Posted on 03/13/2013 6:01:43 PM PDT by Fai Mao
On Mar. 8, reporter Carl Cameron on Special Report on Fox News Channel was surveying potential GOP 2016 presidential candidates. Then he raised Ted Cruz--one of the most brilliant constitutional lawyers ever to serve in the Senate--the new 41-year old Hispanic senator from Texas.
Cameron added, “But Cruz was born in Canada and is constitutionally ineligible” to run for president. While many people assume that, it’s probably not true.
Cameron was referring to the Constitution’s Article II requirement that only a “natural born citizen” can run for the White House.
No one is certain what that means. Citizenship was primarily defined by each state when the Constitution was adopted. Federal citizenship wasn’t clearly established until the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868. The Constitution is not clear whether it means you must be born on U.S. soil, or instead whether you must be born a U.S. citizen.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Those who adhered to the King and his nation were natural born subjects of England.
Utter sh*t. You can't be a "natural born citizen" of a Political entity which does not exist yet. You also can't CHOSE to be a "natural born subject/citizen" of one or the other. You are either BORN with allegiance to the King, or you are BORN with allegiance to the United States.
George Washington was BORN with Allegiance to the King. Again, you've spent too much time listening to that sh*thead "Dr. Conspiracy", and his seven mental dwarves.
You don’t/can’t engage w me because logic and common sense destroys your lunatic ‘argument’. Boiled down, what you’re saying is that the Framers wanted the first Obama-type individual/person w primary foreign allegiance who could hoodwink the voters into buying his con, to use the office of POTUS to destroy the country from within. That is what you’re arguing. Even if you can’t see it, others can. That’s the value of common sense: it’s there for anyone who cares to use it.
If this is true, how did Bellei lose his citizenship?
I saw a very thought provoking post the other day. it said:
It isn't so much that history repeats itself, but that human nature never changes.
The more I think about it, the more I think they were right.
I gave you the straightest, most honest answer conceivable.
I even stretched to try and come up with some thoughts on an issue I frankly have not thought very much about.
Have I thought about the meaning of “natural born citizen” as understood by our Founders, Framers and legal experts throughout history? Absolutely.
Have I thought about what qualifications I would personally assign to the job? Not very much. I’m not in the business of second-guessing the Founding Fathers. I’m more in the business of supporting what they did, because for the most part, it has worked and worked well.
If you can’t accept an honest and straightforward answer, that’s your problem.
By the way, it’s clear that the Founding Fathers and Framers didn’t share your nannyish view that the PEOPLE had to have their hands held and had to be absolutely prohibited from ever having the possibility of electing someone like Ted Cruz whose father was (gasp) not a United States citizen when Ted was born.
If they had held the nanny view you espouse, then they would NEVER have simply specified that the President had to be a “natural born citizen,” since that term NEVER excluded those born on US soil of non-citizen immigrant parents.
If they had held the nanny view you espouse, then they would NEVER have specified that the President only had to reside for 14 years of his life in the United States in order to be eligible to be President.
And if they had held the nanny view that you espouse, then they would NEVER have tolerated 3 of our first 4 Presidents holding dual citizenship at the exact time that they were serving as President of the United States.
So whatever they believed, it wasn’t what YOU believe.
And given the choice between sticking with some guy on the internet, or sticking with the Framers of the Constitution, I’m sticking with the Framers of the Constitution.
And you chose to believe the most Liberal possible interpretation of it, and in spite of quite a lot of evidence against it.
If they had held the nanny view you espouse, then they would NEVER have simply specified that the President had to be a “natural born citizen,” since that term NEVER excluded those born on US soil of non-citizen immigrant parents.
If they had held the nanny view you espouse, then they would NEVER have specified that the President only had to reside for 14 years of his life in the United States in order to be eligible to be President.
And if they had held the nanny view that you espouse, then they would NEVER have tolerated 3 of our first 4 Presidents holding dual citizenship at the exact time that they were serving as President of the United States.
Edited to clarify Jeff's well reasoned and logical argument.
My opinion:
No, the 14th Amendment does not "create" natural born citizens. Natural born citizens are those who are born citizens, and they are born citizens according to the ancient rule of citizenship that has applied for many centuries.
As you have noted, those who passed the 14th Amendment believed it was "simply declaratory" of the law as it already was. The 14th amendment created no new rule for citizenship.
The problem was that there were those who were committed to deny the operation of that historic rule to certain persons solely on the basis of their race and ethnic origin.
To be specific: Former slaves and other black people.
What the 14th Amendment did was to say, "Look. This is the rule. It's always been the rule. Race was never included as an inherent part of this rule, and it shouldn't be. You can't deny natural born citizenship to people just because they're black, and you can't deny natural born citizenship to people just because they are former slaves."
Now, we could get into a discussion of whether the freed slaves, having previously been legally considered property, were, after the Civil Rights Act and the 14th Amendment, "natural born citizens" or merely "citizens." I don't really know the answer to that question, and I don't think it matters. Those folks are all long gone, and none of those born slaves ever ran for US President. So the question of whether they, having been born property and then having that status removed from them, were theoretically eligible to the Presidency is an entirely theoretical one, and a moot one.
I can tell you this, though: Black persons born on US soil since the end of slavery and the institution of the 14th Amendment, except for the historical exceptions, were and are natural born citizens. And no, it doesn't matter whether their parents were US citizens at the time, or not.
And this basic interpretation is not just my interpretation. It's the official position of the United States.
The Supreme Court, in US v Wong Kim Ark (1898):
These considerations confirm the view, already expressed in this opinion, that the opening sentence of the Fourteenth [p688] Amendment is throughout affirmative and declaratory, intended to allay doubts and to settle controversies which had arisen, and not to impose any new restrictions upon citizenship.
In 1871, Mr. Fish, writing to Mr. Marsh, the American Minister to Italy, said: The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution declares that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States." This is simply an affirmance of the common law of England and of this country so far as it asserts the status of citizenship to be fixed by the place of nativity, irrespective of parentage. The qualification, "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" was probably intended to exclude the children of foreign ministers, and of other persons who may be within our territory with rights of extraterritoriality.
But what are "rights of extraterritoriality?"
Wikipedia has an article on the subject. I quote: "Extraterritoriality is the state of being exempt from the jurisdiction of local law, usually as the result of diplomatic negotiations."
So those who are exempt from the jurisdiction of local law are... foreign ministers, ambassadors, foreign royalty, and, in any real sense at all, invading armies.
Non-citizen immigrants do NOT enjoy any right of extraterritoriality at all. They are just as subject to local law, just as "subject to the jurisdiction of the United States," as citizens are.
And finally:
The foregoing considerations and authorities irresistibly lead us to these conclusions: the Fourteenth Amendment affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory, in the allegiance and under the protection of the country, including all children here born of resident aliens, with the exceptions or qualifications (as old as the rule itself) of children of foreign sovereigns or their ministers, or born on foreign public ships, or of enemies within and during a hostile occupation of part of our territory, and with the single additional exception of children of members of the Indian tribes owing direct allegiance to their several tribes. The Amendment, in clear words and in manifest intent, includes the children born, within the territory of the United States, of all other persons, of whatever race or color, domiciled within the United States. Every citizen or subject of another country, while domiciled here, is within the allegiance and the protection, and consequently subject to the jurisdiction, of the United States. His allegiance to the United States is direct and immediate, and, although but local and temporary, continuing only so long as he remains within our territory, is yet, in the words of Lord Coke in Calvin's Case, 7 Rep. 6a, "strong enough to make a natural subject, for if he hath issue [i.e., a child] here, that issue is a natural-born subject;" and his child, as said by Mr. Binney in his essay before quoted, "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." It can hardly be denied that an alien is completely subject to the political jurisdiction of the country in which he resides...
I am simply giving you an accurate understanding of what the situation was. If you don't like it, that's your problem.
You seem to imagine that there were no political entities on the North American continent. Such a view is false. Those political entities were regarded as being subject to the English king, but they existed.
And those who were born here in the Colonies, had an allegiance to those Colonies and to their fellow-citizens of those Colonies. They also had an allegiance to the king.
Before the Revolution, there was no conflict between those two allegiances. After the Revolution, those allegiances were in direct conflict, and each person had to choose one or the other.
Again, I can't help the fact that you have no understanding of the history of law, but imagine that you do.
Sorry. “history OR law.”
Can the lawyer-speak. You still didn't answer the question.
Jeff, you're a transparent fraud. You absolutely refuse to answer the one simple question that lies at the heart of this entire discussion. The one thing that no amount of copy/pasta and lawyer-like dancing can overcome.
As I predicted, you've invested far too much in the defense of your position to allow yourself to be cornered into a place you can't escape from, so you've chosen the coward's way out.
By doing so, you've now proven that your whole argument rests on thin air, and is ultimately indefensible because simple logic and reason do not support it.
I'm done with you, Jeff. You're obviously obsessed with being right in an internet argument, and really have no other purpose for continuing this exchange.
Finis
From the Immigration Act of 1795:
SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, that the children of persons duly naturalized, dwelling within the United States, and being under the age of twenty-one years at the time of such naturalization, and the children of citizens of the United States born out of the limits and jurisdiction of the United States, shall be considered as citizens of the United States. Provided, that the right of citizenship shall not descend on persons whose fathers have never been resident of the United States. No person heretofore proscribed by any state, or who has been legally convicted of having joined the army of Great Britain during the late war, shall be admitted as foresaid, without the consent of the legislature of the state in which such person was proscribed.
This says only that children born outside of US jurisdiction to US citizens shall be considered citizens. It does not state that they shall be “naturalized” or “natural born”.
I would conclude, barring specific redefinition, that previous definition of “natural born” would apply. This act remains vague on the specifics of the current topic.
We can go through every bit of your "evidence," if you like, and show what c*ap it is.
We've already done so with David Ramsay, who was not a legal expert, did not represent the views of the Founders or our early leaders, and was voted down 36 to 1 when his views on citizenship were put to a vote.
We've done so with the matter regarding Eldred, and shown what a bogus pile of c*ap your claim regarding that was.
We've done so with the James McClure affair. There is no evidence at all that McClure was regarded as being a natural born citizen for any reason other than that he was born in Charleston, SC, after the Revolution.
We've shown what a pile of c*ap your twisted interpretation of US v. Wong Kim Ark is.
We've shown that you can't come up with one single quote from any of the Founders or Framers EVER stating that they relied on Vattel for the meaning of natural born citizenship, that natural born citizenship ever required citizen parents for any person born on US soil, or anything of the like.
And of course, we've seen a long list of quotes from virtually every significant early American legal authority, explaining what natural born citizenship and Presidential eligibility were all about, and NOT ONE SINGLE TIME does ANYBODY ever so much as IMPLY that citizen parents were ever required for anyone born on US soil.
I'm sorry, but your fantasy has no clothes.
As far as the accurate historical understanding of "natural born citizen" being "the most Liberal possible interpretation of it," tell it to Mark Levin. Tell it to the Heritage Foundation. Tell it to National Review. Go and accuse our foremost conservative champions of being "liberal trolls."
Go ahead.
You anti-Founders, anti-Framers, anti-Constitution, anti-conservative-champions loser.
That's good. You've shown you can distort a person's words to pull attention away from the substantive points.
Of course you're quite skilled in word-twisting. You've been doing it with the words of people like Jacob Howard, James Monroe (in the Eldred affair), the United States Supreme Court (in Minor and Wong) for a long time now.
Your post said it all, and said it very well, w one exception. Namely, what is at the bottom of this guy’s obsession on the subject? He goes from thread to thread, making the liberal case for Obama, and posts ad nauseum the same garbage over and over and over. It’s beyond zeal, passion or even compulsion. It’s weirder than that. I’ve seen known liberals less obsessed w defending Obama’s legitimacy. There is something a bit psychologically off here. Creepy, is the only word I can think of. Just plain creepy.
You want me to agree that we should adopt a Presidential qualification that allows for not the faintest scintilla of "foreign influence" upon anyone who might be elected President. You want me to agree that only those who are locked in some kind of cocoon that excludes any possible "foreign influence" should be allowed to be President.
But I don't agree with you, because it is absolutely clear that the Founding Fathers and Framers did not agree with you.
If they had, they would NEVER have only required only 14 years residence in the United States for Presidential candidates.
If they had, they would NEVER have said "natural born citizen" in the first place, because that term NEVER implied citizen parents. They would instead have said "born on US soil of US parents."
And if they had, they would NEVER have tolerated 3 of our first 4 Presidents holding dual citizenship with France WHILE IN OFFICE AS PRESIDENT.
The Founding Fathers and Framers simply did not agree with you that a complete elimination of any "foreign influence" was what they were looking for.
Many of our Founders themselves traveled to Europe, with many of them spending years in places like Paris, France. Jefferson was there. Franklin was there. John Jay was there.
I don't know how you can possibly argue that the President should be insulated from any possible "foreign influence," and then argue in the very next breath that we got our ideas on citizenship from a... SWISS PHILOSOPHER?
It's completely inconsistent.
Of course, that's what it is to be a birther.
So the child of a US citizen serving in the US Embassy in London or Paris, and born in the London Maternity Hospital or the American Hospital (in Paris), would not be eligible to be president?
These hospitals are considered by many to be the finest in their respective cities for childbirth, and could well be part of the carefully made plans of a US diplomat. I don’t think the embassy would maintain a full-service medical center in either of these dities.
I'll tell you what's "at the bottom of this guy's obsession on the subject."
I'm tired of people, year after year, spouting the same stupid nonsense, and misrepresenting the Constitution and the Framers and the Founding Fathers.
I'm tired of people putting for bull**** as "truth."
I'm tired of people deceiving and misleading conservatives.
I'm tired of people spreading myths and falsehoods as if they're the gospel truth.
And in the meantime, trying to block us from decent conservative candidates like Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Bobby Jindal, and others I probably haven't even thought of yet.
That's what's at the bottom of it.
No you are not. You are trying to push a bunch of sophistic double talk in an attempt to make your argument look less stupid.
George Washington was a Natural Born Subject of His Britanic Majesty George III. You keep trying to bullsh*t him into being a "natural born citizen" of the United States, which wouldn't exist for another 44 years.
And those who were born here in the Colonies, had an allegiance to those Colonies and to their fellow-citizens of those Colonies. They also had an allegiance to the king.
The Colonies did not exist as Nations. Citizenship heretofore was a NATIONAL designation. It was not provincial or even municipal. Collectively, they BECAME a nation, but till that point the term "citizenship" was not utilized for an entity so small as a province or municipality.
Before the Revolution, there was no conflict between those two allegiances. After the Revolution, those allegiances were in direct conflict, and each person had to choose one or the other.
And here you contradict your own argument. What is "natural born" if you have a choice? Having a choice makes it subjective, not objective.
Again, I can't help the fact that you have no understanding of the history of law, but imagine that you do.
And of course, the obligatory and childish ad hominem.
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