Posted on 01/25/2016 10:08:59 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Donald Trump stepped up his attack on Ted Cruz on Monday, tweeting that the Texas senator needs to "either settle his problem" of having been born in Canada or leave the race.
"It's time for Ted Cruz to either settle his problem with the FACT that he was born in Canada and was a citizen of Canada, or get out of race," Trump tweeted Monday morning, on the heels of Fox News polls released over the weekend that showed him with double-digit leads over Cruz in both Iowa and New Hampshire.
Trump has insisted over the course of the last month that Cruz needs to tackle the issue of his eligibility because he was born in Calgary, Canada, despite Cruz's assertions that he is eligible based on the fact that his mother was born in the United States. Cruz renounced his dual Canadian citizenship in 2014, a fact that Trump has frequently pointed out as cause for concern.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
There are plenty of grounds and many of the legal scholars are in agreement that its a big issue for the reasons I have outlined above. The only reason to say there’s no issue is if you have a dog in the fight.
I do have a dog in the fight and its America. The Constitution was laid out very carefully by the people who birthed this Nation, a unique and precious Nation. The Founders discussed at length in documented correspondence why they had a different standard of citizenship for the Presidency/Vice Presidency to protect our Nation from from a leader who had divided loyalties and foreign influences.
There would be no need for the words Natural Born Citizen if the phrase did not have a discrete meaning. It does and its as I outlined earlier born to citizen parents on American soil. I’m sorry Cruz supporters don’t like it but there it is.
One of the eminent legal scholars who incidentally was Cruz’s mentor at Harvard, Laurence H. Tribe, has recently made a statement “Under Ted Cruz’s own logic, he’s ineligible for the White House.” In the article, Tribe calls into question Cruz’s consistency in interpreting the Constitution. Tribe has a more nuanced view himself because he is one of the living Constitution folks who believes we rewrite the Constitution freely to serve our own cause.
Trump’s got a Twitter pulpit.
They were not born in the United States since there was NO GD UNITED STATES AT THAT TIME!!!.
Trump’s tactics are turning off voters, like myself, who were ready and willing to vote for him should Cruz lose the nomination to him. Many, many more conservatives are tuning out and turned off to him now than previously. Looks like you Trump fans may be the ones whining when the dust settles.
I can’t imagine anyone being surprised at his tactics, however. He isn’t, after all, anywhere near being a rightie OR a conservative.
Great historical reference! Nice pull.
Synar had standing under the congressional standing doctrine. That case (acutally multiple cases) was regarding the exercise of Executive Branch power by Congress.
Grayson can’t demonstrate a unique injury with respect to Cruz’s eligibility. While I’d love to see the question resolved. Grayson’s initiation of a suit won’t do it.
His position is the courts have no standing in this, only Congress.
(Cong. Globe, 39th, 1st Sess., 1291 (1866))
John Armor Bingham (January 21, 1815-March 19, 1900) was an American Republican congressman from the U.S. state of Ohio, judge advocate in the trial of the Abraham Lincoln assassination and a prosecutor in the impeachment trials of Andrew Johnson. He is also the principal framer of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
The first section of the second article of the Constitution uses the language, a natural-born citizen. It thus assumes that citizenship may be acquired by birth. Undoubtedly, this language of the Constitution was used in reference to that principle of public law, well understood in this country at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, which referred citizenship to the place of birth.
Justice Curtis in his dissenting opinion of the Dred Scott decision and speaking specifically of natural born citizens and article II, section I, clause 5
It is an established maxim that birth is a criterion of allegiance. Birth however derives its force sometimes from place and sometimes from parentage, but in general place is the most certain criterion; it is what applies in the United States; it will therefore be unnecessary to investigate any other.
James Madison
The doctrine of the common law is that every man born within its jurisdiction is a subject of the sovereign of the country where he is born, and allegiance is not personal to the sovereign in the extent that has been contended for; it is due to him in his political capacity of sovereign of the territory where the person owing the allegiance as born.
Kilham v. Ward 2 Mass. 236, 26 (1806)
As the President is required to be a native citizen of the United States. Natives are all persons born within the jurisdiction and allegiance of the United States.
James Kent, COMMENTARIES ON AMERICAN LAW (1826)
That provision in the constitution which requires that the president shall be a native-born citizen (unless he were a citizen of the United States when the constitution was adopted) is a happy means of security against foreign influence, A very respectable political writer makes the following pertinent remarks upon this subject. Prior to the adoption of the constitution, the people inhabiting the different states might be divided into two classes: natural born citizens, or those born within the state, and aliens, or such as were born out of it.
St. George Tucker, BLACKSTONE'S COMMENTARIES (1803)
Allegiance is nothing more than the tie or duty of obedience of a subject to the sovereign under whose protection he is, and allegiance by birth is that which arises from being born within the dominions and under the protection of a particular sovereign. Two things usually concur to create citizenship: first, birth locally within the dominions of the sovereign, and secondly, birth within the protection and obedience, or, in other words, within the allegiance of the sovereign.That the father and mother of the demandant were British born subjects is admitted. If he was born before 4 July, 1776, it is as clear that he was born a British subject. If he was born after 4 July, 1776, and before 15 September, 1776 [the date the British occupied New York], he was born an American citizen, whether his parents were at the time of his birth British subjects or American citizens. Nothing is better settled at the common law than the doctrine that the children even of aliens born in a country while the parents are resident there under the protection of the government and owing a temporary allegiance thereto are subjects by birth.
Justice Story, concurring opinion,Inglis v. Sailorsâ Snug Harbor, 3 Pet. 99, 155,164. (1830)
The country where one is born, how accidental soever his birth in that place may have been, and although his parents belong to another country, is that to which he owes allegiance. Hence the expression natural born subject or citizen, & all the relations thereout growing. To this there are but few exceptions, and they are mostly introduced by statutes and treaty regulations, such as the children of seamen and ambassadors born abroad, and the like.
Leake v. Gilchrist, 13 N.C. 73 (N.C. 1829)
Therefore every person born within the United States, its territories or districts, whether the parents are citizens or aliens, is a natural born citizen in the sense of the Constitution, and entitled to all the rights and privileges appertaining to that capacity.
William Rawle, A View of the Constitution of the United States, pg. 86 (1829)
The right of citizenship never descends in the legal sense, either by the common law or under the common naturalization acts. It is incident to birth in the country, or it is given personally by statute. The child of an alien, if born in the country, is as much a citizen as the natural born child of a citizen, and by operation of the same principle
Horace Binney, American Law Register, 2 Amer.Law Reg.193, 203, 204, 206, 208 (February 1854).
That all natural born citizens, or persons born within the limits of the United States, and all aliens subject to the restrictions hereinafter mentioned, may inherit real estate and make their pedigree by descent from any ancestor lineal or collateral.
January 28, 1838, Acts of the State of Tennessee passed at the General Assembly, pg. 266 (1838)
The term citizen, was used in the constitution as a word, the meaning of which was already established and well understood. And the constitution itself contains a direct recognition of the subsisting common law principle, in the section which defines the qualification of the President. The only standard which then existed, of a natural born citizen, was the rule of the common law, and no different standard has been adopted since. Suppose a person should be elected President who was native born, but of alien parents, could there be any reasonable doubt that he was eligible under the constitution? I think not.
Lynch vs. Clarke (NY 1844)
Every person, then, born in the country, and that shall have attained the age of thirty-five years, and been fourteen years a resident within the United States, is eligible to the office of president.
Lysander Spooner, The Unconstitionality of Slavery, pg. 119 (1845)
It is the very essence of the condition of a natural born citizen, of one who is a member of the state by birth within and under it, that his rights are not derived from the mere will of the state.
The New Englander, Vol. III, pg. 434 (1845)
This is called becoming naturalized; that is, becoming entitled to all the rights and privileges of natural born citizens, or citizens born in this country.
Andrew White Young, First lessons in Civil Government, pg. 82 (1856).
The Constitution itself does not make the citizens, (it is. in fact,made by them.) It only intends and recognizes such of them as are naturalâ€â€home-bornâ€â€and provides for the naturalization of such of them as were alienâ€â€foreign-bornâ€â€making the latter, as far as nature will allow, like the former.
Attorney General Bates, Opinion of Citizenship, (1862)
All persons born in the allegiance of the king are natural-born subjects, and all persons born in the allegiance of the United States are natural-born citizens. Birth and allegiance go together. Such is the rule of the common law, and it is the common law of this country, as well as of England.
Justice Swayne, United States v. Rhodes, 1 Abbott, US 28 (Cir. Ct. Ky 1866)
Natural-born Citizens, those that are born within the jurisdiction of a national government; i.e., in its territorial limits, or those born of citizens, temporarily residing abroad.
William Cox Cochran, The student's law lexicon: a dictionary of legal words and phrases : with appendices, Pg. 185 (1888)
Citizens are either natural-born or naturalized. One who is born in the United States or under its jurisdiction is a natural-born citizen without reference to the nationality of his parents. Their presence here constitutes a temporary allegiance, sufficient to make a child a citizen.
Theodore Dwight, Edward Dwight, Commentaries on the law of persons and personal property, pg. 125 (1894)
The notion that there is any common law principle to naturalize the children born in foreign countries, of native-born American father and mother, father or mother, must be discarded. There is not, and never was, any such common law principle.
Binney on Alienigenae, 14, 20; 2 Amer.Law Reg.199, 203
“Vowed”. Okay. So what?
Cruz can’t sue himself. McCain didn’t either.
EXCELLENT POST! Give me some time digest. Finally some sanity on the issue rather than invective. Thank you!
Under what pretense would a court entertain such a request ?
“The burden of proof is always on the accuser.”
Not in all situations. That occurs only in a trial.
The burden of proof was on me when:
I had to show my birth certificate when I got my driver’s license to prove I was eligible.
I had to show my birth certificate when I applied for college to prove who I was; I’ve had to show my birth certificate on a few job interviews to show that I was eligible for the job; other examples. You get my drift.
Evidently, it is crude and narrow-minded and extremist to actually require a presidential candidate to prove he is eligible according to Constitutional requirements.
>> Cruz of all people knows there is a cloud over his head
Not true. He does, of course, know that his sworn enemies tell him there is a cloud over his head. That’s a different thing. Your sworn enemies tell you a LOT of crap that you have to ignore, and press on. Go TED!
>> It’s utterly impossible for me to vote for Cruz
I’m sorry to hear that. I hope your vote for Hillary won’t be what pushes us over the edge into the darkness.
Yes.
If I cast my vote for Ted Cruz, which I will do if he is the nominee, there is at least a chance that my vote will be lost as the result of a court case.
That bothers me.
Nonetheless, I will vote for him, and I am personally not concerned with the location of his birth.
All normal legal burdens are inverted for the high and mighty.
You do know that an amendment to the Constitution may change previous parts of the constitution right?
See Proabiton
RE: How can he settle it? You can’t ask Fed Courts for advisory opinions.
File a lawsuit in court. Do it ASAP.
Does Trump want to sue him now? Its been a couple days so I’m not sure what Trump’s latest position on Cruz’s eligibility is since he changes it so often.
Federal Courts do not issue declaratory judgments. I would think Trump would have been so advised by now.
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