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To: PugetSoundSoldier
Has anyone here yet made the case that legally or by statute it was determined that Vattel’s definition of Natural Born Citizen was what the founders meant when writing the Constitution?

The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in the 1975 Minor versus Happersett decision cited Vattel's common law definition as part of the majority opinion, stating accordingly:

"The Constitution does not in words say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents."

This paragraph from Justice Waite's majority opinion has never been disputed.

659 posted on 05/18/2010 10:24:04 AM PDT by Uncle Chip (TRUTH : Ignore it. Deride it. Allegorize it. Interpret it. But you can't ESCAPE it.)
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To: Uncle Chip
Please read your quote from Minor v Happersett again, especially the last sentence. Meaning there is STILL controversy about who is a natural born citizen. Being born here of two citizen parents makes you an NBC; however, being born here alone may also make you NBC, per the quote you provide.

Bottom line: it's not definitive yet so many here claim that Vattel - and Vattel alone - is the only acceptable definition. That is simply not true, as your own reference shows.

663 posted on 05/18/2010 10:41:11 AM PDT by PugetSoundSoldier (Indignation over the Sting of Truth is the defense of the indefensible)
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