A Simple-Minded Reading of the Constitution on the Subject of Citizenship

I shall show that the Constitution contemplates two types of Citizen: those that acquire their citizenship at birth and those who acquire their Citizenship at a later time. The first are referred to in the Constitution as 'natural born' and the second is a class of citizen not specifically named but implied and are those we consider 'naturalized citizens.'

The word 'citizen' including derivative forms appears only eleven times in the Constitution. We shall look at each instance and derive what is possible from each usage and instance. By the end, I hope to have exhaustively shown that within the 'four corners' of the Constitution, two and only two types or classes of citizen are identified or implied: citizens by birth and citizens by naturalization. There is no third subset of citizen to be differentiated from among the two classes of citizen identified or implied in the Constitution.

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, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.

This clause establishes three requirements for eligibility to membership in the Untied States House of Representative. They are:

Notice, please, that the citizenship requirement requires fewer years than does the age requirement. This fact requires acceptance of the notion that an individual can become a citizen at some time long after being born, and implies things about citizenship: first that individuals can be citizens, and second that there can be a time in the life of the individual before the individual became a citizen.

This is important: there is nothing in this clause that says or implies anything about citizenship by birth.

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, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.

This clause establishes three requirements for eligibility to membership in the Untied States Senate. They are:

Notice, please, that the citizenship requirement again requires fewer years than does the age requirement. This fact requires acceptance of the notion that an individual can become a citizen at some time long after being born, and implies things about citizenship: first that individuals can be citizens, and second that there can be a time in the life of the individual before the individual became a citizen.

This is important: there is nothing in this clause that says or implies anything about citizenship by birth.

No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

This clause establishes three requirements for eligibility for service as President of the Untied States. They are:

2. A natural born citizen of the United States or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution

Notice here that a different citizenship requirement is established: in fact, two alternative requirements. We need not concern ourselves with the second, which concerns the Framer's generation and has no application to anyone alive today.

As to the first we see that the citizenship requirement has no specific requirement for its duration. Instead, it refers to a citizenship deriving from the circumstances of birth.

This is a distinctly different citizenship requirement than those for the House of Representatives or Senate. The citizenship requirements for the House of Representatives and Senate could encompass the same class of citizen contemplated by the requirement for Presidential eligibility. We do know that historically individuals have served both in the Senate and as President so the requirements cannot be mutually exclusive.

Logically, we can conclude that the citizenship requirement for eligibility to the Presidency would also be sufficient to establish eligibility for the House of Representatives and Senate.

Thus far there are two classes of citizen established or implied by the language of the Constitution: (1) a class of citizen (natural born) which is derived by the circumstances of birth and which suffices to establish the citizenship component for eligibility for membership in the House of Representatives and Senate, and for service as President, and (2) another class of citizenship which does not depend on the circumstances of birth and can be acquired many years after the birth of an individual and which suffices to establish the citizenship component for eligibility for membership in the House of Representatives and Senate, but not for service as President.

For clarity, going forward I will refer to these two classes of citizen as follows:

This is important: Thus far there is no third class of citizenship discussed, implied or established within the four corners of the Constitution.

The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;—to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;—to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;—to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;—to Controversies between two or more States,— between a State and Citizens of another State,—between Citizens of different States,—between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.

This clause does not establish a further class of citizen. As for the first four instances mentioned in this clause, these by implication refer to the classes of citizen mentioned in Article 1, Section 2, Clause 2 and in Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3; that is, those mentioned above as natural born or naturalized. As for the fifth instance, this refers to a citizens of a foreign State and therefore not relevant to this discussion.

This is important: Nothing in this clause references or establishes a third class of citizenship.

The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.

This clause, too, does not establish a further class of citizen, and the two instances mentioned in this clause, by implication refer to the classes of citizen mentioned in Article 1, Section 2, Clause 2 and in Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3; that is those mentioned above as natural born or naturalized.

Thus we have exhausted every mention of the word citizen and all its derivative forms, plural, etc. that are found in the Constitution of the United States.

It is demonstrated that there are only two classes of citizen established within the Articles, Sections and Clauses of the Constitution.

All citizens must belong to one of these classes. If a citizen is not naturalized only one other possibility has been identified: natural born. All citizens are either naturalized or natural born; there is not other possibility.

Obviously, this analysis will categorize any citizen acquiring citizenship by birth as natural born. Some argue that only SOME citizens acquiring citizenship by birth are to be classed as natural born. They claim that other citizens acquiring citizenship by the circumstances of their birth are a subset of naturalized citizen.

But, all such arguments must be based on suppositions, presumptions and hypotheses that are extraneous to the Constitution itself, for as I have exhaustively shown, the Constitution itself creates no such category of citizen.

I also submit that unless the Constitution is inherently impossible of interpretation or understanding based on its own terms, such extraneous references must not be permitted, or may sometimes be permitted with little weight as set against the Constitutionâ€™s own clear provisions.

I submit that all the fevered and tortured bending and twisting, and all the references to this and that while perhaps entertaining are essentially nothing more than a diversion.

The Constitution itself is clear. It establishes two classes of citizen; those that have become citizens through the process of naturalization, and those who are citizens by birth, that is the natural born citizens.

Note, the above is from a statutory law that naturalizes a child born abroad with a U.S. citizen parent

Note HELL! THat is an unfounded assertion.

You are claiming the statutory law "naturalizes" at birth.

That is where you are incorrect. It is not by force of law that citizens said to be, under the law, citizens at birth are "naturalized" due to the laws, but instead are citizens at birth acquiring that citizenship from their citizen parent as stipulated under codification of law.

Acquiring citizenship from a parent is in no wise "naturalization".

It may have been spoken of that way within long ago, non-binding Supreme Court dicta, but is not the way it is more clearly, succinctly, and to the point stated under the changes of the wordings of the laws that have taken place since the past era's court cases frequently cited (cited in attempt to assert what you have, is the order of function in how a person can acquire citizenship).

You said to me that I cannot; see the tree for all of the forest of misinformation standing in your way.

No, that would apply here to those who keep running down the "naturalized by statute" path-ways of thought.

The paragraph heading changes don't come into play here either.

You simply cannot assert that citizens such as are covered under that statute were "naturalized" at birth because of the past wording of the paragraph heading -- which explicitly stated no such thing.

Did you see the portion of the statute that follows. That is the portion that would have been appropriate to quote. I think the portion posted is misleading and leads to a conclusion opposite of the intention of the State Department
and I question whether that ommission was purposeful.

7 FAM 1131.6-2 Eligibility for Presidency

(TL:CON-68; 04-01-1998)

a. It has never been determined definitively by a court whether a person who acquired U.S. citizenship by birth abroad to U.S. citizens is a natural-born citizen within the meaning of Article II of the Constitution and, therefore, eligible for the Presidency.

b. Section 1, Article II, of the Constitution states, in relevant part that “No Person except a natural born Citizen...shall be eligible for the Office of President.”

c. The Constitution does not define “natural born”. The “Act to establish an Uniform Rule of Naturalization”, enacted March 26, 1790, (1 Stat. 103,104) provided that, “...the children of citizens of the United States, that may be born ... out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens: Provided that the right of citizenship shall not descend to persons whose fathers have never been resident in the United States.”

d. This statute is no longer operative, however, and its formula is not included in modern nationality statutes. In any event, the fact that someone is a natural born citizen pursuant to a statute does not necessarily imply that he or she is such a citizen for Constitutional purposes.

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