Posted on 02/17/2011 2:11:54 PM PST by rxsid
"Jeffrey Toobin Issued False Legal Statements to Anderson Cooper Regarding Vattel and the 14th Amendment.
With natural born citizen legislation racing through 11 state legislatures, truthful legal analysis is more important than ever. False statements issued on CNN yesterday via an Anderson Cooper interview with Jeffrey Toobin demand correction. CNN, should they not immediately correct the false statements, will be privy to the stench of propaganda.
Jeffrey Toobin, alleged to be a CNN Senior Legal Analyst, gave a clearly false description of Vattels definition of natural born citizen. Toobin stated that the Vattel definition requires a person to be born in the United States to parents who were also born in the United States.
That is absolutely false.
Vattels definition only requires that a person to be considered a natural born citizen be born in the United States to parents who were citizens. One does not have to be born in the United States to be a citizen. Persons born in foreign countries may become US citizens via the naturalization process despite their place of birth.
If a person is born in the US of immigrant parents who were not born in the US but who have become US citizens prior to the childs birth that child is a natural born citizen according to Vattel. Vattels definition of natural born citizen, contained in his treatise, The Law of Nations, which according to Ben Franklin was with the framers at all times as they wrote the US Constitution, states that a person only needs to be born of parents who were citizens. It does not require that the parents be born in the United States.
This definition by Vattel was re-stated by the US Supreme Court in the case of Minor vs. Happersett. Here is the exact language from the US Supreme Court in the Minor decision:
The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first. For the purposes of this case it is not necessary to solve these doubts.
So here we see the US Supreme Court stating that persons born in the US to parents who are citizens are themselves natural born citizens. Nowhere does it state that the parents must be born in the US. The following definition is attributed to Vattel:
The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens.
This does not impose a requirement that the parents must have been born in the country. To this definition, Jeffrey Toobin falsely stated:
What Vattel said was natural born citizens means you were born in the United States and your parents are also born in the United States.
Furthermore, Toobin contributed additional false legal analysis when he stated:
But the words of the Constitution have been interpreted many times by the Supreme Court, and what it means is born in the United States.
That is unequivocally false.
First, to be a citizen, the 14th Amendment requires that a person be born in the US (or be naturalized in the US) and that a person be subject to the jurisdiction thereof. Despite erroneous popular belief, there is no US Supreme Court decision which states that simply being born in the US is enough to entitle a person to US citizenship. That is a legal myth to which Toobin is also guilty of spreading false legal analysis.
Second, the 14th Amendment does not define natural born citizen, it only defines citizen. Article 2 Section 1 of the US Constitution makes a clear distinction between a citizen who is eligible to be a Senator or Representative and a natural born citizen - who is eligible to be President.
Toobin has therefore issued clearly false legal statements. Either these are lies for propaganda purposes, or hes just a terrible legal analyst.
If Anderson Cooper would like to have a serious debate between myself and Toobin, or any other so called Senior Legal Analyst, I would be happy to oblige.
And if legislators in the State of Montana or any other state would like legal guidance on this issue, I would also be happy to oblige.
Please contact me at:
leo_donofrio2000@yahoo.com
Leo Donofrio, Esq."
You made that argument far better than I could. There is no other conclusion to that line of thought.
FReegards
Thank you Mr. Donofrio! I sat through that phony ‘legal analysis’ with my jaw dropped. When Toobin cited examples of presidents Wilson and Hoover having foreign-born mothers, thus rendering their sons ‘natural born’ notwithstanding the women’s nativity, was a straw man of the worst kind. Both women had been naturalized U.S. citizens at the time of their sons’ births, period. What particularly galls me is Toobin’s smug attitude with a smirk that seems perpetually plastered on his face. Way to go, Harvard Law School. Toobin is one of your finest alumni! (Perhaps he too was graduated ‘magna cum laude’ like our First Usurper!)
(I can dream can't I?)
“So do you advocate that anchor babies are natural born as it pertains to the Presidency?”
No. Their mothers are here illegally, and thus not “in amity” with out government. They are more like an invading army...
And who made Vattel a secular saint, the divine arbiter of Natural Law, never to be altered amended or abridged?
Allmendream, some of the contributors to rxsid's research thread on FR are much more knowledgable about the dozens of English translations of Vattel, the first of which appears to have been in 1760.
Rxsid has so clearly informed so many about pre-constitution acceptance of the term "natural born citizen," but his research is so thorough, but not so easy to find, that I'll take the liberty of explaining how to find it. Free Republic is an amazing resource, but not the easiest to navigate: Here is a direct link to rxsid's profile http://www.freerepublic.com/~rxsid/ About halfway down his remarkable compilation is a page from the 1781 Continental Congress in which the term natural born citizen is used. QED.
Of more import is the obvious fact that well over a dozen justices have established the common-law understanding by using the John Jay terminology, natural born citizen. At least three terms were in common use, "native," "birthright," "natural born," and all mean the same thing. Since our Constitution depends upon our common law for most of its definitions, as Madison, Kent, and Story, have all explained, we best cite the clarity of Chief Justice Morrison Waite's explanation, the definition cited by Horace Gray in Wong Kim Ark and Charles Hughes in Perkins v. Elg:
"The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners."
As to Vattel as a "secular saint" the history is remarkable. Jefferson made Vattel the first required text and the core curriculum at our first law school, carved out of William and Mary's Divinity School by Jefferson in 1779. Franklin told Vattel's publisher that Vattel was being read by most in the Continental Congress.
If you read Vattel, knowing that few are inclined to take the time, you will find the structure of our republic. It is uncanny to read a philosopher in 1758 explain the structure of a representative republic, how to structure a legislature, the rules governing a supreme court, when a "sovereign" should and shouldn't be removed for malfeasance, the significance of judicial review. To understand how the Constitution could be so coherant a document, having been compiled in a little more than a year, read Vattel.
Our framers were inspired by Vattel, beginning with the 1758 edition, which was in Jefferson's library. Franklin had English translations which he passed to colleagues in 1762, though he was fluent in French. Read Hamilton's letter to Washington in Sept 1790 in which Hamilton reiterates the understanding they both have,
"But Vatel, perhaps the most accurate and approved of the writers on the laws of nations, preserves a mean between these different opinions."Vattel was by far the most cited legal reference in U.S. Jurisprudence between 1789 and 1821, (Grotian Society Papers 1972). A little reading suggests that Vattel is actually pretty close to being a "secular saint." Your use of the term "secular" is curiously insightful, because of Vattel's care in steering a course independent of religious doctrine at time of much struggle among religious/political factions.
For a remarkably clear discourse on the different classes of citizenship understood by our founders and framers, written by founder and probably the most prolific historian of pre-revolutionary history, Dr. David Ramsay wrote his Dissertaion of the ...Character and Privileges of a....Citizen. Jefferson's Rebels blogger re-typed the photo image of the 1779 document. Ramsay uses the term "birthright citizen," which is the same as "natural born" and "native" and "indigenous," all terms used interchangeably at the time.
Here is a sample (because our goal is that citizens understand the truth; unlike writing a textbook, where the industrious will read references, the objective here should be to make the knowledge public):
None can claim citizenship as a birth-right, but such as have been born since the declaration of independence, for this obvious reason: no man can be born a citizen of a state or government, which did not exist at the time of his birth. Citizenship is the inheritance of the children of those who have taken a part in the late revolution: but this is confined exclusively to the children of those who were themselves citizens. Those who died before the revolution, could leave no political character to their children, but that of subjects, which they themselves possessed. If they had lived, no one could be certain whether they would have adhered to the king or to congress. Their children, therefore, may claim by inheritance the rights of British subjects, but not of American citizens.
SOURCE: http://www.rochesterconservative.com/blog/the-natural-born-presidency
The following factoids refute Toobin’s assertions regarding presidents Wilson and Hoover having foreign-born mothers:
NBC Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921) Born: December 28, 1856 in Staunton, Virginia. Father- Reverend Dr. Joseph Ruggles Wilson was born in Steubenville, Ohio in 1822. Mother- Jessie Janet Woodrow was born in born in Carlisle, England in 1826. Parents married prior to 1851, mother automatically gained citizenship upon marriage in accordance with naturalization statutes of the period.
NBC Herbert Hoover (1929-1933) Born: August 10, 1874 in West Branch, Iowa. Father- Jesse Hoover was born on September 2, 1846 in Tuscarawas, Ohio. Mother- Hulda Randall Minthorn was born on May 4, 1848 in Norwich, Ontario, Canada. Parents married in 1870 and mother automatically gained citizenship in accordance with the naturalization statutes of the period.
The Founders translated naturels to natural born. The documents from the 1787 Congressional record have been posted on FR since May 2010.
'Nuff said.
Please post a photo of Section 212 from your 1792 edition of Droit des Gens. Please post a photo of the title page with publication information as well.
Thanks in advance.
Thank You for those instructive quotes. It is remarkable how the Democrat media refuses to admit this discussion ever occurred.
HEY, you idiots, this has been gone over before. LoL
Those were people who were here with the sanction of the US immigration laws not those who sneak in illegally.
A minor cannot give up his citizenship nor can his parent act in his stead to do so.
Hamilton was very familiar with Vattel, spoke fluent French and was the greatest lawyer of his day. Though he was not a natural born citizen he was still eligible to be president.
Hamilton’s mother was French and it was his first language so he was fluent so much so that when there were conferences during the War with the French officers Hamilton was the translator for Washington. He was his Chief Aide for almost three years.
Actually children born to US Citizens at service anywhere to service of the US are natural born citizens. Military families, or diplomatic corps which have children born while at that service are still natural born. This was actually raised against McCain by the Left because he was born in Panama while his dad was stationed there.
Isn’t that Clymer? Wouldn’t want it in wrong place.
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