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To: Red Steel
"I have shown you that the Founding Fathers read and praised de Vattel before 1787, and also signed the US Constitution."

Yes they did. And yet they still rejected his opinion on the right to bear arms. Since they rather clearly had no problem rejecting the opinion of a man they praised when he actually had an opinion, it would be doubtful that accepted from him an opinion he never even actually held.

"You state that because de Vattel was not debated or mentioned in the Madison's Notes, therefore, his definition of citizen is not the meaning and intent behind the Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5. That is just a leap in conclusion that does not hold up to scrutiny."

So prove me wrong. If you are correct it should be absolutely trivial to show us all (as I have now asked probably a half dozen times) a single instance where a single framer even mentioned De Vattel and citizenship in the same breath.
611 posted on 02/11/2010 10:06:54 AM PST by EnderWiggins
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To: EnderWiggins
So prove me wrong. If you are correct it should be absolutely trivial to show us all (as I have now asked probably a half dozen times) a single instance where a single framer even mentioned De Vattel and citizenship in the same breath.

I am correct and you're obviously wrong.

You don't need a single instance of them debating when they universally accepted de Vattel's citizenship definition as the intent behind the natural born citizen clause.

We do know however that the first chief justice of the United States John Jay stating to George Washington expressing that the Commander-In-Chief be none other than a 'natural born'. As we all should know, the president wears the hat as the Commander-In-Chief of these United States. George Washington signed the US Constitution representing the state of Virginia and he presided over the 1787 Convention. The John Jay letter to Washington is dated July 25th, 1787, which falls within the time period of the Convention that went from May 25 to September 17, 1787.

Moreover, John Jay was a member and president of the Continental Congress. The same Congress that de Vattel's Law of Nations that was "continually in their hands" that Benjamin Franklin stated in his Memoirs.

John Jay was a US diplomat who lived in France as well as spoke French who was keenly aware of de Vattel's Law of Nations as to where he undoubtedly found the term 'natural born' and understood its meaning before he wrote to George Washington.


Here's more proof that you are so wrong.

- - - - - - - - -

U.S. Supreme Court

The Venus, 12 U.S. 8 Cranch 253 253 (1814)

The Venus

12 U.S. (8 Cranch) 253

APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR

THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS

Syllabus

"If a citizen of the United States establishes his domicile in a foreign country between which and the United States hostilities afterwards break out, any property shipped by such citizen before knowledge of the war and captured by an American cruiser after the declaration of war must be condemned as lawful prize."

-snip-

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE MARSHALL.

-snip-

The whole system of decisions applicable to this subject rests on the law of nations as its base. It is therefore of some importance to inquire how far the writers on that law consider the subjects of one power residing within the territory of another, as retaining their original character or partaking of the character of the nation in which they reside.

Vattel, who, though not very full to this point, is more explicit and more satisfactory on it than any other whose work has fallen into my hands, says

"The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives or indigenes are those born in the country of parents who are citizens. Society not being able to subsist and to perpetuate itself but by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights."

"The inhabitants, as distinguished from citizens, are strangers who are permitted to settle and stay in the country. Bound by their residence to the society, they are subject to the laws of the state while they reside there, and they are obliged to defend it because it grants

Page 12 U. S. 290

them protection, though they do not participate in all the rights of citizens. They enjoy only the advantages which the laws or custom gives them. The perpetual inhabitants are those who have received the right of perpetual residence. These are a kind of citizens of an inferior order, and are united and subject to the society, without participating in all its advantages."

-end snip-

http://supreme.justia.com/us/12/253/case.html

---------

The Supreme Court of the United States in their majority opinion of 1814 quoting the de Vattel's citizenship definition verbatim...what constitutes a Natural Born Citizen.

You have no real evidence and certainly no proof that de Vattel was not the meaning and intent behind the natural born citizen clause, while I have continuously shown you what you content to be is convincingly not true to any impartial reader.

616 posted on 02/11/2010 12:52:44 PM PST by Red Steel
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