Obama’s Rape of the Fourteenth Amendment—From Defining a Natural Born Citizen to Authorizing His Threatened Dictatorial Raising of the Debt Ceiling

                                                              
Obama’s Rape of the Fourteenth Amendment—From Defining a Natural Born Citizen to Authorizing His Threatened Dictatorial Raising of the Debt Ceiling

                                                       By: Mario Apuzzo, Esq.

                                                              July 30, 2011

For putative President, Barack Obama, and his enablers, the Fourteenth Amendment is the gift that just keeps on giving. He has used it to impose legitimacy upon himself concerning the question of whether he is a “natural born Citizen.” Now we see that he may again need the Fourteenth Amendment to carry out his plans. While White House spokesman, Jay Carney, has reportedly ruled out such use, Obama may in the end seek to use it to impose a higher debt ceiling on the American people without any Congressional say.

                                                         The Natural Born Citizen Clause

We have seen the argument put forth by Obama’s camp that the Fourteenth Amendment makes him an Article II “natural born Citizen.” They maintain that the definition of an Article II “natural born Citizen” was confirmed or changed by the Fourteenth Amendment and the U.S. Supreme Court case of U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark. 169 U.S. 649 (1898), a U.S. Supreme Court case that interpreted that amendment. They maintain that this amendment and Wong Kim Ark confirmed or established that the definition of a “natural born Citizen” is based on the English common law and that it means any child born in the United States, even if born to one or two alien parents, and “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” They add that for children born in the United States, the citizenship of the parents is not relevant, unless the parents are ambassadors or members of invading armies. They proclaim that this territorial birthright citizenship is what a “natural born Citizen” is and that there is not need to satisfy any parental citizenship component. But the historical record and case law show that a reading of the Constitution to produce this definition of a “natural born Citizen” is not correct.

The Founders and Framers in Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 and other parts of the Constitution gave us both a "natural born Citizen" and "Citizen of the United States." These are separate and distinct terms which must be given a meaning of their own. For births after the adoption of the Constitution, one must be a "natural born Citizen" to be eligible to be President. Hence, the issue with Obama is whether he is a "natural born Citizen," not a "Citizen of the United States."

The U.S. Supreme Court has always defined a "natural born Citizen," an idiom and a term of art, as a child born in the country to citizen parents. This is still the only definition of the term ever provided to us by the U.S. Supreme Court.  The Court has never given us any other definition. This American common law definition was confirmed in the precedential case of Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. (21 Wall.) 162, 167 (1875), which dealt with the citizenship issue head on in order to determine whether Virginia Minor had the privilege to vote as a “citizen of the United States” under the Constitution, a privilege which she argued could not be denied to her by the State of Missouri under the privileges and immunities clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.  The Court did ultimately hold that based on the history of voting in America, voting was not part of the privileges and immunities granted to citizens.  It therefore held that Minor did not have a constitutional right under the Constitution to vote and that the Missouri constitution and statute granting that right only to male citizens were not unconstitutional.  The Court did add that women probably should have the right to vote but that only Congress could rectify the matter, not the courts.  This part of the Minor case was later overruled by the Nineteenth Amendment which guaranteed women the right to vote. 

But the part of the Minor case that is more important and which still has precedential value has to do with citizenship.  Minor said:

The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first. For the purposes of this case it is not necessary to solve these doubts. It is sufficient for everything we have now to consider that all children born of citizen parents within the jurisdiction are themselves citizens.

Id. at 167-68. Under Minor’s definition of a “natural-born citizen,” which it borrowed from Emer de Vattel’s The Law of Nations, at the time of birth, the child must be born in the United States to a father and mother who are both U.S. citizens either by birth or naturalization after birth. See Emer de Vattel, The Law of Nations, Secs. 212-217 (London 1797) (1st ed. Neuchatel 1758) (“The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens.”).

Also, Minor did not resolve the question of whether a child born in the United States to alien parents is a “citizen of the United States.” But the Minor Court explained that it knew what a “natural-born citizen” was. The Court had no doubts about that definition. It defined the term under natural law and the law of nations as codified by Vattel in Sec. 212 of The Law of Nations. In fact, the Court took Vattel’s definition almost word for word. Including in the definition of a “natural-born citizen” a reference to the citizenship of the child’s parents, the Court clearly did not rely upon the English common law. What it did not decide and did not need to decide was the question of what is a “citizen of the United States.” Since Virginia Minor was a “native” or “natural-born citizen,” there was no need for Minor to address that issue and left it open to another day. This question of what is a “citizen of the United States” was addressed and answered in Wong Kim Ark in 1898.

A careful reading of Wong Kim Ark shows that neither the Fourteenth Amendment nor that Court’s decision amended the definition of an Article II “natural born Citizen” which the Founders and Framers relied upon when drafting that clause. Rather, the Court’s decision shows that under our Constitution, there are two different types of birthright citizenships. There is no indication in its text or in the history of its debates that the Fourteenth Amendment was intended to or that it did in fact define or amend the meaning of an Article II “natural born Citizen.” Hence, the Constitution makes a distinction between an Article II "natural born" "Citizen of the United States" and a Fourteenth Amendment "born" "citizen of the United States." The Constitution provides for different birth circumstances for these two different classes of citizens upon whom it bestows birthright citizenship. These are therefore two different types of birthright citizenships.

In Article II, the Constitution demands the status of "natural born." In the Fourteenth Amendment, it demands "born" in the United States and "subject to its jurisdiction" at the time of birth. Only a child born in the country (or its jurisdictional equivalent) to citizen parents can be an Article II "natural born" "Citizen of the United States." Minor v. Happersett (1875). In contradistinction, a child born in the United States (or its jurisdictional equivalent) to one or two alien parents can under the Fourteenth Amendment be a "born" "citizen of the United States." U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1989).  It should be noted that Wong Kim Ark also added in its holding that the alien parents of the U.S.-born child were domiciled in the United States.  The Court felt that the fact of domicile gave the United States sufficient jurisdiction over the parents which at birth spilled over to the child. 

If Obama were born in Hawaii, a fact that he has yet to conclusively prove given the questionable authenticity of his long-form Certificate of Live Birth that he released on the internet on April 27, 2011, and if his parents are Barack H. Obama and Stanley Ann Dunham, who are reported to be his parents, he can at most be a Fourteenth Amendment and 8 U.S.C. Section 1401(a) born “citizen of the United States,” but he cannot be an Article II “natural born Citizen” which is the constitutional standard that he must meet to be eligible to be President and Commander in Chief of the Military. His mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, was a “citizen of the United States” at the time of Obama’s birth. But his father, being born in 1934 or 1936 in what was then the British colony of Kenya, was under the British Nationality Act of 1948, a Citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies (“CUKC”). Obama himself by right of decent from his father under the same Act was also born a CUKC. Hence, because Obama was not born in the United States to United States citizen parents, he was not born under the sole and undivided allegiance and jurisdiction of the United States. Obama was not born with sole citizenship in the United States. Consequently, he was not born with unity of allegiance to and citizenship in the United States. Obama, therefore, cannot be an Article II “natural born Citizen” and is not eligible under Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 to be President and Commander in Chief of the Military.

                                                                  The Debt Ceiling

Our nation is currently faced with a budgetary desperate situation. Simply put, our federal government over the last decade has spent greatly more money than it took in. Our federal government must continue its business. But it must reduce its spending and increase its revenue. Whether its spending reduction or revenue raising, both sides of the equation are tied to taxes. By reducing the mammoth size of our federal and state governments and their programs, we would be able to reduce our public expenditures and need for more tax revenues. Unfortunately, such choices probably will impact on the American way of life. An alternative that makes much more sense is to help our nation to get richer by putting into place forces which will increase the amount of money the nation makes and thereby allow the government to collect more taxes from current and new income sources without increasing taxes on any one segment of the population which in the end may just be counterproductive.

But Obama’s enablers and maybe even Obama himself want to take the fast and easy way out. Now we see Obama’s enablers and maybe even Obama himself in the future suggesting that he resort to the Fourteenth Amendment to impose his will upon the American people regarding raising their debt ceiling above the current 14 Trillion Dollars without the input or control of Congress.

In a news story entitled, Senate Quickly Kills Boehner Debt Bill, it is reported:

The White House spokesman, Jay Carney, ruled out more definitively than he had before the possibility that Mr. Obama would cite the Fourteenth Amendment to disregard the debt-limit law and order government borrowing to proceed if no deal was reached. House Democratic leaders, former President Bill Clinton and some constitutional lawyers have said that Mr. Obama should, if necessary, invoke the amendment, which holds that “the validity of the public debt ... shall not be questioned.”

“This administration does not believe that the Fourteenth Amendment gives the president the power to ignore the debt ceiling. Congress has the authorities necessary to ensure that we meet our obligations,” Mr. Carney said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/30/us/politics/30fiscal.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha2.

The Fourteenth Amendment was passed during Reconstruction following the Civil War. Its purpose was to address the social, political, and economic problems that led up to and that resulted from that war. The debt clause was only to assure that debts incurred by the United States, including those resulting from that war, would be honored. The amendment sanctified the “public debt,” provided that it was “authorized by law.” It also made sure that neither the United States nor any State would pay any debt incurred by anyone in their effort to overthrow the government of the United States or suffered by anyone from his or her slaves being emancipated. It declared such debts, obligations, and claims illegal and void.

How would Obama expect to unilaterally raise the People’s debt ceiling without that debt being “authorized by law” (meaning Congressional approval) and consider it to be constitutionally valid under the Fourteenth Amendment? Note that the debt belongs to the People and not to their government. Only if our political and legal institutions were to again turn a blind eye to the Constitution could Obama get away with such unconstitutional behavior.

It is only expected that Obama and his handlers would again rape the Fourteenth Amendment for their purpose of maintaining political power and satisfying their self-ambitions. Here we see that he would dare override the authority and will of a co-equal branch of government, the legislature. Doing such an act would show that he has no respect for and attachment to Article I, Sections 7, 8, and 9 of the Constitution, separation of powers, and the republican form of our government under which the People act through their elected representatives for the purpose of achieving the greater good.

Concerned Americans who questioned Obama’s eligibility to be President said early on that if Obama and his enablers were ready, willing, and able to turn a blind eye to Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 regarding his eligibility to be President, they would do the same when it came to other important issues with which our nation may be faced in the future. Here, we again see how desperate people will get for the sake of maintaining power and showing the world that they are right.

Mario Apuzzo, Esq.
July 30, 2011
http://puzo1.blogspot.com/
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Mario Apuzzo, Esq.
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