our shores.
Jefferson’s views on a person having a right to expatriate reveal that he looked to natural law and the law of nations and Vattel rather than the English common law on questions of citizenship. In a letter dated June 12, 1817, to Dr. John Manners, Jefferson made his views on whether the English common law applied to such questions well known:
“To Doctor John Manners.
Monticello, June 12, 1817.
SIR
Your favor of May 20th has been received some time since, but the increasing inertness of age renders me slow in obeying the calls of the writing table, and less equal than I have been to its labors.
My opinion on the right of Expatriation has been, so long ago as the year 1776, consigned to record in the act of the Virginia code, drawn by myself, recognizing the right expressly, and prescribing the mode of exercising it. The evidence of this natural right, like that of our right to life, liberty, the use of our faculties, the pursuit of happiness, is not left to the feeble and sophistical investigations of reason, but is impressed on the sense of every man. We do not claim these under the charters of kings or legislators, but under the King of kings. If he has made it a law in the nature of man to pursue his own happiness, he has left him free in the choice of place as well as mode; and we may safely call on the whole body of English jurists to produce the map on which Nature has traced, for each individual, the geographical line which she forbids him to cross in pursuit of happiness. It certainly does not exist in his mind. Where, then, is it? I believe, too, I might safely affirm, that there is not another nation, civilized or savage, which has ever denied this natural right. I doubt if there is another which refuses its exercise. I know it is allowed in some of the most respectable countries of continental Europe, nor have I ever heard of one in which it was not. How it is among our savage neighbors, who have no law but that of Nature, we all know. . . . “ http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/7897401/jefferson/1817.html. We can see how Jefferson was clear in stating the right to expatriate, like the right to life, liberty, and to pursue happiness, was a natural right that came from God and not from the English common law. He also explained that the English common law was adopted by the states and was applied by them on local issues. But when it came to the national government, he stated that no such law was adopted. Hence, the right to expatriate could have come only from natural law rather than the English common law. As Jefferson applied natural law to the question of expatriation, he would have also applied it to defining a “natural born Citizen.” These historical writings show that Jefferson surely would not have considered a “natural born Citizen” to have the same meaning as an English common law “natural born subject.”
All this leads us to the inescapable conclusion that the Founders and Framers did not give the “natural born Citizen” clause the same meaning that the English common law gave to a “natural born subject.” For further information explaining that the Framers did not rely upon English common law but rather natural law, the law of nations, and Vattel to define a “natural born Citizen,” see my essay entitled, ‘The Law of Nations or Principles of Natural Law’ as U.S. Federal Common Law Not English Common Law Define What an Article II Natural Born Citizen Is.”
Mario Apuzzo, Esq.
May 19, 2010
Mario Apuzzo, A U.S. Constitution Article II “natural born Citizen” Is Not the Same As an English Common Law “natural born subject”
http://puzo1.blogspot.com/2010/05/article-ii-natural-born-citizen-is-not.html
These are two examples and I do not believe it is necessary in the interest of time that I go looking for more. As you can clearly see, you are wrong in saying that I do not address the issue of expatriation in my writings.
I do not understand why people like you and Jedi have to attack me (in error no less) in a feable effort to aggrandize yourselves. Just leave me out of your posts and just make your points. You and Jedi will have more credibility (whatever is left of it) among those who really know what is going on. The both of you really do not gain any points with well-informed persons when you make unjustified attacks against me.
One would think that you and Jedi (the grader of the works of attorneys who have risked their honor and careers to bring Obama to justice) would have something good to say about the Kerchner case and me given that I am now waiting to hear from the U.S. Supreme Court if they will grant my petition for a writ of certiorari. All this by you and Jedi should lead a reasonable person to doubt your true motives and loyalties.
Mario Apuzzo, Esq.
Your posts are long, loaded with information and the right of expatriation gets lost in the shuffle. Expatriation is the “key” as it does not exist in English feudal law that had only been in place a short time compared to the long history of England. It was a huge part of the civil war in England in the mid 1600’s. While you expound on Vattel, you neglect Locke & Sidney who set the sparks flying. Those most distinguished Englishmen, one executed & the other escaped into exile, had much more to do with the actual revolution & why it happened as their works focus on natural law, while Vattel focused on the Law of Nations. Locke & Sidney are the seeds that sprouted the knowledge of true natural law as it originally existed in England well before feudal law was incorporated. So, while you focus on Vattel who was oh so important as the founders were dealing with 13 sovereign nation states, you neglect English history which is key to understanding why the founders even went looking for Vattel. They read Locke and Sidney as youth, they knew of the civil war in England in the mid 1600’s & most importantly, they had been taught the heritage of their forefathers and of the days when England first began & wasn't under feudal law.
Supreme Court Justice James Wilson, signer of both the Declaration & the Constitution, 2nd only to Madison in the drafting of the Constitution...
Date: 1791
English law has its roots in Anglo-Saxon customs, which were too firmly established to be completely broken by the Norman Conquest and still form the basis of their common law today. In 1068, having at last reduced the country to submission, William set to work to establish a Roman government on a firm and lasting basis. Roman law, the legal system of ancient Rome is now the basis of civil law, one of the main European legal systems...
I know that the term citizen is often applied to one of the more numerous party—to one of the people: and I shall be obliged to take the description of a citizen from the character which he supports as one of the people. But you will easily perceive, that the same person may, at different times, act or be viewed in different characters; and though his description be taken from one of them, the account of his duties and of his rights too may, on a particular occasion, be referred to the other. This I have chosen to do, rather than to introduce an unknown phrase, or to use a known phrase in a new signification. Besides, the expression is frequently employed also in the sense in which I now use it. “Generally speaking,” says the great political authority, Aristotle, “a citizen is one partaking equally of power and of subordination.”
A citizen then—to draw his description as one of the people—I deem him, who acts a personal or a represented part in the legislation of his country. He has other rights ; but his legislative I consider as his characteristic right. In this view, a citizen of the United States is he, who is a citizen of at least some one state in the Union : for the members of the house of representatives in the national legislature are chosen, in each state, by electors, who, in that state, have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the state legislature. In this view, a citizen of Pennsylvania is he, who has resided in the state two years; and, within that time, has paid a state or county tax: or he is between the ages of twenty one and twenty two years, and the son of a citizen...
You will be pleased to hear, that, with regard to this as well as to many other subjects, we have renewed, in our governments, the principles and the practice of the ancient Saxons.