Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg says her grandson born in Paris is a “natural born” citizen

...and all persons born in the allegiance of the United States are natural born citizens.”

And just what do you think this means? Do you think that all persons simply born in the soverign territory of the United States is same thing as "born in the allegiance of the United States"?

Of course this quotation means no such thing. What is said here is essentially the Vattel view, and the view of every "birther" who has thought the issue through. The issue IS allegiance, it has ALWAYS been allegiance, and NOTHING BUT allegiance. The Framers sought to eliminate those of questionable allegiance by making it a requirement that the President (and uniquely the President) must be a NATURAL BORN CITIZEN, that is someone born in exclusively owing alleignace to the Untied States and to no other nation. This is patently a more stringent requirement than mere territoriality, as hase been pointed out so many times I grow weary of it. Yet, this point seems to be lost on so many.

Forget the "Birth Certificate". I don't care if he comes up with a birth certificate signed in blood by the Pope of Rome. His father was a Kenyan, a British Subject, and at birth so was his son.

Barack Obama, born in Hawaii, despite his territorial birth, was not, is not, and never will be a natural born citizen and he remains and will remain for all his days ineligible to the office of President of the United States.

I presume she also believes that a person born of French citizens on US soil is a natural born US citizen as well as a natural born French citizen, just as she believes her grandchild has dual natural born citizenship.

Dual citizenship is a bad enough concept but dual natural born citizenship status is insane. She would also need to believe that this grandchild of hers could marry someone with the same dual US-French natural born citizenship and give birth to a child in a third nation and that child would be a natural born citizen of three different nations. Theoretically, a new nation could be added to the natural born status for every subsequent generation.

A very good point I had not considered before.

Lets look again at the ENTIRE qoute from US v. Rhodes, 27 Fed. Cas. 785: “All persons born in the allegiance of the king are natural born subjects, and all persons born in the allegiance of the United States are natural born citizens.”

Here we have the unambiguous statement that “All persons born in the allegiance of the king are natural born subjects (of the King)”. That includes Barack H. Obama, does it not, or are you saying that Obama is lying when he says he was a British Subject at birth due to the birthright nationality status he inherited from his father?

Or do you deny that the operation of British law and tradition recognizes birthright nationality? Or are you saying that Barack H. Obama could not have availed himself of his British/Kenyan nationality?

Because if you hold to these things you would be wrong indeed.

Ant then to the second part of the quotation, which you seem to think, against all logic and against the very language of Justice Swaine, that Justive Swaine is extending natural born citizenship to every infant whelped on US soil.

To come to that astonishing conclusion you have to hold that every infant whelped on US soil is born in the allegiance of the United States. Do you REALLY believe that?

Is it not far more likely that Justice Swaine meant what he actually said, and that natural born citizenship is reverved for those ACTUALLY born in the allegiance of the United States. Moreover, I am sure that he meant in the EXCLUSIVE allegiance of the United States.

If you are attracted to Justice Swaine’s line of reasoning, you may be a closet birther.

I suspect that this line of thought would be upheld by at least five of the current justices of the Supreme Court, and maybe more. It might even be unanimous. The force of reason is very powerful.

"Johnny Appleseed"

And now for his very next sentence, “Birth and allegiance go together. Such is the rule of the common law, and it is the common law of this country, as well as of England. There are two exceptions, and only two, to the universality of its application. The children of ambassadors are in theory born in the allegiance of the powers the ambassadors represent, and slaves, in legal contemplation, are property, and not persons.”

Seems to me that says allegiance is a product of the land you were born on unless under very specific circumstances you retain allegiance to another country. Otherwise, why the exception for diplomats? If allegiance is solely based on parentage than location doesn’t matter.

I don’t particularly believe that anyone is born with any allegiance to anyone or anything. Unless you have proof of babies born to two US citizen parents born on US soil coming out waving American flags. It is the language he used in the case though. In this instance, I would say allegiance is a recognition that you have to be born a citizen of somewhere. That somewhere is the place of your birth unless you happen to be the child of an ambassador. No one at birth is a citizen of the world. And yes I think everyone born in the US is a citizen of the US.

I believe the court will find, like you by a convincing majority, that natural born citizen is a line between naturalized and citizens born in the US. The common law would lend credence to that conclusion. Other than in general terms that the Framers were influenced by Vattel and absent any specific citation of them using his definition for natural born citizen, I think it likely the SC follows the common law on this issue. It would be the general understanding at the time and protect the executive office from foreign citizens (I understand the fear of importing a king was present at the time), and from those who are potentially working for their old country still. The protection given by Vattel’s higher standard seems very slight, and unnecessary. That it aids them in avoiding a Constitutional crisis is just icing on the cake.

El Gato, I am curious as to where you got your version of Vattel's 'Laws of Nations' as the copy I use, the one that Leo Donofrio uses states somethjing quite differrent:

§ 217. Children born in the armies of the state.

For the same reasons also, children born out of the country, in the armies of the state, or in the house of its minister at a foreign court, are reputed born in the country; for a citizen who is absent with his family, on the service of the state, but still dependent on it, and subject to its jurisdiction, cannot be considered as having quitted its territory.

http://www.constitution.org/vattel/vattel_01.htm

No where does Vattel use the words “natural born citizen” in section 217 of Book II.

I refer you to again to the foreign afaird manual:

http://go2.wordpress.com/?id=725X1342&site=constitutionallyspeaking.wordpress.com&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.state.gov%2Fm%2Fa%2Fdir%2Fregs%2Ffam%2Fc22712.htm

Department of State’s Foreign Affairs Manual at 7FAM1116.1-4(c)

“Despite widespread popular belief, U.S. military installations abroad and U.S. diplomatic facilities are not part of the United States within the meaning of the 14th Amendment. A child born on the premises of such a facility is not subject to U.S. jurisdiction and does not acquire U.S. citizenship by reason of birth.”

and the current foreign affairs manual also states this:

7 FAM 1131.6-2 Eligibility for Presidency

a. It has never been determined definitively by a court whether a person who acquired U.S. citizenship by birth abroad to U.S. citizens is a natural born citizen within the meaning of Article II of the Constitution and, therefore, eligible for the Presidency.

b. Section 1, Article II, of the Constitution states, in relevant part that “No Person except a natural born Citizen…shall be eligible for the Office of President,”

c. The Constitution does not define “natural born”.

The “Act to establish an Uniform Rule of Naturalization”, enacted March 26, 1790, (1 Stat.103,104) provided that, “…the children of citizens of the United States, that may be born … out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens: Provided that the right of citizenship shall not descend to persons whose fathers have never been resident in the United States.”

d. This statute is no longer operative, however, and its formula is not included in modern nationality statutes.

Mr. Blonde, maybe this law review artcle will clear things up for you:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/19071886/Are-Persons-Born-Within-the-United-States-Ipso-Facto-Citizens-Thereof-George-D-Collins

Let me introduce you to Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story:

I thought I had the smoking gun here when I first quoted this back in March, but the liberal legal minds kept quoting that naturalization at the time, meant the same thing as natural born citizen per the 1790 Naturalization Act that was repealed. They like to quote John McCain as being naturalized under the 14th Amendment; however, McCain is a citizen by codified statute cited in the Foreign Affairs manual under children born to US citizens abroad. What I have uncovered will blast S. Res. 511, a Senate Resolution declaring John Sidney McCain to be a ‘natural born’ citizen right into outer space where it belongs, because it is filled with nothing but hot air opinions of corrupt politicians. All their ‘whereas’ are nothing more than particles of a political solar system, waiting to disintegrate upon entry into the realm of constitutional law.

During Story’s tenure at Harvard and until his death, there were 12 published Commentaries on wide ranging aspects of American law. Three of these volumes were on the constitution and his works won him an international reputation as one of the most renowned constitutional scholars of the time.

It was in reading his works of Volume 3, Section 1472-73 of ‘The Founders Constitution: Commentaries on the Constitution’ originally published in 1833 and now provided online by none other than the University of Chicago (how fitting), Story writes of the qualifications of those who wish to attain election into the executive branch as laid out in A2 S1 C5 of the constitution.

§ 1472. Considering the nature of the duties, the extent of the information, and the solid wisdom and experience required in the executive department, no one can reasonably doubt the propriety of some qualification of age. That, which has been selected, is the middle age of life, by which period the character and talents of individuals are generally known, and fully developed; and opportunities have usually been afforded for public service, and for experience in the public councils. The faculties of the mind, if they have not then attained to their highest maturity, are in full vigor, and hastening towards their ripest state. The judgment, acting upon large materials, has, by that time, attained a solid cast; and the principles, which form the character, and the integrity, which gives lustre to the virtues of life, must then, if ever, have acquired public confidence and approbation.

§ 1473. It is indispensable, too, that the president should be a natural born citizen of the United States; or a citizen at the adoption of the constitution, and for fourteen years before his election. This permission of a naturalized citizen to become president is an exception from the great fundamental policy of all governments, to exclude foreign influence from their executive councils and duties. It was doubtless introduced (for it has now become by lapse of time merely nominal, and will soon become wholly extinct) out of respect to those distinguished revolutionary patriots, who were born in a foreign land, and yet had entitled themselves to high honors in their adopted country. A positive exclusion of them from the office would have been unjust to their merits, and painful to their sensibilities. But the general propriety of the exclusion of foreigners, in common cases, will scarcely be doubted by any sound statesman. It cuts off all chances for ambitious foreigners, who might otherwise be intriguing for the office; and interposes a barrier against those corrupt interferences of foreign governments in executive elections, which have inflicted the most serious evils upon the elective monarchies of Europe. Germany, Poland, and even the pontificate of Rome, are sad, but instructive examples of the enduring mischiefs arising from this source. A residence of fourteen years in the United States is also made an indispensable requisite for every candidate; so, that the people may have a full opportunity to know his character and merits, and that he may have mingled in the duties, and felt the interests, and understood the principles, and nourished the attachments, belonging to every citizen in a republican government. By “residence,” in the constitution, is to be understood, not an absolute inhabitancy within the United States during the whole period; but such an inhabitancy, as includes a permanent domicile in the United States. No one has supposed, that a temporary absence abroad on public business, and especially on an embassy to a foreign nation, would interrupt the residence of a citizen, so as to disqualify him for office. If the word were to be construed with such strictness, then a mere journey through any foreign adjacent territory for health, or for pleasure, or a commorancy there for a single day, would amount to a disqualification. Under such a construction a military or civil officer, who should have been in Canada during the late war on public business, would have lost his eligibility. The true sense of residence in the constitution is fixed domicile, or being out of the United States, and settled abroad for the purpose of general inhabitancy, animo manendi, and not for a mere temporary and fugitive purpose, in transitu.

Here Story clearly defines the difference between the 2 types of citizenship when he went into detail about the grandfather clause in which the original founding fathers relied on to attain election to the executive branch, a clause that would soon become obsolete and extinct.

(snip) or a citizen at the adoption of the constitution, and for fourteen years before his election. This permission of a naturalized citizen to become president is an exception from the great fundamental policy of all governments, to exclude foreign influence from their executive councils and duties. It was doubtless introduced (for it has now become by lapse of time merely nominal, and will soon become wholly extinct) out of respect to those distinguished revolutionary patriots, who were born in a foreign land, and yet had entitled themselves to high honors in their adopted country. A positive exclusion of them from the office would have been unjust to their merits, and painful to their sensibilities. But the general propriety of the exclusion of foreigners, in common cases, will scarcely be doubted by any sound statesman. It cuts off all chances for ambitious foreigners, who might otherwise be intriguing for the office; and interposes a barrier against those corrupt interferences of foreign governments in executive elections, which have inflicted the most serious evils upon the elective monarchies of Europe. Germany, Poland, and even the pontificate of Rome, are sad, but instructive examples of the enduring mischiefs arising from this source.

Did you catch the pertinent words here? Those stubborn words ‘naturalized‘, ’exception‘ and ‘extinct‘? Remember, Obama himself, claims that ‘words have meaning’.

(snip) This permission of a naturalized citizen to become president is an exception from the great fundamental policy of all governments, to exclude foreign influence from their executive councils and duties. It was doubtless introduced (for it has now become by lapse of time merely nominal, and will soon become wholly extinct)

Now, permit me to reiterate that to this date, Justice Joseph Story remains one of THE MOST cited justices and his ‘Commentaries’ are main stays in the teaching of constitutional law worldwide since their original publications began in 1832.

Obama studied law at Harvard, he was the president of Harvard Law Review during his time there, yet we are not allowed to read any of his writings and none thus far have shown to have been published. More importantly is the fact that Story is the founder of Harvard Law School and Obama surely would have been very familiar with Story’s works, especially the 3 volumes on ‘The Founders Constitution’.

http://constitutionallyspeaking.wordpress.com/2009/08/21/constitutional-nuclear-bomb-blasts-obamas-eligibilty-to-smithereens/

I've posted a link here on FR, to the search page on The Founders' Constitution site many times, even had one thread dedicated to it. I've been disappointed in the response of my fellow FReepers, having expected numerous discussions, but few (one, actually) resulted.

There appear to be only five or so, six counting you, who are actively pursuing Constitutional research to this end. Then, there are those who perpetually and erroneously cite Grays' dicta from Wong Kim Ark as if we're all still royal subjects of the King of England. Everyone else is still caught in some weird fugue state or gibbering around in the funhouse of that infernal birth certificate.

R.G.

Yes, some days it feels like I am beating my head against a brick wall, however I have found one thing to help...

By posting the most important part of the historical document/research, them giving them the link to read it in its entirety, has really seemed to be helping me in my efforts to educate.

Keep Up The Great Work! I’ve got your back!

Perhaps I’m missing something.

I am fully aware there is a difference between a naturalized citizen and a natural born citizen. I have never contested that there wasn’t. I have said that it is very likely that if the Supreme Court were to ever answer the question of what a natural born citizen is, they would hold that it is anyone born in the United States and a citizen at birth as opposed to someone who was at birth a citizen of another country and became a naturalized citizen after that.

I don’t think this holding would be a miscarriage of justice either, but of course that matters very little. In fact the entire population minus 5 people could ascribe to the Vattel definition and it wouldn’t matter very much if those 5 people were say Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, John Paul Stevens, Sonia Sotomayor and Stephen Breyer. Given that at the time of the adoption of the Constitution the understood meaning of citizenship would be heavily influenced by English common law, I don’t think the conservative side of the court would necessarily be hostile to it either.

M.B. said: I have said that it is very likely that if the Supreme Court were to ever answer the question of what a natural born citizen is, they would hold that it is anyone born in the United States and a citizen at birth as opposed to someone who was at birth a citizen of another country and became a naturalized citizen after that.

Yes, I guess I am confused as the Supreme Court has already ruled that while a person born on US soil is a citizen, the meaning of 'natural born' as it pertains to the Constitution and Article II, resort must be hels elsewhere.

http://naturalborncitizen.wordpress.com/2009/08/11/world-net-daily-aiding-and-abetting-obama-eligibility-propaganda/

I suppose the following quote from the US Supreme Court case Minor v. Happersett - which was actually quoted in the WND article – has somehow escaped Kreep:

“The Constitution does not in words say who shall be natural born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common law, with the nomenclature of which the Framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives or natural born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first.

So how many classes of citizens are there? 3?

I believe that quote from Minor would qualify as dicta.

I don’t believe the SC has been asked to determine if someone is a natural born citizen or not. They should not be faulted for not going beyond the question asked. I think they will come to the conclusion that citizen at birth and natural born citizen are synonymous terms, if asked the question.

Who do you think the Framers were intending to keep out of the presidency and does Obama fall into that category? To my way of thinking the intent was to keep the US from ever importing a monarch, which was discussed, and to at least provide some protection from a person working for their government coming to the US naturalizing and becoming president to aid the home country he is still loyal to. It wouldn’t rule out other potential methods of getting a turncoat into the office, but it is a start against more easily discernible agents. At least that seems to me to be the logic behind such a provision. Obama is not a member of either of those groups as far as I know. I’m open to other reasons behind the provision.

M.B. said: So how many classes of citizens are there? 3?...Who do you think the Framers were intending to keep out of the presidency and does Obama fall into that category?

I am not sure how to answer the classes. I think it is a red herring to look it as such. NBC is not a special class of citizen, they receive no special rights, it is just the path of citizenship that makes one qualified to be POTUS much like a doctor must follow a path to practice medicine or a lawyer to practice law. It would not be proper for a lawyer to practice medicine and vice versa. It is also very clear in the MANY historical writings of early congressional records, but also those such as Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story. They used clear and concise, and very strong language when referring to foreign influence ever being allowed into the office of the executive. While one only needed to be a citizen to enter congress, they felt there to be minimal influence of ones foreign past as the executive would have the power of VETO to override any legislation that may come from foreign intrigues. Thus the reason for the 2 different qualifications. But as to the executive, the Commander in Chief, it was of vital national security that the president have NO foreign influences/intrigues.

Obama..born British, then Indonesian, during his college years & into his current adulthood he sought out like persons and traveled to foreign countries and resided with high profile extremists in those foreign countries.

I refer you again to this statement from congressional records and from Justice Story:

In my earlier articles, I had quoted St George Tucker, (Fourteenth and Fifteenth Congresses (March 4, 1815-March 3, 1819); chairman, Committee on District of Columbia (Fourteenth Congress), Committee on Expenditures on Public Buildings (Fifteenth Congress); author of Tucker’s Commentaries and of a treatise on natural law and on the formation of the Constitution of the United States and State senate, 1819-1823; chancellor of the fourth judicial district of Virginia 1824-1831):

“The Provision in the Constitution which requires that the President shall be a ‘natural 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 be dreaded more than the plague.”

I thought I had the smoking gun here when I first quoted this back in March, but the liberal legal minds kept quoting that naturalization at the time, meant the same thing as natural born citizen per the 1790 Naturalization Act that was repealed. They like to quote John McCain as being naturalized under the 14th Amendment; however, McCain is a citizen by codified statute cited in the Foreign Affairs manual under children born to US citizens abroad. What I have uncovered will blast S. Res. 511, a Senate Resolution declaring John Sidney McCain to be a ‘natural born’ citizen right into outer space where it belongs, because it is filled with nothing but hot air opinions of corrupt politicians. All their ‘whereas’ are nothing more than particles of a political solar system, waiting to disintegrate upon entry into the realm of constitutional law.

During Story’s tenure at Harvard and until his death, there were 12 published Commentaries on wide ranging aspects of American law. Three of these volumes were on the constitution and his works won him an international reputation as one of the most renowned constitutional scholars of the time.

It was in reading his works of Volume 3, Section 1472-73 of ‘The Founders Constitution: Commentaries on the Constitution’ originally published in 1833 and now provided online by none other than the University of Chicago (how fitting), Story writes of the qualifications of those who wish to attain election into the executive branch as laid out in A2 S1 C5 of the constitution.

§ 1472. Considering the nature of the duties, the extent of the information, and the solid wisdom and experience required in the executive department, no one can reasonably doubt the propriety of some qualification of age. That, which has been selected, is the middle age of life, by which period the character and talents of individuals are generally known, and fully developed; and opportunities have usually been afforded for public service, and for experience in the public councils. The faculties of the mind, if they have not then attained to their highest maturity, are in full vigor, and hastening towards their ripest state. The judgment, acting upon large materials, has, by that time, attained a solid cast; and the principles, which form the character, and the integrity, which gives lustre to the virtues of life, must then, if ever, have acquired public confidence and approbation.

§ 1473. It is indispensable, too, that the president should be a natural born citizen of the United States; or a citizen at the adoption of the constitution, and for fourteen years before his election. This permission of a naturalized citizen to become president is an exception from the great fundamental policy of all governments, to exclude foreign influence from their executive councils and duties. It was doubtless introduced (for it has now become by lapse of time merely nominal, and will soon become wholly extinct) out of respect to those distinguished revolutionary patriots, who were born in a foreign land, and yet had entitled themselves to high honors in their adopted country. A positive exclusion of them from the office would have been unjust to their merits, and painful to their sensibilities. But the general propriety of the exclusion of foreigners, in common cases, will scarcely be doubted by any sound statesman. It cuts off all chances for ambitious foreigners, who might otherwise be intriguing for the office; and interposes a barrier against those corrupt interferences of foreign governments in executive elections, which have inflicted the most serious evils upon the elective monarchies of Europe. Germany, Poland, and even the pontificate of Rome, are sad, but instructive examples of the enduring mischiefs arising from this source. A residence of fourteen years in the United States is also made an indispensable requisite for every candidate; so, that the people may have a full opportunity to know his character and merits, and that he may have mingled in the duties, and felt the interests, and understood the principles, and nourished the attachments, belonging to every citizen in a republican government. By “residence,” in the constitution, is to be understood, not an absolute inhabitancy within the United States during the whole period; but such an inhabitancy, as includes a permanent domicile in the United States. No one has supposed, that a temporary absence abroad on public business, and especially on an embassy to a foreign nation, would interrupt the residence of a citizen, so as to disqualify him for office. If the word were to be construed with such strictness, then a mere journey through any foreign adjacent territory for health, or for pleasure, or a commorancy there for a single day, would amount to a disqualification. Under such a construction a military or civil officer, who should have been in Canada during the late war on public business, would have lost his eligibility. The true sense of residence in the constitution is fixed domicile, or being out of the United States, and settled abroad for the purpose of general inhabitancy, animo manendi, and not for a mere temporary and fugitive purpose, in transitu.

Here Story clearly defines the difference between the 2 types of citizenship when he went into detail about the grandfather clause in which the original founding fathers relied on to attain election to the executive branch, a clause that would soon become obsolete and extinct.

(snip) or a citizen at the adoption of the constitution, and for fourteen years before his election. This permission of a naturalized citizen to become president is an exception from the great fundamental policy of all governments, to exclude foreign influence from their executive councils and duties. It was doubtless introduced (for it has now become by lapse of time merely nominal, and will soon become wholly extinct) out of respect to those distinguished revolutionary patriots, who were born in a foreign land, and yet had entitled themselves to high honors in their adopted country. A positive exclusion of them from the office would have been unjust to their merits, and painful to their sensibilities. But the general propriety of the exclusion of foreigners, in common cases, will scarcely be doubted by any sound statesman. It cuts off all chances for ambitious foreigners, who might otherwise be intriguing for the office; and interposes a barrier against those corrupt interferences of foreign governments in executive elections, which have inflicted the most serious evils upon the elective monarchies of Europe. Germany, Poland, and even the pontificate of Rome, are sad, but instructive examples of the enduring mischiefs arising from this source.

more info here, including remarks from former Asst. US Attorney Andrew McCarthy from this year:

http://constitutionallyspeaking.wordpress.com/2009/08/21/constitutional-nuclear-bomb-blasts-obamas-eligibilty-to-smithereens/

TO ALL:

Some might find this of interest:

Exactly What IS a Natural Born Citizen?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEnaAZrYqQI

STE=Q

STE=Q,

I have seen this before and I agree with most of it, however, whoever made this video is mistakenly reporting false info in regards to McCain and thus, this video in my eyes is only more propaganda to confuse the issue.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2350622/posts?q=1&;page=101#147

There seems to me to be an enormous confusion, shared by the historic judiciary, current citizenry, pundits, commentators, and others about just what the English Common Law demands in terms of the imposition of subjecthood on the unwilling.

In fact two classes of persons were considered to owe lifetime allegiance to the British monarch from birth: those born of English paternity, born anywhere, and those of any paternity born in the Realm. That is, leaving children of diplomats out of the equation. The Framers felt that this was rapacious and unjust - and in fact British insistence on the British nationality of Americans of British bloodlines was a primary cause of the War of 1812 as self-identified Americans were pressed captured and pressed into British service.

Americans left citizenship up to the individual states. Only authority over naturalization was placed within the federal ambit. Rules for the devolvement of citizenship at birth were left to the individual states, and they varied. In some cases the states enacted NO statute, for example New York. Others emphasized paternity. In any case, the important thing is that native citizenship was NOT generally considered a matter to be determined by reference to English common law.

The unique citizenship requirement established in the Constitution is the requirement that the President be “Natural Born Citizen”. All other references to citizenship are bare, apparently including native born, naturalized, and natural born, where these mean in order, born in the land and not excluded from citizenship, having obtained citizenship by means of the operation of statute law under the naturalization power granted the federal government by the Constitution, and those born on US soil of US citizen parents, inclusive.

The reductio ad absurdum argument that birth on American soil of two citizen parents is not a perfect predictor of patriotism, loyalty or allegiance notwithstanding, the Framers thought that it was from this natural class that was most likely to produce those individuals with the characteristic most desired in a President: undivided loyalty to the Untied States.

And they were not wrong. Just look what our Constitutional carelessness has wrought: a President who places the interests of the United States on a par with those of Namibia or Venezuela. A man who does not see himself as uniquely American, but rather as a post-American, dialectic President of the world.

This is someone who actually apologizes for the pursuance of American interests by past governments and then holds himself up as redeemer - someone who will assiduously AVOID basing American policy on American interests. Thats why we have a policy on Honduras that is based on Venezuelan and Nicaraguan and Cuban interests. This “president” is exactly the type of allegiance-compromised individual the Framers tried their best to prevent from ever becoming President.

Shame on us all.

I’m trying like hell to avoid these threads from here on out, but do you have any quotes supporting this, “The Framers felt that this was rapacious and unjust.” I see it on the federalistblog.us Web site, from which I assume you are taking it. I see no cites to a Framer saying as such, but I will accept that they could be out there I just haven’t seen them. Have you? My google skills appear somewhat limited in this respect as so far my attempts at search terms don’t turn up anything.