page 246)
And the constitution itself contains a direct recognition of the subsisting common law principle, in the section which defines the qualification of the President. “No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of this constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President,” &c. The only standard which then existed, of a natural born citizen, was the rule of the common law, and no different standard has been adopted since. Suppose a person should be elected President who was native born, but of alien parents, could there be any reasonable doubt that he was eligible under the constitution? I think not.
(pg 250)
6. Upon principle, therefore, I can entertain no doubt, but that by the law of the United States, every person born within the dominions and allegiance of the United States, whatever were the situation of his parents, is a natural born citizen.
http://tesibria.typepad.com/whats_your_evidence/Lynch_v_Clarke_1844_ocr.pdf
“And if, at common law, all human beings born within the ligeance of the King, and under the King’s obedience, were natural-born subjects, and not aliens, I do not perceive why this doctrine does not apply to these United States, in all cases in which there is no express constitutional or statute declaration to the contrary. . . . Subject and citizen are, in a degree, convertible terms as applied to natives, and though the term citizen seems to be appropriate to republican freemen, yet we are, equally with the inhabitants of all other countries, subjects, for we are equally bound by allegiance and subjection to the government and law of the land.”
James Kent, COMMENTARIES ON AMERICAN LAW, pg. 258 (1826)
“The country where one is born, how accidental soever his birth in that place may have been, and although his parents belong to another country, is that to which he owes allegiance. Hence the expression natural born subject or citizen, & all the relations thereout growing. To this there are but few exceptions, and they are mostly introduced by statutes and treaty regulations, such as the children of seamen and ambassadors born abroad, and the like.”
Leake v. Gilchrist, 13 N.C. 73 (N.C. 1829)
If you don’t know what a naturalized citizen is, perhaps you should read more before posting.
naturalized and natural born are two different things.
if you’re opinion were accurate, then any citizen would be eligible to be president. at which point, why would the founders use the language?
they wouldn’t. they understood the definition of natural born as someone born in the country of citizen parents.
amazing how far some people will go in order to twist a simple definition.
maybe you don’t realize... a person born of a british citizen is ‘british by descent’.
this is why both parents are to be American citizens upon birth in order to insure natural born status.
John Bingham stated in the House of Representatives in 1862:
Who are natural-born citizens but those born in the Republic? […] [P]ersons born within the Republic, of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty, are natural born citizens. Gentleman can find no exception to this statement touching natural-born citizens except what is said in the Constitution relating to Indians.[13]
He reiterated his statement in 1866:
Every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen.[14]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_Born_Citizen_Clause#Legal_opinions