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To: joseph20
Seems to me that the term Natural Born Citizen plainly means that you were born in the United States of America.

Not necessarily.

Although some of the early comments on natural born citizenship equate the term simply with being born in America, others equate the term with "born a citizen."

And the first Congress immediately passed a law which said that children born abroad to US citizens were natural born citizens, too.

This could be interpreted a couple of ways. One way is that our early leaders (which included James Madison, the Father of the Constitution) believed they had the power to define which persons born outside of US soil were natural born citizens as well.

The other is that they already believed they were, and passed a law simply to clarify that.

30 posted on 03/13/2013 6:23:10 PM PDT by Jeff Winston
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To: Jeff Winston

This could be interpreted a couple of ways. One way is that our early leaders (which included James Madison, the Father of the Constitution) believed they had the power to define which persons born outside of US soil were natural born citizens as well.

The other is that they already believed they were, and passed a law simply to clarify that.


Clarification: You are referring to the Immigration Act of 1790. That was replaced by the Immigration Act of 1795 which rescinded the idea of being considered natural born if you are born outside America.

People continue to produce shoddy scholarship that shows no thinking by the author compiling all the scholarship. These attempts to confuse people will be fought at every step.

Try again.


51 posted on 03/13/2013 6:43:21 PM PDT by bioqubit
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To: Jeff Winston

What part of “to ourselves and our Posterity” in the Preamble to the United States Constitution do you fail to understand?

At its foundation the term Natural Born Citizen points directly to the properties of blood and soil. That is, one is born in the borders of our country (soil) and born of American Citizen parents (blood).

By its very definition, the term foreign denotes a lack of blood or soil connection to a country.

Any argument that advocates for a U.S. President who lacks a blood or soil connection to this country is actually advocating for a foreign Presidency.


218 posted on 03/15/2013 6:49:53 PM PDT by joseph20 (...to ourselves and our Posterity...)
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