Posted on 02/21/2016 12:18:51 AM PST by matt1234
To shed light on the Cruz birther issue, I researched the question: "Has a candidate NOT born in the US ever received electoral votes in a presidential election?" The answer is "yes." In the 1796 election, James Iredell, born in England, and Samuel Johnston, born in Scotland, both received electoral votes. I did not find evidence that these votes were invalidated by Congress, which they can do and have done; but I did not research that extensively. Links with evidence at post #1?
Wiki page about James Iredell: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Iredell
Wiki page about Samuel Johnston: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Johnston
Here is the key, when the Constitution was written, it said that anyone that was here when the Constitution was written is eligible. Basically if you busted your butt to help us win the war, you can be President.
I don’t have the exact wording, but that is the gist of it. I’m tired, but wanted to reply before I went to sleep.
Ping
Thanks for your research.
Both “citizens at the time of adoption”
You haven’t helped Cruz.
The exact wording says that anyone who was a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, was eligible to be President.
People should READ the Constitution before starting threads about the Constitution.
A few years ago when researching Sen.Obama, I came across a footnote that piqued my interest: it stated that the U.S.Senate had the power to eject from their body any Senator who was deemed ineligible. It mentioned that during the 19th century two Senators, neither of whom were U.S. citizens, experienced just that. Their names were struck from the records as never having existed.
One of the gentlemen involved became a U.S. citizen, waited for the required number of years and was again chosen by his state to be a Senator in Congress.
Senator Cruz should do something to repair his U.S. citizenship, or he just might find himself without any country at all and Texas may not have a say in it.
In 1796, no one who was old enough to be president had been born in the US, because the US didn’t exist at the time of their birth.
You might consider researching the Constitution of the United States one of these days.
If they resided here at time of Constitution ratification they became citizens like anyone else at that time....who qualified
This topic is broader than the constitution. For example, some on FR have claimed that the founders would never have considered someone born outside the US (or former colonies) as eligible for president. Clearly, early Americans, if not the founders themselves, did consider such persons eligible.
None of the candidates in 1796 were born in the United States.
I did not consider candidates born in the American colonies or American territories as “born outside the US.”
Exactly.
See post #11.
I did not consider candidates born in the American colonies or American territories as “born outside the US.†I looked for candidates born outside US territorial limits or American colonies.
The person elected President that year (John Adams) wasn’t born in the US either.
But if you actually read the Constiution you would see that it allowed for that to happen.
Before the advent of Barak Obama, the accepted wisdom was that natural born meant born within the borders of the United States of a citizen father(before about 1970) or more recently, of a citizen parent. Because of tacit recognition that Hussein did not fit the category The Congress passed a resolution that McCain was natural born, primarily to clear Hussein, to get the whole question off the table. Where a candidate was born is probably no longer an issue that could actually hinder a candidate. Citizenship at birth or even current with a campaign is probably fading as a hindrance to being President as the Constitution is less and less relevant.
Nobody who ran before 1824 could have been born a citizen of the United States.
Faulty research that forgot to read the Constitution.
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