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.
“Without realizing”
It’s always the unintended consequences that trip us. Anchor babies are born here but, IMHO, should have no right to citizenship.
“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.”
PERMIT ME TO CLARIFY THIS FOR YOU AS YOUR CUT & PASTE RESPONSES ARE OH SO DECEITFUL:
Progressive scholars and legalese of today would like us to believe that since the term ‘native-born’ was often spoken when discussing and writing about the presidential qualification, those scholars were inherently implying that the term native as adopted merely meant born and had nothing to do with allegiance.
This is the Kent citing that the very drones use adnausium.
Mr Rogers once again cut & pasted an old cite from DrConspiracy that is completely taken out of context. It is HIS motto. The cite is from 2 completely different sections in Kent’s commentaries as if the above phrase was all part of the same section; the latter part, natives are all persons born within the jurisdiction of the United States is cited from Kent’s lecture on A1, S8, C4, the power granted to Congress to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization.
The actual text of Kent’s commentary on the qualifications for president taken from Kent’s original works, not cites from unknown sources and taken out of the original context, state something quite different.
(2.) The constitution requires that the President shall be a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of the constitution, and that he shall have attained to the age of thirty-five years, and shall have been fourteen years a resident within the United States. Considering the greatness of the trust, and that this department is the ultimately efficient executive power in government, these restrictions will not appear altogether useless or unimportant. As the President is required to be a native citizen of the United States, ambitious foreigners cannot ; intrigue for the office, and the qualifications of birth cuts off all those inducements from abroad to corruption, negotiation and war, which have frequently and fatally harassed the elective monarchies of Germany and Poland, as well as the Pontificate at Rome… (James Kent, Commentaries on American Law, Part II: Of the Government and the Jurisprudence of the United States, 1826)
Lets break it down:
As the President is required to be a native citizen of the United States, ambitious foreigners cannot; intrigue for the office ( here he is speaking of the grandfather clause ( a citizen at the time of the adoption of the constitution),
Then he goes onto part II:
and the qualifications for birth (natural born citizen) cuts off all those inducements from abroad to corruption, negotiation and war,
Kent was talking about each qualification respectively, not inclusively.
James Kent, wrote about just exactly what the term ‘native’ meant. This is the actual text of the above mention cite the progressives had you believe was under qualifications for president, when in fact it is found under immigration & naturalization.
James Kent, Commentaries 1:397–98; 2:33–63(1826-1827)
We are next to consider the rights and duties of citizens in their domestic relations, as distinguished from the absolute rights of individuals, of which we have already treated. Most of these relations are derived from the law of nature, and they are familiar to the institutions of every country, and consist of husband and wife, parent and child, guardian and ward, and master and servant. To these may be added, an examination of certain artificial persons created by law, under the well known name of corporations. There is a still more general division of the inhabitants of every country, under the comprehensive title of aliens and natives, and to the consideration of them our attention will be directed in the present lecture.
(1.) Natives are all persons born within the jurisdiction of the United States. If they were resident citizens at the time of the declaration of independence, though born elsewhere, and deliberately yielded to it an express or implied sanction, they became parties to it, and are to be considered as natives; their social tie being coeval with the existence of the nation.
Now, Mr Rogers. If native = natural, then please explain why Kent defined native born in his section on the law of A1 S8 C4 aka immigration & naturalization. Please explain how Kent could have defined native as an artificial class of persons created by law if US law determined it to mean the same as the natural class of persons the Kent defined in his prior section on classes of persons under the laws of nature. You also take Tucker out of context by citing Blackstone, NOT Tucker. In Appendix "J" of Tucker's commentaries on Blackstone, he(Tucker) picks apart that quote you use in order to make claim that it is the words of Tucker, when in fact it is NOT! It stymes the mind how this work has been taken so out of context. It was because of British loyalists who refused to let go of their loyalty to the Crown that Tucker felt he needed write the commentary, to expose the abuse and to refute Blackstone's ignorance of American law & jurisprudence.