Posted on 03/13/2013 6:01:43 PM PDT by Fai Mao
Wilson was not born into that community. He was a naturalized citizen.
Here are some authorities from throughout history who all confirm that those born on American soil before the Revolution were considered to be our natural-born citizens:
No foreign-born person can fill the highest office in our government. This provision was made to guard against foreign influence, and the intrigues of ambitious foreigners for this position of honor and trust. One exception to this rule, however, was made in the Constitution: a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, though a naturalized citizen, could hold the office of President. This exception was made because of the many citizens of foreign birth who had risked their lives and spent their fortunes in the protection of their adopted country through the bloody war of the Revolution. To have denied them any privileges which were given to the native-born citizens would have been gross injustice.
The Civil Government of the United States. Fitch, 1889
The foreign-born citizen cannot be elected President; surely no great discrimination when the same rule of exclusion holds practically true of many millions of "natural born" citizens. Even to this rule there is an exception stated in the Clause, doubtless made out of respect for distinguished foreign-born members of the Convention, notably Hamilton, Wilson, Robert Morris, to whom the Convention here makes this bow of courteous recognition. Very appropriate will the little act of courtesy turn out, for one of these foreign-born citizens, Alexander Hamilton, will produce in The Federalist the best exposition of the Constitution that has ever been made in a book, being still the classic work on this subject.
The State, Specially the American State, Psychologically Treated. Snider, 1902
Many of foreign birth who had helped to create the United States would have been rendered ineligible had not the provision been inserted making eligible those of foreign birth who at the time of the adoption of the Constitution were citizens of the United States. The lapse of time long since removed that class and left the excepting clause the mere record of an interesting historic fact. Seven of the signers of the Constitution were foreign born: James Wilson, Robert Morris and Thomas Fitzsimons of Pennsylvania, Alexander Hamilton of New York, William Paterson of New Jersey, James McHenry of Maryland, and Pierce Butler of South Carolina.
The Constitution of the United States, Its Sources and Its Application. Norton, 1922
The committee also specified that anyone who was "a Citizen of the United States at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution" would be eligible to the presidency. This seems to have been done in consideration of certain prominent American leaders, including James Wilson, Alexander Hamilton, and Robert Morris, who had been born abroad.
Who Vies for President? Nelson, 1987
Only the presidency and vice presidency were reserved for birth-citizens. Even this reservation would not apply so as to exclude any immigrants who were already American citizens in 1787, men who had proved their loyalty by coming to or remaining in America during the Revolution. Seven of the thirty-nine Philadelphia signers were themselves foreign-born, and during the ratification process, countless naturalized Americans voted on equal terms with their natural-born fellow citizens.
[Note: As well as clearly alluding to the reason for the grandfather clause, this states that America's natural born citizens voted for ratification in 1787. Since the Declaration of Independence was in 1776, and 11-year-olds don't vote, it is clear that the author is referring to those born on American soil, who adhered to the Revolution, as natural-born citizens.]
America's Constitution: A Biography. Amar, 2005
Issues... that garnered little opposition included... that the president be at least thirty-five years old... and that the president be a natural-born citizen. This citizenship proviso seemed to eliminate aspirations to the presidency that might have been entertained by three of Madison's allies - Hamilton, Robert Morris, and Wilson. However, the committee on postponed matters added a clause requiring merely that the president be either a natural-born citizen or a fourteen-year resident of the United States, and the delegates approved it unanimously... The Committee of Style dropped even the fourteen-year requirement in favor of a requirement that the president be a natural-born citizen or a citizen at the time of the Constitution's adoption.
The Constitution and America's Destiny. Robertson, 2005
No doubt there are more.
That’s a pretty enough site, except for three problems:
1. It disagrees with historical scholars, who are clear that those born on US soil before the Revolution were all considered to be natural born citizens.
2. It disagrees with historical scholars, who are clear that the reason for the grandfather clause was NOT to make those born on US soil eligible, but to make persons like James Wilson and Alexander Hamilton, who were foreign-born, eligible.
3. It disagrees with Father of the Constitution James Madison, who told us that a person had two allegiances prior to the Revolution. Assuming that he adhered to the community of his birth, that was his primary allegiance that made for citizenship, and he was absolved of his secondary allegiance to the English king.
4. It completely ignores the historical and legal meaning of “natural born citizen,” which was NOT just a throwing together of three separate words that could be figured out by looking up dictionary definitions of the words and joining them together. The phrase was a legal and historical TERM OF ART, a continuation of the term of art “natural born subject,” which it replaced. That term had a centuries-long specific meaning. And it was NOT what the author of this site claims.
Did you write that?
Right. Tucker was quoting Vattel's description of how a certain kind of nation--a federal republic--gets formed, in describing the purpose of the 10th Amendment. Indeed, in the Law of Nations, Vattel spends a bunch of time talking about what a nation is, the different kinds of nations, how they are formed, and so on. Nevertheless, when he defined the "law of nations" in the very beginning, in the third paragraph, he says it's about the relations between nations. Make of that what you will.
Okay. There's a 'notwithstanding their father or mother were aliens,"....' line concerning inheritance.
Jus sanguines. That a Right of Blood.
Right. And it's explicitly ignoring that in calling them "natural-born subjects." They are natural-born subjects whether their parents were aliens or not.
Jus soli citizens, Right of Soil..... but we don't have a King, so I really don't see that power as material here.
Okay, let's review: I said it was too bad that rather than explicitly saying the president had to have two citizen parents if that's what they wanted, the Founders used an expression that sounded an awful lot like a term they would have known, one that explicitly did not have a jus soli requirement. You asked me to supply the English law that used that term, so I did. And now you say we don't have a King so why is it relevant.
The point is, they could have used any language they wanted to specify presidential eligibility. They could easily have written "no person except the offspring of two citizens." But they didn't. With full knowledge that someone could be a "natural-born subject" even if they had alien parents, they chose the term "natural-born citizen." That just seems like a really unfortunate choice, if they meant what you say they meant.
Assuming 'ou' in French means and operates the same as an 'or' in English.
This is not an either 'or', it's a refining 'or'.
Yes, but I'm not sure what your point is. He's saying "Les naturels, also called indigenes..."
I've been at it for a bit over a decade,
What made you start paying attention to it that long ago?
I said it was too bad that rather than explicitly saying the president had to have two citizen parents if that's what they wanted, the Founders used an expression that sounded an awful lot like a term they would have known, one that explicitly did not have a jus soli jus sanguinis requirement.
Make that four problems.
But seriously, folks...
Vattel actually was well regarded in the area of what we would today call "international law."
But he obviously had a lot of kooky domestic ideas that the Founders didn't pay the slightest attention to.
That's just it though. If Tucker was talking only about the 'relations between nations' he would not have mentioned the 10th Amendment as its operation is an internal one, and to my knowledge, unique to our nation.
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They are natural-born subjects whether their parents were aliens or not.
True. People in England were called natural born subjects no matter which type they were, because the King owned them both.
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I said it was too bad that rather than explicitly saying the president had to have two citizen parents if that's what they wanted,
Okay, but what about the fact that by choosing the citizenship of ONE parent, you deny the very existence of the other? No one has just ONE parent. I don't see why it would have occurred to them to rob a child of his/her foreign inheritances just because one parent was American.
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the Founders used an expression that sounded an awful lot like a term they would have known, one that explicitly did not have a jus soli requirement.
Well, yeah. Why would they have used a term other than one they were familiar with.
English law and American law may be similar, but it doesn't make them the same.
This is WHY Tucker is so important.
He annotated Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England to show exactly HOW they operated in our new country. It's a very interesting read.
The common law has affixed such distinct and appropriate ideas to the terms denization, and naturalization, that they can not be confounded together, or mistaken for each other in any legal transaction whatever. They are so absolutely distinct in their natures, that in England the rights they convey, can not both be given by the same power; the king can make denizens, by his grant, or letters patent, but nothing but an act of parliament can make a naturalized subject.
This was the legal state of this subject in Virginia, when the federal constitution was adopted; it declares that congress shall have power to establish an uniform rule of naturalization; throughout the United States; but it also further declares, that the powers not delegated by the constitution to the U. States, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states, respectively or to the people. The power of naturalization, and not that of denization, being delegated to congress, and the power of denization not being prohibited to the states by the constitution, that power ought not to be considered as given to congress, but, on the contrary, as being reserved to the states.
St. George Tucker
The States have the authority over denizens , so if there is a jus soli authority in America, it belongs to the States.
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With full knowledge that someone could be a "natural-born subject" even if they had alien parents, they chose the term "natural-born citizen." That just seems like a really unfortunate choice, if they meant what you say they meant.
It because they knew the authority of naturalization lay within the federal government, but he authority of citizenship did not. Why would they have gone into detail about which the government had no authority over?
That's WHY, IMHO, they used such a concrete term - natural-born citizen....because a Natural Law concept doesn't change.
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Yes, but I'm not sure what your point is. He's saying "Les naturels, also called indigenes..."
The point was that, no matter the word,or even the language - its really only a single concept. Native, natural born, indigenous. Some one who is part of where they're born the moment they're born. That's my interpretation of it anyway.
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What made you start paying attention to it that long ago?
Was lied to
by a politician
again.
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LOL! It was just the whole disjointed concept that the Founders pledged their Lives, Fortunes and Sacred Honor so the federal government could somehow legitimately steal from the very People who's rights it was made to protect.
It just didn't make sense!
Now this is astonishing.
You preach that "natural born citizen" requires two US citizen parents at birth.
That is the technical requirement, and after all, this is a discussion regarding a technicality. In practice, they accepted people who had stated or demonstrated an intention to remain here and be citizens. George Washington himself demonstrates this mindset in some of his letters.
“You are not to enlist any person who is not an American born, unless such person has a wife and family, and is a settled resident of this country.” George Washington, Given at headquarters, at Cambridge, this 10 July, 1775.
Washington’s General Orders of July 7, 1775 given at Head Quarters, Cambridge by Horatio Gates, Adj. General to Parole-Dorchester, Countersign-Exeter:
“The General has great Reason; and is highly displeased, with the Negligence and Inattention of those Officers, who have placed as Centries at the out-posts, Men with whose Character they are not acquainted. He therefore orders, that for the future, no Man shall be appointed to those important Stations, who is not a Native of this Country, or has a Wife, or Family in it, to whom he is known to be attached. This Order is to be consider’d as a standing one and the Officers are to pay obedience to it at their peril.”
Thomas Jefferson's Bill regarding who shall be deemed citizens of the Commonwealth.
Be it enacted by the General Assembly, that all white persons born within the territory of this commonwealth and all who have resided therein two years next before the passing of this act, and all who shall hereafter migrate into the same; and shall before any court of record give satisfactory proof by their own oath or affirmation, that they intend to reside therein, and moreover shall give assurance of fidelity to the commonwealth;
Such people are not the same thing as an illegal or transitory Alien. These people intend to BE Americans and are in compliance with our laws. Anchor Babies and Birth Tourism are the result of people exploiting technicalities which were falsely created (by the Wong court) in our laws.
And not even YOU believe it.
I believe it completely as regards legal theory. In practice, I am willing to give people the benefit of the Doubt. As the Bible says regarding people who marry after they have become pregnant: "Let nothing more be said of it", So do I feel this is a reasonable way to deal with such circumstances as Marco Rubio's father who has become an American citizen later than he should have. He may not have met the letter of the law, but he met the spirit of the law.
In any event, Obama's case is settled. There are MULTIPLE court precedents finding him to be a natural born citizen. There is no way on earth that you or anyone else could possibly overturn that precedent now.
That there are many, does not make them correct. I regard such courts as just another symptom of the Societal decline under which the nation is currently suffering. They are a symptom of the disease afflicting the nation.
Which makes your labeling me and others who represent the law accurately as "Obots" rather silly, since there's not the slightest need for anyone to make the case in regard to Obama any more. If there ever was.
I do not think I have referred to you as an "Obot." Though you side with them, and consult their websites often, I have mostly regarded you as a severely misguided conservative. (Like Mr. Rogers.) I have looked at your commentary on other issues, and I find it unlikely that a Liberal, or a Democrat operative would advance such opinions.
As for Obama, yes there was. Getting the issue out there lent support to the calls for a law in one (or more) of the states requiring Office seekers for the Presidency to present original proof of their Natural Born citizenship status. Arizona passed such a law, but the Idiot Governor vetoed it.
There is something on Obama's birth certificate that will either hurt him politically, or will disqualify him all together, and he doesn't want people to know what it is. Had a single state simply demanded to see his original document, he might have never become President, and might not have gotten re-elected.
But Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Bobby Jindal... those are the people you stand to harm now.
Marco Rubio could be finessed. Bobby Jindal, less likely, and Ted Cruz? Completely implausible. I like Ted Cruz. I like him far better than most of the rest, but it is simply not possible to stretch the definition so far as to include him. Not that it makes much difference anymore anyway.
And this is where your logic goes completely off the rails. Nothing an individual does subsequently can affect the circumstances of his birth.
They either are, or are not, at the moment of their birth. There is no "conditional" modification of what is "natural citizenship."
I think you are out of your league in this discussion. I regard your attempt to link Castro and Vattel as childish. It’s just “noise” as far as i’m concerned.
Such obvious mischaracterizations do not inspire much in the way of rebuttal.
Saying we have to take the FIRST part of something without being able to consider the LAST part of something is like saying a court has to hear a case but can make no decisions.
Get your Castro issue checked. Seriously.
He isn't even getting his criticism straight. Vattel is referring to "Mechanics" during the Industrial revolution. This was a time period when such people were regard as we today regard our Scientists and Engineers. Their knowledge has real economic and military impact, and as such they are restricted in some cases from leaving the country without permission, or working for foreign countries.
In other words, we DO follow Vattel's advice in this regard. England did as well at the time.
This weird concept is straight from "Dr. Conspiracy." He dreamed it up in an attempt to patch a hole in his goofy theory, namely the "grandfather clause" of article II.
It requires one to believe that someone can be a natural born citizen of two different countries simultaneously, and one of them doesn't even exist yet!
It is sophist nonsense.
Again, you are shooting blanks with this one.
And that is different from what we currently have how?
I think i’m just going to start skipping your posts like I do with Mr. Rogers mostly. They are like verbal junk food.
I know. The skills of a population are a resource of the country. A great deal of what Vattel wrote, IMHO revolved mainly around the concept of monarchies.
Not that the authorities aren't the same, but sometimes there is a huge difference as to who that authority belongs to in our Republic.
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Since your response was apparently to complex for the poster, I thought I'd try the KISS approach. ;-)
That's true, but it doesn't make them incorrect, either.
And it does make them the law of the land.
Whether you personally agree with these court decisions or not, it is a settled point of law that a person born in the United States does not have to have citizen parents in order to be a natural born citizen. You may say the courts are wrong, but the courts have said that you are wrong.
And legally, it's the opinion of the courts that counts, not yours or mine, and that opinion is never going to be reversed. It will be the law of the United States for as long as there is a United States, or until you or someone else gets a Constitutional Amendment passed to change it.
This weird concept [that the grandfather clause was passed to honor and not offend those who had come here from other places, who were not natural born Americans, who had risked their lives and fortunes to help us gain Independence] is straight from "Dr. Conspiracy." He dreamed it up in an attempt to patch a hole in his goofy theory, namely the "grandfather clause" of article II.
No, Dr. Conspiracy did not dream it up. This has been the view of historians throughout American history. Absolutely for more than 100 years, but probably much earlier than that.
It requires one to believe that someone can be a natural born citizen of two different countries simultaneously, and one of them doesn't even exist yet!
No, it simply recognizes that when the colonists WERE colonists, they held allegiance both to their Colonies, and to the King who ruled them.
They were natural born citizens of what might be called Englamerica, because it was a country that consisted both of England and America.
Upon the Revolution, what had once been a single country divided into two countries.
Englamerica became, by its division, England-without-America, and America.
At that time, people had to decide which half of the amoeba they were really committed to, and which half of the amoeba they were going to CONTINUE to be citizens of.
They had always been citizens. Those born in the Colonies had been NATURAL BORN citizens, or natural born subjects, whichever term you care to use. BOTH terms were used interchangeably in the early United States. But natural born citizen soon mostly supplanted natural born subject, although natural born subject still appears in at least one state constitution.
This was the view of the Founding Fathers, and it is clearly seen in James Madison's speech regarding William Loughton Smith.
As for the idea that Dr. Conspiracy "dreamed up" the "weird" concept that the grandfather clause was passed to honor those who had come here from other places, who were not natural born Americans, who had risked their lives and fortunes to help us gain Independence, your making that claim only illustrates the fact that you simply don't know what you're talking about, although you imagine you do.
No one who genuinely had a clue would ever make such a claim. Earlier I suggested that MamaTexan needed to go back to being a mother. I think you need to go back to being an electrical engineer, or whatever it is that you actually do.
Because claiming that idea was invented by someone running a blog since the election of Barack Obama is a sure indicator to anybody watching that when it comes to interpreting history and the Constitution, you're a complete and absolute quack.
No foreign-born person can fill the highest office in our government. This provision was made to guard against foreign influence, and the intrigues of ambitious foreigners for this position of honor and trust. One exception to this rule, however, was made in the Constitution: a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, though a naturalized citizen, could hold the office of President. This exception was made because of the many citizens of foreign birth who had risked their lives and spent their fortunes in the protection of their adopted country through the bloody war of the Revolution. To have denied them any privileges which were given to the native-born citizens would have been gross injustice.
The Civil Government of the United States. Fitch, 1889
The foreign-born citizen cannot be elected President; surely no great discrimination when the same rule of exclusion holds practically true of many millions of "natural born" citizens. Even to this rule there is an exception stated in the Clause, doubtless made out of respect for distinguished foreign-born members of the Convention, notably Hamilton, Wilson, Robert Morris, to whom the Convention here makes this bow of courteous recognition. Very appropriate will the little act of courtesy turn out, for one of these foreign-born citizens, Alexander Hamilton, will produce in The Federalist the best exposition of the Constitution that has ever been made in a book, being still the classic work on this subject.
The State, Specially the American State, Psychologically Treated. Snider, 1902
Many of foreign birth who had helped to create the United States would have been rendered ineligible had not the provision been inserted making eligible those of foreign birth who at the time of the adoption of the Constitution were citizens of the United States. The lapse of time long since removed that class and left the excepting clause the mere record of an interesting historic fact. Seven of the signers of the Constitution were foreign born: James Wilson, Robert Morris and Thomas Fitzsimons of Pennsylvania, Alexander Hamilton of New York, William Paterson of New Jersey, James McHenry of Maryland, and Pierce Butler of South Carolina.
The Constitution of the United States, Its Sources and Its Application. Norton, 1922
The committee also specified that anyone who was "a Citizen of the United States at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution" would be eligible to the presidency. This seems to have been done in consideration of certain prominent American leaders, including James Wilson, Alexander Hamilton, and Robert Morris, who had been born abroad.
Who Vies for President? Nelson, 1987
Only the presidency and vice presidency were reserved for birth-citizens. Even this reservation would not apply so as to exclude any immigrants who were already American citizens in 1787, men who had proved their loyalty by coming to or remaining in America during the Revolution. Seven of the thirty-nine Philadelphia signers were themselves foreign-born, and during the ratification process, countless naturalized Americans voted on equal terms with their natural-born fellow citizens.
[Note: As well as clearly alluding to the reason for the grandfather clause, this states that America's natural born citizens voted for ratification in 1787. Since the Declaration of Independence was in 1776, and 11-year-olds don't vote, it is clear that the author is referring to those born on American soil, who adhered to the Revolution, as natural-born citizens.]
America's Constitution: A Biography. Amar, 2005
Issues... that garnered little opposition included... that the president be at least thirty-five years old... and that the president be a natural-born citizen. This citizenship proviso seemed to eliminate aspirations to the presidency that might have been entertained by three of Madison's allies - Hamilton, Robert Morris, and Wilson. However, the committee on postponed matters added a clause requiring merely that the president be either a natural-born citizen or a fourteen-year resident of the United States, and the delegates approved it unanimously... The Committee of Style dropped even the fourteen-year requirement in favor of a requirement that the president be a natural-born citizen or a citizen at the time of the Constitution's adoption.
The Constitution and America's Destiny. Robertson, 2005
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