“Yes, it’s really too bad that people are so dumbed-down that they can’t see that the Founders made a distinction between the President and Senators and House members when it came to qualifications. I have YET to see anyone explain the difference.”
[I have been involved in these discussions since July 2008. Here is some information I hope you’ll find useful. I suggest you copy and keep a file. Most of all, don’t let the trolls discourage you. Their intentions are to destroy our Constitution - we can’t allow that to happen!]
Three types of citizenship are recognized by our government: native born; naturalized; and citizen-by-statute (derived citizenship from parents). All have equal rights. All can serve in Congress, either as a Representative in the House, or as a Senator in the Senate.
The following link will take you to the government’s own Immigration Service web page describing the three types of citizenship.
Natural born Citizen is NOT a type of statutory citizenship.
Natural born is ONLY an eligibility requirement for the U.S. Presidency per Article II, Section 1, clause 5, of the U.S. Constitution, and requires, as per the Founders, the President to be born in the United States (jus solis) AND of two citizen parents (jus sanguinas).
The definition of natural born Citizen appears in the holding of SCOTUS’s unanimous decision of Minor v. Happersett (1874).
Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1875), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the Constitution did not grant women the right to vote.
The Minor v. Happersett ruling was based on an interpretation of the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court readily accepted that Minor was a citizen of the United States, but it held that the constitutionally protected privileges of citizenship did not include the right to vote.
SCOTUS rejected Minor’s argument that she was a citizen under the 14th Amendment of the U.S.Constitution, and examined her eligibility, concluding that she belonged to the class of citizens who, being born in the U.S. of citizen parents, was a natural born Citizen, and not covered by the 14th Amendment. This holding has been used in 25 consequent SCOTUS decisions since 1875.
The eligibility requirement of Natural Born Citizenship (jus solis + jus sanguinas: born in the U.S. of U.S. citizen parents) must be viewed as a means to prevent split allegiance for any President of the United States.
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[There are many on Free Republic who insist the above was only ‘dicta’. They’re wrong according to SCOTUS.]
In 1996, the US Supreme Court’s majority opinion by Justice Breyer in Ogilvie Et Al., Minors v. United States, 519 U.S. 79 (1996), stated that when the Court discusses a certain reason as an independent ground in support of their decision, then that reason is not simply dictum.
“Although we gave other reasons for our holding in Schleier as well, we explicitly labeled this reason an ‘independent’ ground in support of our decision, id., at 334. We cannot accept petitioner’s claim that it was simply a dictum.”
The Minor Court’s construction of Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5, of the United States Constitution was the independent ground by which the Court avoided construing the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause.
Therefore, such construction is precedent, not dicta, despite POTUS eligibility not being an issue. The Court determined it was necessary to define the class of natural-born citizens, and the definition is current legal precedent.
The above is from Leo Donofrio’s online site.
http://naturalborncitizen.wordpress.com/2012/01/09/minor-v-happersett-revisited-2/
I hope this helps you. Truth is the daughter of time.
SatinDoll, I appreciate your reply, but I alread fully understand what a natural born citizen is, and my “question” was a rhetorical one.
Only the people who refuse to see the distinction the Founders made between the requirements for President, as opposed to Senators and House members will not give a correct answer—mostly the Obots, and now the Cruz and Rubio-bots. Cruz and Rubio might make excellent senators or representatives, but they are not eligible to be President.
I, too, have been writing about this since before the 2008 election.