Natural born citizens were the only citizens defined in and by the Constitution. Only natural born citizens may be president or vice president. Congress, Article 1 Section 8, have the authority to create "an Uniform Rule for Naturalization." Obviously, before the 14th Amendment, black citizens born in Northern States were not recognized and did not have the rights of citizens in the South.
Precedent for the definition for who were Natural Born Citizens was created in 1875 by Minor v. Happersett. The definition was used often before 1875, but Minor was the first case in which the definition was essential to the decision by The Court:
"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."
The first citizens to be naturalized by law that this writer knows of (those who have a better background please educate me) were naturalized by the 1790 Naturalization Act from our first Congress. There was some confusion around the 1790 Act, confusion that has been used to affect by many on the left such as Larry Tribe in Senate Res 511, and by Mark Levin and Ted Cruz, both of whom used the phrase "children born beyond the seas to citizen parents shall be considered as natural born citizens" to mean "is" a natural born citizen. James Madison was probably pointing out that naturalized citizens have all the protections and rights of a natural born citizen. Being president is not a right. Even before Marbury v. Madison our framers understood the importance of separation of powers. Madison seems to have realized that his clarification created confusion, and rescinded the 1790 act completely, replacing "considered as" with "is a citizen". Article 1 Section 8 was used to create citizens from the children of citizens. But the 14th Amendment opened the door to hundreds of other naturalization acts.
The 14th Amendment:
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any persons within its jurisdiction the equal protections of the laws."
The first sentence tells us, since naturalization laws created by the colonies were not replaced by the Constitution, and could not be until congress agreed upon a "uniform" naturalization rule, that any citizen naturalized by a state was henceforth a citizen of every state. This was an unfortunately necessary compromise after declaring that "All men are created equal...". But without the compromise we would probably have been partitioned into at least two, and possibly four of five nations, as was Canada.
The author of this first section of the 14th Amendment, Judge, Congressman, abolitionist John Bingham explained to Congress in 1866 about his amendment act:
"I find no fault with the introductory clause [S 61 Bill], which is simply declaratory of what is written in the Constitution, that every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen…."
As is now explained by our naturalization oath:
"I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God."
Ted did renounce his allegiance to Canada, but in 2014. Calling him a natural born citizen is a claim that laws don't really matter for Ted Cruz because he is a conservatives conservative. He is, unfortunately, a fraud, who may have judged the ignorance of our laws correctly as he seeks power. But for someone with such distain for our foundations, power to do what?
Our naturalization rules have been altered by Congress well over one hundred times. Congress, after the first application of the Constitution's mandate that it create an uniform rule, never again used the term natural born citizen, knowing that modifying or interpreting the Constitution is strictly permitted to the Supreme Court, amendment, or an application of Article V Convention of the States.
In short, natural born citizens were born on our soil to parents who were its citizen when the child was born. Naturalized citizens are all citizen who are not natural born. Naturalization rules are constantly changing. Barack Obama told us he was naturalized. The difference between Barack and Cruz is that Barack's political opponent, the more important one, John McCain, had well known eligibility problems, so well known that Barack and his campaign co-chair, Clair McCaskill, sponsored two Senate Bills. SB2678, Feb 2008, and SR511, April 2008, to try to silence anyone who might challenge McCain's eligibility, using facts thoroughly investigated by Democrat lawyers and academics.
Obama never told us he was natural born. Cruz has claimed the he was made a natural born citizen by the 14th Amendment, which is famously a naturalization amendment. Look at the unanimous decision in Minor v. Happersett. "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." Ted Cruz, before the 14th Amendment, is defined as an "alien or foreigner". Naturalization rules implemented recently made him a citizen, even though he was born in Canada to a Cuban father, because his mother was a citizen. As several have pointed out, Winston Churchill would therfore have been a natural born citizen. Children of Osama bin Laden, several of whom were born to mothers who were U.S. citizens, and even born on U.S. soil, would be called natural born citizens by Ted.
Ted, like his and Obama's constitutional law professor Larry Tribe, doesn't like a Constitution of negative rights, a Constitution designed to retrain governments. A Constitution that would deny him the right to our highest office must be wrong. Ted, it seems, knows what the base which support he has targeted, wants to hear, and is willing to take the chance that few of them will have read original sources. Read original sources and Ted is dishonest. Even Larry Tribe has pointed out Ted, one of Tribes most adamant originalists at Harvard, is lying about still being an originalist.
Rubio, Jindal, and Haley are all Wong Kim Ark naturalized citizens. The decision was in 1895, and unequivocal. Wong Kim Ark was born in San Francisco to "domiciled" parents, parents who enjoyed our protections and would have naturalized but for Chinese law. Rubio, Jindal, and Haley were born to non-citizen parents all of whom claim they wanted to naturalize. No one questions that claim. But we used to be a nation of laws.
Thanks.
This;
is based on what?
Where has Cruz said that? Do you have a source for that? If from there on ensues reasoning reliant upon that point, then that point itself must be established beyond mere assertion.
Meanwhile, even if Senator Cruz has said such a thing (which I tend to doubt, but I could be wrong in that) he is incorrect, as shown in Rogers v. Bellei in which the majority included among their reasoning that Bellei, who was born abroad of a U.S. citizen mother, and non-U.S. citizen father, was at time of his birth a citizen surely enough, yet was not thus so "by the 14th Amendment", and was in fact outside of, and a citizen by exception to that Amendment, the exception arising from codification of law pertaining to and including definition of who was born a citizen --- among other additional considerations in regards to naturalization of those born not a citizen of the United States, thus alien requiring naturalization procedure in order to qualify for becoming a U.S. citizen, etc., etc.
Bellei challenged the constitutionality of the law, won that challenge in lower Courts, which to put it a bit loosely; that Congress was not sufficiently empowered to regulate the laws of the land regarding citizenship and naturalization beyond the 14th Amendment. That lower Court ruling was reversed by the Supreme Court. That Court, Justice Blackmun authoring majority opinion, joined in affirmation by 4 other Justices, ruled that changes which Congress has introduced to 8 U.S.C. where indeed Constitutional. Congress was empowered to regulate citizenship in their having placed additional conditions (residency requirements) upon those born abroad to a U.S. citizen parent, one of whom was at time of the child's birth not a U.S. citizen.
From that case under VI, within 6);
Our National Legislature indulged the foreign-born child with presumptive citizenship, subject to subsequent satisfaction of a reasonable residence requirement, rather than to deny him citizenship outright, as concededly it had the power to do, and relegate the child, if he desired American citizenship, to the more arduous requirements of the usual naturalization process. The plaintiff here would force the Congress to choose between unconditional conferment of United States citizenship at birth and deferment of citizenship until a condition precedent is fulfilled. We are not convinced that the Constitution requires so rigid a choice.
From whichever side of the issues one attempted to argue Cruz's case, it appears erroneous (not that you did so in your own comment) for anyone to attempt to argue that; Senator Cruz was not a citizen of the United States, at birth, or if agreeing that he was, it was because he was from standpoint inclusive of 14th Amendment considerations.
The various attempts made by hosts of others to argue that he be a citizen by statute, and thus not "Constitutionally" a citizen would need to somehow get past this exception in methodology of acquiring citizenship at birth that is clearly written in 8 U.S.C 1801 (although that citizenship not beyond reach of Congress to have imposed residency requirement on both mother and child, in the instance of Bellei, as it would be similarly to Senator Cruz) which the Court examined and found to not be unconstitutional.
The Constitution clearly, in the text, expresses that there were citizens distinguished from ‘natural born citizens.’
Neither category was ‘defined’ in the Constitution itself.
Naturalized citizenship was an entirely different category left for the Congress to regulate.