Posted on 10/15/2009 2:58:49 PM PDT by rxsid
Joe says:
Gorefan - My heritage includes the Adams of Massachusetts and the Herndons of Virginia. The Adams papers I am in possession of plainly state they looked to "Vattel's Law of Nations" for guidance in determining who might be qualified as a "natural born Citizen". (Yes, they capitalized "Citizen".) Do you actually believe there was no discussion of the topic by the Founding Fathers? Are you truly that ignorant of how well the Founding Fathers understood the law and its possible impact on future generations? It is very clear you haven't a clue how well educated and intelligent the Founding Fathers were. Most were conversant in Latin and Greek, plus Hebrew and Aramaic.
October 14, 10:48 PM
Joe says:
My family is in possession of over seven thousand files of Adams documents that have been passed from generation to generation. We know what our forebears intended, we are not guessing and jumping to conclusions. Every possible legal scenario was thoroughly discussed and carefully decided by the Founding Fathers. Contrary to prevailing opinion, they left NOTHING to chance. I will be sharing our documents with the best qualified attorneys working on the Obama eligibility cases. Get used to it, Obama is finished and he knows it. Obama is knowingly leading his blinded followers down the paths of deceit and directly into the darkened halls of shame.
October 14, 11:00 PM
Joe says:
My family also counts among our forebears King O'Leathlobhair (pronounced OWE LAL_OW_IR), who was ruler of all England in the third century A.D. The name O'Leathlobhair means "seeker of justice" and it is the original term from which the word "lawyer" was derived around the year 100 B.C. We've been well known as meticulous practitioners of the law since before the birth of Christ. In that time, I believe we have acquired a rather firm grasp of the basic ideas of how laws are to be properly formulated and administered. Obama shall not be allowed to continue to illegally retain the office of president.
October 14, 11:53 PM
"John says:
The Adams papers I am in possession of plainly state they looked to "Vattel's Law of Nations" for guidance in determining who might be qualified as a "natural born Citizen"."Joe - Please tell me you're kidding
October 15, 12:07 AM
Joe says:
John - This is an extremely serious matter, I do not "kid" about such issues.
October 15, 12:08 AM
Joe says:
My family and others have quietly observed and awaited the full winnowing of the wheat from the chaff in the legal matter of Obama's lack of eligibility. We are now preparing to act in unison to see that the law is enforced. The subject of "natural born Citizen" has never before been at issue during the term of a sitting president. The matter shall be decided fairly and equitably from information contained within very clear and meet and proper archived resources. The Lees of Virginia and other families also possess within their private archives a great deal of documentation regarding the intent of the Founding Fathers. Those who believe this issue was not debated and decided long ago haven't been previously afforded access to the existing documents.
October 15, 12:29 AM
John says:
Joe - I've been researching this subject for a year. Trust me, I know exactly how serious this is. I'd like to talk to you more but offline. If you're interested, email me at theoriginalist@rocketmail.com
October 15, 12:46 AM
Joe says:
The trump cards are face-up on the table for all to see. The "natural born Citizen" issue is neither mysterious, nor undecided. Always remember : Only patience, wisdom, and forebearance bring justice, the law shall not be hastened to conclusion. I must now depart. At noon today, a real estate closing demands my attention. I bid you all a good evening and may God bless America.
October 15, 12:52 AM
Joe says:
John - I shall contact you later today. Thank you for researching the issue and rest assured many families hold information that will prove vitally important to serious practitioners of the law.
October 15, 12:57 AM
Really. We’re talking about the same institution (different players) who found a constitutional right to privacy and right to abortion. Should they want to ignore Vattel, would they let themselves be deterred?
"Finally, there are states, as, for instance, England, where the single circumstance of being born in the country naturalizes the children of a foreigner." - Vattel
Vattel was not writing about a single universal rule. He was recording the practices in various countries. The only country that matters to us was England, and in England, being born in the country is enough.
Joe Biden, like it or not. Per the 25th Amendment. If he is complicit in anything criminal then you'll need to impeach him and have him removed by the senate.
This is great.
However, it is critical to know and communicate that Emmerich de Vattel was not their source, but a resource. He dictated nothing. He essentially reported upon the established international law (including natural law) of the time.
They used it as an imperfect map, not as the mandates of a design.
Also, by the time of the writing of the Constitution, they had to refer to international law constantly, in determining how the states were to behave with each other, under the Articles of Confederation. So, it is absurd for Obamunist revisionists to assert that international/natural law was a nebulous and undefined set of jargon, especially when it comes to the terms used in the U.S. Constitution.
These matters are brought out (too quietly, so far, IMHO) by the Undead Revolution and Zapem. Leo Donofrio is helping, but is kind of westwardly distracted now.
THE MORE RESEARCH IS DONE ON THIS, THE MORE LEGAL VERACITY WILL BE FOUND.
Exactly. Blackstone was a reporter of British law (and at times British specifics involving international and natural law). Vattel, however, was a reporter specifically of international (and thus, natural) law.
Vattel was not writing about a single universal rule. He was recording the practices in various countries. The only country that matters to us was England, and in England, being born in the country is enough.
Naturalization at birth? Do you even read what you copy and paste?
Hence, Barry Obama, were he born in Hawaii to Barack Sr, would have been, as Vattell says, "NATURALIZED AT BIRTH" under US statute at the time. Barry is a therefore a naturalized citizen at best given his claimed father and not a natural born citizen.
Yes I did. Did you even read what you were replying to?
In ENGLIGH Common Law, regardless of what other countries might have done, someone born in the country is "natural born". Vattel never said that was not the case in England, and he isn' a valid cite for proving the practice in England.
What are you talking about? Joe LNU has said in several blog comments that he has secret documents from the Founding Fathers that absolutely prove the Birther argument, and he just hadn't thought to mention them until a year after the election.
Are you saying you don't trust Joe and his collection of secret 200-year-old documents? Sure, there was the secret "Whitey" tape that didn't exist, and the secret tape of Michelle confessing to her husband's Kenyan birth that didn't exist, and the secret divorce documents saying "one child, born in Kenya" that didn't exist, and so on, but these secret documents are real!
I suppose the law of averages says that they've got to be true on something someday, but I'm not convinced that this is the lucky one.
Yes, I did. And, I found it amusing that you're undermining your own position, and don't appear to realize that you're doing so.
... and, we're not attempting to prove the practice in England. There was a rather profound rift, if you'll recall, resulting in the Revolution. Claims of "perpetual allegiance" were mocked in the immediate era leading up to the Constitutional Convention, mocked as "perpetual nonsense," referred to as an absurd barbarism.
It was mocked because it was detested. It was detested because ... why, mlo? Are you incapable of grasping that being deemed a natural-born subject by England was at the root of the problem, and not the solution to the problem in any way, under a new Constitutional Republic?
Curiously, you seem to think that Vattel having compiled two volumes of Natural Law known as "The Law Of Nations" somehow makes his effort less applicable, because it covered both national and international law. Well, at least he delved into something outside of the very English monarchy that our Founders risked their lives to revolt against, unlike Blackstone.
Yes, the 500+ references to princes in "The Law of Nations" show that Vattel was willing to entertain various flavors of monarchies, not just the "very English" variety. The man talked a *lot* about the role of a monarch in relationship to his nation, and the role of a people to their monarch.
How the Founders could have relied so heavily on Vattel, yet so roundly rejected his copious writings about sovereigns and princes being the default and most natural governmental arrangement, will just have to be a mystery.
A disengenuous reply. The Founders themselves were in the process of roundly rejecting sovereigns and princes, and so of course they would reject it. What's more peculiar is, you seem to think this is somehow a bad thing pertaining to Vattel, but you persist in advocating Blackstone as the source for understanding U.S. Constitutional requirements for the Presidency, an elected office. Not hereditary.
What did Emerich de Vattel have to say about a Constitutional Republic? A great deal. Compare and contrast to Blackstone. What did Blackstone have to say about it?
What was the sentiment of the people, at the time of the Revolution and the time our Constitution was written, regarding English claims of citizenship over them, as feudal subjects in permanent, irrevocable allegiance to the Crown?
You seem to think they were so happy about it, that they sought a continuance of the very law that they revolted against.
But the question of who a nation's citizens are isn't a matter of international law. Obviously there is an obligation by states to a body of citizens. But the establishment of different grades of citizenship or the exclusion of some native-born persons from full citizenship isn't something natural or international law commands. It's something different society's have to decide on their own.
I could see arguing that a state has a natural law obligation to extend full rights those born on its soil, but not that a state has a natural law obligation to exclude those whose parents weren't born in the country from enjoying the full rights of citizens. So just what a citizen or a "natural born citizen" is, is something countries work out on their own. Not something set in stone by 18th century French legal theorists.
Look at the difference between the Old World, set in its ways, and the New World where the parents or grandparents of so many people came from somewhere else. Vattel may shed some light on one aspect of where the phrase "natural born citizen" comes from and what it means, but one can't turn him into some kind of superlegislator whose view must be accepted if everything else in our system goes against it.
They came pretty darn close with the (first part of the) Declaration of Independence.
The several States did form their own, separate and varying statutes and requirements, under their own constitutions. Not all of them could be considered examples of English common law, either. There was a fairly strong Dutch influence, in some of them.
Have a look at the case of Albert Gallatin on The Founders' Constitution. He was ruled ineligible, due to having moved from State to State, never once fulfilling the varying residency requirements of any one State.
Historically, that is where sovereignty came from. Maybe that's not the right basis to start from philosophically, but are Vattel's conclusions really closer to our own tradition of freedom than Blackstone's?
I don't know, I'm asking. But given all the respect the founders and their contemporaries had for Blackstone, can we just dismiss his views now?
Yes, they are. Have a look at the first Supreme Court decision deemed to be of historic import, Chisholm v. Georgia, wherein Justice John Jay cited Vattel at length, regarding the sovereignty of The People, in the absence of a monarch.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.