Defining Natural-Born Citizen
by P.A. Madison on November 18th, 2008
“The common law of England is not the common law of these States.” –George Mason
What might the phrase “natural-born citizen” of the United States imply under the U.S. Constitution? The phrase has always been obscure due to the lack of any single authoritative source to confer in order to understand the condition of citizenship the phrase recognizes. Learning what the phrase might have meant following the Declaration of Independence, and the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, requires detective work. As with all detective work, eliminating the usual suspects from the beginning goes a long way in quickly solving a case.
What Natural-Born Citizen Could Not Mean
Could a natural-born citizen simply mean citizenship due to place of birth?
Unlikely in the strict sense because we know one can be native born and yet not a native born citizen of this country. There were even disputes whether anyone born within the District of Columbia or in the territories were born citizens of the United States (they were generally referred to as “inhabitants” instead.) National Government could make no “territorial allegiance” demands within the several States because as Madison explained it, the “powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the Federal Government, are few and defined,” and those “which are to remain in the State Governments are numerous and indefinite.”
Jurisdiction over citizenship via birth within the several States was simply an exercise of a States “numerous and indefinite” powers. Early acts of Naturalization recognized the individual State Legislatures as the only authority who could make anyone a citizen of a State. James Madison said citizenship rules “have obtained in some of the States,” and “if such a law existed in South Carolina, it might have prevented this question from ever coming before us” (question of Rep. William Smith being a citizen or not).
Framer James Wilson said, “a citizen of the United States is he, who is a citizen of at least some one state in the Union.” These citizens of each State were united together through Article IV, Sec. II of the U.S. Constitution, and thus, no act of Congress was required to make citizens of the individual States citizens of the United States.
Prior to the Revolutionary War place of birth within the dominions of the crown was the principle criterion for establishing perpetual allegiance to the King, however natural citizenship via birth could require being born to a British subject depending on the era in question. After independence this perpetual allegiance to the crown was abandoned for the principle of expatriation.
It should be noted this allegiance due under England’s common law and American law are of two different species. Under the common law one owed a personal allegiance to the King as an individual upon birth for which could never be thrown off. Under the American system there was no individual ruler to owe a perpetual personal allegiance to.
Furthermore, unlike the British practice, States required everyone including aliens to take an oath of allegiance to the State as a condition of residency. Children born to these residents were considered born into the allegiance of the State. In addition to this, States also had specific laws that banned citizenship to alien born who were not resident aliens who had declared their allegiance. New York for example, responded through enactment of a law to the ruling in Lynch v. Clarke (1844) that had used common law rules of citizenship by birth to specifically exclude children born to “transient aliens, and of alien public ministers and consuls, etc.”
In other words, unlike under the common law, birth by itself did not create allegiance to anyone due merely to locality.
Could a natural-born citizen perhaps be synonymous with the British term “natural-born subject”?
It is very doubtful the framers adopted the doctrine found under the old English doctrine of allegiance to the King from birth. The British doctrine could create double allegiances, something the founders considered improper and dangerous. The American naturalization process required all males to twice renounce all allegiances with other governments and pledge their sole allegiance to this one before finally becoming a citizen.
House Report No. 784, dated June 22, 1874, stated, “The United States have not recognized a ‘double allegiance.’ By our law a citizen is bound to be ‘true and faithful’ alone to our government.” It wouldn’t be practical for the United States to claim a child as a citizen when the child’s natural country of origin equally claims him/her because doing so could leave the child with two competing legal obligations, e.g., military duty.
Under the old English common law, birth was viewed as enjoining a “perpetual allegiance” upon all to the King that could never be severed or altered by any change of time or act of anyone. England’s “perpetual allegiance” due from birth was extremely unpopular in this country; often referred to as absurd barbarism, or simply perpetual nonsense. America went to war with England over the doctrine behind “natural-born subject” in June of 1812.
Because Britain considered all who were born within the dominions of the crown to be its natural-born subjects even after becoming naturalized citizens of the United States, led to British vessels blockading American ports. Under the British blockade, every American ship entering or leaving was boarded by soldiers in search of British born subjects. At least 6,000 American citizens who were found to be British natural-born subjects were pressed into military service on behalf of the British Empire, and thus, the reason we went to war.
Fourteenth Amendment
Whatever might had been the correct understanding of “natural-born citizen” prior to 1866, the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment certainly changes the view because for the first time we have a written national rule declaring who are citizens through birth or naturalization. Who may be born citizens is conditional upon being born “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States – a condition not required under the common law. The legislative definition of “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” was defined as “Not owing allegiance to anybody else,” which is vastly different from local jurisdiction due to physical location alone.
This national rule prevents us from interpreting natural-born citizen under common law rules because it eliminates the possibility of a child being born with more than one claim of allegiance.
The primary author of the citizenship clause, Sen. Jacob M. Howard, said the “word jurisdiction, as here employed, ought to be construed so as to imply a full and complete jurisdiction on the part of the United States, coextensive in all respects with the constitutional power of the United States, whether exercised by Congress, by the executive, or by the judicial department; that is to say, the same jurisdiction in extent and quality as applies to every citizen of the United States now.”
This remark by Howard puts his earlier citizenship clause remark into proper context: “This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons.”
United States Attorney General, George Williams, whom was a U.S. Senator aligned with Radical Republicans during the drafting of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1866, ruled in 1873 the word “jurisdiction” under the Fourteenth Amendment “must be understood to mean absolute and complete jurisdiction, such as the United States had over its citizens before the adoption of this amendment.” He added, “Political and military rights and duties do not pertain to anyone else.”
Essentially then, “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” means the same jurisdiction the United States exercises over its own citizens, i.e., only citizens of the United States come within its operation since citizens of the United States do not owe allegiance to some other nation at the same time they do the United States. This makes arguing the physical presence of being subject to laws silly because being subject to another countries laws while visiting makes no change to an aliens allegiance to their native country.
Natural-Born Citizen Defined
One universal point most all early publicists agreed on was natural-born citizen must mean one who is a citizen by no act of law. If a person owes their citizenship to some act of law (naturalization for example), they cannot be considered a natural-born citizen. This leads us to defining natural-born citizen under the laws of nature – laws the founders recognized and embraced.
Under the laws of nature, every child born requires no act of law to establish the fact the child inherits through nature his/her father’s citizenship as well as his name (or even his property) through birth. This law of nature is also recognized by law of nations. Sen. Howard said the citizenship clause under the Fourteenth Amendment was by virtue of “natural law and national law.”
The advantages of Natural Law is competing allegiances between nations are not claimed, or at least with those nations whose custom is to not make citizens of other countries citizens without their consent. Under Sec. 1992 of U.S. Revised Statutes (1866) made clear other nation’s citizens would not be claimed: “All persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are declared to be citizens of the United States.”
Rep. John A. Bingham commenting on Section 1992 said it means “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.” (Cong. Globe, 39th, 1st Sess., 1291 (1866))
Bingham had asserted the same thing in 1862 as well:
Does the gentleman mean that any person, born within the limits of the Republic, and who has offended against no law, can rightfully be exiled from any State or from any rood of the Republic? Does the gentleman undertake to say that here, in the face of the provision in the Constitution, that persons born within the limits of the Republic, of parents who are not the subjects of any other sovereignty, are native-born citizens, whether they be black or white? There is not a textbook referred to in any court which does not recognise the principle that I assert. (Cong. Globe, 37th, 2nd Sess., 407 (1862))
Bingham of course was paraphrasing Vattel whom often used the plural word “parents” but made it clear it was the father alone for whom the child inherits his/her citizenship from (suggesting a child could be born out of wedlock wasn’t politically correct). Bingham subscribed to the same view as most everyone in Congress at the time that in order to be born a citizen of the United States one must be born within the allegiance of the Nation. As the court has consistently ruled without controversy, change of location never changes or alters a persons allegiance to their country of origin except by acting in accordance to written law in throwing off their previous allegiance and consenting to a new one.
This of course, explains why emphasis of not owing allegiance to anyone else was the effect of being subject to the jurisdiction of the United States under the Fourteenth Amendment.
The constitutional requirement for the President of the United States to be a natural-born citizen had one purpose according to St. George Tucker:
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, which, wherever it is capable of being exerted, is to he dreaded more than the plague. The admission of foreigners into our councils, consequently, cannot be too much guarded against; their total exclusion from a station to which foreign nations have been accustomed to, attach ideas of sovereign power, sacredness of character, and hereditary right, is a measure of the most consummate policy and wisdom. …The title of king, prince, emperor, or czar, without the smallest addition to his powers, would have rendered him a member of the fraternity of crowned heads: their common cause has more than once threatened the desolation of Europe. To have added a member to this sacred family in America, would have invited and perpetuated among us all the evils of Pandora’s Box.
Charles Pinckney in 1800 said the presidential eligibility clause was designed “to insure … attachment to the country.” President Washington warned a “passionate attachment of one nation for another, produces a variety of evils,” and goes on to say:
Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest, in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter, without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation, of privileges denied to others, which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained; and by exciting jealousy, ill- will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld.
And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens, (who devote themselves to the favorite nation,) facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearance of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.
What better way to insure attachment to the country then to require the President to have inherited his American citizenship through his American father and not through a foreign father. Any child can be born anywhere in the country and removed by their father to be raised in his native country. The risks would be for the child to return in later life to reside in this country bringing with him foreign influences and intrigues, and thus, making such a citizen indistinguishable from a naturalized citizen.
Conclusion
Extending citizenship to non-citizens through birth based solely upon locality is nothing more than mere municipal law that has no extra-territorial effect as proven from the English practice of it. On the other hand, citizenship by descent through the father is natural law and is recognized by all nations (what nation doesn’t recognize citizenship of children born wherever to their own citizens?). Thus, a natural-born citizen is one whose citizenship is recognized by law of nations rather than mere local recognition.
Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, James F. Wilson of Iowa, confirmed this in 1866: “We must depend on the general law relating to subjects and citizens recognized by all nations for a definition, and that must lead us to the conclusion that every person born in the United States is a natural-born citizen of such States, except that of children born on our soil to temporary sojourners or representatives of foreign Governments.”*
When a child inherits the citizenship of their father, they become a natural-born citizen of the nation their father belongs regardless of where they might be born. It should be pointed out that citizenship through descent of the father was recognized by U.S. Naturalization law whereby children became citizens themselves as soon as their father had become a naturalized citizen, or were born in another country to a citizen father.
Yes, birth is prima facie evidence of citizenship, but only the citizenship of the nation the father is a member.
* Temporary sojourners like transient aliens were a description applied to aliens other than resident aliens. The difference being temporary aliens were here for temporary purposes, such as work, travel, visitation or school, who had no desire to become citizens or was prevented from becoming citizens by law. Resident aliens were those who desired to become citizens and had renounced their prior allegiances and had taken the legal steps to become citizens or reside within some state per state law.
UPDATE: In regards to questions about the citizenship of the mother: Mothers citizenship rarely ever influenced the citizenship of their children except in certain situations such as the father dying before the child was born or when the identity of the father was unknown.
Related: What “Subject to the Jurisdiction Thereof” Really Means
Related: Nothing Unusual about States Denying Citizenship to Alien Born Children
Related: Was U.S. vs. Wong Kim Ark Wrongly Decided?
In Reply to Mr. T:
You are right that “naturalized citizens” can’t be considered “natural born citizens”.
And you’re also right that, when you are a “born citizen” under 14A (on US territory) and under US-jurisdiction (anywhere in the world where the US has jurisdiction”â€except where it’s constricted by laws), you’re also a “natural born citizen”, no matter what some pundits might want you to believe. The text of 14A does not allow any other interpretation. It does not allow the notion that e.g. “exclusive US allegiance” is necessary to be “natural born”. This logically means that if you’re born in the US to at least one naturalized immigrant parent, you’re automatically a “natural born citizen”, because you’re a “born citizen under US jurisdiction” according to 14A, which is the same as “natural born citizen”. (The latter can easily be deduced from 14A.)
(A child born in the US to two foreign tourists or illegal immigrants is therefore a “born citizen”, but not according to 14A, because he was not born under US jurisdiction, therefore he can’t be a “natural born citizen”.)
But there is no strict (patrilineal) ius sanguinis in 14A. Nowhere does the 14A-text say that you need to have two US parents or a US father to be a “born citizen” (and therefore a “natural born citizen”), although that’s what many persons try to read into 14A in order to have a cleansed interpretation of the highest form of US citizenship, not contaminated by alien elements at all. (But that’s impossible to achieve with 14A.)
Strict statutes of ius sanguinis are however existent in US Code. If you’re born to two US parents on foreign soil, you’re automatically a US citizen, if other laws do not constrict it somehow (which is possible), more specifically a “born citizen”, but you’re not a “natural born citizen”, because you’re a citizen by some law and by descent, not under the Constitution that has a combination of primary ius soli (territorial aspect, US soil) and secondary ius sanguinis (under the jurisdiction thereof). So you’re wrong when you say that children born to US parents on foreign soil are “natural born citizens”. They are not.
In Reply to Mr. T:
I am working to get this all clear for my own satisfaction.
Leo Donofrio in his lawsuit challenging Obama and McCain wrote this:
[quote]He (McCain) wasn’t born on United States
soil and he wasn’t naturalized in the United States. Instead,
McCain may claim citizenship from 8 USC 1403(a):
“Any person born in the Canal Zone on or after February 26, 1904, and whether before or after the effective date of this chapter, whose father or mother or both at the time of the birth of such person was or is a citizen of the United States, is declared to be a citizen of the United States.”Â
McCain is in the class of citizens who obtain their citizenship at birth, but not from the Constitution, but rather federal statute. In Rogers v. Bellei, 401 U.S. 815, 828 (1971). The Supreme Court stated:
…[C]children born abroad of Americans are not citizens within the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment.””¦ “To this day, the Constitution makes no provision for jus sanguinis, or citizenship by descent… “Our law in this area follows English concepts with an acceptance of the jus soli, that is, that the place of birth governs citizenship status except as modified by statute.” Id. at 828.
So, not being born on US soil, McCain cannot be a “natural born citizen”.[/quote]
I don’t understand the basis for your statement. Please explain further.
It looks to me like getting your citizenship by being natural born and getting your citizenship from the 14th amendment are different, but have some overlap. It seems clear to me that you can get citizenship also a third way, by a Congressional Statute, such as in the case of being born in the Panama Canal Zone to US parents or being naturalized.
Some things are obvious like the requirement of the 14th amendment that you be born in the US, but it is also possible that you might not get US citizenship even if your are born in the US if you are born subject to the jurisdiction of a foreign power.
Some things are not as clear to me on the issue of natural born. Is it necessary to be born in the US to have the possibility of being a natural born citizen? If born in the US then there appears to be a further test, and that is the citizenship of your father (or maybe of both your parents) to make you natural born.
It seems to me that having natural born citizen status is the most restrictive, and the purpose being that the Founders wanted someone whose loyalties they could fully trust. If I were writing the Constitution today to maximize the likelyhood of full loyalty from the President, I would specifically exclude someone born outside the US or born inside the US if either parent were not a US citizen. I think that is almost what they did in the Constitution, but that they may have allowed for being born in the US to a US father and non US mother to qualify you.
In Reply to Sid Davis:
Donofrio’s claim is false: 8 USC §1403 came into effect after McCain’s birth. He’s only retroactively a US citizen, and only a citizen by statute, not under the constitution. At birth he was a citizen of Panama and Panama alone, because in his specific case, the Insular Cases overruled the Naturalization Act. (If I remember correctly.)
Unlike McCain, 1968 Presidential nomination candidate George Romney was a US citizen, born on foreign soil (Mexico) to US parents. No law overruled this at the time of his birth. He didn’t receive Mexican citizenship due to their strict ius-sanguinis-policy at the time. But Romney wasn’t a “natural born citizen” either, because he was born on foreign soil.
I think Craig said it all when he wrote below: “McCain is who he is because of his father.”
No law can question or take take that away.
Also, some of you miss the point with the 14th … it doesn’t make anyone a citizen, only defines who might be considered citizens of the nation when born into the body politic. The actual law of birth citizenship still remained with the states as evidenced by the different state laws enacted after the adoption of the 14th that had nothing to do with jus soli.
Consult House Report #22 issued by Congress in 1871 where Bingham confirms the 14th amendment “did not change or modify the relations of citizens of the State and the Nation as they existed under the original Constitution.”
From Bouvier’s Law Dictionary 1870 ed.
It uses the term “native citizen”-
“A person born within the jurisdiction of the united states, whether after the declaration of independence or before, if he did not withdraw before the adoption of the constitution; or the child of a citizen born abroad, if the parents have ever resided here; or the child of an alien born abroad, if he be in the country at the time his father is naturalized.”
In Reply to Sid Davis:
Furthermore, you write: “It looks to me like getting your citizenship by being natural born and getting your citizenship from the 14th amendment are different, but have some overlap.”
This is a non-argument, because the Constitution doesn’t explicitly explain what a “natural born citizen” is, so there is nothing there that the 14th Amendment (14A) could overlap or collide with. Therefore some people are tempted to believe that it would be illogical to explain “natural born citizen” anyway, because what would be the use of defining something that is “natural by and at birth”? So we read layperson’s opinions like the one by Willem below, who believes that it is “self-evident” what a “natural born citizen” is, namely abc [for abc enter opinion-based explanation at will].
But nothing is ever “self-evident” in sciences, in history and in law. A definition of the term “natural born citizen” in the Presidential qualifications clause (II.i.5) therefore needs to be deduced from the Constitution, and the only text in the Constitution that does that, is 14A, and “natural born” can be derived from 14A easily, which is why it does not only “overlap” with II.i.5, but completely accords (see below).
It’s always funny to see people trying to be conservative by being liberal. You don’t conserve the Constitution and treat it conservatively by inflating the whole issue to unhealthy proportions, as also the article by P.A. Madison aptly demonstrates”â€although I salute the manifest learnedness and knowledge”â€, by digging up some statements, opinions, court proceedings, court rulings etc., who are all after-the-fact. This would only be admissible, if the Constitution itself didn’t provide us with an explanation of “natural born citzen”. But it does “†implicit in 14A.
The clue is the combined mention of “born citizens” and “naturalized citizens” in 14A “†disregarding for the moment the “under the jurisdiction thereof”-sentence. A “naturalized citizen” is by definition (because it is implied in the term “naturalization” itself) a “natural citizen” at the end of the naturalization process, a citizen “made natural”. Since “born citizens” and “naturalized citizens” must AT LEAST have the same rights, a “born citizen” is automatically also a “natural citizen”, because a “naturalized citizen” is a “natural citizen” as well. Therefore the first category of citizens mentioned in 14A are those who are “born”, who are “citizens” and who are implicitly “natural”, i.e. “natural born citizens”.
The sentence “under the jurisdiction thereof” does not say “under the sole jurisdiction thereof”, which is why a citizen with an additional foreign allegiance can de facto and de iure be a “natural born citizen” as well.
Going back to the original Presidential qualifications clause, we now have a definition of “natural born citizen”, exclusively derived from 14A. The grandfather clause however is inapplicable, because it was a mere historical means to an end and is now forfeited. It could actually be erased from the text, because it has no significance anymore. Furthermore, it doesn’t say anywhere in II.i.5 that there must be a prerequisite sole allegiance to the US. So vice versa, II.i.5 does not collide with or overrule 14A either.
This very conservative sola scriptura deduction of the constitutional definition of “natural born citizen”, which utilizes the explanatory term “natural citizen”, furthermore accords completely with the letter by John Jay to the Philadelphia Convention, which is a document that was not written after-the-fact, but which is inseperably connected to the authoring of the Constitution. Jay only explicitly mentions “natural born citizen”, but clearly implies the “natural citizen” as a second category, which would logically also include the “naturalized citizens”. This we can safely state, because Jay actually wrote “natural BORN citizen”, with emphasis on the born. This word “born” is therefore a signifier to distinguish “natural born citizens” from other citizens, namely those who are merely “natural citizens”, without having been born on US soil, the immigrants.
Therefore Donofrio has no case, not in a million years. His primary errors are furthermore categorical. First of all he utilizes a forfeited grandfather clause in II.i.5 to modify the term “natural born citizen”, which is sufficiently explained by 14A and (if one allows its inclusion in the argument) also by Jay’s letter (see above). Secondly, he ignores the fact that the “grandfather clause” deals with a special category of citizens, which was introduced as a limited means to an end for the Framers. It is a categorical error to use a special class of citizens”â€citizens, who are “unnatural”, if I may say so”â€to infringe upon the Framers’ ideal class of citizens, especially since the wording of the grandfather clause itself does not in any way support Donofrio’s argument, and especially also because it is forfeited and has no relevance, now and any time in the future.
So Obama is one hundred percent eligible, and one of the first things he should do as President is to honor McCain in a more profound way than with this preposterous Senate resolution S.Res.511. He should suspend or abolish the laws that rule McCain a non-citizen at birth. A hero like McCain does not deserve this.
Strange…one of Obama’s supporters in Chicago was pushing for repeal of the natural born citizen clause in 2006 when he became a US Senator.
http://www.freedomsphoenix.com/Find-Freedom.htm?At=042008
In Reply to Joss:
All natural born citizens are natural citizens, but not all natural citizens are natural born citizens. Yet, aliens, having become nationalized cannot attain to the Office of the President or Vice President.
The Grandfather clause deals squarely with, and highlights the Framers’ intent concerning “under jurisdiction thereof”. It recognizes the Framers of the Constitution were British subjects and demands future Presidents to only one jurisdiction and only one allegiance. Any competing jurisdiction and allegiance at birth is not allowed.
What if Britain passed a law conferring British Citizenship to everyone born in the US? Theoretically, we could not stop them from doing this. Technically everyone would be born with Dual Citizenship. Who would be a natural born citizen then?
To further complicate the issue:
What if BHO Sr was not his biological father? What if that is just what he tells everyone because if his real father were known, it might have cost him the election? What if he kept it a secret because his real father is Malcolm X?
Maybe that is why the DNC and everyone else doesn’t want to touch this.
If Obama can make it to Jan 20 and then show that his mother was Anne Dunham and his father was Malcolm Little, this would make him a natural born citizen.
There is not marriage certificate shown for Anne and BHO Sr. If there was no marriage and it was only the story they told everyone to keep Obama safe from Malcolm’s enemies, then Obama’s father was not a British citizen.
Maybe they know this but don’t want this info to get out because he lied about his father. After Jan 20, the press and the people will make light of it and go on with life. Maybe that is why they are trying not to talk about it. They believe he is a natural born citizen but doesn’t want to make his birth certificate public because it would reveal who is real father is.
In Reply to LInda:
If Obama Sr is not Obama Jrs father then why is there so much knowledge of Obama in Kenya. Why has Kenya celebrated his presidency. Why did Kenya had a national holiday.
So clearly there is no controversy about Obama’s birth or father.
Obama Jr was born in Hawaii his father was Obama Sr.
Here is a interesting description of what is known from the Constitutional Convention about Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 (containing the natural born citizen provision):
http://faculty.maxwell.syr.edu/jyinger/Citizenship/history.htm
It is lengthy covering much territory, so I do not present any summary. Also, the author seems to be on a mission, as a father of adopted children, to see the natural born citizen provision modified, so the has ulterior motives. Nevertheless, the article is very informative.
In Reply to LInda:
Actually it was/is rumored and could be possible that the communist leader Frank Marshal Davis who is known to be Obama’s grandfather’s friend and Obama’s Mentor, could actually be Obama’s Father, this could be reason for hiding the birth record, Obama’s mother seems to have slept around a bit…, so who really knows, and short of DNA tesing we never really will…
there is a LOT of good info about this birth stuff at
http://www.ObamaNotQualified.com
In Reply to Joss:
First Joss stated, “The grandfather clause however is inapplicable, because it was a mere historical means to an end and is now forfeited. It could actually be erased from the text, because it has no significance anymore.”
Then later Joss stated, “This very conservative sola scriptura deduction of the constitutional definition of “natural born citizen”Â, which utilizes the explanatory term “natural citizen”Â…..
Whew, I got whiplash from that 180. How much more UNconservative can you be? Erasing parts of the Constitution? That is NOT sola scriptura.
The grandfather clause was put in precisely to differentiate between those with dual citizenship and those with sole allegiance to the U.S. and under no other jurisdiction. And, I might add, the issue of sole allegiance is pretty darn important in these days of radical terrorism which uses takia deceit. That is sola scriptura deduction.
In Reply to MrsD:
You wrote: “How much more UNconservative can you be? Erasing parts of the Constitution? That is NOT sola scriptura.”
You’re right. And as a matter of fact, I would never erase it either, because the Constitution is a proud historical document that shouldn’t be tampered with. But that doesn’t change the fact that the clause is forfeited. I wrote this sentence to make absolutely clear that today the grandfather clause has no legal relevance anymore. Maybe I should have written: “It could AS WELL be erased”. In any case I apologize if these words caused discomfort.
Then you wrote: “The grandfather clause was put in precisely to differentiate between those with dual citizenship and those with sole allegiance to the U.S. and under no other jurisdiction.”
This is totally wrong, and it’s the same error that Donofrio has made, that Hugh and others have made a few posts before. You’re not reading the text, you’re not understanding the Constitution. You’re talking about the Framers’ intention behind the “grandfather clause”, and the only intention behind it was to have a means to an end, so that one of them could become President. It doesn’t say anything about allegiances and/or jurisdiction, let alone SOLE allegiance. If it ever meant to differentiate between classes of citizens, it implied a class of citizens that would be extinct after one or two generations, as Donofrio has said himself: this grandfather clause was ad iusum of the Framers and Founding Fathers, and of them only. In any case it wouldn’t differentiate anymore, because it’s forfeited.
In Reply to Joss:
Joss said “You’re talking about the Framers’ intention behind the “grandfather clause”Â, and the only intention behind it was to have a means to an end, so that one of them could become President.”
Then if sole allegiance wasn’t important, why couldn’t one of the Framers become President without the use of the grandfather clause? Why was the clause needed in the beginning?
In Reply to the main article:
It should be clear to every reader that neither the Constitutional Presidential eligibility clause nor the letter by John Jay reads “natural-born citizen”, but “natural born citizen”, without the hyphen. Inserting a hyphen (like in Madison’s article) connects “natural” and “born” to the compound “natural-born”, as if it were one adjective or meant something like “naturally born”. But it’s not a compound. The “natural” is neither an adverb (like the “well” in the compounds “well-known” and “well known”), nor is “natural” a signifier for “born”. (Based on the fact that John Jay emphasized “born”, and not “natural”, it would actually be the other way round: “born” signifies and/or elevates “natural”.)
So “natural born citizen” is simply “natural” (adj.) plus “born” (adj.) plus “citizen” (n.). Any falsification (hyphenation) can lead to misunderstandings. It could create or amplify bias toward a specific interpretation of the term.
In Reply to MrsD:
You asked: “Why was the clause needed in the beginning?”
As a means to an end. That was their intention. They wanted (and needed) to become President. That’s the only reason for this clause. One should not confuse intention and motivation: The former follows, the latter precedes.
Their intention is clear: become President.
Their motivation? Motivation is irrelevant. The text itself is important, what it means, what it wants to achieve. But fine, let’s talk about motivation.
If I remember the available historical sources from the Convention correctly, all the Framers did was voice concerns about foreign influence on the administration. They wanted to restrict foreign influence, yes, but as far as I know, nobody of the Framers said that they wanted to eradicate foreign influence completely. Some even called for equal rights for all citizens, regardless of how they became (natural) citizens, whether by birth or by naturalization.
However, one has to keep in mind that the majority of these concerns were voiced at a time when the Convention still planned on the legislature as the body that would be electing the President. When the election process was transferred on the Electoral College, the situation changed, because the legislature with its additional foreign allegiances would not play a big role anymore in determining the Presidency. That’s when they added the term “natural born citizen” from John Jay’s letter. Yinger has called it a “symbolic”. I don’t agree.
But in any case, there are no sources, which imply or explicitly state that they wanted to eradicate foreign jurisdiction completely and prevent double allegiances at any cost.
They simply realized they were not “natural born citizens”. At that time there was not a single “natural born citizen” of the US. This class of citizens would only come into existence after the adoption of the Constitution. Independent of what “natural born citizen” means, independent of the Framer’s motivations, they knew they could never be “natural born citizens” of the US, because they had already been born. The adoption of the Constitution is the terminus post quem with regard to the citizen class of “natural born citizens”.
But in any case, if they had wanted to prevent double allegiances and to ensure sole US allegiance for “natural born citizens”, they would have written it into the Constitution. But they didn’t. They also didn’t add it into the 14th Amendment. It only says “under the jurisdiction thereof”, not “under the sole jurisdiction thereof”. They knew very well that there would be double jurisdictions and double allegiances at birth for US citizens after the adoption of the Constitution. Still, they chose to not include any rules in their texts that were more specific in this context. There’s nothing in the Constitution or 14A that rules out these double jurisdictions, allegiances and loyalties.
In Reply to Joss: I don’t think there was any established custom during the eighteenth century over the use of the hyphen. Adams used the hyphen when writing natural-born, others can be found omitting it when writing “thirty five.” Writers pretty much equally used and omitted the hyphen from 1788-1840.
The real question in my mind is, why didn’t they simply use “native born” if the qualification was intended to merely mean born within the limits of the nation? Native born citizen was proposed during the convention as the qualification but was not adopted. hmmmmm.
Joss said: “They also didn’t add it into the 14th Amendment. It only says ‘under the jurisdiction thereof’, not ‘under the sole jurisdiction thereof’.”
What? It says “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” Being a subject and under or within the jurisdiction is two different conditions. Within a jurisdiction has only nonbinding affect; subject to a jurisdiction is binding that has immediate affect. It’s like being within the jurisdiction of a court, but the court cannot exercise jurisdiction over you until you are made a subject of the jurisdiction through process of law.
In Reply to Joss:
Joss, Can you think of any nefarious plots by foreign countries that would exploit a ruling of “natural born citizen” being defined to include those born in the U.S. to a non-citizen parent?
I am concerned about precedent.
In Reply to Craig:
(1) You’re correct on the hyphen’s usage, but that’s not what I meant. I meant that the relevant texts here, i.e. the term in the Presidential eligibility clause and its precedent in Jay’s letter did not use the hyphen. (At least that’s how they write it on official government websites.) Adding a hyphen is a falsification of the original sources.
(2) You can be “native born”, if both your parents are foreigners. Any child born in the US e.g. to foreign visitors would be a “native born” US citizen (excluding certain children, e.g. those of diplomats). I don’t see how a child born to two foreigners would be born under the jurisdiction of the US. The child is born INTO the (partial) jurisdiction of the US, but not UNDER it, if I understand it correctly. If one or both of the parents had been naturalized, then yes, the 14th Amendment would apply, which would make the child more than merely “native born”, namely “natural born”.
But I don’t know if this argument is even valid, because I don’t think that “native born citizen” is mentioned anywhere in the relevant Constitutional sources.
In Reply to Anonymous: That was me.
In Reply to Anonymous:
If none of your parents is a US citizen, you may be a “born citizen” of the US by statute (8 USC §1401a, I think), but not a born citizen according to the 14th Amendment. You would not be allowed to become President.
If one of your parents is a US citizen, it will depend on what the SCOTUS rules. Obama is the first President-Almost-Elect, who has one foreign parent, and therefore it would be wise of the SCOTUS to hear Donofrio’s and Wrotnowski’s cases.
I think they are going to rule in favor of Obama, since (a) the 14th Amendment applies here, and (b) the 14th Amendment defines “natural born citizen”. But please mind, this is just my interpretation, and I could be wrong”â€although I think I’m not. 😉
As for the nefarious plot. Sure it’s possible. Anything’s possible. Let’s construct something really bad: A young male terrorist immigrates to the US, without anyone knowing his terrorist past; he is naturalized as a US citizen; he becomes a US news correspondent in his home country, and is secretly still in the tank for the terrorists; he stays there for many years, long years of further indoctrination; he marries a local woman, a non-US citizen. She becomes pregnant, they move to the US just in time for her to have the baby on US soil. The child would then be a “natural born citizen” of the US and be eligible for President. They all move back to his home country; indoctrination of the child; child is now an adult, moves back to the US and starts a political career, which eventually leads him to the presidency. A terrorist in the White House.
So yeah, it’s possible. But then”¦ everything conceivable is possible. Although I don’t know about warp drive. 😉
In Reply to MrsD:
Ah, okay. As for the record: At the moment”â€and although I think Obama would be a good President”â€I personally would prefer “natural born citizen” to mean a child who has been born on US territory to two US parents, with the parents not needing to be “natural born citizens” themselves. (Naturalization or US citizenship by statute would be enough.)
However, I just don’t see this meaning anywhere in the Constitution, neither explicitly nor implied.
In Reply to Joss:
And even if the SCOTUS rules against Obama, he could still become President, if the SCOTUS assigns Congress to author a Constitutional Amendment, which contains a new grandfather clause, taylored specifically for Obama. That way they could ensure a stricter interpretation of “natural born citizen” for future candidates and still be able to accommodate the will of the people and a democratic election. Everybody would be happy. And it would actually boost Obama’s reputation and historical importance: By receiving his own grandfather clause, he would be written into the law and history books as the new founding father of the next American era.
In Reply to Craig:
So I messed up the words. Sorry. But you can be subject to more than one jurisdiction. Cp. Obama: at birth he was under two jurisdictions, and they were both binding.
So they didn’t write “subject to the sole jurisdiction thereof” or “only subject to the jurisdiction thereof” or “subject to the jurisdiction exclusively thereof” etc.
They only wrote “subject to the jurisdiction thereof”. It amounts to the same. 14A does not exclude double subjection, allegiance etc.
I have been intrigued by Mr. Donofrio’s equal-opportunity presidential disqualification theory. At the same time, I am aware of reasonably attractive arguments to show that strict enforcement of his rule could be unnecessarily harsh (particularly as applied to Mr. Obama, generally understood to have been born in Honolulu). Since then, I have been considering the possibility that one or more large exceptions to Mr. Donofrio’s rule might be proposed, the idea being to render Mr. Donofrio’s rule at least somewhat palatable to certain Supreme Court justices not yet drawn in by Mr. Donofrio’s somewhat Spartan approach to providing related policy arguments.
FWIW, I’m not unconcerned about citizenship questions arising from Obama’s years in Indonesia.
But for the moment, my question is whether an adult-age Obama can be determined to have allowed “natural born citizen” status to slip through his fingers, without actually losing his U.S. citizenship proper.
As part of this exercise, I am assuming that the U.S. Supreme Court will be loathe to consider whether acts undertaken by a child, or by an adult on behalf of that child, can have the effect of stripping that child of Constitutionally-valid natural born citizen status.
This is why I am focusing on the question of whether one, holding dual citizenship since birth in the U.S. and in at least one other country, can take any action **as an adult** which moves one from the category of “having potential for divided loyalty” into the category of “having demonstrated divided loyalty.”
I have not seen this issue discussed anywhere else. Over the weekend, I did some research on whether individual attorneys (like myself) have had any success in crafting what are commonly referred to as “amicus curiae” briefs for the purpose of introducing information and related analysis to the U.S. Supreme Court on matters currently under consideration by the justices. Bottom line–such efforts seem unlikely to bear fruit unless a “name” attorney or legal foundation is recruited to give the brief “heft” in the eyes of the justices, or perhaps more importantly, in the eyes of the law clerks who are serving the justices.
That said, I still feel like my ideas could be useful if somehow, some way, they are whispered into the ear of one of the current justices. If any of them are inclined to start hashing this issue out, there will be an enormous need for policy arguments indicating under what circumstances one who holds, or has at one time held, dual citizenship, can nevertheless be determined to possess constitutionally-valid natural born citizen status.
I would advocate a policy in which one who holds dual or multiple citizenship is not necessarily prevented from ascending to the office of POTUS so long as he or she has refrained from taking any important action as an adult such as would clearly indicate divided loyalty between the United States and another specific country in which citizenship is then held. For such an individual to do otherwise (that is, for one with multiple citizenship to deliberately take such an action as an adult) would be to forfeit, once and for all, his or her status as a natural born citizen. This despite the possibility that the act taken, in and of itself, may have been insufficient to work a full legal renunciation of U.S. citizenship. In other words, the individual in question might well remain a full-fledged U.S. citizen, but in the wake of the contravening act undertaken as adult, is no longer be eligible to ascend to, or to otherwise occupy the office of POTUS.
FWIW, based on information that has surfaced to date, I am fairly comfortable with the conclusion that John McCain is not and never was a natural born citizen as that term is used in the U.S. Constitution. That is not to say that McCain is not a citizen, or even that he was not a citizen at birth. Rather, it is to say that the geographic circumstances of his birth (outside any and all U.S. states, outside any and all U.S. territories) were not such as would bestow upon him Constitutionally-valid natural born citizen status.
We need to be prepared for the possibility that the U.S. Supreme Court will ultimately conclude, based on a full set of facts (once those facts are discovered, pursuant to federal court orders compelling disclosure to that effect) that Barack Obama no longer a natural born citizen as that term is used in the U.S. Constitution.
As indicated above, and as discussed in the following hypothetical, such a conclusion would require evidence of divided loyalty on the part of an adult-aged Barack Obama.
Consider the following hypothetical, with known or commonly assumed facts mixed in: Barack Obama was born in Honolulu of married parents, of which his mother was a U.S. citizen, and his father was a subject of the United Kingdom by virtue of his Kenyan nationality. At this point, and at least temporarily, Barack Obama is a natural born citizen. Fast forward to when Barack Obama turns 18. He is now an adult, and remains a natural born citizen. By virtue of the fact that Kenya is no longer a colony of the UK, Barack is also a full-fledged citizen of Kenya. As a dual citizen of the U.S. and Kenya, Barack now has options which, as an adult, he is fully empowered to exercise. For example, now that he is an adult, he can formally renounce his Kenyan citizenship. Since he has not renounced U.S. citizenship he has held since birth, he is free and clear to run for president of the U.S. once he attains the age of 35.
But let’s say he does nothing for the time being. He is an 18 year old adult holding dual citizenship in the U.S. and Kenya, just living his life. He enrolls in Occidental College as an out-of-state freshman, ostensibly of U.S. nationality and citizenship. Tiring of Occidental, he learns of opportunities available at Ivy League colleges and universities for foreign nationals to matriculate at a steep tuition discount, lower entrance requirements, or both. Possessing Kenyan citizenship, Obama thinks, hey, why not apply and see what happens. He fills out a Columbia application, indicates Kenyan citizenship, signs the application, and sends it to Columbia. Much to his surprise, he is accepted, and he matriculates at the age of 20 as part of Columbia’s program for accommodating students of foreign nationality. By the time Barack Obama reaches age 21, he has failed to formally renounce U.S. citizenship. By operation of Kenyan law, he loses his Kenyan citizenship. Retaining his U.S. citizenship, Barack Obama finishes his degree at Columbia, and begins living the rest of his life.
The Supreme Court will consider Barack Obama’s personal behavior between the ages of 18 and 21 to be directly relevant to the question as to whether he presently possesses Constitutionally-valid natural born citizen status. More particularly, they will be evaluating his actions during that time for any evidence of deliberate actions which are inconsistent with a desire on his part to preserve his Constitutionally-valid natural born citizen status. They will be presented with the documentation comprising his Columbia application and find where he declared himself to be a Kenyan citizen for the purpose of gaining admission and/or obtaining a break on tuition. Based on this, they will conclude that Barack Obama forfeited his previously-held Constitutionally-valid natural born citizen status. This despite the fact that Barack Obama never gave up his U.S. citizenship proper.
In Reply to Publius:
There should be full disclosure of the facts concerning Obama’s birth, his school records, and his intentions relating to any dual citizenship records. If he once had a Kenyan citizenship due to his Dad but no longer, I think any actions, past or present, toward Kenya should be still examined since he definitely has relatives there. This applies even if he is born in Hawaii.
Since Obama has only shown us a Certificate of Live Birth from Hawaii his birthplace is in doubt. I think he was born in Kenya.
If McCain fails due to his birth in Panama with two American parents, Obama certainly fails if born in Keyna with one American parent.
The Supreme Court must get to the root of this issue and not hold back.
In Reply to Joss:
You are absolutely correct. But what you forget is that some of the people here have taken the election too emotional to step back and rationally review the following:
– Would it not have been easy for Mr. Bush, Mr. Mukasey, Ms. Rice and the rest of the GoP to have sang this tune?
How come even the normal right wing media aint touching this story? Would Gov. Jindal be planning a 2012 run if these “BS rumors” were true?
All I can say is that deep underneath the revulsions and anti-Obamanites message is simple oure hate.
I understand some people are still having a hard time dealing with our defeat.
But it would be safer for them to do so. Coz they is no way its going to turn good.
Throwing hard earned money at some nondescript lawyers, or to WND to ship your digital docs (9.99$ per letter is a very good business) or fanning your emotions on this drive AT THIS ECONOMICALLY CHALLENGING TIMES is a very bad idead.
But hey, let those who want to join the race do so. One cant stop the moose from leading itself to a wolf-hunt.
In Reply to Hugh:
Yes. If Obama was born anywhere else than on US territory, he is ineligible anyway, and we would need Donofrio’s case only with regard to McCain, Calero (?) and Wells.
+++++++
In Reply to Publius:
The SCOTUS could however rule as well that the 14th Amendment does in principle not exclude an additional subjection to a foreign jurisdiction, and that the 14th Amendment therefore either
(a) concurs with the Presidential qualifications clause by implicitly defining “natural born citizen”
or
(b) overrules the Presidential qualifications clause if a different definition of “natural born citizen” can somehow be deduced from said clause
“â€whereas (b) would furthermore presuppose that what Donofrio does is legally sound, namely to interpret said clause (including a part of it that has legally expired) based on the Framer’s motivations and concerns, meaning that non-binding legal acts, sources and opinions would overrule the actual Constitutional text or tilt it in a much more specific way.
In these two cases Obama would be eligible.
But yours is a VERY interesting approach. I must read the post again.
In Reply to Paul:
If there were ever plans to use Obama’s double jurisdiction at birth during the campaign, these plans were eliminated with Obama’s action on S.Res.511. Especially the Republicans applauded him (and the other senators like Clinton) for declaring McCain a “natural born citizen” ex nihilo, totally non-binding, a simple Senatorial opinion, based on emotional arguments from silence like: ‘The Founding Fathers would have wanted a person born abroad to two US military servants and US citizens to be a natural born citizen’.
Questioning Obama’s eligibility after such a move and such a reaction would have cost them the election for sure and much earlier. Furthermore: If a candidate is ineligible, it must be decided by the judiciary, provided that someone takes it to court. It would’ve been an arrogant move on the Republicans’ part. So their role in this respect has actually been considerate and laudable, if they ever pondered such a radical move.
But vice versa it’s not really possible to create an argument from silence: You can’t say that, because the Republicans didn’t act against Obama on this issue, it actually means that none of them thought Obama was ineligible (or everyone thought he was eligible), in other words: that there was something to it”â€unless you present at least some circumstantial evidence.
Maybe they do think (and have always thought) that the ineligibility claims were “BS”, but do we have any evidence of that?
You could as well describe the current situation with a rabbit that has completely frozen in front of a dangerous snake, depending on how you look at it. But that’s just wild, informal conjecture on my part. 😉
In Reply to Joss 12/02/2008 at 12:34 AM:
Joss stated, “They simply realized they were not “natural born citizens”Â. At that time there was not a single “natural born citizen” of the US. This class of citizens would only come into existence after the adoption of the Constitution. Independent of what “natural born citizen” means, independent of the Framer’s motivations, they knew they could never be “natural born citizens” of the US, because they had already been born. The adoption of the Constitution is the terminus post quem with regard to the citizen class of “natural born citizens”Â.
But in any case, if they had wanted to prevent double allegiances and to ensure sole US allegiance for “natural born citizens”Â, they would have written it into the Constitution. But they didn’t. They also didn’t add it into the 14th Amendment. It only says “under the jurisdiction thereof”Â, not “under the sole jurisdiction thereof”Â. They knew very well that there would be double jurisdictions and double allegiances at birth for US citizens after the adoption of the Constitution. Still, they chose to not include any rules in their texts that were more specific in this context. There’s nothing in the Constitution or 14A that rules out these double jurisdictions, allegiances and loyalties.”Â
I disagree with the 2nd paragraph. You cannot state that “if they had wanted to prevent double allegiances and to ensure sole US allegiance for “natural born citizens”Â, they would have written it into the Constitution”Â. This is purely speculation.
Go back and examine the words of the Declaration of Independence. The last paragraph states:
We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved;
I would contend that by the Declaration of Independence, Joss’s statement that,
“They knew very well that there would be double jurisdictions and double allegiances at birth for US citizens after the adoption of the Constitution. Still, they chose to not include any rules in their texts that were more specific in this context. There’s nothing in the Constitution or 14A that rules out these double jurisdictions, allegiances and loyalties.”Â
Is false. Every citizen in the USA at the time of the ratification of the constitution did not have double jurisdiction or double allegiance. The Declaration of Independence clearly severed all ties with the British Crown. All children of people alive in the USA at the time of the ratification of the constitution would be natural born citizens. The framers could not be natural born citizens because they had allegiance to the British Crown at Birth. There was no need for the framers to include any rules in their texts about double jurisdictions, allegiances, and loyalties. It is clear by the statement in the Declaration of Independence that all people in the US at the time of the ratification of the Constitution had no ties whatsoever with the British Crown. They had been severed.
In Reply to Joss:
Correct Joss.
Thats why this “BC” crap is really whacky to follow.
At the end, hundreds of thoiusands of people will be emotionally drained.
Meanwhile, you notice that the DEM’s have kept us busy with this BC food stuff while they have moved to set the agenda.
ITs a complete distraction thats being cleverly engineered to catch us off track as the real bills/laws/bailouts happen.
Instead of people worrying about paying more taxes (due to more bailouts and stimulus programs), here we are worrying about some BC crap.
In Reply to MrsD:
The Declaration of Independence severed all ties and allegiance to the British crown.
Take Obama whose father was a British subject at his birth. Can anyone really deduce from the DOI that the Framers would consider Obama to be a natural born citizen? For example, say in 1795, someone from Great Britain who was a British loyal subject came to America, married an American citizen and had a child on American soil. The US had just ended a bloody war with GB. Was the Framers’ intention for that child to someday be POTUS simply because he was born on American soil? I think not.
The passage of over two hundred years has desensitized us from the original context of the time when Great Britain was our mortal enemy and since they aren’t now it doesn’t seem that big of a deal. But you betcha it was two hundred years ago!
Our founding fathers would have NEVER allowed a person born to a British subject to become POTUS just after having fought a bloody war with Great Britain to establish independence from the monarchy. That’s illogical.
Joss:
You know one thing I dont quite get is this:
Ralph Nader was born in the USA to immigants from Lebanon. His story is like Bobby Jindal (born in USA to Indian Immigrants) or like Lieberman (born to Polish Immigrant Jews).
Like Nader or Jindal or Lieberman, Obama was born in the USA (jus solis citizenship aka Natural Born citizens).
Ralph Nader has been on the USA Presidential Ballot 3 times, with no legal challenges as to why he should stand for office based on his immigrant parents.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Nader
Lieberman was a VP Candidate in 2000 and nobody questioned this?
http://www.answers.com/topic/joseph-lieberman
But the clueless people still dont get it. They think that some crooked lawyers, blogs and radios full are the mediums of facts. Let them keep sending their emotions, donations and get suckered as much as they wish.
When Friday comes, expect to see a lot of gnashing of teeth and emotional emptiness.
In Reply to Paul:
Paul. You are incorrectly lumping Obama, Nader, and Lieberman into the same group. There is a huge fundamental difference. Nader and Lieberman’s parents were naturalized United States citizens at the time of their births – making their children natural born citizens. Obama’s father was not a US citizen at his birth. No one is denying that – not even Obama.
In Reply to MrsD:
You wrote: “All children of people alive in the USA at the time of the ratification of the constitution would be natural born citizens.”
That’s my point as well, with the addition: “All children of citizens alive in the USA etc.”. But it doesn’t say anywhere in the Constitution that it is necessary for parents of “natural born citizens” to both be under the jurisdiction of the US. To my mind, it’s not even implied in any way.
In Reply to Joss:
Exactly Joss. You are 100% correct.
Thats why Ralph Nader has been on the ballot, Lieberman has been on the ballot and JINDAL (my favorite) will be on the ballot.
Obama has a HUGE ADVANTAGE over Nader or Lieberman or JINDAL.
Obama’s mother is 100% American Citizen by birth, Grandfather 100% citizen, Great Grandfather 100% citizen, Great *2 Grandfather 100% citizen. Actually Obama is a cousin of Cheney to the power of 10. All from his mothers side. Obama’s missing father (absonded) is British/Kenyan and apart from age-10, he missed out on obama’s life.
JINDAL, LIEBERMAN and NADER’s parents were all immigrants who became NATURALIZED citizens. Their grandfathers, great grandfathers, great *2 grandfathers were all Indian, Polish and Lebanese citizes respectively.
So if JINDAL (with Indian parents naturalized), Nader (with Lebanes parents naturalized) and Lieberman (with Polish parents naturalized) were eleigible, …..
How the hell is Obama (with a full grown Mother citizen) not eligible?
Its so simple!!!!!!!!!!! And thats why DEMs and GoP and MSM has moved on from such NONSENSE.
It does sound funny doesnt it. All these confused drama escalations and mis-information.
Expect SCOTUS to uphold this view and dismiss the cases.
In Reply to Mr. D.:
I keep telling you that if you rely on mis-information, you get more confused.
Read the story on JINDAL, whom I know from college. He was born 6 months after his parents came to the USA (meaning they were 3 months pregnant when they came over) as immigrant students- like obama’s father.
I urge you not to rely on blogs or talking points from rumors as facts. It makes your views even more suspect.
In Reply to Joss:
Joss. I agree with you that, “it doesn’t say anywhere in the Constitution that it is necessary for parents of “natural born citizens” to both be under the jurisdiction of the US.”
However, that doesn’t end the argument. Just because it isn’t explicitly stated doesn’t mean it wasn’t their intentions.
Do you think they would have agreed with allowing a child of a British subject to be the President just because he was born on US Soil. You don’t think the jurisdiction is implied through the severing of ties with the British Crown in the Declaration of Independence. I know that the DOI and Constitution are seperate documents, but he DOI gives you an idea of their mindset to the British Crown. It seems inconceivable that they would have allowed a child of a British subject to be President simply by birth on US soil.
In Reply to Mr. D.:
In fact JINDAL’s parents came as students and gave birth to him within 5 months of staying here; Nader’s parents came as refugees and gave birth to him in 1st year; Lieberman’s parents came as workers and gave birth to within their 2nd year.
All the parents of JINDAL, NADER, LIEBERMAN gave birth to them when they were not even naturalized citizens (takes more than 7-10 years process).
In Reply to Paul:
That’s for the court to decide. It’s totally conceivable and accepted that a child of two naturalized US citizens or of two US citizens, who are citizens by other statutes, is a “natural born citizen”, if he’s born on US soil.
But the strength of one’s parent’s or parents’ lineage should not be there to say that one is a better or more suited citizen than the other, not in a country with equality for all. That’s what the Nazis tried to do with their Aryan ideas. One has to be careful.
This is only about the question: Does the fact of having one foreign parent disqualify you from being a “natural born citizen” and therefore from becoming President? I seriously don’t know. I think it doesn’t, Donofrio (and many others) think it does, but that’s not for me or them to decide.
In Reply to Mr. D.:
That strict conviluted view of the constitution makes you even more suspect.
If we follow your view, then I guess we should revert back to the days of:
– Only WASP males have rights to votes and stand for office
– women have no rights
– minorities have no rights
Thats why many people have ignored your convoluted views. And thats why SCOTUS has always affirmed such views as convoluted.
In Reply to Paul:
I suggest we keep discussions civil, w/out ad hominem.
I have to rephrase what I wrote before:
This is not only about the question: Does the fact of having one foreign parent disqualify you from being a “natural born citizen” and therefore from becoming President? It’s the more specific case that the foreign parent’s citizenship also implies a jurisdiction that is extended upon the child, as in Obama’s case. (Sorry.)
In Reply to Paul:
You stated:
That strict conviluted view of the constitution makes you even more suspect.
If we follow your view, then I guess we should revert back to the days of:
Only WASP males have rights to votes and stand for office
women have no rights
minorities have no rights”
I’m not sure how you jumped to that conclusion based on my comments. Obviously the framers had some biggoted views and they were corrected by subsequent amendments. However, unless changed by future amendments, the constitution does not evolve in meaning to conform to the relevant culture; it is static. The phrase “natural born citizen” found in Article 2, Section 1 has never really been defined and until it is ruled upon, the original intent of the definition by the framers has to be used until subsequently amended or defined. I hope that the meaning is ruled upon soon because in this day and age of racial diversity, we will need a clear definition for future Presidential races to end the rampant speculation.
In Reply to Mr. D.:
I find it funny that on some posts you are “MrsD” and then on others you are “MrD”.
Cant you decide which side you are going to be today? LOL!!! it shouldnt be hard?
In Reply to Mr. D.:
You wrote: “However, that doesn’t end the argument. Just because it isn’t explicitly stated doesn’t mean it wasn’t their intentions.”
We have to try to not confuse motivation and intention. Intention is what’s written in the law. What you’re talking about is motivation, the psychology, opinions, concerns, rumors etc. behind a legislative decisions, including dissenting opinions.
But that’s NOT intention!
If the 14th Amendment does not rule out subjection under two jurisdictions, then it’s clear what the 14th Amendment’s author George Williams did, when he said that “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” meant sole allegiance to the US:
1. His motivation, i.e. that which MOVED him to his statement: “Oops, I messed it up. This might be a backdoor for people with dual allegiance.”
2. His intention, i.e. which he did after he realized that the 14th Amendment posed a problem in his world view: A statement about it meaning sole allegiance, hoping to somehow influence the interpretations of the 14th Amendment. But his opinion never became law. There was never an Amendment to the 14th Amendment.
So his motivations are irrelevant, as all motivations are. The intentions are what count, the real intentions, i.e. what is actually written as law. So yes, the debates end, when the text of the law ends. Anything else is nice to talk about for historical reasons, but it’s not applicable, unless the law has been wilfully left ambiguous and open for discussion, which (to my mind) is not the case here.
Who ever said Obama ever renounced his dual citizenship with Britain?
After all, British law requires that a British citizen at birth must renounce their allegiance to the crown at age 18 or older if they no longer want to be a citizen.
Indians and Invaders: The Citizenship Clause and Illegal Aliens
March 2008
A. Birthright Citizenship and the Common Law
One fundamental premise of Anglo-American jurisprudence is that any child born within the dominion and under the authority of the sovereign is a citizen. In the seventeenth century, Lord Coke held, “Every man is either alienigena, an alien born, or subditus, a subject born. Every alien is either a friend that is in league, &c. or an enemy that is in open war … .” With respect to enemy aliens, Coke said that if they “surprise any castle or fort, and possess the same by hostility, and have issue there, that issue is no subject to the King, though he be born within his dominions, for that he was not born under the King’s ligeance or obedience.” By contrast, allied or friendly aliens “owed to the King local obedience, that is, so long as he was within the King’s protection; which local obedience, being but momentary and uncertain, is yet strong enough to make a natural subject; for if he hath issue here, that issue is a natural born subject … .” The only exception to this rule was an ambassador, who was an official representative of a foreign prince and thus owed him allegiance even when abroad.
Although Coke’s reasoning relied on a feudal premise about the indissoluble tie between lord and subject, his formulation was adopted by the United States. The Supreme Court observed that the birth citizenship rule for aliens “does not appear to have been contested or doubted until more than fifty years after the adoption of the Constitution.” And when a challenge was made in Lynch v. Clarke, a New York court reaffirmed the common law approach and rejected a reciprocal consent theory of citizenship. Indeed, Lynch held that “every person born within the dominions and allegiance of the United States, whatever were the situation of his parents, is a natural born citizen.”
B. The Fourteenth Amendment and Wong Kim Ark
When the Thirty-Ninth Congress got down to work, the conventional view is that they sought to affirm the common law approach to birthright citizenship and extend the rule to the newly freed slaves. The Civil Rights Act of 1866, which was the direct antecedent of the Fourteenth Amendment, held 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.” During the debate on the Act, common law precedents such as Lynch were cited to illustrate the meaning of birthright citizenship. While the language on “Indians not taxed” was taken from the Constitution to indicate that the exclusion of the Tribes would continue, the phrase “subject to any foreign power” referred to the traditional exceptions for children of ambassadors and enemy aliens in hostile occupation.
When Republicans decided to secure and broaden the Civil Rights Act through the Fourteenth Amendment, the relevant text was changed to say that all Americans “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States were birthright citizens. Once again, the common law was invoked to define this language, but the debate centered on whether this substitute applied to the Tribes. Some contended that federal statutes already regulated aspects of tribal life and subjected Native Americans to national jurisdiction. Nonetheless, the phrase was retained because the floor managers could not agree on a better alternative. Furthermore, they countered that the Tribes were not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States because they had their own recognized governments.
In United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the Supreme Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment adopted the common law view of birthright citizenship. Ruling that children born in the United States to Chinese immigrants were citizens, the Justices “detailed at some length the history of the Citizenship Clause, and the predominantly geographic sense in which the term “jurisdiction’ was used.” They concluded that the purpose of the “subject to the jurisdiction” language:
Would appear to have been to exclude, by the fewest and fittest words, (besides children of members of the Indian tribes, standing in a peculiar relation to the National Government, unknown to the common law,) the two classes of cases–children born of alien enemies in hostile occupation, and children of diplomatic representatives of a foreign State–both of which, as has already been shown, … had been recognized exceptions to the fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the country.
The emphasis on territoriality was an integral part of the common law approach dating back to Coke, which held that citizenship was directly tied to the government’s legal and practical authority.