Posted on 03/12/2011 9:33:22 PM PST by Seizethecarp
You may add The Boston Globe to the growing list of influential media sources who have expressed the opinion that simply being born in the United States does not qualify one to be President. Recently, this blog pointed to a similar opinion in the New York Tribune. These pre-dated Breckenridge Long’s similar opinion as stated in the Chicago Legal News.
Recently, one of my readers uncovered this crucially relevant article published in the Boston Globe on November 9, 1896 by Percy A. Bridgham, aka “The People’s Lawyer“. (Mr. Bridgham’s book, One Thousand Legal Questions Answered by the “People’s Lawyer” of the Boston Daily Globe, can be found in the Harvard Law School library.)
The People’s Lawyer, upon answering a reader’s question regarding the Constitution’s natural born citizen clause, stated:
“The fact that the Constitution says “natural” instead of native shows to my mind that the distinction was thought of and probably discussed. A natural born citizen would be one who by nature, that is by inheritance, so to speak, was a citizen, as distinguished from one who was by nativity or locality of birth a citizen. A child born to Irish parents in Ireland cannot become a citizen except by naturalization, while his brother born in the United States is a native born citizen; the former is neither naturally nor by nativity a citizen, the latter is not naturally, but natively a citizen.”
It’s important to note that, while this article was written two years before the controversial decision in Wong Kim Ark, Bridgham adopts a similar conclusion as Justice Gray did in that case by stating that children born of aliens on US soil are citizens. But Bridgham also states that while these children are “native born” citizens, they are not “natural born” citizens and therefore cannot be President.
(Excerpt) Read more at naturalborncitizen.wordpress.com ...
Leo Donofrio’s latest...
A lot of people in this country including Obama are not eligible to be POTUS.
Yeah seen it before the ping. :-) ‘Native’ vs ‘Natural’ diverged especially after the 14th Amendment.
While most MSM is still treating O as minigod, this is going to happen more and more.
He spent hours today playing golf while a nuclear plant is starting to melt down in Japan, thousands are dead in a tsunami, Libya women are holding signs begging for western intervention, government debt is getting unmanageable, and state capitals are being invaded for political reasons.
He is unfit. The MSM is starting to realize they may have trouble reelecting him in 2012.
Thanks, will read carefully tomorrow.
One thing is certain, no USSC decision has disturbed the historical distinction between native-born and natural born.
The Wong decision by the majority did not address natural born, and the judge’s editorializing in the decision most certainly does not amend the Constitution.
Inaction on this issue at the federal level for the past two years is the largest fraud in the history of our nation’s government.
If the states can do something about it, then the state senators sitting in the U.S. Congress right now can do something about it.
“If the states can do something about it, then the members from each state sitting in...”
Been a very long day, g’night.
bttt
sfl
Please——someone alert the idiot state “representatives” in Georgia.
Quote from a “representative” to an e-mail concerning the eligibility bill brought to the floor of the state House in Georgia, HB401 and it’s DEFEAT:
“This bill has been trashed! Most all signers have pulled their names. The bill will never come up for a vote. Its a waste of taxpayer dollars. If you don’t like Obama you can vote him out of office through a normal process.”
Tainted with an assumption of racism towards the “Won” and NOT his policies...so, he MUST be a democrat. “Racism” is their only defense.
Also, a lack of understanding about Pelosi’s and Alice Travis Germond’s (secretary of the DNC at the time) TWO differing Certificates of Nomination for the “Won” prior to the election of 2008.
The representative is an idiot, and a whore...the dredging of the Savannah River with federal funds was in play.
They’re CHEAP whores, to boot. A river dredging versus America.
Leo goes after state legislators on NBC definition and declares them (and certain SPs) to be traitors if they say dual citizenship is a “distraction”...
My brother and I belong in this group. However, both of us never shirked defending this Nation in WWII. My brother was even killed in the defense.
My brother and I belong in this group. However, both of us never shirked defending this Nation in WWII. My brother was even killed in the defense.
Per Leo:
“Your legislators continue to dodge the issue claiming that it’s a “distraction”. The Constitution is a distraction? Only to a traitor. Everyone should note with very careful particularity the name of each elected official who refers to the Constitution as a distraction. These are traitors to their oath of office.”
“The issue of dual allegiance is not a joke and certainly no distraction (other than to those who disrespect our Constitution). At the very least, those who support Obama should support the need for his eligibility to be reviewed by the US Supreme Court. To leave the issue in perpetual limbo is to endanger the nation.”
“Those states considering bills which would require Presidential candidates to prove they did not have dual allegiance at the time of their births are on the front lines of this battle. I have come back to this blog in order to support their effort. I hope there is at least one state in the union which has legislators who care enough about this nation’s future to risk the scorn of media propaganda.”
Sorry....anger fogs my mind-—
Not Savannah River-—Savannah PORT.
TO THE PRINTERS OF THE BOSTON PATRIOT. - John Adams, The Works of John Adams, vol. 9 (Letters and State Papers 1799-1811) [1854]
Edition used:
The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: with a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations, by his Grandson Charles Francis Adams (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1856). 10 volumes. Vol. 9.
Author: John Adams
Editor: Charles Francis Adams
Part of: The Works of John Adams, 10 vols.
*snip*
Mr. Hamilton’s erroneous conceptions of the public opinion may be excused by the considerations that he was not a native of the United States; that he was born and bred in the West Indies till he went to Scotland for education, where he spent his time in a seminary of learning till seventeen years of age, after which no man ever perfectly acquired a national character; then entered a college at New York, from whence he issued into the army as an aid-de-camp.
In these situations he could scarcely acquire the opinions, feelings, or principles of the American people.
His error may be excused by the further consideration, that his time was chiefly spent in his pleasures, in his electioneering visits, conferences, and correspondences, in propagating prejudices against every man whom he thought his superior in the public estimation, and in composing ambitious reports upon finance, while the real business of the treasury was done by Duer, by Wolcott, and even, for some time and in part, by Tench Coxe.
*snip*
My worthy fellow-citizens! Our form of government, inestimable as it is, exposes us, more than any other, to the insidious intrigues and pestilent influence of foreign nations.
Nothing but our inflexible neutrality can preserve us.
The public negotiations and secret intrigues of the English and the French have been employed for centuries in every court and country of Europe.
Look back to the history of Spain, Holland, Germany, Russia, Sweden, Denmark, Prussia, Italy, and Turkey, for the last hundred years. How many revolutions have been caused!
How many emperors and kings have fallen victims to the alternate triumphs of parties, excited by Englishmen or Frenchmen!
And can we expect to escape the vigilant attention of politicians so experienced, so keen-sighted, and so rich?
If we convince them that our attachment to neutrality is unchangeable, they will let us alone; but as long as a hope remains, in either power, of seducing us to engage in war on his side and against his enemy, we shall be torn and convulsed by their manœuvres.
I’m going to SO hate myself in a few hours .. especially of all nights .. losing an hour of sleep, but John Adams pretty much graphically painted the situation there, didn’t he ? Our Founders have to be spinning in their graves.
Anyone want to see whats inside..I have not opened..
Contents:
Appendix — Extracts from Vattel’s Law of Nations with notes by Burke.
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a/records.aspx?cat=154-fma&cid=25-79#25-79
[...]
I’m going to SO hate myself in a few hours .. especially of all nights .. losing an hour of sleep, but John Adams pretty much graphically painted the situation there, didn’t he ? Our Founders have to be spinning in their graves.
It's so elementary, so very basic, this need to shut out foreign influence.
And we have tragically lost sight of it.
I'd written earlier about physical illustrations of the need for this protection. One example was a set of gates near a pedestrian railroad crossing. The gates were constructed with double gates such that a person could not walk straight across the tracks.
Another example is a dog park I saw. This park, enclosed by a chain-link fence, has a double set of gates for entry. You could take a group of schoolchildren to that dog park and ask them, "Why two gates? Why not just one?" Then explain to them that for the Presidency of our country, our Founders designed "two gates" of citizenship expressed in the fundamental concept of the law of nations, that of the natural born citizen. Born on the soil of the country (one gate) of parents who are citizens of the country (second gate).
Even a schoolchild would understand this. Our Founders understood this. But the voters have forgotten.
That would depend on where you and your brother were born and who were your parents.
Bless you and your brother for defending our great country. My father flew the Burma Hump in WWII.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.