[BP2]

Unless they were in the form of a Constitutional Amendment, it would not matter if they did make it to the floor, were voted on, passed and signed by the President. A mere law cannot overide the Constitution, nor define or redefine its terms. Much mischief would ensure if they could.

Those closer to the 1787 Framing recognized this most basic of concepts in the new Republic.

Below is the earliest reference I've ever found in the US Congressional record regarding "natural born citizen," (sans the 1790 Immigration Act) calling for a Constitutional amendment to require EVERY member of Congress to be a "natural born citizen."

Originating from Massachusetts — where coincidentally the first recorded instance of a state legislature to begin using the term "natural born citizen" instead of "natural born subject" occurred in 1784 (following the 1783 Treaty of Paris ending the Revolutionary War) — this proposed 1798 US Amendment clearly shows that Americans in the 18th century recognized a CLEAR distinction between a "citizen" (required for the US Congress) and "natural born citizen" (required for the President):

In order to derive their working definition of "natural born citizen," the Framers would have have access to the little-known 1760 English version of Vattel’s “Law of Nations” (from which the 1797 American translation is taken), referenced by Patriot attorney James Otis of Massachusetts in his 1765 pamphlet “The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved” .

[pissant]

Where do you find pre-1994 congressional records online? I can only find it going back 1994 on Thomas or GPO.

[justiceseeker93]

Wonder what prompted the proposal of that constitutional amendmendment by Congressman Foster back in 1798, which would have required all Senators and Representatives to be natural born citizens (unless they were citizens at the founding in 1776). Could there have been Senators or Representatives whose loyalty to the new country was under suspicion? (1798, during the Adams administration, was in a period in which such suspicions were common, and led to the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts.)

[bushpilot1]