“You know, the Constitution specifies there shall be no religious test for public office and I am a constitutionalist,” the Texas senator said during the taping of “Iowa Press” at Iowa Public Television. Cruz is a Constitutionalist? If he was... he would not be running for president.
Note the reference to Natural Law in the first sentence of our Declaration of Independence.
It is crystal clear that the Founding Fathers used the Natural Law definition of 'natural born Citizen' when they wrote Article II. By invoking "The Laws of Nature and Nature's God" the 56 signers of the Declaration incorporated a legal standard of freedom into the forms of government that would follow.
President John Quincy Adams, writing in 1839, looked back at the founding period and recognized the true meaning of the Declaration's reliance on the "Laws of Nature and of Nature's God." He observed that the American people's "charter was the Declaration of Independence. Their rights, the natural rights of mankind. Their government, such as should be instituted by the people, under the solemn mutual pledges of perpetual union, founded on the self-evident truth's proclaimed in the Declaration."
The Constitution, Vattel, and “Natural Born Citizen”: What Our Framers Knew
The Supreme Court of the United States has never applied the term “natural born citizen” to any other category than “those born in the country of parents who are citizens thereof”.
MINOR V. HAPPERSETT IS BINDING PRECEDENT AS TO THE CONSTITUTIONAL DEFINITION OF A NATURAL BORN CITIZEN.
Citizenship Terms Used in the U.S. Constitution - The 5 Terms Defined & Some Legal Reference to Same
"The citizenship of no man could be previous to the declaration of independence, and, as a natural right, belongs to none but those who have been born of citizens since the 4th of July, 1776."....David Ramsay, 1789.
A Dissertation on Manner of Acquiring Character & Privileges of Citizen of U.S.-by David Ramsay-1789
The Law of Nations or the Principles of Natural Law (1758)
The Laws of Nature and of Nature's God: The True Foundation of American Law
Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Volume 20 - Use of The Law of Nations by the Constitutional Convention
"Cruz is a Constitutionalist? If he was... he would not be running for president." Thanks Godebert. Those who have read the cases know that you have spoken the truth, confusing though the issue has been made. Thus far you appear still able to post at FR, though I know many knowledgeable people who have stayed away from the clear threat on 1st Amendment rights by "Free" Republic monitors, who also must like Cruz' active defense of issue we care about, but who don't believe Article II Section 1 Clause 5 important enough to disqualify Cruz.
Charles Evans Hughes, running against racist Woodrow Wilson, and a former Supreme Court Jusice, was born to British Subject Parents who had never naturalized. He was exposed by FDR Attorney Breckenridge Long, who explained the definition of natural born citizenship in the largest legal journal in 1916. Hughes later became Chief Justice, and ruled that Minor v. Happersett was correct when he wrote Perkins v. Elg in 1939. He had been Governor of New York, and probably held allegiance to our Constitution, but could not have prevailed over the Constitution and Minor v. Happersett had he beaten Wilson. Hughes would almost certainly have been a better President than Wilson. Natural Law is not a guarantee, but would have protected us from Obama had we respected the Constitution.
Cruz has said many of the right things, but when his campaign manager invoked the 14th Amendment, which explicitly does not change the "never doubted" definition of natural born citizenship, a fact of which Cruz can have no doubt, Cruz lost my support. To be precise, I have not heard or read Cruz making that claim, but he needed to correct his campaign manager, and explain why he is not an eligible candidate for me to consider him qualified for any federal office. Lawyers are "Officers of the Court", and sign an oath in respect of the Constitution, and of honesty. Cruz' candidacy is itself dishonest, but not illegal. Many have campaigned for the presidency who were clearly ineligible. Socialist Workers Party Candidate Roger Calero was not even a citizen when he was a presidential candidate in 2008.
Of course Cruz is not alone. Rubio, Jindal, and Nikki Haley (who has never announced an intent to be a candidate for the presidency) are all naturalized citizens, as Obama has told us with legal clarity, but a bit of legal obfuscation, that defines his class of citizenship.