I’m not going to fish through your posts. You show where in the Constitution a foreign born child of parental US citizenship is declared to be a “natural born citizen” or a “citizen”.
This is what a conversation with a birther inevitably comes down to.
1. A flat refusal to accept the evidence.
This is usually expressed with something like, "I'm not going to fish through your posts," or "I'm not going to address the rest of your crap," or "I'm not going to read your crap."
2. A demand that must be met, otherwise the birther is "right." It's better if this is an impossible demand.
For example, "You show where in the Constitution a foreign born child of parental US citizenship is declared to be a 'natural born citizen' or a 'citizen'."
Never mind that the birther can't show where in the Constitution (or anywhere else, for that matter) that it says a "natural born citizen" is "someone born on US soil of two citizen parents." If the non-birther doesn't meet the birther's impossible demand, why then, he must be "wrong."
I refer people who aren't completely committed birthers back to the evidence. Bayard writing in 1834, with the approval of Chief Justice Marshall, Justice Story, Chancellor Kent and other experts in the law, was crystal clear that you didn't have to be born in the United States in order to be a "natural born citizen."
That's clear, it's explicit, and it had the support of a near Who's-Who of our top early legal experts.
On the other side, we have an equally clear proclamation from one of our other top early legal experts: Rawle. You didn't have to have citizen parents to be a natural born citizen, either, as long as you were born in the United States.
Absolutely, crystal clear.
Who were our other great early legal experts? Well, St. George Tucker, and maybe Zephaniah Swift, and maybe Chancellor Sandford of New York.
Both Tucker and Swift said, generally, that natural born citizens were those born in a State. Sandford said that if someone was born in the US of alien parents, could there be any doubt that person was eligible to be President? No.
And we have virtually exhausted the list of top legal experts in the early United States.
So the birther thing is done, to anyone who has the ability to recognize truth. The opinion of our top early legal experts is literally unanimous against it.
I’m curious about Ray76’s position on the now moot category of “derivative citizenship.”
For example, Herbert Hoover was born in Iowa in 1874. His father Jesse was from Ohio, a US citizen. His mother Hulda Minthorn was from Ontario, Canada. They were married in 1870. According to an 1855 act of Congress, which was in effect until 1922, Hoover’s mother became a U.S. citizen automatically when she married Jesse.
So, Hoover was born in the U.S., both parents were citizens but his mother had “derivative U.S. citizenship” via a statute which passed in Congress on February 1855, which stated, “any woman who might lawfully be naturalized under existing laws, married, or shall be married to a citizen of the United States, shall be deemed and taken to be a citizen.” [Act of February 10, 1855, 10 Stat. 604, section 2].
Woodrow Wison’s mother was also a statutory “derivative citizen” by marriage. President Wilson’s mother was from Carlisle, England.
Should we consider the mothers of President’s who became citizens via marriage to have been natural born citizens?