True Definition of Natural Born Citizen

There has been much debate over what constitutes a natural born citizen. Much of the debate has been misinformed calling the concept of natural born an obscure technicality or an overight by the writers of the Constitution. Neither of these characterizations are true.

Many times the true meaning of consitutional wording must be determined by looking at the era and the circumstances, and, in some cases, terminology in other sections of the constitution, the inclusion or exclusion of supporting verbage, and even writings other than the Constitution.

Article 2, section 1 of the Constitution states, "No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of president; neither shall any person be eligible who shall not attained to the age of thirty-five years, and been fourteen years a resident within the United Satates."

The addition of a grandfather clause in this paragraph says a lot as to the meaning of natural born. The first thing it says is that being born in the US is not enough to be natural born, otherwise the grandfather clause would not be necessary. The writers and delegates, having been born in the US, wanted to be eligible for the presidency, but most were the children of British subjects. Knowing that that eliminated them from being natural born and, thus, from eligibility, they included the grandfather clause which expired when the last person alive at the time of the ratification of the Constitution died. So, being a native born citizen is not the same as being natural born. If it were the framers would not have included the clause.

When asked to define natural born citizen, John Bingham, the author of the 14th ammendment which extended the bill of rights to former slaves, stated, "Any human born to parents who are US citizens and are under no other jurisdiction or authority." The Naturalization Act of 1790, also passed by this congress, declared "And the children of citizens of the US shall be considered as natural born, provided that the right of citizenship shall not descend to persons whose fathers have never been a resident of the US." Neither of these definitions, one from US law, mentions birthplace, only the parents' citizenship.

This concept of citizenship by blood as opposed to citizenship by geography is a concept with a long history in British common law. A law passed in 1677 says that natural born citizens are those persons born to British citizens, including those born overseas. Alexander Porter wrote an article over 100 years ago in which he declares that the framers drew upon this difference in the law of heredity and territorial allegiance to define a third class of citizen applicable only to the eligibility to hold the office of president. According to Morse, "the framers thought it wise to provide that the president should at least be the child of citizens owing allegiance only to the US at the time of birth." He goes on to say that the the eligibility of the president "was scarcely intended to bar the children of American citizens, whether born at sea or in foreign territory."

The concept of citizenship by blood also precludes the equation of natural born with native born as the latter strictly demands geographical requirements.

Many argue that Barack Obama was eligible to be a state senator and a US senator and could not suddenly be ineligible to be president, but that is exactly the case. If this premise were true, Arnold Schwarzenegger, governor of California, would also be eligible to be president, and it is established that he is not.

Barack Obama has proudly and publicly stated that his father was a citizen of Kenya. We know his mother was eigteen years old when he was born. These two facts make Obama ineligible to be president. No birth certificate is needed as proof, and it doesn't matter at all where Obama was born. His father's non-citizenship is all the law requires. He is ineligible from the beginning, meaning he is NOT the president and can be removed from office without any impeachment or trial, it requires only a ruling by the SCOTUS. HE is, in fact, a usurper, a pretender or a fake.

So why has Obama been shepharded into our highest elected office regardless of the fact that he is, according to his own statements and the law of the land, ineligible for that office? It is because those whose responsibility it is to insure the eligibility of the president, the SCOTUS, has chosen, in violation of the law, not to override the voters that voted for Obama. They are are cowards who violate their sworn oath rather than make an unpopular ruling. We are no longer a republic ruled by law, but, instead have become a democracy with rules made up as we go along, never to be written as law.

POSTSCRIPT: In each and every case dismissed by the SCOTUS challenging Obama's eligibility the reason for dismissal had nothing to do with the merits of the plaintiff's claim. Not once did the SCOTUS rule Obama was eligible or even consider whether he was or not, rather they dismissed each case on the technicality of plaitiff's lack of standing to file the case.

You think I'm a troll? Rich indeed. Quoting Jefferson, who was not at the Constitutional Convention (he was Minister to France, as you know) but was clearly active at the founding, is more like it. However, two things. Just because Jefferson believed that there should be a "wall of separation" between church and state does not mean that the First Amendment provides any such requirement (in fact, the primary purpose of the Establishment Clause was to protect states with established churches from having Congress de-establish them, which is why the amendment says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion . . . ."), and just because Jefferson believed something about the Natural-Born Citizen Clause does not necessarily make it so. Second, I think Jefferson was correct in the sense that under federal law at the time of the founding, only persons whose father (mothers didn't count) was a U.S. citizen were U.S. citizens at birth, and thus "natural-born citizens." Like most nations, the U.S. had jus sanguinis at the time, and it was perfectly natural for Jefferson to say that only those that were natural-born citizens at the time could become president, since he was writing about the immediate future. But citizenship laws have changed over time, and the U.S. later adopted jus soli, meaning that, with few exceptions (about which I'll speak later), persons born in the U.S. are U.S. citizens at birth---one may not like the law, but it is the law. The laws also changed to allow the foreign-born children of U.S. mothers to be a citizen at birth as well if the mother met certain past residency requirements. These laws changed what it means to be a "natural-born citizen," just as later practices have changed what it means to be a member of "the militia" under the Second Amendment (it used to be all able-bodied white men (see Dred Scott), then all able-bodied men irrespective of race, and now "the militia" would also include women). In other words, the principle remains the same: only U.S. citizens at birth can become president. In Jefferson's time, only persons whose father was a U.S. citizen were U.S. citizens at birth, so "natural-born citizens" correctly was limited to persons whose father was a U.S. citizen. But with changes in law, paternal jus sanguinis has been replaced with the American state of law in which almost all persons born in the U.S., and most foreign-born children of U.S. citizens (irrespective of whether the U.S. citizen is the father or the mother), are U.S. citizens at birth. This changed the definition of who is a U.S. citizen at birth, and thus a person born in Chicago with a Polish father and an American mother would be a natural-born citizen today (but not in 1789) while an English-born child of a red-blooded American that moved abroad as a child and an Englishwoman would not be a natural-born citizen today (but would have been in 1789). The principle stays the same, but the law changes. I assume that you have read the 1988 Yale Law Journal on the subject, but just in case, here's a link: http://yalelawjournal.org/images/pdfs/pryor_note.pdf. I will now address the issue of "anchor babies," since it seems to permeate this thread. The term "anchor baby" refers to a child born in the U.S. both of whose parents are foreigners with no permanent right to reside in the U.S.; when the "anchor baby" turns 18, he has the right to live in the U.S. and claim his parents as immediate family, thus giving them legal U.S. residency at such time. You can count me among the group of legal scholars (not to say that I'm a law professor or anything) that believe that when Section 1 of the 14th Amendment says that "all persons born in the U.S. and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the U.S. and the state in which they reside" that the term "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" excludes from the recognition of citizenship not only the children of ambassadors (which is what, incorrectly in my opinion, courts have so limited the exclusion) but also the children of foreigners with no permanent right to reside in the U.S. I think that it is incorrect to interpret the 14th Amendment to grant U.S. citizenship to the children of two foreign college students even if the baby is born in the U.S., much less to the children of two tourists or of two illegal aliens. However, when I say that such clause in Section 1 of the 14th Amendment has been misinterpreted, I mean that Congress should be allowed to change U.S. citizenship laws so that the U.S.-born children both of whose parents are illegal aliens, or have tourist visas, or have student visas, etc., are not deemed to be U.S. citizens at birth. However, it does not mean that federal laws extending birthright citizenship to such babies are unconstitutional, and so long as federal law provides citizenship at birth to the U.S.-born children of illegal aliens children born in the U.S. to illegal aliens will be citizens at birth. The citizenship of all of those "anchor babies" is water under the bridge, and what we have to do to fix the problem prospectively is to have Congress (i) change the law so that only babies with at least one parent that is either a U.S. citizen or a U.S. permanent resident can obtain U.S. citizenship by virtue of their birth in the U.S. and (ii) change the law so that "anchor babies" can't automatically bring their parents to the U.S. once they turn 18. BTW, I first wrote about this on FR several years ago, and if you have the time to go through my thousands of posts you will find that I wrote then pretty much what I wrote now about how to solve the "anchor baby" problem. And that's my take on the two, tangentially related, subjects of the Natural-Born Citizen Clause and the Subject to the Jurisdiction Thereof Clause. It is your right to disagree with me, and to tell me I'm wrong and show me exactly why you think that I'm wrong. But calling a fellow FReeper a "DU troll" or a "phantom" is beyond the pale.

Second, I think Jefferson was correct in the sense that under federal law at the time of the founding, only persons whose father (mothers didn't count) was a U.S. citizen were U.S. citizens at birth, and thus "natural-born citizens." Like most nations, the U.S. had jus sanguinis at the time, and it was perfectly natural for Jefferson to say that only those that were natural-born citizens at the time could become president, since he was writing about the immediate future. But citizenship laws have changed over time, and the U.S. later adopted jus soli, meaning that, with few exceptions (about which I'll speak later), persons born in the U.S. are U.S. citizens at birth---one may not like the law, but it is the law. The laws also changed to allow the foreign-born children of U.S. mothers to be a citizen at birth as well if the mother met certain past residency requirements. These laws changed what it means to be a "natural-born citizen," just as later practices have changed what it means to be a member of "the militia" under the Second Amendment (it used to be all able-bodied white men (see Dred Scott), then all able-bodied men irrespective of race, and now "the militia" would also include women).

In other words, the principle remains the same: only U.S. citizens at birth can become president. In Jefferson's time, only persons whose father was a U.S. citizen were U.S. citizens at birth, so "natural-born citizens" correctly was limited to persons whose father was a U.S. citizen. But with changes in law, paternal jus sanguinis has been replaced with the American state of law in which almost all persons born in the U.S., and most foreign-born children of U.S. citizens (irrespective of whether the U.S. citizen is the father or the mother), are U.S. citizens at birth. This changed the definition of who is a U.S. citizen at birth, and thus a person born in Chicago with a Polish father and an American mother would be a natural-born citizen today (but not in 1789) while an English-born child of a red-blooded American that moved abroad as a child and an Englishwoman would not be a natural-born citizen today (but would have been in 1789). The principle stays the same, but the law changes. I assume that you have read the 1988 Yale Law Journal on the subject, but just in case, here's a link: http://yalelawjournal.org/images/pdfs/pryor_note.pdf.

I will now address the issue of "anchor babies," since it seems to permeate this thread. The term "anchor baby" refers to a child born in the U.S. both of whose parents are foreigners with no permanent right to reside in the U.S.; when the "anchor baby" turns 18, he has the right to live in the U.S. and claim his parents as immediate family, thus giving them legal U.S. residency at such time. You can count me among the group of legal scholars (not to say that I'm a law professor or anything) that believe that when Section 1 of the 14th Amendment says that "all persons born in the U.S. and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the U.S. and the state in which they reside" that the term "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" excludes from the recognition of citizenship not only the children of ambassadors (which is what, incorrectly in my opinion, courts have so limited the exclusion) but also the children of foreigners with no permanent right to reside in the U.S. I think that it is incorrect to interpret the 14th Amendment to grant U.S. citizenship to the children of two foreign college students even if the baby is born in the U.S., much less to the children of two tourists or of two illegal aliens. However, when I say that such clause in Section 1 of the 14th Amendment has been misinterpreted, I mean that Congress should be allowed to change U.S. citizenship laws so that the U.S.-born children both of whose parents are illegal aliens, or have tourist visas, or have student visas, etc., are not deemed to be U.S. citizens at birth. It does not mean that federal laws extending birthright citizenship to such babies are unconstitutional, and so long as federal law provides citizenship at birth to the U.S.-born children of illegal aliens children born in the U.S. to illegal aliens will be citizens at birth.

The citizenship of all of those "anchor babies" is water under the bridge, and what we have to do to fix the problem prospectively is to have Congress (i) change the law so that only babies with at least one parent that is either a U.S. citizen or a U.S. permanent resident can obtain U.S. citizenship by virtue of their birth in the U.S. and (ii) change the law so that "anchor babies" can't automatically bring their parents to the U.S. once they turn 18. BTW, I first wrote about this on FR several years ago, and if you have the time to go through my thousands of posts you will find that I wrote then pretty much what I wrote now about how to solve the "anchor baby" problem. And that's my take on the two, tangentially related, subjects of the Natural-Born Citizen Clause and the Subject to the Jurisdiction Thereof Clause. It is your right to disagree with me, and to tell me I'm wrong and show me exactly why you think that I'm wrong. But calling a fellow FReeper a "DU troll" or a "phantom" is beyond the pale.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.