He was an American. Then he was Indonesian. Now, he's an American.
Obama's school record maintained by Fransiskus-Assisi Catholic School, Jakarta, Indonesia.
Worn-out-html-hands PING!
Another excellent offering from Ms. Publius Huldah!
Has a precedent been set by Obama? He of the fraudulent birth certificate and Kenyan father.
Neither parents were illegal aliens, in fact both were in the US with the permission of the US Govt.
Thanks for a most exellent post.
I suggest you ping the “brilliant constitutional scholar” Mark Levin, whose freeper name is “holdonnow”.
Our founders might indeed have understood Vattel in the way this thread suggests. That’s not what they said in plain text. Incorporating Vattel by inference is NOT strict construction.
If our founders meant that both parents be should be citizens, they should have explicitly said that.
Both Jindal and Rubio are eligible to run. Even if you could have made an argument otherwise before, Obama sets the precedent that NBC means citizen at birth, period.
The NBC argument has been settled. Vattel lost.
If there is any government where prerogatives might with apparent safety be entrusted to any individual, it is in the federal government of America. The president of the United States of America is elected only for four years. He is not only responsible in the general sense of the word, but a particular mode is laid down in the constitution for trying him. He cannot be elected under thirty-five years of age; and he must be a native of the country.Yes, Paine did use the term "native of the country." Does this mean "native born" instead of "natural born?" We have to look at the following statements to answer that question.In a comparison of these cases with the Government of England, the difference when applied to the latter amounts to an absurdity. In England the person who exercises prerogative is often a foreigner; always half a foreigner, and always married to a foreigner. He is never in full natural or political connection with the country, is not responsible for anything, and becomes of age at eighteen years; yet such a person is permitted to form foreign alliances, without even the knowledge of the nation, and to make war and peace without its consent.
But this is not all. Though such a person cannot dispose of the government in the manner of a testator, he dictates the marriage connections, which, in effect, accomplish a great part of the same end. He cannot directly bequeath half the government to Prussia, but he can form a marriage partnership that will produce almost the same thing. Under such circumstances, it is happy for England that she is not situated on the Continent, or she might, like Holland, fall under the dictatorship of Prussia. Holland, by marriage, is as effectually governed by Prussia, as if the old tyranny of bequeathing the government had been the means.
The presidency in America (or, as it is sometimes called, the executive) is the only office from which a foreigner is excluded, and in England it is the only one to which he is admitted. A foreigner cannot be a member of Parliament, but he may be what is called a king. If there is any reason for excluding foreigners, it ought to be from those offices where mischief can most be acted, and where, by uniting every bias of interest and attachment, the trust is best secured. But as nations proceed in the great business of forming constitutions, they will examine with more precision into the nature and business of that department which is called the executive. What the legislative and judicial departments are every one can see; but with respect to what, in Europe, is called the executive, as distinct from those two, it is either a political superfluity or a chaos of unknown things.
Paine refers to Engish examples in order to define this. Paine cites "foreigner" and "half a foreigner" as the oppposite to "full natural" connection to the country. So, what is "half a foreigner?"
It seems to me that "half a foreigner" is a person with one parent who is a citizen and one parent who is not. This person does not have have a "full natural... connection with the country."
Paine wrote plainly of why the Framers did not want "half-foreigners" to be president, and why only people with a "full natural... connection with the country" were allowed to become President.
Paine was widely recognized as the most influential writer of the time of Independence because of his plain writing style that resonated with the common person.
Paine's description of the meaning of Article II was written in 1791, and I take it to be reflective of the common understanding of the time. This was, after all, written just two years after the ratification of the Constitution. If Paine said that natural born citizens meant both parents were citizens, then that was the plain meaning.
-PJ
So how does Vattel -- less cited than Pufendorf or Grotius, Hobbes or Rousseau, and far less cited than Blackstone or Coke -- all of a sudden end up being the one and only authoritative source for the Founders' thinking about citizenship?
This does not argue for or against the article, but Alexander Hamilton remained in New York the entire time of drafting the Constitution. He showed up on the final day only to sign his name to the document.
I hope all of our unenlightened freepers read this thread and stop pushing Jindal and Rubio for VP.
Your explanation doesn’t explain
A: The term NBC doesn’t appear in any translation of Vattel prior to 1797 - 10 years AFTER the Constitution was written. If they were following Vattel, why didn’t they use the terms VATTEL used: native, or indigenous,
B: one of the ratifying legislatures used ‘natural born subject’ and ‘natural born citizen’ interchangeably during the years before and after the Constitution was drafted. If a ratifying legislature thought the terms NBC & NBS were interchangeable, why were they wrong?
There is a reason why the courts in the 1800s rejected your interpretation, and why in 1898 the US Supreme Court rejected it. Someone is welcome to argue the dissent in WKA was right and the decision was wrong, but the decision hasn’t been challenged since it was made in 1898.
The WKA decision (I recommend reading both the decision and the dissent):
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0169_0649_ZO.html
The Principal framer (John Bingham) of the 14th amendment
and in particular the CITIZENSHIP clause had this to say
during a debate on the house floor regarding the 14th
amendment:
Center column 3rd paragraph down:
Source:
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llcg&fileName=071/llcg071.db&recNum=2
>! you have to turn to page 1291 !>
Bingham states: I find no fault with the introductory clause [S 61 Bill],
which is simply declaratory of what is written in the Constitution, that 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… . . – John Bingham, framer of the 14 amendment in the United States House on March 9, 1866”
Charles Pinckney
Signer of the United States Constitution, Governor of South
Carolina. Senator and a member of the House of Representatives.
“Therefore, we can say with confidence that a natural-born
citizen of the United States means those persons born
whose father the United States already has an established
jurisdiction over, i.e., born to father’s who are
themselves citizens of the United States.”