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To: NJ_Tom

Then answer this question. If Vattel wrote: “The natives, or indigenes, are those born in the country of parents who are citizens” then why didn’t the framers do likewise if they meant it to be that way?


224 posted on 05/23/2012 5:46:42 AM PDT by New Jersey Realist (America: home of the free because of the brave)
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To: New Jersey Realist
At the time, everyone in the Constitutional Convention knew exactly what it meant. Did they include a definition of what "commerce" meant? Did they spell out in Art. 1, Sect. 2 what they meant by an "elector?"

Things that are self-evident do not require a definition - otherwise, we'd have ended up with a 100-page monstrosity like the EU "Constitution." The basic fact is that anything that relies on "natural law" relies on the "Law of Nations."

You should particularly pay attention to John Jay's letter to Washington suggesting the restriction to Natural Born Citizens as a way to bar someone with divided loyalties from becoming Commander-in-Chief.

The definition is also implicit in the exception made for "a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution." Everyone alive at the time had parents who were not citizens at the time of their birth, even though they had been born in one of the colonies that became states. It was felt that, having participated in the Revolution that brought us independence, they could be trusted not to betray us.

Finally, whether or not the Founders defined the term explicitly, the US Supreme Court definitely did in Minor vs. Happersett - which remains binding precedent to this day. To quote from that decision, “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. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first."

Note that they say that there are doubts as to whether "children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents" are even citizens at all - not whether they qualify as NBC. Since the case they were considering involved a woman who was a NBC (born in the US of parents who were both citizens), they had no need to resolve the doubts as to the status of second group of potential, plain (i.e. not natural born) citizens

238 posted on 05/23/2012 12:45:51 PM PDT by NJ_Tom (I don't worship the State; I don't worship the Environment - I only worship God.)
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To: New Jersey Realist

I think it’s important to know why dozens of nations, including the U.S., have “Natural Born Citizen” as an eligibility standard for their highest elective office. No nation wants a situation where, once elected, someone legally abandons their citizenship in the country they were elected and legally claims citizenship in a foreign country to which they are legally entitled to citizenship. Because of his father’s British citizenship at the time of Pres. Obama’s birth, it is understood that Pres. Obama could legally drop his U.S. citizenship and legally claim British citizenship. I don’t think anyone wants a situation where, once elected, our president could legally abandon their U.S. citizenship and legally adopt foreign citizenship.


243 posted on 05/23/2012 1:52:46 PM PDT by sforkjoe57 (How much longer must Americans be slaves to the stupidity of John Maynard Keynes?)
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