I read your quote. What Congress may or may not (the act was repealed five years later and replaced with another one that correctly deleted all references to natural born citizens) have said about the topic doesn’t mean very much, especially when there are encyclopedias of contemporaneous writings that far more clearly define what was meant by the term at the time. The point however is that it’s all speculation until the SCOTUS rules on it.
‘The point however is that it’s all speculation until the SCOTUS rules on it.’
Actually, the political turmoil is also serious. People don’t respect the courts anymore.
Quarter of Republicans think Cruz’s birthplace disqualifies him for president: poll
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3383942/posts
The ‘G’ OP has found a way to sabotage us. Cruz gets sympathy now, and after the primary, they have a contingency plan to pull the rug out from under him. In the meantime, Trump and Cruz supporters slug it out viciously. While Majority Leader Mc-Conman laughs.
25% is a big chunk of the voter pool, but not enough to lose him the primary.
Cruz gets sympathy-support. Only 1/4 of republicans think he’s not qualified. If this becomes the single-issue of the primary, Cruz might well win the primary after both anti-establishment camps rip each other apart.
That is chump-change compared to Phase Two.
After the primary, that would be a BIPARTIZAN majority. If people thought we Obama-Birthers were kooks, wait until the New Black Panthers and radical-left college students become Cruz-birthers!
I don’t think this is at all fair to Cruz, but until he challenges Professor Laurence Tribe to a debate, Trump and Cruz supporters are locked in a cage fight of the ‘G’ OP’s making.
McConnell: No, Senate won’t pass resolution affirming Cruz’s eligibility like it did for McCain
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3382813/posts
Why can Mc-Conman do this? Because he has a revered creep — Professor Laurence Tribe, undermining Cruz [regarding natural born status].
Tribe is a creep, Mc-Conman is a creep, and they flock together. The ‘G’ OP would rather lose than let Cruz OR Trump win. And those hypocrites will sabotage either of them at the first opportunity.
So, unless Cruz can turn this around, it’s ‘checkmate’. If he wins the nomination, he could lose the race over this one issue alone due to a hypocritical double-standard [in natural born status]. I’ll get into that double standard in the next post. It’s not good for Cruz, but please don’t kill the messenger.
http://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2068&context=mlr
[Maryland law review]
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
My study of this 180 year enigma leads me to the following conclusions.
1. The reference to “natural-born” in the presidential qualifica- tion clause must be considered in the light of the English usage, well
known to the Framers of the Constitution. The English common law,
particularly as it had been declared or modified by statute, accorded
full status as natural-born subjects to persons born abroad to British
subjects.
2. Although the evidence of intent is slender, it seems likely that
the natural-born qualification was intended only to exclude those who
were not born American citizens, but acquired citizenship by naturalization.
The Framers were well aware of the need to assure full citizenship
rights to the children born to American citizens in foreign countries.
Their English forebears had made certain that the rights of
such children were protected, and it is hardly likely that the Framers
intended to deal less generously with their own children. The evidence,
although not overwhelming, unquestionably points in the direction
of such generosity.
3. This gloss of prior history and usage is not dulled, I believe,
by the Naturalization Act of 1790 or by the fourteenth amendment.
The 1790 act, enacted soon after the Constitutional Convention, recog- nized such persons as natural-born citizens. The fourteenth amendment,
adopted primarily to confirm the full citizenship denied to Negroes
by the Dred Scott decision, did not refer to “natural-born” citizens, did
not purport to limit or define the presidential qualification clause ofthe Constitution, and did not, in my estimation, bar a construction of
that clause to include children born abroad to American parents.
4. Nor is such a construction foreclosed by questionable dicta in
United States v. Wong Kim Ark and other Supreme Court decisions.
These dicta are not addressed to the presidential qualification clause
and cannot control its construction.
Having endorsed these conclusions, I must concede that the picture
is clouded by elements of doubt. These doubts will unquestionably persist
until they are eliminated by a constitutional amendment, a definitive
judicial decision, or the election and accession of a President who
was “natural-born” outside the United States.241