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To: Bruce Campbells Chin

Okay, then, it appears we agree. The Founders wrote the NBC requirement to assure that in the future of the Republic, the occupier of the highest office of the land would be a citizen born and bred of American parents.


549 posted on 01/06/2011 9:28:49 AM PST by Fantasywriter
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To: Fantasywriter
The Founders wrote the NBC requirement to assure that in the future of the Republic, the occupier of the highest office of the land would be a citizen born and bred of American parents. No, you've now confused the conjunctive and the disjunctive. Clearly, the Founders intended to exclude people who were both born of foreign parents AND born outside the U.S. That was the question you originally posed to be, and why I agreed with that.

I do not believe the Constitution as originally passed expressly required both that a person be born in the U.S. and that both of his/her parents be U.S. citizens as well. That is open up to reasonable disagreement because the Founders did not define what they meant by "natural born citizen".

But I'll state again, whatever the Founders original intent was in 1787, the ratification of the 14th Amendment in 1868 -- long after all the Founders were dead -- eliminated any pre-existing requirement that both parents be citizens. Under the 14th, you are a citizen at birth if born in the U.S. and subject to its jurisdiction. That's as opposed to a "naturalized" citizen who only becomes a citizen after birth, and therefore is not a "natural born citizen".

553 posted on 01/06/2011 9:39:43 AM PST by Bruce Campbells Chin
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