Posted on 10/20/2018 1:57:10 PM PDT by Jack Black
PDF We have both had the privilege of heading the Office of the Solicitor General during different administrations. We may have different ideas about the ideal candidate in the next presidential election, but we agree on one important principle: voters should be able to choose from all constitutionally eligible candidates, free from spurious arguments that a U.S. citizen at birth is somehow not constitutionally eligible to serve as President simply because he was delivered at a hospital abroad.
The Constitution directly addresses the minimum qualifications necessary to serve as President. In addition to requiring thirty-five years of age and fourteen years of residency, the Constitution limits the presidency to “a natural born Citizen.” 1. U.S. Const. art. II, § 1, cl. 5. All the sources routinely used to interpret the Constitution confirm that the phrase “natural born Citizen” has a specific meaning: namely, someone who was a U.S. citizen at birth with no need to go through a naturalization proceeding at some later time. And Congress has made equally clear from the time of the framing of the Constitution to the current day that, subject to certain residency requirements on the parents, someone born to a U.S. citizen parent generally becomes a U.S. citizen without regard to whether the birth takes place in Canada, the Canal Zone, or the continental United States.
(Excerpt) Read more at harvardlawreview.org ...
Well, that ain’t it.
And that ain’t it either...
The emphasis in your post on the word allegiance, is key. That view should be the most compelling and is supported by the historical record.
The term NBC, of course, did not arise as such at the Convention until after John Jay's July 27, 1787 letter to George Washington. The letter was sent after it had been determined the president would also serve as the commander-in-chief of the nation's armed forces.
Jay: Permit me to hint, whether it would not be wise & seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government; and to declare expresly that the Command in chief of the american army shall not be given to, nor devolve on, any but a natural born Citizen.
Congress, statutes and amendments can do whatever is decided with different classes of citizenship, of course. But it is clear the term NBC was to be at the very core of whatever Congress decided with regard to selecting a president; and it was to be used to exclude, insofar as it could, any element of foreign influences that might bear on the CinC's role.
The 14th, of course, does not address NBC and until an amendment does so, it was provided our president should be born of American parents.
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.What is meant by 'subject to the jurisdiction thereof' mean? That's the question that must be answered.
Consider this: according to the interpretation at the time Indians were not citizens at birth, despite being born on American soil (including many Indians born off reservations, didn't do anything to make them citizens).
Here are some excerpts from the Wikipedia article Native American civil rights
If merely travelling to the USA does indeed make you "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" and suddenly able to grant citizenship you do not have automatically to any baby you pop out - then why would an American Indian in 1880, who had their child in an American hospital, still not be an American citizen.
Article;1, Section;2 of the Constitution states that Natives are not under any control of the United States, and therefore cannot be taxed. (Daniel, Susan M. Olson, and Jennifer L. Robinson. Native Vote).[37] The Constitution also stated that Congress has the power to "regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among several states, and with Indian tribes" as stated in Article;I, Section;8. This means that the leaders of the United States at that time viewed Natives as somewhere in between foreign nations and American citizens....
When the Fourteenth Amendment and the first civil rights act were passed in 1866 regarding the role of African-Americans in the United States, citizenship of Natives was defined as well. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 states, "That all persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States".[43]
Is a French or Chinese citizen vacationing in the USA still "subject to a foreign power"? Yes, of course they are. The state could order them to report for draft induction, order them to be arrested, order them to stand trial etc.
Even Green Card holders are still subject to their country of origin. Those countries may still tax them, typically control their travel documents and passport.
That's the best case. The worst case is an illegal. Given that they have violated American law to be here, and are esssentaly hiding out, it's absurd to claim that they are legitimately citizens. That is clearly not what the authors of the 14th Amendment intended.
Good. The courts should stay out of it. Let the Secs of state remove them from the ballot. Oh wait, then the courts will step in an say they can’t do their jobs.
It seems we’re ruled by judicial tyranny where the courts are the final arbiters of what is constitutional. The fact that you seem to agree with that makes you a moron.
Right, but given there are over 100 comments on this thread I'm sure that some will disagree.
She was born in SC, cool, was her parents US citizens at that time?
The framers could have very easily listed one of the requirements of being President as simply being a “citizen.” They chose to use a more refined, and thus narrow, definition by adding the words “natural born” to the requirements. There has to be some reason for that, as it is a principle of our system of laws that the constitution does not needlessly utilize words. Every single word has meaning.
When it is not possible to determine the meaning of words based upon their common usage at the time that they are being interpreted (i.e. now), then it is not only appropriate but necessary to go back in time to when the particular words in question were adopted as part of the Constitution, and determine their meaning based upon the generally accepted meaning at that time. In this case, we are obviously speaking of the body of the Constitution, meaning that the 1787 definition of the phrase “natural born citizen” must be utilized. While I am fairly sure that there are no dictionaries from that time which survive (the earliest one commonly cited was first produced in 1828), the history of the era and what the people drafting Article 2 of the Constitution had gone through, are instructive. They had recently concluded a rebellion against England, a rebellion which divided this country as few things since then have. Many people were loyal to the crown, and ended up informing upon, and even fighting for, the British. It is quite obvious that the framers of the Constitution would have been quite concerned about a future President having divided loyalties. As a result, they put in the phrase “natural born citizen” as a requirement for holding the office of President in order to avoid this potentially catastrophic problem. Without having any documentary evidence in front of me, it seems quite logical that the framers of the Constitution would have viewed any person who could only have been considered a citizen of the United States from the moment of their birth to be eligible to be President. The corollary of that is that any person, even if born here, who could have had some kind of loyalty to a foreign state or potentate, could not be President. Someone with one or both parents having been born in another country, and not yet having sworn loyalty to this country at the time of their birth, would apparently not be a natural-born citizen. They would necessarily be brought up in a household in which loyalties were divided. This seems, on a logical level, to be what was meant and intended by the phrase “natural born citizen.”
The fact that this interpretation would make several potential candidates for President ineligible to hold the office of President is, in my opinion, just too damned bad. Of course, each and every one of them will point to the fact that Obama was President for 8 years, and had a father who was never a United States citizen, and who ironically had loyalty to the British crown, because in 1961 when he was born, Kenya was still a colony of Britain. The disloyalty and hunger for power of the Democrats, and the two-faced ambitions of several Republicans who could have objected but did not, is likely to make any true definition and enforcement of the natural born citizen clause impossible.
I believe in the Constitution and the Rule of Law. The Courts do not have the final say. The people have the final say, through their elected Representatives who can enact legislation, or the people can amend the Constitution.
I searched the Constitution for "Electric Graffiti", no luck, so your opinion doesn't count. Mine too.
Beating the dead and buried horse
is Niki Haley natural born. Her parents were Indian but I don’t know if and when they became citizens.
What exactly are you looking for?
Thanx saw the answer/
when Imam Obama ran the first time the stories were flying. I sent a letter to the secretary of state in California to review Obama’s original birth certificate. She being a democrat ignored my letter.
In the past the SOS of Cal had asked Eldridge Cleaver to submit and took him off the ballot because he was not old enough to qualify.
Secondly in the case of Obama the USSC refused to man up and hear any of the several cases.
Now we have Haley and harris both born of foreign parents. So neither party will step up because it would hurt on of their own.
In many ways the constitution has become irrelevant.
The Fourteenth Amendment (Amendment XIV) to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. The amendment addresses citizenship rights and equal protection of the laws and was proposed in response to issues related to former slaves following the American Civil War.
IMHO: this means after the Civil War, the 14th amendment was placed so the slaves and their off springs could become American Citizens...
My understanding of ‘natural born citizen’ means that you are born in America to parents who were born in America...
If you come to this Country and have children, they are natural citizens but the parents are not...
Just because Ophony was supposedly born in Hawaii (which he wasn't) and we all know that; doesn't mean that there is precedent because he lied and lies to this day that is why his information is under lock and key...
What is a total source of irritation to me is that our ‘government’ was established as ‘we the people’ are government. Natural born citizenship can only come from both US citizen parents birthing their child on US soil. This is NOT hard to understand ... but players on both sides sure like to make it look difficult to understand. Congress nor courts have any say about who is, or who can be a ‘natural born’ US citizen.
US citizen parents are in charge of creating a ‘natural born’ US citizen... born on US soil. IF a birth certificate does not come from one of the 50 states that child is NOT a ‘natural born’ US citizen.... I know because I was born in Germany... and back before ‘common core’ teaching of the US Constitution this was taught!!!
No.
See my table in post 91 on this thread.
Jindal?
My understanding of ‘natural born citizen’ means that you are born in America to parents who were born in America...as I stated in my post...
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