Petition Asking Supreme Court To Define "Natural Born Citizen"

KheSanh ^ | November 11, 2012 | KheSanh

[KheSanh]

A petition asking the Supreme Court to give a clear concise definition of the term "Natural Born Citizen".

Whitehouse.gov url to obtain the first 150 signatures:

http://wh.gov/9dpd

[DiogenesLamp]

Birth-citizenship by statute is the anti-thesis of “natural born citizenship.”

[Puzo1]

It is axiomatic that words of the Constitution must be given meaning. Hence, the fool’s task is yours given your argument that a Fourteenth Amendment “citizen of the United States” from the moment of birth is the same thing constitutionally as an Article II “natural born Citizen.”

[DiogenesLamp]

On second thought, I agree with you. An amendment or law recognizing new groups as citizens could not retroactively add natural-born status to them. So I guess they came in as a variant of naturalized citizen.

It is my argument that the 14th Amendment is nothing but a naturalization amendment, and was never anything else. I keep coming back to this statement by Chief Justice Waite:

The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens.

What does it mean when the 14th amendment plainly says this?

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States ...

Could he possibly mean that the 14th amendment does not say who shall be "natural born citizens"?

[Syncro]

Thanks, I'll save the links.

I already was given the answer on the thread, and posting that looooong dissertation really wasn't necessary...

As far as your next post to me, thanks—short and to the point.

I of course already knew what is and isn't NBC, and it's nice to have more reference material.

Barark “Bin Ghazi” Obama was given a pass, and now he is responsible for 4 dead people simply because of politics—he was reelected that's what is important.

Rubio will NOT be given a pass if he is the nominee, this issue alone will be all the press concentrates on until he is destroyed politically as a possibility to be President.

[Safrguns]

>>> We could, but the US Supreme Court has already said you are wrong, and 535 members of Congress and 50 of 50 states agree with MY interpretation.

Bullcrap.

The Supreme Court has not even examined claims for or against Obama’s eligibility.

The only thing ANYONE has to go on for the affirmative on Obama’s eligibility is Obama’s word.

A MOUNTAIN of evidence suggests that at the very least Obama has committed fraud and perjury to attain his position in office.

Your sounding more and more like one of those paid Obama plants to suppress the truth now.

[DustyMoment]

Here's my "made up version of history" NATURAL BORN CITIZENDEFINED T.J. McCann, III This authoring involves no consideration whatsoever of the contentious “birth certificate”, as the contents of that document are entirely irrelevant to the final conclusion. This analysis examines the importance of historic context in considering the terms of qualification for the Office of President of the United States, resolving that Barack Obama is incapable of being a natural born citizen and is thereby forever ineligible to hold that Office, based on established fact. Introduction: The positive mandate in Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5, that “No person except a natural born Citizen,… shall be eligible to the Office of President” is neither irrelevant nor antiquated and originates from the core philosophy of the Declaration of Independence, and U.S. Constitution, and is of the very same origin as our “unalienable rights” as American citizens. “Natural born citizen” is a known, static definition, derived from Natural Law,a term of art outside of any Positive Law, hence the reason it needs no definition within the Constitution. This Natural Law involves a “self-evident” status so fundamental to our “unalienable rights” and freedoms, that it is expressed in the very first sentence of the Declaration of Independence: When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, … A “natural born citizen” is a “self-evident” status upon birth because that offspring could not possibly be a citizen of, and owe allegiance to, any other country or peoples. Natural Born incorporates all aspects of citizenship heritance at birth, including that conveyed by the soil (jus soli) and that conveyed by both parents ‟blood allegiance” (jus sanguinis). “Natural Born Citizen”, Not “Citizen” The requirement for President in Article II is not "citizen" nor “citizen at birth”, but rather“ natural born citizen". In Alexander Hamilton's first draft of Article II the requirement was indeed only "citizen" or more accurately citizen at birth ("born citizen"). However they did not go with Hamilton's early draft of Article II. From the Yale Law Journal [Vol. 97: 881] referencing John Jay’s letter to George Washington leading to the inclusion of “natural born citizen” [8]:On June 18, a little over a month before Jay's letter, Alexander Hamilton submitted a "sketch of a plan of government which 'was meant only to give a more correct view of his ideas, and to suggest the amendments which he should probably propose ... in... future discussion.' "40 Article IX, section 1 of the sketch provided: "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.": "Hamilton's draft, which appears to be an early version of the natural-born citizen clause, contains two distinct ideas: first, that those currently citizens will not be excluded from presidential eligibility, and second, that the President must be born a citizen. What actually transpired over this change in wording , replacing “born a citizen” with“ natural born citizen”, was that the President was no longer to be elected by Congress, but rather by the people, and therefore the office required more stringent safeties regarding the allegiance of the office holder.[12]By selection among the duly qualified and elected Congress, a certain degree of security was established for the office of President. However in transferring the responsibility to the citizens, a more stringent requirement was needed to ensure that any occupant of the Office would have allegiance to Constitutional principle sand American society. Especially given this draft change, it is clearly wrong to equate "natural born citizen" with anyone who is a citizen at birth. Similarly, it is improper to ignore the word "natural" in the phrase "natural born citizen" simply because one has no innate understanding of the meaning of "natural". Again, "natural" in "natural born citizen", in the language of our founding documents and principles, is a “self-evident” status upon birth, owing no allegiance to any other country, and thereby a full participant in this society. Given that the requirements for the Office of President have long been inscribed on parchment, since the founding of this country, it would be unreasonable to assume that the definition of "natural born citizen" was unknown or vague. This same Yale Law Journal article [Vol. 97: 881] recognizes that the only reasonable interpretation of “natural born citizen” would be that held by the founders at the time of ratifying the Constitution, and that this meaning was “clear.”[8]: "Constitutional scholars have traditionally approached the uncertainty surrounding the meaning of the natural-born citizen clause by inquiring into the specific meaningof the term "natural born" at the time of the Constitutional Convention. They conclude that a class of citizens should be considered natural born today only if they ould have been considered natural-born citizens under the law in effect at the time of the framing of the Constitution"(see footnote 8) 8. These writers assume that the phrase "natural born citizen" was a term of art during the preconstitutional period since the phrase is not defined in either the Constitution or the records of the Constitutional Convention. See Gordon, supra note2, at 2 ("The only explanation for the use of this term is the apparent belief of the Framers that its connotation was clear."); These two conclusions together indicate that 'scholars' believe that the one interpretation of "natural born citizen" by the founders from 200+ years ago remains intact, discernable, and the only valid interpretation today. Natural Born Citizen vs. British “Common Law” Natural Born Subject: Many reference British Common Law in search for a definitive answer as to the meaning of natural born, and resolve, by that Common Law, the definition of natural born to result from birth on the native soil of a country. Justice Gray does a thorough job of delving into British history in the landmark case of U.S. vs. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898), even going back to Lord Coke and Calvin’s case (1608), some 180 years before this nation’s founding ,and preceding the Ark decision by 290 years. However, in truth, Lord Coke’s decision in Calvin’s case is as fundamentally alien to these United States’ founding principles as the rest of British Common Law citizenship. Calvin’s case was landmark in its day, and the early modern common-law mind, for being the first to articulate a theoretical basis for territorial birthright citizenship. Calvin’s Case was not only influential in establishing the citizenship right of American colonials, but also was much later argued as the basis common-law rule for U.S. birthright citizenship. Calvin's Case is the earliest, most influential theoretical articulation by an English court of what came to be the common-law rule that a person's status was vested at birth, and based upon place of birth. .[7] However this recognition of British common law also ignores the inherent conflicts with the fundamental tenets of our Constitution, conflicts so profound philosophically that they were causal in the Revolutionary War and War of 1812. In Lord Coke’s decision, the law of the Creator is conflated with the law of England and being lain down via edict to the common man from that divine Crown through the judiciary. Even as described by Justice Gray in Wong Kim Ark, the Coke decision involves feudal concepts of “‘ligealty,’ ‘obedience,’ ‘faith,’ or ‘power’ of the ‘King’”.[11] This feudal oblige and extension of the dominion of the Crown to ANY territory held by the King, even making “natural born subjects” of those born in America, contributed to British settlers leaving Britain in the first place and ultimately became a primary factor in the "Declaration of Independence", with colonists declaring themselves free of such an involuntary burden of the Crown while having no protection and no representation. In 1765 the British Jurist William Blackstone recognized the mandate of the Crown having changed the inherent meaning of "natural-born Subject", progressively over time, to be anyone born in British territory, regardless of the parents' allegiance or citizenship. Initially a child was born a natural-born subject if born on British soil, even if the child's parents were aliens. However, Blackstone later wrote in his 1765 Commentaries, the following[2]1:To encourage also foreign commerce, it was enacted by statute 25 Edw. III. st. 2. That all children born abroad, provided both their parents were at the time of the birth in allegiance to the king, and the mother had passed the seas by her husband's consent ,might inherit as if born in England: and accordingly it hath been so adjudged in behalf of merchants. But by several more modern statutes these restrictions are still farther taken off: so that all children, born out of the king's ligeance, whose fathers were natural-born subjects, are now natural-born subjects themselves, to all intents and purposes, without any exception; unless their said fathers were attainted, or banished beyond sea, for high treason; or were then in the service of a prince at enmity with Great Britain. This passage indicates that even those not born on British territory are to be thenceforth considered "natural born" because of blood lineage no less, and for the purpose of trade (aswell as the Treasury), showing that this is not a static understanding of "natural born", but one evolved over time and by “executive” mandate of the Crown – hardly any sort of “common law.”5 What Gray has represented as British “common law” natural born subject, was not static and was the evolution of Crown dictate over time, expressed in statutory law. This statutory definition is far removed from any sort of natural, “self-evident‟ term employed by the United States in its Constitution. Only 30 years prior to Blackstone’s writings, in 1736, British scholar Matthew Bacon recognized the fundamental meaning of "natural-born Subject" to be: "All those are natural-born Subjects whose Parents, at the Time of their Birth, were under the actual Obedience of our King, and whose Place of Birth was within his dominions." (Matthew Bacon, A New Abridgement of the Law, 1736, Vol 1, pg 77)2 Not only does this indicate that the place of birth must be within the "dominion" (British territory) itself, but it also indicates that the parents must be under the “actual obedience” of the King. The emphasis on “actual Obedience” seems to strongly differentiate that from a presumed obedience resulting from mere happenstance of birth within the dominion. Given this, those who had foreign allegiance did not give birth on British soil to British natural born subjects. This is definition by Bacon is the same as our own “Natural Law” Definition today, involving (1) the allegiance (citizenship) of both parents and (2) birth within the U.S. territory (dominion). In Gray’s majority opinion for Wong Kim Ark, Gray makes two references to natural born citizen which directly conflict with his British common law approach. The first is a reference to Justice Waite’s opinion from Minor vs. Happersett[6], in which Waite refers to a Vattel’s definition of natural born citizen as birth to two citizen parents on country’s soil[10]. In the second, Justice Gray quotes from a pamphlet entitled “Alienigenae of the United States”, by Horace Binney, which used the term "natural born" in connection with a child of a citizen, but not in connection with a child of an alien parent. :The right of citizenship never descends in the legal sense, either by the common law or under the common naturalization acts. It is incident to birth in the country, or it is given personally by statute. The child of an alien, if born in the country, is as much a citizen as the natural born child of a citizen, and by operation of the same principle. (Binney’s statement, as cited by Gray U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898)[11]) While Binney references both children as citizens, only the child born of a citizen is referenced as "natural born". Justice Gray’s articulation of British Common Law in Wong Kim Ark regarding U.S. citizenship should be considered nothing short of an abomination, because it is truly runs contrary to the very origins and hard-won principles of this country. While Gray’s argument in Wong Kim Ark has had deleterious effect on citizenship, the case did not affect natural born citizen because Gray never pronounced that a natural born citizen was equivalent to a natural born Subject, despite obviously desiring to do so, and Gray never at all undermined 6 the definition provided by Justice Waite from Minor vs. Happersett. While Wong Kim Ark was pronounced a citizen of the United States, Ark was never declared to be a natural born citizen of the United States. George Mason, called the "Father of the Bill of Rights" and considered one of the "Founding Fathers" of the United States, is widely quoted as saying: The common law of England is not the common law of these states. (Debate in Virginia Ratifying Convention, 19 June 1788) More recently Justice Antonin Scalia confirmed the irrelevancy of British Common Law: The common law is gone. The federal courts never applied the common law and even in the state courts it's codified now. (Audio/Video: Justice Scalia speech, Nov 22, 2008) Citizen vs. Subject: Those who argue that meaning of “natural born citizen” can be resolved by looking to British common law “natural born Subject” ignore the vast difference between Citizen and Subject. AMichigan Law Review article considers the profound difference between Citizen and Subject[9]: So far we have assumed that the conventional meaning of “natural born citizen” for those learned in the law in the eighteenth century was equivalent to the meaning of “natural born subject” in nineteenth century English law. But is this assumption correct? Does the substitution of the term “citizen” for “subject” alter the meaning of the phrase? And if those learned in the law did recognize a difference, what implications does that have for the meaning of the natural born citizen clause? The distinction between citizens and subjects is reflected in Chief Justice John Jay’s opinion in Chisholm v. Georgia, the first great constitutional case decided after the ratification of the Constitution of 1789: “[A]t the Revolution, the sovereignty devolved on the people; and they are truly the sovereigns of the country, but they are sovereigns without subjects. . . .” Justice James Wilson confirmed Jay’s articulation of the opposition between subjects and citizens. The term “citizen” reflects the notion that individual citizens are the soil, and via “blood” heritance from the parents. While both British common law “natural born subject” and American “natural born citizen” might be said to involve “birthright” citizenship, the former involves an unequal obligation to the Crown and the latter involves natural, self-evident recognition of at-birth conditions of the citizen, with that citizen being sovereign, and a full member of American society having no allegiance to any other society. Supreme Court Opinion: While there are deviations from the Natural Law definition of “natural born”, these deviations have generally been asserted on the state rather than federal level and part of court “obiter dicta” , offered without any supporting legal argument. Both British common law and American statutory history involve such assertions, yet these do not change the fundamental meaning of “natural born”, as it is exerting statutory definition on a term outside of Positive Law, when it is resolved by natural, self-evident means. Not surprisingly the first 100+ years of this country’s history are spanned by Supreme Court opinions clearly indicating the definition of natural born citizen, and repeatedly indicating the same reference consulted by our founders as they authored the Constitution in Carpenter's Hall, that reference being Emmerich de Vattel's "Law of Nations". 1814 The Venus, 12 U.S. (8 Cranch) 253, 289 (1814) (Marshall, C.J., concurring) (cites Vattel’s definition of natural born citizens); 1830 Shanks vs. Dupont, 28 U.S. 242, 245 (1830) (same definition without citing Vattel); 1875 Minor vs. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162, 167-68 (1875) (same definition without citing Vattel); 1879 Ex parte Reynolds, 1879, 5 Dill., 394, 402 (same definition and cites Vattel); 1890 United States vs. Ward, 42 F.320 (C.C.S.D. Cal. 1890) (same definition and cites Vattel); 1898 U.S. vs. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898) (same definition and C.J, Fuller’s dissent confirming Vattel’s definition of a “natural born Citizen” ); 1899 Keith vs. U.S., 8 Okla . 446; 58 P. 507 (Okla. 1899) (common law rule that the offspring of free persons followed the condition of the father was applied to determine the citizenship status of a child);

[Sherman Logan]

“the fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the country."

If the fundamental rule is citizenship by birth within the country, then there is no room for a special subset of those born within the country to citizen parents.

Also, if there were such a special category, it seems odd he wouldn't mention it during a discussion of other exceptions to the fundamental rule of citizenship.

[Mr Rogers]

No, the 14th is not about naturalization. Naturalization is what happens when a non-citizen becomes a citizen under the laws of Congress. Congress passes laws concerning naturalization, per the Constitution.

If you don’t go thru a naturalization ceremony, then you are born a citizen - in 17th & 18th century terminology, a “natural born citizen” or natural born subject.

As the WKA decision clearly says, the 14th Amendment wording merely restates the the NBC clause in other words - “...to exclude, by the fewest and fittest words...the two classes of cases...both of which, as has already been shown, by the law of England and by our own law from the time of the first settlement of the English colonies in America, had been recognized exceptions to the fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the country.”

[Mr Rogers]

“The distinction between citizenship by birth and citizenship by naturalization is clearly marked in the provisions of the Constitution, by which

“No person, except a natural born citizen or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of this Constitution shall be eligible to the office of President,”

and “The Congress shall have power to establish an uniform rule of naturalization.” Constitution, Article II, Section 1; Article I, Section 8. By the Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution, slavery was prohibited. The main object of the opening sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment was to settle the question, upon which there had been a difference of opinion throughout the country and in this Court, as to the citizenship of free negroes (60 U.S. 73; Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.S. 303, 306.

This section contemplates two sources of citizenship, and two sources only: birth and naturalization. The persons declared to be citizens are “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” The evident meaning of these last words is not merely subject in some respect or degree to the jurisdiction of the United States, but completely subject to their political jurisdiction and owing them direct and immediate allegiance. And the words relate to the time of birth in the one case, as they do to the time of naturalization in the other. Persons not thus subject to the jurisdiction of the United States at the time of birth cannot become so afterwards except by being naturalized, either individually, as by proceedings under the naturalization acts, or collectively, as by the force of a treaty by which foreign territory is acquired.

Indians born within the territorial limits of the United States, members of and owing immediate allegiance to one of the Indiana tribes (an alien though dependent power), although in a geographical sense born in the United States, are no more “born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” within the meaning of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment, than the children of subjects of any foreign government born within the domain of that government, or the children born within the United States of ambassadors or other public ministers of foreign nations.

Indians born within the territorial limits of the United States, members of and owing immediate allegiance to one of the Indiana tribes (an alien though dependent power), although in a geographical sense born in the United States, are no more “born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” within the meaning of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment, than the children of subjects of any foreign government born within the domain of that government, or the children born within the United States of ambassadors or other public ministers of foreign nations....”

http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/112/94/case.html

[allmendream]

English law, which was the law the founders were most familiar with - and the law which many of them were trained in - had no such requirement as you outlined to be born a “natural born subject” of England.

Duke Wellington pointed out that he was not Irish, despite being born in Ireland - by saying that ‘being born in a stable doesn't make one a horse’. Via English law he was correct. Birth place was not an absolute requirement to being a natural born subject of England.

As the US case Wong Kim Ark points out - those born in England of alien parents were natural born subjects of England. Thus parentage was not an absolute requirement to being a natural born subject of England.

So you are reduced now to making the argument that the founders were more familiar with Vattel than they were with English law? Another fools errand - no doubt you are up to the challenge!

[editor-surveyor]

>> “It is also damn silly to pretend our legal system is based on Roman law.” <<

.
Oh, that must be why we don’t have a Senate, nor a House of representatives.

Let’s take it up with our Lords and Commons soon.

[editor-surveyor]

>> “So you are reduced now to making the argument that the founders were more familiar with Vattel than they were with English law?” <<

.
They were familiar with both, but they studied almost exclusively in the French language during that period. Things expressed in the English language were considered crude and erudite.

[editor-surveyor]

Crude. not erudite was what my brain said but not what my fingers typed.

[allmendream]

Well then, they didn't say natives or indigenous citizens - as the direct translation of Vattel would have it - they said “natural born” - the exact same phrase encoded into English law.

The system of law that the American founding fathers were most familiar with was English law - not the writings of Vattel - which never were codified into law in any nation.

[allmendream]

John Adams, a founding father and a lawyer by vocation, was sent to represent us in France - and was considered an unlikely choice because he did not at the time speak French.

He became fluent only after living in France. So it seem he, as just one example, did not study almost exclusively in French.

[editor-surveyor]

>> “the exact same phrase encoded into English law.” <<

.
English law recognizes no citizen.

English law is the prolongation of the Monarchial lie that all Protestant Christians rejected, because they knew that Christ had no progeny.

If you were to study the important issues of why the original ‘Pilgrims’ migrated, you would not be so confused on this issue. They knew that no man could bow to any King but Christ.

They had already rejected and departed from England, and made homes in the Netherlands for that reason, and never would anything of the culture of England be acceptable.

[editor-surveyor]

Adams was a minister of the Gospel in the Congregational Church, not an intellectual, nor a scholar of renown.

Mostly he was recognized as a social leader in the colonies.

[Mr Rogers]

What does the US Supreme Court say about it?

“There is, however, one clear exception to the statement that there is no national common law. The interpretation of the Constitution of the United States is necessarily influenced by the fact that its provisions are framed in the language of the English common law, and are to be read in the light of its history. The code of constitutional and statutory construction which therefore is gradually formed by the judgments of this Court, in the application of the Constitution and the laws and treaties made in pursuance thereof, has for its basis so much of the common law as may be implied in the subject, and constitutes a common law resting on national authority.”

http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/124/465/case.html

” The language of the Constitution and of many acts of Congress could not be understood without reference to the common law.”

http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/91/270/case.html

[allmendream]

Adams was a founding father and a lawyer. The law he studied was English law, and the language he studied it in was English.

All our founding fathers who were lawyers were students of English law, and they studied it in English.

The flights of fancy and wholesale invention that birthers must engage in in quite humorous.

May as well think the Sun goes around the Earth as to deny that the law the founders studies was English law, and that the language they studied it in was English. ;)

[Puzo1]

The Obots have changed their position. Before they said that there were only two classes of “citizens,” the “natural born Citizens” and the “naturalized citizens.” They conveniently left out the “citizens of the United States.” Now they say that there were only ever three types of U.S. citizen:

1. Those who were citizens at the time of the adoption of the Constitution.

2. Those who are naturalized as U.S. citizens.

3. Those who are natural born citizens.

It just keeps getting better and better.