Putative President Barack Obama’s Unconstitutional Amending of Article II’s “Natural Born Citizen”
Clause
By Mario Apuzzo, Esq.
March 6, 2012
Updated March 7, 2012
Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 provides: “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.” This eligibility requirement raises the issue of whether putative President is a “natural born Citizen” thereunder so as to make him eligible to be President.
But what is a “natural born Citizen?” There is a wealth of information which informs us on what the exact definition is of a “natural born Citizen.” I have included this information in a brief that I wrote and which Attorney Karen Keifer filed with the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania in the case of In Re: Barack Hussein Obama, II et al Objection of : Charles F. Kerchner, Jr. and Dale A. Laudenslager. That brief may be read at http://www.scribd.com/doc/83104811/Kerchner-Laudenslager-v-Obama-Ballot-Challenge-Brief-on-Behalf-of-Objectors-Filed-28Feb2012. Here I will only highlight a part of the brief which Obama’s supporters do not want the public to read.
In Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1875), our U.S. Supreme Court defined the Article II “natural-born citizen” class as part of its analysis of whether Virginia Minor was a “citizen” and as such, entitled to vote under the Constitution’s Article IV’s privileges and immunities clause. The Court held:
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 (emphasis supplied). Minor did not cite Vattel, but the Court’s definition of a “citizen” and a “natural-born citizen” are paraphrased directly from Emer de Vattel’s, The Law of Nations, Sec. 212 (London 1797) (1st ed. Neuchatel 1758), where he defined a “natural-born citizen” as “those born in the country, of parents who are citizens.” http://www.lonang.com/exlibris/vattel/vatt-119.htm. Finding this source for the Court’s definition is critical because it shows that the entire Minor Supreme Court, like Chief Justice John Marshall dissenting (for other reasons) and concurring in The Venus, 12 U.S. (8 Cranch) 253, 289 (1814) and Justice Daniels in Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393, 476-77 (1857), did not rely upon the English common law to define the clause, but rather Vattel and natural law and the law of nations which was incorporated with the adoption of the Constitution into Article III “Laws of the United States” and thereby became American federal common law. [Endnote 1]
To correctly understand what the Founders, Framers, and Minor meant by birth to citizen parents, we have to understand that at the time that the Framers drafted and adopted the Constitution and when the U.S. Supreme Court decided Minor in 1875, an alien woman automatically became a U.S. citizen by marrying a U.S. citizen. When parents became U.S. citizens, so did their children, no matter where born. Naturalization records for both alien women and children are virtually non-existing because of this derivative naturalization. http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1998/summer/women-and-naturalization-1.html. What is critical to understand in this connection is that Congress before 1922, to avoid dual allegiance and nationality, had caused American-born women, “of perhaps Mayflower ancestry, whose forebears fought through the Revolution, and whose family names bear honor and conspicuous places in our history, who are thoroughly American at heart, and perhaps who have never left these shores” to forfeit their American citizenship upon marrying an alien husband. (http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1998/summer/women-and-naturalization-2.html.
The connection between an immigrant woman's nationality and that of her husband convinced many
judges that unless the husband of an alien couple became naturalized, the wife could not become a
citizen. While one will find some courts that naturalized the wives of aliens, until 1922 the courts
generally held that the alien wife of an alien husband could not herself be naturalized.
http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1998/summer/women-and-naturalization-1.html (citing Act of Feb. 10, 1855 (§ 1994, rev. § 2172); see In re Rionda, 164 F 368 (1908); United States v. Cohen, 179 F 834 (1910)).
Congress did eventually allow widowed and divorced women who had lost their U.S. citizenship by marrying an alien husband to regain their U.S. citizenship through actual naturalization. In 1936, Congress allowed widowed and divorce women who had lost their U.S. citizenship by marriage between 1907 and 1922 to regain their U.S. citizenship by applying (using Form N-415, Application to Take Oath of Allegiance to the United States) and taking the oath of allegiance. Then in 1940, Congress allowed even women who continued to be happily married to alien husbands and who had lost their U.S. citizenship by marriage between 1907 and 1922 to resume their U.S. citizenship by applying and taking the oath of allegiance. Id. With such policy concerning dual allegiance and citizenship having been passed down through generations, early Congress surely would not have allowed children born in the United States to aliens to become citizens. With such strong policy of allegiance to the United States, it is nonsensical to believe that early Congress would have allowed a child to be a U.S. citizen by mere birth in the United States while treating his parents to be aliens.
Derivative citizenship for married women only ended when Congress passed on September 22, 1922 the Cable Act (42 Stat. 1021). This means that when one spoke about “parents” or “father” in relation to our citizenship laws before 1922, one was really referring to father and mother. With the elimination of derivative citizenship, the Cable Act just made it more difficult for a husband and wife to achieve unity of allegiance and citizenship if that is their desire, for after the act each non-citizen spouse has to naturalize under the naturalization laws.
With that backdrop, let us now examine the Minor decision. Those who argue that putative President Barack Obama is an Article II “natural born Citizen” insist that when Minor v. Happersett said that “there have been doubts” as to whether a child born in the United States to alien parents was a “citizen,” the Court really said that “there have been doubts” whether that child was a “natural born citizen.” In other words, these persons argue that Minor included those other potential “citizens” into the “natural-born Citizen” class. But these persons not only ignore the clear text of what the Court wrote, but are also putting intentions into the mind and words into the mouth of our U.S. Supreme Court which simply are not there.
First, we know from the text of what Minor wrote that it distinguished between a “citizen” and a “natural-born citizen” and rightfully so. The Founders and Framers based the new constitutional republic on principles of natural law and the law of nations. The commentators on natural law (Samuel von Pufendorf in, The Whole Duty of Man According to the Laws of Nature (William Tooke trans., Ian Hunter & David Saunders, eds., Liberty Fund 2003) Book II, Chapter 6 (1691) and Vattel in, The Law of Nations) distinguished between a “natural born citizen” and a “citizen.” Our nation has since the Founding always distinguished between a “natural born Citizen” and a “citizen.” The Constitution clearly distinguished between an Article II “natural born Citizen” and an Article I “Citizen.” Founders/judge/lawyer St. George Tucker [Endnote 2] and Founder/doctor/historian David Ramsay [Endnote 3] also made this critical distinction and both told us that birthright citizenship after July 4, 1776 belonged only to the children of citizens. Tucker even told us that the “civil right” to be elected President belonged only to the children of citizens which informs us that he too defined a “natural born Citizen” as a child born to citizen parents. And so has our early Congress since the Naturalization Acts of 1790 (1 Stat. 103), 1795 (1 Stat. 414), 1802 (2 Stat. 153) (except for the 1790 Act which referred to “natural born citizens,” all referred only to “citizens”), and thereafter. The distinction was also recognized by the framers of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 (referred only to “citizens”) and the Fourteenth Amendment (referred only to “citizens”). A full discussion on Pufendorf, Vattel, Tucker, Ramsay, the early Naturalization Acts, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and Fourteenth Amendment may be found in my brief to the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania. [Endnote 4]
Second, we know that Minor could not have doubted whether a child born in the United States to alien parents was a “natural born Citizen,” for the Court knew very well that such a child could not be a "natural born Citizen." The Court in the very same paragraph told us that a "natural born Citizen" was a child born in the country to citizen parents. A child that was born to alien parents was born subject to a foreign power (in the case of Great Britain, an English “natural born subject”). Clearly, under the Court's definition which it had just confirmed in the same paragraph, without “citizen” parents, that child was not and could not be a "natural born Citizen."
Third, Minor's "doubts" were about whether a child born in the country to alien parents belonged to potentially a new class of “citizen,” one created by the newly passed Fourteenth Amendment, the question being was such a child born to alien parents “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States” and therefore a “citizen” under that new amendment. Minor had good reason to state that “there have been doubts” whether a child born in the United States to alien parents was even a “citizen.” All prior Acts of Congress had treated children born in the United States to alien parents to be themselves aliens. Congress still had statutes in effect that treated children born in the United States to alien parents as aliens and allowed those children to become “citizens” (not “natural born Citizens”) upon the naturalization of their parents if done during their minority or on their own naturalization petition if done thereafter (the Naturalization Acts of 1802 [2 Stat. 153] and 1855 [10 Stat. 604]). Since 1790, Congress had always required that children born abroad needed to be born to “citizen” parents in order to be themselves “citizens” and it did not expect anything less for children born in the United States to also be considered “citizens.” Minor would have been as was Congress well aware that Great Britain treated its children born in the United States to British subjects to be themselves English “natural born subject” just as Congress treated its children born abroad to citizen parents to be U.S. “citizens.” Also, the United States only 23 years following the Minor decision in Wong Kim Ark argued that a child born in the United States to alien parents was not a “citizen” under the Fourteenth Amendment, but rather an alien. The United State’s position was correct given the then-existing U.S. Supreme Court decisions (like Minor) and Acts of Congress which still treated children born in the United States to alien parents as aliens. Even today, there are plenty of scholars who maintain that because born with foreign alienage and thereby not born completely “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States, such a child is not a Fourteenth Amendment “citizen.” So, while Minor never had any doubts whether a child born in the United States to citizen parents was a "natural born Citizen," it did correctly state that “there have been doubts” whether a child born in the United States to alien parents was even a “citizen.”
Minor told us that for one to be a “natural-born citizen,” one could not be a first generation “citizen” vis-à-vis any one parent. Rather, one had to be at least a second generation “citizen” by birth to two “citizen” parents (keeping in mind unity of citizenship of the husband and wife) to be a “natural-born citizen.” As far as the doubts regarding whether that child born to alien parents was even a “citizen,” as we have seen, Minor was correct that such doubts existed.
The doubts identified by Minor in 1875 were finally resolved by U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649, 708 (1898), which held that a child born in the United States to domiciled alien parents was a Fourteenth Amendment “citizen of the United States.” Wong Kim Ark distinguished between a “natural born Citizen” and a “citizen of the United States” and cited and quoted Vattel’s and Minor’s definition of “natural born Citizen,” but relied on the English common law to resolve the doubts identified in Minor and to determine whether a child born in the United States to alien parents was born “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and therefore a born “citizen of the United States” under the Fourteenth Amendment. Wong Kim Ark did not alter or amend the definition of an Article II “natural born Citizen” other than to increase the class of people who can be “citizens” and who then can go on to procreate “natural born Citizens.”
To not conflate and confound the meaning of a “natural born Citizen” with that of a “citizen,” it is critical to understand that never has the debate, including that in Wong Kim Ark, been about whether a child born in the United States to alien parents is an Article II “natural born Citizen” until Mr. Obama entered the political/legal stage. Prior to that, it has always been whether that child was a “citizen.” And in this current debate, we have not only seen Obama’s supporters but also some courts (e.g. Ankeny v. Governor of the State of Indiana, 916 N.E.2d 678 (Ind. Ct.App. 2009), transfer denied, 929 N.E.2d 789 (2010), and Tisdale) that have reached the merits of the issue of what is a “natural born Citizen,” conflate and confound all that is “citizen” into “natural born Citizen.” We have even seen them go as far as to take Wong Kim Ark’s clear holding which speaks only of a “citizen of the United States” and substitute in the place of those clearly written words “natural born Citizen.” In other words, what they have done is, without due process and the rule of law, transform a “citizen” into a “natural born Citizen.” By doing so, they have violated the Founders’ and Framers’ intent that a “natural born Citizen,” who was to assume the great and singular civil and military powers of the Office of President and Commander in Chief, be born free of any foreign influence and allegiance.
These Obama supporters do not have one decision from the U.S. Supreme Court, including Wong Kim Ark, or even one Congressional Act which says that any child born in the United States to one or two alien parents is a "natural born Citizen." On the other hand, I have cited and discussed in my Kerchner Pennsylvania Obama ballot challenge brief and at this blog the several U.S. Supreme Court cases that define a "natural born Citizen" as a child born in the country to citizen parents, along with Congressional Acts and other historical sources that support that conclusion.
The Constitution at Article V prescribes the means by which the people can amend its provisions. But what we see happening today is Obama, with the aid of the Ankeny [Endnote 5] and Tisdale [Endnote 6] courts, a reticent Congress, power-hungry political parties, and a complicit media, amending Article II’s “natural born Citizen” clause without an Article V constitutional amendment. The question is will our constitutional republic allow him to get away with it?
ENDNOTES
1. In his 1793 charge to a grand jury, John Jay, our first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, stated that the “laws of the United States” fell under “three heads or descriptions”: “1st. All treaties made under the authority of the United States. 2d. The laws of nations. 3d The constitution and statutes of the United States.” Patrick J. Charles, Decoding the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause: Unlawful Immigration, Allegiance, Personal Subjection, and the Law, 51 Washburn L.J., Issue 2 (forthcoming Spring 2012) (citing The City Gazette and Daily Advertiser (Charleston, S.C.), August 14, 1793, at 2, col. 1).
2. St. George Tucker was born in Bermuda on July 10, 1752, and died on November 10, 1827 in Virginia. He studied law at the College of William and Mary in 1771 under George Wythe, who also taught law to Thomas Jefferson and John Marshall, and served as chief justice of Virginia. He was fluent in French. He also fought in the Revolutionary War. He became a lawyer in 1775, a law professor at the College of William and Mary, and a judge of Virginia's highest court. As we shall see below, being a law professor at the College of William and Mary is also an important factor in understanding what Tucker’s view would have been on the meaning of a “natural born Citizen.” St. George Tucker wrote in 1803: “The spirit of monarchy is war, and the enlargement of dominion; peace and moderation is the spirit of a republic.” http://www.history.org/foundation/journal/summer08/republican.cfm. Upon President James Madison’s nomination, in 1813 he became a federal district judge for Virginia. He denounced slavery as a contradiction to the American ideal of freedom and an immorality. In 1796, he wrote and published the pamphlet "A Dissertation on Slavery: With A Proposal for the Gradual Abolition of It in the State of Virginia.” Tucker “was arguably the most important American legal scholar of the first half of the nineteenth century.” Paul Carrington, The Revolutionary Idea of University Legal Education, 31 Wm. & Mary L.Rev. 527, 540 (1990). Davison M. Douglas, Foreword: The Legacy of St. George Tucker, 47 Wm. & Mary L.Rev. 1111 (2006) (same), http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1758861. "Tucker established a virtual dynasty of legal and constitutional talent that carried on Jeffersonian principles through successive generations." Clyde N. Wilson, ed., Views of the Constitution of the United States x (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund 1999) (foreword) p. viii (1803). An article which shows what influence St. George Tucker had regarding interpreting and understanding the Constitution is one written by Kurt T. Lash, "Tucker's Rule": St. George Tucker and the Limited Construction of Federal Power, 47 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 1343 (2006), http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmlr/vol47/iss4/8 ; http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1242&context=wmlr (explores Tucker’s view of federalism, called Tucker’s Rule, which was that the state’s maintained their sovereignty and reserved powers despite having become part of the union under the Constitution). Further information on St. George Tucker may be read at: http://www.history.org/almanack/people/bios/biotuck.cfm; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._George_Tucker.
3. Founder historian, David Ramsay, A Dissertation on the Manners of Acquiring the Character and Privileges of a Citizen (1789) told us that after July 4, 1776, birthright citizenship was preserved only for a child born to U.S. citizen parents. Ramsay provides direct evidence from the Founding period that the Founders and Framers used natural law to define a “natural born Citizen” and that they did not simply take the English common law “natural born subject” and substitute in its place a “natural born Citizen.”
David Ramsay, a highly respected doctor and historian from the Founding period, wrote an essay on citizenship during the Founding entitled, A Dissertation on the Manners of Acquiring the Character and Privileges of a Citizen (1789). David Ramsay (April 2, 1749 to May 8, 1815) was an American physician and historian from South Carolina and a delegate from that state to the Continental Congress in 1782-1783 and 1785-1786. He was one of the American Revolution’s first major historians. Ramsay “was a major intellectual figure in the early republic, known and respected in America and abroad for his medical and historical writings, especially for The History of the American Revolution (1789)…” Arthur H. Shaffer, Between Two Worlds: David Ramsay and the Politics of Slavery, J.S.Hist., Vol. L, No. 2 (May 1984). In his 1789 article, Ramsay first explained that there is an “immense” difference between a British “subject” and a United States “citizen,” with the former being “under the power of another” and the latter being “a unit of mass of free people, who, collectively, posses sovereignty.” He informed that “Republics, both ancient and modern, have been jealous of the rights of citizenship.” He then explained that the “original citizens” of the United States were those who were parties to the Declaration of Independence and thereby adhered to the revolutionary cause. But the importance of his work does not stop there, for he also described the future citizens to come after the original citizens, whom he defined as the children born to citizen parents. He said concerning the children born after the declaration of independence, “[c]itizenship is the inheritance of the children of those who have taken part in the late revolution; but this is confined exclusively to the children of those who were themselves citizens….” Id. at 6. He added that “citizenship by inheritance belongs to none but the children of those Americans, who, having survived the declaration of independence, acquired that adventitious character in their own right, and transmitted it to their offspring….” Id. at 7. He continued that citizenship “as a natural right, belongs to none but those who have been born of citizens since the 4th of July, 1776….” Id. at 6. Here, Ramsay referred to “natural right,” which ties into the Framers’ use of the clause “natural born Citizen.” By focusing on citizenship that occurs by “natural right,” Ramsay distinguished citizenship that occurs naturally versus citizenship that occurs by operation of law. It is evident from his writing that in defining the original citizens and the future citizens who were to follow them, Ramsay did not look to English common law but rather to natural law. As we can see, Ramsay required the future citizens to be children of citizens. As we can see, Ramsay put forth a definition of a “natural born Citizen” that only depended upon the child being born to U.S. citizen parents with no mention of place of birth. While he did not call these future citizens “natural-born citizens,” Ramsay’s standard was the same standard Pufendorf provided when he defined the “Indigenes, or Natives,” who he defined as the “Descendants” of the “Original[]” “Citizens.” Ramsay would have been in a position to know how the Founders and Framers defined a “natural born Citizen.” For further information on David Ramsay, see my essay entitled, Founder and Historian David Ramsay Defines a Natural Born Citizen in 1789 , accessed at http://puzo1.blogspot.com/2010/04/founder-and-historian-david-ramsay.html.
4. We argued in the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania that not only did Obama fail to conclusively prove that he is a “natural born Citizen” and therefore eligible under Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 to be elected President, but that he has also failed to provide any competent and sufficient evidence to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as to his true identity, a matter which showed that his nominating petition was defective and that he therefore failed to show under 25 P.S. Sec. 2937 that he is a “person[] entitled to file the same” [the nominating petition]. The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, not reaching the merits of the definition of an Article II “natural born Citizen” or whether Obama meets that definition, and also not addressing the issue regarding Obama failing to yet prove his identity which presented a petition defect apart from any issue of Article II eligibility, on March 1, 2012 dismissed the Kerchner/Laudenslager petition to set aside the Obama nomination petition for lack of jurisdiction. The Court based its decision strictly on whether it had jurisdiction over the question of Article II eligibility. It did not address Kerchner’s and Laudenslager’s argument regarding Obama having failed to prove his identity, which is a petition defect and which disqualifies Obama from showing that he is a “person[] entitled to file the same” [his petition]. 25 P.S. Sec. 2937.
The Court ruled that if Obama had filed an affidavit saying he is constitutionally eligible to be President, the Court would have had jurisdiction over an objection to his eligibility. But since he did not file in Pennsylvania any such affidavit, then the Court did not have jurisdiction over the objectors’ petition. Apart from the Court failing to address the objectors’ Obama identity argument, such a rule seems to imply that what Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 says and whether Obama satisfies what it says changes based on whether Obama filed an affidavit in which he tells the world what he personally thinks about his eligibility. In other words, we have allowed a candidate’s subjective belief (whether held in good or bad faith) regarding his eligibility for the Office of President to trump the objective constitutional meaning of Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 (the “natural born Citizen clause) and established facts. Also, the same Pennsylvania Court denied twice without both times stating any reason Karen Kiefer’s motion to have me admitted pro hac vice. It should be noted that Attorney Van Irion was also denied pro hac vice admission in Georgia.
5. For my comments on the Ankeny decision, see All That Is Wrong with Georgia State Judge Michael M. Malihi’s Decision that Putative President Obama Is a “Natural Born Citizen” , accessed at http://puzo1.blogspot.com/2012/02/all-that-is-wrong-with-georgia-state.html.
6. For my comments on the Tisdale decisions, see Tisdale v. Obama and the “Natural Born Citizen” Clause , accessed at http://puzo1.blogspot.com/2012/02/tisdale-v-obama-and-natural-born.html.
Mario Apuzzo, Esq.
March 6, 2012
Updated March 7, 2012
http://puzo1.blogspot.com/
####
Copyright © 2012
Mario Apuzzo, Esq.
All Rights Reserved
Clause
By Mario Apuzzo, Esq.
March 6, 2012
Updated March 7, 2012
 |
| St. George Tucker |
Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 provides: “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.” This eligibility requirement raises the issue of whether putative President is a “natural born Citizen” thereunder so as to make him eligible to be President.
But what is a “natural born Citizen?” There is a wealth of information which informs us on what the exact definition is of a “natural born Citizen.” I have included this information in a brief that I wrote and which Attorney Karen Keifer filed with the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania in the case of In Re: Barack Hussein Obama, II et al Objection of : Charles F. Kerchner, Jr. and Dale A. Laudenslager. That brief may be read at http://www.scribd.com/doc/83104811/Kerchner-Laudenslager-v-Obama-Ballot-Challenge-Brief-on-Behalf-of-Objectors-Filed-28Feb2012. Here I will only highlight a part of the brief which Obama’s supporters do not want the public to read.
In Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1875), our U.S. Supreme Court defined the Article II “natural-born citizen” class as part of its analysis of whether Virginia Minor was a “citizen” and as such, entitled to vote under the Constitution’s Article IV’s privileges and immunities clause. The Court held:
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 (emphasis supplied). Minor did not cite Vattel, but the Court’s definition of a “citizen” and a “natural-born citizen” are paraphrased directly from Emer de Vattel’s, The Law of Nations, Sec. 212 (London 1797) (1st ed. Neuchatel 1758), where he defined a “natural-born citizen” as “those born in the country, of parents who are citizens.” http://www.lonang.com/exlibris/vattel/vatt-119.htm. Finding this source for the Court’s definition is critical because it shows that the entire Minor Supreme Court, like Chief Justice John Marshall dissenting (for other reasons) and concurring in The Venus, 12 U.S. (8 Cranch) 253, 289 (1814) and Justice Daniels in Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393, 476-77 (1857), did not rely upon the English common law to define the clause, but rather Vattel and natural law and the law of nations which was incorporated with the adoption of the Constitution into Article III “Laws of the United States” and thereby became American federal common law. [Endnote 1]
To correctly understand what the Founders, Framers, and Minor meant by birth to citizen parents, we have to understand that at the time that the Framers drafted and adopted the Constitution and when the U.S. Supreme Court decided Minor in 1875, an alien woman automatically became a U.S. citizen by marrying a U.S. citizen. When parents became U.S. citizens, so did their children, no matter where born. Naturalization records for both alien women and children are virtually non-existing because of this derivative naturalization. http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1998/summer/women-and-naturalization-1.html. What is critical to understand in this connection is that Congress before 1922, to avoid dual allegiance and nationality, had caused American-born women, “of perhaps Mayflower ancestry, whose forebears fought through the Revolution, and whose family names bear honor and conspicuous places in our history, who are thoroughly American at heart, and perhaps who have never left these shores” to forfeit their American citizenship upon marrying an alien husband. (http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1998/summer/women-and-naturalization-2.html.
The connection between an immigrant woman's nationality and that of her husband convinced many
judges that unless the husband of an alien couple became naturalized, the wife could not become a
citizen. While one will find some courts that naturalized the wives of aliens, until 1922 the courts
generally held that the alien wife of an alien husband could not herself be naturalized.
http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1998/summer/women-and-naturalization-1.html (citing Act of Feb. 10, 1855 (§ 1994, rev. § 2172); see In re Rionda, 164 F 368 (1908); United States v. Cohen, 179 F 834 (1910)).
Congress did eventually allow widowed and divorced women who had lost their U.S. citizenship by marrying an alien husband to regain their U.S. citizenship through actual naturalization. In 1936, Congress allowed widowed and divorce women who had lost their U.S. citizenship by marriage between 1907 and 1922 to regain their U.S. citizenship by applying (using Form N-415, Application to Take Oath of Allegiance to the United States) and taking the oath of allegiance. Then in 1940, Congress allowed even women who continued to be happily married to alien husbands and who had lost their U.S. citizenship by marriage between 1907 and 1922 to resume their U.S. citizenship by applying and taking the oath of allegiance. Id. With such policy concerning dual allegiance and citizenship having been passed down through generations, early Congress surely would not have allowed children born in the United States to aliens to become citizens. With such strong policy of allegiance to the United States, it is nonsensical to believe that early Congress would have allowed a child to be a U.S. citizen by mere birth in the United States while treating his parents to be aliens.
Derivative citizenship for married women only ended when Congress passed on September 22, 1922 the Cable Act (42 Stat. 1021). This means that when one spoke about “parents” or “father” in relation to our citizenship laws before 1922, one was really referring to father and mother. With the elimination of derivative citizenship, the Cable Act just made it more difficult for a husband and wife to achieve unity of allegiance and citizenship if that is their desire, for after the act each non-citizen spouse has to naturalize under the naturalization laws.
With that backdrop, let us now examine the Minor decision. Those who argue that putative President Barack Obama is an Article II “natural born Citizen” insist that when Minor v. Happersett said that “there have been doubts” as to whether a child born in the United States to alien parents was a “citizen,” the Court really said that “there have been doubts” whether that child was a “natural born citizen.” In other words, these persons argue that Minor included those other potential “citizens” into the “natural-born Citizen” class. But these persons not only ignore the clear text of what the Court wrote, but are also putting intentions into the mind and words into the mouth of our U.S. Supreme Court which simply are not there.
First, we know from the text of what Minor wrote that it distinguished between a “citizen” and a “natural-born citizen” and rightfully so. The Founders and Framers based the new constitutional republic on principles of natural law and the law of nations. The commentators on natural law (Samuel von Pufendorf in, The Whole Duty of Man According to the Laws of Nature (William Tooke trans., Ian Hunter & David Saunders, eds., Liberty Fund 2003) Book II, Chapter 6 (1691) and Vattel in, The Law of Nations) distinguished between a “natural born citizen” and a “citizen.” Our nation has since the Founding always distinguished between a “natural born Citizen” and a “citizen.” The Constitution clearly distinguished between an Article II “natural born Citizen” and an Article I “Citizen.” Founders/judge/lawyer St. George Tucker [Endnote 2] and Founder/doctor/historian David Ramsay [Endnote 3] also made this critical distinction and both told us that birthright citizenship after July 4, 1776 belonged only to the children of citizens. Tucker even told us that the “civil right” to be elected President belonged only to the children of citizens which informs us that he too defined a “natural born Citizen” as a child born to citizen parents. And so has our early Congress since the Naturalization Acts of 1790 (1 Stat. 103), 1795 (1 Stat. 414), 1802 (2 Stat. 153) (except for the 1790 Act which referred to “natural born citizens,” all referred only to “citizens”), and thereafter. The distinction was also recognized by the framers of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 (referred only to “citizens”) and the Fourteenth Amendment (referred only to “citizens”). A full discussion on Pufendorf, Vattel, Tucker, Ramsay, the early Naturalization Acts, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and Fourteenth Amendment may be found in my brief to the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania. [Endnote 4]
Second, we know that Minor could not have doubted whether a child born in the United States to alien parents was a “natural born Citizen,” for the Court knew very well that such a child could not be a "natural born Citizen." The Court in the very same paragraph told us that a "natural born Citizen" was a child born in the country to citizen parents. A child that was born to alien parents was born subject to a foreign power (in the case of Great Britain, an English “natural born subject”). Clearly, under the Court's definition which it had just confirmed in the same paragraph, without “citizen” parents, that child was not and could not be a "natural born Citizen."
Third, Minor's "doubts" were about whether a child born in the country to alien parents belonged to potentially a new class of “citizen,” one created by the newly passed Fourteenth Amendment, the question being was such a child born to alien parents “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States” and therefore a “citizen” under that new amendment. Minor had good reason to state that “there have been doubts” whether a child born in the United States to alien parents was even a “citizen.” All prior Acts of Congress had treated children born in the United States to alien parents to be themselves aliens. Congress still had statutes in effect that treated children born in the United States to alien parents as aliens and allowed those children to become “citizens” (not “natural born Citizens”) upon the naturalization of their parents if done during their minority or on their own naturalization petition if done thereafter (the Naturalization Acts of 1802 [2 Stat. 153] and 1855 [10 Stat. 604]). Since 1790, Congress had always required that children born abroad needed to be born to “citizen” parents in order to be themselves “citizens” and it did not expect anything less for children born in the United States to also be considered “citizens.” Minor would have been as was Congress well aware that Great Britain treated its children born in the United States to British subjects to be themselves English “natural born subject” just as Congress treated its children born abroad to citizen parents to be U.S. “citizens.” Also, the United States only 23 years following the Minor decision in Wong Kim Ark argued that a child born in the United States to alien parents was not a “citizen” under the Fourteenth Amendment, but rather an alien. The United State’s position was correct given the then-existing U.S. Supreme Court decisions (like Minor) and Acts of Congress which still treated children born in the United States to alien parents as aliens. Even today, there are plenty of scholars who maintain that because born with foreign alienage and thereby not born completely “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States, such a child is not a Fourteenth Amendment “citizen.” So, while Minor never had any doubts whether a child born in the United States to citizen parents was a "natural born Citizen," it did correctly state that “there have been doubts” whether a child born in the United States to alien parents was even a “citizen.”
Minor told us that for one to be a “natural-born citizen,” one could not be a first generation “citizen” vis-à-vis any one parent. Rather, one had to be at least a second generation “citizen” by birth to two “citizen” parents (keeping in mind unity of citizenship of the husband and wife) to be a “natural-born citizen.” As far as the doubts regarding whether that child born to alien parents was even a “citizen,” as we have seen, Minor was correct that such doubts existed.
The doubts identified by Minor in 1875 were finally resolved by U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649, 708 (1898), which held that a child born in the United States to domiciled alien parents was a Fourteenth Amendment “citizen of the United States.” Wong Kim Ark distinguished between a “natural born Citizen” and a “citizen of the United States” and cited and quoted Vattel’s and Minor’s definition of “natural born Citizen,” but relied on the English common law to resolve the doubts identified in Minor and to determine whether a child born in the United States to alien parents was born “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and therefore a born “citizen of the United States” under the Fourteenth Amendment. Wong Kim Ark did not alter or amend the definition of an Article II “natural born Citizen” other than to increase the class of people who can be “citizens” and who then can go on to procreate “natural born Citizens.”
To not conflate and confound the meaning of a “natural born Citizen” with that of a “citizen,” it is critical to understand that never has the debate, including that in Wong Kim Ark, been about whether a child born in the United States to alien parents is an Article II “natural born Citizen” until Mr. Obama entered the political/legal stage. Prior to that, it has always been whether that child was a “citizen.” And in this current debate, we have not only seen Obama’s supporters but also some courts (e.g. Ankeny v. Governor of the State of Indiana, 916 N.E.2d 678 (Ind. Ct.App. 2009), transfer denied, 929 N.E.2d 789 (2010), and Tisdale) that have reached the merits of the issue of what is a “natural born Citizen,” conflate and confound all that is “citizen” into “natural born Citizen.” We have even seen them go as far as to take Wong Kim Ark’s clear holding which speaks only of a “citizen of the United States” and substitute in the place of those clearly written words “natural born Citizen.” In other words, what they have done is, without due process and the rule of law, transform a “citizen” into a “natural born Citizen.” By doing so, they have violated the Founders’ and Framers’ intent that a “natural born Citizen,” who was to assume the great and singular civil and military powers of the Office of President and Commander in Chief, be born free of any foreign influence and allegiance.
These Obama supporters do not have one decision from the U.S. Supreme Court, including Wong Kim Ark, or even one Congressional Act which says that any child born in the United States to one or two alien parents is a "natural born Citizen." On the other hand, I have cited and discussed in my Kerchner Pennsylvania Obama ballot challenge brief and at this blog the several U.S. Supreme Court cases that define a "natural born Citizen" as a child born in the country to citizen parents, along with Congressional Acts and other historical sources that support that conclusion.
Assuming that Obama was born in the United States, a fact that he has not yet conclusively proven, he is not an Article II “natural born Citizen.” While he may have been born to a U.S. citizen mother, he was not also born to a U.S. United States
The Constitution at Article V prescribes the means by which the people can amend its provisions. But what we see happening today is Obama, with the aid of the Ankeny [Endnote 5] and Tisdale [Endnote 6] courts, a reticent Congress, power-hungry political parties, and a complicit media, amending Article II’s “natural born Citizen” clause without an Article V constitutional amendment. The question is will our constitutional republic allow him to get away with it?
ENDNOTES
1. In his 1793 charge to a grand jury, John Jay, our first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, stated that the “laws of the United States” fell under “three heads or descriptions”: “1st. All treaties made under the authority of the United States. 2d. The laws of nations. 3d The constitution and statutes of the United States.” Patrick J. Charles, Decoding the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause: Unlawful Immigration, Allegiance, Personal Subjection, and the Law, 51 Washburn L.J., Issue 2 (forthcoming Spring 2012) (citing The City Gazette and Daily Advertiser (Charleston, S.C.), August 14, 1793, at 2, col. 1).
2. St. George Tucker was born in Bermuda on July 10, 1752, and died on November 10, 1827 in Virginia. He studied law at the College of William and Mary in 1771 under George Wythe, who also taught law to Thomas Jefferson and John Marshall, and served as chief justice of Virginia. He was fluent in French. He also fought in the Revolutionary War. He became a lawyer in 1775, a law professor at the College of William and Mary, and a judge of Virginia's highest court. As we shall see below, being a law professor at the College of William and Mary is also an important factor in understanding what Tucker’s view would have been on the meaning of a “natural born Citizen.” St. George Tucker wrote in 1803: “The spirit of monarchy is war, and the enlargement of dominion; peace and moderation is the spirit of a republic.” http://www.history.org/foundation/journal/summer08/republican.cfm. Upon President James Madison’s nomination, in 1813 he became a federal district judge for Virginia. He denounced slavery as a contradiction to the American ideal of freedom and an immorality. In 1796, he wrote and published the pamphlet "A Dissertation on Slavery: With A Proposal for the Gradual Abolition of It in the State of Virginia.” Tucker “was arguably the most important American legal scholar of the first half of the nineteenth century.” Paul Carrington, The Revolutionary Idea of University Legal Education, 31 Wm. & Mary L.Rev. 527, 540 (1990). Davison M. Douglas, Foreword: The Legacy of St. George Tucker, 47 Wm. & Mary L.Rev. 1111 (2006) (same), http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1758861. "Tucker established a virtual dynasty of legal and constitutional talent that carried on Jeffersonian principles through successive generations." Clyde N. Wilson, ed., Views of the Constitution of the United States x (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund 1999) (foreword) p. viii (1803). An article which shows what influence St. George Tucker had regarding interpreting and understanding the Constitution is one written by Kurt T. Lash, "Tucker's Rule": St. George Tucker and the Limited Construction of Federal Power, 47 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 1343 (2006), http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmlr/vol47/iss4/8 ; http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1242&context=wmlr (explores Tucker’s view of federalism, called Tucker’s Rule, which was that the state’s maintained their sovereignty and reserved powers despite having become part of the union under the Constitution). Further information on St. George Tucker may be read at: http://www.history.org/almanack/people/bios/biotuck.cfm; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._George_Tucker.
3. Founder historian, David Ramsay, A Dissertation on the Manners of Acquiring the Character and Privileges of a Citizen (1789) told us that after July 4, 1776, birthright citizenship was preserved only for a child born to U.S. citizen parents. Ramsay provides direct evidence from the Founding period that the Founders and Framers used natural law to define a “natural born Citizen” and that they did not simply take the English common law “natural born subject” and substitute in its place a “natural born Citizen.”
David Ramsay, a highly respected doctor and historian from the Founding period, wrote an essay on citizenship during the Founding entitled, A Dissertation on the Manners of Acquiring the Character and Privileges of a Citizen (1789). David Ramsay (April 2, 1749 to May 8, 1815) was an American physician and historian from South Carolina and a delegate from that state to the Continental Congress in 1782-1783 and 1785-1786. He was one of the American Revolution’s first major historians. Ramsay “was a major intellectual figure in the early republic, known and respected in America and abroad for his medical and historical writings, especially for The History of the American Revolution (1789)…” Arthur H. Shaffer, Between Two Worlds: David Ramsay and the Politics of Slavery, J.S.Hist., Vol. L, No. 2 (May 1984). In his 1789 article, Ramsay first explained that there is an “immense” difference between a British “subject” and a United States “citizen,” with the former being “under the power of another” and the latter being “a unit of mass of free people, who, collectively, posses sovereignty.” He informed that “Republics, both ancient and modern, have been jealous of the rights of citizenship.” He then explained that the “original citizens” of the United States were those who were parties to the Declaration of Independence and thereby adhered to the revolutionary cause. But the importance of his work does not stop there, for he also described the future citizens to come after the original citizens, whom he defined as the children born to citizen parents. He said concerning the children born after the declaration of independence, “[c]itizenship is the inheritance of the children of those who have taken part in the late revolution; but this is confined exclusively to the children of those who were themselves citizens….” Id. at 6. He added that “citizenship by inheritance belongs to none but the children of those Americans, who, having survived the declaration of independence, acquired that adventitious character in their own right, and transmitted it to their offspring….” Id. at 7. He continued that citizenship “as a natural right, belongs to none but those who have been born of citizens since the 4th of July, 1776….” Id. at 6. Here, Ramsay referred to “natural right,” which ties into the Framers’ use of the clause “natural born Citizen.” By focusing on citizenship that occurs by “natural right,” Ramsay distinguished citizenship that occurs naturally versus citizenship that occurs by operation of law. It is evident from his writing that in defining the original citizens and the future citizens who were to follow them, Ramsay did not look to English common law but rather to natural law. As we can see, Ramsay required the future citizens to be children of citizens. As we can see, Ramsay put forth a definition of a “natural born Citizen” that only depended upon the child being born to U.S. citizen parents with no mention of place of birth. While he did not call these future citizens “natural-born citizens,” Ramsay’s standard was the same standard Pufendorf provided when he defined the “Indigenes, or Natives,” who he defined as the “Descendants” of the “Original[]” “Citizens.” Ramsay would have been in a position to know how the Founders and Framers defined a “natural born Citizen.” For further information on David Ramsay, see my essay entitled, Founder and Historian David Ramsay Defines a Natural Born Citizen in 1789 , accessed at http://puzo1.blogspot.com/2010/04/founder-and-historian-david-ramsay.html.
4. We argued in the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania that not only did Obama fail to conclusively prove that he is a “natural born Citizen” and therefore eligible under Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 to be elected President, but that he has also failed to provide any competent and sufficient evidence to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as to his true identity, a matter which showed that his nominating petition was defective and that he therefore failed to show under 25 P.S. Sec. 2937 that he is a “person[] entitled to file the same” [the nominating petition]. The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, not reaching the merits of the definition of an Article II “natural born Citizen” or whether Obama meets that definition, and also not addressing the issue regarding Obama failing to yet prove his identity which presented a petition defect apart from any issue of Article II eligibility, on March 1, 2012 dismissed the Kerchner/Laudenslager petition to set aside the Obama nomination petition for lack of jurisdiction. The Court based its decision strictly on whether it had jurisdiction over the question of Article II eligibility. It did not address Kerchner’s and Laudenslager’s argument regarding Obama having failed to prove his identity, which is a petition defect and which disqualifies Obama from showing that he is a “person[] entitled to file the same” [his petition]. 25 P.S. Sec. 2937.
The Court ruled that if Obama had filed an affidavit saying he is constitutionally eligible to be President, the Court would have had jurisdiction over an objection to his eligibility. But since he did not file in Pennsylvania any such affidavit, then the Court did not have jurisdiction over the objectors’ petition. Apart from the Court failing to address the objectors’ Obama identity argument, such a rule seems to imply that what Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 says and whether Obama satisfies what it says changes based on whether Obama filed an affidavit in which he tells the world what he personally thinks about his eligibility. In other words, we have allowed a candidate’s subjective belief (whether held in good or bad faith) regarding his eligibility for the Office of President to trump the objective constitutional meaning of Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 (the “natural born Citizen clause) and established facts. Also, the same Pennsylvania Court denied twice without both times stating any reason Karen Kiefer’s motion to have me admitted pro hac vice. It should be noted that Attorney Van Irion was also denied pro hac vice admission in Georgia.
5. For my comments on the Ankeny decision, see All That Is Wrong with Georgia State Judge Michael M. Malihi’s Decision that Putative President Obama Is a “Natural Born Citizen” , accessed at http://puzo1.blogspot.com/2012/02/all-that-is-wrong-with-georgia-state.html.
6. For my comments on the Tisdale decisions, see Tisdale v. Obama and the “Natural Born Citizen” Clause , accessed at http://puzo1.blogspot.com/2012/02/tisdale-v-obama-and-natural-born.html.
Mario Apuzzo, Esq.
March 6, 2012
Updated March 7, 2012
http://puzo1.blogspot.com/
####
Copyright © 2012
Mario Apuzzo, Esq.
All Rights Reserved
Hello Mr. Apuzzo,
ReplyDeleteRead this article to witness the extent at which the American judicial system is completely corrupted and certainly not independent at all.
Read " ‘Honor fails’ for Obama’s eligibility" at http://www.wnd.com/2012/03/honor-fails-for-obamas-eligibility/?cat_orig=us
Great essay once again Mario.
ReplyDeletePeople often ask why the Republican Party does not question Obama's lack of natural born Citizen status. Well the reason is likely they want to run popular Repubs such as Rubio and Jindal who are not natural born Citizens for VP and maybe sometime in the future for Pres.
Well we may have another more directly immediate concern with a Republican candidate for national office, Rick Santorum.
I have been privately asking Rick Santorum, along with a couple dozen other volunteers, to produce the citizenship papers for his father Aldo and/or grandfather Pietro. No response to email, telephone, or letter requests have ever been received. Thus late this afternoon I decided to go public with the question. You can see my blog post and public questions to Rick Santorum at this link:
"Rick Santorum Still Refusing to Provide Copies of Naturalization Papers Proving His Father was a U.S. Citizen When Rick was Born"
http://cdrkerchner.wordpress.com/2012/03/06/rick-santorum-still-refusing-to-provide-copies-of-naturalization-papers-proving-his-father-was-a-u-s-citizen-when-rick-was-born/
The issue with we constitutionalists is not about politics or party or anything other than enforcing Article II Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution, the presidential eligibility clause.
CDR Kerchner (Ret)
Catchy phrase "unconstitutional amending"...is that the same as...overthrow?
ReplyDeleteThe Constitution is the Law of the Land. For it to be legally amended, all of us, through our States representatives, much change it. This makes us, or..."We, the People"...the sovereign power in the United States.
When the Courts, the Executive branch, or the Congress for that matter, attempts to change the intent, the very meaning of the Constitution, it is not amending, it is usurpation, or...an attempt to overthrow the sovereign authority of the United States and its lawful Constitution.
Once again, those who support this commit treason against the USA.
Cdr Kerchner;
ReplyDeleteAldo Santorum served the US Army in WWII in the Army Air Force. It is almost a certainty that if he did not have US Citizenship when he enlisted, he would have aquired it if the man recieved an honorable discharge.
I found this under "Dowling family Geneology" on the web:
"ID: I333966
Name: Aldo SANTORUM
Sex: M
Birth: 9 JAN 1923 in Riva del Garda, Trentino, Italy
Immigration: 23 AUG 1930 ship "Providence"
Event: Military service BET 1942 AND 1946 U.S. Army Air Corps
Death: 15 JAN 2011 in Volusia Co., FL
Title: Dr.
Occupation: Clinical Psychologist
Note: Dr. Aldo Santorum, 88, was born on January 9, 1923 in Riva de Garda, Italy. He died at home on January 15, 2011. He retired to St. Augustine, FL in 1990 and was a member of the Corpus Christi Catholic Church for 20 years. He is survived by his wife of 55 years, Catherine; a sister, Carla of San Marco, TX; his children, Barbara of Gainesville, FL, Rick (Karen) of Great Falls, VA and Dan (Missy) of Hilton Head Island, SC, as well as, 10 grandchildren, Elizabeth, Caroline, John, Daniel, Allie, Sarah Maria, Peter, Michael, Patrick and Isabella Santorum. He was a member of the U.S. Air Force from 1942-1946 at which time he was honorably discharged. After that he attained a PhD in clinical psychology and practiced in the V.A. Medical Centers throughout the U.S. A memorial service will be held at Corpus Christi Catholic Church on Saturday, January 22 at 10 a.m. In lieu of flowers donations can be made to Corpus Christi Catholic Church at 6175 Datil Pepper Road, St. Augustine, FL 32086."
Thanks for another excellent, very comprehensive piece.
ReplyDeleteAs I see it, in order to understand what's happening here, the Obama eligibility fraud (and the massive criminal conspiracy at the top levels of government that it represents) has to be viewed as merely a part of the bigger picture: the U.S. government has apparently been subverted, a long time ago, and 9/11 and the subsequent fraudulent "war on terror" were the vehicles used to finally overthrow the rule of law and consolidate power in the executive branch.
America is now finally stone-cold dead...dead and gone. Having been replaced by the "Homeland", a dystopic, post-constitutional wasteland whose raison d'etre is obviously not "to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity" but rather to establish some kind of perverse might-makes-right global government (or bust).
To Reality Check,
ReplyDeleteReality Check at his blog says that MichaelN "misreads Minor v Happersett. He misreads WKA."
We know exactly what words both Minor and Wong Kim Ark used in their holdings.
Why do you not show us how we misread these cases, Reality Check?
Apuzzo; "Minor did not cite Vattel, but the Court’s definition of a 'citizen' and a 'natural-born citizen' are paraphrased directly from Emer de Vattel’s, The Law of Nations..."
ReplyDeleteThis is further supported by the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in 1893.
"Every person at his birth is presumptively a citizen or subject of the state of his nativity, and where, as in the case at bar, his parents were then both subjects of that state, the presumption is conclusive."
-City of Minneapolis v Reum, eighth Circuit, 1993
For support of this the court cited Minor v Happersett, and Vattel's Law of Nations. But the Court didn't just cite the entirety of Vattel's work. They specifically cited Page 101.
http://books.google.com/books?id=xRRAAAAAYAAJ&dq=law%20of%20nations%20page%20101&pg=PA101#v=onepage&q&f=false
Justice Scalia must hold the same sentiment. In Hamdi, he was only willing to go so far as to call Hamdi "a presumed American citizen".
Another interesting tidbit of information: Virginia Minor was joined in her suit by her husband Francis. Not because Francis had any injury, but because, in 1873, in Missouri, a woman could not sue by herself. (Anyone still thinking that the citizenship of the mother alone is enough?)
The Court's holding in Minor was kept quiet, IMHO, for one reason; the men of the time didn't want to acknowledge that a woman could be President of the United States. -In most states, women didn't even have the right to vote. When the Minor Court concluded that Virginia could be President, that had to send the men into a tizzy. -It was something they didn't even want to talk about. ---Kind of like Obama's ineligibility.
I just updated this article by adding the following additional Endnote 4:
ReplyDelete4. We argued in the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania that not only did Obama fail to conclusively prove that he is a “natural born Citizen” and therefore eligible under Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 to be elected President, but that he has also failed to provide any competent and sufficient evidence to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as to his true identity, a matter which showed that his nominating petition was defective and that he therefore failed to show under 25 P.S. Sec. 2937 that he is a “person[] entitled to file the same” [the nominating petition]. The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, not reaching the merits of the definition of an Article II “natural born Citizen” or whether Obama meets that definition, and also not addressing the issue regarding Obama failing to yet prove his identity which presented a petition defect apart from any issue of Article II eligibility, on March 1, 2012 dismissed the Kerchner/Laudenslager petition to set aside the Obama nomination petition for lack of jurisdiction. The Court based its decision strictly on whether it had jurisdiction over the question of Article II eligibility. It did not address Kerchner’s and Laudenslager’s argument regarding Obama having failed to prove his identity, which is a petition defect and which disqualifies Obama from showing that he is a “person[] entitled to file the same” [his petition]. 25 P.S. Sec. 2937.
The Court ruled that if Obama had filed an affidavit saying he is constitutionally eligible to be President, the Court would have had jurisdiction over an objection to his eligibility. But since he did not file in Pennsylvania any such affidavit, then the Court did not have jurisdiction over the objectors’ petition. Apart from the Court failing to address the objectors’ Obama identity argument, such a rule seems to imply that what Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 says and whether Obama satisfies what it says changes based on whether Obama filed an affidavit in which he tells the world what he personally thinks about his eligibility. In other words, we have allowed a candidate’s subjective belief (whether held in good or bad faith) regarding his eligibility for the Office of President to trump the objective constitutional meaning of Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 (the “natural born Citizen clause) and established facts. Also, the same Pennsylvania Court denied twice without both times stating any reason Karen Kiefer’s motion to have me admitted pro hac vice. It should be noted that Attorney Van Irion was also denied pro hac vice admission in Georgia.
"unconstitutional amending"
ReplyDeleteI think the term "practical nullification" is more accurate.
“Can it be said, that the neglect of the citizens to obey the injunctions of law, can defeat the law itself, and leave it a dead letter on the statute book? To sanction such a doctrine would be to sanction anarchy, and encourage disorganization. Let this court lay down the principle that any portion of the people can defeat the object of a public law by disobeying its injunctions and it would be nothing more or less than to give judicial sanction to practical nullification.” –Supreme Court of Illinois in Redman v Wren (1843)
Apparently, under the new "Homeland" paradigm of homogeneous "government", where "government" has become an end-in-itself, everything - i.e., all of our important institutions -are replaced by perversely cartoonish caricatures of themselves. Thus the "Judiciary" has become what we might call the Dept. of "Legal" Rationalizations and Excuses.
ReplyDeleteAnd let's face it, what else do we lowly peasants really need? Why, just the other day, our "Attorney General" told us that Obama and his henchmen may, at their whim, become our accusers, our prosecutor, our judge, jury and executioner, all wrapped up into one homogeneous, completely unaccountable, monstrous entity.
In light of this, I guess we should be thankful that Obama didn't decide (at least not yet anyway) to flaunt his new-found powers by perching himself atop the local shopping mall with a rifle and picking us off...the apparent "terrorist collaborators" he may "legally" deem us all to be.
js...
ReplyDeleteThere doesn't appear to be a law, prior to Rick Santorum being born, that automatically made aliens serving/served in the military (WWII or other) U.S. citizens. Santorumm's father, therefore, would have had to initiate and go through the naturalization process himself. It wasn't until long after Rick was born, that the:
"8 USC § 1440 - Naturalization through active-duty service in the Armed Forces during World War I, World War II, Korean hostilities, Vietnam hostilities, or other periods of military hostilities" was amended to grant automatic citizenship to those aliens who served in the several wars of the 1900's.
The McCarran-Walter Act, 1952, made aliens who served for 5 years eligible to be perminant residents:
Act June 30, 1950, ch. 443, § 4,64 Stat. 316, as amended June 27, 1952, ch. 477, title IV, § 402(e),66 Stat. 276, provided that: “Notwithstanding the dates or periods of service specified and designated in section 329 of the Immigration and Nationality Act [this section], the provisions of that section are applicable to aliens enlisted or reenlisted pursuant to the provisions of this Act and who have completed five or more years of military service, if honorably discharged therefrom. Any alien enlisted or reenlisted pursuant to the provisions of this Act who subsequently enters the United States, American Samoa, Swains Island, or the Canal Zone, pursuant to military orders shall, if otherwise qualified for citizenship, and after completion of five or more years of military service, if honorably discharged therefrom, be deemed to have been lawfully admitted to the United States for permanent residence within the meaning of such section 329(a) [subsection (a) of this section].”
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1440
Instead of making the argument that obama failed to prove his eligibility, why not argue that his submissions to that effect(COLB & April 27 cert.) prove that he is not in fact a natural born citizen as required by Article II?
ReplyDeleteMichael,
ReplyDeleteThat was tried in Georgia. It appears, although the Georgia court did not state so, that the court used the same evidence relied upon by the plaintiffs to show that Obama is not eligible to rule that Obama was born in the U.S. which the court then said is all that is needed to make a "natural born Citizen."
Why would we want to introduce any document to the court showing that Obama was born in the U.S. when that document is a forgery?
Puzo1 said ......
ReplyDelete"Why do you not show us how we misread these cases, Reality Check?"
Reality Check has no answer, nor does his pet boy John Woodman.
John Woodman, after bleating a few desperate default obot mantras, ran away and hid from the question, whilst Reality Check went on a demolition derby, censoring and deleting my posts, which called on John Woodman and Reality Check to explain how the Minor courts tacit agreement with the "doubts" that a child born native to alien parents is even a citizen was consistent with the English common law, which in their opinion would not harbor such "doubts".
Reality Check's blog is a den of coward deceiving traitors.
Another judge who doesn't agree with Mario Apuzzo's and MichaelN's nonsense. This is from the Allen v Arizona Democratic Party, Judge Richard Gordon.
ReplyDelete"Most importantly, Arizona courts are bound by United States Supreme Court precedent inconstruing the United States Constitution, Arizona v. Jay J. Garfield Bldg. Co., 39 Ariz. 45, 54, 3 P.2d 983, 986(1931), and this precedent fully supports that President Obama is a natural born citizen under the Constitutionand thus qualified to hold the office of President.
See United States v. Wong Kim Ark
, 169 U.S. 649, 702-03(1898) (addressing U. S. Const. amend. XIV); Ankeny v. Governor of the State of Indiana, 916 N.E.2d 678,684-88 (Ind. App. 2010) (addressing the precise issue). Contrary to Plaintiff’s assertion, Minor v. Happersett,88 U.S. 162 (1874, does not hold otherwise."
Looks very plain to me. How many more rulings do you need before you admit you are wrong?
Reality Check,
ReplyDeleteI am sorry to say but this Arizona decision does not present any cognizable argument based on in-depth anaysis and authority to support its definition of an Article II "natural born Citizen." The weakness of the decision is evidenced by its reliance upon the Fourteenth Amendment, Wong Kim Ark, and Ankeny. The Fourteenth Amendment and Wong Kim Ark came 81 and 111 years, respectively, after the Constitution was adopted in 1787. The court fails to show how the Fourteenth Amendment and Wong Kim Ark are connected to the "natural born Citizen" clause. The decision provides no sources from the Founding period supporting its definition of a "natural born Citizen." Nor does the court discuss Minor or show how it does not support the definition that a "natural born Citizen" is a child born in a country to citizen parents. Simply citing amendments and cases that are not on point does little to inform our debate on what is a "natural born Citizen."
I'm sorry Reality Check, but you do not win here either.
From Merriam Webster online dictionary:
ReplyDeletewin
verb \ˈwin\intransitive verb
1
: to gain the victory in a contest : succeed
What is the Apuzzo definition of "win"?
@ Reality Check
ReplyDeleteIt's your contention that the SCOTUS believes and holds that native birth suffices to make a "natural born Citizen", that the SCOTUS relies on the English common law as the defining authority on what makes a "natural born" and that the English common law requires native birth as sufficient to make a "natural born"
In light of this, if it was the English "common law" that was referred to by the SCOTUS in the Minor case, and if (as you say)English common law requires solely native birth to make a "natural born", then why do you suppose the SCOTUS in the Minor court, initiated the mention of the "doubts" as to whether a child born native but to alien parents was even a citizen, made this mention without any objection, and made no negating comments about these "doubts"?
These "doubts" that according to your reckoning, were in DIRECT OPPOSITION to what you assert the court believed and held.
The SCOTUS mention of the "doubts" were INITIATED by the court in the very same paragraph as the court's recognition of Virginia Minor as a "natural born citizen" by native birth and to US citizen parents.
Yet the SCOTUS (as you absurdly suggest)believes that native birth suffices to make a "natural born".
I smell a run away and hide coming on.
You can't delete my post here RC.
Richard Santorum has repeatedly called himself a "first generation American," so this from Mario seems apt: "Minor told us that for one to be a 'natural-born citizen,' one could not be a first generation
ReplyDelete'citizen' vis-à-vis any one parent."
So what makes a 1st-gener like Slick Rick think he is eligible for prez? Ignorance and ego.
cheat /tʃit/ Show Spelled[cheet]
ReplyDelete1. to defraud; swindle: He cheated her out of her inheritance.
2. to deceive; influence by fraud: He cheated us into believing him a hero.
3. to elude; deprive of something expected: He cheated the law by suicide.
(It appears as if Realitychuck presented the wrong definition)
To Reality Check and John Woodman,
ReplyDeleteNeither Reality Check nor John Woodman have been able to show us on this blog how their English common law definition of a “natural born subject” (simply born on U.S. soil) is what the Founders and Framers adopted as the standard to define an Article II “natural born Citizen.” So now they expect an Arizona state court to do it for them.
John Woodman posts on his blog:
“Arizona Court Essentially Declares John Woodman Correct, Lawyers Mario Apuzzo and Leo Donofrio Completely Wrong on What Makes a Natural Born Citizen,” accessed at http://www.obamabirthbook.com/http:/www.obamabirthbook.com/2012/03/arizona-court-declares-john-woodman-correct-lawyers-mario-apuzzo-and-leo-donofrio-completely-wrong-on-what-makes-a-natural-born-citizen/.
Well the bad news for Mr. Woodman and Reality Check is that the Arizona court, like both of them, fails to show us how the Founders and Framers defined a “natural born Citizen” the same as the English common law defined a “natural born subject.” On the contrary, the evidence is overwhelming that the Founders and Framers defined a “natural born Citizen” under natural law and law of nations as presented by Vattel in Section 212 of The Law of Nations, where he said that the “natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens.” Minor v. Happersett, among other U.S. Supreme Court cases, tells us Vattel’s definition became American common law. The historical record is replete with information showing that such American common law became part of Article III “Laws of the United States.” As I have shown in my brief to the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, accessed at http://www.scribd.com/doc/83104811/Kerchner-Laudenslager-v-Obama-Ballot-Challenge-Brief-on-Behalf-of-Objectors-Filed-28Feb2012, this natural law/law of nations definition was confirmed, by, among other sources, John Locke (1689); Samuel von Pufendorf (1691); Jaques Burlamaqui (1747); Emer de Vattel (1758); Thomas Jefferson (1779); Alexander Hamilton (1784); James Madison (1787); David Ramsay (1789); the early Congresses in 1790, 1795, and 1803; St. George Tucker (1803); Chief Justice John Marshall in The Venus, 12 U.S. 253(1814); House of Representatives, Langdon Cheves, in February of 1814; Alexander McLeod (1774-1833); Inglis v. Sailors’ Snug Harbor, 28 U.S. 99 (1830); Shanks v. Dupont, 28 U.S. 242 (1830); Justice Daniels in Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1856); Rep. John Bingham (1862 and 1866); Ludlam, Excutrix, & c., v. Ludlam, 26 N.Y. 356 (1863); Minor v. Happersett (1875); Ex parte Reynolds, 20 F. Cas. 582 (C.C.W.D. Ark 1879); United States v. Ward, 42 F. 320 (1890); and U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898).
In my brief at page 114, I also show how the Fourteenth Amendment did not change the definition of a “natural born Citizen” that is confirmed by all this evidence. Additionally, at page 144 of my brief, I show how Wong Kim Ark also did not change the time-honored American common law definition of a “natural born Citizen,” and even confirmed Minor's definition of that clause.
We have not seen Reality Check, Mr. Woodman, the Arizona court, or any other Obama supporter adequately address this evidence and my arguments derived therefrom. We have not heard from them on how they have misstated the work of St. George Tucker, who supports Vattel's definition of a "natural born Citizen." Too bad for Reality Check and John Woodman that someone of Tucker's stature agreed with Vattel and not with Blackstone.
Reality Check and Mr. Woodman want it the easy way, just declare themselves the winners based on someone else’s work (woefully inadequate at that) and go home. But history has taught us that it does not work that way.
Dr. Conspiracy is now also using venn diagrams to attempt to convince the public as to the meaning of an Article II “natural born Citizen.” See his article entitled, Charting citizenship, at http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/2012/03/charting-citizenship/.
ReplyDeleteWhat Dr. Conspiracy fails to understand is that while there are “natural born” and “naturalized” citizens, there were also under English common law “naturalized natural born” subjects. The Courts in Calvin’s Case (in Great Britain) and Wong Kim Ark (in the U.S.), both applying the English common law, created “naturalized natural born” subjects/citizens. Lord Coke judicially naturalized Calvin, who was born in the King’s dominion, but to alien parents, to be a “natural born subject” from birth because Parliament for political reasons would not naturalize him. Justice Gray judicially naturalized Wong, who was also born in the United States, but to alien parents, a “citizen of the United States” from birth even though the United States said he was an alien. Dr. Conspiracy even concedes the “naturalized natural born” citizen point but does not realize it when he argues that children born abroad to citizen parents are “naturalized” citizens “at birth,” but yet according to him still “natural born” citizens and therefore eligible to be President. So Dr. Conspiracy is admitting that in order for those children to be “natural born” citizens, they must first be naturalized under a Congressional Act which then under his logic makes them “naturalized natural born.” So under Dr. Conspiracy’s logic, just as those children born abroad to citizen parents have to be “naturalized natural born,” then so also do those children born in the United States to one or two alien parents have to be “naturalized natural born,” if we are even willing to say that they are “natural born” rather than just “native born.” Surely Dr. Conspiracy is not going to convince us that the Fourteenth Amendment, itself a positive law, has some magical power which an Act of Congress, another positive law, does not have when it comes to creating that which nature has not created.
Emer de Vattel, in Section 214 of The Law of Nations recognized the “naturalized natural born” produced under English common law when he said: “Finally, there are states, as, for instance, England, where the single circumstance of being born in the country naturalises the children of a foreigner.” The Founders and Framers were highly influenced by the work of Vattel. By clearly distinguishing between an Article I “Citizen” and an Article II “natural born Citizen,” and giving Congress the power to naturalize and thereby create Article I “Citizens” by positive law, they rejected any notion of a “naturalized natural born” citizen, not only because the concept is an oxymoron, but because it produces conflicting allegiance and citizenship from the moment of birth, a condition which they did not allow future Presidents and Commanders in Chief of the Military to have in our constitutional republic.
In short, a "natural born Citizen" has only one definition, i.e., a child born in the country to citizen parents. This definition is based on natural law (birth to citizen parents) and positive law (birth in the country).
All other U.S. Citizens, who do not meet that definition, are simply "Citizens," and not "natural born Citizens," regardless of whether some positive law such as the Fourteenth Amendment or Act of Congress declares them to be "Citizens" from the moment of birth or after birth.
I am still waiting Reality Check.
ReplyDeleteAre you going to pretend you didn't see the question?
What about John Woodman?
Can either of you muster the courage to tackle the questions I have put to you?
How come the SCOTUS in the Minor court, initiated the mention of "doubts" as to whether a child born native, but to alien parents, was even a citizen at all?
Not only did the SCOTUS initiate the mention of the "doubts", they also entertained the notion without ANY comment, objection, disapproval or "correction" whatsoever.
Now why would the SCOTUS, who YOU say fully believed and held that native birth was sufficient to make a "natural born citizen", introduce the mention of the "doubts" in the first place, and why would they not oppose such a notion?
Waiting.
I'm confused by the Obots' arguments. They simultaneously claim every 14th amendment Citizen is a NBC thus eligible for POTUS, and that Stanley [Jr's mom] was a Citizen thus Jr. is a NBC.
ReplyDeleteI recall from some where that Jr's election site claimed 'native' born status based on Stanley being a NBC and even went so far as to cite law regarding her repatriation.
Obots If 14th amendment Citizenship is all that is required for POTUS, why all the extra work?
@cfkerchner
Republicans make me sick with the selling out of the USA and silence on the eligibility topic. I agree the reason is to get Rubio in the VPOTUS spot.
There was a story by a communist journalist calling out Rubio on 10/24/11, that story died that day too.
I had hoped Rubio being brought up as not a NBC would force the discussion into the general public narrative. We see it was not ever discussed on the leftstream news and it got on FOX News through a end around in a discussion on Hannity.
@Harold Smith
I have to completely agree with; "the U.S. government has apparently been subverted, a long time ago, and 9/11 and the subsequent fraudulent "war on terror" were the vehicles used to finally overthrow the rule of law and consolidate power in the executive branch.
America is now finally stone-cold dead...dead and gone. Having been replaced by the "Homeland", a dystopic, post-constitutional wasteland"
My eyes were opened reading Leo's site last year and learning about Justiagate. That really got the hamster running on the wheel and now I'm sad to say I sometimes cover him with a "foil hat".
Strange that we have that, foil hat, image ingrained on our collective psyches to describe a person outside the narrative.
Now that the Obama Administration is claiming that it gets its legal basis for military action from the UN, NATO and only might then inform Congress and might but not necessarily get Its approval we may be seeing exactly what Chief Justice Jay had in mind when he wrote Washington about the importance of whom would be President and therefore Commander And Chief. In short the President is looking towards the International Community for his authority. This is so bizarre that it difficult to believe. Panetta's interaction with Senator Sessions seemed like a strange dream. If Congress does the right thing now then Impeachment is just around the corner!!
ReplyDeletehat tip to foreign media;
ReplyDeletehttp://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/07-03-2012/120708-arizona_sheriff_obama-0/
Impeachment proceedings have begun against Obama in the House.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.westernjournalism.com/media-cover-up-of-obama-impeachment-exposed/?utm_source=Western+Journalism&utm_campaign=d1faf1d12e-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email
Squeeky Fromm, Girl Reporter likes to substitute artsy-fartsy writings and graphics for legal arguments.
ReplyDeleteWe are not impressed and surely not convinced.
A reminder............
ReplyDeleteWhy have Reality Check and John Woodman gone all quiet?
I am still waiting Reality Check.
Are you going to pretend you didn't see the question?
What about John Woodman?
Can either of you muster the courage to tackle the questions I have put to you?
How come the SCOTUS in the Minor court, initiated the mention of "doubts" as to whether a child born native, but to alien parents, was even a citizen at all?
Not only did the SCOTUS initiate the mention of the "doubts", they also entertained the notion without ANY comment, objection, disapproval or "correction" whatsoever.
Now why would the SCOTUS, who YOU say fully believed and held that native birth was sufficient to make a "natural born citizen", introduce the mention of the "doubts" in the first place, and why would they not oppose such a notion?
Waiting.
Jack said...
ReplyDelete@cfkerchner
Republicans make me sick with the selling out of the USA and silence on the eligibility topic. I agree the reason is to get Rubio in the VPOTUS spot.
==============================
This is VERY CRITICAL. We need to be loud and vocal that we will not let them get away with this. If we are really Constitutionalists then an in-eligible Rubio is just as bad, just as much a fraud, and just as illegal as Obama.
Here where I am in Pennsylvania, normally, if someone were to cheat the welfare office out of foodstasmps, for example, it would make the local newspaper.
ReplyDeleteFunny how the putative "chief law enforcement officer" of the U.S. can be revealed to be at the center of a massive criminal conspiracy to defraud the people of the U.S. and to subvert an important national security safeguard of the Constitution, and that's apparently not even deemed to be newsworthy...at least in the U.S.
I guess if you want to read about political corruption in the U.S., you have to go to Russian media:
http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/07-03-2012/120708-arizona_sheriff_obama-0/
I have debated Squeeky Fromm, Girl Reporter in the past. She cannot answer the following question:
ReplyDeleteIf Wong Kim Ark was a natural born citizen, then why did the US Supreme Court need to interpret the 14th amendment (a man-made law) in such a way as to establish his citizenship at birth?
PRAVDA???
ReplyDeleteThis is just my guess about why Pravda.
The author is an American she, Dianna Cotter, wrote a piece on American Thinker with Leo about Justiagate. Linked pg3 article. http://www.examiner.com/civil-rights-in-portland/justiagate
My guess is she submitted the article to US Media and got the word every writer must love and that is NO.
Can any of the OBots answer why Barry was working to amend the Constitution to make NBC, as the founders defined, moot?
Can they answer Justisgate? Why go to all the trouble if 14 is the lucky number? http://www.examiner.com/civil-rights-in-portland/justiagate
Why all the misinformation if this guy, Barry, is who he claims to be?
Why all the IV Reich laws? It’s because Paranoia drives the guilty.
------------
@Carlyle
I write Republicans, and Tea Party "officials" with updates about the excellent discussions that happen here and elsewhere.
They don't care, are complacent, or have a gun to their heads. I've decided the whole lot of them are compromised in some fashion.
What is going on in DC with the Republicans? I vote Republican, but come on a Vienna Sausage makes the party wanting in a manhood contest.
Many sit back and argue within the paradigm set by the media and the Mosquitoes who put Barry in as POTUS, let them define reality, write history.
I don't have a degree in communications but I damn sure can write and speak better than the people we're paying to represent our interests. They don't care, except from September until the first Wednesday in November in even number years.
Really they don't care because the collective 'we' don't care.
We've let the Human Mosquitoes [Vampires] in the door and we're paying the price. They have changed and altered definitions and meanings of words and phrases to get different results from the Constitution than was intended.
How? We let them. We're prey to a story about doing the right thing. Next time you hear that term define the “right thing” and ask for whom, and why does that make it right?
We're prey to believing that the USA having the richest poor people in the world is not enough, they need more it's “the right thing”.
Why does the left always have to look back to the time before they got on the scene to find a time America was great? Barry and others always look back to the 50’s.
That's why this site and the humans who frequent this site are so important. Even if we lose the battle, history is made here that will not be lost.
"May God forbid that the future historian shall record of this day's proceedings, that by reason of the failure of the legislative power of the people to triumph over the usurpations of an apostate President, the fabric of American empire fell and perished from the earth! - John Bingham, an author of the 14th, 1868.
We don’t have to lose, we have to send a bigger and better message than we’ve been sending. Please, I’m not calling people out, but if we write one decent letter and send it to our congressmen, one a week, we’re making things happen. Cite this site, cite Dianna Cotter. Pick one of Puzo’s links and write 4-5 paragraphs about it and why it’s important to know this about the apostate and send it.
Action breeds Action. Complacency breeds Human Mosquitoes.
Let's see, Obama can shred the Constitution worse than Bush, start and/or threaten to start illegal, immoral wars of aggression, not even remotely related to the so-called "war on terror"; why, he even claims the authority to indefinitely detain, torture and/or murder U.S. citizens, and nothing happens.
ReplyDeleteAnd let's face it, his threats against Iran and Syria, if carried out, could conceivably result in a nuclear WW3 and the end of life as we know it on this planet...and still, nothing happens.
Then, on top of all this treachery and treason, he's found to be an illegal alien, pretending to be a "natural born citizen"; thus he's not even legally eligible to hold the office from which he threatens the whole world with destruction...and still nothing happens to him.
After Sheriff Joe Arpaio's team released their findings, I thought for sure that "something" would happen...if not in a federal venue then maybe in one of the states. Alas it hasn't.
Isn't there ANYBODY, ANYWHERE in this whole country, in ANY position of authority who gives a damn that this subhuman cretin is destroying their country?
Words simply fail me.
The personal consequences of his treachery and treason seem to bounce off of him like bullets bounce off Superman.
I wonder, what exactly would this psychopathic criminal scum have to do to get himself in trouble in this land? Seriously, if everything he's done to date is insufficient, what would it literally take? At this sorry point in our decline, I think we could have a video of him throwing babies out of Air Force One and it wouldn't matter at all.
Harold Smith has left a new comment:
ReplyDeleteLet's see, Obama can shred the Constitution worse than Bush, start and/or threaten to start illegal, immoral wars of aggression, not even remotely related to the so-called "war on terror"; why, he even claims the authority to indefinitely detain, torture and/or murder U.S. citizens, and nothing happens.
And let's face it, his threats against Iran and Syria, if carried out, could conceivably result in a nuclear WW3 and the end of life as we know it on this planet...and still, nothing happens.
Then, on top of all this treachery and treason, he's found to be an illegal alien, pretending to be a "natural born citizen"; thus he's not even legally eligible to hold the office from which he threatens the whole world with destruction...and still nothing happens to him.
After Sheriff Joe Arpaio's team released their findings, I thought for sure that "something" would happen...if not in a federal venue then maybe in one of the states. Alas it hasn't.
Isn't there ANYBODY, ANYWHERE in this whole country, in ANY position of authority who gives a damn that this [editor's deletion] is destroying their country?
Words simply fail me.
The personal consequences of his treachery and treason seem to bounce off of him like bullets bounce off Superman.
I wonder, what exactly would this psychopathic criminal scum have to do to get himself in trouble in this land? Seriously, if everything he's done to date is insufficient, what would it literally take? At this sorry point in our decline, I think we could have a video of him throwing babies out of Air Force One and it wouldn't matter at all.
Posted by Harold Smith to Natural Born Citizen - A Place to Ask Questions and Get the Right Answers at March 13, 2012 7:15 PM
There has been no activity on this thread for a few days.
ReplyDeleteIs there a problem?
MichaelN,
ReplyDeleteThings are being worked on. I will have some more posting shortly.
I urge everyone to read this WND article, Stunning Video: GOP Leaders Cheat Ron Paul? , accessed at http://www.wnd.com/2012/03/stunning-video-gop-leaders-cheat-ron-paul/ . Also, be sure to watch the video. The article and video concern the Georgia GOP county convention that took place on Saturday, March 10, 2012. The video clearly shows how Ron Paul supporters were cheated by the Athens-Clarke County GOP leadership at this convention. Here we can clearly see corruption with the GOP establishment. What is disgusting is how each involved actor tries to escape what he did by passing off the corruption to someone else. At the end, we even have one last pathetic attempt to escape justice by the GOP leader asking the protesters to put their objection to him in writing, of course thereby sweeping the matter under the rug. A writing was hardly needed when he was part of the event that took place before his very eyes.
ReplyDeleteWe surely have a cancer in Georgia politics. We all know about cancer, we have got to find it early and eradicate it if we are going to have any chance for survival.
What we see happening in the Georgia GOP is disgusting, a violation of basic party rules and decency toward other human beings.
I can just imagine how much party spirit has corrupted our national leaders who are tasked with addressing the question of Obama’s eligibility to be President.
Anyone in a position of authority has no business being there if he or she will not be able to do an honest job due to party prejudice or some other unstated reason.
This kind of behavior is highly destructive of the ideals of American republican government which is based on virtue and good moral character. It is this ideal which has made America what it is and set it apart from the rest of the nations of the world.
For the sake of the democratic process and basic human decency, I urge the Georgia and national GOP leadership to take swift and decisive action to correct what happened in Georgia so that such corruption does not become an accepted standard for doing our nation's business.
It's pathetic beyond words how they're cheating Ron Paul, but it's entirely predictable.
ReplyDeleteThey've already committed so many monstrous crimes against humanity, they can't stop now; i.e., he who rides a tiger can never dismount.
Thus they can't afford to let any reasonable, morally competent person anywhere near the levers of power, especially the Office of President. One honest person in the wrong office, and they're finished.
I think the time has come to move out of the U.S. I figure if I have to live in a lawless banana republic, I might as well live in one with a better climate, one that doesn't claim a legal right to make me disappear, and one that's not trying to play "suicide by cop" with Russia and China.
Anyway, getting back to Ron Paul, I hope he runs as an independent. And if he does, I hope he makes it clear that the cheaters are responsible or at least partly responsible for that decision.
What worries me though is that our Masters are going to start a big war later this year (a war that could become a nuclear WW3) and martial law will be imposed shortly thereafter.
I just heard Luis Fortuno, Governor of Puerto Rico, in an interview regarding his support for Romney, refer to Puerto Ricans as natural born citiznes since 1917. He is right. Puerto Rico is US sovereign territory and Puerto Ricans are US citizens. Hence, a child born in Puerto Rico to Puerto Rican parents would be a natural born citizen. But I find it interesting that he would say this during an interview about Romney. Makes me wonder if he might be angling for the VP slot.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what the USSC will do about Obamacare. Some have been saying for years that said justices are honorable and are looking for a good excuse and an easy way to undermine The Won.
ReplyDeleteWell, THIS is it. It will takes hundreds of pages of chopped logic to render a verdict in favor of Obamacare. To rule against is trivial. It is clearly and blatantly unconstitutional. And since the bill/law is self-claimed to be non-separable, then the whole thing is crap. Easy peasy. "Overreach gone awry - sent it back to congress".
Well I am betting that NOBODY, including USSC will dare harm The Won. They will opt for the hundreds of pages of chopped logic - and more of the famous emanations, penumbras, and shadows.
Take it to the bank.
Art.2 Sect. 1 Cl. 5 has NEVER been amended. It means the same as it did in 1787. In 1795, if born under the same circumstances, i.e born in the U.S, of 1 US Citizen mother, and an alien father, Barack H. Obama would have been considered an ALIEN ( See Naturalization Acts 1790, 1795, 1802, 1855).
ReplyDeleteTherefore Obama can not possibly be a nbC, eligible for President, today.
Join-in, and counter the lies and deceit that proliferate the forums.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.politicalforum.com/other-miscellaneous/189004-english-common-law-requires-jus-sanguinis-essential-natural-born-21.html#post1061047930
I was just reading a little bit about the case of Marine Sergeant Gary Stein (who is facing discharge for stuff he put on a Facebook page), which apparently involves the issues of free speech, his view of his enlistment oath, and DOD rules and regulations regarding "political" activity.
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking that Stein might be in a good position to challenge the Fraudster in Chief.
Let's face it if Obama is not a "domestic enemy" of the Constitution, there is no such thing as a "domestic enemy" of the Constitution.
RE; HAROLD
ReplyDeleteCongress refused to amend the Constitution so that Obama could become POTUS. With DNC (da new commies) in power, they just ignored it.
There was something close to 14 different bills presented to Congress allowing people like Obama to be POTUS that all failed. No Amendment, no Bill was signed into law, nada.
The usurpation of the US Constitution is an act of treason, so yes, under these circumstances, its safe to conclude that the DNC and its members are all enemies of the United States. Further investigation will show a massive communist effort to push this nation into socialism.
http://www.fas.org/sgp/obama/presidential.html
ReplyDeleteillegal executive order
this self serving executive order is designed to conceal the fact that obama is in violation of the requirements contained in the Constitution of the United States for holding the Office of POTUS
Re: Marine Sergeant Gary Stein
ReplyDeleteWhereas Mr. Obama has stipulated that he was born under British jurisdiction through his British/Kenyan father, and
Whereas Mr. Obama has admitted, via sponsorship of Senate Resolution 511, knowledge that a "natural born citizen" is one born in the country to citizen parents (plural), and
Whereas the entirety of the Senate, with the sole exception of John McCain, signed this resolution, and
Whereas the Supreme Court of these United States established this definition as binding legal precedent in Minor v Happersett, 1875, and
Whereas every nation in the history of the world has understood the principle of natural law and the Law of Nations that a natural born citizen is one born in the country to parents who are also citizens,
It must be understood that any member of our military that obeys any order coming from the office of the President or any of its departments or agencies is, in effect, executing an unlawful order.
Mr. Obama is clearly, by our Constitution and his own admissions and legal understanding/applications, not eligible to be President of the United States.
If Mr. Obama was actually born in Hawaii, he is a citizen naturalized at birth. This is not the same as a "natural born citizen" which requires no naturalization or any other positive law.
His birth under British jurisdiction prevents him from gaining citizenship through the 14th Amendment which requires birth in the US under complete US jurisdiction.
If Mr. Obama was, as alleged, born in Kenya or otherwise outside the boundaries and jurisdiction of the United States, he is a not a citizen at all. His mother, according to 1961 US Immigration and Naturalization Law, was not old enough to convey her US Citizenship to baby Barry.
We will remain a Constitutional Republic only as long as we adhere to our Constitution.
Our military and our leadership need to decide whether they are going to remain loyal to our Constitution and WE THE PEOPLE or if they are going to give their allegiance to Obama and his puppet masters. These two choices are not compatible or reconcilable.
We can only pray that our guys have as much love for our country and our Constitution as the Honduran army has for theirs.
@ Robert
ReplyDeleteThe thing is, they don't want reasonable, patriotic, morally competent, thinking people in the U.S. Military.
They don't want people like Pablo Paredes or Bradley Manning, they want people like Charles Graner or Robert Bales.
Anyway, here's how I see the big picture: the Obama eligibility fraud is merely a part of a larger, long-standing conspiracy to overthow the U.S. government. Apparently, they saw some unique qualities in Obama and accordingly brought him to power specifically to implement phase 2 of their PNAC agenda, which began with George Bush, whom they apparently contracted with to get the process started.
I believe there's a good chance they're going to start a war with Iran before we have any more "elections", and I believe that once they do that, some kind of "retaliation" will occur on U.S. soil, either "legitimate" retaliation or of the false-flag variety, with martial law to follow shortly thereafter.
Of course, once they start the next phase of their wars of aggression, things could easily spiral out of control, and we could be looking at war with Russia and China, which could easily become a global nuclear war, IMO.
I hope I'm wrong about all this, but it looks pretty grim to me right now.
"Margot" spits the dummy in denial and avoidance of acknowledging a truth.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.politicalforum.com/other-miscellaneous/189004-english-common-law-requires-jus-sanguinis-essential-natural-born-26.html#post1061062055
An extract from a John C. Drew PhD post at Dr Conspiracy's blog
ReplyDeleteQuote:
"I’m just amazed that people at this site are demanding that I turn over my employment records and personal information, and yet display no interest in the possibility that Obama is out and out lying about his life in Dreams From My Father. Imagine what Dreams would have read like if Obama had told the truth? It would be a very different book and I doubt Obama would still be president."
http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/2012/01/is-obama-a-marsist/
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If Obama's background simply doesn't matter and he can be President of the U.S. and thus have his finger on the big red button, then why does anyone in any lesser position in the federal government need a security clearance?
ReplyDeleteIf one of the lowly peasants used fraudulent documents to get a federal job and/or a federal security clearance, and it was discovered, he'd not only be fired, but perhaps criminally charged as well.
If Obama can be an illegal alien and yet occupy the top office in the federal government, then anyone who's ever been dismissed from any lesser position in the federal government because of a security clearance issue should sue to get their jobs back.
Harold Smith,
ReplyDeleteA security clearance is not an eligibility requirement under Article II, Section 1, Clause 5.
But the clearance surely goes to show fitness for the Office of President and Commander in Chief of the Military.
There should be a bipartisan panel of security and intelligence experts who vet any presidential candidate before elections so that the voting American people and Electoral College will have a full report of the findings. After having such a report, its up to the voters to decide.
Given Obama's multiple citizenships and life activities (and we do not know of the ones he has hidden in his documents) he probably could not get a security clearance.
This is not a full answer to a very difficult matter given the political implications of putting a presidential contender through any "official" security clearance.
Everyone needs to watch this:
ReplyDeleteDinesh D'Souza - Obama & 2016
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Z6QOscKvUjU
It's a video of conservative’s introducing the upcoming movie:
OBAMA’S AMERICA 2016.
http://2016themovie.com/
It looks at who Obama really is and what the U.S. might look like in 2016 if he is reelected.
It does not refer to the natural born citizen clause but the clause was inserted to prevent everything they are saying.
"RealityCheck" enters the fray, with lies and ad hominem guns ablazing.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.politicalforum.com/other-miscellaneous/189004-english-common-law-requires-jus-sanguinis-essential-natural-born-28.html#post1061078893
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This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHarold Smith has left a new comment on your post "Putative President Barack Obama’s Unconstitutional...":
ReplyDeleteThis is depressing, isn't it? With damning evidence of fraud piled up to the ceiling, all we can basically do is sit here and hope that out of the 50 states, maybe just one of them will make an attempt to compel Obama to prove his citizenship status or forfeit ballot access.
Frankly I'm beginning to wonder: What's the point of having "states" in the first place, if they despise the concept of sovereignty so much?
Apparently, states have been voluntarily reduced to mere geographical entities.
Probably though, if the shoe were on the other foot, and it was, say, Ron Paul, who's citizenship status was rightly being called into question, all the opportunists and moral cowards in the state legislatures and the various black-robed [editor's deletion], would be crawling all over themselves to have at it.
Posted by Harold Smith to Natural Born Citizen - A Place to Ask Questions and Get the Right Answers at March 30, 2012 1:18 PM
Sign the petition in Arizona to keep the liar in chief off the ballot
ReplyDeletehttp://www.teapartytribune.com/petition-asr-41-121-1/
www.goo.gl/dhDBI