Posted on 06/30/2009 9:32:47 AM PDT by wbones8765
What might the phrase “natural-born citizen” of the United States imply under the U.S. Constitution? The phrase has always been obscure due to the lack of any single authoritative source to confer in order to understand the condition of citizenship the phrase recognizes. Learning what the phrase might have meant following the Declaration of Independence, and the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, requires detective work. As with all detective work, eliminating the usual suspects from the beginning goes a long way in quickly solving a case.
What Natural-Born Citizen Could Not Mean
Could a natural-born citizen simply mean citizenship due to place of birth?
Unlikely in the strict sense because we know one can be native born and yet not a native born citizen of this country prior to the year 1866. There were even disputes whether anyone born within the District of Columbia or in the territories were born citizens of the United States (they were generally referred to as “inhabitants” instead.) National Government could make no “territorial allegiance” demands within the several States because as Madison explained it, the “powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.”
Jurisdiction over citizenship via birth within the several States was part of the “ordinary course of affairs” of the States that only local laws could affect. Early acts of Naturalization recognized the individual State Legislatures as the only authority who could make anyone a citizen of a State. Framer James Wilson said, “a citizen of the United States is he, who is a citizen of at least some one state in the Union.”
(Excerpt) Read more at federalistblog.us ...
Ping
If you are born in Kenya you are a natural born US citizen.That’s what I’ve been told.
lol
I would also point out, which I didn't then, that we still used the phrase natural-born the way the Framers did when we speak of, for example, a natural-born athlete. Such a person is not merely an athlete, but one whose athleticism is in his genes.
ML/NJ
Jus Soli (by right of the soil) citizen ship is based on location of birth.
Jus Sanguinis (by right of the blood) is based on being born of a citizen parent (or parents).
Although I, personally, favor the most narrow of definitions for 'natural born citizen' for the purposes of holding what is arguably the most powerful/dangerous office on earth: Born on US soil, both parents US citizens, raised on US soil, and never having any hint of divided loyalties (dual citizenship, being under the employ of a foreign government, serving in a foreign army, etc), the Founding Fathers specifically allowed a child born overseas of two American parents (or was that with an American citizen father?) stationed overseas on federal business would be counted as a 'natural born citizen'.
That 1790 law was superseded by the 1795 law that drops any reference to 'natural born'.
We haven't had a clear legal definition since.
It's time to change that.
I guess it could also mean that your not eligible to be POTUS if you were born via C-Section.
Thats what you get when you start re-defining terms.
Was that from wikepedia?
I guess you might need to do some reasearch before you comment.
“The constitutional requirement for the President of the United States to be a natural-born citizen had one purpose according to St. George Tucker:
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That provision in the constitution which requires that the president shall be a native-born citizen (unless he were a citizen of the United States when the constitution was adopted,) is a happy means of security against foreign influence, which, wherever it is capable of being exerted, is to he dreaded more than the plague.
The admission of foreigners into our councils, consequently, cannot be too much guarded against; their total exclusion from a station to which foreign nations have been accustomed to, attach ideas of sovereign power, sacredness of character, and hereditary right, is a measure of the most consummate policy and wisdom. …
The title of king, prince, emperor, or czar, without the smallest addition to his powers, would have rendered him a member of the fraternity of crowned heads: their common cause has more than once threatened the desolation of Europe.
To have added a member to this sacred family in America, would have invited and perpetuated among us all the evils of Pandora’s Box.”
No. Although I have been known to look at Wiki, I did the due diligence and examined the full text of the 1790 and 1795 laws personally.
There are something like 9000 posts on ‘the long thread’ and scores of other birth certificate threads.
In point of fact, no one outside of a private agency (FactCheck) wholly funded by an 0bama employer (The Annenberg Foundation) has ever even claimed to have seen a paper document.
The 0bama camp has spent about $1,000,000.00 to avoid showing a document that can be obtained from the State of Hawai’i for $10.
Surely you understood the point I was making... PLEASE!
Existing law states that for citizenship to be conveyed to a child that one or both of the parents have to have been a citizen residing in the U.S. for at least 5 years past the age of 14.
Here is what the State Dept says:
"Birth Abroad to One Citizen and One Alien Parent in Wedlock: A child born abroad to one U.S. citizen parent and one alien parent acquires U.S. citizenship at birth under Section 301(g) INA provided the citizen parent was physically present in the U.S. for the time period required by the law applicable at the time of the child's birth. (For birth on or after November 14, 1986, a period of five years physical presence, two after the age of fourteen is required. For birth between December 24, 1952 and November 13, 1986, a period of ten years, five after the age of fourteen are required for physical presence in the U.S. to transmit U.S. citizenship to the child.
He clearly stated himself numerous times that his mother was only 18 when he was born, so as far as I'm concerned Pres__ent with no ID 0bama is not now nor was he ever a natural born citizen. That is why he refuses to pay the $20 plus postage to provide his vault copy of his long form birth certificate as well as his college transcripts and other documents.
Refresh my memory here?
How many Czars do we have this week?
Birther ping.
Hah ..
When our copnstitution was written some of the words had a slightly different meaning than today. When dealing with the constitution you have to look at them in that context. There is another comment that takes the definition back to 1583. The state department is not the Supreme Court. Laws can be challenged and are regularly.
These guys terrify me, it's a totally anti-Constitutional consolidation of de facto legislative powers into the executive branch. Law of the land by fiat, with no debate, no vote, and no voter oversight.
Besides, if you keep calling someone a Czar, pretty soon they start thinking they really are a Czar, and acting accordingly.
The founding Fathers used Blackwell as a guide, not a straightjacket.
I like you do not feel that he is the president, for the simple fact, he is not a natural BORN NOT NATIVE of the US. You are looking at by birth. I AM the constitutional question of what defines that natural born status.
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