Something in the way tommy777 worded his statement jiggled a thought in my mind and made me wonder, "Why didn't the founders think themselves to be natural born?" This is now purely "thinking out loud" on my part (too much Christmas stuff going on, too much family crammed into the house, too little time to think clearly and research accurately...), but here it is, anyway:
I have seen in several threads the list of President's and their places of birth and parents information (sorry to whoever provided that - I can't find it right now, but would love to see it again), which indicated that all of our Presidents were born in the America, even those that were born prior to the Constitution and "grandfathered" in. If they were born here, why did they not consider themselves natural born?
The only thing different between them and those born later was their "allegiance" (and that of their parents) to Britain. I think the key to understanding the intention and application of "NBC" can be be found in discovering why they did not confer NBC status on themselves. Just being born in America was not enough for them; why should just being born in America be enough for us?
(Fire away: I'm probably not going to be around for the debate, but I'll be interested to check later to see if any new avenues are found for exploring this whole NBC thing...)
Merry Christmas!!
I’m the same. They key to understanding “natural born citizen” for purposes of being eligible to serve as President lies in the way the Founding Fathers were “grandfathered in”. You can see the distinction right there,
The FF were born British same as Obama (Kenyan-British actually)
The only born British (or foreign) people who qualify to be President are those who were US citizens at the time of the adoption of the US Constitution. This is written into the Constitution