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To: riverdawg

cf Vattel. You must also be born to an American citizen to be natural-born. Barry is a natural-born British subject if he’s a natural-born anything. This has been well-covered on FR threads; which you claim you’ve read. Either you are lying about your level of ignorance or you are shilling for pan-national anti-American forces.


94 posted on 07/02/2009 11:33:24 AM PDT by Plummz (pro-constitution, anti-corruption)
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To: Plummz
“You must also be born to an American citizen to be natural-born.”

You might want to read Thomas Jefferson's Virginia Citizenship Statute (written in 1779), rather than the 1758 writings of a Frenchman, to gain an understanding of what the Founding Fathers had in mind by the use of the term “natural-born” citizen:

” ... 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; and all infants wheresoever born, whose father, if living, or otherwise, whose mother was, a citizen at the time of their birth, or who migrate hither, their father, if living, or otherwise their mother becoming a citizen, or who migrate hither without father or mother, shall be deemed citizens of this commonwealth, until they relinquish that character in manner as herein after expressed.”

In this passage, acquiring citizenship by virtue of having a father (or if the father is deceased, a mother) who is a citizen is clearly an alternative route to citizenship to having been born in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

And in discussing the procedure whereby those who want to relinquish their “natural right” to citizenship, Jefferson had this to say:

“And in order to preserve to the citizens of this commonwealth, that natural right, which all men have of relinquishing the country, in which birth, or other accident may have thrown them, and, seeking subsistance and happiness wheresoever they may be able, ... to declare unequivocably what circumstances shall be deemed evidence of an intention in any citizen to exercise that right, it is enacted and declared, that whensoever any citizen of this commonwealth, shall by word of mouth in the presence of the court of the county, wherein he resides, or of the General Court, or by deed in writing, under his hand and seal, executed in the presence of three witnesses, and by them proved in either of the said courts, openly declare to the same court, that he relinquishes the character of a citizen, and shall depart the commonwealth; or whensoever he shall without such declaration depart the commonwealth and enter into the service of any other state, not in enmity with this, or any other of the United States of America, or do any act whereby he shall become a subject or citizen of such state, such person shall be considered as having exercised his natural right of expatriating himself, and shall be deemed no citizen of this commonwealth from the time of his departure.”

In this passage, the “natural right” to citizenship of the Commonwealth is conveyed “by birth or other accident [that]may have thrown them.”

95 posted on 07/02/2009 12:04:02 PM PDT by riverdawg
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