BREAKING! Obama Papers Leaking Out! Birth Papers-School Papers Exposed!

[Cruisingfool]

I fully believe you two have all the evidence to back your claims, so anyday you want to let the cat out of the bag..... Go for it!

[DerailAmnesty.com]

Originally Posted by Cruisingfool

I fully believe you two have all the evidence to back your claims, so anyday you want to let the cat out of the bag..... Go for it!

Point of Clarity: Aside from saying I can't keep all the stories straight, I haven't made any claims.

From what I can gather from this thread -

A. Star is convinced Obama never attended Columbia.

B. You insist that Obama was born outside the United States but if our president had been born in the U.S., he'd be a citizen eligible to occupy the White House.

C. Twoller says whether or not he was born in Hawaii is irrelevant, because his father wasn't a U.S. citizen and, therefore, his offspring can't hold the presidency.

At this point, I'm going to drink a glass of milk, take two aspirin and hope my head isn't still spinning in the morning.

May the force be with all three of you.

[REWHBLCAIN]

Sunday, 14th February 2010
An interesting situation has developed over the last year or so regarding challenging the qualifications and eligibility of people to hold the offices they hold.

In one, Hillary Clinton’s appointment as Secretary of State has been challenged on the basis that when she was a U.S. Senator, immediately prior to being appointed by President Obama as Secretary of State, the Senate increased the salary of that position three times. The U.S. Constitution, Article I, section 6, clause 2, provides: “No senator or representative shall, during the time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil office under the authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the emoluments whereof shall have been [increased] during such time.”

That language prohibits Mrs. Clinton from holding the office of Secretary of State, despite a “legislative fix” to roll back the compensation increase before she actually took office, according to a challenge by Judicial Watch, which disputed the appointment in the name of a State Department employee.

The details of the complaint are less important than the reason for it being dismissed by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The Court concluded the State Department employee lacked legal standing to bring suit.

Another similar case involves President Barack Obama, whose citizenship, and thus his eligibility to be President of the United States, has been called into question by some citizens. A number of suits have been filed, and most have been dismissed, some of them because, again, those filing the suits lack legal standing to sue a candidate or office holder.

Here is a definition of legal standing:

The legally protectible stake or interest that an individual has in a dispute that entitles him to bring the controversy before the court to obtain judicial relief.

Standing, sometimes referred to as standing to sue, is the name of the federal law doctrine that focuses on whether a prospective plaintiff can show that some personal legal interest has been invaded by the defendant. It is not enough that a person is merely interested as a member of the general public in the resolution of the dispute. The person must have a personal stake in the outcome of the controversy.

If a senator or representative is prohibited by constitutional provision from holding an office for which the body he/she served in has voted a pay increase, exactly who has standing to challenge that individual’s eligibility? If the employees of the State Department – who are sworn to uphold the Constitution and are thus prohibited from acting on orders from a Secretary that is ineligible for the office – don’t have standing to challenge their boss’s eligibility, who does have standing?

The people who question Mr. Obama’s citizenship are held in contempt by his supporters, and others who believe that Mr. Obama is a citizen as required by the Constitution. But taking the personalities and party affiliations out of the question, the fundamental issue is an important one.

Suppose for the sake of discussion that someone who isn’t a naturalized citizen manages to get through the campaign and is nominated at his/her party, wins the election and is sworn in as President, and at no time along the way was he/she required to prove citizenship. This seems an absurdly unlikely possibility, but the fact is that a candidate’s citizenship is assumed, rather than ascertained. In such a case, how do the American people remove a President from office who isn’t a citizen if no U.S. citizen has standing in the courts to bring the action?

Put another way, what is the point of having laws and established procedures on the books if no one has the standing necessary to apply them by bringing a court action?

In a country where virtually anyone can file a suit against virtually anyone else for any reason (or no reason), citizens are prohibited from filing suit against an elected leader unless they have “standing,” which seems to be so tightly defined as to eliminate nearly everyone who might believe there’s a reason to sue a leader.

If a citizen had irrefutable proof that an elected or appointed official was for some reason ineligible to hold that office, the citizen would be unable to file suit to remove the ineligible official unless he/she met the very thin definition of standing; the citizen would have to show that his/her personal legal interest had been invaded by the illegal President or Secretary in order to remove him/her from office.

And if no one has standing to sue for dismissal, or if those with standing do not sue, the ineligible official would continue to hold office. That is fundamentally wrong in this country, which prides itself on freedom and the rule of law.

For judges to view standing so narrowly in cases of eligibility to hold office is judicial tyranny. It should not be difficult to hold officials accountable to the requirements of the offices they hold or seek.

[Cruisingfool]

Originally Posted by DerailAmnesty.com

Point of Clarity: Aside from saying I can't keep all the stories straight, I haven't made any claims.

From what I can gather from this thread -

A. Star is convinced Obama never attended Columbia.

B. You insist that Obama was born outside the United States but if our president had been born in the U.S., he'd be a citizen eligible to occupy the White House.

C. Twoller says whether or not he was born in Hawaii is irrelevant, because his father wasn't a U.S. citizen and, therefore, his offspring can't hold the presidency.

At this point, I'm going to drink a glass of milk, take two aspirin and hope my head isn't still spinning in the morning.

May the force be with all three of you.

Atleast you didn't call anybody any names, but rather then post the evidence you have, you do the usual spin as expected.

PachoPatroit says he has seen enough, he is convinced that obummer is a US Born Citizen. He hasn't posted any of the evidence he says he has, but does the usual spin job, and starts name calling.

Then RIMO rattles off with her one line rants (always in bold), but hasn't posted any evidence to the contrary ( which is fully expected).

[REWHBLCAIN]

Originally Posted by Cruisingfool

Atleast you didn't call anybody any names, but rather then post the evidence you have, you do the usual spin as expected.

PachoPatroit says he has seen enough, he is convinced that obummer is a US Born Citizen. He hasn't posted any of the evidence he says he has, but does the usual spin job, and starts name calling.

Then RIMO rattles off with her one line rants (always in bold), but hasn't posted any evidence to the contrary ( which is fully expected).

Don't let it bother you.

Wasn't the doubts of global warming once linked into folks who were called conspiracy nuts also? We all know how that is finally panning out.

[Cruisingfool]

Link
Monday, February 15, 2010
"Obama's Constitutional Eligibility Question" - New Policy - "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" - Washington Times National Weekly - Monday 15 Feb 2010 - pg 5



Another New AD - "Obama's Constitutional Eligibility Question" - New Policy - it's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" - Washington Times National Weekly - Monday 08 Feb 2015 Issue - pg 5:

Obama refuses to address the legal question about his Constitutional Eligibility to be sitting in the Oval Office. He has never conclusively proven to any controlling legal authority that he is a "natural born Citizen" of the USA to "constitutional standards" as is constitutionally required to be eligible for the office of President and Commander-in-Chief of the military.

http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/2010...ayed-in-court/

Many people do not know there is a difference between a "Citizen" and a "natural born Citizen." Being a "Citizen" of any type, whether an Article II natural born Citizen, 14th Amendment born Citizen, 14th Amendment naturalized Citizen, or statutory born Citizen under a Congressional Act,, means you are a member of the society and entitled to all its rights and privileges. But under our Constitution to serve in the singular most powerful office in our government, that is to be the President and Commander-in-Chief of our military under our Article II, Section 1, Clause 5, of our Constitution you need to be a "natural born Citizen." Being a "natural born Citizen" cannot be conveyed by any laws of man and can only be conveyed by the facts of nature at the time of your birth and circumstances of your birth, i.e., being born in the country to two citizens of the country. (Legal Treatise "The Law of Nations - Principles of Natural Law"" Section 212 by E. Vattel 1758, SCOTUS Decision Venus 1814, SCOTUS Decision Minor v Happersett 1874). This new advertorial is designed to help educate the public pictorially about the fact that Obama is NOT a Natural Born Citizen of the USA and thus is ineligible under our Constitution to the office he sits in. Obama is a Usurper who was allowed to be put there by millions in foreign money, a corruptly led Congress, and an enabling main stream media. This is a constitutional crisis and a national security concern that must be addressed by the U.S. Supreme Court or our Republic, Constitution, and Liberties are in great danger.

Obama is hiding the truth from the People with an enabling media and is refusing to answer questions on his Article II constitutional eligibility to be President and Commander in Chief of the military. In fact he said last week people should not even question him about it. With him his constitutional eligibility and exact citizenship status policy is, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" ... and hope it goes away. Well it is not going away. This is a constitutionally based legal eligibility question. Obama's election fraud and cover up will be revealed. The truth and the Constitution will win the day in the end and We the People will constitutionally remove the Usurper from his illegally obtained office.

Charles F. Kerchner, Jr., Commander USNR (Retired)
Lead Plaintiff, Kerchner v Obama & Congress
http://puzo1.blogspot.com/ ... help the cause: http://www.protectourliberty.org/

[PochoPatriot]

Creepingfool,

In the hopes that we can have clarity before consensus, let's be clear on what constitutes a "natural born citizen" in the eyes of current Constitutional law. It is irrelevant to me what you and other "birthers" think the law should be.

So what are the Constitutional requirements for holding the office of the President? Article 2, Section 1 of the United States Constitution says the following:

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; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

Let's deal with them on a point be point basis:

1. Natural born Citizen.
According to any history book you read, I presume that you read things other than World Nut Daily, Hawaii became a state on on Aug. 21, 1959. Barack Obama was born in Hawaii on Aug. 4, 1961. Nearly two years after Hawaii became a state. So I don't see why this is an issue. Please illuminate me, in your own words, why this is a problem. As an aside, there was a group that attempted to do what you "birthers" are doing to Sen. Barry Goldwater. He was born in Arizona when it was still a territory, and not a State. It was also done to John McCain and Dick Cheney.

Further "natural born Citizen" is not really defined. In fact, this term was left to the States to define until the 14th Amendment.

2. A Citizen of the United States.
Please note that the Constitution uses the conjunction "or" indicating that the President can be either a "natural born Citizen" or a "Citizen of the United States." So it seems to me that legal citizens can become President. Then again I am just a layman in regards to Constituional law, and would be open to an opinion form our resident attorney-at-law.

3. Must be 35 years old or older.
President Obama was born in 1961. He was elected in 2008. Simple math demonstrates that he is eligible on that front.

4. Fourteen years a resident of the United States.
This is were there is some ambiguity in the Constitution. Are the 14 years cumulative or consecutive. It's not really clear, but either way, President Obama meets this requirement.

On all four of these elements, I see no reason why President Obama is disqualified, but then again maybe I'm just to liberal to see the issues, right?

Now, regarding the U.S. law about birth parents. I don't see how it affects anything, since current U.S. states that any person born in the United States IS a citizen, period. Again, whether you or I think that "birth right citizenship" is good for this country or not is irrelevant. Current U.S. law says this is the way it is, and that is that.

Further, the citing of this law is silly. Why would a sitting U.S. Senator running for the Presidency, gathering millions of dollars do that if he, and his advisers knew that he might be ineligible due to some obscure law? Besides, if this was an issue, and, as your claimed, Bush and Cheney were in on it, it does not explain why talk radio did not jump all over this issue. But that's what makes conspiracy theories so fun. The more people that don't respond in the manner you want you can label as ignorant, stupid, or liberal. This is why I tend to stay away from conspiracy theories, because too many people in the know can and will talk.

Now on to the alleged forgery of President Obama's birth certificate. I see no reason to dismiss this as a forgery. Perhaps you can tell me why I should. Again use your own words, and nothing from World Nut Daily. Further, why would a major Presidential candidate risk his candidacy over a forged birth certificate. Further, the certificate is consistent with others issued in that era in Hawaii. Lastly, those who have touched and examined the certificate, have attested to its authenticity. Why would anyone lose professional credibility over a fraudulent birth certificate?

Then you have the birth announcements found in the major newspapers from Honolulu, which list a birth of a boy to "Mr. and Mrs. Barack H. Obama." I guess you are going to tell me that these newspapers in some sort of premonition about this particular baby made it all up?

The Kenyan birth certificate forgery. Yes, this is a forgery, for a number of reasons, which I will list.

1. The document is dated Feb. 17, 1964 and bears a marking identifying it as from "The Republic of Kenya." Just one small problem. This name was not officially adopted until Dec. 12, 1964. In February of 1964 Kenya was known as The Dominion of Kenya. So what do you do with those extra 10 months? Are you going to tell me that somehow, someone in Kenya knew that the country was going to change its official name, and placed it on an official document some ten months before the fact?

2. Barack Obama's father's age is incorrect. He would have been 24 or 25, not the listed age of 26.

3. Barak Obama's birth place is listed as Mombasa, Kenya. Just one problem, Mombasa was not part of Kenya until Dec. 12, 1963. Prior to this date, Mombasa was part of a country called Zanzibar.

4. Mombasa was hundreds of miles away from Obama, Sr's. home town. Nairobi would have been much closer, not to mention in the actual country of Kenya.

5. This forgery was exposed as being a copy of an Australian. The forgery contains many of the same numerical markings as the original.

6. The Taitz document is also a forgery for the following reasons:
Citing Mombasa as the city of birth. The distance (over 1,000 miles) of Mombasa (eastern Kenya on the Indian Ocean) to Obama's home (southwestern Kenya) versus Nairobi's.

It based on these reasons that I dismiss the claims of "birthers" and place them JFK conspiracy nuts, 9/11 "truthers", Federal Reserve nuts, and other conspiracy nuts. Now if you want to convince me, you have to come at me with some hard facts. The burden of proof is on the "birthers". You are making the positive assertion. President Obama has no reason to respond to your nutty claims. The fact that he has, and the "birthers" dismiss it is not surprising. That is conspiracy theory 101: Deny the facts presented by those you oppose.

Now whether you agree with me or not is of no concern to me. I believe that hardcore "birthers" in this movement are detrimental to our credibility. Sadly, we have to deal with you. I would hope that we deal with you be keeping you far from the public as possible.

Edited to add: I call you a "conspiracy nut" not because I wish to dismiss your arguments, but because you have truly earned that moniker based on your posts here and on other boards.

[Rim05]

World Nut Daily

This is the best phrase in this entire thread.

[Cruisingfool]

I see you are back to your typical liberal mentality, name calling. And I see RIMO the one line ranter showed up as well.

I am going to pick apart everything you just posted, but of course I will do one at a time, and there is also a limit of 15,000 words on this forum per post, so I will have to break it up.

Link

Tuesday, September 8, 2009
The Natural Born Citizen Clause of Our U.S. Constitution Requires that Both of the Child’s Parents Be U.S. Citizens At the Time of Birth

When interpreting the Constitution, we must decide whether we will look to the document as an original and static one whose meaning has already been established at a given time by the People and its Framers or one that is living and which can be changed over any given time by a court of law. See the address of Justice Antonin Scalia to the 2008 Annual National Lawyers Convention on November 22, 2008, at the Mayflower Hotel, in Washington, D.C. http://www.fed-soc.org/publications/...pub_detail.asp. (advocates originalism rather than living constitutionalism). I submit that Article II’s “natural born Citizen” clause has a fixed and knowable meaning which was established at the time of its drafting and should therefore be interpreted through the eyes of the original Framers that drafted and ratified the clause so as to determine what they intended the clause to mean (original intent theory). I also submit that we should interpret the “natural born Citizen” clause in a way that reasonable persons living at the time of its adoption would have declared the ordinary meaning of the text to be (original meaning theory). This is not living constitutionalism but rather originalism or textualism as applied to interpreting the Constitution. It is this latter approach that I will utilize in this article.

E. Vattel stated in 1758, as translated into English in 1797: "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." E. Vattel, The Law of Nations or Principles of Natural Law, Sec. 212 Citizens and natives. In Footnote 1 at the end of Sec. 212, Vattel stated that “as a general rule” the child inherits his father’s citizenship, or his mother’s but only if she is not married.

The first thing that we have to understand about what Vattel wrote is that he made a distinction between a “citizen” and a “natural born Citizen.” A citizen is simply a member of the civil society who is bound to the society by certain duties and subject to its authority. “Citizens” also participate equally in all the advantages the society has to offer. On the other hand, a “natural born Citizen” means much more than just “citizen.” Vattel required that for a child to be a “natural born citizen,” or what he called in French in his 1758 first edition of The Law of Nations or Principles of Natural Law, les naturels, ou indigenes (the “natives or indigines”-The Venus, 12 U.S. (8 Cranch) 253 (1814)), the child must be born in the country to both parents who are also citizens of the same country.

In the original French, Vattel wrote: "Les naturels, ou indigenes, sont ceux qui sont nes dans le pays de parents citoyens,” meaning the "natives or indigines" are those born in the country of citizen parents. Both the Framers and later English translators of Vattel's treatise replaced the words"natural born Citizen" for the words "natives or indigenes." From Madison's notes, we see that there were some delegates who were concerned about foreigners. For example, from Max Farrand's transcripts of Madison's notes (August 9 and August 13, 1787), there is the following concerning the House of Representatives eligibility requirements: "Mr. Gerry wished that in future the eligibility might be confined to Natives." The word "native" occurs multiple times in the notes for these two days. (The phrase "natural born citizen" was not used here by the delegates.). The word "native" was a synonym for the phrase "natural born citizen." The delegates had already used the term “natural born citizen” when proposing the requirements for President, Vice President, and either House of Congress and later used the word “natives” when referring to eligibility requirements for the House of Representative. There is further evidence of this in at least three works: Blackstone's "Commentaries on the Laws of England" (see Book the First: The Rights of Persons; Chapter the Tenth: Of People, Whether Aliens, Denizens or Natives.), translations of Quintilian's "Institutio Oratoria", and the 1797 English edition of Vattel's "The Law of Nations or Principles of Natural Law."

In the beginning of his definition, Vattel required that the children be born of “parents” who are citizens. The use of the word “parents” refers to both mother and father. If he required only one parent such as the father, he would have said “of fathers who are citizens” and not “of parents who are citizens.” He did later refer to “fathers,” but only because wives automatically acquired the citizenship of their husbands the same way children did. This rule was carried into our own naturalization laws, wherein citizenship can be derived from a close relation. Historically, a number of U.S. laws have provided for the automatic naturalization of children or wives (not husbands) of naturalized U.S. citizens. In some periods of our history, these laws provided that married women derived citizenship from their husband and had no control over their status. Under the Act of 10 February 1855, a woman automatically became an American upon marrying a U.S. citizen or following the naturalization of her foreign husband. Kelly v. Owen, 74 U.S. 7 Wall. 496 (1868). The 1922 Married Women's Act (or the Cable Act) finally severed the link between naturalization and marital status for most women. Hence, if Vattel meant to focus only on “fathers,” he would have used “fathers” throughout his definition and never mentioned “parents” when he first defined “natural born Citizen,” for there would not have been any need to use the word “parents” when “fathers” would have sufficed. Hence, Vattel would have focused on the citizenship of the father since that citizenship would determine that of both the mother and child. It is also noteworthy that Vattel had no problem allowing the child to inherit the citizenship of the mother when the mother was not married to the child’s father. Given that Vattel in effect really focused on the citizenship of both the child’s father and mother in defining a “natural born Citizen,” Vattel’s definition of a “natural born Citizen” does not violate the equal protection guarantee embedded in the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause. Miller v. Albright, 523 U.S. 420 (1998); Nguyen v. INS, 533 U.S. 53, 121 S.Ct. 2053; 150 L.Ed.2d 115 (2001).

There is other evidence in his treatise that shows that Vattel meant to refer to both the child’s mother and father in his definition of a “natural born citizen.” When defining what a country is in Section 122, he stated the “term signifies the state, or even more particularly the town or place, where our parents had their fixed residence at the moment of our birth…. A man ought to preserve gratitude and affection for the state to which he is indebted for his education, and of which his parents were members when they gave him birth….” In commenting on the citizenship status of children born at sea at Section 216, he stated that a child born abroad a foreign vessel that is docked in a port belonging to their own nation is reputed born in the country, provided “she [the mother] and her husband have not quitted their native country to settle elsewhere.” In commenting upon vagrants in Section 219he stated: “Vagrants are people who have no settlement. Consequently those born of vagrant parents have no country, since a man’s country is the place where, at the time of his birth, his parents had their settlement (Section 122), or it is the state of which his father was then a member…” Given that Vattel in effect really focused on the citizenship of both the child’s father and mother in defining a “natural born Citizen,” Vattel’s definition of a “natural born Citizen” does not violate the equal protection guarantee embedded in the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause. Miller v. Albright, 523 U.S. 420 (1998); Nguyen v. INS, 533 U.S. 53, 121 S.Ct. 2053; 150 L.Ed.2d 115 (2001).

The Framers were very familiar with William Blackstone. We can also see in the writings of Blackstone that the allegiance of both parents to the King was needed to avoid dual allegiance in the child. Blackstone wrote:

"When I say, that an alien is one who is born out of the king's dominions, or allegiance, this also must be understood with some restrictions. The common law indeed stood absolutely so; with only a very few exceptions: so that a particular act of parliament became necessary after the restoration, for the naturalization of children of his majesty's English subjects, born in foreign countries during the late troubles. And this maxim of the law proceeded upon a general principle, that every man owes natural allegiance where he is born, and cannot owe two such allegiances, or serve two masters, at once. Yet the children of the king's embassadors born abroad were always held to be natural subjects: for as the father, though in a foreign country, owes not even a local allegiance to the prince to whom he is sent; so, with regard to the son also, he was held (by a kind of postliminium) to be born under the king of England's allegiance, represented by his father, the embassador. To encourage also foreign commerce, it was enacted by statute 25 Edw. III. st. 2. that all children born abroad, provided both their parents were at the time of the birth in allegiance to the king, and the mother had passed the seas by her husband's consent, might inherit as if born in England: and accordingly it hath been so adjudged in behalf of merchants. But by several more modern statutes these restrictions are still farther taken off: so that all children, born out of the king's ligeance, whose fathers were natural-born subjects, are now natural-born subjects themselves, to all intents and purposes, without any exception; unless their said fathers were attainted, or banished beyond sea, for high treason; or were then in the service of a prince at enmity with Great Britain (emphais in the original)."

[Cruisingfool]

William Blackstone, Commentaries 1:354, 357--58, 361-62 (1765). We can see that even the English Parliament gave importance to a child having both parents be “in the allegiance of the king,” which under English common law meant the parents would have been “natural born subjects.” By having both parents be “natural born subjects,” the child would not have been born with any other conflicting allegiance other than the one that attached from the foreign soil. Parliament was willing to live with any allegiance attaching to the child from the foreign soil but not with any that may attach by descent from one of the parents, the latter one being by nature a much more stronger one. It was only later in time that the rule was made less restrictive and allowed for just the father to be a “natural born subject.”

There is historical evidence that the Founders borrowed from the Dutch much more heavily than from the British when making the new nation. During the revolutionary period Dutch law provided for citizenship by jus sanguinis. There is considerable evidence that the Framers were also influenced by the citizenship law of Holland. “The American colonists had become familiar with the rights of citizenship possessed in other countries, both from the fact that some of them resided in Holland for a time, before they came to America, and from the further fact that the New York colony was essentially Dutch in its original settlement and government.” John S. Wise, A Treatise on American Citizenship (1906). In Holland, “[c]itizenship could be acquired in several ways. Probably the most common was birth. Some towns accepted everyone as citizen who was baptized in a local church. But more commonly it was required that one’s parents were citizens too. . . .” R. Po-chia Hsia & Henk F. K. van Nierop, Calvinism and Religious Toleration in the Dutch Golden Age 161(2002). “One’s parents” would necessarily included one’s mother and father. This Dutch law is consistent with Vattel’s definition of what is a “natural born citizen.”

Apart from the heavy Dutch influence upon the Founders, when the Framers drafted the Constitution, they relied heavily upon Vattel to guide them. Citizenship was a topic that affected U.S. relations with other nations. Given that citizenship affects "the behavior of nation states with each other" (Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 U.S. 692 (2004), the Founders would have looked to the law of nations to define it for the purposes of the new nation. The law of nations definition on citizenship also gave uniformity to the subject area, which the Framers wanted to achieve for citizenship laws as they did for naturalization laws. Gibbons v. Ogden, 22 U.S. 1, 36 (Wheat) (1824). They would therefore have referred to and accepted Vattel's law of nations definition to give meaning to what an Article II “natural born Citizen” was.

The meaning of a “natural born Citizen” as expressed by Vattel, including that both parents of the child must be citizens at the time of the child’s birth in order to make the child a “natural born Citizen,” was carried forward in American history following the Founding. The standard provided by Vattel has not changed in our jurisprudence and is still valid today as it was during the Founding. Also, the Fourteenth Amendment has not changed the meaning of a “natural born Citizen.” Legislative activity by the early Congresses provides insight into the question of whether Vattel required one or two parents to be citizens. There are Congressional acts that were passed after the Constitution was adopted that give us insight into what the Framers of the Constitution meant by “natural born Citizen.” The 1790 Congress, many of whose members had been members of the Constitutional Convention, passed the Naturalization Act of 1790 (1 Stat.103,104) which provided that “And the children of citizens of the United States that may be born beyond the sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens.” This phrasing followed the literal terms of British statutes, beginning in 1350, under which persons born abroad, whose parents were both British subjects, would enjoy the same rights of inheritance as those born in England; beginning with laws in 1709 and 1731, these statutes expressly provided that such persons were natural-born subjects of the crown.” The Naturalization Act of 1790 declared these children to be "natural born Citizens," but only retrospectively. See Weedin v. Chin Bow, 274 U.S. 657 (1927). It is interesting to note that George Washington was president of the Constitutional Convention and President of the United States when this bill became law and if he had disagreed with the two U.S. citizen-parent requirement, he could have vetoed this bill. One would then at first think that this legislation strongly suggests that the Framers of the Constitution understood this phrase to refer to citizenship acquired from both of the child’s parents at birth, regardless of whether or not that birth had taken place in the United States. This statute shows what role the parents played in the minds of the early founders.

While only retrospectively, the First Congress was willing to declare a child born out of the United States to two United States parents a “natural born Citizen.” This was not consistent with what Vattel wrote in The Law of Nations of Principles of Natural Law, at Sec. 215. Children of citizens, born in a foreign country, where he declared these children just “citizens” and not “natural born citizens”: "It is asked, whether the children born of citizens in a foreign country are citizens? By the law of nature alone, children follow the condition of their fathers, and enter into all their rights (Sec. 212); the place of birth produces no change in this particular, and cannot of itself furnish any reason for taking from a child what nature has given him; I say 'of itself,' for civil or political laws may, for particular reasons, ordain otherwise. . . .” (emphasis supplied). Clearly, Vattel addressed the question of whether these children are “citizens,” not “natural born citizen.” He does not address the question of whether they are “natural born citizens” because according to his own definition, a child had to be born “in the country” in order to be a “natural born citizen.” Being born abroad and therefore not “in the country,” such a child could not be a “natural born citizen.”

In this connection and as an aside which applies to the question of whether Senator McCain is an Article II “natural born Citizen,” it should be noted that according to Vattel, being physically born out of the country did not necessarily mean that one was not born “in the country.” Vattel explained that if a child was born “in the armies of the state,” that child was “reputed born in the country; for a citizen, who is absent with his family on the service of the state, but still dependent on it, and subject to its jurisdiction, cannot be considered as having quitted its territory.” Vattel, Sec. 217. Since this child would have been born in the foreign “armies of the state,” he would normally not be granted citizenship in the country in which he was physically born. Additionally, the country on whose soil the child might be born might adhere to a jus sanguinis system of conferring citizenship (meaning that born on its soil alone would not confer citizenship and therefore allegiance and loyalty on the child). Being born under those conditions, this child would therefore be born with sole allegiance to the country of his parents and would qualify as a “natural born citizen” of that country.

While the 1790 act naturalized all "persons" and so included women, it also declared that "the right of citizenship shall not descend to persons whose fathers have never been resident in the United States...." This prevented the automatic grant of citizenship to children born abroad whose mother, but not father, had resided in the United States. Citizenship was inherited exclusively through the father. As we have seen above, Congress did not remove the inequity until 1934. This focus on the father as the source of citizenship (but not meaning that the status of the mother was not considered) is consistent with what Vattel wrote in Section 212 of The Law of Nations. This is further evidence that the Framers relied upon Vattel in defining citizenship for the new Republic.

In 1795 the Congress passed the Naturalization Act of 1795 which removed the words “natural born” from the term “natural born citizen” and thereby just left “citizens” as the status to be given to children born out of the United States. The fact that the 1790 Act as written was short lived and was only retrospective shows that Congress just wanted to make certain persons born abroad during the early years of the Republic “natural born Citizen” so that they could be eligible to be President. This sort of special allowance was comparable to the grandfather clause of Article II which allowed a “citizen” to be President provided that he was such at the time of the adoption of the Constitution which the Framers in 1790 knew occurred in 1789. It seems that the Third Congress passed this amendment to the 1790 Act to clarify for those living at that time who was and who was not a “natural born Citizen” per the Framers intent at that time, since the 1790 Act had introduced confusion into that subject regarding the use of those special words as found in Article II. United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649, 714 (1898) (Fuller, C.J., dissenting) (statute “passed out of abundant caution to obviate misunderstandings” about the citizenship status of foreign-born children of Americans). It is again important to note that George Washington was also President in 1795, making him aware of this change by the Third Congress. If he disagreed with the clarification and change in the wording in the new 1795 Act, he would have vetoed it. The 1790 and 1795 Acts are contemporaneous evidence of who the Framers meant to include as “natural born Citizens.” Pryor, The Natural-Born Citizen Clause and Presidential Eligibility: An Approach for Resolving Two Hundred Years of Uncertainty, 97 Yale L.J. 881 (1988).

Subsequent Supreme Court cases have stated that in interpreting the Constitution, we must look to the common law that the Framers accepted at the time of the Founding. There is strong historical evidence that the Framers in constituting the new Constitutional Republic rejected the English common law and accepted the new federal common law which emanated from the law of nations. On this subject, see my article included at this blog entitled, The Law of Nations or Principles of Natural Law as U.S. Federal Common Law Not English Common Law Define What an Article II Natural Born Citizen Is. Indeed, as we will see below, our Supreme Court adopted that definition when defining a “natural born Citizen” and thereby incorporated it into U.S. federal common law.

The definition and two-parent requirement has been reiterated by the Supreme Court and other courts in the cases of The Venus, 12U.S. 253(1814), Shanks v. Dupont, 28 U.S. 242 (1830), Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1856), Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1875) , Ex parte Reynolds, 20 F. Cas. 582 (C.C.W.D. Ark 1879), United States v. Ward, 42 F. 320 (1890); Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898), and Ludlam, Excutrix, & c., v. Ludlam, 26 N.Y. 356 (1863). It has also been confirmed by renowned legislators, including Senator Trumbull, the author of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and Representative John A. Bingham, the architect of the 14th Amendment to our Constitution.

In the case of The Venus 12 U.S. 253, 289 (1814), Justice John Marshall said: "Vattel, who, though not very full to this point, is more explicit and more satisfactory on it than any other whose work has fallen into my hands, says '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 indigenes are those born in the country of parents who are citizens. Society not being able to subsist and to perpetuate itself but by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights.'”