“Again, for the purposes of this argument, what is important is this:”
Nope. For the purposes of the discussion on this particular thread - Sen. Cruz is a dual citizen. Dual citizenship was not legal under US law OR English common law (since you keep focusing on such) at the time the Constitution was signed in 1787.
Dual citizenship is still not legal - strictly speaking - under current US *NATURALIZATION* laws either. It is tolerated.
Mr. Cruz, who I happen to admire tremendously, is a dual citizen through no fault of his own. His birth circumstances can never be changed, so his eligibility under Article ll can never be changed.
You must at the very least concede that there was absolutely NO Act, law or provision for dual citizenship at the time the Constitution was signed. It did not exist as an OPTION.
Not in English common law, or any law in the new U.S. either. If you can find such a law ........... but one does not exist. Particularly NOT at the time the Constitution was signed.
Yet another misconception. Dual citizenship does not disqualify a person from being President. In fact...
According to the usages and understanding of all nations a man may have all the rights of a naturalized citizen or subject in his adopted country, and yet retain all his relations, civil and political, in his native country. For instance, the Marquis La Fayette was naturalized in the United States, but retained every such relation to France. So Mr. Jefferson was naturalized in France and there made a French citizen, and had he gone there would have been entitled to all the rights there of an adopted citizen, but he certainly retained all his relations to the United States, his rights and duties as a native citizen, and was in fact after such naturalization, elected President of the United States."
Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and our third President, was a dual citizen when elected President of the United States. There is no record that he ever repudiated his French citizenship, so he was a dual citizen of the United States and France while he was serving as President.
A General Abridgement and Digest of American Law, published 1824.
This "undivided loyalty" requirement that birthers are fond of talking about DID NOT EXIST.
They only wanted to guard against royalty native to other countries sweeping in and taking over.
They didn't even require the President to spend more than 14 years of his LIFE on American soil.
“You must at the very least concede that there was absolutely NO Act, law or provision for dual citizenship at the time the Constitution was signed. It did not exist as an OPTION.”
And thus it was not addressed in the Constitution. There is no prohibition in the Constitution against dual citizens. And if Russia decided today to declare all US citizens to be Russian citizens, we would all instantly be dual citizens - because we cannot control what foreign governments do.
But it also doesn’t affect us, because the Constitution makes no mention of dual citizenship.