Posted on 11/23/2010 9:43:51 PM PST by Errant
WASHINGTON – Is this the case that will break the presidential eligibility question wide open?
The Supreme Court conferred today on whether arguments should be heard on the merits of Kerchner v. Obama, a case challenging whether President Barack Obama is qualified to serve as president because he may not be a "natural-born citizen" as required by Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution.
Unlike other eligibility cases that have reached the Supreme Court, Kerchner vs. Obama focuses on the "Vattel theory," which argues that the writers of the Constitution believed the term "natural-born citizen" to mean a person born in the United States to parents who were both American citizens.
(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...
More “box top” lawyering, I see ...
What the decision REALLY says is this:
“This principle was clearly stated by Attorney General Edwards Pierrepont in his letter of advice to the Secretary of State Hamilton Fish, in Steinkauler’s Case, 15 Op.Atty.Gen. 15. The facts were these: one Steinkauler, a Prussian subject by birth, emigrated to the United States in 1848, was naturalized in 1854, and in the following year had a son who was born in St. Louis. Four years later, Steinkauler returned to Germany, taking this child, and became domiciled at Weisbaden, where they continuously resided. When the son reached the age of twenty years, the German Government called upon him to report for military duty, and his father then invoked the intervention of the American Legation on the ground that his son was a native citizen of the United States. To an inquiry by our Minister, the father declined to give an assurance that the son would return to this country within a reasonable time. On reviewing the pertinent points in the case, including the Naturalization Treaty of 1868 with North Germany, 15 Stat. 615, the Attorney General reached the following conclusion:”
“Young Steinkauler is a native-born American citizen. There is no law of the United States under which his father or any other person can deprive him of his birthright. He can return to America at the age of twenty-one, and in due time, if the people elect, he can become President of the United States; but the father, in accordance with the treaty and the laws, has renounced his American citizenship and his American allegiance and has acquired for himself and his son German citizenship and the rights which it carries and he must take the burdens as well as the advantages. The son being domiciled with the father and subject to him under the law during his minority, and receiving the German protection where he has acquired nationality and declining to give any assurance of ever returning to the United States and claiming his American nationality by residence here, I am of the opinion that he cannot rightly invoke the aid of the Government of the United States to relieve him from military duty in Germany during his minority. But I am of opinion that, when he reaches the age of twenty-one years, he can then elect whether he will return and take the nationality of his birth with its duties and privileges, or retain the nationality acquired by the act of his father. This seems to me to be ‘right reason,’ and I think it is law.”
SO, THE USSC DID NOT HOLD THAT STEINKAULER WAS NATIVE BORN - THAT WAS THE ATTORNEY GENERAL’S STATEMENTT.
What the Court DID agree with was the Attorney General’s statement that:
“Under the treaty, and in harmony with the American doctrine, it is clear that Steinkauler, the father, abandoned his naturalization in America and became a German subject (his son being yet a minor) and that, by virtue of German laws, the son acquired German nationality. It is equally clear that the son, by birth, has American nationality, and hence he has two nationalities, one natural, the other acquired. . . . There is no law of the United States under which his father or any other person can deprive him of his birthright.”
And the Court DID NOT affirm that Steinkauler could become Prsident - that was merely the Attorney General’s opinion.
However, the USSC did affirm in this case that being born within the United States [being “native-born”] granted a birthright to citizenship. NOWHERE is it mentioned that being “native-born” confers “natural-born” citizenship upon a person.
I do agree that the specific issue of whether there is a distinction between a native born citizen, a citizen at birth and a natural born citizen has not been ruled on by the Supreme Court.
The Indiana Court of Appeals did rule, with regard to the eligibility of Barack Obama to receive Indiana’s Electoral College votes that “persons born in the United States are natural born citizens for Article II, Section 1 purposes, regardless of the citizenship of their parents.”—Ankeny et. al v The Governor of Indiana, Mitch Daniels
The following is from William Rawle’s “View of the Constitution” (1825) which was quoted in the Congressional debate on the 14th Amendment as well as as by the Supreme Court of Connecticut in the case of the Town of New Hartford v. The Town of Canaan (1886): “The citizens of each state constituted the citizens of the United States when the Constitution was adopted. The rights which appertained to them as citizens of those respective commonwealths, accompanied them in the formation of the great, compound commonwealths which ensued. They became citizens of the latter, without ceasing to be citizens of the former, and he who was subsequently born a citizen of a state, became at the moment of his birth a citizen of the United States. Therefore every person born within the United States, its territories or districts, whether the parents are citizens or aliens, is a natural born citizen in the sense of the Constitution, and entitled to all the rights and privileges appertaining to that capacity.”
I forgot to include a link to the quote from William Rawle’s “A View of the Constitution of the United States of America”.
http://books.google.com/books?id=dcMNdroFV7sC&pg=PA86&vq=natural-born&dq=Rawle%27s+View+of+the+Constitution&source=gbs_search_s&cad=0#v=onepage&q=natural-born&f=false
William Rawle (April 28, 1759–April 12, 1836) was an American lawyer.
Rawle was born in Philadelphia, where he studied at the Friends’ Academy. He studied law in New York and at the Middle Temple, London, and was admitted to the bar in 1783. In 1791 President Washington appointed him United States district attorney for Pennsylvania, in which capacity he prosecuted the leaders of the Whiskey Insurrection. He was counsel for the First Bank of the United States and in 1830 assisted in revising the civil code of Pennsylvania. He took much interest in science, philanthropy, and education, being a founder and first president of the Pennsylvania Historical Society, president of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, and for forty years a trustee of the University of Pennsylvania.
His publications include:
Vindication of Rev. Mr. Heckewelder’s “History of the Indian Nations” (1818)
A View of the Constitution of the United States (1825; second edition, 1829)
Discourse on the Nature and Study of the Law (1832)
“An Address before the Philadelphia Society for promoting Agriculture” (1819)
“Two Addresses to the Associated Members of the Bar of Philadelphia” (1824)
“The Study of the Law” (1832)
“Biographical Sketch of Sir William Keith”
“A Sketch of the Life of Thomas Mifflin”
“Essay on Angelic Influences”
Oh well, one day the truth will prevail.
It aways does.
Post #314 = LMAO!!!!!
Non-Sequitur, at least you defend Obama and Lincoln with Equal Enthusiasm. There can't be any favoritism amongst your present and past Illinois Usurpers.
Link. Page 15.
Not surprising. The USSC has just fueled the fire more ...
Trolls arguing about being trolled!! That's just funny!
Buell made comments, not an order.
Let’s see the order.
Excellent post and on target.
The war began with Lincoln ordering ships to Charleston harbor.
Buell gave instructions. He did not merely comment.
Let’s see the order.
His instructions were to move if attacked.
See this:
D. C. Buell, Assistant Adjutant-General at Fort Moultrie, South Carolina, December 11, 1861: "...An attack on or an attempt to take possession of any one of them (the forts) will be regarded as an act of hostility, and you may then put your command into either of them which you may deem most proper...."
There was no attack.
Anderson had no instructions to move his force on December 26.
Buell's comments were to move without provocation, which, as can be seen, he did not have the authority to make an order of same.
So, despite your assertions, there was no order for Anderson to move on the 26th.
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