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Everybody knew from the beginning any child born in the Canal Zone of two American parents could never become president of the U.S. McCain was not even born in the Canal Zone. He was born in the Republic of Panama.

I believe the relevant U.S. code is Here. According to that you are a citizen at birth because your parents were citizens. The claim is made that citizen at birth and natural-born citizen are not one and the same. I don't agree with that, and don't believe that the Constitution supports the idea of three or more classes of citizenship. It identifies natural-born citizens and naturalized. If you are not one then you're the other. And by law you certainly aren't naturalized.

So run for the presidency if you want. I might even vote for you.

“So run for the presidency if you want. I might even vote for you.”

Thank you, but we can’t run; and if we could, we are too honest for that. : ) I don’t know anyone from the Canal Zone living in the States who has durtied themselves for politics.

We had a unique, honest cultlure here. Anybody who did not play the game (children included) were out of here packed and gone in the next 24-48 hours. Period. Knowing this, it had all of us kids walking a straight line not to get our parents in trouble.

durtied - dirtied...sorry

I believe that if we use the Cornell Univ posting of the code, that the Obambi was an NBC, even if born in Kenya. (Many take issue with what Cornell has posted.)

I don’t know why people say that the Constitution didn’t determine what the term "Natural Born Citizen" meant. It did and quite clearly.

It appears to me that our Education System is a massive failure, when its 'graduates' of all levels are so ignorant as to the common language used in the country.

Please note the following REQUIREMENT for President:

Article II, Section 1, Clause 5:

"No Person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of the constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States."

There are only five instances in the Constitution detailing "citizen". Only ONE has any specified qualification: they made a clear distinction between "natural born citizen" and "citizen" in this clause.

"...or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of the constitution ..."

This means, that the Founding Fathers had to GRANDFATHER themselves into the Constitution to become President … they were only at that time CITIZENS because they had British citizenship at birth, and were automatically NATURALIZED to have American Citizenship.

The 14th Amendment is only to determine the CITIZENSHIP of all others within the US Borders, primarily freed slaves and indentured servants … it has no bearing on the "natural born citizen" issue.

The designation of "citizen" was carried over from Article IV of The Articles of Confederation of the United States of America:

Article IV.

The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and intercourse among the people of the different States in this Union, the free inhabitants of each of these States, paupers, vagabonds, and fugitives from justice excepted, shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several States; and the people of each State shall free ingress and regress to and from any other State, and shall enjoy therein all the privileges of trade and commerce, subject to the same duties, impositions, and restrictions as the inhabitants thereof respectively, provided that such restrictions shall not extend so far as to prevent the removal of property imported into any State, to any other State, of which the owner is an inhabitant; provided also that no imposition, duties or restriction shall be laid by any State, on the property of the United States, or either of them."

Note: They established the inhabitants of the Colonies as FREE CITIZENS.

In all of the citizenship cases brought before the US Supreme Court over the past two centuries, not one has used the term "natural born citizen" to refer to a person born of any immigrant, non-citizen parent.

An additional argument against using Blackstone’s interpretation instead of Vattel can be found in George Mason’s statement at the Convention - "The common law of England is not the common law of these States." As is pointed out at USC | Vattel, the Blackstone common law definition was used by Great Britain as the justification for impressing American seamen into the British Navy. We went to war in 1812 because we didn’t agree with that interpretation!

There are copious items in the Constitution that are not explicitly defined. There's no indication they intended it to be a literal dictionary. Furthermore, there was no need to define it in the Constitution for the reason I stated above. Folks during that time knew Vattel's work and therefore were familiar with his definition.

Clearly, Vattel defines "Natural Born Citizen" and Blackstone defines "Natural Born Subject." Which appears in the Constitution?

The question presented then is whether the US is willing to allow persons who were born without sole allegiance to the US to be Commander in Chief of our military.

For it is this specific fear that prompted our first Supreme Court Chief Justice – John Jay – to suggest to George Washington the following:

"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."

This letter was written on July 25, 1787. It is in direct response to Alexander Hamilton’s suggested Presidential requirement appearing in the first draft of the Constitution wherein Hamilton – five weeks earlier – on June 18, 1787 submitted the following:

"No person shall be eligible to the office of President of the United States unless he be now a Citizen of one of the States, or hereafter be born a Citizen of the United States."

There you have the crux of the issue now before the nation. Hamilton’s original drafted presidential requirement was ejected by the framers. Instead of allowing any person born a citizen to be President, the framers chose to adopt the more stringent requirement from John Jay, that the President be a natural born citizen.