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To: Lurking Libertarian

If the Constitution meant Naturalised Citizens couldn’t be President, why did they invent the term “Natural Born Citizen”?


104 posted on 01/14/2010 8:33:15 PM PST by plenipotentiary (Obama was a BRITISH SUBJECT at birth, passed to him via Pops, can't be NBC)
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To: plenipotentiary
If the Constitution meant Naturalised Citizens couldn’t be President, why did they invent the term “Natural Born Citizen”?

Because they were English-trained lawyers and used English legal terminology. The Constitution is full of phrases that had a technical legal meaning under English law, which was widely understood at the time ("Duties, Imposts and Excises"; "Letters of Marque and Reprisal"; "Bill of Attainder"; "Cases in Law and Equity"; "Corruption of Blood"; etc., etc.-- I could give you 50 examples).

English law recognized only two kinds of subjects-- Natural Born and Naturalized. The Constitution used that terminology.

131 posted on 01/15/2010 10:19:04 AM PST by Lurking Libertarian (Non sub homine, sed sub Deo et lege)
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