Posted on 03/06/2013 5:30:00 PM PST by Seizethecarp
Thanks for that link. What a treasure trove of information. It has been bookmarked.
That's all? That's what you call a footnoted and exhaustive analysis?
Try this instead, written by a conservative author:
Vattel and natural born citizen
Natural born citizenship and the law of nations
More about natural born citizenship and the law of nationa
American common law and natural born citizenship
The natural law origin of "natural born citzien"
Early use of natural born citizen
Historical meaning of natural born citizen
That's only a sample. That's just the BEGINNING.
There's a bunch more, including tons and tons of open debate at that site.
The last series I mentioned, on the historical meaning of the term, runs for 7 long articles, covers just about every conceivable use of the term throughout US history, every birther argument I've ever heard of, and gives a fair hearing not just to one side but to BOTH sides.
In the end, hundreds of sources are quoted or referenced. There are links and footnotes to every source imaginable. A bunch of it is debated by birthers, and as far as I see, every single argument they ever make is thoroughly destroyed.
The entire study seems to be an exhaustive one. And the author concludes after it all that the whole birther claim is a great big pile of nonsense.
If you want a treasure trove of information, try the links I just posted.
I don’t really have time to get this started, but I’ll reply as time permits. For starters, my question to you is this:
What, in your opinion, would be the definition/concept of ‘innately divided loyalty’ or ‘inherently divided loyalty’ as pertains to NBC and the circumstances of a person’s birth? I.e.: leaving all theoreticala aside and thinking solely in terms of individuals who have divided loyalty as a circumstance of their birth, how would you define that term/situation?
[If you need clarification, please ask. This isn’t a trick question. I genuinely want to know how you would define ‘divided loyalty as an irrevocable component of birth’. (Though as mentioned my replies will be sporatic, and maycarry over to tomorrow or the next day, etc. I am extremely busy at the moment.)]
So it appears that naturalized parents can convey natural born citizenship to their child then?
Some folks in the Obama is ineligible movement believe that only natural born parents can pass down natural born citizenship.
It would be good to have these rules codified in statutory law at some point.
Case law from US v Wong Kim Ark being “stare decisis” (settled law) via the 14th Amendment says that there are two sources of citizenship, and only two, birth and naturalization.
I did a google search on both terms. I can't find any indication that the Founding Fathers used either of those terms.
John Jay's letter to George Washington, during the Constitutional Convention, suggested:
"Permit me to hint, whether it would be wise and seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government; and to declare expressly that the Commander in Chief of the American army shall not be given to nor devolve on, any but a natural born Citizen. "
I seem to recall one of our other early leaders also had something to say on why the clause was added, but I can't think right now who it was I'm thinking of.
In any event, from all that I've read, they wanted to guard against "the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government," and this particularly seems to have been directed at rich nobility and royalty coming over here from Europe, particularly from England, with a bunch of followers and a ton of money, dazzling and buying their way into the Presidency, and then undermining the Revolution.
I have never read any historical document, or any argument that could legitimately point to one, that they considered anybody born on US soil (except a few very rare historical exceptions like the children of foreign ambassadors) to be a "foreigner." There just isn't a hint of it.
It also seems clear that they weren't entirely tight-fisted about "foreign influence" here. They only required the President to have ever lived for 14 years in the United States before serving in the office. If they were so dead set against any "foreign influence" at all, then why not say the President had to born in the United States, educated in the United States, and never resident in any foreign country except in diplomatic or military service?
Instead, they said that the President had to be a natural born citizen, 35 years of age, and had to have lived 14 years (just 14 years!!!) of his life in the United States of America.
The reason you couldn’t find the sought after term is because I was not asking about the Framers or history, I asked how you, JW, would define divided loyalty.
Here’s a clarification, to put a finer point on it. Let’s say you have a person, and this person has an American mother and a Kenyan father. Setting aside citizenship issues, just consider this individual from a loyalty standpoint. Will he at all times and in every situation be one-hundred percent loyal to his mother’s side of his heritage, or to his father’s? Will his loyalties divide somewhere in between?
Put another way, whence will this individual’s dreams, principals, ideals and identity derive? Will his loyalty to his mother’s/American side be such that he will derive his dreams, identity and aspirations from her/the USA, or will he emotionally & intellectually invest himself in his father’s/Kenyan side?
I don’t think it’s difficult to argue that Obama’s values were influenced by his Kenyan father. Heck, he even wrote a book entitled “Dreams from My Father.”
Immigrants have always come to America, bringing with them a potpourri of values, customs and aspirations. Some of these have been good, some have been bad.
I don’t know whether you’re trying to convince me to vote against Obama, or what. I already voted against him, twice.
The argument you’re making is that Ted Cruz should be absolutely disqualified from ever being elected President, simply because his father, a Cuban, was not a US citizen when Ted was born.
It seems to me that many of the people who understand the problems of other countries best, and who best understand why we should avoid going the direction of many other countries, are those whose parents fled those countries for ours.
So in terms of answering your question: I don’t personally think the fact that a person’s parents came from another country and were or were not US citizens at the time of that person’s birth here in America should disqualify all such people from the Presidency.
Having said that, Constitutionally, my opinion as to what I prefer doesn’t count for anything. If we are going by the Constitution, then what counts is the rule that our Founding Fathers and Framers set down in the Constitution.
And there is no evidence at all that they had the slightest intention of excluding any person born in America on the basis of his or her parents’ citizenship.
I have a son like that. At the time of his birth I believed that he was a natural born citizen. I was probably wrong. But it isn’t clear. If you are born to two Americans, or one American, off American soil, are you still natural born? It is debatable.
Now, Stanley Ann, Obama’s slutty mama, was not eligible to give her child citizenship if Obama was born in Canada, which he probably was. At the tie, you had to have been in the USA for something like 5 years after the age of 15 to confer citizenship status on a foreign born baby. She was barely 18 so she could not.
Thanks for your reply. I’m close to signing off on posting for the night, and can’t realistically do a reply justice in the time I have. I’ll plan to get to it when I can tomorrow; thank you in advance for your patience. [I never suspected you of voting for Obama, btw. If I had, we wouldn’t be having this discusion; life’s too short.]
It is debatable. But you were probably correct. As long as your son was born an American citizen, he is most likely (earlier I gave it at least about 20 to 1 odds) a natural born citizen.
Any genuine construction of the “natural born Citizen” clause must begin from the starting point that it requires something more than citizenship by virtue of being born on U.S. soil. Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1874), tells you exactly what that something is; citizen parents.
So it appears that naturalized parents can convey natural born citizenship to their child then?
Of course they can. But remember, the parents have to be naturalized as U.S. Citizens prior to the child being born before it can be declared a ‘natural born Citizen’.
I'm sorry, but that idea is just silly. I really can't put it any differently than that.
The purpose of the 14th Amendment was not to create some new kind of citizenship. It was simply to guarantee that the same rights of citizenship that had always existed for most people were honored for black people, many of whom were former slaves.
Or, to put it another way: If you had German or British or Italian or Spanish immigrants who came to the United States, who had children here, those CHILDREN, born on US soil, were ALWAYS natural born citizens, whether their parents were citizens or not.
ALWAYS. This was true from the beginning of our country. And before we even HAD a separate country, those children were NATURAL BORN SUBJECTS of the country we did have, which was England.
But there were some who said the same thing was not true, or at least should not be true, of BLACK children.
There were also some who said that it shouldn't be true of Chinese and other Oriental immigrants, solely on the basis of their RACE.
The 14th Amendment simply guarantees that all people, regardless of race, national origin, or previous condition of slavery, who are born in the United States have the same right to NATURAL BORN CITIZENSHIP that the children of white European immigrants ALWAYS had. It did nothing but ensure that the rule of natural born citizenship, which had always applied, applied to ALL RACES of people.
There were even some in Congress who asked why it was being passed, since it seemed to do nothing other than clarify what the law really was. The answer was basically, "Well, we have people who want to deny these rights to black people, and it's very useful to pass an Amendment that simply clarifies what the law is."
There was one significant exception to the 14th Amendment: American Indians. Their status was extensively debated during the 14th Amendment debates, and it was agreed that the 14th Amendment would not apply to them. That's why they put in the words "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof." Those words excluded Indians born in Indian tribes.
Again, that was a clarification of the way it had always been. Indian tribes were their own governments, and we made treaties with them, just as we made treaties with England and France. So their "citizens" were never considered to be our citizens, just as French citizens weren't considered to be US citizens, either.
Any genuine construction of the “natural born Citizen” clause must begin from the starting point that it requires something more than citizenship by virtue of being born on U.S. soil. Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1874), tells you exactly what that something is; citizen parents.
Your claim goes directly and absolutely against all of United States history and law. And that's a nice way of saying that it's completely and absolutely wrong. That's a nice way of saying that it is so wrong as to be absurd. It's a nice way of saying it is so absolutely wrong that I can't believe an apparently intelligent person is even making it.
The Supreme Court quoted Minor v Happersett for the purpose of making the OPPOSITE point of what you're claiming. They quoted that case to illustrate that that specific previous Court was NOT "committed to the view that all children born in the United States of citizens or subjects of foreign States were excluded from the operation of the first sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment."
The two-citizen-parent claim is simply false. And as I've stated before, no credible authority on either side of the aisle buys it.
Only if the children are born outside of the United States. Person born on US soil are natural born citizens without regard to the citizenship of their parents. This is clear and settled law.
What do you base that on?
An easy gauge is the number of widely recognized, credible conservative legal and Constitutional experts who accept the theory, including organizations like conservative think tanks that promote adherence to the Constitution.
There really are none.
Mark Levin, for example, is an expert on the Constitution. He lives and breathes the Constitution. He won’t even give the theory the time of day.
Neither will the Heritage Foundation, or National Review, or the folks at Hillsdale College.
Nor will other people in the media. They might not be Constitutional experts, but neither RedState, nor Sean Hannity, nor Rush Limbaugh or any other significant conservative talk show host.
So that’s a pretty useful gauge.
There’s also at least one conservative author who has written extensively and in great detail on the natural born citizen stuff. Earlier in the thread I posted some links to his blog.
I also base that statement on reading all of US v. Wong Kim Ark (both the opinion and the dissent), on reading Minor v Happersett, on reading most of the arguments by people on both sides over both cases, on the fact that a number of different courts (I think at least 7 or 8) have specifically ruled that Obama is a natural born citizen according to the Constitution, and on the fact that the US Supreme Court totally refuses to even consider any “two citizen parent” appeals.
They refuse to entertain any appeals because it’s settled law.
Again, nobody who matters gives this theory the time of day.
I’m wondering who is it that makes the final determination of who is natural born? I mean officially, since there are federal and state judges who have declared Obama to be natural born with only one US citizen parent and they have not been overturned.
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