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We are doomed!
Posted on 04/27/2012 8:24:47 AM PDT by vadum
According to the Constitution, to be eligible for the presidency (or vice presidency), a person must be a “natural born citizen” of the United States. The purpose of this restriction is to prevent a foreigner from becoming the nation’s chief executive.
How can people become U.S. citizens? There are just two ways; either they are born citizens or they become citizens later in life. In the first case, anyone who is a citizen by nature of his birth is a “natural born citizen.” In the second case, anyone who is a citizen of another country at birth, but is granted U.S. citizenship sometime afterward, is a naturalized citizen.
For example, John McCain, though born in Panama, is eligible for the presidency, because he became a citizen at birth. Similarly, had Gen. George Meade sought the presidency, he would have been eligible because, though born in Spain, he was a U.S. citizen by nature of his birth. Any non-naturalized U.S. citizen over the age of thirty-five with fourteen years of residence can be President of the United States.
Sadly, this common-sense, logical approach does not dissuade some conservative pundits from inventing a new constitutional requirement for the presidency. Despite the plain meaning of the text, they claim that, to be eligible, a person’s parents must also be U.S. citizens. A few even assert that one’s parents must also be natural born citizens. I’ll spare you a recitation of their nonsense about “native born” or Emerich de Vattel or whatnot. Finding things in the Constitution that are not there is for Democrats!
Now that Mitt Romney has become the presumptive Republican nominee, there is speculation that the junior senator from Florida will be his running mate. Marco Rubio’s parents were from Cuba and did not become U.S. citizens until he was four years old. Voices from the fringe are claiming that this means Rubio is not eligible – and they’re wrong.
Marco Rubio was born is Miami, Florida. He is, therefore, a natural born citizen of the United States. Per the Constitution, the citizenship status of his parents (or grandparents or anyone but himself) is irrelevant.
Let’s look at U.S. political history for more proof. Were there other instances of a presidential or vice presidential nominee with a foreign-born parent? You betcha!
The first presidential nominee of the Republican Party, in 1856, was John Charles Fremont. He was born in South Carolina to an American mother and a French father. Jean Charles Fremon was born a French citizen, near Lyon, France. He was not a U.S. citizen at the time of his son’s birth and never did become a citizen. Abraham Lincoln campaigned for Fremont. All the founders of the Republican Party campaigned for Fremont. One would be hard-pressed to find any suggestion at the time that Fremont’s birth made him ineligible for the presidency.
The seventh vice presidential nominee of the Republican Party, Chester Arthur, was born in Vermont to an American mother and a foreign-born father. William Arthur was born a British citizen – in County Antrim, Ireland – who did not become a U.S. citizen until his son was fourteen years old.
John Fremont, George Meade, Chester Arthur, John McCain, Marco Rubio – all eligible for the presidency. Republicans should not allow themselves to be distracted away from contesting the 2012 presidential campaign on the real issues.
Michael Zak is a popular speaker to Republican organizations around the country. Back to Basics for the Republican Party is his acclaimed history of the GOP, cited by Clarence Thomas in a Supreme Court decision. His Grand Old Partisan website celebrates more than fifteen decades of Republican heroes and heroics. See www.grandoldpartisan.com for more information.
</sarcasm>
We are doomed!
I agree with you. Natural born citizens are born on U.S. soil. There are no qualifiers on that like parents must have been natural born as well. Just NBC. PERIOD. That’s the way I read the Constitution. That also means that, except for diplomats, any illegal can have their baby here and that baby is considered NBC. There is a lot of hot blood on this forum who will plaster me but they are only expressing their opinions which have no basis in fact. I always say that opinions are like a$$holes - everybody has one. If Obummer can prove he was born in Hawaii with a ligit BC, then he is NBC. I wish people would get over it....expecially the guy that keeps saying, “even if he was born in the Lincoln Bedroom of the Whitehouse.....” Boy, I hope I don’t hear from him because that will be a long read.
I'm not sure if you read my post completely in which the above quote by Blackstone, was stated to be part of French and not English law.
Also, even if that statement was part of our law, then it wouldn't apply to John McCain since whether he is regarded as an alien in Panama is irrelevant to how he is treated under US law.
Were they U.S. citizens when Marco was BORN? They were not, THAT is what is relevant.
Condoning an illegal act by another in order to justify your own illegal act seems a little crooked, which is ok if you are a lawyer who doesn’t care one whit about the truth.
Rubio is certainly a 14th amendment citizen and a statutory citizen, but he is not a natural-born citizen as the Supreme Court said in Wong Kim Ark that the 14th amendment does not define nor redefine natural-born citizenship. It is defined as all children born in the country to parents who WERE its citizens ... not born to parents who BECAME its citizens. The court ruled that the 14th amendment made citizens of children born to resident aliens, the latter satisfying the subject clause through permanent residence and domicil. Obama, incidentally, meets neither definition, since his parents were not both citizens and did not have permanent residence and domicil in the United States.
THe fascinating thing about Emmerich de Vattel is the false notion that he was even discussing “natural born” citizenship at all.
De Vattel was describing “Les naturels.” Some have chosen to translate this as “Natural Born Citizen.” It means nothing of the sort, but rather “Indigenous peoples.”
On occasion, “Les indigens” might be used in French, but this can have a connotation of non-Westerners in nations colonized by Westerners; I’d translate “les indigens” as “natives”; one would not call one’s own countrymen “natives” or “les indigens.”
In de Vattel’s world, if you were French, but both of your parents were Bohemians, you were Bohemian, not French. The founding fathers were defying that notion, not confirming it; if you were born in America of parents who were under U.S. law (as opposed to being aliens), you are an American. The intent of this law was to prevent citizens of European colonizing empires from moving to America and becoming president.
So the reference isn’t to “les naturels,” but to the Thomistic doctrines of natural law, which state that all men have, by nature, a nation of their own. Their nation is theirs by virtue of being natural-born, or being naturalized. Since there is no precedent in American statute, or any expression of natural law, of anyone being naturalized in a country despite being born under that country’s law (without having taken actions to renounce that citizenship, or to assume another nation’s citizenship), there is no case for asserting that someone may be a citizen by being born in a country, without being a natural-born citizen of that country.
(Statutes may exist to clarify citizenship or establishing that a territory is under U.S. law for the purposes of determining citizenship, but no-one has ever been ‘naturalized’ through such statutes.)
See #109. Blackstone's Commentaries was published about 20 years before the adoption of the Constitution.
Not relevant unless the person chooses not to be a US citizen.
There are countries that have weird laws granting citizenship to natural born Americans, depending on such conditions as having a grandparent of their nationality. However, these foreign laws are of no consequence as to the eligibility of natural born Americans. Obama is an example: because his father was Kenyan, he could have claimed Kenyan citizenship. But he didn't.
Vattel was referring to natural citizenship at birth. It stands to reason why this would be translated as natural-born citizens. Vattel made a distinction between citizens and subjects. Here, he is clearly talking about citizenship, which is what applies in the United States.
Wow. You sure know how to set your font big. But that doen’t make your point more accurate meaningful.
Is Marco Rubio a foreigner? A citizen of Cuba?
Oh, I know... you wonder what sort of person could be a foreigner born in the United States if being born in the United States makes you a natural-born citizen, don’t you? That would be one who was born in the United States of foreign parents who were not immigrants, but were under the law of the nation from which they came. Not illegal immigrants, but non-immigrants. For instance, John McCain is not a Panamanian.
Actually, we don’t really know that Obama has not “claimed” his Kenyan citizenship. He was in Kenya in time to preserve it, before losing it automatically. Second, Obama pushed for a new constitution in Kenya that allows for dual citizenship. We have no proof that he’s actually chosen to be a U.S. citizen until recent years.
The Court has a lot of leeway in how they choose to interpret the Constitution (including the 14th Amendment, newer than 225 years). But, given all that has happened in the 225 years, I don't see them going the Vattel route, even if it's technically correct (I don't think it is). At this point, any Supreme Court decision making Obama ineligible solely on the basis of con-law would be seen as contrived, as judicial fiat, judge-made law. It just wouldn't do, and the justices know it, so they won't do it.
<Groan...>
by dint of not only being a citizen, not only having been a citizen from birth, but by having both of his parents be citizens (i.e. of undivided loyalty) at the time that the future POTUS was born,
Help me out here, where exactly did you find those words...about the parents be citizens?
>> Vattel was referring to natural citizenship at birth. It stands to reason why this would be translated as natural-born citizens. <<
Except it wasn’t, historically. It was translated as “natives.” And the point is that Vattel was therefore NOT what the founders could have been referring to when they used the term, “natural-born citizens.”
In fact, Vattel was commenting on civil law in Romanist (that’s a system of law, nothing to do with Catholic) legal cultures which do NOT automatically grant citizenship based on land of birth, but based on father’s land of birth (which is why the entire Italian hockey team a few olympics ago was born in Brooklyn and similar places; U.S.-born children of parents from Roman-law countries are still citizens of those Roman-law countries.
This means that the founding fathers could NOT have been basing their concept of nationality on Vattel.
I should not have used “natural” in number 2, I should have used “citizen.” In number 3 I should have used “natural born citizen.”
Article 1, Section 2 of the Constitution provides that: “No person shall be a representative who shall not have attained to the age of twenty-five years, and been seven years a citizen of the United States, ...”
Article 1, Section 3 provides that: “No person shall be a senator who shall not have attained to the age of thirty years, and been nine years a citizen of the United States, ...”
Article 2, Section 1 reads: “No person except a natural born citizen ..., shall be eligible to the office of the president ...”
That wording differentiates between “citizen” and “natural born citizen.”
Nice try but no cigar.
IMO natural-born citizen is just an alternate way of saying native-born citizen or citizen at birth.
As the article points out nobody was much concerned about various previous presidential candidates, including Romney’s father, who did not meet the strict standards proposed by some birthers.
Fanatics wrote the Constitution. Idiots cr@p on it. Lawyers destroy it.
Precedent is what some Judge makes up in the hopes no higher court will overturn it so they can in effect legislate. Precedent is what funds a good deal of the law profession, that and bribes.
Since all us boobs here don't understand plain English perhaps you can clear up a vexing mystery for us, just what is the meaning of the word "is?"
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