Posted on 08/19/2013 6:17:17 PM PDT by kristinn
newsflash - that wasn’t his long form. The long form has baby’s weight and length, name of attending physician, name of hospital.
But Cruz wasn’t born to a diplomat or a serviceman.
“Nowhere in the Constitution does it say George Washington was not a natural born citizen.”
It states that a natural born citizen or one who is a citizen of the United States at the time that the constitution was written is eligible to become president.
George Washington was born a subject to the King of England. Not of America, for America did not exist.
Father is NOT the quintessential immigrant if he came here in 1957 and didn’t become a citizen until 2005.
The Foreign Affairs manual states:
7 FAM 1131.6-2 Eligibility for PresidencyIn short, the courts have not yet ruled on whether or not a statutory natural-born citizen is eligible to the presidency.
(TL:CON-68; 04-01-1998)a. It has never been determined definitively by a court whether a person who acquired U.S. citizenship by birth abroad to U.S. citizens is a natural born citizen within the meaning of Article II of the Constitution and, therefore, eligible for the Presidency.
(...)
d. (snip) In any event, the fact that someone is a natural born citizen pursuant to a statute does not necessarily imply that he or she is such a citizen for Constitutional purposes.
I believe they would rule in favor of Cruz's eligibility, but as of right now, the State Department says that there isn't a definitive answer. So everyone on this thread who is claiming he's eligible or he's ineligible is full of horsesh*t. Nobody knows - not even the State Department. Unless and until the courts rule, it's all speculation.
Well the mother of George Washington was a lifelong Loyalist..
so how does that grab ya ???
Please keep up with the class. The father became an U.S, citizen in 2005. Cruz was 35 years old.
And that is my wider point, we can argue all night, but nothing prevents Cruz from running at this point and in putting this to the fore front he only forces the question of Obamas eligibility.
Cruz has nothing to lose.
Gotta hit the bricks.
Zzzzzzz....
The constitution specifically addresses that. Read it.
I've talked about this quite a bit before.
Anyone who was a member, or citizen of a constituent State was a member, or citizen, of the United States.
That, in fact, is how US citizenship was originally defined: If you're a member of one of the States, then you're a member of the United States.
Likewise, if a person was a natural born citizen of a State, then he was a natural born citizen of the United States.
As James Madison explained in the argument over William Loughton Smith (first House of Representatives, and Madison was Father of the Constitution so he ought to know) there was a social agreement that established who were members (they were originally styled "subjects" according to English and Colonial tradition) of the respective colonies.
That social compact between the People and the Colony constituted the primary allegiance that an American had. His secondary allegiance was to the "sovereign" of that society, which in this case was the King of England.
And Madison actually used the words "primary" and "secondary." (I just posted on this earlier in the evening.)
When the Revolution came, and each Colony threw off the King, that did not dissolve the social compact between the People and the Colony (of Virginia, or Pennsylvania, or whichever.) It did not throw the Colonies into a state of nature with no relationship between the people and their local government, it did not erase the fundamental Colonial laws, and so forth.
Those relationships remained the same. They were not erased simply by the fact that the Colony had thrown off the Crown.
Since each member of the Colonies did, up to that time, possess a dual allegiance - first to the Colony, then to the Crown - it was only reasonable that those who had heretofore been Colonists could elect to adhere to the Crown, sever their ties to the Colony, and go be a citizen of England. Most people didn't, but a few did.
Those who didn't make the election to adhere to the Crown (and show it by sailing off into the wild blue east) were considered to have accepted staying with their primary allegiance.
If you were born a natural born subject of Virginia, you remained a natural born subject of Virginia.
Only not terribly long after the Revolution, people began to use a couple of new terms.
Instead of describing the members of society, we began to SUBSTITUTE the term "citizen" for "subject." I think this was a pretty novel use of the term. Earlier, "citizen" had meant a member of a particular CITY. In fact, the word "city" is where the term "citizen" originated.
So those who had previously been called "natural born subjects" began to be called "natural born citizens."
The two terms were used interchangeably for a while. Sometimes in law. The State of Massachusetts, for example, used the two different terms completely randomly in the same context for a while.
And the Colonies were no longer Colonies. Now they were independent States.
So every "natural born subject" of the Colony of Maryland, over the course of a few years, became a "natural born citizen" of the State of Maryland.
And once again, if you were a citizen of a State, then you were a citizen of the United States.
And if you were a natural born citizen of a State, then you were also a "natural born citizen" of the United States.
This is completely in accord with James Madison's explanation of allegiance and citizenship. Could we possibly have a better representative of the views of the Founders than the Father of the Constitution? I think not.
Historically, there is no record that any of the American-born Founders ever considered himself anything other than a natural born citizen. If you had asked any one of them - George Washington, for example - "Are you a natural born citizen?" the answer would undoubtedly have been, "Of course. I was born in 1732 in Westmoreland County, Virginia. I've lived here all my life. I've never lived anywhere else."
There seems to be no record at all that ANYONE ever said that any person born in any of the Colonies - other than black people who were born slaves, and Indians in tribes - was not a natural born citizen.
And it has been generally agreed, from the earliest times that the grandfather clause has been publicly commented on (at least as far back as Supreme Court Joseph Story and James Bayard, both in 1833) that it was passed not for the sake of making George Washington and Thomas Jefferson eligible, but for the purpose of making Alexander Hamilton and James Wilson eligible.
Both Story and Bayard were born before 1800. Both of them knew the Founding Generation very well.
Bayard's father had been both US Representative and US Senator. Bayard's GRANDFATHER (and this is a BRAND-NEW FINDING) was RICHARD BASSETT, Founding Father and Signer of the Constitution.
Bassett was considered the most senior Senator, making him the most senior Member of our First Congress. He was also Governor of Delaware and a veteran of the Revolutionary War. He died when James Bayard was almost 16.
As for Joseph Story, his father was Dr Elisha Story - a member of the Sons of Liberty who took part in the Boston Tea Party back in 1773. Story was nominated to the US Supreme Court by James Madison, Father of the Constitution.
Um, yeah, been there, done that, got the t-shirt.
HIs fahter was a CUban citizen at the time of Cruz’s birth.
If he is not eligible, just get Roberts to declare his birth certificate a “tax” and therefore declare him eligible.
No, he was a Cuban citizen at brith - that was his father’s nationality.
Touche
Yes I pointed that out earlier..
so the chance that ted may have been naturalized through his father is moot...
I thought Ted’s father became a US citizen earlier when ted was still a minor..
He came here in 1957 as a student and a refugee and he never went back to Cuba...
If we count only the time he came back to the US in 1974 to live here with his American wife and their Canadian/Cuban/American child, the earliest he could have been naturalized would have been 1979/80, 5 years of living here..
I guess though he got a green card earlier than 1974...
Its just interesting to me, also an immigrant, why a refugee from Cuba would have waited 50 years after arriving here to become an American citizen when he could have does so years earlier.....
Citizens Plural, not Citizen.
I bet whoever updated the language is posting here on FR! :P
The better test is the Constitution and the Federalist Papers and other founder writings, that give original intent. However that only matters if we want to keep/restore the Republic. Personally I am beginning to doubt that even a small majority of citizens even care.
Ted or the Constitution will go in the trash, as you call it. You seem to prefer the Constitution be trashed, I don't.
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