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Drew68 says: Post lies? My interpretation of NBC is the status quo, the current law of the land. What is known in the legal world as precedent.

Here is the true precedent from a most liberal professor. Read it and weap:

In a recent Illinois Public Law & Legal Theory written by Professor Lawrence B Solum of the U of IL, College of Law, Chicago, Solum further explains why the English common law definition of ‘natural born subject was not the definition adopted by the Framers for the Sovereign citizens of the United States of America.

[Blackstone Commentaries (1765): When I say, that an alien is one who is born out of the king's dominions, or allegiance, this also must be understood with some restrictions. The common law indeed stood absolutely so; with only a very few exceptions: so that a particular act of parliament became necessary after the restoration, for the naturalization of children of his majesty's English subjects, born in foreign countries during the late troubles. And this maxim of the law proceeded upon a general principle, that every man owes natural allegiance where he is born, and cannot owe two such allegiances, or serve two masters, at once. Yet the children of the king's ambassadors born abroad were always held to be natural subjects: for as the father, though in a foreign country, owes not even a local allegiance to the prince to whom he is sent; so, with regard to the son also, he was held (by a kind of postliminium) to be born under the king of England's allegiance, represented by his father, the ambassador. To encourage also foreign commerce, it was enacted by statute 25 Edw. III. st. 2. that all children born abroad, provided both their parents were at the time of the birth in allegiance to the king, and the mother had passed the seas by her husband's consent, might inherit as if born in England: and accordingly it hath been so adjudged in behalf of merchants. But by several more modern statutes these restrictions are still farther taken off: so that all children, born out of the king's ligeance, whose fathers were natural-born subjects, are now natural-born subjects themselves, to all intents and purposes, without any exception;...]

[F.E. Edwards, Natural Born British Subjects at Common Law, 14 Journal of the Society of Comparative Legislation 314 (1914): The pro- position that British Protectorates, and consequently any less interest of the Crown, should be excluded from our definition of the King's protection, is supported by Sir William Anson, who declares that birth within such a region is not sufficient to found a claim for British natural-born status. The real test of whether a given territory is part of the British Dominions is that it must have passed openly, completely, and unequivocally into the possession of the Crown.]

[Solum: If the American conception of “natural born citizen” were equivalent to the English notion of a “natural born subject,” then it could be argued that only persons born on American soil to American parents would have qualified. This might lead to the conclusion that McCain would not be a constitutional natural-born citizen, because the Panama Canal Zone was not the sovereign territory of the United States, but was instead merely subject to its administrative control.

The language of the Constitution recognizes a distinction between the terms “citizen” and “subject.”For example, in Article III Section 2, which confers “judicial power” on the federal courts, “citizens” of the several states are differentiated from “citizens” or “subjects” of foreign states—corresponding to the distinction between diversity and alienage jurisdiction. In the framing era, these two terms reflected two distinct theories of the relationship between individual members of a political community and the state.

In feudal or monarchical constitutional theory, individuals were the subjects of a monarch or sovereign, but the republican constitutional theory of the revolutionary and post revolutionary period conceived of the individual as a citizen and assigned sovereignty to the people.

The distinction between citizens and subjects is reflected in Chief Justice John Jay’s opinion in Chisholm v. Georgia, the first great constitutional case decided after the ratification of the Constitution of 1789:

[T]he sovereignty of the nation is in the people of the nation, and the residuary sovereignty of each State in the people of each State…

[A]t the Revolution, the sovereignty devolved on the people; and they are truly the sovereigns of the country, but they are sovereigns without subjects…]

As you can see, in England there are two very distinct meanings of ’natural born’ subject. In one hand there is the broader view & in the other there is the view of the laws of nations. What the liberal progressive constitutionalists use is the broader view and thus disregard the fact that at some point, even England used the law of nations. The Framers also knew of Englands use of the law of nations and were very aware of its importance when establishing a new nation. It has also been proven that the Law of Nations was in the hands of the Framers at the time of the drafting of the Declaration of Independence.

And as pointed out above, please do not come back with the same old lame references to Blackstone & English common law, we know for a fact from the very 1st SCOTUS Justice Washington appointed, a Justice who was only 2nd to Madison in the drafting of the Constitution that the definition for US citizens was not derived from English common law, but on the law of Nations which is the law of nature:

“The law of nature, when applied to states and political societies, receives a new name, that of the law of nations. This law, important in all states, is of peculiar importance in free ones. The States of America are certainly entitled to this dignified appellation…But if the knowledge of the law of nations is greatly useful to those who appoint, it surely must be highly necessary to those who are appointed…As Puffendorff thought that the law of nature and the law of nations were precisely the same, he has not, in his book on these subjects treated of the law of nations separately; but has every where joined it with the law of nature, properly called so…the law of nature is applied to individuals; the law of nations is applied to states.”

Wilson, in his 1st commentaries, blasts Blackstone’s theory by citing that the definition of ’subject’ per English common law according to Blackstone was not the definition of ‘citizen’ as adopted by the framers of the US Constitution. A ’subject’ is ruled by an all powerful central government/monarchy and the under the new Constitution of the United States, the central government’s power is derived from the people, the citizens.

Wilson also wrote the very 1st SCOTUS decision in Chisolm which is cited to this day as to the powers of the central government. He also was no right-wing conservative where the limits of the central government were concerned. Wilson felt that the Constitution did not go far enough in giving broader powers to those in Washington, but he KNEW the premise of the Constitution and stood behind it in every decision he made, regardless of his political philosophy.