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Research Help: Spiro Agnew a Natural Born Citizen?

Posted on 05/08/2011 8:40:39 AM PDT by rhubarbb

Sorry if this is in the wrong area, this is my first time posting. I'm a long-time lurker who loves FR and I use what I learn all the time against my friends, some of whom (Unfortunately) are liberal. It's the price of going to a big college. I'm really good about speaking the truth to them and showing how they're wrong, and most of my best arguments come from FR. But there's been one question that one of my friends keeps repeating and while I know he's wrong I can't prove it and it's bugging me.

I know the best researchers are here and I figured someone here has figured out how to set the Obama-bots straight on the issue. I've searched through all the other threads on eligibility and didn't find anything.

======

My friend says that Spio Agnew (Nixon's VP) proves that you don't need two citizen parents to be a Natural Born Citizen.

Now, I know that the Vice President must meet the same elgibility requirements as the President, and therefore must also be a Natural Born Citizen (12th Amendment). My friend claims that Spiro Agnew's father was a Greek Citizen when he was born. I've tried to find any information to confirm and deny this, but can't find anything. I know he's wrong (he's a Dem... haha) but need help with the proof.

I can't see Nixon choosing someone, and the Republicans electing, a vice president that was obviously unqualified for office.

So my question:

Is this true? Have one of the researcher's looked into Agnew's citizenship? Did Nixon choose a VP that was not a Natural Born Citizen? And if so, did he hide it like Chester A. Arthur did? I figure that one of the reasons I can't find any information on it might be because he did the "hide your past" thing like Arthur.

Any help would be great and help to take a liberal down!!


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Government; News/Current Events; Your Opinion/Questions
KEYWORDS: birthcertificate; certificategate; naturalborncitizen; obama
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To: Godebert; cynwoody

“Then why the need to change the presidential eligibility language from Hamilton’s born a Citizen to John Jay’s natural born Citizen?”

As I pointed out to you earlier on the thread, that was because “born a citizen” had no legal meaning, while “natural born citizen” was already an established legal term.

But then, those court cases are soooo hard for you to read!


241 posted on 05/08/2011 5:05:08 PM PDT by Mr Rogers (Poor history is better than good fiction, and anything with lots of horses is better still)
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To: bushpilot1

“Vattel’s Law of Nations is the law of the people.”

Odd. It contradicts the US Constitution. Or does an applicant for a passport need to prove his father was a US citizenship?

All I needed was a birth certificate.


242 posted on 05/08/2011 5:06:59 PM PDT by Mr Rogers (Poor history is better than good fiction, and anything with lots of horses is better still)
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To: Godebert

The documents are in the Congressional record..you can see..where the word citizen was removed and replaced with natural born Citizen. The link is in the Vattel research thread.


243 posted on 05/08/2011 5:09:03 PM PDT by bushpilot1
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To: sometime lurker
The British common law system was not whole sale adopted by the United States. Some common practices were adopted by this country, but they have diverged sharply in many aspect as an example: we have a Supreme Court where Great Britain does not. Great Britain has the House of Lords as their court of highest appeals. And as you can see, this is not a separate form of government as we separate our branches of government. When it comes to citizenship, the United States renounced British subjugation. We even fought 2 wars over it.

British Common law is not American Common law or has it ever been. We derive origins from British practices, but it is not the same as we are a totally different sovereign.

244 posted on 05/08/2011 5:15:59 PM PDT by Red Steel
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To: Mr Rogers

Tell us what Positive Law is versus Natural Law? You think you can answer this one since you did not answer the last question.


245 posted on 05/08/2011 5:20:00 PM PDT by Red Steel
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To: Vendome

What if it was a home birth.

BTW, that was a long-form birth certificate.


246 posted on 05/08/2011 5:25:09 PM PDT by Gondring (Paul Revere would have been flamed as a naysayer troll and told to go back to Boston.)
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To: Gondring

That is a good point. Last night I was intrigued by all this, so I spent a couple hours reading late 1790-middle 1800 law journals that are archived online. There was a LOT of discussion on a citizen of a STATE and a citizen of the Country. My eyes started to bug out from the lawyer speak.


247 posted on 05/08/2011 5:25:32 PM PDT by machogirl (First they came for my tagline)
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To: mountainlion

An ex post facto law (from the Latin for “from after the action”) or retroactive law is a law that retroactively changes the legal consequences (or status) of actions committed or relationships that existed prior to the enactment of the law. In reference to criminal law, it may criminalize actions that were legal when committed; or it may aggravate a crime by bringing it into a more severe category than it was in at the time it was committed; or it may change or increase the punishment prescribed for a crime, such as by adding new penalties or extending terms; or it may alter the rules of evidence in order to make conviction for a crime more likely than it would have been at the time of the action for which a defendant is prosecuted. Conversely, a form of ex post facto law commonly known as an amnesty law may decriminalize certain acts or alleviate possible punishments (for example by replacing the death sentence with life-long imprisonment) retroactively.


248 posted on 05/08/2011 5:26:36 PM PDT by Vendome ("Don't take life so seriously... You'll never live through it anyway")
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To: jim999

Um, I’m not berating a “birther”. I happen to believe Barry isn’t an NBC. Did I read that wrong?

I do happen to think that even though it was out in the open, SCOTUS won’t take it up. The lamestreme media has drum-beat “birther” with “racist”.

All we can hope for is that he’s ousted in 2012 and some state/gov/judicial has the intestinal fortitude to rule on it.


249 posted on 05/08/2011 5:29:38 PM PDT by machogirl (First they came for my tagline)
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To: Red Steel

You have made several statements which seem to have no bearing on my point. British Common Law was a source for much of our Constitution, and courts often go back to it in interpreting American law. So one can’t reasonably claim the Constitution based a particular thing on Vattel, without proof and no one has shown any. There is however, the Madison quote, showing what the “Father of the Constitution” thought about this.


250 posted on 05/08/2011 5:29:54 PM PDT by sometime lurker
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To: Gondring

 

This whole BC thing is a put up.  A "Fairy Tale"!

 

It's a "sleight" of hand and there is no reason to have not put an original copy of his Long Form Birth Certificate out there in the 1st place.

 

But, think of it.  There are three that are known to exist or have existed and he has at least two in his possession:

  1. The Birth Certificate that was submitted for his admission into the Hawaiian school system.  The files containing that BC and his records for immunization are sealed by court order on Barak's request.
  2. "If" he used an American Passport for travel to Indonesia and Pakistan, when he turned 18, he would have a copy of his birth certificate from that event.
  3. He absolutely has a Birth Certificate, in its original black & white format, that "He Found" Among His Mother's belongings, when she passed in 1995.
  4. I do wonder if he had to submit another BC when he returned back to the Hawaii school system to re-enter school???

 

Let them claim there is no long form.

 

1st.  They and everyone has said all along the COLB is an abstract.  A COLB is a walkup document, meaning you can walk up to the desk, ask for your BC and they will provide an abstract, called a COLB in about 10 minutes.  That means there is a long form and Hawaii statutes, starting at (318)

 

2nd.  Hawaii already said they have seen Barry O.'s vital records and issued two statements - blah, blah, blah, right?

 

3rd.  Barry O. never had to show his long form BC ever, in his life, for anything?  Like obtaining a passport.  That one document is better than a drivers license.  It saying to the world you are who is contained in the passport document, which is based on an investigation of your background and YOU MUST provide a Birth Certificate as foundational proof of who YOU say you are.  From there the State Department does their background check on you and if you are who you say you are with no amendments, modifications or whatever to your identity they issue it clean. 

 

Most adults can go to a desk or filing cabinet in his house and produce a birth certificate in a few minutes?

 

Barry O. tried to pass of something that was inconsistent with what the rest of us have and know to be a “Birth Certificate”.

The so called COLB has many flaws with it:

 The best part and even more confusing is why he didn't release any of the three Birth Certificates we know already existed before 2007?

 Those were most certainly Birth Certificates and not a COLB. There is no reason to create confusion but, for the fact he is hiding something.

 That something will be discovered, though and this is a long process.

 

 “I discovered this article, folded away among my birth certificate and old vaccination forms, when I was in high school. It’s a short piece, with a photograph of him. No mention is made of my mother or me, and I’m left to wonder whether the omission was intentional on my father’s part, in anticipation of his long departure. Perhaps the reporter failed to ask personal questions, intimidated by my father’s imperious manner; or perhaps it was an editorial decision, not part of the simple story that they were looking for. I wonder, too, whether the omission caused a fight between my parents.”

From “Dreams of My Father” (Pg. 26 last paragraph)

 

So with all these Birth Certificates lying around, why did he feel it necessary to produce a "Certification of Live Birth" that is inconsistent with a Birth Certificate and wholly lacking all of the information you would find, in you know, a Birth Certificate?

 

He seemed to have some emotional attachment to the Birth Certificate found among his mother’s belongings.  Why wouldn’t he just slap that one up, for the entire world to see?

 

It seemed important that he found a document that is called a “Birth Certificate” and it is highly unlikely he would not know what one looks like.

 

Hope no one brings up some house fire that vaporized his BC.  That was in 1972 and none of the documents listed here would have been affected by that “fishy” event.

 

The point of the birth certificate is to uncover this man's past for it's factual existence and not the narrative we have been told.

 

We want to know if he ever traveled, went to school in America, obtained loans, etc in another name or as a foreign student or as a foreigner!!!!

 

That is what we are after at a minimum.

 

Finally, there can be no doubt Barak was in fact born with a divided citizenshipHe proudly admits as much.

 

That means if he were conscripted by draft into the United States Military during a conflict, when he was 18, he could have avoided the draft by simply returning to another country of his citizenship.  We know and he admits he was a citizen of Kenya at the age of 18 so he could have returned with no penalty, to Kenya and not even I would call him a draft dodger if he had under those circumstances.

 

You are wholly one thing or another but not two distinctly different and separate things that conflict with each other's existence.

 

He was born with a divided allegiance and is "Not a Natural Born Citizen".  Might be a citizen but, he ain't a Natural Born Citizen.

 

Here are example of what we are demanding:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

251 posted on 05/08/2011 5:32:09 PM PDT by Vendome ("Don't take life so seriously... You'll never live through it anyway")
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To: Mr Rogers

Vattel supported the Founders claim that law was based on the consent of the people.

The Founders and Vattel gave us the Constitution. They gave us the idea that sovereignty resides from the people.

It is people like you and Obama who want to destroy our sovereignty for your own personal agenda.

The result will be tyranny.

If any one wants to read on this subject please go to google books: Type Vattel in the search box when the book appears.

The search for world order: a study of thought and action By Cornelius F. Murphy..

Lecture IX..the Works of James Wilson..

Pay no attention to Mr Rogers.


252 posted on 05/08/2011 5:36:46 PM PDT by bushpilot1
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To: Fee

Wrong!

WKA didn’t rule him to be a Natural Born Citizen:

.
WHAT THE VENUS CASE SAYS ON CITIZENSHIP

In the Venus Case, Justice Livingston, who wrote the unanimous decision, quoted the entire §212nd paragraph from the French edition, using his own English, on p. 12 of the ruling:

.
“Vattel, who, though not very full to this point, is more explicit and more satisfactory on it than any other whose work has fallen into my hands, says:

“The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives or indigenes are those born in the country of parents who are citizens. Society not being able to subsist and to perpetuate itself but by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights.

“The inhabitants, as distinguished from citizens, are strangers who are permitted to settle and stay in the country. Bound by their residence to the society, they are subject to the laws of the state while they reside there, and they are obliged to defend it…”

Shanks v. Dupont, 28 U.S. 3 Pet. 242 242 (1830)
In 16 years later the Supreme Court heard the case regarding the dispute over the inheritance received by two daughters of an American colonist, from South Carolina; one of whom went to England and remained a British subject, the other of whom remained in South Carolina and became an American citizen. At the beginning of the case, Justice Story, who gave the ruling, does not cite Vattel per se, but cites the principle of citizenship enshrined in his definition of a “natural born citizen”:

“Ann Scott was born in South Carolina before the American revolution, and her father adhered to the American cause and remained and was at his death a citizen of South Carolina. There is no dispute that his daughter Ann, at the time of the Revolution and afterwards, remained in South Carolina until December, 1782. Whether she was of age during this time does not appear. If she was, then her birth and residence might be deemed to constitute her by election a citizen of South Carolina. If she was not of age, then she might well be deemed under the circumstances of this case to hold the citizenship of her father, for children born in a country, continuing while under age in the family of the father, partake of his national character as a citizen of that country. Her citizenship, then, being prima facie established, and indeed this is admitted in the pleadings, has it ever been lost, or was it lost before the death of her father, so that the estate in question was, upon the descent cast, incapable of vesting in her? Upon the facts stated, it appears to us that it was not lost and that she was capable of taking it at the time of the descent cast.”

Minor v. Happersett , 88 U.S. 162 (1875)
This case concerned Mrs. Happersett, an original suffragette, who in virtue of the 14th Amendment attempted to register to vote in the State of Missouri, and was refused because she was not a man. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in that year, wrote the majority opinion, in which he stated:

“The Constitution does not in words say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents.”

United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898)
In this case, Wong Kim Ark, the son of 2 resident Chinese aliens, claimed U.S. Citizenship and was vindicated by the court on the basis of the 14th Amendment. In this case the Justice Gray gave the opinion of the court. On p. 168-9 of the record, He cites approvingly the decision in Minor vs. Happersett:

“At common law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children, born in a country of parents who were its citizens, became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners.”


253 posted on 05/08/2011 5:38:55 PM PDT by editor-surveyor (Going 'EGYPT' - 2012!)
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To: Mr Rogers
And natural law COULD say that citizenship follows parentage (Vattel), or it COULD follow birth (US Constitution). The US Constitution doesn’t contradict natural law, but neither does it follow Vattel on citizenship. ...


Again as usual, you come up wanting by posting something that obfuscates.


You see, Vattel differentiated man-made laws as is in the US Constitution. However, Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5 is a direct and unambitious reference to natural law:


Law of Nations In England However

Law of Nations Pg 163  English law

Again

"In England however, being born in the country naturalizes the children of a foreigner. It is asked, whether the children born of citizens of a foreign country, are citizens? The laws have decided this question in several countries, and it is necessary to follow their regulations. By the law of nature alone, children follow the condition of their fathers, and enter into all their rights. The place of birth produces no change in this particular, and cannot itself furnith any reason for taking from a child what nature has given him;"


As I told you before, natural born British Subjects are is governed by statute, or laws of man, or "regulations", and it is NOT the same as being natural born citizen.

254 posted on 05/08/2011 5:42:11 PM PDT by Red Steel
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To: Red Steel

“As I told you before, natural born British Subjects are is governed by statute, or laws of man, or “regulations”, and it is NOT the same as being natural born citizen.

No, they are NBS by common law, not statue, and the US followed England.

The US Constitution is unambiguous - we are citizens by birth, something Vattel calls naturalization - but again, US law does NOT call that naturalization. Naturalization is what is done for someone born elsewhere, and falls under Congress, not the Constitution.

No one born in the US is considered a naturalized citizen under US law. Again, neither the US Constitution nor US public law follows Vattel on citizenship. We expressly REJECTED his notion of citizenship following parentage, and say that the child of a Mexican, born in the US in amity with the government, is a US citizen.


255 posted on 05/08/2011 5:53:35 PM PDT by Mr Rogers (Poor history is better than good fiction, and anything with lots of horses is better still)
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To: machogirl
That is a good point. Last night I was intrigued by all this, so I spent a couple hours reading late 1790-middle 1800 law journals that are archived online.

Mind sharing the link?

There was a LOT of discussion on a citizen of a STATE and a citizen of the Country.

And 999 out of 1000 American students don't understand the importance of those questions--nor how different from the Founding Fathers' vision we are today.

256 posted on 05/08/2011 5:55:30 PM PDT by Gondring (Paul Revere would have been flamed as a naysayer troll and told to go back to Boston.)
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To: Gondring

I just went onto the friendly google books. then searched for “natural born citizen” and put in the dates. I’ll try to pull some of it back and post it. I was going round and round and round, until nothing made any sense anymore and I shut off the computer. lol.


257 posted on 05/08/2011 5:57:54 PM PDT by machogirl (First they came for my tagline)
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To: sometime lurker
You have made several statements which seem to have no bearing on my point. British Common Law was a source for much of our Constitution,

What you put up is not proof that only jus soli births is what the Founders meant in Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5 of the Constitution. Post 254 takes that assertion apart. And what I did say in my post has bearing on the nature of this issue.

There is however, the Madison quote, showing what the “Father of the Constitution” thought about this.

And we also have a quote from George Mason, “The common law of England is not the common law of these States.”

This quote by George Mason, a Founding Father, has bearing.

258 posted on 05/08/2011 5:58:18 PM PDT by Red Steel
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To: Red Steel

It thus clearly appears that, during the half century intervening between 1802 and 1855, there was no legislation whatever for the citizenship of children born abroad, during that period, of American parents who had not become citizens of the United States before the act of 1802, and that the act of 1855, like every other act of Congress upon the subject, has, by express proviso, restricted the right of citizenship, thereby conferred upon foreign-born children of American citizens, to those children themselves, unless they became residents of the United States. Here is nothing to countenance the theory that a general rule of citizenship by blood or descent has displaced in this country the fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within its sovereignty.

So far as we are informed, there is no authority, legislative, executive or judicial, in England or America, which maintains or intimates that the statutes (whether considered as declaratory or as merely prospective) conferring citizenship on foreign-born children of citizens have superseded or restricted, in any respect, the established rule of citizenship by birth within the dominion. Even those authorities in this country, which have gone the farthest towards holding such statutes to be but declaratory of the common law have distinctly recognized and emphatically asserted the citizenship of native-born children of foreign parents.”

http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0169_0649_ZO.html


259 posted on 05/08/2011 6:00:00 PM PDT by Mr Rogers (Poor history is better than good fiction, and anything with lots of horses is better still)
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To: Gondring

Here’s one from 1845 (I think).

http://books.google.com/books?id=ERgvAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA251&dq=natural+born+citizen&hl=en&ei=DTrHTbzrNYPy0gGos_mjCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=book-preview-link&resnum=2&ved=0CEYQuwUwAQ#v=onepage&q=natural%20born%20citizen&f=false


260 posted on 05/08/2011 6:01:10 PM PDT by machogirl (First they came for my tagline)
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