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To: whence911

The problem is that the US Supreme Court has already said the original intent of natural born citizen is found in the common law phrase natural born subject. If you grant that - and they said it over 100 years ago and multiple courts have relied on it - then there is nothing for them to decide.

In common law, a natural born subject could have two alien parents. Now, does anyone really expect the Supreme Court to overturn 110 years of precedence to rule a sitting President is there illegally?

There is a reason no state DA or Sec of State has touched this, nor any member of Congress...


43 posted on 08/24/2010 8:49:29 PM PDT by Mr Rogers (When the ass brays, don't reply...)
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To: Mr Rogers

I stand by my statement.


44 posted on 08/24/2010 8:50:08 PM PDT by whence911 (Here illegally? Go home. Get in line!)
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To: Mr Rogers
The problem is that the US Supreme Court has already said the original intent of natural born citizen is found in the common law phrase natural born subject.

No, they haven't said this at all.

50 posted on 08/24/2010 9:26:21 PM PDT by edge919
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To: Mr Rogers
In common law, a natural born subject could have two alien parents.

ONLY if those alien parents were already naturalized citizens.

1) Wong Kim Ark not only petitioned the court as a native-born citizen, he never claimed any citizenship other than American.

2) His petition was NOT based on his parentage by some fly-by-night African radical here on a student visa.

Obama MAY be native born, but he is NOT natural-born, and should he have claimed foreign citizenship in order to receive student funding, he isn't even that.

He's just an illegal like all the others invading our country.

64 posted on 08/25/2010 2:50:24 AM PDT by MamaTexan (Dear GOP - ~ We suck less ~ is NOT a campaign platform)
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To: Mr Rogers

References please.


100 posted on 08/25/2010 11:10:43 AM PDT by noinfringers2
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To: Mr Rogers; All
...the US Supreme Court has already said the original intent of natural born citizen is found in the common law phrase natural born subject.

False.

In common law, a natural born subject could have two alien parents.

False.

There is a reason no state DA or Sec of State has touched this, nor any member member of Congress...

The reason is not the one you imply, but rather because it is constitutional controversy which, according to Article III of the Constitution, lies within the judicial authority of the federal courts. So far, all courts presented with a case aimed at settling the question of Obama's presidential eligibility have lacked the courage to do so.

BTW, you are either ignorant of the subject matter at hand, or are deliberately trying to spread legal and historical misinformation about it.

102 posted on 08/25/2010 11:31:38 AM PDT by justiceseeker93
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To: Mr Rogers

I know you’ve read this before and refuse to understand. But hopefully others will not be as blind as you.

The definition of the term, “natural born citizen”, was entered into the Congressional record of the House on March 9, 1866, in comments made by Rep. John Bingham on the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which was the precursor to the Fourteenth Amendment. He repeated Vattel’s definition when he said: “[I] find no fault with the introductory clause, which is simply declaratory of what is written in the Constitution, that every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen. . . . ” — John A. Bingham, (R-Ohio) US Congressman, March 9, 1866 Cong. Globe, 39th, 1st Sess., 1291 (1866), Sec. 1992 of U.S. Revised Statutes (1866).
In other words, anyone born in the U.S.A. to citizen parents is a natural born citizen.

Here is the true precedent from a most liberal professor:
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. Senator John McCain is a Citizen-by-Statute; he inherited his citizenship from his parents BUT was not born in the U.S.A. and IS NOT a natural born citizen.]

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.”

Supreme Court Justice 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.


152 posted on 08/25/2010 6:28:23 PM PDT by SatinDoll (No Foreign Nationals as our President!)
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