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It is clear to me that the SCOTUS will not entertain this issue as it relates to Obama. Removing a sittng POTUS on a technicality and overturning the will of the (majority) electorate is a bad precedent to set.

However ...

Arguing that Obama is not a natural born citizen based on his father’s foreign citizenship at Obama’s birth is a legitimate discussion. I’ve read and studied WKA, Minor, the 14th, and all the others until I’m cross-eyed. And two things stand out:

1. People believe that the definition of natural born citizen “evolved” with the 14th.
2. The ONLY group of citizens about which there can be no doubt are those born on U.S. soil to two citizen parents. About all others, arguments can be made for and against natural born citizenship. (But not citizenship.) No argument can be made against the natural born citizenship of the former group.

We need a definitive ruling from the SCOTUS, but we will not get one.

One of the most convincing pieces of evidence for the above conclusion, IMHO, is the position of the U.S. Department of State on American citizens board abroad to two citizen parents. They state in the Foreign Affairs Manual that while those citizens are natural born by statute they may not be natural born for Constitutional purposes. And the reason they take that position is because the “Supreme Court has never ruled definitively” on the matter. The State Dept. clearly understands that statutory NBC may not equal Constitutional NBC. It may, but we don’t know for sure because there have been no cases decided regarding whether or not statutory NBCs are eligible to the presidency, or in other words, Constitutional NBCs.

(I realize that I’m a newb whipper-snapper compared to the two of you. Please be gentle. *whimpers*)

I’m not a lawyer, don’t play one and don’t often stay in any hotel. However, the first third of WKA argues that WKA met the Constitutional definition of NBC and was thus a citizen. This, along with the 14th, provides TWO arguments that WKA was a citizen by the Constitution and thus no treaty could override it.

They say the meaning of NBC is rooted in the common law meaning of NBS, which undoubtedly DOES allow someone born of alien parents to be a natural born subject. They say the difference between NBS & NBC is solely due to the change in government from a monarchy to a republic, and thus the underlying meaning of NBS is the underlying meaning of NBC.

Thus a child born of alien parents who are here “in amity” - in harmony with our government - is a NBC and thus a citizen.

They then shift into a discussion of citizenship by birth or by descent, and argue that descent is rooted in acts of Parliament and not common law. They then move to arguing from the 14th Amendment.

I don’t think the definition of NBC evolved with the 14th.

“It is an established maxim, received by all political writers, that every person owes a natural allegiance to the government of that country in which he is born. Allegiance is defined to be a tie, that binds the subject to the state, and in consequence of his obedience, he is entitled to protection… The children of aliens, born in this state, are considered as natural born subjects, and have the same rights with the rest of the citizens.”

Zephaniah Swift, A system of the laws of the state of Connecticut (1795)

“And if, at common law, all human beings born within the ligeance of the King, and under the King’s obedience, were natural-born subjects, and not aliens, I do not perceive why this doctrine does not apply to these United States, in all cases in which there is no express constitutional or statute declaration to the contrary. . . . Subject and citizen are, in a degree, convertible terms as applied to natives, and though the term citizen seems to be appropriate to republican freemen, yet we are, equally with the inhabitants of all other countries, subjects, for we are equally bound by allegiance and subjection to the government and law of the land.”

James Kent, COMMENTARIES ON AMERICAN LAW (1826)

“As the President is required to be a native citizen of the United States…. Natives are all persons born within the jurisdiction and allegiance of the United States.”

James Kent, COMMENTARIES ON AMERICAN LAW (1826)

“That provision in the constitution which requires that the president shall be a native-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,…A very respectable political writer makes the following pertinent remarks upon this subject. “Prior to the adoption of the constitution, the people inhabiting the different states might be divided into two classes: natural born citizens, or those born within the state, and aliens, or such as were born out of it.”

St. George Tucker, BLACKSTONE’S COMMENTARIES (1803)

“The country where one is born, how accidental soever his birth in that place may have been, and although his parents belong to another country, is that to which he owes allegiance. Hence the expression natural born subject or citizen, & all the relations thereout growing. To this there are but few exceptions, and they are mostly introduced by statutes and treaty regulations, such as the children of seamen and ambassadors born abroad, and the like.”

Leake v. Gilchrist, 13 N.C. 73 (N.C. 1829)

I will grant that not ALL agreed, which is why I think they ratified it without realizing that there were different definitions that could be applied, and settling which one was correct.