Natural Born Citizen Defined
There has been much debate as to whether the term “Natural Born
Citizen” has ever been legally defined or will some court have to
finally define it, such as the Supreme Court of the United States. The
term “Natural Born Citizen” is a requirement for only two positions
within our government, President and Vice-President. What did the
Founding Father’s and Framers of the United States Constitution mean to
do or accomplish by placing this requirement for the highest office?
First off, let us look at what the Framer’s used as a guide.
The Founding Fathers of the United States, used Vattel’s Laws of Nations as their guide and reference to meanings and definitions within our Constitution.
The myth that the founding of American Republic was based on the philosophy of John Locke could only have been maintained, because the history of Leibniz’s influence was suppressed. The American Revolution was, in fact, a battle against the philosophy of Locke and the English utilitarians. Key to this struggle, was the work of the Eighteenth-century jurist, Emmerich de Vattel, whose widely read text, The Law of Nations, guided the framing of the United States as the world’s first constitutional republic. Vattel had challenged the most basic axioms of the Venetian party, which had taken over England before the time of the American Revolution, and it was from Vattel’s The Law of Nations, more than anywhere else, that America’s founders learned the Leibnizian natural law, which became the basis for the American System.
Benjamin Franklin’s (a signer of our Constitution) letter to Charles W.F. Dumas, December 1775
“I am much obliged by the kind present you have made us of your edition of Vattel. It came to us in good season, when the circumstances of a rising state make it necessary frequently to consult the Law of Nations. Accordingly, that copy which I kept (after depositing one in our own public library here, and send the other to the College of Massachusetts Bay, as you directed) has been continually in the hands of the members of our congress, now sitting, who are much pleased with your notes and preface, and have entertained a high and just esteem for their author”?
I am sure most reading this will know who Benjamin Franklin was. However one reference will not squell the unbelief that Vattel’s Laws of Nations, is not clear enough. So do a search on Laws of Nations and you will get HUNDREDS of responses. http://rs6.loc.gov/ammem/hlawquery.html This from the Library of Congress. Another excellent post is the following; The concept of judicial review, which Hamilton had championed in Rutgers v. Waddington, was included in the U.S. Constitution. In {The Federalist Papers,} No. 78, “The Judges as Guardians of the Constitution,” circulated as part of the debate over the new Constitution, Hamilton developed a conception of constitutional law which was coherent with Vattel’s conception. Hamilton stated that it is a “fundamental principle of republican government, which admits the right of the people to alter or abolish the established Constitution, whenever they find it inconsistent with their happiness.” However, the Constitution can only be changed by the nation as a whole, and not by the temporary passions of the majority or by the legislature. Both to protect the Constitution, but also to ensure just enforcement of the law, the independence of the judiciary from the legislature and the executive branch is essential. The judiciary must be the guardians of the Constitution, to ensure that all legislative decisions are coherent with it. This idea championed by Hamilton, that the courts ensured that the Executive and Legislative branches followed the Constitution, was later established as a principle of American jurisprudence by Chief Justice John Marshall
Again proving the Constitution, it’s meaning, it’s wording , and it’s definitions were clearly a result of being referenced to Vattel’s Laws of Nations. So what does the Laws of Nations say about a “Natural Born Citizen”?
Vattel in Bk 1 Sec 212, states the following.
As I have stated before and will state here again. Barack Obama, he has admitted being a British citizen at birth. From his own web-site, “When Barack Obama Jr. was born on Aug. 4,1961, in Honolulu, Kenya was a British colony, still part of the United Kingdom’s dwindling empire. As a Kenyan native, Barack Obama Sr. was a British subject whose citizenship status was governed by The British Nationality Act of 1948. That same act governed the status of Obama Sr.‘s children.
Since Sen. Obama has neither renounced his U.S. citizenship nor sworn an oath of allegiance to Kenya, his Kenyan citizenship automatically expired on Aug. 4,1982.”
How can a British subject at birth, be free from any foreign influence as described by John Jay in the following;
The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 [Farrand's Records, Volume 3]
LXVIII. John Jay to George Washington.3
[Note 3: 3 Documentary History of the Constitution, IV, 237.]
New York 25 July 1787
Permit me to hint, whether it would not be wise & seasonable to provide a 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.
Again Alexander Hamilton (a signer of our Constitution) in the Gazette of the United States, published in Philadelphia, on June 29, 1793 “The second article of the Constitution of the United States, section first, establishes this general proposition, that “the EXECUTIVE POWER shall be vested in a President of the United States of America…The executive is charged with the execution of all laws, the law of nations, as well as the municipal law, by which the former are recognized and adopted.”
“The Law of Nations” provides the Constitutional definition of a “natural born citizen, historical records reveal that Vattel’s work was quoted at the Federal Constitutional Convention of 1787, various State Constitutional Conventions, and was also referenced in a 1785 letter by John Jay regarding a diplomatic matter.
Should any court finally decide that there IS ample evidence that Barack Obama is not qualified to hold the Office of the President of the United States, they will have to rely on Vattel as the defining definition and argument, and stare reality in the face that not only is Barack Obama unqualified, but that he is not even a US Citizen.
As a final note concerning the Supreme Court and Laws of Nations, I direct you to the following;
The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution [Elliot's Debates, Volume 3]
Saturday, June 21, 1788.
Page 564
There is to be one Supreme Court–for chancery, admiralty, common pleas, and exchequer, (which great eases are left in England to four great, courts,) to which are added criminal jurisdiction, and all cases depending on the law of nations–a most extensive jurisdiction. This court has more power than any court under heaven. One set of judges ought not to have this power–and judges, particular, who have temptation always before their eyes. The court thus organized are to execute laws made by thirteen nations, dissimilar in their customs, manners, laws, and interests. If we advert to the customs of these different sovereignties, we shall find them repugnant and dissimilar. Yet they are all forced to unite and concur in making these laws. They are to form them on one principle, and on one idea, whether the civil law, common law, or law of nations. The gentleman was driven, the other day, to the expedient of acknowledging the necessity of having thirteen different tax laws. This destroys the principle, that he who lays a tax should feel it and bear his proportion of it. This has not been answered: it will involve consequences so absurd, that, I presume, they will not attempt to make thirteen different codes. They will be obliged to make one code. How will they make one code, without being contradictory to some of the laws of the different states?
Allow me to make one more reference;
The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution [Elliot's Debates, Volume 4]
Seamen’s Bill.–For the Regulation of Seamen on Board the Public Vessels, and in the Merchant Service of the United States.
House of Representatives, February, 1813.
Mr. SEYBERT. The Constitution of the United States declares, Congress shall have power “to establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies, throughout the United States.” Sir, the rule only relates to the mode; it is only operative during the nascent state of the political conversion, and it ceases to have effect the moment after the process has been completed. Your Constitution only recognizes the highest grade of citizenship that can be conferred. The alien is thus made a native, as it were, and is fully vested with every eight and privilege attached to the native, with the exception impressed on the Constitution Your statutes cannot deprive any particular species of citizens of the right of personal liberty, or the locomotive faculty, because the Constitution does not characterize the citizens of the United states as native and naturalized. Our great family is composed of a class of men forming a single genus, who, to all intents and purposes, are equal, except in the instance specified–that of not being eligible to the presidency of the United States. The only exception to the rule is expressed in the Constitution. If other exceptions had been contemplated by the framers of that instrument, they would also have been expressed. None other having been expressed, he said, it followed that your legislative acts could not make individual exceptions touching the occupation of a citizen. All freemen, citizens of the United States, may pursue their happiness in any manner and in any situation they please, provided they do not violate the rights of others. You cannot deny to any portion of your citizens, who desire to plough the deep, the right to do so, whilst you permit another portion of them the enjoyment of that right.
Mr. ARCHER. The framers of our Constitution did not intend to confine Congress to the technical meaning of the word naturalization, in the exercise of that power–the more especially when the comprehensive word rule was made use of. The principle upon which the power was to be exercised was left to the judicious exercise of Congress; all that was required was, that the rule should be uniform throughout the states. In the grant there is no other specification, as to the exercise of it, than that of its uniformity. The term naturalization was borrowed from England. It must be understood here in the sense and meaning which was, there attached to it. Whether it was absolute or qualified, it was still a naturalization. But the grant of a power in general terms necessarily implied the right to exercise that power in all its gradations. It Was in the political as it was in the natural world: the genus included the species. Besides, the power to naturalize was an attribute to sovereignty. It was either absolute or qualified; and if the grant to Congress only implied a power of unlimited naturalization, the power to qualify existed in the states or in the people, for what was not specifically granted was reserved.
In treating of the executive power, the Constitution defines the qualifications of the President. It declares that he should be a natural-born citizen, or a citizen at the adoption of the Constitution. This article is unquestionably no limitation of the power of Congress upon the subject of naturalization. It was impossible to abridge a specific grant of power without a specific limitation, and the article alluded to could not be tortured, by the most ingenious mind, to diminish, even by implication, the authority of Congress upon a subject to which it was totally irrelevant.
Thomas JeffersonFirst off, let us look at what the Framer’s used as a guide.
The Founding Fathers of the United States, used Vattel’s Laws of Nations as their guide and reference to meanings and definitions within our Constitution.
The myth that the founding of American Republic was based on the philosophy of John Locke could only have been maintained, because the history of Leibniz’s influence was suppressed. The American Revolution was, in fact, a battle against the philosophy of Locke and the English utilitarians. Key to this struggle, was the work of the Eighteenth-century jurist, Emmerich de Vattel, whose widely read text, The Law of Nations, guided the framing of the United States as the world’s first constitutional republic. Vattel had challenged the most basic axioms of the Venetian party, which had taken over England before the time of the American Revolution, and it was from Vattel’s The Law of Nations, more than anywhere else, that America’s founders learned the Leibnizian natural law, which became the basis for the American System.
Benjamin Franklin’s (a signer of our Constitution) letter to Charles W.F. Dumas, December 1775
“I am much obliged by the kind present you have made us of your edition of Vattel. It came to us in good season, when the circumstances of a rising state make it necessary frequently to consult the Law of Nations. Accordingly, that copy which I kept (after depositing one in our own public library here, and send the other to the College of Massachusetts Bay, as you directed) has been continually in the hands of the members of our congress, now sitting, who are much pleased with your notes and preface, and have entertained a high and just esteem for their author”?
I am sure most reading this will know who Benjamin Franklin was. However one reference will not squell the unbelief that Vattel’s Laws of Nations, is not clear enough. So do a search on Laws of Nations and you will get HUNDREDS of responses. http://rs6.loc.gov/ammem/hlawquery.html This from the Library of Congress. Another excellent post is the following; The concept of judicial review, which Hamilton had championed in Rutgers v. Waddington, was included in the U.S. Constitution. In {The Federalist Papers,} No. 78, “The Judges as Guardians of the Constitution,” circulated as part of the debate over the new Constitution, Hamilton developed a conception of constitutional law which was coherent with Vattel’s conception. Hamilton stated that it is a “fundamental principle of republican government, which admits the right of the people to alter or abolish the established Constitution, whenever they find it inconsistent with their happiness.” However, the Constitution can only be changed by the nation as a whole, and not by the temporary passions of the majority or by the legislature. Both to protect the Constitution, but also to ensure just enforcement of the law, the independence of the judiciary from the legislature and the executive branch is essential. The judiciary must be the guardians of the Constitution, to ensure that all legislative decisions are coherent with it. This idea championed by Hamilton, that the courts ensured that the Executive and Legislative branches followed the Constitution, was later established as a principle of American jurisprudence by Chief Justice John Marshall
Again proving the Constitution, it’s meaning, it’s wording , and it’s definitions were clearly a result of being referenced to Vattel’s Laws of Nations. So what does the Laws of Nations say about a “Natural Born Citizen”?
Vattel in Bk 1 Sec 212, states the following.
§ 212. Citizens and natives.
The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. As the society cannot exist and perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights. The society is supposed to desire this, in consequence of what it owes to its own preservation; and it is presumed, as matter of course, that each citizen, on entering into society, reserves to his children the right of becoming members of it. The country of the fathers is therefore that of the children; and these become true citizens merely by their tacit consent. We shall soon see whether, on their coming to the years of discretion, they may renounce their right, and what they owe to the society in which they were born. I say, that, in order to be of the country, it is necessary that a person be born of a father who is a citizen; for, if he is born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country.As I have stated before and will state here again. Barack Obama, he has admitted being a British citizen at birth. From his own web-site, “When Barack Obama Jr. was born on Aug. 4,1961, in Honolulu, Kenya was a British colony, still part of the United Kingdom’s dwindling empire. As a Kenyan native, Barack Obama Sr. was a British subject whose citizenship status was governed by The British Nationality Act of 1948. That same act governed the status of Obama Sr.‘s children.
Since Sen. Obama has neither renounced his U.S. citizenship nor sworn an oath of allegiance to Kenya, his Kenyan citizenship automatically expired on Aug. 4,1982.”
How can a British subject at birth, be free from any foreign influence as described by John Jay in the following;
The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 [Farrand's Records, Volume 3]
LXVIII. John Jay to George Washington.3
[Note 3: 3 Documentary History of the Constitution, IV, 237.]
New York 25 July 1787
Permit me to hint, whether it would not be wise & seasonable to provide a 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.
Again Alexander Hamilton (a signer of our Constitution) in the Gazette of the United States, published in Philadelphia, on June 29, 1793 “The second article of the Constitution of the United States, section first, establishes this general proposition, that “the EXECUTIVE POWER shall be vested in a President of the United States of America…The executive is charged with the execution of all laws, the law of nations, as well as the municipal law, by which the former are recognized and adopted.”
“The Law of Nations” provides the Constitutional definition of a “natural born citizen, historical records reveal that Vattel’s work was quoted at the Federal Constitutional Convention of 1787, various State Constitutional Conventions, and was also referenced in a 1785 letter by John Jay regarding a diplomatic matter.
Should any court finally decide that there IS ample evidence that Barack Obama is not qualified to hold the Office of the President of the United States, they will have to rely on Vattel as the defining definition and argument, and stare reality in the face that not only is Barack Obama unqualified, but that he is not even a US Citizen.
As a final note concerning the Supreme Court and Laws of Nations, I direct you to the following;
The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution [Elliot's Debates, Volume 3]
Saturday, June 21, 1788.
Page 564
There is to be one Supreme Court–for chancery, admiralty, common pleas, and exchequer, (which great eases are left in England to four great, courts,) to which are added criminal jurisdiction, and all cases depending on the law of nations–a most extensive jurisdiction. This court has more power than any court under heaven. One set of judges ought not to have this power–and judges, particular, who have temptation always before their eyes. The court thus organized are to execute laws made by thirteen nations, dissimilar in their customs, manners, laws, and interests. If we advert to the customs of these different sovereignties, we shall find them repugnant and dissimilar. Yet they are all forced to unite and concur in making these laws. They are to form them on one principle, and on one idea, whether the civil law, common law, or law of nations. The gentleman was driven, the other day, to the expedient of acknowledging the necessity of having thirteen different tax laws. This destroys the principle, that he who lays a tax should feel it and bear his proportion of it. This has not been answered: it will involve consequences so absurd, that, I presume, they will not attempt to make thirteen different codes. They will be obliged to make one code. How will they make one code, without being contradictory to some of the laws of the different states?
Allow me to make one more reference;
The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution [Elliot's Debates, Volume 4]
Seamen’s Bill.–For the Regulation of Seamen on Board the Public Vessels, and in the Merchant Service of the United States.
House of Representatives, February, 1813.
Mr. SEYBERT. The Constitution of the United States declares, Congress shall have power “to establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies, throughout the United States.” Sir, the rule only relates to the mode; it is only operative during the nascent state of the political conversion, and it ceases to have effect the moment after the process has been completed. Your Constitution only recognizes the highest grade of citizenship that can be conferred. The alien is thus made a native, as it were, and is fully vested with every eight and privilege attached to the native, with the exception impressed on the Constitution Your statutes cannot deprive any particular species of citizens of the right of personal liberty, or the locomotive faculty, because the Constitution does not characterize the citizens of the United states as native and naturalized. Our great family is composed of a class of men forming a single genus, who, to all intents and purposes, are equal, except in the instance specified–that of not being eligible to the presidency of the United States. The only exception to the rule is expressed in the Constitution. If other exceptions had been contemplated by the framers of that instrument, they would also have been expressed. None other having been expressed, he said, it followed that your legislative acts could not make individual exceptions touching the occupation of a citizen. All freemen, citizens of the United States, may pursue their happiness in any manner and in any situation they please, provided they do not violate the rights of others. You cannot deny to any portion of your citizens, who desire to plough the deep, the right to do so, whilst you permit another portion of them the enjoyment of that right.
Mr. ARCHER. The framers of our Constitution did not intend to confine Congress to the technical meaning of the word naturalization, in the exercise of that power–the more especially when the comprehensive word rule was made use of. The principle upon which the power was to be exercised was left to the judicious exercise of Congress; all that was required was, that the rule should be uniform throughout the states. In the grant there is no other specification, as to the exercise of it, than that of its uniformity. The term naturalization was borrowed from England. It must be understood here in the sense and meaning which was, there attached to it. Whether it was absolute or qualified, it was still a naturalization. But the grant of a power in general terms necessarily implied the right to exercise that power in all its gradations. It Was in the political as it was in the natural world: the genus included the species. Besides, the power to naturalize was an attribute to sovereignty. It was either absolute or qualified; and if the grant to Congress only implied a power of unlimited naturalization, the power to qualify existed in the states or in the people, for what was not specifically granted was reserved.
In treating of the executive power, the Constitution defines the qualifications of the President. It declares that he should be a natural-born citizen, or a citizen at the adoption of the Constitution. This article is unquestionably no limitation of the power of Congress upon the subject of naturalization. It was impossible to abridge a specific grant of power without a specific limitation, and the article alluded to could not be tortured, by the most ingenious mind, to diminish, even by implication, the authority of Congress upon a subject to which it was totally irrelevant.
In Letters of Delegates to Congress, 1774-1789, Volume 21, Pages 250-251 ( http://tinyurl.com/8zvmgy ), we see notes from Thomas Jefferson from December 1783.
The first question is
“Qu. 1. Can an American citizen, adult, now inherit lands in England?”
to which Thomas Jefferson begins his answer with
“Natural subjects can inherit–Aliens cannot.
There is no middle character–every man must be the one or the other of these.”
(In other words, dual nationality did not exist. Citizenship was singular.)
Thomas Jefferson also wrote this in his answer:
“An alien is the subject or citizen of a foreign power.
The treaty of peace acknowleges we are no longer to owe allegiance to the king of G.B. It acknowleges us no longer as Natural subjects then.
It makes us citizens of independent states; it makes us aliens then.”
(So, in the context of these notes, an “alien” is an American citizen and not a British subject.)
The second question is
“Qu.2. The father a British subject; the son in America, adult, and within the description of an American citizen, according to their laws. Can the son inherit?”
and Thomas Jefferson answers, before dealing with an objection,
“He owes allegiance to the states. He is an alien then and cannot inherit.”
(For the adult “alien” citizen son, the state of the British father does not descend to him, neither with respect to nationality/allegiance nor with respect to property.)
The third question is
“Qu. 3. The father a British subject. The son as in Qu. 2. but an infant. Can he inherit?”
Thomas Jefferson’s answer:
“1st. by the Common law.
We have seen before that the state of the father does not draw to it as an accessory that of the son where he is an adult. But by the common law.”
(Thomas Jefferson wrote that there was “no middle character” between a “natural subject” and an “alien”. Further, he called the ADULT AMERICAN CITIZEN son of the British subject an ALIEN who could not inherit from the British father. So, it stands to reason that Thomas Jefferson is calling the MINOR son of the British subject a NATURAL SUBJECT by the common law in following the state of the father, even though the minor son is in America following the Treaty of Paris, called the “treaty of peace” in Thomas Jefferson’s answer to Question 1.)
“An alien is the subject or citizen of a foreign power.
The treaty of peace acknowleges we are no longer to owe allegiance to the king of G.B. It acknowleges us no longer as Natural subjects then.
It makes us citizens of independent states; it makes us aliens then.”
Here is the bomb-
When Barack Obama Jr. was born on Aug. 4,1961, in Honolulu, Kenya was a British colony, still part of the United Kingdom’s dwindling empire. As a Kenyan native, Barack Obama Sr. was a British subject whose citizenship status was governed by The British Nationality Act of 1948. That same act governed the status of Obama Sr.‘s children.
Therefore Obama is an alien of the United States and an Alien is not, can not, nor EVER be a “Natural Born Citizen”
Other Quotes:
I find no fault with the introductory clause [S 61 Bill], which is simply declaratory of what is written in the Constitution, that every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen -Rep. John Bingham, framer of the 14th Amendment, before The US House of Representatives ((Cong. Globe, 39th, 1st Sess., 1291, March 9, 1866 ) http://grou.ps/zapem/blogs/3787
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.
-Circuit Justice Swayne, in United States vs Rhodes (1866)
http://www.thecommentary.net/1861-circuit-justice-swayne-defines-na…
The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first.
-Chief Justice Waite in Minor v. Happersett (1875)
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0088_0162_Z…
“In Minor v. Happersett, Chief Justice Waite, when construing, in behalf of the court, the very provision of the fourteenth amendment now in question, said: ‘The constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that.’ And he proceeded to resort to the common law as an aid in the construction of this provision.”
-Justice Grey, in US v Wong Kim Ark (1898) http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=1…
“My assumption and my understanding is that if you are born of American parents, you are naturally a natural-born American citizen,” Chertoff replied.
“That is mine, too,” said Leahy
-Homeland Security SecretaryMichael Chertoff and Senator Patrick Leahy, (April 03, 2008) http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200804/041008c.html
Whereas John Sidney McCain, III, was born to American citizens on an American military base in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That John Sidney McCain, III, is a `natural born Citizen’ under Article II, Section 1, of the Constitution of the United States. -110th Congress, SR 511 http://www.opencongress.org/bill/110-sr511/text
The first question is
“Qu. 1. Can an American citizen, adult, now inherit lands in England?”
to which Thomas Jefferson begins his answer with
“Natural subjects can inherit–Aliens cannot.
There is no middle character–every man must be the one or the other of these.”
(In other words, dual nationality did not exist. Citizenship was singular.)
Thomas Jefferson also wrote this in his answer:
“An alien is the subject or citizen of a foreign power.
The treaty of peace acknowleges we are no longer to owe allegiance to the king of G.B. It acknowleges us no longer as Natural subjects then.
It makes us citizens of independent states; it makes us aliens then.”
(So, in the context of these notes, an “alien” is an American citizen and not a British subject.)
The second question is
“Qu.2. The father a British subject; the son in America, adult, and within the description of an American citizen, according to their laws. Can the son inherit?”
and Thomas Jefferson answers, before dealing with an objection,
“He owes allegiance to the states. He is an alien then and cannot inherit.”
(For the adult “alien” citizen son, the state of the British father does not descend to him, neither with respect to nationality/allegiance nor with respect to property.)
The third question is
“Qu. 3. The father a British subject. The son as in Qu. 2. but an infant. Can he inherit?”
Thomas Jefferson’s answer:
“1st. by the Common law.
We have seen before that the state of the father does not draw to it as an accessory that of the son where he is an adult. But by the common law.”
(Thomas Jefferson wrote that there was “no middle character” between a “natural subject” and an “alien”. Further, he called the ADULT AMERICAN CITIZEN son of the British subject an ALIEN who could not inherit from the British father. So, it stands to reason that Thomas Jefferson is calling the MINOR son of the British subject a NATURAL SUBJECT by the common law in following the state of the father, even though the minor son is in America following the Treaty of Paris, called the “treaty of peace” in Thomas Jefferson’s answer to Question 1.)
“An alien is the subject or citizen of a foreign power.
The treaty of peace acknowleges we are no longer to owe allegiance to the king of G.B. It acknowleges us no longer as Natural subjects then.
It makes us citizens of independent states; it makes us aliens then.”
Here is the bomb-
When Barack Obama Jr. was born on Aug. 4,1961, in Honolulu, Kenya was a British colony, still part of the United Kingdom’s dwindling empire. As a Kenyan native, Barack Obama Sr. was a British subject whose citizenship status was governed by The British Nationality Act of 1948. That same act governed the status of Obama Sr.‘s children.
Therefore Obama is an alien of the United States and an Alien is not, can not, nor EVER be a “Natural Born Citizen”
Other Quotes:
I find no fault with the introductory clause [S 61 Bill], which is simply declaratory of what is written in the Constitution, that every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen -Rep. John Bingham, framer of the 14th Amendment, before The US House of Representatives ((Cong. Globe, 39th, 1st Sess., 1291, March 9, 1866 ) http://grou.ps/zapem/blogs/3787
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.
-Circuit Justice Swayne, in United States vs Rhodes (1866)
http://www.thecommentary.net/1861-circuit-justice-swayne-defines-na…
The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first.
-Chief Justice Waite in Minor v. Happersett (1875)
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0088_0162_Z…
“In Minor v. Happersett, Chief Justice Waite, when construing, in behalf of the court, the very provision of the fourteenth amendment now in question, said: ‘The constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that.’ And he proceeded to resort to the common law as an aid in the construction of this provision.”
-Justice Grey, in US v Wong Kim Ark (1898) http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=1…
“My assumption and my understanding is that if you are born of American parents, you are naturally a natural-born American citizen,” Chertoff replied.
“That is mine, too,” said Leahy
-Homeland Security SecretaryMichael Chertoff and Senator Patrick Leahy, (April 03, 2008) http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200804/041008c.html
Whereas John Sidney McCain, III, was born to American citizens on an American military base in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That John Sidney McCain, III, is a `natural born Citizen’ under Article II, Section 1, of the Constitution of the United States. -110th Congress, SR 511 http://www.opencongress.org/bill/110-sr511/text
ReplyDeleteThe problem with Vattelites in their argument that the term Natural Born Citizen is founded on Roman or Civil Law instead of English Common Law is that their argument demonstrates their disregard that the Constitution provisions are framed in the language of the English Common Law and their argument ignores the historical development of Anglo-American jurisprudence that is rooted in the English Common Law.
Courts have recognized that the drafters of the constitution of whom most were lawyers were influenced by the principles and history of the common law that we inherited from the English. “The principles and history of the common law were well known to the framers of the Constitution and the members of the First Congress; it was from that system that their terminology was derived; and the provisions of the Constitution and contemporaneous legislation must be interpreted accordingly.” Southern Pacific Co. v. Jensen, 244 US 205, 230 (1917)
Moreover, Chief Justice Taft stated in Ex Parte Grossman, 267 U.S. 76, 108-09 (1925):“The language of the Constitution cannot be interpreted safely except by reference to the common law and British institutions as they were when the instrument was framed and adopted.”
Since the drafters of the Constitution wrote it in the language of the English common law then according to statutory construction that unless otherwise defined in the Constitution, words are to be taken at their ordinary and contemporary meaning.“ A fundamental canon of statutory construction is that, unless otherwise defined, words will be interpreted as taking their ordinary, contemporary, common meaning.” Perrin v. United States, 444 US 37,42 (1979).
Moreover, if the use of words in the Constitution had a common law meaning
then the courts must infer the incorporation of this common law meaning unless the language of the Constitution compels a different meaning.
"[G]uided by the principle that where words are employed in a statute which had at the time a well-known meaning at common law or in the law of this country they are presumed to have been used in that sense unless the context compels to the contrary.” Standard Oil Co. of NJ v. United Sates, 221 US 1, 59 (1911);
Furthermore, if words were created not by positive law but rather by judicially created concept then any interpretation of those words other than their common law meaning must be specific and clear. "The normal rule of statutory construction is that if Congress intends for legislation to change the interpretation of a judicially created concept, it makes that intent specific." Stillians v. Iowa, 843 F.2d 276, 280 (8th Cir.1988)(internel citations omitted)
In other words, If drafters of the Constitution used words in the Constitution that have a common law meaning then it is PRESUMED that drafters intended
Correct version:
ReplyDeleteThe problem with Vattelites in their argument that the term Natural Born Citizen is founded on Roman or Civil Law instead of English Common Law is that their argument demonstrates their disregard that the Constitution provisions are framed in the language of the English Common Law and their argument ignores the historical development of Anglo-American jurisprudence that is rooted in the English Common Law.
Courts have recognized that the drafters of the constitution of whom most were lawyers were influenced by the principles and history of the common law that we inherited from the English. “The principles and history of the common law were well known to the framers of the Constitution and the members of the First Congress; it was from that system that their terminology was derived; and the provisions of the Constitution and contemporaneous legislation must be interpreted accordingly.” Southern Pacific Co. v. Jensen, 244 US 205, 230 (1917)
Moreover, Chief Justice Taft stated in Ex Parte Grossman, 267 U.S. 76, 108-09 (1925):“The language of the Constitution cannot be interpreted safely except by reference to the common law and British institutions as they were when the instrument was framed and adopted.”
Since the drafters of the Constitution wrote it in the language of the English common law then according to statutory construction that unless otherwise defined in the Constitution, words are to be taken at their ordinary and contemporary meaning.“ A fundamental canon of statutory construction is that, unless otherwise defined, words will be interpreted as taking their ordinary, contemporary, common meaning.” Perrin v. United States, 444 US 37,42 (1979).
Moreover, if the use of words in the Constitution had a common law meaning
then the courts must infer the incorporation of this common law meaning unless the language of the Constitution compels a different meaning.
"[G]uided by the principle that where words are employed in a statute which had at the time a well-known meaning at common law or in the law of this country they are presumed to have been used in that sense unless the context compels to the contrary.” Standard Oil Co. of NJ v. United Sates, 221 US 1, 59 (1911);
Furthermore, if words were created not by positive law but rather by judicially created concept then any interpretation of those words other than their common law meaning must be specific and clear. "The normal rule of statutory construction is that if Congress intends for legislation to change the interpretation of a judicially created concept, it makes that intent specific." Stillians v. Iowa, 843 F.2d 276, 280 (8th Cir.1988)(internel citations omitted)
In other words, If drafters of the Constitution used words in the Constitution that have a common law meaning then it is PRESUMED that drafters intended common law application of the words UNLESS there is language in the Constitution that intended a contrary interpretation of the words.
As such, the term natural born citizen is a derivation of the term natural born subject that was a judicially created concept as articulated by Blackstone in his Commentaries of the Laws of England (1765) then UNLESS the founding fathers intended a different meaning other than the common law rule meaning of natural born citizen it was the responsibility of drafters to incorporate this different meaning.
The failure of the drafters to indicate a different meaning other than the common law meaning of natural born citizen in the Constitution demonstrated that the drafters intended to incorporate the established common law meaning of natural born citizen.
atticus finch,
ReplyDeleteYou are right that the meaning of a "natural born Citizen" comes from the common law. But you have your common laws mixed up. The Founders, Framers, and Ratifiers obtained their meaning of a "natural born Citizen" not from the English common law, but rather from American national common law. And as Minor and Wong Kim Ark both confirm, that common law defined a "natural-born citizen" as a child born in the country to parents who were its "citizens" at the time of the child's birth. Barack Obama, maybe being born in the United States, but surely being born to a non-U.S. citizen father, does not satisfy this definition. He is therefore not a "natural born Citizen" and not eligible to be President.
Prior to the 14th Amendment the Supreme Court's opinion in the Dred Scott case clearly explained that children born within the U.S. to non citizen parents are not citizens.
ReplyDeleteCourts prior to the ratification of the 14th Amendment in 1868 had recognized that there is no legal distinction between those persons born in the United States to those born to citizen parents and non-citizen parents.
DeleteIn 1844, a judge in New York noted that a child born in New York of aliens parents during their temporary sojourn in that city, returned with them the same year to their native country, and always resided there afterwards. He held that she was a citizen of the United States by noting:
“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. ” 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,” 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. The position would be decisive in his favor, that by the rule of the common law, in force when the Constitution was adopted, he is a citizen. Court of Chancery, State of New York, Lynch v. Clarke, 1 Sand. Ch. 583, 656 (1844) (emphasis added)
Justice Curtis in his dissent in the Dred Scott decision observed: “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.” Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 US 393 576 (1857) (Curtis, J., dissenting)
In the debates to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1866, Senators noted that children born in the United States to non-naturalized parents (i.e. foreign nationals) were citizens of the United States Senator Trumbull observed: “I understand that under naturalization laws children who are born here of parents who have not been naturalized are citizens. That is the law, as I understand it at the present time.” Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess. 498 (January 30, 1866)
Senator Trumbull further added “There has been no time since the foundation of the government when an American Congress could by possibly have enacted such a law, or with propriety have made such a declaration. What is this declaration? All persons born in this country are citizens.” Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess. 570 (February 1, 1866)
Noted legal scholar, William Rawle, wrote in 1829:
“The citizens of each state constituted the citizens of the United States when the Constitution was adopted. The rights which appertained to them as citizens of those respective commonwealths, accompanied them in the formation of the great, compound commonwealth which ensued. They became citizens of the latter, without ceasing to be citizens of the former, and he who was subsequently born a citizen of a state, became at the moment of his birth a citizen of the United States. 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 (2nd ed. 1829) page 86
As such, the 14th Amendment did not create a new type of citizenship that but rather codified the existing common law principle of Jus Soli that a person born in the United States regardless as to the status of his or her parents is natural born citizen.