You say, “I’m asking you why you are blind to the contemporary facts that are there?”
I say: Why are you blind to the quotations I put in my post? Many congressmen and senators discussed this very issue before implementing the 14th Amendment but you refuse to take it seriously. Why are you blind to the fact that no present day politician, conservative commentator, or judge will do what you want them to, i.e., acknowledge that you need citizen parents to be NBC? That ain’t gonna happen pal and you just dont get it. Why are you blind to the fact that Chester Arther was in the same situation and no action was taken? There is more than ample evidence that your definition of NBC is off the wall, cannot be proven by anyone. Do you expect me to believe that you can read the minds of the framers of the Constitution? You and all your ilk instead of PROVING the 2 citizen parent rule, attack, misquote and try to dazzle people with fanciful dreams. Several people in this thread and many more in other threads presented ample evidence to prove that 2 citizen parents are not required. You have presented nothing of substance. You mention names like Paine, Jefferson and Adams like that means something. Jefferson had nothing to say about citizenship and neither did Adams as far as I’m concerned. Both these men had great respect for England and it’s laws; they just didn’t like the unjust taxes and other issues. You make Vattel out to be some hero yet England and the rest of Europe ignored his wild ideas on citizenship. France doesn’t even subscribe to it. You people should do something constructive about voting Obama out, not beating this dead horse. If it isn’t written down it doesn’t exist and EVERYONE knows 2 citizen parents is nowhere to be found in the Constitution or U.S. law. Once again get a judge to go your way.
Oh, and one more thing. NO ONE answered my original question which was: If I decide to run for president how do I prove that my parents are citizens? What is the process? Won’t someone step up the plate and take a swing at it?
I say: Why are you blind to the quotations I put in my post?Instead of answering my question, you choose to parry with a question of your own. Therefore, I will answer your question and then put words in your mouth for you.
The question is still about original intent of the natural-born clause. The Congressmen that you quoted gave their opinions in 1866, 1869, and 1872. Paine, a Founder, wrote contemporaneously about the Constitution in 1791.
You earlier said, "As far as I know Paine had no direct input into the Constitution. While I respect him, he had opinions just like everyone else." I give Paine's interpretation of original intent more weight, given that he's a Founder who was there at the time. His opinions, along with Adams', Franklin's, and Jefferson's, were original Founding opinions, not historical interpretations of original intent.
Regarding Paine's comparisons vs, it's neglect later on during natural-born debates, I can only surmise that it was forgotten history, that is, that the various Congressmen, law clerks, and Justices failed to recall his statements on the American Constitution. The Rights Of Man was not written to be a chronicle of the Constitution (like the Federalist Papers), it was written to support the French in their own Revolution. Paine was tried by England in absentia and sentenced to death over the book because of the things he said about England.
But still, even if its purpose was not to define the Constitution, Paine's comparison in the book to European forms of government are still chronicles of the Framers' original intent by a Founding Father, and should be recognized as such. It should be given the same Constitutional relevence as Jefferson's letter of 1802 to the Danbury Baptist Association. Jefferson's letter has become the source of "wall of separation between church and state," even though Jefferson was not a Framer of the Constitution either.
To the quotes themselves. What we will see is a mixing of the debate of citizenry vs. the added requirement for being president. I will argue that "natural-born" is not a definition of citizen, but a further requirement (akin to age and residency) that is added to being a citizen, that is, being a citizen of two citizen parents. The intent is not to define a new category of citizenship, but to define a criterion of presidency that is applied to citizens seeking the office. This is what Paine states.
John Bingham: With all due respect to Rep. Bingham, it reads like typical Congressional hyperbole in defense of his bill. Language like "Who does not know..." and later "There is no one can hesitate a moment about it who..." is typical debate rhetoric intended to put the opposer on the defensive. The fact that he was the principle author of the 14th amendment, which was ratified just the year before this quote, reinforces my opinion that he was flaunting his success.
The Bingham quote does support my point about Paine's quote in that Bingham said the above in debate about women's suffrage, not citizenship. Paine defined natural-born in debate about the French Revolution, not the Constitution. Why do you accept Bingham's incidental quote, but not Paine's?
Senator Morrill: I do not know the amendment being debated, but it is similar in vein to Rep. Bingham's. The discussion is if citizenry and not presidential criteria, and is incidental to the core amendment being debated.
Senator Trumbill: Here we get to a remark about presidential criteria, but it begins dishonestly. "...and, in order to be President of the United States, a person must be a native-born citizen." He substitutes his own phrase "native-born citizen" in place of the actual Constitutional language "natural-born citizen," and then proceeds from there. That aside, this seems to be a debate about the citizenship status of former slaves, not of presidential criteria.
The debate is about the original intent of the natural-born clause. I say, supported by Thomas Paine, that the natural-born clause is a further criterion, apart from citizenship, to become president. You say that the natural-born clause is a definition of citizenship itself and cannot be separated. You offer quotations regarding citizenship, but not regarding presidential criteria.
We both agree that people born in the United States of single-citizen parents are citizens. We even agree that people born in the United States of two non-citizens are citizens. I do not know if you support legislation removing the "anchor-baby" citizenship, such that tourists can no longer time their travels to the United States to coincided with childbirth in order to birth a United States citizen, but that is not important to this debate.
Do you agree that "natural-born" can be an added criterion that citizens must qualify in order to be president? Not "is a," but "can be?" Or do you, as I suspect, link "natural-born" solely to citizen definition in a way that cannot be separated as an additional qualification to be president apart from citizenship?
The Supremacy Clause in Article VI says that the Constitution is the "supreme Law of the Land" and "any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding." The "natural-born" clause is a "Thing in the Constitution," and cannot be ignored. It cannot be replaced with the phrase "native-born" and then proceed as if "native-born" is the supreme law of the land.
To reconcile the two, "natural-born" must be seen as an additional criterion to be president that is applied after a candidate passes the citizenship test, as Paine wrote in The Rights Of Man.
-PJ