“Your argument, based on English and French writers, both of whom were quoted during our founding as in the Law Of Nations, by Vatel, only serve as influences to the Founders, not as the law of the land.”
The American colonists used the fundamental documents, such as the Magna Carta, to provide the foundation for their colonial governments beginning with the Roanoke, Jamestown, Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay, and Maryland colonies, among others. Due to the expense, rarity, and problems of obtaining legal books and manuscripts, the American colonists were mor often than not on their own to develop their own statutory law and American common law mostly in isolation from similar developments in England, Scotland, and Continental Europe. As the proprietary owners of the colonies gave way to the Royal Colonial administrations, the amount of English legal documents and their influence in the colonial governments increased to bring the colonial governments more under the influence of some English legal doctrines, but remained stubbornly different in many others. The former Dutch colony of New Amsterdam was particularly influential among many of the American colonies with respect to resisting the English encroachments upon the previous Dutch practices of giving women more legal identity and rights. So, when it came time to contemplate a new Republic founded upon the principles of natural law being experimented with by the Dutch Republics and the legal scholars in Continental Europe, the American Founding Fathers ended the English common law as the basis for the U.S. Government in favor of the new natural law basis, yet they continued and borrowed from the past and future English common law wheneve it wa found to be suitable to do so without necessarily upsetting the natural law basis of the Republic. The continuation of the English, French, Spanish. Roman, and assorted other legal traditions are still evident in the thousands of legal terms found in Black’s Law Dictionary used as a standard legal reference in the U.S. courts of law. So, the fact that the 16th and 17th Century legal definitions were incorporated into the usages of naturalization of citizens in the U.S. laws is unremarkable.
“If we were to take your argument as 100% valid and correct, then we would need a SCOTUS decision or a written statute enacted into law that creates a third class of citizenship, where one is not natural born, not naturalized, but is a citizen of birth only, not requiring naturalization.”
That is an entirely false conclusion, because that is already how it has been done by the United States since day one and by the American colonial governments before that. It is simply inherent in the development of naturalization and denizens versus the statutory mass naturalization of the children of citizens born abroad. The U.S. Code was revised by repealing earlier versions of these nationality laws that made the differences clearer in favor of what we have currently that deliberately tries to muddle the issue. Still, the sections I quoted elsewhere from the State Department’s Consular manuals demonstrates the differences are distinctly represented in them and the Naturalization manual does say the automatic conferring of U.S. citizenship for the children of U.S. citizens born abroad is another form of naturalization. So, no additional legislation is necessary to create was has always and is already here.
“It follows then that Ted Cruz would be of this new category of citizenship as would numerous others, including one or two presidents, if I recall correctly.”
Ted Cruz enjoys U.S. citizenship only because a manmade statutory law made him a U.S. citizen at birth if and when Ted Cruz claimed that right to U.S. Citizenship after birth in accordance with the U.S. naturalization law which the Constitution included as the power to institute a uniform system of naturalization. Given the fact that the Constitution did not grant the U.S. Federal government the power to confer U.S. citizenship upon natural born U.S. citizens, because you cannot naturalize someone who is already a natural born citizen. If Ted Cruz had been born in similar circumstances before 1934, he would not have become a U.S. citizen without naturalizing as an alien citizen. If Ted Cruz was actually a natural born citizen today, he would also have been a natural born citizen before 1934 as well.
“But there is not a third category.....is there?”
Yes, the acquisition of citizenship by a person born abroad with two U.S. citizen parents has always been treated as one of the two types of naturalization, although there has been a recent trend in the last 60 years or more to blur the actual functional distinction in the verbiage.
“For your argument to have merit, there must be.”
When you attempt to categorize like that and follow the traditions back into the history of England, you run into the problem of the citizenship doctrines changing. When William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy and King of England brought with him the feudal legal order, nationality (encompassing subjects and citizens) was determined by the doctrine of jus soli. Before too long this was found to be too inconvenient with so many prominent Englishmen fighting and living in France with their families and children being born in France. The children were unable to inherit their English estates in too many instances due o their being ruled as aliens to the Kingdom of England, despite their English fathers. Consequently, the naturalization Act of 1541 was enacted to use the legal doctrine of jus sanguinis in a limited application to resolve the inheritance dilemma. Due to the formalities of letters patent from the crown, naturalization by Parliament for aliens, and a new third method for the children of Englishmen born abroad. These categories were maintained more or less down through the centuries in one form or another. a key difference between the American form and the British form was due to the British crown claiming the allegiance of all children born under the Crown’s allegiance, whether or not their parents were aliens. The American experience varied considerably from that until the 14th Amendment and related Supreme court decisions arguably misinterpreted and misapplied legal precedent a argued by the minority opinions of the court decisions described.
“I suspect we will see this argument made and set aside for many more generations, should we actually survive the present one.”
Imagine what Trump and his brash approach could do with the 14th Amendment if it were possible to get a cooperative Republican supermajority willing and capable of impeaching some SCOTUS justices.
“I have been alive long enough to see it made many times and usually if not entirely by the left wingers against conservatives. Last made against Romney, if I recall.”
I got drawn into studying the natural born eligibility issue when I was required to research and write a paper about it for Goldwater’s election campaign cycle. We’ve had Chester Arthur, Hughes, Goldwater (who was eligible), Romney Sr., Obama, Romney Jr., Santorum, Jindal, Rubio, Cruz, and others who I don’t recall at the moment.
“I find that Trumps use of this argument is telling, and it does not bode well for a Trump presidency that is expected by his supporters to save this country from the left.”
The DNC has been lining up to pounce on Rubio, Cruz, Jindal, or Santorum if any one of them won the Republican primary. I know this from the comments from a number of Democrat Precinct chairmen and elected Democrats I’ve argued around with in person. Trump’s confrontation of the obvious eligibility problem was necessarily inevitable, so his timing before the primary election is more beneficial to the conservative cause than letting the DNC benefit from neglecting the issue until after the primary.
““Very troublingâ€, as trump has said...so I take his own words and throw them back in his face...”
That’s too bad, because anyone no matter how supposedly noble they are who has an eligibility issue is a potential or probable cause of defeat for the GOP and the conservative cause.
Exactly.
And Ted Cruz, being a noble, Constitutional scholar, with a lifelong love for this country, and deep devotion to conservative principles WOULD NOT BE RUNNING FOR POTUS IF ELIGIBILITY WERE AN ISSUE.
Will the democRATS try to make an issue out of it -of course. They will attack- It's what they do.
Is it an issue.
Nope.
Ted Cruz's mother was born and raised in the U.S.A . She is a U.S. citizen.
She was a U.S. citizen when she married Ted's father.
She was a U.S. citizen when they moved to Canada to work.
She was a U.S. citizen when Ted Cruz was born.
This made Ted Cruz a Natural Born U S. citizen eligible to be POTUS.
His mother is a U.S. citizen today.
Trump trying to cause doubt by distorting the issue is to be expected I suppose.
We aren't voting for the winner of "American Idol". We are voting for who should be president of the United States.
I don't make my choice for POTUS based on fear of democrat attacks.
They will attack whoever the nominee is, with everything they've got.
I think Cruz is absolutely the best candidate to help turn this nation around. I pray daily that he will be our next president, and that the Lord will remove all obstacles from him, in accordance with His will.
Whiskey, I said in my original reply to another poster that began this exchange that “I am probably waiting my time ....but”.
So it appears.
To begin with you are making a argument with me that I concur with at it’s root and that is the plain fact that when the Constitution was written, there was already a problem with interpretation of the term “natural born”. It shows up occasionally as we both know, and that is the reason it has gone to court a few times, adding to the confusion so that a statute was eventually written to clarify.
You make a good original intent argument but that argument has been made before, as I indicated. Should SCOTUS take this up again, (thus far they refuse to) I can only assume this same argument will be made once again to make the original intent case against the counter argument proving over 200 years of implementation and precedent.
The odds say, that the Vatel argument will lose once again and precedent will carry the day, because like a instant replay in football, if there is insufficient reason to change a call, the call made on the field will stand.
IMO, the only sufficient reason to change this call would be the original fear of foreign influences on the US government.
Until then, you will take your road and I will take mine.