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To: CDR Kerchner
Birthers continue to recycle failed legal arguments, some of the arguments having failed for more than a century.

The LOSING Briefs from the precedent setting U.S. Supreme Court case of Wong Kim Ark reveal the slightest tinge of racism involved in the attempt to save the nation from Yellow Peril. United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898), at the U.S. Supreme Court. Brief on Behalf of the losing Appellant (United States), by George D. Collins, Of Counsel for Appellant, and also signed by Holmes Conrad, Solicitor General; at page 34:

For the most persuasive reasons we have refused citizenship to Chinese subjects; and yet, as to their offspring, who are just as obnoxious, and to whom the same reasons for exclusion apply with equal force, we are told that we must accept them as fellow-citizens, and that, too, because of the mere accident of birth. There certainly should be some honor and dignity in American citizenship that would be sacred from the foul and corrupting taint of a debasing alienage. Are Chinese children born in this country to share with the descendants of the patriots of the American Revolution the exalted qualification of being eligible to the Presidency of the nation, conferred by the Constitution in recognition of the importance aud dignity of citizenship by birth? If so, then verily there has been a most degenerate departure from the patriotic ideals of our forefathers; and surely in that case American citizenship is not worth having.

Birthers have taken to wasting the time and resources of the legal system with scores of frivolous lawsuits in Federal and state courts. Charles Gordon, in his paper “Who Can Be President of the United States: the Unresolved Enigma,” 28 Maryland Law Review, Number 1, Winter 1968, observed at page 29:

Since interpretation of the presidential qualification clause involves a federal constitutional question, such an issue would unquestionably wind up in the federal courts, by removal of actions commenced in state courts, or by Supreme Court review of a state court’s decision. [Footnotes omitted]

Several actions seeking an ancient writ of quo warranto to oust the sitting President have predictably failed. In his paper cited supra, at page 30, Charles Gordon observed,

In the first place, a person seeking to launch such a contest would have to overcome the seemingly insuperable hurdle of legal standing to sue. In the federal practice his lack of direct interest would seem fatal.

Nearly a half-century later, when courts found a lack of direct interest and a resultant lack of standing, birthers exclaimed that the judges were corrupt. The blackness of the President does not create standing.

First Nat. Bank and Trust Co. of Vinita v. Kissee, 1993 OK 96, 859 P.2d 502, paragraph 40, footnotes omitted:

“Simply put, subjective good faith no longer provides the safe harbor it once did.” “There is no room for a pure heart, empty head defense under Rule 11.”

In Wong Kim Ark, at 169 U.S. 649, 674-675, the U.S. Supreme Court said:

So far as we are informed, there is no authority, legislative, executive or judicial, in England or America, which maintains or intimates that the statutes (whether considered as declaratory or as merely prospective) conferring citizenship on foreign-born children of citizens have superseded or restricted, in any respect, the established rule of citizenship by birth within the dominion. Even those authorities in this country, which have gone the farthest towards holding such statutes to be but declaratory of the common law have distinctly recognized and emphatically asserted the citizenship of native-born children of foreign parents. 2 Kent Com. 39, 50, 53, 258 note; Lynch v. Clarke, 1 Sandf.Ch. 583, 659; Ludlam v. Ludlam, 26 N.Y. 356, 371.

Passing by questions once earnestly controverted, but finally put at rest by the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, it is beyond doubt that, before the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 or the adoption of the Constitutional Amendment, all white persons, at least, born within the sovereignty of the United States, whether children of citizens or of foreigners, excepting only children of ambassadors or public ministers of a foreign government, were native-born citizens of the United States.

In Schick v. United States, at page 69, the Court said:

“That,” said Mr. Justice Bradley in Moore v. United States, 91 U. S. 270, 91 U. S. 274, referring to the common law, “is the system from which our judicial ideas and legal definitions are derived. The language of the Constitution and of many acts of Congress could not be understood without reference to the common law.”

Again, in Smith v. Alabama, 124 U. S. 465, 124 U. S. 478, is this declaration by Mr. Justice Matthews: “The interpretation of the Constitution of the United States is necessarily influenced by the fact that its provisions are framed in the language of the English common law, and are to be read in the light of its history.”

In United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U. S. 649, 169 U. S. 654, Mr. Justice Gray used this language: “In this as in other respects, it must be interpreted in the light of the common law, the principles and history of which were familiarly known to the framers of the Constitution. Minor v. Happersett, 21 Wall. 162; Ex Parte Wilson, 114 U. S. 417, 114 U. S. 422; Boyd v. United States, 116 U. S. 616, 116 U. S. 624-625; Smith v. Alabama, 124 U. S. 465.”

See also Kepner v. United States, post, p. 195 U. S. 100; 1 Kent, Com. 336.

Blackstone’s Commentaries are accepted as the most satisfactory exposition of the common law of England. At the time of the adoption of the federal Constitution, it had been published about twenty years, and it has been said that more copies of the work had been sold in this country than in England, so that undoubtedly the framers of the Constitution were familiar with it.

In Wong Kim Ark, Brief on Behalf of the losing Appellant [United States], page 22-23, the losing side argued:

“Subject to the jurisdiction thereof” is the language of the Constitution, and it is the most significant provision of the definition of citizenship there contained. Who are subject to the jurisdiction of the United States? Manifestly not those who are subject to the jurisdiction of any other nation, or who owe allegiance to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty. Such is the con­temporaneous exposition of the Constitution’s definition by the very Congress that framed it, as is evidenced by what is now section 1902 of the Revised Statutes of the United States. It is there enacted: “All persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are declared to be citizens of the United States.” Clearly, then, it was never intended that children born in the United States of alien parents should be considered citizens.

Such children at the moment of birth would be subject to a “foreign power,” to wit, the country of the parent, for it is a principle of international law, and recognized by the United States (sec. 1993, Rev. Stat. U. S.), that the children born abroad of citizens or subjects are citizens or subjects of the country of the parent. So, in respect to this case, it is the law of the Chinese Empire that the children of subjects when born abroad are subjects of the Emperor, Therefore, when Wong Kim Ark was born in San Francisco of Chinese parents there domiciled he at the moment of birth became a subject of the Emperor of China, and for that reason could not have been born “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States.

At page 24, the losing Brief argues,

It is true, he was born in the United States; but he was not at the time of his birth, and certainly at no time afterwards, “subject to the jurisdiction thereof;” we mean, of course, the political jurisdiction of the nation; not the territorial jurisdiction, or which is the same thing, the jurisdiction, or more accurately, the operation of the laws. All the authorities agree that the provision of the Constitution's definition, “subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” has reference to the political jurisdiction of the United States in its international relation of a sovereign nation, and not to the operation of the laws. In other words, the sovereignty of the United States is of a dual nature—internal and external. The jurisdiction of the law pertains to the former; and the political power of the nation to the latter. All persons born in the United States and subject to the political power thereof are citizens—natural born citizens; it follows that persons born in the United States of aliens are not citizens.

At page 35, the losing side added,

It is said in the district court’s opinion that—

The doctrine of the law of nations, that the child follows the nationality of the parents and that citizenship does not depend upon mere accidental place of birth, is undoubtedly more logical, reasonable, and satisfactory.

* * *

Here is a more complete version of that quote from the district court:

The doctrine of the law of nations, that the child follows the nationality of the parents, and that citizenship does not depend upon mere accidental place of birth, is undoubtedly more logical, reasonable, and satisfactory, but this consideration will not justify this court in declaring it to be the law against controlling judicial authority.

The inconvenient existing and controlling judicial authority came from the Circuit Court for the 9th Circuit.

The existing judicial authority was from In re Look Tin Sing, Circuit Court, California, 21 Fed R 905 (1884), Opinion of the Court by U.S. Supreme Court Justice (1863-1887) Stephen Field, sitting as a Circuit Court justice.

At 21 Fed R 906:

The first section of the fourteenth amendment to the constitution declares that “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.” This language would seem to be sufficiently broad to cover the case of the petitioner. He is a person born in the United States. Any doubt on the subject, if there can be any, must arise out of the words “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” They alone are subject to the jurisdiction of the United States who are within their dominions and under the protection of their laws, and with the consequent obligation to obey them when obedience can be rendered; and only those thus subject by their birth or naturalization are within the terms of the amendment. The jurisdiction over these latter must, at the time, be both actual and exclusive. The words mentioned except from citizenship children born in the United States of persons engaged in the diplomatic service of foreign governments, such as ministers and ambassadors, whose residence, by a fiction of public law, is regarded as part of their own country. This ex-territoriality of their residence secures to their children born here all the rights and privileges which would inure to them had they been born in the country of their parents.

At 21 Fed R 908-909:

With this explanation of the meaning of the words in the fourteenth amendment, “subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” it is evident that they do not exclude the petitioner from being a citizen. He is not within any of the classes of persons excepted from citizenship, and the jurisdiction of the United States over him at the time of his birth was exclusive of that of any other country.

The Supreme Court rejected the pig slop that was offered up and ruled the direct opposite, affirming the District Court which had ruled according to the existing binding precedent set in the Circuit Court, extending that binding precedent to all state and Federal courts. That was in the 19th century. It is binding precedent today.

Ludlam v. Ludlam, 84 Am. Dec. 193, 26 New York 356 (1863), first Headnote at 193,

Common Law at Time of Adoption of Federal Constitution Determines Question of Citizenship, in the absence of any other law upon the subject.

Munro v. Merchant, 26 Barb. 383 at 384 (1858) headnote states,

“A child born in this state of alien parents, during its mother’s temporary sojourn here, is a native born citizen.”

When will the birthers produce a court opinion stating that John Doe, born in the United States of one or two alien parents, is, or is not, a citizen based on the controlling authority of Emer de Vattel? They have over two centuries of Federal and state court opinions to work with.

At 400-401, Opinion of the Court

It is further contended, on the part of the defendant, that the plaintiff himself is an alien. He was born in Ballston Spa, in this state, while his father was a resident of Canada, and returned to his father's domicil, with his mother, within a year after his birth. His mother was temporarily there—without any actual change of residence, either on her part or that of his father. It is argued that, at common law, a natural born subject was one whose birth was within the allegi­ance of the king. (Bac. Ab. tit. Alien, A. Com. Dig. A. and B. 7 to 18. Bl. Com: 336, 74.) The cases of children of ambassadors, born abroad, and of children born on English seas were considered exceptions. Chancellor Kent, in his commentaries, defines a native born citizen to be- a person born within, and an alien one born out of, the jurisdiction of the United States. (2 Kent's Com. 37—50.) In Lynch v. Clarke, (1 Sand. Ch. B. 583,) the question was pre­cisely as here, whether a child born in the city of New York of alien parents, during their temporary sojourn there, was a native born citizen or an alien; and the conclusion was, that being born within the dominion and allegiance of the United States, he was a native born citizen, whatever was the situa­tion of the parents at the time of the birth.

12 posted on 01/09/2024 4:42:28 PM PST by woodpusher
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To: woodpusher
The parents of Kamala Harris swore in writing that their intention of travel was "solely" for a full-time study, and in exchange acquired status of "visitor" to gain entry to the United States. This status caused the parents of Kamala Harris to retain their "domicile" in Jamaica and India, respectively.

Wong Kim Ark (1898) does not apply to Kamala Harris, as her parents did not have a "domicile" or "permanent resident" status within the United States at the time of her 1964 birth. (In fact, they committed immigration fraud in connection with her birth certificate).

Please have a look at the actual documents linked below, to better inform your (erroneous) opinion.

Documents evidencing Kamala Harris ineligibility for VP (and the Presidency) under terms of the Constitution (Natural Born Citizen clause plus the 12th Amendment) available via these links:

Kamala Kancel Website (downloadable PDF available via link)

Kamala Kancel Twitter Site (twitter login required to view)

13 posted on 01/09/2024 4:57:27 PM PST by KamalaKancel
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To: All
"Woodpusher" is up to the typical far-left, OBOT, anti-Constitutional tactic of conflating in a tantamount way the term "natural born Citizen" and "Citizen" and/or "Citizen at/by Birth". They also do the same with the terms "Subject" and "Citizen". Language manipulation and gas-lighting is a frequent tactic of the far-left. It is what they do. Here is a Euler Diagram to show the logical fallacy of their conflation arguments of the various kinds of Citizens regarding "natural born Citizen", the kind of Citizen who is eligible to be the President and Commander in Chief:
https://cdrkerchner.wordpress.com/2016/02/14/euler-logic-diagram-shows-logical-relationship-of-constitutional-article-ii-natural-born-citizens-to-other-type-citizens-of-the-united-states/

17 posted on 01/09/2024 5:01:28 PM PST by CDR Kerchner ( retired military officer, natural law, Vattel, presidential, eligibility, natural born Citizen )
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