Since everyone who was a citizen at the time of adoption is dead we can remove the grandfather clause wording. We are left with “No Person except a natural born Citizen [...] shall be eligible to the Office of President;”
Why does the Constitution speak of “citizens” and separately of “natural born citizens”? Why is the word “natural” inserted? It is a matter of allegiance.
A person can be a “citizen” if they were citizens or subjects in some other country first but have come here and met the naturalization requirements. Also, if one is the offspring of a citizen and a non-citizen, then one is a US citizen. However, in both these cases it can be argued that the person might choose allegiance to their former country or to the country of the foreign-born parent or at least the allegiance might be considered divided. That is, there is no natural allegiance of the offspring to one or the other parent’s country. It is this divided or alienated allegiance that the Constitutional provision is designed to prohibit.
If, however, both of one’s parents are themselves US citizens, then one is a “citizen” as well as a “natural born citizen”. The “natural born citizen” is one who at birth has no natural allegiance to any other country and the Framers felt could be trusted to be loyal to the US and not act as a foreign agent. [footnote: Also, in their time, the rules of royal succession held sway throught much of the world and the Founders wished to forstall any potential claims by the crowned heads of Europe or their scions to sovereignty in the US.]
Note that native born is not the same as natural born. Native born simply refers to the place of one’s birth, i.e., one’s nativity. The term does not speak to the legal circumstances of a birth, merely to its location.
Excellent analysis. Technically Obama was disqualified as well since his father was a British citizen at his birth.
Well written. What I am picking up is you can be an American citizen by statute, automatically deemed so by an Act of Congress. By this view, Cruz born in Canada is a U.S. citizen by statute, Nikki Haley, born here of immigrant Indian parents, is a citizen by statute, anchor babies born here of usually illegal aliens, are citizens by statute, and various others incidences. But natural born is born here, two American parents, and in my opinion is what the founding fathers and the Constitution means.
Because "citizens" includes both "naturalized" and "natural born" citizens.
Why is the word "natural" inserted? It is a matter of allegiance.
And allegiance to the Framers was understood as a matter of the circumstances of birth. They never expressed any doubt as to the allegiance of someone born within the U.S. That's why jus soli was the rule of citizenship -- one was deemed to owe allegiance to the sovereign of the realm within which one was born. That was the essence of "natural law."
Note that native born is not the same as natural born.
As to those who are domestic-born, they are the same.
"Under our Constitution, a naturalized citizen stands on an equal footing with the native citizen in all respects save that of eligibility to the Presidency." Luria v. United States, 231 U.S. 9 (1913)
Thus, per the U.S. Supreme Court, the only persons excluded from the Presidency are "naturalized" persons. Native-born persons are citizens by birth under the common law and the 14th Amendment and need no naturalization. Ergo, they are "natural born citizens."