A Response to Neal
Katyal and Paul Clement on the Meaning of a Natural Born Citizen
By Mario Apuzzo,
Esq.
March 13, 2015
I read the March 11, 2015 article entitled, “On the
Meaning of a ‘Natural Born Citizen,” written by Neal Katyal and Paul Clement,
found at 128 Harv.L.Rev.F 161, and accessed at http://harvardlawreview.org/2015/03/on-the-meaning-of-natural-born-citizen/
. The first sentence of the article
says: “We have both had the privilege of
heading the Office of the Solicitor General.”
The article repeats the existing talking points offered in support of
the constitutional eligibility of Senator Ted Cruz (all born citizens are
natural born citizens) and offers nothing new.
Mr. Cruz was born in Canada to a U.S. citizen mother and a non-U.S.
citizen (Cuban) father. I have written a
recent article in which I conclude that Mr. Cruz is not a natural born citizen
and therefore not eligible to be President because he does not satisfy the one
and only common law definition of a natural born citizen confirmed by the unanimous
U.S. Supreme Court in Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1875), which is a child
born in a country to parents who were its citizens at the time of the child’s
birth. The article is entitled, “What Do
President Obama and Senator Cruz Have In Common? They Are Both Not Natural Born
Citizens," accessed at http://puzo1.blogspot.com/2015/02/what-do-president-obama-and-senator.html
. Katyal and Clement maintain that any
child who becomes a citizen at birth, regardless of where born or by what
means, is a natural born citizen. They
add that since Mr. Cruz became a citizen from the moment of birth and did not
need any naturalization after birth he is a natural born citizen. But there is no historical and legal evidence
which demonstrates that this is how the Framers defined a natural born citizen
and the authors surely have not presented that evidence even if it did
exist.
The authors’ argument suffers from the fallacy of bald
assertion. They provide no convincing evidence
for their position on who is included as an Article II natural born
citizen. They do not examine what was
the source of the Framers' definition of an Article II natural born citizen,
let alone what was the definition of a natural born citizen when the Framers
drafted and adopted the Constitution and when it was eventually ratified. They ignore so much of the historical and
legal record in coming to their bald conclusions. For a discussion of this
historical and legal evidence, see the numerous articles that I have written and
posted at my blog, http://puzo1.blogspot.com
.
They gloss over what the Framers' purpose was for
requiring the President and Commander in Chief of the Military to be a natural
born citizen. They do not engage in any real
discussion on what the Framers were trying to achieve through the clause. They
dismiss all debate on the subject of foreign influence by flatly stating
without any evidence: "The Framers
did not fear such machinations from those who were U.S. citizens from birth
just because of the happenstance of a foreign birthplace."
The authors cite to the Naturalization Act of 1790 and
ignore the fact that the Naturalization Act of 1795, with the lead of then-Rep.
James Madison and with the approval of President George Washington, repealed it
and specifically changed "shall be considered as natural born
citizens" to "shall be considered as citizens of the United
States." This is even more a
blatant omission given that they argue that the English naturalization statutes
referred to persons born out of the King's dominion to British subject parents as
"natural born subjects." They
fail to address this critical change made by our early Congress, critical
because Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 provides that a “Citizen” of the United
States was eligible to be President only if born before the adoption of the Constitution
and that thereafter only a “natural born Citizen” was so eligible. Hence, Congress referring to one as a citizen
rather than a natural born citizen, given the presidential eligibility requirements
of Article II, was a serious thing. They
do not discuss what the language of the 1790 Act, "shall be considered
as," meant. They fail to address
the issue that this was naturalization language and nothing more. They fail to discuss whether Congress even
had the constitutional power to make anyone born out of the United States a
natural born citizen, if that was Congress’s intent in the first place.
They assert without demonstrating that the English
common law supports their position. But
they totally ignore that under the English common law, only persons born in the
King's dominion and under his jurisdiction were natural born subjects and that
those born out of the dominion and therefore out of his jurisdiction became
subjects only through a naturalization Act of Parliament.
They cite to Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of
England, but they do not cite to Emer de Vattel and his The Laws of Nations (1758)
(1797) or Minor, two leading sources that inform on U.S. citizenship. Both Vattel and Minor defined a natural born
citizen as a child born in a country to parents who were its citizens. What is incredible is that they cite U.S. v. Wong
Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898) to demonstrate that British statutes called
children born out of the King's dominion to subject parents "natural
born." But they fail to tell the
reader that Wong Kim Ark considered children born out of the United States to
U.S. citizen parents to be naturalized by acts of Congress. In fact, they give
virtually no discussion of the Wong Kim Ark case because they know that the
case said that under the English common law, only children born in the King’s dominion
and under his jurisdiction were natural born subjects and that any child
born out of that dominion needed an act
of Parliament to naturalize him or her. They
also fail to discuss the U.S. Supreme Court case of Rogers v. Bellei, 401 U.S.
815 (1971), in which both majority and dissent said the same as Wong Kim Ark
which was that children born out of the United States to U.S. citizen parents
become citizens of the United States only through the grace of Congress who
made them citizens through a naturalization Act without which those children
would be aliens. It simply defies logic
and good reason to conclude that a person who would not be a citizen at all
without a naturalization act of Congress is a natural born citizen.
Katyal and Clement argue that John Jay had children
born out of the United States while he was on diplomatic assignment and that he
would not have disqualified his own children from being natural born
citizens. This is a really baseless
point since Jay's children would have been born out of the United States to
parents who were serving the national defense of the United States and
therefore reputed born in the United States. Likewise, they present the John McCain
situation as proof for their position.
But they fail to realize that John McCain was born in Panama to U.S.
citizen parents who were serving the national defense of the United States which
makes him reputed born in the United States to U.S. citizen parents and
therefore a natural born citizen under the one and only common law definition
of a natural born citizen as confirmed by unanimous U.S. Supreme Court in Minor. See Vattel, Section 217 (children born out of
the country to citizen parents serving in the armies of the state are reputed
born in the country). They give the
examples of Senator Barry Goldwater and Governor George Romney who they say
were eligible to serve as President although neither was born within a state.
The argument is meritless, for they were both born to U.S. citizen parents in
U.S. sovereign territory subject to no foreign power and hence were born in
part of the country known as the United States, all of which made them natural
born citizens under the common law definition of a natural born citizen.
The authors conclude without demonstrating: "Despite the happenstance of a birth
across the border, there is no question that Senator Cruz has been a citizen
from birth and is thus a “natural born Citizen” within the meaning of the
Constitution." They simply make
this conclusion without having shown how their position is valid given the
historical and legal record.
The authors also show contempt to the constitutional
requirement that the President has to be a natural born citizen and for any
person who dare raise any such issue.
For example, they say: "simply because he was delivered at a
hospital abroad," rather than saying that he was born in a foreign nation;
"born in a Canadian hospital," rather than saying that he was born in
Canada; "[d]espite the happenstance
of a birth across the border;" they
call arguments with which they do not agree "spurious;" and they
consider objections to candidate's eligibility as "specious objections to
candidates eligibility," as if no one ever made any valid argument.
In short, Katyal
and Clement’s article lacks any critical research and reasoning and is nothing
more than an attempt to convince the reader that Senator Cruz is a natural born
citizen because they said so and the reader has to believe that because they
were former heads of the Office of Solicitor General of the United States.
Mario
Apuzzo, Esq.
March
13, 2015
####
Copyright
© 2015
Mario
Apuzzo, Esq.
All
Rights Reserved
Lest we forget, it IS the CIRCUMSTANCES at birth that makes an actual “natural born subject, citizen, comrade Zulu or whathaveyou”, however, the political body DOES have the authority over the term of words used to name the CIRCUMSTANCE for whatever the purposes,
ReplyDeleteThey also have the authority to revise, amend, extend or terminate circumstances or elements of circumstances as may be deemed desirable.
However, speaking specifically of Citizenship Laws under the COTUS, there are Acts & statutes in place as to what has been done;
1st it must be accepted that the Preamble to the COTUS serves as sufficient Oath of Naturalization so that those persons that were State Citizens were "collectively naturalized" by the Ratification of the COTUS. This solves the problem that Aristotle observed at Part II Bk III Politics.
2nd, it must be accepted that the mandate of A1S8C4 gave plenary power to the Congress of the subject of U.S. Citizenship naturalization under an UNIFORM RULE.
3rd, it must be acknowledged that A2S1C5 makes an exclusionary distinction between a U.S. Citizen and a U.S. natural born Citizens for a purpose that resides within the Executive Articles defining the Executive Branch.
4th, it must be accepted that the Congress DID establish an uniform Rule of U.S. Citizenship naturalization that conforms an alien into the nature of a U.S. Citizen. The characterized uniform Rule construed form the words of the provisions and what those words and provisions then require can be said to be expressed as:
” … Once a person is a U.S. Citizen, then so too are their children, at birth or otherwise…”
5th, regarding children born “considered as” U.S. natural born Citizens in the 1790 Act the qualifier of :considered as” serves two (2) purposes; (1) so as to provide cause to scrutinize any such person who may aspire to the Office of POTUS when they become of age; (2) serves as proof of their counter parts existence, i.e., U.S. natural born Citizens that were / are being born within the limits of the U.S. under the same circumstance except PLACE.
6th, t must be acknowledged that the 1922 Cable Act, aka, the Women’s Independent Citizenship Act ended the use of the doctrine of Coverture to determine a woman’s / wife’s/ mother’s citizenship and provides legal acknowledgement of a hyphenated form of citizenship that had no legal standing theretofore, i.e., “dual-citizenship at birth”.
7th, it must be acknowledged that there has been NO Amendment that has affected of had effect upon the “term of words” that resides in the Executive Articles at A2S1C5, ergo, the circumstances that produced a U.S. natural born Citizen post the collective naturalization of the Founding Generation are the same circumstances that produce a U.S. natural born Citizen today, except for the reconciliations for the repeal of the short-lived foreign born U,S. natural born Citizen provision limiting place to within the limits of the U.S. to parents who are BOTH independently U.S. Citizens at the time of birth.
8th; With the passage of the 1922 Cable Act, aka, the Women's Independent Citizenship Act and the abrogation of the "doctrine of coverture insofar as w omens acquisition of Citizenship by marriage, both parents must be INDEPENENTLY U.S. Citizens in order to conform to the UN-AMENDED Article II requirement of " ... no person except .... shall be ..."
(Genesis and Generations of U.S. Citizenship)
It really is that simple ...
The baseless point Mr. Katyal and Mr. Clement also make with their mentioning of John Jay's children born abroad while he served on diplomatic assignments, also neglect to mention Jay's only two sons were, in fact, born in this country.
ReplyDelete1. Peter Augustus Jay was born at "Liberty Hall," in 1776, at the home of his grandparents', the Livingstons, in Elizabethtown, New Jersey.
2. William Jay was born in New York City, 16 June 1789
Lastly, they also failed to mention that at the time Jay wrote his "hint" to G. Washington, he was completely unaware the CC was combining the two offices of the president of the United States and the commander in chief of the armed forces of the United States into one.
So John Jay was completely aware that his note to Washington would have, indeed, included his first born son as a natural born US citizen.
On the Meaning of “Natural Born Citizen”...
ReplyDelete1
Mario,
Weak and weak. Is that Harvard Law Review article the best that the two former heads of the Office of the Solicitor General can write?
Your analysis of Neil Katyal's and Paul Clement's Harvard law Review article, On the Meaning of “Natural Born Citizen”, has more filet mignon meat content in only 9,237 (+/-) words than their skinny chicken leg bone scraps of 9,364(+/-) words without footnotes, or 11,814 (+/-) words with footnotes in the PDF.
I read their entire article in both formats to see if there was any difference before I read your entire article, and after reading their skinny chicken article I was still hungry for the historical facts that I am already aware of, so then I read your entire article and was satisfied with your filet mignon recitation of the historical facts and your conclusion.
>> In short, Katyal and Clement’s article lacks any critical research and reasoning
>> and is nothing more than an attempt to convince the reader that Senator Cruz is a natural born citizen
>> because they said so
>> and the reader has to believe that
>> because they were former heads of the Office of Solicitor General of the United States.
The only thing that I would like to add to our conclusion is John Jay would probably say thanks for clarifying his 1787 "natural born Citizen" original meaning original intent which in 1787 was and still is in 2015 ONLY singular U.S. citizenship of ONLY one nation. I like to call it original birther John Jay's 1787 "natural born Citizen" original meaning original intent, and also John Jay's "original genesis original intent" only four years after the 1783 Treaty of Paris ending the war of independence from England.
ONLY singular U.S. citizenship of ONLY one nation was the ONLY obvious implicature of underlining the word "born" which was intended to be perpetual, from generation to generation, election to election, POTUS to POTUS. If not intended to be perpetual, the "natural born Citizen" new meaning neo-birthers like Katyal and Clement need to cite historical facts explicitly stating that John Jay's 1787 original intent for underlining the word "born" in "natural born Citizen" was to ALSO mean dual U.S./foreign citizenship of two nations—the U.S. and England, for example, and connect their dual U.S./foreign citizenship conclusion with John Jay's presence ONLY four years earlier at the signing of the 1783 Treaty of Paris ending the war with England.
But also had to live in the US for 14 years prior of the 14th amendment.... Their after had to be born on US soil.
DeleteOn the Meaning of “Natural Born Citizen”...
ReplyDelete2
That should be simple for Katyal and Clement, since they are very sure that the 1790 Naturalization Act implied "a citizen parent" and so ONLY one "a citizen parent" is still valid in 2015. This is from their article:
>> The proviso in the Naturalization Act of 1790
>> underscores that while the concept of “natural born Citizen”
>> has remained constant and plainly includes someone who is a citizen from birth by descent
>> without the need to undergo naturalization proceedings,
>> the details of which individuals born abroad to a citizen parent
>> qualify as citizens from birth have changed.
Maybe the former heads of the Office of the Solicitor General should start educating themselves about original birther John Jay's 1787 original meaning original intent by starting with your current article that cites some of the historical facts that they did not include in their Harvard Law Review article, and then answer these four questions:
1_ Did Neil Katyal and Paul Clement NOT know the historical facts that you cited?
2_ Did Neil Katyal and Paul Clement know the historical facts that you cited and choose to NOT cite the same historical facts?
3_ Did Neil Katyal and Paul Clement NOT know that the third Congress five years later passed the 1795 Naturalization Act which repealed the words "natural born Citizen" and replaced the three word unit with the single word "citizen?" The did reference the 1952 INA: ACT 301 in footnote #2* (see below) and clause "g" on the PDF.
4_ If Neil Katyal and Paul Clement DID know about the 1795 Naturalization Act and choose to NOT refer to it deliberately deceive their readers and the Harvard Law Review personel who allow articles to be published under their name?
*2 See, e.g., 8 U.S.C. § 1401(g) (2012); Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, Pub. L. No. 82-414, § 303, 66 Stat. 163, 236–37; Act of May 24, 1934, Pub. L. No. 73-250, 48 Stat. 797.
Also, if they have the guts to respond to your analysis of their Harvard Law Review article, maybe they can answer some John Jay and John Bingham related and common sense questions:
What did John Jay perpetually intend by underlining the word "born" in "natural born Citizen?"
1_ Did John Jay intend ONLY singular U.S. citizenship of ONLY one nation?
2_ Did John Jay intend ONLY dual U.S./foreign citizenship of ONLY one nation?
3_ Did John Jay intend ALSO BOTH dual U.S. AND foreign citizenship of two nations?
4_ Did John Jay intend ONLY foreign citizenship of ONLY one nation?
What was John Jay's "original genesis original intent" in 1787?
#1 ONLY singular – yes. Period.
#2 ONLY dual – that is absurd, of course not.
#3 ALSO both – that is absurd, of course not.
#4 ONLY – that is an obvious absurdity.
#4 is included simply for continuity of "natural born Citizen" new meaning neo-birther absurd thought that John Jay intended dual U.S./foreign citizenship of two nations with the word "born" in "natural born Citizen."
On the Meaning of “Natural Born Citizen”...
ReplyDelete3
And maybe Neal Katyal & Paul Clement can connect original John Jay's original intent with the original intent of John Bingham, the main author of Section 1 in Amendment 14.
What did the original framers of Amendment 14 mean with the words "All persons born or naturalized in [notice it says "in"] the United States...are citizens of...."?
It is obvious to all readers that for alien "persons" born after Amendment 14 was ratified in 1868, the words "naturalized in..." mean ONLY singular U.S. citizenship of ONLY one nation because the foreign citizenship is renounced with the naturalization oath, but what did "naturalized in..." mean to John Bingham in 1868 when he wrote the first six words of the first sentence of Section 1?
Did "naturalized in..." in 1868 mean that the 1865 Amendment 13 and the 1866 Civil Rights Act free Negroes were automatically grandfathered as "citizens" just like the 1787 Article II Section 1 Clause 5 "...or a Citizen of..." "citizens" of 1776 were grandfathered into POTUS eligibility because they were naturalized by the July 4, 1776 war for independence?
Yes, of course, that is obvious.
The word "naturalized..." meant that the 1865 Amendment 13 free Negroes were grandfathered into being a "citizen...of..." with the possible exception of the right to vote, which is why Amendment 15 was ratified in 1870, the racial suffrage amendment, clarifying and codifying the right to vote for the Amendment 13 free Negro males. The national women's suffrage Amendment 19 was not ratified until 1919, giving ALL women of ALL races the right to vote.
But the BIG 1868 question is what did John Bingham mean in 1868 with the word "born" in "All persons born or naturalized in...?"
1_ Did John Bingham, the main author of Section 1, mean that "All persons born..." were born with ONLY singular U.S. citizenship of ONLY one nation?
2_ Did John Bingham mean that "All persons born..." were born with ONLY dual U.S./foreign citizenship?
3_ Did John Bingham mean that "All persons born..." were born with BOTH singular U.S. citizenship AND dual U.S./foreign citizenship?
Which was the 1868 original intent of the framers of Amendment 14 ratified in 1868?
What was John Bingham's "original genesis original intent" for the word "born" in "All persons born...," #1, #2, #3? Singular or dual?
Was John Bingham's original intent the same as John Jay's "original genesis original intent" or different from John Jay's?
#1 ONLY singular – yes. Period.
#2 ONLY dual – that is absurd, of course not.
#3 ALSO both – that is absurd, of course not.
Those should be simple questions for the former heads of the Office of Solicitor General.
Right?
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Mario, as I have mentioned here before, your erudition and your excellent expositions and tutorials are still needed be WE the People of 2015 America, as the Harvard Law Review by the two former heads of the Office of Solicitor General reveals. Maybe Mark Levin will consider answering the questions about the “original genesis original intent” of 1787 original birther John Jay and 1868 original birther John Bingham—maybe.
Art
U.S. Constitution: The Original Birther Document of the Union
( http://originalbirtherdocument.blogspot.com/2015/01/time-to-change-natural-born-citizen.html )
Terrific article Mario. To all readers here. More good information on the "natural born Citizen" term in the presidential eligibility clause in our Constitution can be found here: http://www.art2superpac.com/issues.html
ReplyDeleteCDR Kerchner (Ret) - ProtectOurLiberty.org
Didn't Cruz's mother revoke her US Citizenship and become a Canadian Citizen before Ted was born? Check out this timeline here by the guy who was the first to expose Pelosi's 2008 DNC Nomination fraud at Canada Free Press:
ReplyDeleteJ.b. Williams’ Cruz Citizenship Timeline: http://www.scribd.com/doc/256409078/Cruz-Citizenship-Timeline-documented
Didn't Cruz's mother revoke her US Citizenship and become a Citizen of Canada BEFORE Ted was born in Canada? Here's a Timeline of Cruz's Citizenship by J.b. Williams, they guy who exposed Pelosi's 2008 DNC Nomination fraud over at Canada Free Press in 2009 & 2010: J.b. Williams’ Cruz Citizenship Timeline: http://www.scribd.com/doc/256409078/Cruz-Citizenship-Timeline-documented
ReplyDeleteMarco Rubio poll...
ReplyDeleteMario,
TheRightScoop.com had a Rubio poll today, Friday the 13, with over 1,400 votes at last count, and another post about the Harvard Law Review article by Neil Katyal and Paul Clement.
The Rubio poll-
>> http://therightscoop.com/poll-will-you-vote-for-marco-rubio-if-he-is-the-republican-nominee/
and
The Harvard Law Review -
>> http://therightscoop.com/two-former-justice-department-lawyers-say-ted-cruz-is-eligible-to-run-for-president/
TheRightScoop commenters definitely need more historical info such as you offer here on your blog and on what that guy called Bob calls an obscure blog, Cafe Con Leche Republicans.
Although my John Jay "original genesis original intent" comments about ONLY singular U.S. citizenship of ONLY one nation are simple to comprehend, they are never cogently refuted with counter facts such as, you are wrong, Art, John Jay ALSO intended dual U.S./foreign citizenship when he underlined the word "born" in "natural born Citizen."
TheRightScoop.com is a site that regularly reports Mark Levin's radio comments favorably, so that means that Levin visits it.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Maybe Mark Levin and also Prof. Rob Natelson will consider answering the questions of my previous comment here yesterday about the “original genesis original intent” of 1787 original birther John Jay (Article II) and 1868 original birther John Bingham (Amendment 14)—maybe.
Art
U.S. Constitution: The Original Birther Document of the Union
( http://originalbirtherdocument.blogspot.com/2015/01/time-to-change-natural-born-citizen.html )
Mr. Katyal and Mr. Clement stated in their article that Senator Ted Cruz, born in Canada, is a natural born citizen under the English common law. The English common law provides no such thing. We have this one example from Wong Kim Ark, among the many:
ReplyDeleteChancellor Kent, in his Commentaries, speaking of the "general division of the inhabitants of every country under the comprehensive title of aliens and natives," says:
Natives are all persons born within the jurisdiction and allegiance of the United States. This is the rule of the common law, without any regard or reference to the political condition or allegiance of their parents, with the exception of the children of ambassadors, who are in theory born within the allegiance of the foreign power they represent. . . . To create allegiance by birth, the party must be born not only within the territory, but within the ligeance of the government. If a portion of the country be taken and held by conquest in war, the conqueror acquires the rights of the conquered as to its dominion and government, and children born in the armies of a State, while [p665] abroad and occupying a foreign country, are deemed to be born in the allegiance of the sovereign to whom the army belongs. It is equally the doctrine of the English common law that, during such hostile occupation of a territory, and the parents be adhering to the enemy as subjects de facto, their children, born under such a temporary dominion, are not born under the ligeance of the conquered.
2 Kent Com. (6th ed.) 39, 42. And he elsewhere says:
And if, at common law, all human beings born within the ligeance of the King, and under the King's obedience, were natural-born subjects, and not aliens, I do not perceive why this doctrine does not apply to these United States, in all cases in which there is no express constitutional or statute declaration to the contrary. . . . Subject and citizen are, in a degree, convertible terms as applied to natives, and though the term citizen seems to be appropriate to republican freemen, yet we are, equally with the inhabitants of all other countries, subjects, for we are equally bound by allegiance and subjection to the government and law of the land.
2 Kent Com. 258, note.
U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649, 665 (1898).
Here, Kent explained that under the English common law, "[t]o create allegiance by birth, the party must be born not only within the territory, but within the ligeance of the government." Also, Kent explained that under English common law, if a child was born in the King's dominion but to military invaders, then that child was no longer born under the jurisdiction of the King and therefore not a natural born subject. So, in that case, even though the child was born in the King's dominion, that he was born to military invaders caused him to be born out of the jurisdiction of the King and therefore not a natural born subject. Hence, the worst if a child was born completely out of the King's kingdom. No way could that child be born in and under the King's jurisdiction. That child was not a natural born subject under English common law. Because children born out of the King's dominion and jurisdiction were not natural born subjects under English common law, Parliament had to pass naturalization statutes which treated those children for all intents and purposes as natural born subjects (not to be confused with an Article II natural born citizen of the United States which is distinguished from a “Citizen” of the United States).
Senator Ted Cruz was not born in the United States. Hence, he was not born subject to its jurisdiction. Under English common law he was not a natural born subject. It is simply grossly inaccurate to maintain as Mr. Katyal and Mr. Clement have that Mr. Cruz is a natural born citizen of the United States under the colonial English common law.
Excellent refutation of an advertisement article. The article was intentionally deceptive and dishonest. Perhaps these two were well paid. And they even decided to disparage John Jay by suggesting that he would have acted selfishly and unwisely if he had taken your idea of natural born citizen. So on the whole a familiar performance by our rather shoddy society and its experts. I think it is ironic that the Tea Party supposedly want honest government, etc. and end up promoting someone who could only become president by ignoring the plain statement of the Constitution. So much for tea! We seem to be living in an age that believes dishonesty is the best policy. And yet people get angry when the bankers commit fraud.
ReplyDeleteI had the impression that becoming the citizen of another nation automatically cancelled one's US citizenship. Or serving in another nation's military, etc. If so then Ted Cruz is probably not even a US citizen now as his mother became a Canadian--I don't know if this was after or before his birth though.
ReplyDeleteWilliam St. George,
ReplyDeleteI had the same thought regarding what Neal Katyal and Paul Clement said about John Jay. It is disgraceful that they would look upon John Jay as a person who would dishonestly manipulate to have the Constitution drafted or interpreted such as to benefit his children in some way. Just think, after all the blood, sweat, and tears that the Founding generation went through to win the American Revolution and create a new political society based on all the good that they could find in history, Mr. Jay would allegedly compromise all that just so his children could someday be President.
But Neal Katyal and Paul Clement are not only wrong on John Jay's morals, but also on the law, for regardless of where Jay’s children where born, being born to U.S. citizen parents, they would have been "Citizens" of the United States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution and therefore eligible to be President under the grandfather clause of Article II, Section 1, Clause 5.
The only thing that I can conclude from Mr. Katyal and Mr. Clement's erroneous statement is that they did nothing more than project upon John Jay their own compromised values.
Just posted to Café Con Leche Rebublicans:
ReplyDeleteBob (not Bob Quasius) to Mario Apuzzo: You wrote (on your blog), “In short, Katyal and Clement’s article . . . is nothing more than an attempt to convince the reader that Senator Cruz is a natural born citizen because they said so and the reader has to believe that because they were former heads of the Office of Solicitor General of the United States.”
In other words, you accuse Katyal and Clement of the logical fallacy of appealing to authority. Please cite specifically where Katyal and Clement in their article relied on their status as former solicitor generals to bolster their thesis.
~~~~~
Mario Apuzzo to Bob: The first sentence of the article says: “We have both had the privilege of heading the Office of the Solicitor General.”
Their article is so filled with errors, omissions, and misstatement and so superficial that the only thing that is left in it is their former titles. Ergo, I know I did such a lousy job and I really don't believe what I am saying, but you got to believe me because I was the former head of the Office of the Solicitor General.
saskamare,
ReplyDeleteThe B.J. Williams' timeline located at http://www.scribd.com/doc/256409078/Cruz-Citizenship-Timeline-documented is very interesting and raises points which conflict with the birth narrative that Senator Ted Cruz has provided to the public. I do not know if the timeline is accurate. As written, it raises some serious questions which need to be answered.
Given what Mr. Williams has stated, there is a question of whether Senator Ted Cruz was even a “citizen” of the United States “at birth” when he was born in 1970.
Having been born in Delaware, Cruz’s mother was born a U.S. citizen.
Cruz’s father was born in Cuba and was a Cuban citizen. In 1961 or 1962, Cruz’s father got a U.S. “green card,” which means he became a U.S. legal permanent resident (LPR).
Between 1964 and 1966, Cruz’s father and mother married in Canada.
Mr. Williams states that Ted’s father said that he and his wife both became Canadian citizens and were Canadian citizens when Ted was born in 1970. Given what Mr. Williams states, some time before Ted Cruz was born, his U.S. citizen mother became a Canadian citizen. This would have required her to renounce her U.S. citizenship. What evidence exists that Cruz’s mother became a Canadian citizen before Ted Cruz was born and had that status at the time of his birth?
Cruz was born in 1970 in Canada.
Cruz’s father became a U.S. citizen in 2005, when Ted was 35 years old.
If both of Cruz’s parents were not U.S. citizens when he was born and he was born in Canada, Ted would have been born an alien and in need of naturalization. How would he have been able to acquire U.S. citizenship “at birth”as he states he had? Under the immigration laws, he would not have been able to. Under such birth circumstances, he would have been able to acquired U.S. citizenship but only through naturalization and after his birth.
If Cruz was born in Canada to parents who were not U.S. citizens when he was born, how did he enter the United States in 1974 when he was age 4?
In his quote to ABC, Cruz did not say he was born to a U.S. citizen mother. Rather, he said: “She’s a U.S. citizen, so I’m a U.S. citizen by birth.” But given what Mr. Williams has stated in his timeline, how can Cruz be a citizen by birth? Also, even if Cruz’s mother regained her U.S. citizenship and therefore “[s]he’s a U.S. citizen,” that would have occurred after Cruz’s birth which still would not have made Cruz a U.S. citizen “at birth.” So, we need to find out whether Cruz meant that his mother was a U.S. citizen when he was born and whether such statement is true or that at some point she was a U.S. citizen, before he was born or even after he was born.
The answers to these questions are critical for Mr. Cruz. These questions exist only if what Mr. Williams has stated in his timeline is accurate. So, we need to confirm the accuracy of what Mr. Williams has stated. If what he stated is correct, we need to find answers to these questions.
P.S. Mr. Williams is not the guy who was the first to expose Pelosi's 2008 DNC Obama nomination irregularity.
I just posted this at Conterio's blog:
ReplyDeleteKatyal and Clement write:
" All the sources routinely used to interpret the Constitution confirm that the phrase “natural born Citizen” has a specific meaning: namely, someone who was a U.S. citizen at birth with no need to go through a naturalization proceeding at some later time."
Yet Wong says :
" A person born out of the jurisdiction of the United States can only become a citizen by being naturalized, either by treaty, as in the case of the annexation of foreign territory, or by authority of Congress, exercised either by declaring certain classes of persons to be citizens, as in the enactments conferring citizenship upon foreign-born children of citizens,..."
So Wong clearly says expat children are naturalized which means that Cruz is either ineligible or he is a naturalized natural born Citizen even though the Obots say there is no such thing as naturalized at birth. Conterio even says "Since Cruz was never naturalized,.." which is proven false by Wong.
The first Congress knew that the foreign born children of citizens required naturalization, they passed an Act doing so.
ReplyDeleteI'm not a lawyer, I'm an abnormally informed, self-educated citizen whom takes my citizenship extremely serious and a systems engineer in IT by trade with a Masters in IT security so I have that dissecting character.
ReplyDeleteWhat I am concluding in all of this boils down to a single "plural" or "singular" term; parent(s)
And in my basic understanding of federalism, the 14th Amendment leaves it up to the state's to define? Like in Obama's case, at his time of birth, the state of HI required both parents be citizens and of course they were not. The state changed that law some short time after his birth but that is neither here nor there. He's not eligible.
So what was Delaware's law I think is one question to ask.
The second point is answered, Cruz's parents, like Obama, are not both citizens so he's not qualified. But doesn't this all just come down to one word - parent(s) - and as precedence by Congress, the supreme court cases, et al; this is all just a single word interpretation?
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ReplyDeleteAfter the Declaration of Independence, so as to maintain a civil society and address the pretext that the society had resorted to a state of nature, the new and independent states selectively adopted that part of the English common law that was not contrary to republican principles. They did so through their new state constitutions and state reception statutes which provided that the English common law, up to a certain time in the past, would continue to have full force and effect in the states until abrogated by a state legislature. On the other hand, neither the Constitution nor the national government did any such thing. There does not exist any comparable provision in the Constitution or any Act of Congress. Simply stated, the English common law was not to have any application on the national level where the new nation was to write on a clean slate.
The Obots have failed to provide evidence from any source or from Wong Kim Ark that Justice Gray, when he resorted to the colonial English common law as an aid for defining and applying the Fourteenth Amendment's "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" clause, demonstrated that after the adoption of the Constitution the colonial English common law not only continued to provide but ever provided the rules of decision for defining U.S. national citizenship as opposed to only demonstrating that the English common law provided and continued to provide the rules of decision for defining subjectship in Great Britain and for defining state citizenship in the U.S. pursuant to state constitutions and state reception statutes. Simply showing that the states selectively adopted the English common law through their constitutions and reception statutes when the Constitution and national government did not, does not provide that evidence. Having failed to provide such evidence proves that neither the Constitution nor the national government ever adopted the English common law or used its principles for purposes of defining our national citizenship in general or an Article II natural born citizen specifically.
Continued . . .
II of II
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, the unanimous U.S. Supreme Court in Minor v. Happersett (1875), given what it said about what that common law provided, showed that the Framers and ultimaltely the Constitution did adopt American national common law as the source for providing the rules of decision for defining an Article II natural born citizen. Under that common law, a natural born citizen was defined as a child born in a country to parents who were its citizens at the time of the child’s birth. It further explained that under that same common law, all other persons were “aliens or foreigners” who needed naturalization under Acts of Congress or treaties in order to become “citizens” of the United States. As it turned out, with the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, which neither repealed nor amended Article II’s natural born citizen clause nor defined it, persons could also become “citizens” of the United States under that amendment. With reference to that Amendment, it added that, while “some authorities” maintained that a child born in the jurisdiction of the United States to alien parents was also a “citizen” therender. But is said that “there have been doubts” whether that was correct. Wong Kim Ark then in 1898 resolved the the Fourteenth Amendment question left open by Minor and held that children born in the United States to alien parents, who were neither foreign diplomats nor military invaders and who were permanently domiciled and resident in the United States, were by the force of the colonial English common law that continued to prevail in the states following the adoption of the Constitution, born in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction and therefore “citizens” of the United States from the moment of birth by virtue of the Fourteenth Amendment.
De facto President Barack Obama, if he was born in the United States to a U.S. citizen mother and a non-U.S. citizen father in 1961 as he alleges, is a “citizen” of the United States under the Fourteenth Amendment, and Senator Ted Cruz, having been born in Canada to a U.S. citizen mother and a non-U.S. citizen father in 1970, is a “citizen” of the United States under a naturalization Act of Congress. But neither is a “natural born citizen” of the United States under American national common law that informed the Framers and Constitution’s definition of a natural born citizen, which to this day has never been changed. Being neither “a natural born Citizen, [n]or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, neither are eligible to the Office of President. Article II, Section 1, Clause 5.
I haven't posted in quite a while because I am so frustrated. Many of us know at least part of The Truth, but there seems no way to get any traction. No duly constituted authority, including congress and courts, have addressed the merits of any of this.
ReplyDeleteAnd I continue to find it depressing how many people jump through hoops and tie themselves in pretzel knots trying to defend the indefensible.
Won't it be ironic when they find out that BHO is no kind of citizen at all. Then all the knots and hoops will have been all in vain!
If anyone is in for a great laugh, this in from Dr. Conspiracy in response to my article from Neil Katyal's and Paul Clement:
ReplyDelete“I think that because the subject article appeared at the Harvard Law Review Forum, it’s [sic] intended readers are expected to be able to fill in from their own knowledge parts of the argument necessarily skipped to keep the article from being too long. Apuzzo’s papers on the topic run many pages.”~~Dr. Conspiracy.
Now we have to love that. Dr. Conspiracy concedes that Mr. Katyal and Mr. Clement’s article does not provide evidence for its bald assertions and wants the readers of the Harvard Law Review Forum to find the evidence which the author’s just forgot to provide for us. I also love at the end how he says that the authors did not want the article to be too long. So, they basically gave us their conclusions and decided that the evidence to support those conclusions was not important enough to warrant some additional pages of writing.
Also, Obot commenter, Reality Check, who is a university professor, in the comments section of Dr. Conspiracy’s article pooh-poohs my response because it is not published in the Harvard Law Review. Obot Northland10 dismisses my article because it is not published in the Temple Law Review, Temple being my law school. Don’t you just love these guys!
Obot The Magic M there misrepresents my position thus: “So he’s [Apuzzo] saying that wherever Congress speaks of ‘citizen’, they mean ‘every citizen who is not a natural born citizen’?” Sure looks like The Magic M is reading comprehension challenged. Following his logic, we are not to give any meaning to when the Framers in Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 said “Citizen of the United States,” as opposed to “natural born Citizen.” We are supposed to simply accept that all citizens of the United States are natural born citizen, which we know is an absurdity. Following The Magic M’s train of thought, the minute someone says that a citizen of the United States is not a natural born citizen, that person has said that no citizens of the United State can be natural born citizens. These Obots over at Dr. Conspiracy actually think that they are smart.
Maybe this will help The Magic M and his Obot pals get their brains on straight:
Being a citizen of the United States is not sufficient to show that one is a natural born citizen.
All natural born citizens are citizens and born citizens. But not all citizens and born citizens are natural born citizens.
Hence, the natural born citizens is a proper subset of both the citizens and the born citizens.
Applying this set theory, we have de facto President Mr. Obama who may be a citizen and a born citizen (if he was born in the United States), but he is not a natural born citizen. Then we have Senator Ted Cruz who is a citizen and a born citizen, but he too is not a natural born citizen.
Ted Cruz is, at best, a "citizen" by statute.
ReplyDeleteTherefor, to say Cruz is a "natural born Citizen" is to say Congress has the authority to pass a statute (at any time) to define (or change) who is an nbc.
Meaning, any Congress, at any time, could legislate illegal alien baby's to be natural born Citizens.
What an absurdity.
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ReplyDeleteI just published this at Cafe Con Leche Republicans, http://www.cafeconlecherepublicans.com/is-ted-cruz-a-natural-born-citizen/?replytocom=149406#respond, and the Western Free Press thread on Senator Ted Cruz, http://www.westernfreepress.com/2015/03/05/ted-cruz-and-natural-born-citizenship-a-belated-reply-to-mario-apuzzo/?hubRefSrc=email#lf_comment=282982621
Bryan Gene Olson, a/k/a the guy who correctly said numerous times that the natural born citizens is a proper subset of the born citizens,
A natural born citizen is not a naturalized citizen made so by law either at birth or after birth. That is why we call him or her a natural born citizen. As Minor v. Happersett (1875) informs, under the common law, only children born in a country to citizen parents were not only citizens (like their parents), but also natural born citizens (maybe unlike their parents). Under that common law, any child born out of the nation and its jurisdiction, whether born to citizen or alien parents, was not a citizen, let alone a natural born citizen. The only way such child could become a citizen was through a naturalization act, at first of some state and then of Congress. In such statutes, in the case of children born to U.S. citizen parents, Congress has through most of U.S. history been gracious enough to consider those children as citizens of the United States "at birth." But without such naturalization statute, that child would have to default to the common law which considered that child an alien or foreigner. Since that child born out of the United States to U.S. citizen parents does not satisfy the common law definition of a citizen and natural born citizen and therefore that child needs to be naturalized under a naturalization Act of Congress, that child is and cannot be an Article II natural born citizen. See U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) and Rogers v. Bellei, 401 U.S. 815(1971) (both explain that at common law the right of citizenship did not descend from citizen parents alone but required birth in the country and in case of birth out of the country, whether to citizen or alien parents, only a naturalization act of Congress could make one a citizen of the United States).
Continued . . .
II of II
ReplyDeleteYes, the Constitution gave to Congress the power to make uniform the rules of naturalization which had prevailed in the states. But that power does not include the power to change the common law definition of a natural born citizen, for such action is not an act of naturalization, but rather one amending the constitutional definition of a natural born citizen, something that can be done only with a constitutional amendment.
The 1790 Naturalization Act provided that children born out of the U.S. to U.S. citizen parents "shall be considered as natural born citizens." It did not say, as you erroneously stated, "considered foreign-born children of citizens to be natural-born citizens." The words "considered as" and "to be" have a much different meaning and your attempt to change the words of Congress is par for your fake, phony, fraud course. You know that "considered as" is nothing more than naturalization language, giving those foreign-born children the privileges and immunities of natural born citizens, which under the Constitution could not include the privilege of being eligible to be President. Thus you seek to remove those words from the statute. You also hide the fact that the Third Congress, with the lead of then-Representative James Madison and with the approval of President George Washington, saw that the Act was only a naturalization Act and knew that naturalized citizens were not eligible to be President and therefore removed the language "shall be considered as natural born citizens" and replaced it with "shall be considered as citizens of the United States." Of course, Congress and President Washington would have known that under Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 such "citizens," being born after the adoption of the Constitution and not also being natural born citizen, would not be eligible to be President. Congress has never since the 1790 Act again used the clause "natural born citizen" in any of its naturalization Acts. Nor did Congress use the clause "natural born citizen" in the Civil Rights Act of 1866 or the Fourteenth Amendment.
Both Minor and Wong Kim Ark explained that neither the original Constitution nor the Fourteenth Amendment defined an Article II natural born citizen.
Only American common law defines an Article II natural born citizen. Minor v. Happersett (1875). The English common law was used to define who were English "natural-born subjects" in the colonies and after the Declaration of Independence and the ratification of the Constitution state citizenship, and therefore by Wong Kim Ark as an aid to interpret and apply the Fourteenth Amendment's "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" clause and ultimately to define a "citizen" of the United States under the Fourteenth Amendment. The English common law has never been used by the U.S. Supreme Court to define an Article II natural born citizen.
Expanding the class of people who can be "citizens" of the United States to include children born in the United States to former slaves, to American Indians, and to Asian or European alien parents changed the definition of a "citizen of the United States," which Article II calls a "Citizen of the United States." It did not change the constitutional American common law definition of a "natural born citizen," which Article II calls a "natural born Citizen."
So, Mr. Olson, would you like to make any other arguments in reference to who are the natural born citizens?
"Also, Obot commenter, Reality Check, who is a university professor, in the comments section of Dr. Conspiracy’s article pooh-poohs my response because it is not published in the Harvard Law Review."
ReplyDeleteDo you know who Reality Check is Mario? I know him to be Randy Daniels but some think he is Professor Richard Rockwell of UCONN. Did is not true. Reality Check is not Professor Rockwell. Their birthdays don't match up and I heard Rockwell's voice. It does not sound like Rockwell although I will admit the recording I heard was 20 years old. Reality Check may be a professor but he is not Dr. Richard Rockwell of UCONN. P&E has the ability to confirm this once and for all but so far they have not.
Yes, it is ALL an absurdity.
ReplyDeleteThe only way Obama is even remotely qualified, per the constitutional requirement, is a completely open INCLUSIVE (re!)definition of the concept of NBC.
Whereas the whole purpose of this clause was protectionary and was meant to be EXCLUSIVE.
Absurd!
Obama is not special enough nor deeply American enough to pass the concerns of the Founding Fathers. Obama has so many foreign connections and suspicious interactions that he could not even pass a background check so as to get a routine security clearance. (I know that for a fact - I used to work within that system.)
Whether or not you think Obama himself is a threat, a foreign agent, or a domestic enemy, this lack of scrutiny and opening the criteria so wide sets a terrible precedent for the future. Why would we want to leave ourselves vulnerable by allowing such a huge loophole.
Absurd, indeed.
The Math & Logic of ONLY 1...
ReplyDeleteMario,
As you know, just as Bryan Gene Olson/akaNotLinda is not a Ph.D. Mathematician like Kevin/Slartibartifast, neither am I, so here is a quote I found about why the“1” exponent is not used in a polynomial term. Bryan and Kevin have been chastising you on CafeConLecheRepublicans.com about Bryan's “natural born Citizen” is a proper subset comments as you itemized them on March 16, 2015 at 11:48 am in your response to Bryan, and Bryan and Kevin insist that Bryan meant something in opposition to you, and then Kevin gives you his holier-than-thou finger wag on March 17, 2015 at 12:12 am about pursuing the point.
Published by Barnes & Noble and authored by Michael Willers, "Algebra: The x and y of Everyday Math" is a layman's brief history of math and the basics of algebra. On page 32 in the chapter titled "The Power of Polynomials" is an easy to understand definition for non-mathematicians (no open and close quotes – all emphases are in the original – in the book the exponents are 1, 2, 3 and are superscripts, raised above the x or y, which I identify as "1", "2", "3"):
What Is a Polynomial?
First let's introduce some terminology: a polynomial is a collection of terms. In elementary mathematics a "term" is a collection of variables raised to exponents and multiplied by a coefficient. An example of a term is 3x"2" where 3 is the coefficient, x is the variable, and "2" is the exponent. Another example of a term would be 5xy"3"; where 5 is the coefficient, x and y are the variables, and "1" and "3" are the exponents. Note that although there is no exponent on the x it's implied that there is a "1" there.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The math/polynomial quote, specifically ”although there is no exponent on the x it's implied that there is a "1" there”, has nothing to do with "natural born Citizen" and how/why "nbC" is a proper subset of "citizen/born citizen," but it is math logic applicable to the Minor v. Happersett Court's "nomenclature" statement which tacitly implies that the unanimous Court understood that "natural born Citizen" in Article II Section 1 Clause 5 had ONLY one meaning, which is itself based on original birther John Jay's original meaning original intent, what I also like to call Jay's “original genesis original intent” for underlining the word “born” in “natural born Citizen” in his note to George Washington, and which Washington agreed with: ONLY singular U.S. citizenship of ONLY one nation by ONLY being born on U.S. soil ONLY to two U.S. citizen married parents.
The math significance question is this: why does the x in the second example, 5xy"3", NOT have a "1" exponent superscript? Well, it simply is not needed. As the author of the text says "it's implied that there is a "1" there." So, the "2" and "3" exponents are written and explicit, but the "1" exponent is implicit. More than one must be explicit and ONLY one is accepted as "implied."
The Math & Logic of ONLY 1...
ReplyDelete2
ONLY one is implied, as in ONLY singular U.S. citizenship of ONLY one nation.
Applied to original birther John Jay and Jay's "original genesis original intent," there is the issue, no pun intended, of why "natural born Citizen" original meaning original intent birthers insist that the common law understanding of the unity of citizenship and allegiance of a wife by marriage in 1787 America to a U.S. citizen husband implies that to Jay a "natural born Citizen" meant ONLY singular U.S. citizenship of ONLY one nation by ONLY being born on U.S. soil ONLY to two U.S. citizen married parents. That is what the 1875 Minor v. Happersett Court tacitly implied.
The issue, no pun intended again, requires that a few obvious questions be asked of and answered by 2008-2015 "natural born Citizen" new meaning neo-birthers who insist that "nbC" was not defined by the 1787 delegates but the neo-birthers are absolutely sure that a “natural born Citizen” can ALSO have dual U.S./foreign citizenship, a citizen of two nations by being born on either U.S. or foreign soil to either two OR one OR zero U.S. citizen parents, and THAT is why the “nbC” new meaning neo-birthers, Democratic Obot new meaning neo-birthers support Pres. Obama, and why Republican new meaning neo-birthers support Sen. Cruz or Sen. Rubio.
Q – Where is the factual record, historical and/or anecdotal, that in 1787 America, when "natural born Citizen" was added to the Constitution, that the common law understanding of the unity of citizenship and allegiance of a wife by marriage to a U.S. citizen husband implied dual U.S./foreign citizenship for the child, such as U.S./English citizenship?
A – There is no record of debate that the “unity of citizenship and allegiance” implies dual U.S./foreign citizenship.
Q – Why is there no written record of Congress, or even anecdotal public discussion at the time, of George Washington asking Jay what he meant by underlining the word "born" in "natural born Citizen" in his July 25, 1787 note to Washington, and if he meant dual U.S./foreign citizenship for the child, such as U.S./English citizenship?
A – Washington understood that Jay meant ONLY singular U.S. citizenship.
Q – Why is there no written or anecdotal record of Washington NOT asking Jay if he meant ONLY singular U.S. citizenship or BOTH U.S./foreign citizenship, such as U.S./English citizenship?
A – Washington did NOT ask Jay what he meant because he understood what Jay meant and he agreed with Jay.
Q – Why is there no record of the convention delegates debating the purpose of uniting "natural born" and "Citizen," and if it meant ONLY singular U.S. citizenship or ALSO dual U.S./foreign citizenship, such as U.S./English citizenship?
A – The convention delegates agreed with the implicit meaning of uniting “natural” and “born” and “Citizen.”
Q – Was it understood by EVERYONE in1787 that "nbC" meant ONLY singular U.S. citizenship?
A – Yes.
Q – Was it understood by EVERYONE in 1787 that "nbC" meant ONLY dual U.S./foreign citizenship?
A – No.
Q – Was it understood by EVERYONE in 1787 that "nbC" meant BOTH U.S. citizenship AND foreign citizenship?
A – No.
BOTH U.S./English citizenship would have been schizophrenic, incongruous, incoherent in 1787 America only four years after the end of hostilities with England in 1783.
The Math & Logic of ONLY 1...
ReplyDelete3
Well, since dual U.S./foreign citizenship was NOT the common public meaning of "natural born Citizen" in 1787 America, and by using the polynomial simple math logic of the x without the "1" exponent implies one and ONLY one, then, NOT dual citizenship but ONLY singular U.S. citizenship of ONLY one nation MUST have been the common law understanding in 1787 America.
For that simple logic reason, public discussion BEFORE ratification and a public explanation of the meaning of "nbC" was not needed, obviously. Using the logic of math that the x in the term 5xy"3" means that the "1" exponent is implied, it is also logical to conclude that not ONLY singular U.S. citizenship by being born to ONLY two U.S. citizen parents who, by marriage in 1787 America, had singular U.S. citizenship, was "implied" in the word "born," but that the citizenship of the child would be ONLY singular U.S. citizenship because it was ONLY derived by birth to two U.S. citizen married parents.
Not only did Washington implicitly understand that ONLY singular U.S. citizenship of ONLY one nation was Jay's original meaning and original intent, and the convention delegates implicitly understood that ONLY singular U.S. citizenship was the original meaning, but the states' ratifiers, including “natural born Citizen” author and New York ratifier John Jay, ALSO implicitly understood that ONLY singular U.S. citizenship was the original intent meaning. If John Jay had the original intent meaning of dual U.S./foreign citizenship, U.S./English, for example, he would have explicitly said so, and there definitely would have been debate and a written record would exist.
Right?
Mario, other than the diamond glistening in the math weeds, so to speak, that I found in the algebra book, that the x in the term 5xy"3" means that the "1" exponent is implied, what do I know? I'm not a mathematician, Ph.D. or otherwise.
However, there are two things I DO know by applying the logic of the math that “1” is implied:
(1) ONLY one U.S. citizenship of ONLY one nation was implied by John Jay when he underlined the word “born” in “natural born Citizen,” and THAT is why the meaning of “nbC” was NOT discussed before debate, during debate and after debate by the convention delegates, or by the states' ratifiers, one of whom was John Jay from New York.
(2) If, “IF” dual U.S./foreign citizenship, for example U.S./English citizenship, was implied by John Jay when he underlined the word “born” in “natural born Citizen,” there most definitely would have been heated debate in 1787 just as there is today, from 2008-2015, and there definitely would be a Congressional record of the debate by the convention delegates about why ONLY singular U.S. citizenship of ONLY one nation by ONLY being born on U.S. soil ONLY to two U.S. citizen married parents would have won the day, and that it would have won the day according to the common public meaning of the unity of citizenship and allegiance by marriage, meaning that ONLY the singular U.S. citizenship of the husband determined the citizenship of the wife, AND that ONLY the singular U.S. citizenship of BOTH parents determined the singular U.S. citizenship of the child, a “natural born Citizen” child, the ONLY “1” proper subset of “citizen/born citizen” eligible to be POTUS.
The Math & Logic of ONLY 1...
ReplyDelete4
The concomitant and serendipitous logical conclusion discovered in the polynomial math paragraph defining a “term” is that it could NOT have been the original intent of John Jay to propose “dual” citizenship, BOTH U.S. citizenship AND foreign citizenship, because by the logic of ONLY one, the union of two U.S. citizen parents who had ONLY singular U.S. citizenship can produce ONLY singular U.S. citizenship of ONLY one nation. If the original genesis of the child was by the union of two persons who were NOT married to each other and the father WAS a U.S. citizen, then the child would be a “citizen” not eligible to be POTUS, and not a “natural born Citizen” eligible to be POTUS because it take two U.S. citizen married parents to pass on their singular U.S. citizenship to a singular U.S. citizenship child.
That's my “hey, what do I know, I'm not a mathematician, Ph.D. or otherwise” math logic conclusion of “1” derived from the serendipitous discovery that the x without an exponent in the term 5xy"3", means that the "1" exponent is implied—ONLY “1,” and why original birther John Jay would ONLY imply ONLY singular U.S. citizenship in the word “born” in “natural born Citizen.”
The math logic of ONLY “1” and ONLY singular U.S. citizenship of ONLY one nation is applicable retroactively to the Taney Court Dred Scott decision in 1857 which was corrected by the 1868 Amendment 14 “born...naturalized” language, and also applicable to the 1865 Amendment 13, the 1866 Civil Rights Act, the 1868 Amendment 14, the 1870 Amendment 15, the 1873 Slaughterhouse Cases, the 1875 Minor v. Happersett decision, the 1898 U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark decision.
Finally, ONLY singular U.S. citizenship of ONLY one nation by ONLY being born on U.S. soil ONLY to two U.S. citizen married parents is the ONLY “1” math logic reason why the 1898 U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark Court decision that “declared” that a child born on U.S. soil to zero U.S. citizen parents was a “citizen” and eligible to vote MUST be overturned by the Supreme Court or corrected with an Article V amendment by either the bicameral Congress OR an Article V convention of states' legislatures to propose an amendment to clarify that the Amendment 14 language in the first six words in the first sentence of Section 1, “All persons born or naturalized in...,” specifically “born” a citizen and “naturalized” a citizen, BOTH had the original intent meaning of ONLY singular U.S. citizenship.
The original intent of John Bingham, the main author of Section 1 in 1868, was NOT that “born” in 1868 meant for the 1868 free Negroes singular U.S. citizenship with eligibility to be POTUS, and also that “born” most definitely did NOT mean for the 1868 Amendment free Negroes dual U.S./foreign citizenship with eligibility to be POTUS. THAT is as absurd today in 2015 as it would have been in 1868. The Amendment 14 words “born” and “naturalized,” (“All persons born...are citizens” and “All persons...naturalized...are citizens”) are proper subsets of “citizen/born citizen.”
BOTH words in Amendment 14 mean ONLY singular U.S. citizenship.
BOTH words in Amendment 14 do NOT include eligibility to be POTUS.
Art
U.S. Constitution: The Original Birther Document of the Union
( http://originalbirtherdocument.blogspot.com/2015/01/time-to-change-natural-born-citizen.html )
I just posted this comment over at Cafe Con Leche Republicans, directed to Obot Slartibartfast:
ReplyDeleteSlartibartfast,
Great Moments in Obotism that Never Were,” telling people that they won one argument with me. They know that I have mopped the floor with them everywhere I have been. To hide that fact, they have this great need to attack me personally and to incessantly remind us about what some post-Obama lower courts have done. But they fail to tell the public that what those courts decided either has nothing to do with defining a natural born citizen or if it does, it is not precedent and therefore not binding.
We know quite well what the current U.S. Supreme Court should do if it were ever to hear an Article II natural born citizen case. In keeping with all the historical and legal evidence and reasoning which I have produced, it can only do two things. First, confirm that under our Constitution, there are only "natural born citizens" of the United States and "citizens" of the United States, and that under Article II, Section 1, Clause 5, today no person who is not a natural born citizen is eligible to be President. Second, affirm the unanimous U.S. Supreme Court decision in Minor v. Happersett (1875) in which it held that a natural born citizen was to be defined under the common law with which the Framers were familiar when they drafted and adopted the Constitution and that under that common law the constitutional rule was that a natural born citizen was a child born in a country to parents who were its citizens at the time of the child's birth and that all the rest of the people needed to establish their citizenship under positive law.
As applied to the United States today, that means that a natural born citizen of the United States is a child born in the United States or reputed born in the United States to two parents who were U.S. citizens (either natural born citizens of the United States or citizens of the United States) at the time of the child's birth and that any other person wanting to be a citizen of the United States needs to acquire that status under the Fourteenth Amendment, Acts of Congress or treaties.
So you see Slartibartfast, I have broken it down real easy for you and others to understand. Maybe what you can do is publish this comment over at Fogbrain and then you can all have your typical Obot anxiety attack, followed by an Obot feeding frenzy, and finalized with an Obot declaration of victory.
I am not a lawyer but an engineer and a scientist. I browse here because I appreciate the zeal and the expertise Mario brings to this subject.
ReplyDeleteBut having said this, I don't think the ultimate resolution of this issue will much depend on fine legal arguments.
Backing off the from trees and looking at the forest - The OBOT arguments simply do not pass the smell test. They are illogical and 'twisted'. They totally ignore the context of the constitution and the founding fathers, they totally ignore national security issues.
Now, in more modern times, with increased globalization on all fronts, one COULD have an argument and debate about whether the constitutional provisions are outdated and need to be changed.
But to make the claims of the OBOTs is just silly.
And yet they are indeed winning, because we can get no traction. They don't need to address the merits of the case, they just have to keep us out of the courts and out of the public eye.
So, yes, they are winning.
Carlyle,
ReplyDeleteI do not agree with your conclusion. The Obots might have won in the sense that Mr. Obama has been President for two terms, fundamentally transforming the United States into the gutter I may add, but they have not nor can they win the public debate on what the correct definition of an Article II natural born citizen is.
Debate...
ReplyDelete1
Mario,
Dittos about debate.
The "natural born Citizen" new meaning neo-birthers, aka the Democratic Party "natural born Citizen" new meaning neo-birthers who promote the Obama "Obot" birth narrative of only one U.S. citizen parent is good 'nuf for government work—POTUS eligibility, and the Republican Party "natural born Citizen" new meaning neo-birthers who promote the dual U.S./foreign citizenship of the Cruz birth narrative that only ONE U.S. citizen parent is good 'nuf for government work—POTUS eligibility, or promote the dual U.S./foreign citizenship of the Rubio birth narrative that ZERO U.S. citizen parents is good 'nuf for government work.
The new meaning neo-birthers can't win the debate because they never engage in debating first principles and what they think, NOT what they KNOW, but what THEY think the original birthers meant, such as what do THEY think that the original author of "natural born Citizen" and the original convention delegates/framers and the original states' ratifiers understood "natural born Citizen" to mean when the first state ratified the text of the constitution in 1787 and until the last state ratified in 1790.
The "natural born Citizen" new meaning neo-birthers talk about everybody else EXCEPT the original birthers, John Jay, George Washington, the convention delegate framers, which included Ben Franklin, and the states' ratifiers, which included New York ratifier John Jay.
Certainly text framer Ben Franklin would have said SOMETHING if he thought that John Jay meant that "born" in "natural born Citizen" meant dual U.S./foreign citizenship by birth to only one U.S. citizen parent (Sen. Cruz) OR birth to zero U.S. citizen parents (Sen. Rubio). The sound of silence is implicit confirmation that Jay meant ONLY singular U.S. citizenship ONLY of one nation.
The new meaning neo-birthers like Paul Clement and Neal Katyal, authors of On the Meaning of "Natural Born Citizen" in a post on the Harvard Law Review Forum, regurgitate the “natural born Citizen” new meaning neo-birther meme but with a qualifier, such as the word “generally”, for example:
"All the sources routinely used to interpret the Constitution confirm that the phrase “natural born Citizen” has a specific meaning: namely, someone who was a U.S. citizen at birth with no need to go through a naturalization proceeding at some later time.
"And Congress has made equally clear from the time of the framing of the Constitution to the current day that, subject to certain residency requirements on the parents, someone born to a U.S. citizen parent generally becomes a U.S. citizen without regard to whether the birth takes place in Canada, the Canal Zone, or the continental United States."
Debate...
ReplyDelete2
Well, that settles it, doesn't it?
Except, is that what THEY think, NOT what do the KNOW, but what do THEY think John Jay MAY have meant?
The new meaning neo-birthers NEVER consider to adduce what Jay MAY have meant, and why there was no debate about Jay's original meaning original intent of ONLY singular US. citizenship of ONLY one nation.
THAT is a debate the "natural born Citizen" new meaning neo-birthers lose by default by not engaging in debating first principles, such as the 1787 era common law understanding of the unity of citizenship and allegiance which is simply stated: by marriage, the US. citizenship of the husband determined the citizenship of the wife, AND the singular U.S. citizenship of BOTH parents determined the singular U.S. citizenship of the child who alone of all "citizens/born citizens" is eligible to be POTUS.
THAT is a very good reason to have an Article V convention of the legislatures of the "several states" to propose and amendment to clarify that "natural born Citizen" means ONLY singular U.S. citizenship of ONLY one nation by ONLY birth on U.S. soil ONLY to two U.S. citizen married parents, OR to clarify that "nbC" means dual U.S. citizenship of two OR more nations by being born on either U.S. or foreign soil to either two OR one OR zero U.S. citizen parents, married to each other or not.
The "natural born Citizen" new meaning neo-birthers should start proposing their own “nbC” new meaning amendment language as they try to make coherent sense by defending their proposition that "born" in "natural born Citizen" can ALSO mean dual U.S/foreign citizenship of two OR three nations, and also defend their tacit proposition that in 1787 John Jay did NOT mean that "nbC" was to perpetually mean ONLY U.S. singular citizenship of ONLY one nation.
That should be simple for new meaning neo-birthers to do since ONLY one U.S. citizen parent is good 'nuf for government work—to be POTUS, right?
But it won't happen 'cause some “nbC” new meaning neo-birthers, who are really “nbC” anarchists, although they don know it, will simply propose scrapping “natural born Citizen” language and rewriting an amendment to allow even anchor babies, the “citizen” progeny of the 1898 Court's U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark “citizen” decision which “declared” Wong Kim Ark to be eligible to vote and which neo-birthers say eligible to be POTUS, as well as proposing grandfathering into POTUS eligibility the foreign born adopted children of one OR two U.S. citizen parents.
Art
U.S. Constitution: The Original Birther Document of the Union
( http://originalbirtherdocument.blogspot.com/ )
I just published this comment on Cafe Con Leche Republicans in response to a comment to me by Obot Slartibartfast:
ReplyDeleteSlartibartfast,
The Obots go around the internet telling the world that the definition of a natural born citizen was decided on the merits in their favor by Tisdale v. Obama, a 4th Circuit Court of Appeals decision and that this decision is precedent on the issue. I have shown that it is not precedent and now you want to weasel your way out by saying that “all court rulings are precedent (in every single court in the land) even if they are only binding on lower courts” and that I do not know the difference between “precedent” and “binding precedent.” As always, you are full of B.S. and do not know what you are talking about.
Black’s Law Dictionary defines “precedent” as: “An adjudged case or decision of a court, considered as furnishing an example or authority for an identical or similar case afterwards arising or a similar question of law. . . . A rule of law established for first time by a court for a particular type of case and thereafter referred to in deciding similar cases.” Black’s Law Dictionary 1059 (5th ed. 1979).
The Federal District Court dismissed the Tisdale pro se plaintiff’s case on the ground that he failed to show as a matter of law that he was entitled to 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 damages and an injunction. In dicta, the court defined a natural born citizen, stating that anyone born in the United States under circumstances satisfying the Fourteenth Amendment is a natural born citizen.
The pro se plaintiff appealed the case to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.
The Fourth Circuit affirmed. It wrote at the top of its Tisdale v. Obama decision: “UNPUBLISHED.” Before its one paragraph which comprised its entire decision and which refers only to the issues of the 1983 damages and the injunction, and which makes no mention of a natural born citizen, it wrote: “Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.”
So, Slartibartfast, it does not matter that you do not know that precedent means or whether you want to call a court ruling precedent rather than binding precedent. You are wrong on the definition of precedent and in trying to make some distinction between precedent and binding precedent, for they mean the same thing and Tisdale is neither. A precedent is an example or authority for an identical or similar case afterwards arising or a similar question of law. A precedent establishes a “rule of law” for the first time which is referred to thereafter and binding in deciding similar cases. The 4th Cir. expressly said that because its decision, which is what you call a “court ruling, is “unpublished,” its decision was not binding precedent in its own circuit. Hence, it said that the decision is not authority for any identical or similar case afterward arising or a similar question of law, not even in that whole circuit. The case is simply not binding, period, not even in that same circuit. In other words, the Tisdale decision did not establish any rule of law for the first time to be followed by some later court because the rule is binding. Given what the 4th Circuit ordered, there is no possible way that its decision is precedent. Of course if it is not precedent, it is also not binding precedent. So it is false as you allege that “all court rulings are precedent (in every single court in the land) even if they are only binding on lower courts.”
As far as that proper subset goes, I guess that you and that Bryan Gene Olson have not had enough. If not, let me know and I will re-publish here and everywhere Mr. Olson’s glorious quotes in which he concedes many times that the natural born citizens is a proper subset of the born citizens.
@mario
ReplyDeleteThat is what I meant. So we agree after all.
As I said in earlier post, their position on NBC is not only wrong, but insane.
Another piece has been posted by the current full bore attack on the "natural born Citizen" term by both major political party operative attorneys. Check out the latest at the following link. I have a comment pending here.
ReplyDeletehttp://opiniojuris.org/2015/03/22/is-ted-cruz-a-natural-born-citizen/
CDR Kerchner (Ret) - http://www.ProtectOurLiberty.org
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ReplyDeleteCDR Kerchner-Ret.,
I just posted this response to Peter Spiro:
The Framers drafted and adopted the Constitution and its natural born citizen clause in 1787. The Constitution does not define the clause. We therefore need to look to see what their definition of the clause was then, unless there is some evidence that the clause was ever amended by a duly ratified constitutional amendment. The only constitutional amendment that defines citizenship is the Fourteenth Amendment. Both Minor v. Happersett (1875) and U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) have both explained that the meaning of a natural born citizen is not found in the Fourteenth Amendment. Hence, Article II’s natural born citizen clause has never been amended by our Constitution.
Our U.S. Supreme Court has informed that one way to learn what meanings the Framers gave to terms or clauses they put into the Constitution at that time is to look to the state of things and meanings that existed at that time. Both Minor and Wong Kim Ark have explained that one significant piece of evidence to look at is the common law that existed at the time of the Framing. Both Minor and Wong Kim Ark defined a natural born citizen under the common law with which the Framers were familiar when they drafted and adopted the Constitution. The unanimous U.S. Supreme Court explained in Minor that that common law defined a natural born citizen as a child born in country to parents who were its citizens at the time of the child's birth and that all the rest of the people were "aliens or foreigners" who needed to be naturalized under Acts of Congress or treaties. Minor even added that “there have been doubts” whether children born in the United States to alien parents were even “citizens” under the Fourteenth Amendment. Since Virginia Minor was a natural born citizen and a fortiori a citizen, there was no need for Minor to address and answer the Fourteenth Amendment question. Wong was not a natural born citizen under the Framers’ common law, but he was born in the United States. Wong Kim Ark had to therefore to address and answer the Fourteenth Amendment question of whether he was born “subject to the jurisdiction.” Relying on the colonial English common law as and aid to interpret and apply that clause, it held that children born in the United States to alien parents who were permanently domiciled and resident in the United States and neither foreign diplomats nor military invaders were also “citizens” of the United States from the moment of birth by virtue of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court did not need to nor did it hold that Wong was an Article II natural born citizen. Hence, not only did Acts of Congress and treaties make more citizens of the United States of people who would otherwise not be citizens, but so did the Fourteenth Amendment. And Wong Kim Ark informed that persons born in the United States to qualifying alien parents were included at “citizens” by the force of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Continued . . .
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ReplyDeleteSenator Ted Cruz was born in Canada to a U.S. citizen mother and non-U.S. citizen father. He cannot be a citizen under the common law relied upon by the Framers to define a natural born citizen. He therefore does not meet this constitutional common law definition of a natural born citizen which would a fortiori make him a “citizen” also. Nor can he be a “citizen” of the United States “at birth” under the Fourteenth Amendment, which status is reserved only for children who are born in the United States and “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” and who, not meeting the requirements of the common law which defines a natural born citizen, are not natural born citizens. Rather, he falls into that class of persons who at common law, because they were born in a foreign country, needed to be naturalized by an Act of Congress or treaty. Since he was born out of the United States, although to one U.S. citizen parent, Congress saw fit to naturalize him as a "citizen" of the United States "at birth." Without such naturalization act, Cruz would be an alien at common law. If Cruz needed such naturalization act to be a citizen and if without such act he would be an alien at common law, he simply is not and cannot be a natural born citizen, for such a citizen does not need any positive law in order to be a citizen. See Wong Kim Ark (considered children born out of the United States to U.S. citizen parents to be naturalized by acts of Congress and explained that under the English common law, only children born in the King’s dominion and under his jurisdiction were natural born subjects and that any child born out of that dominion needed an act of Parliament to naturalize him or her); and Rogers v. Bellei, 401 U.S. 815 (1971) (both majority and dissent said the same as Wong Kim Ark which was that children born out of the United States to U.S. citizen parents become citizens of the United States only through the grace of Congress who made them citizens through a naturalization Act without which those children would be aliens). It simply defies logic and good reason and renders the natural born citizen clause a nullity to conclude that a person who would not be a citizen at all without a naturalization act of Congress is a natural born citizen. Including such a person as a natural born citizen effectively reads the natural born citizen clause out of the Constitution, but does so without constitutional amendment.
In short, Mr. Cruz is a “citizen” of the United States “at birth” by virtue of a naturalization Act of Congress since his birth in 1970. As such, he is not and cannot be an Article II “natural born citizen.” Since he is neither “a natural born Citizen, [n]or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution,” he is not eligible to be President and Commander in Chief of the Military.
For my response to Neal Katyal and Paul Clement article, see Mario Apuzzo, A Response to Neil Katyal and Paul Clement on the Meaning of a Natural Born Citizen , accessed at http://puzo1.blogspot.com/2015/03/a-response-to-neil-katyal-and-paul.html .
Mario Apuzzo, Esq.
As you will note, Temple University School of Law Professor Peter J. Spiro has written the latest article supporting the constitutional presidential eligibility of Senator Ted Cruz. Hence, you will find this comment by Professor Spiro insightful in understanding his his mindset:
ReplyDelete"As for the courts, they absolutely should and will stay out of this. No need for them to get involved. If the people want a 25-year-old for president, why should we let the courts stop them?"~~Professor Peter J. Spiro, on March 22, 2005 at Opinio Juris, at http://opiniojuris.org/2015/03/22/is-ted-cruz-a-natural-born-citizen/#comment-72730.
What could we reasonably expect from Professor Spiro with such a view of the Constitution.
Peter J. Spiro holds the Charles Weiner Chair in international law. Before joining Temple’s faculty in 2006, Professor Spiro was Rusk Professor of Law at the University of Georgia Law School, where he also served as Associate Dean for Faculty Development. A former law clerk to Justice David H. Souter of the U.S. Supreme Court, Spiro specializes in international, immigration, and constitutional law. Spiro is the author of Beyond Citizenship: American Identity After Globalization (Oxford University Press 2008).
In a 2007 survey, Professor Spiro was ranked in the top 15 nationally among international law scholars on the basis of academic citation frequency. He has contributed commentary to such publications as Slate, The New York Times, Foreign Affairs, The Wall Street Journal, and The New Republic, and is frequently quoted in the media on international and immigration law issues. He also writes for the leading international law blog, Opinio Juris. His second book, Dual Citizenship in America and the World, is under contract to New York University Press.
Read more on Professor Spiro at http://www.law.temple.edu/pages/faculty/n_faculty_spiro_main.aspx
Mario's essay on the K&C disinformation article in the Harvard Law Review has gotten a bit more notice at this legal blog: http://originalismblog.typepad.com/the-originalism-blog/2015/03/an-additional-response-to-katyal-clementmichael-ramsey.html
ReplyDeleteKeep up the excellent writing about "natural born Citizen" Mario.
CDR Kerchner (Ret) - ProtectOurLiberty.org
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ReplyDeleteI just posted this comment to Leo Derosia at Western Free Press, at http://www.westernfreepress.com/2015/03/05/ted-cruz-and-natural-born-citizenship-a-belated-reply-to-mario-apuzzo/?hubRefSrc=email#lf_comment=285586394
Do not mistake Frank’s (HistorianDude's) deception, denial, negation, revisionism, and trolling activities for being smart. The only thing that our resident troll Frank does is tell everyone they are wrong, deceive us as to what things mean, deny what is presented to him, and demand to see more which he himself does not produce in support of his own position. Frank is not open to receiving information that goes against his political agenda. He does not have information to refute what is presented to him, which he does not demonstrate as having read and considered it. He just in record time denies the validity of what is presented to him and announces that the information is not sufficient. He states that the evidence has not met a standard which he sets to serve his denial. But the standard for evidence that Frank sets is not the standard that exists in the U.S. Supreme Court when interpreting the Constitution.
Frank is parked on this blog thread to troll the audience into fatigue, distraction, and eventual confusion and abandonment of the subject. He conducts his trolling activity by revising the historical and legal record and engaging in historical revisionism. He invents all implausible reasons for discounting sound evidence that is presented. He ignores and suppresses any information that goes against his goal. He manipulates statistics to support his point. He gives great credit to any source which supports his position in the slightest way and discounts or pooh-poohs any source that goes against his position. He ascribes noble motives to anyone who supports his position and evil motives to anyone who does not. He tells us that those who support his position are the ultimate intelligentsia, like judges and professors of Ivy League law schools, and those who do not support his position are wannabe constitutional scholars. One of the favorite of people like Frank is to call me “a DUI lawyer” (which is false), which they characterize as the lowest of the low of lawyers. In short, Frank is part of the Obot propaganda machine engaged in intellectual battle for the purpose of winning the political game. He feeds the media with false information for the purpose of achieving manipulation of the public through the media channels. He also limits what information is presented to the public through what are considered by the popular culture as the reputable sources of media.
Frank tells those pursuing the truth about the meaning of a natural born citizen and whether Mr. Obama, Mr. Cruz, and others meet that definition, or who he derisively calls the “birthers,” they are wrong, dumb, stupid, and racists. He demonizes the opposition by calling those who are part of it ‘birthers.” He calls his opposition racist so as to transfer guilt onto them. He is here to interfere with the presentation of information, to twist things around, and to immediately interrupt the thoughts of others. He needs to have the last word so he can act like he is smart and a know it all. That is all done to make the reader feel stupid or guilty if he or she does not agree with him.
Continued . . .
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ReplyDeleteThe difference between a real historian and a revisionist historian like Frank is nicely summarized by British historian Richard J. Evans, who describes the difference in technique between the two thus:
Reputable and professional historians do not suppress parts of quotations from documents that go against their own case, but take them into account, and, if necessary, amend their own case, accordingly. They do not present, as genuine, documents which they know to be forged just because these forgeries happen to back up what they are saying. They do not invent ingenious, but implausible, and utterly unsupported reasons for distrusting genuine documents, because these documents run counter to their arguments; again, they amend their arguments, if this is the case, or, indeed, abandon them altogether. They do not consciously attribute their own conclusions to books and other sources, which, in fact, on closer inspection, actually say the opposite. They do not eagerly seek out the highest possible figures in a series of statistics, independently of their reliability, or otherwise, simply because they want, for whatever reason, to maximize the figure in question, but rather, they assess all the available figures, as impartially as possible, in order to arrive at a number that will withstand the critical scrutiny of others. They do not knowingly mistranslate sources in foreign languages in order to make them more serviceable to themselves. They do not willfully invent words, phrases, quotations, incidents and events, for which there is no historical evidence, in order to make their arguments more plausible.
Richard J. Evans, “David Irving, Hitler and Holocaust Denial (Electronic Edition 6. General Conclusion found at paragraphs 6.20 and 6.21).
We need to ask what is Frank’s purpose for doing what he does? Does he honestly believe in what he says or does or does he say and do what he says and does for some ulterior motive? Frank’s purpose is not to serve himself for what he truly believes to be the pursuit of truth. Rather, his calculated purpose is to prevent others from learning the truth. He does that by insisting that he be the one to tell the story. Notice that Frank calls himself “HistorianDude.” Twisters of the truth like Frank believe in Plato’s remark that "those who tell the stories also hold the power." Indeed, they fully exploit the technique of getting political power by telling the people what the story is and the age-old maxim that once in power, those in power get to tell us what our history is which they do to keep their power. People like Frank are a modern day Herodotus or past Soviet communist operative. Herodotus wrote his version of history to garner political support for the system of Greek government over that of what he perceived to be an aggressive Persian tyrant. H.W. Brands, A Revisionist's Burden, 'The National Interest.' Vol.102, July-August 2009. Also, Soviet Communism treated reality and the party platform as equals, using historical revisionism to achieve a specific political goal.
Continued . . .
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ReplyDeletePeople like Frank and the political machines for which they work are nicely documented by George Orwell, in “Nineteen Eighty-Four.” In his book, Orwell describes how the government of Oceania continually revises historical records to align with current politics. For example, when Oceania is at war with Eurasia, historical records show that this has always been the case. But when they are no longer at war, the historical records are changed and the public is brainwashed to believe that the two countries have always been allies. Orwell shows in his book how the Ministry of Truth uses historical revisionism as its principal tool of propaganda. Indeed, the protagonist, Winston Smith, who works as a historical revisionist, is our Historian Frank in residence. Orwell writes his famous quote: "He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future." Id. at 37. Here we can see how the past can influence both ideology and politics. His thesis shows why protecting the scholarly practice of history is important. This great book also describes the extreme effects of state-sponsored censorship.
In the end, Frank’s denial, negation, and historical and legal revisionism allow him to feel good about himself because he believes that he is accomplishing a political objective which he deems honorable. In the end, Frank’s purpose is to distort the historical and legal record for the purpose of obtaining a desired political or ideological goal. For sure, let the end justify the means. A person of reasonable intelligence and knowledgeable on the subject can see right through Frank’s and his Obot coterie’s facade.
Now, I agree with the second part of your statement. Frank is a liar. How do we know he is a liar? He would not be doing what he does if he was not one.
Eligibility for the Presidency is established by rule of law, not by politics.
ReplyDeleteMr. Cruz is a popular politician who has announced his candidacy for President. What rule must apply in order to make Mr. Cruz eligible?
He was born in a foreign country to a foreign father and US citizen mother. By this rule a person could be born in Yemen to an Iraqi ISIS leader and a US citizen mother, and be eligible for the Presidency. This of course is wholly unreasonable, yet it is within the rule required for Cruz to be eligible.
This illustrates the folly of rule by politics and the necessity of rule of law.
Such a ridiculous rule of law is not the rule of law specified in the US Constitution.
While Cruz may be popular he obviously is not eligible, a ridiculous rule would be required.
Professor Michael Ramsey has posted this comment on his blog, The Originalism Blog, http://originalismblog.typepad.com/the-originalism-blog/2015/03/an-additional-response-to-katyal-clementmichael-ramsey.html :
ReplyDelete03/22/2015
An Additional Response to Katyal & Clement
Michael Ramsey
Mario Apuzzo also has a response to Katyal & Clement on natural born citizens. (Thanks to Charles Kerchner for the pointer).
I take his point to be principally that English common law, not English statutory law, should inform the constitutional meaning (similar to this post). Although it's a minor point, this additional comment is worth noting:
Katyal and Clement argue that John Jay [who apparently first suggested the "natural born" language] had children born out of the United States while he was on diplomatic assignment and that he would not have disqualified his own children from being natural born citizens. This is a really baseless point since Jay's children would have been born out of the United States to parents who were serving the national defense of the United States and therefore reputed born in the United States.
I agree (although I think that should read "serving in a diplomatic capacity" not "serving the national defense"). The Jay argument is unhelpful and it's unfortunate that Katyal and Clement repeat it (which they do, text at fn. 14). There's no doubt that under English common law the children of English diplomats born abroad were natural born subjects despite the general common law rule that "natural born" meant only birth within the realm (Blackstone, vol. 1, p. 361, referring to the "children of the king's embassadors born abroad"). So whatever Jay may of thought about the eligibility children of diplomats does not help us decide between looking to English common law and looking to all of English law including statutes.
~~~~~
Professor Ramsey has not understood the point of my argument. He has recognized that Neil Kaytal and Paul Clement argue that either the English common law or English statutes can be used to define an Article II natural born citizen. He also acknowledges that under the English common law, "’natural born’ meant only birth within the realm (Blackstone, vol. 1, p. 361, referring to the ‘children of the king's embassadors born abroad).” He also concludes that the Jay argument “does not help us decide between looking to English common law and looking to all of English law including statutes,” suggesting that he is has not decided which one is correct.
Professor Ramsay has incorrectly read my article to say that my position is that only English common law and not also English statutes should control the question of Senator Cruz’s presidential eligibility. By making such a statement, he takes away from the central thesis of my article and position. My position, which I clearly stated in my article, is that neither the English common law nor English statutes informed the Framers’ constitutional meaning of a natural born citizen. My position is that it is only American common law, which incorporated citizenship principles of the law of nations as described by Emer de Vattel in his The Law of Nations, Section 212 (1758) (1797), that provided the Framers with the meaning of a natural born citizen, and that under that law, as confirmed by historical sources and the unanimous U.S. Supreme Court in Minor v. Happersett (1875), a natural born citizen can only mean a child born in a country to parents who were its citizens at the time of the child’s birth. Under that same common law, all the rest of the people were “aliens or foreigners,” who needed to be naturalized, at birth or after birth, under some positive law. Minor.
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ReplyDeleteI just posted this to HistorianDude at Western Free Press:
It is disgusting to see you engage in an attempt to revise American history by arguing that there is no difference between a citizen and a subject, which in effect denies the very basis of the American Revolution.
Try to revise this, HistorianDud (not a typo):
It is mere nonsense to maintain that the Founders and Framers did not significantly distinguish between a citizen and a subject. Here is what Rousseau had to say on the subject:
As I was born a citizen of a free State, and a member of the Sovereign, I feel that, however feeble the influence my voice can have on public affairs, the right of voting on them makes it my duty to study them: and I am happy, when I reflect upon governments, to find my inquiries always furnish me with new reasons for loving that of my own country.
***
War then is a relation, not between man and man, but between State and State, and individuals are enemies only accidentally, not as men, nor even as citizens,3 but as soldiers; not as members of their country, but as its defenders. Finally, each State can have for enemies only other States, and not men; for between things disparate in nature there can be no real relation.
***
This sum of forces can arise only where several persons come together: but, as the force and liberty of each man are the chief instruments of his self-preservation, how can he pledge them without harming his own interests, and neglecting the care he owes to himself? This difficulty, in its bearing on my present subject, may be stated in the following terms:
"The problem is to find a form of association which will defend and protect with the whole common force the person and goods of each associate, and in which each, while uniting himself with all, may still obey himself alone, and remain as free as before." This is the fundamental problem of which the Social Contract provides the solution.
***
Finally, each man, in giving himself to all, gives himself to nobody; and as there is no associate over whom he does not acquire the same right as he yields others over himself, he gains an equivalent for everything he loses, and an increase of force for the preservation of what he has.
If then we discard from the social compact what is not of its essence, we shall find that it reduces itself to the following terms:
“Each of us puts his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will, and, in our corporate capacity, we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole" (emphasis in the original).
At once, in place of the individual personality of each contracting party, this act of association creates a moral and collective body, composed of as many members as the assembly contains votes, and receiving from this act its unity, its common identity, its life and its will. This public person, so formed by the union of all other persons formerly took the name of city,4 and now takes that of Republic or body politic; it is called by its members State when passive. Sovereign when active, and Power when compared with others like itself. Those who are associated in it take collectively the name of people, and severally are called citizens, as sharing in the sovereign power, and subjects, as being under the laws of the State. But these terms are often confused and taken one for another: it is enough to know how to distinguish them when they are being used with precision.
Continued . . .
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ReplyDelete++++++++++++++++++++
Footnote 3.
3. The Romans, who understood and respected the right of war more than any other nation on earth, carried their scruples on this head so far that a citizen was not allowed to serve as a volunteer without engaging himself expressly against the enemy, and against such and such an enemy by name. A legion in which the younger Cato was seeing his first service under Popilius having been reconstructed, the elder Cato wrote to Popilius that, if he wished his son to continue serving under him, he must administer to him a new military oath, because, the first having been annulled, he was no longer able to bear arms against the enemy. The same Cato wrote to his son telling him to take great care not to go into battle before taking this new oath. I know that the siege of Clusium and other isolated events can be quoted against me; but I am citing laws and customs. The Romans are the people that least often transgressed its laws; and no other people has had such good ones.
Footnote 4.
4. The real meaning of this word has been almost wholly lost in modern times; most people mistake a town for a city, and a townsman for a citizen. They do not know that houses make a town, but citizens a city. The same mistake long ago cost the Carthaginians dear. I have never read of the title of citizens being given to the subjects of any prince, not even the ancient Macedonians or the English of to-day, though they are nearer liberty than any one else. The French alone everywhere familiarly adopt the name of citizens, because, as can be seen from their dictionaries, they have no idea of its meaning; otherwise they would be guilty in usurping it, of the crime of le’se-majeste’: among them, the name expresses a virtue, and not a right. When Bodin spoke of our citizens and townsmen, he fell into a bad blunder in taking the one class for the other. M. d'Alembert has avoided the error, and, in his article on Geneva, has clearly distinguished the four orders of men (or even five, counting mere foreigners) who dwell in our town, of which two only compose the Republic. No other French writer, to my knowledge, has understood the real meaning of the word citizen (emphasis in original).
Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract or Principles of Political Right, Book I, intro, 4, and 6. The Social Compact (1762) (G.D.H. Cole trans. 1782) (all emphasis in the original).
http://www.constitution.org/jjr/socon_01.htm#04
Here, Jean Jacques Rousseau explained the basis of the civil society in which one, so as to best preserve oneself and to gain more freedom, gave of oneself to that society. But in that society no person was above or below anyone else. And at the heart of such a society was the citizen, not the subject who was under the King. He explains how critical it was to the survival of the society to understand the fundamental difference between a “citizen” and a “subject,” even to the point of saying that not knowing the difference “long ago cost the Carthaginians dear.” The Founders and Framers read and studied Rousseau. They knew the difference between a citizen and a subject. So did Founder and historian, David Ramsay, as I have shown in my previous comment on his defining a natural born citizen as a child born in the United States to parents who were its citizens.
Blogger Doublee said...
ReplyDeleteI wish to present my interpretation of Senator Cruz's citizenship status for your critique.
1) Natural law is derived from the laws of nature, so by definition, any law enacted by man is not natural law.
2) Senator Cruz's citizenship status is dependent entirely on laws enacted by man. Therefore there is no possibility that he can be a natural born citizen.
3) His dual citizenship status in Canada derives both from US law and Canadian law.
3.1) I did not research Canadian law, so I take it as a given that Senator Cruz was born with Canadian citizenship by virtue of Canadian law.
3.2) I did look up US law regarding how one acquires US citizenship status when born in a foreign country.
Birth Abroad to One Citizen and One Alien Parent in Wedlock
A child born abroad to one U.S. citizen parent and one alien parent acquires U.S. citizenship at birth under Section 301(g) of the INA provided the U.S. citizen parent was physically present in the United States or one of its outlying possessions for the time period required by the law applicable at the time of the child's birth. (For birth on or after November 14, 1986, a period of five years physical presence, two after the age of fourteen, is required. For birth between December 24, 1952 and November 13, 1986, a period of ten years, five after the age of fourteen, is required for physical presence in the United States or one of its outlying possessions to transmit U.S. citizenship to the child.) The U.S. citizen parent must be the genetic or the gestational parent and the legal parent of the child under local law at the time and place of the child’s birth to transmit U.S. citizenship.
Senator Cruz became a US citizen according to that provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act.
There is nothing "natural" about his citizenship.
March 23, 2015 at 7:00 PM
~~~~~
Doublee,
You are absolutely correct. The point is so easy to understand when we consider that Senator Cruz would not be a citizen at all if it were not for a naturalization act of Congress. But yet he tells us he is a natural born citizen. Are we to hear Senator Cruz say that he is the natural child of his father and mother if he needed a law to be their son, which is the only means by which the parent-child relationship is created for an adopted child?
Senator Cruz wants us to honor the Constitution when he is the biggest violator of it. He is a hypocrite and the Republican Party should reject him as their candidate for President.
Well now, according to Ted Cruz something we all missed was the fact that Winston Churchill was a "natural born citizen"--I don't mean that Ted mentioned this or even knows it; but Winston's mother was an American citizen. So then Winston was also. Likewise his children and their children and their children . . . it just keeps going, I believe. So Winston might have first run for president in the 1912 presidential election. As for residency I am sure the Ted types have a way around that too. Make a trip here now and then and establish a mailing address. The usual. Just consider that Winston might have been a President before Roosevelt or Vice President with Roosevelt during one of his terms. OR, has Ted more or less gotten beyond the Pale with his qualification definitons?
ReplyDeleteMario,Greg Contreras wrote another column saying cruz is eligible at western free press
ReplyDeleteSo who is this frank the historian dude mario? He certainly sounds like a paid obama troll. I am interested in article 2 because it really torque s me off that it is not being followed and the msm,congress and states just ignore and lie about it. Btw,Greg Contreras was responding to comments on his new cruz is eligible argument so I hope you join the fray.
ReplyDelete"...should reject..."
ReplyDeleteMario,
Dittos to "...the Republican Party should reject..." Sen. Cruz as a candidate, however it's not gonna happen because Sen. Cruz is not a "natural born Citizen" under Article II, but because he is not a progressive Republican like the GOPe rino's.
So, when political push comes to political shove, there remains only the possibility of a competing candidate who will bring up the eligibility issue, no pun intended, of the original intent of "born" in "natural born Citizen" in Article II Section 1 Clause 5 having the original meaning of ONLY singular U.S. citizenship of ONLY one nation by ONLY being born on U.S. soil ONLY to two U.S. citizen married parents.
However, the "natural born Citizen" new meaning neo-birthers, who are still trying to position themselves as historically superior to original birther John Jay and original meaning birthers, whom I like to refer to as "original genesis original intent" birthers, so maybe no Republican candidate will confront Sen. Cruz about his respect for the U.S. Constitution--except--for "natural born Citizen" in Article II.
At this pre-primary point it seems that three possible Republican candidates, empire builder Donald Trump, freedom fighter Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin and libertarian Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, may be the ONLY men who have the political instincts that may help them to transcend the "birther" ridicule of the Democratic Obot new meaning neo-birthers and the "birther" ridicule of the Republican new meaning neo-birthers.
If--political push comes to political shove.
Art
U.S. Constitution: The Original Birther Document of the Union
( http://originalbirtherdocument.blogspot.com/ )
A Sen. Cruz Serendipity...
ReplyDeleteMario, at about 20 minutes into his first hour of his radio program today, March 24, 2015, Rush Limbaugh, in his defense of Sen. Cruz's citizenship by birth to ONLY one U.S. citizen parent, FINALLY dissed the "birthers" in a way that reveals that he is ignorant of and NOT informed about original birther John Jay and Jay's original intent meaning for the word "born" in "natural born Citizen" as ONLY singular U.S. citizenship of ONLY one nation, and Rush has taken, hook, line and sinker, the "natural born Citizen" new meaning of the neo-birthers that dual U.S./foreign citizenship is good 'nuf for government work--as POTUS. Rush is possibly also ignorant of and not informed of the "nomenclature" language of the 1875 Minor v. Happersett Court holding, and also of how the 1898 U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark Court holding "declared" that the 1868 Amendment 14 language, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States...are citizens of...," included into U.S. citizenship a child born on U.S. soil to zero U.S. citizen parents, such as Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.
The serendipity is that Sen. Cruz is forcing the Republicans and Independents like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Glenn Beck, Laura Ingraham and et alii to clarify their understanding and their ignorance of the "natural born Citizen" issue, no pun intended, by defending Cruz's dual U.S./foreign citizenship, because Sen. Cruz is a "good guy" and the original intent of the framers and ratifiers of "natural born Citizen" surely was NOT to prohibit such a Reaganesque person like Sen. Cruz from being "...eligible to the Office of President." Right--was it their original intent?
So, thanks to Sen. Cruz for ignoring the original intent meaning of Article II while he defends the rest of the Constitution, because the new meaning neo-birthers are moving closer to becoming educated about John Jay's "original genesis original intent," and their honesty and defense will be revealed as they defend the truth that has no agenda in the arena of ideas, or, as Glenn Beck's tv program proudly proclaims every day, "The Truth Lives Here."
Will the Cruz neo-birthers really admit that they are wrong in denying the immutability of ONLY singular U.S. citizenship of ONLY one nation as the ONLY original meaning of "natural born Citizen" if Sen. Cruz maintains that he is an "nbC" because of the naturalization act that gave him citizenship at birth? Will the Cruz neo-birthers even admit to themselves that a naturalization act of Congress "gave" Cruz his citizenship at birth?
If they are honest with themselves and truthful they will admit that a naturalization act "gave" Sen. Cruz his U.S. citizenship at birth through his one U.S. citizneship parent, and if they are NOT honest with themselves, they will NOT admit it.
So, thanks again to Sen. Cruz for the serendipity of the focus on John Jay's 1787 original intent, although that was NOT his original intent in announcing his candidacy for the U.S. Presidency yesterday, March 23, 2015.
Art
U.S. Constitution: The Original Birther Document of the Union
( http://originalbirtherdocument.blogspot.com/2015/01/time-to-change-natural-born-citizen.html )
What about this from the U.S. Department of State Foreign Affairs Manual Volume 7.
ReplyDelete7 FAM 1131.6-3 Not Citizens by “Naturalization”(CT:CON-474; 08-19-2013)
Section 101(a)(23) INA (8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(23))
provides that the term "naturalization" means "the conferring of nationality of a state upon a person after birth, by any means whatsoever." Persons who acquire U.S. citizenship at birth by birth abroad to a U.S. citizen parent or parents who meet the applicable statutory
transmission requirements are not considered citizens by naturalization.
http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/86757.pdf
Justin,
ReplyDeleteWhat a Congressional statute considers to be naturalization for whatever purpose may be involved does not control how the Constitution defines naturalization. Under the Constitution and the common law which informs on the definition of a natural born citizen, anyone who is not born in the United States to U.S. citizen parents is an “alien or foreigner” who needs naturalization under some positive law in order to be adopted aa a citizen, either at birth or after birth. Minor v. Happersett (1875).
Senator Ted Cruz does not meet that constitutional common law definition of a natural born citizen. He is therefore not a natural born citizen. Not being born in the United States, which would have qualified him under the Fourteenth Amendment for U.S. citizenship “at birth,” he needs a naturalization act of Congress to make him so. Not being a natural born citizen and needing a naturalization act of Congress to be adopted as a citizen of the United States at birth, under the Constitution, which trumps any Act of Congress, he is a naturalized citizen from the moment of birth.
We might this time around get general agreement on the need for the President to be native born(= natural born). But much further than that seems unlikely as it is just too subtle for most. Is this a question of real intelligence versus mere education in a contemporary school of some sort? Perhaps. How many articles does one need to read before one can see the validity of what Apuzzo has so clearly laid out over the years? Really it is quite inspiring to find that a few people have done the research and laid it all for the rest of us in clear and logical language. Alternatively some people like the idea of rebelling against the Constitution and have as a result become the backers of absurdities. But who would have guessed it would be a Princeton/Harvard top student? In the instance of Obama it seems almost what one would expect. Someone needs to ask Bill Clinton what "natural born citizen" means or for that matter his spouse.
ReplyDeleteI of II
ReplyDeleteI do not see why the Obots go through so much trouble showing us that the Framers used the common law to define a natural born citizen. I agree with them. Their problem is that they are relying on the English common law for that definition which the historical and legal record shows is the wrong common law. We know from that record that it was not the English common law, but rather American common law that provided the Framers with their definition of a natural born citizen.
Here is Justice Noah H. Swayne telling us that the English common law defined neither a citizen nor a natural born citizen:
“The constitution uses the words 'citizen' and 'natural born citizens;' but neither that instrument nor any act of congress has attempted to define their meaning. British jurisprudence, whence so much of our own is drawn, throws little light upon the subject . . . . Blackstone and Tomlin contain nothing upon the subject.”
United States v. Rhodes, 27 F. Cas. 785, 788 (Cir. Ct. Ky 1866). Justice Swayne explained that Blackstone and Tomlin, who were two commentators on the English common law, both did not define either a citizen or a natural born citizen. Justice Swayne was on the U.S. Supreme Court in The Slaughterhouse Cases (1873) which stated that a child born in the United States to alien parents was not a citizen under the Fourteenth Amendment. He made no objection to the statement. He was also part of the unanimous U.S. Supreme Court that decided Minor v. Happersett in 1875.
We know from how the U.S. Supreme Court has defined a natural born citizen that the Framers relied upon American common law for their definition of a natural born citizen. Here is how the unanimous U.S. Supreme Court in Minor defined a natural born citizen under that American common law and not English common law:
"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."
Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162, 167-68 (1875).
Continued . . .
II of II
ReplyDeleteMinor explained that the common law with which the Framers were familiar when they drafted the Constitution defined a natural born citizen as a child born in a country to parents who were its citizens at the time of the child’s birth and that under that same common law all the rest of the people were “aliens or foreigners” who could be naturalized by some positive law. The Court explained that these children were not only “citizens” like their parents, but also “natives, or natural-born citizens.” The Court added that “there have been doubts” about whether a child born in the United States to alien parents was a “citizen.” Clearly, nothing the Court said was an expression of the English common law, under which a child born in the King’s dominion and under his jurisdiction to alien parents, was without any doubt a natural-born subject.” The Court said that those statements came from an application of the common law. Give the content of those statements, that common law could only be American common law.
So, the Obots are correct that the definition of a natural born citizen is defined under the common law. They are just wrong as to which common law it is. As we can see from Minor, that common law is not English common law, but rather American common law. And that common law defines a natural born citizen as a child born in a country to parents who were its citizens at the time of the child’s birth. Under this common law definition, both de facto President Barack Obama and Senator Ted Cruz are not natural born citizens.
Justin, your source says, "In any event, the fact that someone is a natural born citizen pursuant to a statute does not necessarily imply that he or she is such a citizen for Constitutional purposes." The only such statute to consider anyone to be a natural-born citizen was repealed after only five years. Unless Ted Cruz is 221 years old, there is no statute that makes him a natural-born citizen. What your source says about persons acquiring citizenship at birth not being naturalized is not actually true. The Supreme Court said in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark that, "A person born out of the jurisdiction of the United States can only become a citizen by being naturalized ..." including "the enactments conferring citizenship upon foreign-born children of citizens." It is naturalization. It may not be the same as applying for naturalization but it is still naturalization.
ReplyDeleteGreg Contreras said cruz and the slaves were not naturalized by usc 1401 and 14th. They would not have been citizens without congress which has powers of naturalization
ReplyDeleteI of IV
ReplyDeleteAll but one of all the federal cases regarding the Obama eligibility issue were dismissed on standing, mootness, jurisdiction, separation of powers, and political question and by so doing, those courts never reached the merits of the natural born citizen issue. The federal case that I handled, Kerchner v. Obama and Congress, was dismissed for standing (the court never reached the merits of the meaning of a natural born citizen). Out of all those federal court cases, Tisdale v. Obama needs special mention. There, the pro se Charles Tisdale of Virginia filed a pro se complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, asking for an injunction providing that Barack Obama, Mitt Romney and Ron Paul be barred from the November 6, 2012 ballot and that he be awarded damages under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 for their violating his civil rights. Like all the other federal court cases that dealt with the Obama eligibility issue, the record trial-speed Tisdale decision did not turn on the meaning of a natural born citizen. The lower court dismissed the case the same day that the pro se plaintiff filed it, even before the defendants filed an Answer or motion to dismiss. It dismissed it because it found the plaintiff failed to allege in his complaint sufficient facts and law to make out a case for 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 damages and an injunction. The judge added a statement of dicta that erroneously rests on the Fourteenth Amendment as to what he believed the meaning of a natural born citizen was. Remember he dismissed the case the same day it was filed and so he could not possibly have seriously studied the matter and the proof of that is in the decision itself. The judge cited to “United States v. Ark,” which should be United States v. Wong Kim Ark. He cited to “Perkis v. Elg,” which should be Perkins v. Elg, and erroneously relied on that decision, for Elg was born in the United States to two U.S. citizen parents. The judge cited to Hollander v. McCain, 566 F.Supp. 2d 63, 66 (D.N.H. 2008), a case which the court dismissed on standing and in which it never reached the merits of the definition of a natural born citizen as can be seen by this statement by the court: “Based on the arguments presented there, as well as in the parties’ briefing, the court rules that Hollander lacks standing to bring this action. The court does not reach the rest of the parties’ arguments, including, most notably, the question of McCain’s constitutional eligibility to be President.” What Hollander did do, after it said in the above quote that it was not reaching the merits of the meaning of a natural born citizen, is cite to Wong Kim Ark for the proposition that persons born in the United States and “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” have been citizens since the Founding, and that under “Schneider v. Rusk, 377 U.S. 163, 165 (1964 (dicta),” eligible to be President. But there is no such dicta in the Schneider case. The Court in Schneider said:
Continued . . .
II of IV
ReplyDeleteWe start from the premise that the rights of citizenship of the native born and of the naturalized person are of the same dignity and are coextensive. The only difference drawn by the Constitution is that only the "natural born" citizen is eligible to be President. Art. II, § 1.
166*166 While the rights of citizenship of the native born derive from § 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment and the rights of the naturalized citizen derive from satisfying, free of fraud, the requirements set by Congress, the latter, apart from the exception noted, "becomes a member of the society, possessing all the rights of a native citizen, and standing, in the view of the constitution, on the footing of a native. The constitution does not authorize Congress to enlarge or abridge those rights. The simple power of the national Legislature, is to prescribe a uniform rule of naturalization, and the exercise of this power exhausts it, so far as respects the individual." Osborn v. Bank of United States, 9 Wheat. 738, 827. And see Luria v. United States, 231 U. S. 9, 22;United States v. MacIntosh, 283 U. S. 605, 624; Knauer v. United States, 328 U. S. 654, 658.
Id. at 165-66. Notice that the Court cited to Luria which cited to Minor v. Happersett (1875) on the natural born citizen presidential eligibility requirement.
But yet, the judge in Tisdale said:
Moreover, “those born ‘in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,’ . . . have been considered American citizens under American law in effect since the time of the founding . . . and thus eligible for the presidency.” Hollander v. McCain, 566 F.Supp.2d 63, 66 (D.N.H. 2008) (all quotation marks and both ellipses in the original).
Note how the judge said that a Fourteenth Amendment citizen is “thus” eligible to be President, as though it were a foregone conclusion when neither Wong Kim Ark nor Schneider made any such statement. Also, note that the Tisdale court did not say that the Schneider eligibility statement was dicta as at least the Hollander court did. The court in Hollander looked to the Fourteenth Amendment (which is not the common law to which Minor looked to define a natural born citizen) for the native born’s right to citizenship. Both Minor and Wong Kim Ark said that the Fourteenth Amendment does not define a natural born citizen. Hollander’s cite to Schneider is also unavailing. Schneider was not saying that a Fourteenth Amendment native born citizen was necessarily a natural born citizen. Furthermore, Schneider, in referring to presidential eligibility, used the clause “natural born citizen” and not “native born” and said only a natural born citizen is eligible to be President. Hence, nothing in Schneider can be interpreted to mean, even in dicta, that the Court said that a Fourteenth Amendment born citizen is necessarily an Article II natural born citizen. So Hollander made a misstatement of the law and Tisdale erroneously relied upon that misstatement which in any event was made in a case that said it never reached the merits of the definition of a natural born citizen. What is troubling is that Ankeny also cited to the Hollander decision for support of its conclusion, which I have demonstrated is no support at all. So, upon close examination, we can see that the Tisdale district court’s and Ankeny’s statements as to what a natural born citizen is has absolutely no basis in law. This chain of events is a perfect example of how the error of one court (Hollander) can continue to generate errors in later courts (Ankeny and Tisdale) which rely upon that court that makes that initial error.
Continued . . .
III of IV
ReplyDeleteIn Tisdale, I filed an amicus brief in the 4th Circuit on the issue of the definition of a natural born citizen. The 4th Circuit affirmed the dismissal in record time. It had the case for consideration a total of 5 days, two of which were Saturday and Sunday. It made no mention of a natural born citizen and ordered that its decision not be published and that it not be binding in its own circuit, let alone out of it. (Now go and read the Wikipedia write up of Tisdale and see how distorted, manipulated, and pro-Obama that presentation is.)
Ankeny v. Governor of Indiana is a State of Indiana case and hence binding only in that state. It was decided before Tisdale. While the case can be used out of the State of Indian as persuasive authority (some administrative law judges in ballot challenges in other states did just that), the case is not binding in any place outside Indiana. We also saw pro se plaintiffs there. The court relied, although erroneously, on the Fourteenth Amendment and Wong Kim Ark to dispose of the natural born citizen issue. The court did concede that Wong Kim Ark did not hold Wong to be a natural born citizen. But the court said that its limited holding was not material because the Fourteenth Amendment defined a natural born citizen. An examination of the case shows that the court assumed without demonstrating that the Fourteenth Amendment defined a natural born citizen. Not only did the court not demonstrate that it did, but both Minor v. Happersett (1875) and Wong Kim Ark (1898) stated that the Fourteenth Amendment did not define a natural born citizen. Surely, Ankeny did not argue that Minor and Wong Kim Ark were wrong for saying that the Fourteenth Amendment did not define a natural born citizen.
As to the other handful of state law cases, they are all ballot challenges which proceeded under a very rapid administrative and election law time schedule which means that the judges did not have much time to study the constitutional issues that were presented. In fact, ALJ Masin in New Jersey said he did not have time to write a law review article on the issue of the meaning of a natural born citizen. His attitude and limited knowledge on the issue can be seen in his statement that as far as he was concerned there was “no need to reinvent the wheel.” Many of those cases never reached the merits of the meaning of a natural born citizen. For example, the Kerchner ballot challenge in Pennsylvania was dismissed because the court found that it did not have jurisdiction to address the question of whether Obama was a natural born citizen and therefore eligible to go on that state's presidential election ballot. The judge also denied without comment local counsel's application that I be allowed to represent Commander Kerchner there on the issue of the meaning of a natural born citizen. The court in Paige dismissed the case for mootness, which was affirmed in the appeal to the Vermont Supreme Court.
Continued . . .
IV of IV
ReplyDeleteThere were several cases that were filed with the U.S. Supreme Court on a petition for a writ of certiorari. Out of these, I had the Kerchner (dismissed for standing) and Paige (dismissed for mootness) cases. The high Court, like it does in almost all the cases that are filed with it for review, refused without comment to accept those cases for review. So, the post-Obama Supreme Court has, for reasons that it only knows, refused to give its opinion on what a natural born citizen is and whether Mr. Obama meets that definition.
Hence, we do not have one federal court case on the merits of the natural born citizen issue. Telling us about what happened in some state court ballot challenges when they did not reach the merits or when if they did reach the merits, they hurriedly erroneously relied on Wong Kim Ark and Ankeny, does not provide the historical and legal sources and study, let alone reasoned study, needed to make a convincing argument as to the meaning of an Article II natural born citizen.
As to what the Obots have done, they have not aided those courts in any significant way, by providing historical and legal sources and reasoning that demonstrate that the court's unsubstantiated conclusions are correct. Rather, what they have done is provide personal attack and ridicule of me and my research and writing, and mere denial, manipulation, and suppression of my arguments. Hence, the Obots have not provided the historical and legal sources along with the reasoning to win anything. On the other hand, I have.
I too am "torqued off".
ReplyDeleteNot as much that The Obama is de facto president, but that no one can question him. All his records are hidden and/or 'photoshopped'. Yet no one can investigate this and no court will allow discovery or grant standing.
It is amazing to me that abortionists (even the infanticide branch) can find legal standing in the highest
courts and that further the constitution can be twisted and contrived to find a RIGHT for unlimited abortions.
Yet for something as black and white and as fundamental - actually spelled out in the constitution with
real words (not the famous "emanations and penumbras") - as presidential eligibility, we can get no traction.
I offer this a proof that the legal system is badly flawed, if not actually gone totally haywire.
Just a quick point. The Wong Kim Ark decision considered the 14th amendment to be a naturalization act. This is made apparent when the court says:
ReplyDelete"In construing any act of legislation, whether a statute enacted by the legislature or a constitution established by the people as the supreme law of the land, regard is to be had not only to all parts of the act itself, and of any former act of the same lawmaking power of which the act in question is an amendment ..."
Later in the decision, Gray uses the same language to talk about the action of naturalization:
"by being naturalized, either by treaty, as in the case of the annexation of foreign territory, or by authority of Congress, exercised either by declaring certain classes of persons to be citizens ..."
The authority of Congress to naturalize is exercised by declaring certain classes of persons to be citizens. That's what the 14th amendment does. It's why Gray refers to the 14th amendment by saying "in construing an act of legislation.
Since Gray affirmed the definition of NBC from the Minor decision, he had no choice but to treat the 14th amendment as an ACT of naturalization, but he muddied that fact by inserting the term "citizenship by birth" which so many Obama-apologists misconstrue to mean natural-born citizen. It is not the same term nor did Gray intend it to be. If he really thought the 14th amendment created natural-born citizens, he would have said so.
It is utterly absurd to think that Ted Cruz is a natural born citizen. Since 1790, Congress has for policy reasons seen the need, exactly for the reason that they are not natural born citizens, to naturalize children of U.S. citizens born out of the United States. In the Naturalization Act of 1790, the First Congress naturalized them to enjoy all the privileges and immunities of natural born citizens. Then in 1795, the Third Congress, clearly to indicated that Congress never intended to suggest that those persons were eligible to be President, naturalized them to enjoy all the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States, who were not eligible to be President under Article II, Section 1, Clause, unless also natural born citizens.
ReplyDeleteThe very naturalization act which made Cruz a citizen when he was born in 1970 calls him a citizen of the United States and not a natural born citizen. And both Minor and Bellei U.S. Supreme Courts inform that Cruz is a naturalized citizen, although at birth, and that he would not be a citizen at all if it were not for the naturalization grace of Congress.
With all this stacked up against him, Mr. Constitution and his supporters have the gall to tell us he is a natural born citizen.
I want to share here Slarttbartfast responding to one of my points concerning Ankey v. Governor of Indiana:
ReplyDeleteApuzzo: Not only did the court not demonstrate that it did, but both Minor v. Happersett (1875) and Wong Kim Ark (1898) stated that the Fourteenth Amendment did not define a natural born citizen. Surely, Ankeny did not argue that Minor and Wong Kim Ark were wrong for saying that the Fourteenth Amendment did not define a natural born citizen.
Slartibartfast: Again with one of your favorite fallacies. Just because the 14th Amendment does not define the term “natural born citizen” does not mean that you can assume that there are 14th Amendment born citizens who are not also natural born citizens. In fact, there is no law or valid precedent which divides 14th Amendment born citizens into distinct classes of citizenship with different rights.
As always, the trick with Mario is to look at the rest of the story. The court in Wong Kim Ark said that the 14th Amendment didn’t define the term “natural born citizen”, that much is true. The problem is that the court then made a thorough and detailed look at the legal and historical roots of the term and concluded that Mr. Wong was a citizen in exactly the same way and for exactly the same reasons that made one “natural born”. The government argued that this made Mr. Wong eligible for the presidency in the case that was appealed to the SCOTUS and the dissent railed against the possibility of “mongoloids” like Mr. Wong being eligible for the White House as a result of the holding.
Face it Mario, you do nothing but misrepresent others because you cannot successfully address their actual arguments and then you make clearly inane statements trying to “trap” people with your misinterpretations.
What a guy.
~~~~~
Slartibartfast did not say anything that makes sense. I love the part about it being true that the Fourteenth Amendment does not define a natural born citizen, but if persons can prove that they are Fourteenth Amendment citizens, they are natural born citizens. It looks like the Mathematician Ph.D. Slartibartfast is telling us that if a definition does not define a dog, a cat that meets that definition can still be a dog. You just can’t make this stuff up.
At Western Free Press, HistorianDude boldly proclaimed to me:
ReplyDelete"Nonsense. There is no such thing under either common law or statute as 'naturalization at birth.'"
~~~~~
I replied:
What ignorance you display.
Did you ever read Calvin's Case (1608)? Parliament for political reasons would not naturalize Calvin or other postnati (born after James became King of the united kingdoms) by statute. King James IV of Scotland, who had became King James I of England, Ireland, and Scotland, was not too happy with Parliament. So, he got his men to get Calvin's case before Lord Coke and had the common law court to do it.
The English common law's force of naturalizing children at birth was recognized by Emer de Vattel in Section 214 of The Law of Nations, entitled Naturalization. There is said: “Finally, there are states, as, for instance, England, where the single circumstances of being born in the country naturalises the children of a foreigner.”
So that takes care of naturalization at birth under common law.
For naturalization at birth under statute, just read Horace Binney, Wong Kim Ark, and Rogers v. Bellei. They all say that Congress through its naturalization statutes can naturalizes children at birth.
There is so much naturalization at birth under Congressional statutes that Jill Pryor even advocates for a new natural born citizen, a "naturalized born citizen." See Jill A. Pryor, “The Natural-Born Citizen Clause and Presidential Eligibility: An Approach for Resolving Two Hundred Years of Uncertainty,” 97 Yale L.J. 881 (1988) (concluding that a “naturalized born citizen” is a “natural born citizen,” stated: “Section II demonstrates that Congress' naturalization powers under the Constitution enable it to naturalize citizens from birth. Section III marshals textual and structural support for the alternative ‘naturalized born’ approach, which reads the clause to require that the presidential candidate be a citizen at the time of birth. Under that approach, Congress has the power to define which classes of people will be citizens upon birth, but it may not declare any person a ‘citizen at birth’ retroactively").
As Oliver Warbucks correctly said: "The jig is up." Not only Mr. Obama, but also Mr. Cruz, are at best naturalized at birth through positive law (Obama through the Fourteenth Amendment, assuming he was born in the United States, and Cruz through a naturalization Act of Congress) and therefore "naturalized born citizens." They are not "natural born citizens."
I've noticed several claims being made about Cruz
ReplyDelete1) Cruz is a US citizen because he was born to a US born mother
2) The Naturalization Act of 1790 defines "natural born citizen"
3) A "citizen at birth" is a "natural born citizen", 8 U.S.C. § 1401 defines those who are citizens at birth
Some are Cruz supporters simply parroting half-truths, others are Obot disinfo agents engaging in deliberate deception.
The first claim, that "Cruz is a US citizen because he was born to a US born mother", is typical of the wishful thinking of Cruz supporters who in truth have devoted no thought at all. Omitted from this claim is the fact that a law is required in order for citizenship to descend to those born outside the United States. Also omitted is that Article II requires a "natural born citizen". I consider these people misguided and uninformed.
The second claim, that "the Naturalization Act of 1790 defines 'natural born citizen'" is where we enter the realm of the liars. They claim that this shows that Congress viewed the foreign born children of citizens to be "natural born citizens" and that since many Framers were in Congress this is the Framers' view as well. This claim stands reality on its head - the Act demonstrates that the foreign born children of citizens required naturalization.
Even more ridiculous is their wish to apply this repealed law and ignore law applicable to Cruz.
The third claim, that "a 'citizen at birth' is a 'natural born citizen' and since 8 U.S.C. § 1401 defines those who are citizens at birth it defines those who are 'natural born citizens'" is the most devious. It also is easily disproved.
By citing 8 U.S.C. § 1401 they conceal the statute applicable to Cruz: Pub.L. 82–414 § 301(a)(7),(b); 66 Stat. 236. This law grants citizenship temporarily, to be made permanent only upon the recipient taking specific actions by a date certain.
A natural born citizen does not need to take actions to retain citizenship, their citizenship does not expire nor can it be revoked.
Although the retention requirements were repealed in 1978 this in no way changes the fact that Cruz is a naturalized citizen.
By citing 8 U.S.C. § 1401 the fact that the grant of citizenship was temporary and provisional is concealed. Having concealed the naturalization they then layer on other lies, conflating "at" with "by", claiming a "citizen at birth" is a "citizen by birth".
We know with certainty that naturalization statutes can and do grant citizenship at birth. These citizens are citizens by statute, which is far different from a citizen by birth.
This deception requires the deliberate concealment of facts and alteration of words. These liars are the most contemptible.
HistorianDude said at Western Free Press: "The Framers themselves made natural born citizens by their pens when they passed the Naturalization Act of 1790."
ReplyDelete~~~~~
My reply:
This is false. First, man does not make natural born citizens, by law, pen, or any other processes. Rather, they are made by being born in a country to parents who were its citizens. This was the law of nature which was modified when applied to the affairs of nations and called the law of nations.
Second, children who needed the Naturalization Act of 1790 for citizenship were naturalized (the very act is a naturalization act) and even if considered to be natural born citizens for those short 5 years, were not true natural born citizens.
Third, without that naturalization act, those children would be alien born and remain as such.
Fourth, the Naturalization Act of 1795 not only repealed the Act of 1790, but replaced "shall be considered as natural born citizens" with "shall be considered as citizens of the United States." This was without a doubt a signal about whether those children were to be eligible for the office of President. They were not.
Fifth, the Naturalization Act of 1790 applied only to the people born at that time. The Act no longer exists and was not in effect when Cruz was born and therefore was not able to give Ted Cruz the status of a natural born citizen. The naturalization act under which Cruz became a citizen called him a "citizen" of the United States "at birth." It did not call him a natural born citizen.
In short, Ted Cruz's or anyone else's reliance upon the Naturalization Act of 1790 to establish Cruz is a natural born citizen is erroneous.
Ray, I liked your three points you brought up. I've been following the natural-born citizen issue since 2008 when Obama first started playing games with his alleged birth certificate. The way that Obots and others use the 1790 naturalization act is a new argument this year. It's funny that the Harvard Law Review article uses it too. It's like Obama has a team of disinformation specialists dispatch arguments to try to confuse the issue. And there's no doubt that Obama's team is behind this. They can't let Cruz be found ineligible because it would expose Obama as ineligible for the same reasons.
ReplyDeleteI of III
ReplyDeleteI just posted this response to Bryan Gene Olson at Café Con Leche Republicans”:
Bryan Gene Olson, you are the guy who said many times, when speaking of what your position was on the meaning of a natural born citizen: “My position is, and has been for some years, that the Article II natural born citizens are the proper subset of United States citizens that gained their citizenship upon birth.”~~Bryan Gene Olson, February 10, 2014 at 11:33 PM; “What I've been telling you is that the natural-born citizens are the subset of citizens who received their citizenship at the moment of birth, and, as I've noted here before, it's a proper subset.”~~Bryan Gene Olson, April 19, 2014 at 4:50 AM. Those statements are correct and I thank you for them. But the statements that you make in this last comment are not correct.
Your statements regarding the natural born citizen debate as it relates to Obama and Cruz is nothing more than confused ideas. I will, however, address your Justice Gray quote from Wong Kim Ark.
I maintain that the Fourteenth Amendment naturalizes at birth any child born in the United States to one or two alien parents and adopts that child under the Constitution into American citizenship as a “citizen” of the United States “at birth.” You argue that the below quote from Justice Gray proves that there is no such thing as naturalization at birth under the Fourteenth Amendment and that my position that the Amendment does in fact naturalize at birth children who are born in the United States to one or two alien parents is “crank nonsense.” Allow me to show you and others who share your view that your reliance on the Gray quote to prove me wrong is misplaced.
Here is the Gray quote:
“The Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, in the declaration that ‘all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside,’ contemplates two sources of citizenship, and two only: birth and naturalization. Citizenship by naturalization can only be acquired by naturalization under the authority and in the forms of law. But citizenship by birth is established by the mere fact of birth under the circumstances defined in the Constitution. Every person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, becomes at once a citizen of the United States, and needs no naturalization.”
United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649, 702 (1898).
~~~~~
First, Justice Gray’s statement as to what is naturalization under the Constitution, however you want to interpret it, is dicta. The Wong Kim Ark decision is not about what is or is not naturalization under our Constitution versus what it might mean in Acts of Congress, which could have a different meaning given the purpose of a naturalization act.
Second, Justice Gray’s statement does not mean that if one becomes a citizen of the United States “at birth” one is necessarily not naturalized under the Constitution. Naturalization is nothing more than removing alienage inherited or acquired from the moment of birth or after birth and by so doing adopting one as a citizen of the new nation. Alienage is nothing more than possessing allegiance and citizenship in a foreign country. And just how is allegiance and citizenship inherited or acquired? Since the beginning of western civilization, we have accepted that allegiance and thus citizenship is inherited from being born to citizen parents (jus sanguinis) or acquired from the place of birth (jus soli). Hence, allegiance and citizenship can be inherited
Continued . . .
II of II
ReplyDeletefrom parents or acquired by birth in a country. This means that a child born in a foreign country is born in allegiance and a citizen of that nation. This also means that a child born to one or two alien parents is born in allegiance and a citizen of the foreign nation of which one or both parents are citizens at the time of the child’s birth. Hence, in the case in which the child is not born in the United States or not born to two U.S. citizen parents, the child is born with alienage which can be removed only through naturalization at birth or after birth.
Of course, under Wong Kim Ark, anyone who is born in the United States and "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" acquires citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment and “becomes at once a citizen of the United States.” Justice Gray explains that such person needs no further naturalization after birth. Under that Amendment as interpreted by Wong Kim Ark, that person becomes a citizen at birth by the force of his birth circumstances. Congress, in 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1401(a) calls that person a "citizen" of the United States "at birth." But that does not mean that that person was not naturalized. Under the common law which informed the Framers’ definition of a natural born citizen, only those who were born in the country to parents who were its citizens at the time of his or her birth did not need naturalization by some positive law. Minor v. Happersett (1875). Hence, under the Framers’ view of what was a natural born citizen, that child born in the United States to alien parents needed naturalization through some positive law. This rule was reflected in all the early naturalization acts of Congress that preceded Wong Kim Ark. While the Fourteenth Amendment (a positive law) grants citizenship to those children automatically and from the moment of birth, it does not and cannot erase the fact that those children needed naturalization by positive law in order to become citizens. Without the Fourteenth Amendment, those children would fall not only under the jurisdiction of the common law which held them to be aliens and in need of naturalization, but also that of the naturalization acts of Congress which treated them the same as the common law. What the Fourteenth Amendment does is grant them citizenship from the moment of birth and thereby obviates the need that they go through a naturalization process after birth. Indeed, the Fourteenth Amendment, while it recognizes that “citizenship by birth is established by the mere fact of birth under the circumstances defined in the Constitution,” still grants those children “[c]itizenship by naturalization . . . under the authority and in the forms of law,” all words used by Justice Gray himself.
What is most telling of the Amendment’s goal is that it treats the objects of its coverage, those born or naturalized in the United States and “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” equally, i.e., it calls them both “citizens” of the United States and of the State in which they reside. It does not call those born in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction, who even though the Amendment provides that they do not have to go through a naturalization process, “natural born citizens,” and rightfully so, because the framers of the Amendment knew that only a child born in the United States to citizen parents, and who was therefore born not subject to any foreign powers, was a natural born citizen. And as applicable to Senator Ted Cruz, with a natural born citizen having had to be free of being born subject to a foreign power, those same framers would not have seen a child born out of the United States and its jurisdiction even to one or two U.S. citizen parents as a natural born citizen.
Continued . . .
III of III
ReplyDeleteSo, the reality is that persons born in the United States to alien parents need the Fourteenth Amendment to naturalize them at birth and to bestow upon them the birth status of a citizen of the United States “at birth.” It might be true that in the popular culture or in general speak we do not utter that a person who acquired his or her citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment was naturalized, using that word in a lose way. But under the true meaning of the law on alienage and citizenship, that person was and is, in fact, naturalized at birth by that Amendment.
So, Mr. Olson, should you have any other materials which you would like to offer to show that I am wrong in maintaining that the Fourteenth Amendment naturalizes at birth any child born in the United States to one or two alien parents and adopts that child under the Constitution into American citizenship as a “citizen” of the United States “at birth,” I will be more than happy to address them as I have addressed the Justice Gray quote that you have provided in support of your position that I am wrong.
Ray and ksdb,
ReplyDeleteThe critical link in the Obama-Cruz natural born citizen connection does not turn on whether they were born out of the United States, but rather on whether all "citizens" of the Untied States "at birth" are automatically "natural born citizens."
The Jack Maskell natural born citizen thesis is that all persons who acquire their U.S. citizenship "at birth" or "by birth," regardless of where born, to whom born, or under what law, are Article II "natural born citizens." As I have demonstrated, Maskell’s argument is specious. He provides no historical or legal sources to support this argument and rather just made it up out of thin air.
Cruz not being a natural born citizen, even though he is a “citizen” of the United States "at birth" under a naturalization Act of Congress, puts into question whether Obama, who presumably is also a “citizen” of the United States "at birth" although under the Fourteenth Amendment, is a natural born citizen. Cruz not being a natural born citizen would prove that just being a “citizen” “at birth” is not sufficient to be a natural born citizen. In other words, Cruz not being a natural born citizen even though he is “citizen” “at birth,” would put into question whether Obama, also a “citizen” “at birth” is a natural born citizen. It would lead the inquring mind to conclude that there must be more to being a natural born citizen than just being a “citizen” of the United States “at birth.”
I might add that if it were ever discovered that Obama was not born in the United States, he would not even be a citizen at all unless naturalized by an Act of Congress after his birth.
There is a lot for Obama riding on Cruz. Hence, the Obots are out in droves pushing that Cruz is a natural born citizen for the simple reasons that he is a “citizen” of the United States “at birth” and did not have to go through any naturalization process after his birth. It also does not cost the Obots anything to support Cruz now in that limited manner because they do not believe that in the end he will get the Republican nomination.
Ray wrote: "Omitted from this claim is the fact that a law is required in order for citizenship to descend to those born outside the United States. Also omitted is that Article II requires a "natural born citizen". I consider these people misguided and uninformed.
ReplyDeleteDear Ray, I'm sorry to inform you that you are the one who is uninformed.
Please show in the Constitution where what you baseless claimed is true. You can't. Because it is not true. "a law is required" means required by the Constitution.
Understand this: it is NOT OK to omit highly relevant words, like: THE RIGHT of citizenship (shall not DESCEND).
So I ask you, what the hell is a RIGHT if it must be given by government?
No right requires the permission of government, including the right of all members of a family to be naturally imbued by birth with the national membership of their American parents. THAT is known as a BIRTHRIGHT. Government does not give it, and government can't eliminate it.
It is unalienable and inviolable. It supersedes the delegated authorities of government.
There's a lot of thinking-outside-the government box that you must learn to exercise.
"a person who acquired his or her citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment was naturalized"
ReplyDeleteThat showcases a rather large conundrum. The obamunists use loose logic to say that they are not naturalized "at birth" but are nbc, while in the opposite corner, obots use loose language to argue that they were, yet neither has any solid ground to stand on since "solid" means "beyond a shadow of doubt".
The truth about common law citizenship is that its British roots put it in a unique category in America. We are not Britain so things are not the same.
Before the overthrow of British rule, an alien-fathered native-born child was absolutely considered a natural-born subject. But liberated Americans were not subjects, nor citizens by the British rules, yet the rules continued within the states which were hungry for immigrants.
Throughout the long colonial period and long after, no legal authority would have had the idea that a common law citizen was "naturalized" because that term referred solely to those men who took the oath.
It was not enlarged and distorted to carry any other meaning in America. The common law citizens were in a class of their own, neither "naturalized" nor natural born.
They had been called natural-born (with hyphen) before the revolution, but that did not have any meaning in common language nor Natural Law and right of descent.
They were a third leg of the citizenship stool. It is pure blindness to reality to divide citizenship into only the two realms of natural and naturalized when in fact there were three categories; common law automatic citizenship by law (not by nature).
There is nothing on Cruz's birth certificate indicating that his mother was at that time a US citizen--only that she had been born in the USA. I would guess that her Canadian naturalization is a matter of public record and that there is some document available perhaps on line that would give the date of her renouncing her US citizenship. I think Curz is hoping no one gets hold of this document; otherwise, having it would have bolstered at least his claim to have been born to an American citizen--unless she had already become a Canadian citizen at the time. I am very surprised that information has not appeared by now.
ReplyDeleteWilliam St. George,
ReplyDeleteI hope that the troops will be out getting this information as soon as possible. That Cruz was born to a U.S. citizen mother is necessary to Cruz being able to establish that he is a "citizen" of the United State "at birth" under the applicable naturalization statute, which even if true, is not sufficient to make him a natural born citizen.
ksbd said: "The Supreme Court said in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark that,
ReplyDelete"A person born out of the jurisdiction of the United States can only become a citizen by being naturalized ..." including "the enactments conferring citizenship upon foreign-born children of citizens."
It is naturalization. It may not be the same as applying for naturalization but it is still naturalization.
~~~~~~~
Everything in that statement is false. It is immaterial who said such falsehoods, that doesn't make them actually true. A company of angels could tell you the sun revolves around the earth. Would that make it true?
Americans are Americans because they were born of Americans (the 97%) or via some legal provision, like the 14th Amendment which covered the alien-born.
Place of birth only involves the alien-born, -NOT the citizen-born. Why? BECAUSE WE HAVE RIGHTS!!!
Namely "the right of descent" which covered all of an American man's children.
All who assert and advocate for a Congressional "power" over natural Americans' citizenship are engaging in treason to their own liberty and unalienable natural rights, -rights which supersede the limited delegated authority of Congress.
Congress was tasked only with authoring a uniform naturalization rule for the States to adopt in their naturalization process.
It was delegated ZERO AUTHORITY over the citizenship of American men and their children!
Also, it helps to know what naturalization is. It is NOT citizen-ization. It is to be fictionally remade into a citizen *from* birth, thereby guaranteeing one's equality under the law.
One becomes a new natural citizen by being natural-ized. One citizenship. One nation. One God. One Government. There is not, and never was such a category of citizens as "naturalized citizens".
The federal gov. failed to grasp that organic American truth until Afroim v Rush slapped them all down.
All citizens are natural citizens, (either real or fictional). But not all are such by birth. That requires American parents.
"There is nothing on Cruz's birth certificate indicating that his mother was at that time a US citizen--only that she had been born in the USA. I would guess that her Canadian naturalization is a matter of public record"
ReplyDeleteI just tried to find census, birth, and naturalization records for Canada for 1970. It would seem they have not yet been digitized and uploaded to the web. Census records only go to 1911.
The Ancestry.ca site returned no results for an advanced search of Rafael Cruz.
"The Framers themselves made natural born citizens by their pens when they passed the Naturalization Act of 1790."
ReplyDeleteThe ignorance on both sides is deep and thick. That comment was just as fallacious as was Mario's response because both were written without understanding the truth of the reality of the Constitution's limitations.
It was all about limitation and specific delegation. That was to prevent Congress from becoming the new Parliament, which had no limits on its power.
Congress was given no authority over the nationality of American men and their families; only over the requirements for foreigners to become Americans by the oath.
Congress had no power to make natural-born *subjects*, unlike Parliament, nor natural born citizens, and everyone in Congress in 1790 was fully aware of that fact.
But they knew that the Constitution failed to protect the equal rights of Americans born abroad because it did not address them. Hence the need to protect their citizenship and their presidential eligibility in a statute.
The Uniform Rule was a perfect place to do that, and so it was done.
Congress did not bestow on them something and then later withdraw it. All it did was withdraw recognition of the truth of the 1790 act due to much blow-back by thousands of constituents who had not yet been naturalized when their sons were born.
The delineation of American children born abroad as nbc meant something huge! If meant that thousands or tens of thousands of alien-born American sons could NEVER serve as President!
THAT was unacceptable to them, so removing the previous language smoothed over the uproar and left the matter as it remains to this day; unresolved.
NBC by native-birth??? or NBC by citizen blood? Still unresolved by any law or court holding.
h200flife or Arthur Nash,
ReplyDeleteI have told you repeatedly that your personal beliefs, without any historical or legal sources to support them, do not amount to a hill of beans.
I have also repeatedly told you that we do not live in a state of nature, but rather in an ordered political society with established laws designed to maintain that order. So your personal ideas about natural members, families, fathers, and the like do not decide the price of bread on Tuesday.
To h2ooflife, bizarre insults don't change the facts. The Supreme Court said very simply, " A person born out of the jurisdiction of the United States can only become a citizen by being naturalized."
ReplyDeleteNote the word ONLY. Cruz is born out of the jurisdiction. The ONLY thing that makes him a citizen is what the court called in this same passage, "ordinary provisions of the naturalization acts," and they clearly said, naturalization is required by "foreign-born children of citizens." Again, that means Cruz is naturalized. Denying it doesn't make it go away. It also means that not all citizenship at birth is natural-born. In this case, if it relies on a naturalization act, it is naturalization.
I am interested to know if cruz s mother became a Canadian citizen and gave up her us citizenship before Mr Constitution was born. Cruz running is a blessing for us because maybe the brain dead public will wake up and consider that maybe the child of a alien father born outside of us is not a nbc. Congrats on your recent interview on ibn mario, every little bit helps. My hs classmate said on Facebook that he doesn't believe in conspiracy theories and that the current legal definition of nbc is any citizen at birth. He also told me I am entitled to my opinion and I told him my opinion does not count but the unanimous SC opinion of minor would. The guy is a lib and acting like a ostrich.
ReplyDeleteI posted this comment to HistorianDude at Western Free Press today:
ReplyDeleteAs to Minor, what part of "For the purposes of this case it is not necessary to solve these doubts[]" do you actually not understand? That is my question to you.
First, both Minor and Wong Kim Ark said that the Fourteenth Amendment did not define a natural born citizen.
Second, the doubts in Minor refer to whether a child born within the jurisdiction to alien parents was a "citizen" under the Fourteenth Amendment, not whether the child was an Article II natural born citizen which both Minor and Wong Kim said was not defined by the Amendment. Even Wong Kim Ark said that the doubts in Minor referred to the Fourteenth Amendment, adding that since Minor said that doubts existed as to whether those children were citizens under the Fourteenth Amendment, Minor was not committed to excluding children born in the United States to alien parents from being citizens under the Fourteenth Amendment. You are just such a liar that you refuse to admit what is plainly written in both Minor and Wong Kim Ark. The whole world can read both decisions and its comprehension of both cases is not affected one iota by your Obot lies.
Face it, Frank, you and the Obots are big time losers.
Just posted by me at Western Free Press:
ReplyDelete@Rambo Ike @HistorianDude @apuzzo2009
Our resident Historian Dude does not have a clue what the common law was during the Founding and Framing of the Constitution. He is so ignorant on the subject that he believes that the only common law that existed then was the English common law. His ignorance is compounded by his erroneous belief that there could be no common law unless a court rendered a decision on some point in contention which he then is willing to call common law.
All his ignorance is the foundation of his challenge to me that I have not proven my case as to my position that the Framers obtained their definition of a natural born citizen from the citizenship principles stated by Emer de Vattel in Section 212 of The Law of Nations (1758) which they considered to be part of the common law, which is the same common law to which Minor referred when it said that under the common law with which the Framers were familiar a natural born citizen was a child born in a country to parents who were its citizens at the time of the child's birth.
HistorianDude has screamed much about me not presenting any evidence for my position which, on the contrary, I have through numerous historical and legal sources. At the same time, he has produced no evidence for his position, which is the Jack Maskell thesis, that any person who is a "citizen" "at birth" or "by birth," regardless of where born, to whom born, or how the status is obtained, is a natural born citizen. The Maskell thesis is pure poppycock, invented and accepted by the feel good crowd.
A comment I just posted at Western Free Press:
ReplyDeleteapuzzo2009 7 minutes ago
@HistorianDude @p5151
You said: "There is no such thing as naturalization at birth." You are wrong again.
Lord Coke in Calvin's Case (1608) does not agree with you. He, along with later English authorities, believed that birth conferred the right to naturalization for those children who were born to alien parents in the King's dominion and under his allegiance and protection.
I just posted this reply to "Dr.Artaud," at http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/03/cruz_obama_and_the_eligibility_clause_comments.html#disqus_thread :
ReplyDeleteYou are confused as to who maintains that Cruz is not an Article II natural born citizen. There are no "liberal birthers." The "left, the left stream media, and establishment Republicans" do not maintain that Cruz is not eligible. On the contrary, they maintain that Cruz is eligible so as to give constitutional cover to and thereby legitimize both Cruz and Obama. On the other hand, those of us who maintain that Obama is not a natural born citizen also maintain that Cruz is not one for the simple reason that both of them were not born or reputed born in the United States to parents who were both U.S. citizens at the time of their births.
Original Intent Common Sense
ReplyDelete1
Mario,
After reading many of the comments in Virginia attorney Monte Kuligowski's article at American Thinker that you linked to earlier today*, it looks like there is still a "whole lotta" confusion after seven years about what I like to refer to as John Jay's "original genesis original intent" for underlining the word "born" in "natural born Citizen" as a 1787 reference to ONLY singular U.S. citizenship of ONLY one nation by ONLY birth on U.S. soil ONLY to who U.S. citizen married parents.
*[ http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/03/cruz_obama_and_the_eligibility_clause_comments.html#disqus_thread ]
I really like Monte Kuligowski's 7 concluding paragraphs, and the only thing that I can fault him for is NOT adducing John Jay into the conversation. Yes, attorney Kuligowski did mention “sole allegiance” and “dual allegiance” in his article, but there are two reasons to specifically adduce John Jay into the conversation every time the “original genesis original intent” meaning of “natural born Citizen” is discussed: (1) Jay was the author of "natural born Citizen" in his note to George Washington and (2) Jay for that reason is the Founders' Framers' and Ratifier's historical fulcrum point that reaches back to published "citizenship" authors such as Emer de Vattel and his 1758 book "The Law of Nations" and forward to today, 2008-2015, and contestants in the "natural born Citizen" original meaning arena of ideas such as Monte Kuligowski, Esq. and others, including you, Mario Apuzzo, Esq.
If people, scholars and laymen alike, are going to say that, as attorney Kuligowski wrote in paragraph #4 below, “the natural born citizen clause has been eviscerated with bad precedent” and for that reason to speculate as to what Jay meant in underlining the word “born” in “natural born Citizen” is open to debate, well, at least Jay should be adduced into the conversation with simple “court of public opinion” questions such as, did Jay originally intend ONLY singular U.S. citizenship of ONLY one nation OR did Jay originally intent ALSO dual U.S./foreign citizenship of two OR three nations?
Two very simple questions for “court of public opinion” speculators, scholars and laymen, to meditate on, right?
Also, if Democratic Party O-bots, aka “natural born Citizen” new meaning neo-birthers and Republican Party C-bots, aka “natural born Citizen” new meaning neo-birthers, say that THEY do not KNOW what Jay meant, well, the natural question for Independent “natural born Citizen” original meaning original intent birthers to ask is, well, what do you THINK Jay MAY have mean in 1787? Not what do you KNOW Jay meant in 1787, simply what do YOU think Jay MAY have mean based on your 2015 common sense about what YOU may have meant in 1787 if YOU had written the note to YOUR friend George Washington?
See, simple “court of public opinion” arena of ideas questions. Right, “nbC” new meaning neo-birthers of all political persuasions?
Original Intent Common Sense
ReplyDelete2
These are attorney Kuligowski's concluding paragraphs:
“When we hear the requirement “natural born citizen,” what should come to mind? What is the clause safeguarding against? A technicality over birth venue? Is it pointlessly discriminating against naturalized citizens? Or is the real concern of the clause to safeguard against foreign allegiance and influence? Just as the founders were not safeguarding against the arbitrary number 34, they were safeguarding not against naturalized citizens per se, but rather against the influence and worldview they might bring to high office as a result of having had foreign parentage and allegiance.
“The modern concept of birth with dual allegiances raises the very concern the founders were safeguarding against.
“To get it right, we must ask what the understanding of an Article II natural born citizen was at the time of its ratification. To have been born a U.S. citizen at the time of our Constitution’s ratification meant that one was born with sole allegiance to the United States. So by necessity, an Article II natural born citizen is one born with natural, undivided allegiance to the United States. That is reasonably the heart of the natural born clause.
“Though the previous definition is intellectually honest and an accurate statement, we must acknowledge that, like many constitutional provisions, the natural born citizen clause has been eviscerated with bad precedent – in this case, to accommodate Mr. Obama.
“Short of a constitutional amendment, the original purpose of the clause is gone forever. It’s not right, but something so monumental is not going to revolve without some degree of revolution. The requirement of undivided natural allegiance at birth for future candidates would undermine the Obama presidency, and not enough government workers in black robes would ever let that happen.
“Alas, from this point forward, the clause effectively means that anyone born a U.S. citizen can become president, regardless of prior foreign allegiance.
“I suppose some comfort may be taken in the fact that the unimaginable, worst-case scenario has already happened. What the founders sought to safeguard against has come to pass: a U.S. president with a foreign, anti-traditional American mindset has inflicted immeasurable havoc upon our system and way of life. At least the odds of it happening again, especially consecutively, are slim.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
PS.
Mario, maybe American Thinker readers can be educated by you too, an attorney who not only has sensible questions like attorney Monte Kuligowski, but who also has sensible and practical conclusions relevant to the “court of public opinion” and also the court where the rules of evidence are required.
Art
U.S. Constitution: The Original Birther Document of the Union
( http://originalbirtherdocument.blogspot.com/2015/01/time-to-change-natural-born-citizen.html )
I read a good article by p.a. Madison called the unconstitutionality of citizenship by birth to non Americans which is about the 14th amendment. Jurisdiction means total power in 14th. Wka was really a horrible decision. HR 127 said 14th did not apply to aliens. This article was from Feb,2005
ReplyDeleteI of IV
ReplyDeleteThe Obots are a pack of filthy liars. They love to publish all over the internet that in the New Jersey ballot challenge, Purpura and Moran v. Obama, some junior lawyer totally "mopped the floor" with me. That, along with so many others, is one of their favorite personal attacks against me, intended to take credibility away from my work. They cannot beat me on the argument and so they resort to their sordid tactics.
Here is what happened in the case, as reported by me on my blog on April 10, 2012 and April 14, 2012. The reader can decided who did the mopping:
Today, April 10, 2012, Nicholas E. Purpura and Theodore T. Moran had their Barack Obama primary ballot objection heard by Deputy Director and Administrative Law Judge, Jeff S. Masin, at the Office of Administrative Law, 9 Quakerbridge Plaza, Mercerville (Hamilton Twp.), New Jersey 08619. The case started about 9:30 a.m. and lasted to about 1:00 p.m. I represented the Objectors. Mr. Obama was represented by Alexandra Hill of the firm of Genova, Burn & Giantomasi of Newark, New Jersey.
We argued that Mr. Obama has not met his burden of showing that he is eligible to be on the New Jersey primary ballot by showing that he is a “natural born Citizen.” We argued that he has not presented any evidence to the New Jersey Secretary of State showing who he is and that he was born in the United States. We also argued that as a matter of law, Obama is not a “natural born Citizen” because he was born to a father who was not a U.S. citizen.
Obama’s attorney made a motion to dismiss the Objection in its entirety. She argued that it was not relevant to being placed on the ballot whether Mr. Obama is a “natural born Citizen,” where he was born, and whether he was born to U.S. citizen parents. She said that no law in New Jersey obligated him to produce any such evidence in order to get on the primary ballot. We argued that Mr. Obama under the Constitution has to be a “natural born Citizen.” We argued that under New Jersey law (the state constitution, statutes, and case law), Mr. Obama must show that he is qualified for the office he wishes to occupy and that includes showing that he is a “natural born Citizen,” which includes presenting evidence of who he is, where he was born, and that he was born to two U.S. citizen parents. We argued that the Secretary of State has a constitutional obligation not to place any ineligible candidates on the election ballot. Judge Masin denied Obama’s motion to dismiss and the case proceeded to trial.
Continued . . .
II of IV
ReplyDeleteAfter calling to the witness stand Mr. Moran and Mr. Purpura, who gave testimony as to why they brought the ballot challenge, and introducing documents showing there is a question as to Mr. Obama’s identity, I called Brian Wilcox to testify as an internet image expert. Mr. Wilcox was going to testify on how the Obama April 27, 2011, long-form birth certificate has been altered and manipulated either by computer software or by a human or both, producing a forged documents, and that since the image is not reliable, we need to see the original paper version. Obama’s lawyer objected to my proffered testimony. I then offered that I would not need to have Mr. Wilcox testify, provided that Obama stipulated that the internet image of his birth certificate could not be used as evidence by either Judge Masin or the New Jersey Secretary of States and that he presented to the court or the Secretary of State no other evidence of his identity or place of birth. Judge Masin also asked Obama’s attorney whether she would so stipulate. She did so stipulate, agreeing that both the court and the Secretary of State cannot rely on the internet birth certificate as evidence of Obama’s place of birth and that Obama has produced no other evidence to the court regarding his place of birth. She also argued that Obama has no legal obligation to produce any such evidence to get on the primary ballot. Judge Masin then took the issue under advisement. Having produced absolutely no evidence of his eligibility for the Office of President, Judge Masin will decide whether as a matter of law Obama has a legal duty to produce such evidence before he may be placed on the New Jersey ballot in light of the pending objection filed against him. If he decides that he does, then the Objection will be successful. If he decides that Obama has no such legal obligation, the Objection would fail on the first issue.
The second issue that Judge Masin addressed was whether the definition of an Article II “natural born Citizen” includes the requirement that the child be born to two U.S. citizen parents. Judge Masin relied heavily upon the fact that no court in the nation has yet ruled that Mr. Obama had to have two U.S. citizen parents at the time of his birth. I explained that most cases regarding Mr. Obama have been ruled in his favor on procedural grounds rather than on the merits of the definition of a “natural born Citizen.” He relied heavily upon U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) and its use of the English common law to define U.S. citizenship. We also discussed the Indiana Ankeny decision and the Georgia ballot access cases. I explained how Wong did not hold that Wong was a “natural born Citizen,” but only a “citizen of the United States” under the Fourteenth Amendment which does not define an Article II “natural born Citizen.” I explained that Wong distinguished between a “citizen” and a “natural born Citizen,” explaining how Justice Gray used Horace Binney’s distinction between both classes of citizens. I argued that it is error to rely upon Wong as though it held Wong to be a “natural born Citizen.”
I argued that the Founders and Framers did not adopt the English common law to define the term, but rather natural law and the law of nations which under Article III became part of the “Laws of the United States.” I explained that the definition of a “natural born Citizen” comes from natural law and the law of nations as commented upon by Emer de Vattel in Section 212 of The Law of Nations (1758), which definition was recognized as American “common-law” in Minor v. Happersett (1875). I also explained that Wong Kim Ark confirmed Minor’s definition (a child born in a country to citizen parents) and did not change it.
Continued . . .
III of IV
ReplyDeleteI explained that Congress through the Naturalization Acts of 1790, 1795, 1802, and 1855 abrogated the English common law as the law to define U.S. citizenship and that through those acts it told us that a child born in the United States to alien parents was an alien and not a “citizen of the United States.” I went through the historical evidence, including but not limited to Emer de Vattel and St. George Tucker, which shows that the Founders and Framers defined a “natural born Citizen” as a child born in the country to citizen parents and not as the English common law defined a “natural born subject.” I explained how Madison wrote to Washington that at the constitutional convention, the delegates did not adopt the English common law for the new republic. I explained that the English common law continued to have effect in the states, even being included in their constitutions and statutes, but not on the federal level where both the Constitution and Acts of Congress did not do the same as the states did. I explained that there is a constitutional distinction between a “citizen” and a “natural born Citizen,” and that the two terms cannot be conflated and confounded as per Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 and Chief Justice John Marshall in Marbury v. Madison, who told us that each clause of the Constitution must be given its own meaning. Judge Masin also reserved decision on the question of whether a “natural born Citizen” must be born to two U.S. citizen parents.
Judge Masin will be contacting counsel today or tomorrow morning either by telephone or email as to his decision, stating “yes” or “no” on both issues. He will then provide his written decision to the Secretary of State no later than Wednesday, April 11, 2012, at 10:00 a.m. Counsel will be able to object to Judge Masin’s initial decision. The Secretary of State will make the final decision. After her decision, the parties can then appeal to the New Jersey Appellate Division and then to the New Jersey Supreme Court. After that, the parties can appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Update:
Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 states: “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.”
New Jersey state statutes (N.J.S.A. 19:23-7 and N.J.S.A. 19:23-15) state that a person must be eligible to run for the office he or she seeks. They make no exception for someone running for the Office of President. N.J.S.A. 19:25-3 provides that a presidential candidate does not have to file his or her consent to be nominated for that office. But the statute does not say that such candidate does not have to show under the previous cited statutes that he or she is eligible for the office sought.
Additionally, the New Jersey Secretary of State instructions on her web site to presidential candidates running in the New Jersey primary tell them they must be “natural born Citizens.”
New Jersey statute N.J.S.A. 19:29-1(b) provides that voters can contest the New Jersey election of any candidate who is not eligible for the office he or she seeks.
Upon my request that she so stipulate, Obama’s lawyer agreed during the trial that there was absolutely no evidence before the court as to who Obama is or where he was born, including excluding from evidence the internet image of Obama’s alleged Certificate of Live Birth he released on April 27, 2011. The ALJ confirmed that to be the case.
Continued . . .
IV of IV
ReplyDeleteYet, in his decision, the ALJ said that because he does not have to consent to his nomination it did not matter who Obama is or where he may be born because he has no legal obligation to show that he is constitutionally eligible to run in the New Jersey primary for the Office of President. During the hearing, ALJ Masin had said that even "Mickey Mouse" could run for President.
Not only did he say that Obama has no legal duty to provide the State of New Jersey with any evidence that he is constitutionally eligible to be placed on the New Jersey primary ballot for election to the Office of President, the ALJ also said: “Thus, accepting for the point of this issue that Mr. Obama was born in Hawaii, he is a ‘natural born Citizen’ regardless of the status of his father.” Initial Decision, p. 7. Dr. Conspiracy, in light of the fact that there was absolutely no evidence before the ALJ as to where Obama was born, must be so embarrassed by the finding of the court that at his blog he tries to tell us that it is not true that the ALJ found Obama to be born in Hawaii. But on the contrary, from the quoted language, we can conclude that the ALJ found that Obama was born in Hawaii and therefore based on that fact alone and with no reference to the citizenship of his parents, found that he is a “natural born Citizen.” But he made the finding that he was born in Hawaii without providing any explanation as to what evidence he relied upon to make such a finding. His Initial Decision is silent as to what evidence he relied upon to find that Obama was born in Hawaii. Also, the ALJ relied strictly upon U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) to rule that Obama, born to an alien father, is a “natural born Citizen.”
On April 12, 2012, Secretary of State, Kimberly M. Guadagno, issued her Final Decision in Nicholas E. Purpura and Theodore T. Moran v. Barack Obama New Jersey Primary Ballot Objection. A copy of her decision may be read here,http://www.scribd.com/puzo1/d/89431332-Final-Decision-of-SOS-in-Purpura-Moran-Ballot-Objection-4-12-12. She concludes without any explanation: “After full consideration of the record and a review of the exceptions filed, I hereby adopt the ALJ’s Initial Decision in its entirety.”
So, in New Jersey, even Mickey Mouse can run for President. The vile Obots consider that as good public policy and as a junior attorney mopping up the floor with me.
I just posted my response to Dave B at Western Free Press:
ReplyDeleteDave B said:
“Would this be the crock-of-crap argument to which HD [HistorianDude] was referring? For crying out loud, Chief Justice Waite [in Minor] had already identified those "doubts"-- they were in regard to "whether or not certain persons or certain classes of persons were part of the people at the time." Those doubts had ALWAYS been based on race or servitude.”
~~~~~
My response:
That is another huge Obot lie. The race card is thrown into the mix only as a red herring.
Minor v. Happersett (1875) raised two doubts. One related to who were the original citizens. Under Dred Scott v. Sanford (1856), this doubt related to condition of servitude at the time of the Founding. Under The Slaughterhouse Cases (1873), the other doubt related to who were citizens under the Fourteenth Amendment and had nothing to do with race or condition of servitude. Under Minor v. Happersett (1875) and U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), neither of these doubts have anything to do with the definition of a natural born citizen.
Virginia Minor was born in the United States to U.S. citizen parents. She was therefore a natural born citizen and therefore ipso facto a citizen under the Fourteenth Amendment. Hence, Minor did not have to resolve the Fourteenth Amendment doubts.
In U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), Wong was born in the United States to alien parents. Thus, he was not a natural born citizen and could not like Virginia Minor establish his citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment by proving he was a natural born citizen. Rather, he could rely only upon the Fourteenth Amendment and not also the natural born citizen clause. Hence, the Wong Kim Ark Court had to resolve the Fourteenth Amendment doubts in order to determine whether Wong was a citizen under the Fourteenth Amendment, which is constitutionally different from demonstrating, as Virginia Minor did, that one is ipso facto a Fourteenth Amendment citizen of the United States from the moment of birth because one is a natural born citizen. In short, there was no doubt that Virginia Minor was a citizen under the Fourteenth Amendment because she was a natural born citizen. Wong was a citizen under the Fourteenth Amendment because, even though not a natural born citizen, he was nevertheless born in the United States while subject to its jurisdiction.
Virginia Minor, was a natural born citizen because she was born in the United States to U.S. citizen parent. Wong, while not a natural born citizen because he was not born in the United States to U.S. citizen parents, was still a Fourteenth Amendment citizen of the United States from the moment of birth.
I just posted my response to Dave B at Western Free Press:
ReplyDeleteDave B said:
“Would this be the crock-of-crap argument to which HD [HistorianDude] was referring? For crying out loud, Chief Justice Waite [in Minor] had already identified those "doubts"-- they were in regard to "whether or not certain persons or certain classes of persons were part of the people at the time." Those doubts had ALWAYS been based on race or servitude.”
~~~~~
My response:
That is another huge Obot lie. The race card is thrown into the mix only as a red herring.
Minor v. Happersett (1875) raised two doubts. One related to who were the original citizens. Under Dred Scott v. Sanford (1856), this doubt related to condition of servitude at the time of the Founding. Under The Slaughterhouse Cases (1873), the other doubt related to who were citizens under the Fourteenth Amendment and had nothing to do with race or condition of servitude. Under Minor v. Happersett (1875) and U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), neither of these doubts have anything to do with the definition of a natural born citizen.
Virginia Minor was born in the United States to U.S. citizen parents. She was therefore a natural born citizen and therefore ipso facto a citizen under the Fourteenth Amendment. Hence, Minor did not have to resolve the Fourteenth Amendment doubts.
In U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), Wong was born in the United States to alien parents. Thus, he was not a natural born citizen and could not like Virginia Minor establish his citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment by proving he was a natural born citizen. Rather, he could rely only upon the Fourteenth Amendment and not also the natural born citizen clause. Hence, the Wong Kim Ark Court had to resolve the Fourteenth Amendment doubts in order to determine whether Wong was a citizen under the Fourteenth Amendment, which is constitutionally different from demonstrating, as Virginia Minor did, that one is ipso facto a Fourteenth Amendment citizen of the United States from the moment of birth because one is a natural born citizen. In short, there was no doubt that Virginia Minor was a citizen under the Fourteenth Amendment because she was a natural born citizen. Wong was a citizen under the Fourteenth Amendment because, even though not a natural born citizen, he was nevertheless born in the United States while subject to its jurisdiction.
Virginia Minor, was a natural born citizen because she was born in the United States to U.S. citizen parent. Wong, while not a natural born citizen because he was not born in the United States to U.S. citizen parents, was still a Fourteenth Amendment citizen of the United States from the moment of birth.
I just posted my response to Dave B at Western Free Press:
ReplyDeleteDave B said:
“Would this be the crock-of-crap argument to which HD [HistorianDude] was referring? For crying out loud, Chief Justice Waite [in Minor] had already identified those "doubts"-- they were in regard to "whether or not certain persons or certain classes of persons were part of the people at the time." Those doubts had ALWAYS been based on race or servitude.”
~~~~~
My response:
That is another huge Obot lie. The race card is thrown into the mix only as a red herring.
Minor v. Happersett (1875) raised two doubts. One related to who were the original citizens. Under Dred Scott v. Sanford (1856), this doubt related to condition of servitude at the time of the Founding. Under The Slaughterhouse Cases (1873), the other doubt related to who were citizens under the Fourteenth Amendment and had nothing to do with race or condition of servitude. Under Minor v. Happersett (1875) and U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), neither of these doubts have anything to do with the definition of a natural born citizen.
Virginia Minor was born in the United States to U.S. citizen parents. She was therefore a natural born citizen and therefore ipso facto a citizen under the Fourteenth Amendment. Hence, Minor did not have to resolve the Fourteenth Amendment doubts.
In U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), Wong was born in the United States to alien parents. Thus, he was not a natural born citizen and could not like Virginia Minor establish his citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment by proving he was a natural born citizen. Rather, he could rely only upon the Fourteenth Amendment and not also the natural born citizen clause. Hence, the Wong Kim Ark Court had to resolve the Fourteenth Amendment doubts in order to determine whether Wong was a citizen under the Fourteenth Amendment, which is constitutionally different from demonstrating, as Virginia Minor did, that one is ipso facto a Fourteenth Amendment citizen of the United States from the moment of birth because one is a natural born citizen. In short, there was no doubt that Virginia Minor was a citizen under the Fourteenth Amendment because she was a natural born citizen. Wong was a citizen under the Fourteenth Amendment because, even though not a natural born citizen, he was nevertheless born in the United States while subject to its jurisdiction.
Virginia Minor, was a natural born citizen because she was born in the United States to U.S. citizen parent. Wong, while not a natural born citizen because he was not born in the United States to U.S. citizen parents, was still a Fourteenth Amendment citizen of the United States from the moment of birth.
I just posted my response to Dave B at Western Free Press:
ReplyDeleteDave B said:
“Would this be the crock-of-crap argument to which HD [HistorianDude] was referring? For crying out loud, Chief Justice Waite [in Minor] had already identified those "doubts"-- they were in regard to "whether or not certain persons or certain classes of persons were part of the people at the time." Those doubts had ALWAYS been based on race or servitude.”
~~~~~
My response:
That is another huge Obot lie. The race card is thrown into the mix only as a red herring.
Minor v. Happersett (1875) raised two doubts. One related to who were the original citizens. Under Dred Scott v. Sanford (1856), this doubt related to condition of servitude at the time of the Founding. Under The Slaughterhouse Cases (1873), the other doubt related to who were citizens under the Fourteenth Amendment and had nothing to do with race or condition of servitude. Under Minor v. Happersett (1875) and U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), neither of these doubts have anything to do with the definition of a natural born citizen.
Virginia Minor was born in the United States to U.S. citizen parents. She was therefore a natural born citizen and therefore ipso facto a citizen under the Fourteenth Amendment. Hence, Minor did not have to resolve the Fourteenth Amendment doubts.
In U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), Wong was born in the United States to alien parents. Thus, he was not a natural born citizen and could not like Virginia Minor establish his citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment by proving he was a natural born citizen. Rather, he could rely only upon the Fourteenth Amendment and not also the natural born citizen clause. Hence, the Wong Kim Ark Court had to resolve the Fourteenth Amendment doubts in order to determine whether Wong was a citizen under the Fourteenth Amendment, which is constitutionally different from demonstrating, as Virginia Minor did, that one is ipso facto a Fourteenth Amendment citizen of the United States from the moment of birth because one is a natural born citizen. In short, there was no doubt that Virginia Minor was a citizen under the Fourteenth Amendment because she was a natural born citizen. Wong was a citizen under the Fourteenth Amendment because, even though not a natural born citizen, he was nevertheless born in the United States while subject to its jurisdiction.
Virginia Minor, was a natural born citizen because she was born in the United States to U.S. citizen parent. Wong, while not a natural born citizen because he was not born in the United States to U.S. citizen parents, was still a Fourteenth Amendment citizen of the United States from the moment of birth.
Separate But Equal (1991)
ReplyDelete1
Mario, in your post you quote Dave B who wrote “… Those doubts had ALWAYS been based on race or servitude.”
You wrote: “That is another huge Obot lie. The race card is thrown into the mix only as a red herring.”
Sometimes the Obots, whom I like to refer to as “natural born Citizen” new meaning neo-birthers because they promote the absurdity that POTUS eligibility allows dual U.S./foreign citizenship, are so incoherent about John Jay's original intent in underlining the word born in “natural born Citizen” and so they assume that the Fourteenth Amendment original intent also was dual U.S./foreign citizenship for POTUS eligibility.
How about some educational entertainment?
Here is a partial transcript of the excellent 1991 movie Separate But Equal, a 1991 movie about the landmark 1953 Supreme Court desegregation case Brown v. Board of Education which held that the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson doctrine of "separate but equal" in education was not constitutional. My observation is that “separate but equal” anything, education or water fountains or restaurants or motels or etc., was NOT the moral original intent of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Sidney Poitier is NAACP attorney Thurgood Marshall, Richard Kiley is Chief Justice Earl Warren, former Governor of California, Burt Lancaster is defense lawyer John W. Davis.
Part 1 – 1h 36m
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjbhxqtbyps
Part 2 – 1h 38m
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l58TMnarEFQ
Viewers of the movie will notice the attempt by the NAACP plaintiff attorneys to find the 1868 original intent of the framers, and also the effort by the defense attorneys to convince the Supreme Court that the “separate but equal” theory was the original intent of the framers because “separate but equal” was a Fourteenth Amendment presupposition as revealed by the fact that the races were separated in the Washington D.C. schools since 1868 (until Brown v. Board of Education in 1953), as defense attorney John Davis mentions in Part 2 @ 18m 55s.
Of course, Chief Justice Earl Warren's “original intent” conclusion (5 paragraphs are below from part 2 @ 1h 30m 05s) in the 1953 Brown v. Board of Education decision had nothing to do with the 1787 “original intent” meaning of “natural born Citizen” in Article II Section 1 Clause 5. I recommend this dramatized account of the rejection of “separate but equal,” 57 years after the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision, to point to the “court of public opinion” aspect in the 1953 search by the NAACP attorneys for the “original intent” of the 1868 Fourteenth Amendment, and that they expected the original intent of the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment would support their position that the Supreme Court's 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson “separate but equal” decision was NOT moral and NOT constitutional*. The one best original intent source they found was Radical Republican abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens—this is his quote in the movie in Part 2 @ 51m 25s related to the equal protection clause in the Fourteenth Amendment:
“Where any state makes distinctions between different classes of individuals, Congress shall have the power to correct such discriminations in inequality. No distinction will be tolerated in this purified Republic but what rose from merit and conduct.”
Separate But Equal (1991)
ReplyDelete2
*My “NOT constitutional” contention is that “separate but equal” was NOT the explicit OR implicit original intent of the “equal protection” clause of the 1868 framers of the Fourteenth Amendment, and ONLY singular U.S. citizenship of ONLY one nation WAS the 1868 Fourteenth Amendment original intent for the 1865 Thirteenth Amendment free Negroes and it WAS implicit in the opening clause of the Fourteenth Amendment: “All persons born...in... .”
So, to make this dramatic movie pertinent to Article II, specifically the use of the “original intent” defense by both the plaintiff and defense attorneys, and also the moral “original intent” conclusion of new Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren who wrote the decision, after the Slaughter-House Cases quote about the purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment,
there are two questions for 2008-2015 “natural born Citizen” new meaning neo-birthers who ignore original birther John Jay and reject his 1787 “natural born Citizen” original genesis original intent of ONLY singular U.S. citizenship of ONLY one nation and so that is their reason to also reject that ONLY singular U.S. citizenship of ONLY one nation was the original intent of John Bingham's 1868 introductory words in the first sentence of Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment, words which were affirmed by the Court in the 1873 Slaughter-Houses Cases*: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States...are citizens of... .”:
*( http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Slaughter-House_Cases/Opinion_of_the_Court )
or ( http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=83&invol=36 )
United States Supreme Court
83 U.S. 36
SLAUGHTER-HOUSE CASES
Error to the Supreme Court of Louisiana
Argued: January 11, 1872; Reargued February 3-5, 1873 – Decided: April 14, 1873
[...snip...]
“The first section of the fourteenth article, to which our attention is more specially invited, opens with a definition of citizenship-not only citizenship of the United States, but citizenship of the States. No such definition was previously found in the Constitution, nor had any attempt been made to define it by act of Congress. ... It had been said by eminent judges that no man was a citizen of the United States, except as he was a citizen of one of the States composing the Union. ... But it had been held by this court, in the celebrated Dred Scott case, only a few years before the outbreak of the civil war, that a man of African descent, whether a slave or not, was not and could not be a citizen of a State or of the United States. This decision, while it met the condemnation of some of the ablest statesmen and constitutional lawyers of the country, had never been overruled; and if it was to be accepted as a constitutional limitation of the right of citizenship, then all the negro race who had recently been made freemen, were still, not only not citizens, but were incapable of becoming so by anything short of an amendment to the Constitution.
“To remove this difficulty primarily, and to establish a clear and comprehensive definition of citizenship which should declare what should constitute citizenship of the United States, and also citizenship of a State, the first clause of the first section was framed.
“ 'All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.' ”
Separate But Equal (1991)
ReplyDelete3
The obvious conclusion of the Slaughter-House Cases language is that the 1865 Thirteenth Amendment free Negroes were 1868 Fourteenth Amendment citizens with ONLY singular U.S. citizenship of ONLY one nation and of ONLY one state, with the common sense implication that future Caucasian and Negro “citizens” would be U.S. citizens only, “citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside”*, ONLY by being born on U.S. soil ONLY to U.S. citizen parents, plural, with the additional implication that if BOTH parents were NOT U.S. citizens the child would be an alien**. Concurrent in 1868 since 1787 was the common law understanding of the unity of citizenship and allegiance of a child when the wife by marriage*** acquired the U.S. citizenship of the husband, AND the singular U.S. citizenship of BOTH parents determined the singular U.S. citizenship of their child, implicitly understood for Caucasians since 1787 and also implicitly understood for both Caucasians and Negroes since 1868.
Q #1 –
Who can NOT go to the Supreme Court asking for protection under the “equal protection” clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?
A –
(1a) Persons who claim POTUS eligibility who were born with dual U.S./foreign citizenship “at birth” by being born on U.S. soil to one OR zero U.S. citizen parents.
(1b) Persons who claim POTUS eligibility were were born with dual U.S./foreign citizenship “at birth” by being born on foreign soil to one OR two U.S. citizen parents.
Q #2 –
Who does NOT need to go to the Supreme Court asking for protection under the “equal protection” clause of Amendment 14?
A –
Persons who claim POTUS eligibility who were born with ONLY singular U.S. citizenship “by birth” and being born on U.S. soil/jurisdiction to two U.S. citizen married parents.
*The COURT in the 1898 U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark decision declared that a child born on U.S. soil WAS a U.S. citizen even when born to two parents who were NOT U.S. citizens. This decision should be corrected by a constitutional amendment and returned to the original intent of the 1868 framers of the Fourteenth Amendment of citizenship being acquired only by birth on U.S. soil only by birth to “two” U.S. citizen parents for POTUS eligibility, and for citizenship being acquired only by birth on U.S. soil only by birth to to “one” U.S. citizen parent and NOT eligible to be POTUS.
**A further implication of the 1868 Fourteenth Amendment language is that POTUS eligibility was determined ONLY by singular U.S. citizenship according to Article II of the 1787 Constitution, so dual U.S./foreign citizenship could NOT be the implicit original intent of framer John Bingham, the author of the first sentence of Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment “All persons born or naturalized... .”.
***Here are two sources about the citizenship rights of women, from 1933 and 1998.
American Citizenship Rights of Women (1933)
( http://loc.gov/law/find/hearings/pdf/0014160126A.pdf )
Prologue Magazine (Summer 1998, Vol. 30, No. 2 )
Women and Naturalization (1802-1940)
Part 1: ( http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1998/summer/women-and-naturalization-1.html )
Part 2: ( http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1998/summer/women-and-naturalization-2.html )
Part 1 @ 39m 20s
Defendant lawyer Josiah C. Tulley/Graham Beckel:
If the court please, the Plessy / Ferguson case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1896 established the principle of separate but equal. Since then, the right of the states to have laws separating the races has been upheld seven times by the Supreme Court. Segregation is legal. There is no reason to cover that ground again.
Separate But Equal (1991)
ReplyDelete4
Part 1 @ 1h 2m 25s
Court Judge #1:
Mr. Tulley, you may make your final argument.
Defendant lawyer Josiah C. Tulley/Graham Beckel:
Your Honor's will remember that the very same Congress that passed the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868 also passed the law that set up segregated schools in Washington, D.C. Since then, seventeen state legislatures have passed laws requiring segregation in public schools. Now, this practice of separate but equal has been repeatedly upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States, … . Segregation is legal in education so long as it's equal.
Part 2 @ 12m 22s
[December 9, 1952, Washington D.C., Supreme Court]
Thurgood Marshall/Sidney Poitier:
[in response to a question from Justice Frankfurter]
What is important is that we get the principle established. Segregation by race is not legal. It is impossible right now to say precisely how it will work.
Part 2 @ 18m
[set in a restaurant]
Robert L. 'Bob' Carter/Cleavon Little:
I think we made a number of points very effectively.
Thurgood Marshall/Sidney Poitier:
The truth is fellas, I wasn't very good.
Thurgood Marshall/Sidney Poitier:
An experienced lawyer is prepared for that. I let myself get bogged down in details. The one thing I wanted to do was find a way to talk about the principle, convince them segregation is morally wrong, that there is no such thing as separate equality.
Part 2 @ 18m 55s
[set in the Supreme Court]
John W. Davis/Burt Lancaster:
Let me come now to what is the crux of this case. That is the meaning and interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Your Honor's have said it is your duty, I quote: To place ourselves as nearly as possible in the condition of the men who framed the instrument. Now what was the condition of those who framed the instrument? I will tell you. The resolution proposing the Fourteenth Amendment was proffered by Congress in June of 1866. One month later the same Congress established separate schools for the races right here in the District of Columbia, and from that good day to this, Congress has not wavered in that policy. So, clearly, the Congress does not believe that the Constitution speaks against segregated schools.
Part 2 @ 32m 30s
[set in the NAACP office]
Thurgood Marshall/Sidney Poitier:
[speaking to Professor Franklin] Do you know what else you're going to be doing? You're going to be working for me. I need the best historians and constitutional scholars. The Supreme Court wants to know what those white men were thinking a hundred years ago when they passed the Fourteenth Amendment.
Part 2 @ 34m 48s
[set in the John W. Davis law office]
John W. Davis/Burt Lancaster:
The research will show that the states were determined to retain the right to shape their schools to fit their particular region. Now the Marshall people will be looking for something specific. Something that shows that Congress intended for the Fourteenth Amendment to prohibit separate schools, and they won't find it.
Part 2 @ 51m 25s
[set in the NAACP office]
Professor Kelly:
This is it!
Professor Kelly:
Thaddeus Stevens. Thaddeus Stevens in the debate on the floor of Congress when the amendment was first presented: [reading from a book]: Where any state makes distinctions between different classes of individuals, Congress shall have the power to correct such discriminations in inequality.
William Coleman/Jeffrey Wright:
[continues reading from the book]: No distinction will be tolerated in this purified Republic but what rose from merit and conduct.
Separate But Equal (1991)
ReplyDelete5
Part 2 @ 1h 4m 15s
[set in Justice Frankfurter's office]
Frankfurter Clerk Mark Baldwin/John Ottavino:
How are you getting on with the new Chief?
Justice Felix Frankfurter/Mike Nussbaum:
I've discovered that he listens, though he is untutored in the law.
Frankfurter Clerk Mark Baldwin/John Ottavino:
Well, it could be argued that's an ideal combination for a Chief Justice; open minded and flexible. Well, I hope you all get down to it. It's not that tough a call, as I see it.
Justice Felix Frankfurter/Mike Nussbaum:
For those who do not have to decide, it is easy. The humanitarian thing to do is to strike down segregation, but nothing presented to us, neither history or legal precedent, offers any help. I think Jackson wants to toss it to Congress. The authority for enforcing the Fourteenth Amendment... [interrupted]
Frankfurter Clerk Mark Baldwin/John Ottavino:
Sir. Sir, if I may, the Negroes are the group for whom the Fourteenth Amendment was written. It's for their protection, and since 1868 everybody else has come to this Court invoking the protection of the Fourteenth Amendment. Corporations and Chinese and aliens and everybody else come in and claim they've been denied equal protection of the laws. They come to the Supreme Court of the United States and you listen to them, and if you find that their rights have been violated, then you take care of them, but when the one group for whose protection the Fourteenth Amendment was written, the Negroes, come in and ask you for relief, Jackson wants you to say, yes, your constitutional rights have been violated, but don't come to us, you go across the street, you ask Congress to give you relief. We're not going to give you a damn thing.
Justice Felix Frankfurter/Mike Nussbaum:
Mark, at Harvard I would have given you an “A” for that.
Part 2 @ 1h 30m 05s
[set in the Supreme Court – the movie transcript below is from three different paragraphs of Chief Justice Warren's actual opinion.
( http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=347&invol=483 )
Chief Justice Earl Warren/Richard Kiley:
In approaching this question, we cannot turn the clock back to 1868 when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, or even to 1896 when Plessy versus Ferguson was written. We must consider public education in the light of its present place in American life. Only in this way can it be determined if segregation in public schools deprives these young plaintiffs of the equal protection of the laws.
We come then to the question presented. Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal education opportunities? We believe, unanimously, that it does.
We conclude that in the field of public education that the doctrine of separate but equal has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore we hold that the plaintiffs similarly situated, for whom the actions have been brought, are by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.
It is so ordered.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Mario, and those who watch the entertaining and educational “Separate But Equal,” I posted many pages of the transcript here ( http://originalbirtherdocument10.blogspot.com/ ) following the “Four Presidencies of the Union” info.
Art
U.S. Constitution: The Original Birther Document of the Union
( http://originalbirtherdocument.blogspot.com/2015/01/time-to-change-natural-born-citizen.html )
I just published this at Cafe Con Leche Republicans:
ReplyDeleteSlartibartfast,
It does not take much to send tingling down your leg.
In my world, drinking clean water is good for you.
In my world, Obama's world-renowned book publicist published to the world for 16 years that Obama was born in Kenya.
In my world, the unanimous U.S. Supreme 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."
Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162, 167-68 (1875).
That my Obot adversary is the unanimous U.S. Supreme Court saying that if one is a natural born citizen, i.e., a child born in the United States to parents who were U.S. citizens at the time of the child’s birth, then one is ipso facto and therefore without any doubt a “citizen,” of the United States, regardless of how the term “citizen” may be defined by the Fourteenth Amendment, Act of Congress, or treaty. This is the U.S. Supreme Court establishing the primacy of the natural born citizen clause over all forms of other citizenships, whether created by the Fourteenth Amendment, Acts of Congress, or treaty.
Oh, and how could I forget that in my world neither de facto President Barack Obama nor Senator Ted Cruz are natural born citizens. Obama is disqualified from that Presidential birth status because, apart from the open issue as to where he was born, he was born to a non-U.S. citizen father. Cruz is disqualified from the status because he was definitely born in Canada and also because he was born to a non-U.S. citizen father. If born in the United States, Obama is only a “citizen” of the United States under the Fourteenth Amendment and not also a natural born citizen under the controlling constitutional common law that defines the clause. Cruz is presumably at best a naturalized “citizen” of the United States “at birth” under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, Section 301(a)(7), which is also not a natural born citizen under that common law.
It surely looks like my world is much different from yours.
Emer de Vattel...
ReplyDeleteMario,
Vattel wrote what he meant and he meant what he wrote: “Les naturels, ou indigenes, sont ceux qui sont nes dans le pays, de parens citoyens.”
The “nbC” new meaning neo-birther who ignores the founders, framers and ratifiers of the U.S. Constitution, including original birther John Jay, New York ratifier, author and original meaning understander of “natural born Citizen,” will always try to defend the incoherent theory that one U.S. citizen parent and dual U.S./foreign citizenship proposition is good 'nuf for government work as POTUS.
Here are two of your quotes to Slartibartfast, aka Kevin/PhD. Mathematician, about “natives, or indigenes” that affirm the common law of singular U.S. citizenship being required for POTUS eligibility:
February 14, 2015 at 4:18 pm:
[...snip...]
Given this nomenclature (“natural born citizen” and not “natural-born subject”) and definition of that clause under post-revolution common law, they (the nomenclature and definition) had to come from natural law and the law of nations and not from the English common law. The extant evidence shows that the Minor Court defined a natural born citizen basically the same as the law of nations did. See Emer de Vattel, The Law of Nations, Section 212 (1758) (first published in French in 1758 and in English in 1759 or 1760, which translation used “natives, or indigenes” and later, to probably acknowledge that Article II’s natural born citizen clause derived its definition from Vattel, in the English translation of 1797 for the first time used “natives, or natural-born citizens” as follows: “The natives, or natural-born citizens are those born in the country of parents who are citizens”).
March 30, 2015 at 5:16 pm #
[...snip...]
5. There is no mistranslation of Vattel. The Framers read The Law of Nations in both French and English. Both the French and English translations said that natives or indigenes were children born in the country to parents who were its citizens. The Framers read Vattel and saw how he defined the natives and indigenes. The Framers approved of the definition, but used a different word when writing the Constitution. The English common law had used the nomenclature natural born subject. They did not want to use the same clause to avoid confusing the public into thinking that they were using the same meaning ascribed to that clause. To show that this special member was to have a different meaning, they used “natural born citizen.” Hence, the Framers called Vattel’s natives or indigenes, “natural born citizens,” and defined a natural born citizen the same way that Vattel defined the natives and indigenes. The anonymous English translator of the 1797 English edition of The Law of Nations knew all this and so he corrected the English translation to reflect that the definition of the Constitution’s “natural born citizen” could be found in Section 212 of The Law of Nations. I do not understand why such a simple scenario is so hard for you, that French lawyer, Lupin, and the rest of the Obots to understand.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Mario, to rebut and refute your position that the framers understood Vattel to mean ONLY singular U.S. citizenship of ONLY one nation as the original meaning of “Les naturels, ou indigenes...” and the English translation of “natural born Citizen,” all that the “nbC” new meaning neo-birthers need to do is adduce contemporaries of Vattel who will affirm that Vattel meant ONLY, or the incoherent ALSO, “dual” citizenship of two or three nations.
That should be simple. Right?
Isn't that right “nbC” new meaning neo-birthers?
Art
U.S. Constitution: The Original Birther Document of the Union
( http://originalbirtherdocument.blogspot.com/ )
I of III
ReplyDeleteI just posted this comment to Café Con Leche:
Slartibartfast,
You should take a lesson from what you preach. You told David Farrar:
“Your reply is idiotic. The Expatriation Act of 1868 is an act of Congress. In other words it is part of the statutory law. The common law consists of judicial rulings, and this is not a judicial ruling. This is the problem with your ‘cargo cult’ understanding of the law. You use the words but you have no idea what they mean.” You go on: “Not only did your comment fail to make your point, but it proved me right since if there was common law expatriation then there wouldn’t be a need for an expatriation act.” Your statement demonstrates your ignorance of what a statute is and does.
First, you, like Frank Arduini a/k/a HistorianDude, believe that common law is created only by judicial rulings. This statement is misleading. It is misleading because it is not only judicial rulings that actually create the common law. Judicial rulings can also simply incorporate or adopt pre-existing law into the common law, for common law is also created by incorporation or adoption of some law into the common law. For example, the English common law incorporated or adopted the law of nations and it became part of the English common law. Another example is after July 4, 1776, most of the new states incorporated or adopted the colonial English common law through state constitutions or reception statutes or both and that common law became the common law of the states. Finally, Article I, Section 8, Clause 10 incorporated or adopted the law of nations into the Constitution. The Article also gives our courts the power to look to the law of nations as an aid in interpreting the Constitution itself. Additionally, the courts can also use the Article as a basis to consider the law of nations as a part of the national common law or as an aid in interpreting and developing national common law. Upon incorporation or adoption, the standards or rules of decision existing in the sending law become the standards and rules of decision also of the receiving law. So while a judicial ruling may be needed to ultimately consider some pre-existing law a part of the common law, that previous law is not necessarily the product of a judicial ruling. So as you can easily see, it is not totally correct to say that common law is made only through judicial rulings. It can also be made by incorporation or adoption of some other law and as our Constitution informs, that other law can be the law of nations. With respect to interpreting the meaning of a natural born citizen, Minor v. Happersett (1875) undoubtedly looked to the law of nations as did the Framers and considered its definition of a natural born citizen as found in Section 212 of Vattel’s The Law of Nations as being part of the common law to which the Framers looked when they drafted and adopted the Constitution. Under the law of nations which was incorporated or adopted into that common law, a natural born citizen is defined as a child born in a country to parents who were its citizens at the time of the child’s birth.
Continued . . .
II of III
ReplyDeleteSecond, you erroneously believe that if there is common law guidance on some matter, then there is no need for a statute to provide that same guidance. This is incorrect. Legislatures many times simply “codify” the law. This means that they pass a statute which simply declares the legal principles already contained in existing common law so that it is easier to know and understand those principles. Such codification also brings uniformity to the law and thereby puts to rest any conflicts which may exist between different common laws. By putting to rest any conflicts between common laws, a statute actually abrogates that common law with which it does not agree and confirms that with which is does agree. A prime example of this is how Congress on the national level and legislatures on the state level codified the common law of crimes into statutory criminal law.
Regarding specifically with expatriation, Congress passed the Expatriation Act of 1868, which confirmed one’s natural right to renounce one’s citizenship. The Act provides that “the right of expatriation is a natural and inherent right of all people, indispensable to the enjoyment of the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness . . . and that any declaration, instruction, opinion, order, or decision of any officers of this government which restricts, impairs, or questions the right of expatriation, is hereby declared inconsistent with the fundamental principles of this government.”
Clearly, Congress declared expatriation, which had long been established in American common law on national citizenship, to be the law of the land. The United States had since the Founding denied the doctrine of perpetual allegiance through its naturalization laws. John Locke, Emer de Vattet, Thomas Jefferson, St. George Tucker, and other jurists and statesmen, had strenuously argued for the right of expatriation. Thomas Jefferson wrote to Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin that "I hold the right of expatriation to be inherent in every man by the laws of nature … the individual may [exercise such right] by any effectual and unequivocal act or declaration." Jefferson expressly inserted the right of expatriation into his citizenship laws of Virginia. The right was recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court in Inglis v. Sailors’ Snug Harbor, 28 U.S. 99 (1830), where the Court explained that John Inglis, upon reaching the age of majority, could have cast off the British citizenship with which he was born and become a citizen of the United States but did not. President Andrew Johnson in his Second Annual Message in December 1866 called on Congress to assert "the principle so long maintained by the executive department that naturalization by one state fully exempts the native-born subject of any other state from the performance of military service under any foreign government.” Daniel Rice (2011). "The 'Uniform Rule' and its exceptions: a history of Congressional naturalization legislation." Ozark Historical Review 40 (2011). In 1873, Attorney-General George Henry Williams wrote that "the affirmation by Congress, that the right of expatriation is 'a natural and inherent right in all people' includes citizens of the United States as well as others, and the executive should give to it that comprehensive effect." In Savorgnan v. United States (1950), the Supreme Court held that a woman who applied for Italian citizenship by virtue of marriage to her husband had voluntarily given up her U.S. citizenship. Justice Burton wrote:
Continued . . .
III of III
ReplyDelete"Traditionally the United States has supported the right of expatriation as a natural and inherent right of all people. Denial, restriction, impairment or questioning of that right was declared by Congress, in 1868, to be inconsistent with the fundamental principles of this Government. From the beginning, one of the most obvious and effective forms of expatriation has been that of naturalization under the laws of another nation. However, due to the common-law prohibition of expatriation without the consent of the sovereign, our courts hesitated to recognize expatriation of our citizens, even by foreign naturalization, without the express consent of our Government. Congress finally gave its consent upon the specific terms stated in the Citizenship Act of 1907 and in its successor, the Nationality Act of 1940. Those Acts are to be read in the light of the declaration of policy favoring freedom of expatriation which stands unrepealed."
He added in a footnote:
"The above language when enacted, was intended to apply especially to immigrants into the United States. It sought to emphasize the natural and inherent right of such people to expatriate themselves from their native nationalities. It sought also to secure for them full recognition of their newly acquired American citizenship. The language is also broad enough to cover, and does cover, the corresponding natural and inherent right of American citizens to expatriate themselves."
The above sources are not meant to be exhaustive on the evidence of our nation having adopted the doctrine of expatriation and that it has been part of our common law since the Founding. With the expatriation act, Congress expressly told the world that the United States was affirming the American common law rule of expatriation that had existed since the Founding and rejecting perpetual allegiance which had long been an essential part of English common law on subjecthood and adopted by the American colonies.
So, as you prophetically advised David and in your own words, “trying to pretend you are smarter and more knowledgeable than you are is dangerous [Slartibartfast]—it leaves you easy prey for con men and grifters. Your “cargo cult” word salad is like blood in the water to a shark. It’s no wonder you got mixed up with the likes of [Obots].”
Good advice...
ReplyDeleteMario, on April 5, 2015 at 11:23 pm on Cafe Con Leche Republicans you wrote to Slartibartfast, aka Kevin, aka Ph.D. Mathematician, aka "natural born Citizen" new meaning neo-birther, aka defender of the Obama birth narrative that ONLY one U.S. citizen parent and ALSO dual U.S./foreign citizenship for the child is good 'nuf for government work as POTUS, to
>> "Go get your head examined."
That is good advice.
After reading your previous comment here on April 4, 2015 at 10:22 PM, which you also posted on Cafe Con, and then reading Ph.D. Mathematician's straw man listing of your comments with his rebuttals, maybe it's a very good thing that "nbC" new meaning neo-birther Slartibartfast decided to never post here on your blog again and now only contends on Cafe Con against your defense of Emer de Vattel and consequently John Jay's "nbC" original meaning, because if he were to post his straw man style of comments here I would be compelled to also respond here to his Obottiness, aka his Obot "natural born Citizen" new meaning neo-birther theory that only one U.S. citizen parent and dual U.S./foreign citizenship was the original genesis original intent of John Jay and George Washington and the framers and ratifiers of Article II Section 1 Clause 5.
Other than Kevin's "natural born Citizen" new meaning neo-birther defense of only one U.S. citizen parent and dual U.S./foreign citizenship is good 'nuf for government work as POTUS, Kevin is perfectly healthy and fit for crunching Ph.D. math numbers for his employer, whoever that is, and all of the "nbC" new meaning neo-birthers are just as intellectually healthy as he is.
One thing is for sure Mario. When the Ph.D. mathematician is not straw manning you and others, he is a voluble writer without being garrulous, he's just wrong about the "nbC" theory that only one U.S. citizen parent and dual U.S./foreign citizenip is good 'nuf for government work as POTUS.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
PS.
Merriam-Webster
Straw Man
>> http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/straw%20man
Full Definition of STRAW MAN
1: a weak or imaginary opposition (as an argument or adversary) set up only to be easily confuted
2: a person set up to serve as a cover for a usually questionable transaction
Art
U.S. Constitution: The Original Birther Document of the Union
( http://originalbirtherdocument.blogspot.com/ )
I of II
ReplyDeleteFrank Arduini, a/k/a HistorianDude argues:
Wong was never naturalized. He was a natural born citizen.
The 14th Amendment is simply declaratory of the law of the land under the Constitutional as originally established.
~~~~~
First, there was no Fourteenth Amendment citizenship clause when the Framers drafted and adopted the Constitution and the natural born citizen clause.
Second, the purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment was to make citizens, not natural born citizens.
Third, the Fourteenth Amendment on its face defines a "citizen" of the United States, not a "natural born citizen" of the United States.
Fourth, the Amendment neither amended nor repealed Article II's natural born citizen clause.
Fifth, Wong Kim Ark, like Minor, said that the Constitution, which already included the Fourteenth Amendment, did not define a natural born citizen.
Sixth, Minor had already established that the Framers defined a natural born citizen under the common law.
Seventh, the Fourteenth Amendment is not the common law nor as interpreted by Wong Kim Ark does it express the prior existing rule of national citizenship. Rather, as held by Wong Kim Ark, it expresses the colonial English common law jus soli rule, with inclusion of permanent domicile and residency, that was adopted in most of the states after July 4, 1776, not the national common law rule of U.S. citizenship, and it abrogated all provisions in any naturalization Act of Congress applicable to determining whether one born in the United States was a citizen of the United States. The abrogation included overruling that part of the Naturalization Act of 1855 which, like that contained in the Naturalization Acts of 1790, 1795, and 1802, treated children born in the United States to alien parents as aliens and in need of naturalization. Its enactment did not abrogate the common law rule that defined a natural born citizen.
Eight, Wong Kim Ark held that Wong was a "citizen" of the United States from the moment of birth by virtue of the Fourteenth Amendment, not by virtue of the common law which defined a natural born citizen.
Continued . . .
II of II
ReplyDeleteNinth, given that Wong did not meet the common law definition of a natural born citizen, the Fourteenth Amendment neither defined an Article II’s natural born citizen nor repeal or amend it definition, and Justice Gray only used the Fourteenth Amendment to find that Wong was a citizen, there is no way that being a citizen under the Fourteenth Amendment without also satisfying the common law definition of a natural born citizen could have made Wong a natural born citizen.
Tenth, if Wong was a natural born citizen, the Wong Kim Ark Court would not have had to go through so much to show that he was a citizen under the Fourteenth Amendment. As Minor had explained, there was never any doubt that one who was a natural born citizen was ipso facto a citizen of the United States. As Minor also explained: “Nothing is more evident than that the greater must include the less, and if all were already protected why go through with the form of amending the Constitution to protect a part?” Minor, at 175. Now, some contend that Justice Gray did not have to amend the Constitution to make Wong a citizen. But he surely had to go through a great struggle, with reasoning which he erroneously based on the colonial English common law rather than on American historical sources and statutory and national common law, to show that Wong was born subject to the jurisdiction of the United States and therefore a citizen under the Fourteenth Amendment. Having to go through such a struggle is on its face evidence that Wong was no natural born citizen.
For the foregoing reasons, it is evident that Wong Kim Ark held that Wong was a “citizen” of the United States from the moment of birth by virtue of the Fourteenth Amendment. It neither held that he was a natural born citizen nor did anything to change Minor’s common law definition of the clause which was and still is a child born in a country to parents who were its citizens at the time of the child’s birth.
I of II
ReplyDeleteThe U.S. Supreme Court in Minor was not asked to decide any factual questions. Who Virginia’s parents were and where she was born would have been factual questions. Rather, the Court was asked only to decide a legal question which is the only question that was decided by the lower court. Minor explained the scope of its task as follows:
The question is presented in this case, whether, since the adoption of the fourteenth amendment, a woman, who is a citizen of the United States and of the State of Missouri, is a voter in that State, notwithstanding the provision of the constitution and laws of the State, which confine the right of suffrage to men alone. We might, perhaps, decide the case upon other grounds, but this question is fairly made. From the opinion we find that it was the only one decided in the court below, and it is the only one which has been argued here. The case was undoubtedly brought to this court for the sole purpose of having that question decided by us, and in view of the evident propriety there is of having it settled, so far as it can be by such a decision, we have concluded to waive all other considerations and proceed at once to its determination.
Minor, at 165.
The lower Missouri court had decided the question of whether a citizen under the Fourteenth Amendment had a right to vote which could not be abridged by a state. There was no issue of fact concerning where Virginia was born or to whom she was born. It answered the legal question presented to it, it ruled that women, even if citizens, did not have any constitutional right to vote which no state could abridge by its state laws. Virginia Minor appealed to the state’s Supreme Court which affirmed. She then brought the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court on a writ of error to the Supreme Court of Missouri. In answering this legal question, which did not involve the Court having to make any determination of any facts, Minor explained how the Framers defined a natural born citizen. It said the following:
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 [p168] 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. The words "all children" are certainly as comprehensive, when used in this connection, as "all persons," and if females are included in the last they must be in the first. That they are included in the last is not denied. In fact the whole argument of the plaintiffs proceeds upon that idea.
Minor, at 167-68.
The Court showed through its definition of a natural born citizen that women were always citizens, even before the Fourteenth Amendment. But even though the Court found that a woman was a citizen, it found that her citizenship did not give her any constitutional right to vote.
Continued . . .
II of II
ReplyDeleteSo, task of the Court was not to get into any factual analysis and question where Virginia Minor was born or to whom she was born. Rather, its function was to analyze the law and develop it given the questions presented to it. The Court demonstrated how women were citizens before the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified. It did that by showing who, at common law, were the original citizens, which it said included women, and by defining a natural born citizen. The Court explained that women were part of the common law’s “all children” just like they were part of the Fourteenth Amendment’s “all persons.” Therefore, women too, as they could be citizens under the Fourteenth Amendment, they could be natural born citizens under the common law. The Court needed to confirm that Virginia Minor was a citizen so that it could address the next question which was whether the right of citizenship carried with it the constitutional right to vote which a state could not abridge. Accepting that Virginia Minor was a woman, but also finding that women could be natural born citizens, the Court then concluded that she was a citizen, although such citizenship did not guarantee anyone a constitutional right to vote which the Court found was not necessarily connected to citizenship. What is controlling about the Minor decision is what is said the law on citizenship was. The decision does not lose any force by the fact that the Court did not inquire into the facts and circumstances of Virginia Minor’s birth, something that would have been done by the lower courts if in dispute. The importance of decisions by courts of appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court is not the factual findings they may affirm or reverse in the cases they decide. Rather, what is important is the law they analyze and develop.
Since the Court’s explanation of who were the citizens and natural born citizens at common law is part of the Court answering the legal questions with which it was presented, it is a holding of the Court and binding on future courts, regardless of what the factual circumstances of Virginia Minor’s birth may have been and which were not in dispute.
I of II
ReplyDeleteThis from Wong Kim Ark:
It thus clearly appears that, by the law of England for the last three centuries, beginning before the settlement of this country and continuing to the present day, aliens, while residing in the dominions possessed by the Crown of England, were within the allegiance, the obedience, the faith or loyalty, the protection, the power, the jurisdiction of the English Sovereign, and therefore every child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject unless the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign State or of an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was born.
III. The same rule was in force in all the English Colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the Constitution as originally established.
Wong Kim Ark, at 658.
~~~~~
Then we have this:
Mr. Binney, in the second edition of a paper on the Alienigenae of the United States, printed in pamphlet at Philadelphia, with a preface bearing his signature and the date of December 1, 1853, said:
The common law principle of allegiance was the law of all the States at the time of the Revolution and at the adoption of the Constitution, and, by that principle, the citizens of the United States are, with the exceptions before mentioned,
(namely, foreign-born children of citizens, under statutes to be presently referred to)
such only as are either born or made so, born within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States or naturalized by the authority of law, either in one of the States before the Constitution or, since that time, by virtue of an act of the Congress of the United States.
P. 20.
The right of citizenship never descends in the legal sense, either by the common law or under the common naturalization acts. It is incident to birth in the country, or it is given personally by statute. The child of an alien, if born in the country, is as much a citizen as the natural born child of a citizen, and by operation of the same principle.[p666]
P. 22, note. This paper, without Mr. Binney's name and with the note in a less complete form and not containing the passage last cited, was published (perhaps from the first edition) in the American Law Register for February, 1854. 2 Amer.Law Reg.193, 203, 204.
Wong Kim Ark, at 665-66
~~~~~
Continued . . .
II of II
ReplyDeleteSo both Justice Gray and Horace Binney told us that the English common law rule prevailed in Great Britain, in the colonies, and then in the states after July 4, 1776. What they both failed to do is demonstrate if and how the national government adopted that state rule for purposes of providing the rules of decision for defining national citizenship. Both Binney and Gray not only do not offer any evidence of such an adoption by the national government, they do not even discuss the issue. They just automatically assume that the English common law rule prevailing in the states became the national rule for national citizenship. But the Constitution set up citizenship of the United States and state citizenship. We know from the historical and legal record that, except for when state citizens became citizens of the United States upon the ratification of the Constitution, the two have never been the same thereafter. Under the Constitution, Congress was given the exclusive power to enact the naturalization laws. With the Naturalization Act of 1790, the state no longer could naturalize anyone. And that Act treated children born in the United States to alien parents as aliens and in need of naturalization. This Act of Congress abrogated any state rule pretending to make citizens of the United States. Even the Fourteenth Amendment established the primacy of national citizenship over state citizenship. Furthermore, the English common law prevailing in the states provided for perpetual allegiance, a concept that was anathema to the Founders and Framers and for their form of national citizenship which included what they considered to be the natural right to expatriation.
This means that the Court in Wong Kim Ark had no basis in history or law to conclude that the English common law ever provided the national rule for defining national citizenship. On the contrary, both Chief Justice Fuller and Justice Harlan in their dissents said that the English common law jus soli rule did not survive the American Revolution on the national level and that the national government with respect to national citizenship chose to be guided by the law of nations. The early naturalization Acts of Congress are also consistent with Minor v. Happersett (1875) explaining that at common law with which the Framers were familiar at the time they drafted and adopted the Constitution, a natural born citizen was defined as a child born in a country to parents who were its citizens at the time of the child’s birth. As can be seen from his quote above, even Binney recognized that a natural born citizen was a child born in the country to citizen parents and that a child born in the country to alien parents could be at best a citizen. Indeed, this was the law of nations rule and it was this rule which guided the nation on the national level as to who were the citizens and the natural born citizens by birth in the country.
I just posted this to Frank Arduini at Western Free Press:
ReplyDelete@HistorianDude @Rambo Ike
You have not acknowledged or addressed my simple explanation of what motivated the 1797 anonymous English translator of Emer de Vattel's The Law of Nations (1758) to insert at Section 212 "natural-born citizen" into his 1797 English edition of that treatise. Rather, you just simply keep repeating:
"It remains impossible for Vattel translation that did not exist until 1797 to influence a Constitution that was written in 1787."
Since you are so steadfast in your opinion, you must have much knowledge on the matter and hopefully you will share that knowledge with us to that we may all arrive to a better understanding of these pressing matters. I therefore pose the following question to you:
In you opinion, why did the 1797 anonymous English translator at Section 212 change "natives, or indigenes," which is how the words were translated from French to English in the previous English editions, to "natives, or natural-born citizens in his 1797 English edition?"
Now, please do not give me some song and a dance. I just want a straight answer from you.
I just posted this to Frank Arduini a/k/a HistorianDude at Western Free Press:
ReplyDeleteI of II
THE 1987 CONSTITUTION OF THE REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES
ARTICLE IV
CITIZENSHIP
Section 1. The following are citizens of the Philippines:
[1] Those who are citizens of the Philippines at the time of the adoption of this Constitution;
[2] Those whose fathers or mothers are citizens of the Philippines;
[3] Those born before January 17, 1973, of Filipino mothers, who elect Philippine citizenship upon reaching the age of majority; and
[4] Those who are naturalized in accordance with law.
Section 2. Natural-born citizens are those who are citizens of the Philippines from birth without having to perform any act to acquire or perfect their Philippine citizenship. Those who elect Philippine citizenship in accordance with paragraph (3), Section 1 hereof shall be deemed natural-born citizens.
Section 3. Philippine citizenship may be lost or reacquired in the manner provided by law.
Section 4. Citizens of the Philippines who marry aliens shall retain their citizenship, unless by their act or omission, they are deemed, under the law, to have renounced it.
Section 5. Dual allegiance of citizens is inimical to the national interest and shall be dealt with by law.
http://www.gov.ph/constitutions/the-1987-constitution-of-the-republic-of-the-philippines/the-1987-constitution-of-the-republic-of-the-philippines-article-iv/
Let me start by saying that the Philippines is a republic. The Philippine constitutional citizenship structure is exactly how Vattel described citizenship in Section 212-217 of The Law of Nations. First, Vattel started by defining who were the citizens. Likewise, from Section 1 of the Philippine Constitution, we have “citizens,” which includes the citizens at the adoption of the Constitution and all others made by some positive law. Note that in the type in Paragraph 2, which is a jus sanguinis type, is included persons whose fathers or mothers are citizens of the Philippines, without any reference to place of birth, for there is no mention of being born in the Philippines here. This type of citizen would include Ted Cruz and maybe President Obama. Cruz would also be a “citizen” under Paragraph 4, since he was naturalized in accordance with law. Also note that this type of citizen is not included in the natural-born citizen class which is dealt with in Section 2.
Vattel in Section 212 then defined the natural born citizens. Well, behold that in the Philippines there is a totally separate category for natural-born citizens in Section 2 of its constitution. This separation of membership confirms the correctness of my argument, which is that there is a constitutional distinction between a “citizen” and a “natural-born citizen.” The Philippines has captured well Vattel’s and the Framers’ dichotomy between the citizens and the natural born citizens. The Philippines defines its natural born citizens as those who are citizens of the Philippines from birth without having to perform any act to acquire or perfect their Philippine citizenship. In other words, the status of a natural born citizen depends upon no positive law.
Continued . . .
II of II
ReplyDeleteThis is consistent with Vattel’s and the U.S. definition of a natural born citizen, provided that Philippine general language includes only those born in the Philippines to Philippine citizen parents. It appears that there are no other persons who can fall into this natural born citizen category because all other citizens fall into Section 1 which is reserved for “citizens.” So, if other persons are “citizens,” they are not natural born citizens, if they fall into the “citizen” class. So, Vattel and Mario Apuzzo are vindicated. Now, if you can show that under Philippine law there are other birth circumstances other than birth in the country to citizen parents which cause one to be a “citizen[] of the Philippines from birth without having to perform any act to acquire or perfect their Philippine citizenship,” then the Philippines would have accepted other birth facts and circumstances and therefore another type of person to its definition of a natural born citizen. But until you can prove that, I stand vindicated. Also, note that the Philippine Constitution denounces dual allegiance. So I cannot imagine what other citizen can possibly be a natural born citizen under the Philippine Constitution.
That the Philippines might extend the status of being a natural born citizen to “[t]hose born before January 17, 1973, of Filipino mothers, who elect Philippine citizenship upon reaching the age of majority” does not change the definition of a natural born citizen, for these other person are only “deemed” to be natural born citizens for some special policy reason. Our First Congress did the same with the short lived liberal Naturalization Act of 1790, which extended retroactively to certain children who were born out of the United States during the American Revolution the status of a natural born citizen. Through Congress’s naturalization powers, Congress declared that children born out of the United States to U.S. citizen parents “shall be considered as natural born citizens.” The Naturalization Act of 1795 repealed this Act and made more rigorous the requirements for being a naturalized citizen, including publicly confirming that those children born out of the United States to U.S. citizen parents were “citizen of the United States,” and not “natural born citizens of the United States.”
Also, the Philippine Constitution denounces dual allegiance.
So, upon a real examination of Philippine citizenship law, we can see that Vattel’s definition of a natural born citizen has also been accepted by the Philippines. See, Draci, what happens if one just reads and understands what one is reading.
The Philippines does not accept the obot definition of a nbc which is born in a country to parents who are not its citizens or born outside the country to a alien and a citizen. I am sure the Romans would've easily understood what a nbc or native is and was. Being born with dual allegiance automatically dqs you from being a nbc and is inimical to the national interest in Philippine Constitution. My wife immediately understood that the children of Chinese born in the Philippines would not be natives of the phils. The obots claim that the child of Chinese citizen parents born in the us would be us natives which is a joke. The Founders only wanted natives or nbcs to be CiC after adoption
ReplyDeleteI just posted this at Western Free Press:
ReplyDelete@LeoDerosia @apuzzo2009 @HistorianDude @Dave B.
Obots Drac Dude and Barber Dave laugh at Vattel's universal definition of a natural born citizen, i.e., a child born in a country to parents who were its citizens at the time of the child's birth. They are such Obot zombies that they even refuse to acknowledge the simplicity and universality of Vattel’s definition. There is no denying that how Vattel defined a natural born citizen makes one a natural born citizen in all nations of the world. No nation denies it citizenship to a person born in its territory or jurisdiction to its own citizens. What rights those citizens have is a totally different story. Where nations differ is in what other facts and circumstances they accept as creating citizenship in their nation. These other citizens are all made by the positive laws of the nation, which go into the specific facts and circumstances to be met in order to acquire that other type of citizenship.
The United States is a unique nation in that our Constitutions, unlike that of the Philippines, requires the President not only to be a citizen, but also a natural born citizen. Under the common law, which drew from the fountain of the law of nations for its national citizenship principles, and which is what Minor v. Happersett (1875) said the Framers looked to for their definition of a natural born citizen when they drafted and adopted the Constitution, a natural born citizen was a child born in a country to parents who were its citizens at the time of the child’s birth. Accord Emer de Vattel, The Law of Nations, Section 212 (1758) (1797) (“The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens.”). The nation has ever since the ratification of the Constitution adopted more citizens through its positive laws, including the Fourteenth Amendment, Acts of Congress, or treaties. But all persons acquiring their citizenship under these positive laws and not also under the Framers’ common law definition of a natural born citizen have been and continue to be citizens, but not also natural born citizens. The Philippine Constitution brilliantly makes this point, that there are citizens made by positive law and there are natural born citizen made simply by being born under facts and circumstances which make one more than just a citizen as defined by positive law. The Philippine Constitution also denounces dual allegiance with which a natural born citizen is never born under the law of the nation in which he or she is born. The Framers followed the same doctrine.
Again, we come full circle to the basic premise that all natural born citizens are citizens, but not all citizens are natural born citizens. Natural born citizens are only those persons who are born in the country to parents who were its citizens at the time of the child’s birth. Citizens are those persons given that status either at birth or after birth who were not born under the facts and circumstances which make one a natural born citizen.
This blog is full of interesting Trees, but from time to time, we need to look at the Forest.
ReplyDeleteRegardless of all these details, the OBOT position does not even make sense. It has no historical or theoretical basis and it is woefully incompatible with a rule that is meant to be exclusive rather than inclusive.
Their assertions stem 100% from post facto trying to justify that The Obama is eligible. If it were not for The Obama, there would be no issue and no discussion, and no continued attempts to pound square pegs into round holes.
Sorry to be so rude - but that is the essence of things.
Carlyle,
ReplyDeleteThe universe is built of many little things.
Constitutionally Speaking...
ReplyDeleteThere are over 300 million people in the United States. At some point, due to over population, it may became necessary to limit persons born with U.S. citizenship to only the natural born citizens.[1] If needed the following actions could be taken to fulfill such a requirement:
• Congressional Statute could be enacted and the first sentence of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment could be repealed to prevent naturalized born citizens[2] from acquiring U.S. citizenship at birth.
[1] natural born Citizen
A natural born Citizen is a person whose citizenship to a Nation at birth is not subject to a legal act.
Example:
I was born in the United States to parents both of whom were citizens of the United States. My U.S. citizenship at birth was not subject to an Act of Congress or the first sentence of the 14th Amendment.
[2] Naturalized born citizen
A Naturalized born citizen is a person who becomes a citizen of a Nation at birth by fulfilling a legal act.
Example:
1. Ted Cruz was born outside of the United States to a U.S. citizen mother and a non U.S. citizen father. Cruz acquired U.S. citizenship at birth by fulfilling the rules of a Naturalization Act. If Congress had not enacted these rules then Cruz would not have been born a citizen of the United States.
2. Wong Kim Ark was born in the United States to domiciled non U.S. citizen parents. Ark acquired U.S. citizenship at birth by fulfilling the first sentence of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment. If the 14th Amendment had never been ratified then Ark would not have been born a citizen of the United States.
Cruz's situation is very complex. Since his father was Cuban we could argue that Cruz's primary citizenship is Cuban. And that perhaps even if his father had become a Canadian by then. His birth in Canada apparently made him a Canadian; and provided his mother was still a US citizen, also a citizen of the USA! Strictly speaking Cruz had at one time the possibility of three different citizenships. It is quite a stretch then to imagine him a natural born citizen. Natural in what sense?
ReplyDeleteChildren are quite conservative and really feel strongly attached to where they grow up. And to their parents, siblings, friends, schools, etc. Also to their native language. Now why would a natural born citizen have greater loyalty to that nation in which he was born and grew up? And would having a father or mother who was a citizen of another nation not cut somewhat the feeling for his home country? These things seem obvious; and if the quality we are seeking is loyalty then of course natural born is superior to any other set of birth circumstances. But for someone with the contemporary idea of liberal this is very conservative indeed. Liberal means to turn a blind eye on tradition and do what one pleases even if it involves a bit of fraud and deception.
Progress. Change you can believe in? Not sure what that last sentence means. I am sure the survivors of Katrina had no trouble believing in the change in New Orleans, or the peoples of Iraq the change in their country brought about by the advent of Democracy!
I see Cruz as a spoil sport; likewise Obama. Three balls is enough for a walk?
Clarity in the Philippine Constitution
ReplyDeleteor
Singular Citizenship vs. Dual Citizenship
Mario,
On April 10, 2015 at 8:01 AM, in the last sentence of the penultimate paragraph you wrote:
>> "The Philippine Constitution
>> also denounces dual allegiance
>> with which a natural born citizen
>> is never born under the law of the nation in which he or she is born.
>> The Framers followed the same doctrine.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
So...
Obama, Cruz, Rubio, Jindal, Haley, etc., ARE eligible to be U.S. President according to the defenders of the Obama birth narrative O-bots and the defenders of the Cruz birth narrative C-bots and their "nbC" new meaning neo-birther interpretation of Article II section1 clause 5, which is the incoherent birth to only one U.S. citizen parent with the child having dual U.S./foreign citizenship makes a person eligible to be POTUS, but according to the Philippine Constitution, the equivalent candidates in the Philippines of Obama and Cruz would NOT be eligible to be the Philippine President.
Yep, original birther John Jay would agree with the original intent of the Philippine constitution and singular citizenship.
Jay's "original genesis original intent" for underlining the word "born" in "natural born Citizen" in his July 25, 1787 note to George Washington, intent which was in agreement with Emer de Vattel, could be ONLY singular U.S. citizenship of ONLY one nation ONLY by birth on U.S. soil ONLY to two U.S. citizen married parents. Jay would NOT give his name to the incongruence and incoherence of dual U.S./foreign citizenship in 1787 ONLY four years after 1783 and the signing of the Treaty of Paris that officially ended the war of independence from England when some people were considering having an American king.
Art
U.S. Constitution: The Original Birther Document of the Union
( http://originalbirtherdocument.blogspot.com/ )
Redux:
ReplyDeleteClarity in the Philippine Constitution
or
Singular Citizenship vs. Dual Citizenship
Mario,
The Philippine Constitution is very clear in many ways, especially about the restrictions for Senators and Representatives being limited to natural born citizens of the Philippines.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Article IV - Citizenship
SECTION 2.
Natural-born citizens are those who are citizens of the Philippines from birth without having to perform any act to acquire or perfect their Philippine citizenship. Those who elect Philippine citizenship in accordance with paragraph (3), Section 1 hereof shall be deemed natural-born citizens.
SECTION 5.
Dual allegiance of citizens is inimical to the national interest and shall be dealt with by law.
ARTICLE VI
The Legislative Department
SECTION 3.
No person shall be a Senator unless he is a natural-born citizen of the Philippines, and, on the day of the election, is at least thirty-five years of age, able to read and write, a registered voter, and a resident of the Philippines for not less than two years immediately preceding the day of the election.
SECTION 6.
No person shall be a Member of the House of Representatives unless he is a natural-born citizen of the Philippines and, on the day of the election, is at least twenty-five years of age, able to read and write, and, except the party-list representatives, a registered voter in the district in which he shall be elected, and a resident thereof for a period of not less than one year immediately preceding the day of the election.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Hmmm...maybe...an idea whose time has come is an Article V convention of states to propose an amendment to the Constitution.
The U.S. Constitution could be strengthened to protect the American Federal Government from being infiltrated by foreign agents, political AND/OR religious foreign agents, aided and abetted by U.S. citizen agents of influence, by limiting eligibility to the U.S. Federation offices of President, Senate and House of Representatives to ONLY natural born citizens of the United States, persons with ONLY singular U.S. citizenship of ONLY one nation ONLY by birth on U.S. soil/jurisdiction ONLY to two U.S. citizen married parents.
Art
U.S. Constitution: The Original Birther Document of the Union
( http://originalbirtherdocument.blogspot.com/ )
I am back and still disturbed; the Progressive Agenda Messaging has now been solidified in the general publics mind because they have successfully changed the minds of even the learned scholars of our day to espouse their message. Either Cruz and Rubio are Progressives in Republican clothes or true Liberal RINOs in the Republican Party. Cruz should be well aware of the law, since all our Common Laws are derived from our Constitution and having served a Clerk of the Court under Justice Thomas at SCOTUS and knows that he is in fact ineligible for POTUS yet for some self serving reason he is now eligible in his mind. Rubio on the other hand has put his self serving pandering ahead of this legal back ground. As I have said listen not to what one says, but pay careful attention to what they do!
ReplyDeleteThe United States is a unique nation in that our Constitutions requires anyone today wanting to be President to be a “natural born citizen” of the United States. That means that being a “citizen” of the United States, even from the moment of birth, whether it is under the Fourteenth Amendment or naturalization Act of Congress, is not sufficient. Rather, one must be a “natural born citizen” as that clause was defined by the Framers when they drafted and adopted the Constitution. The Framers used the natural born citizen clause to assure the best they could that future Presidents and Commanders in Chief of the Military be born with allegiance, faith, and love only for the United States and thereby not be born subject to any foreign power.
ReplyDeleteUnder the common law, which drew from the fountain of the law of nations for its national citizenship principles, and which is what Minor v. Happersett (1875) said the Framers looked to for their definition of a natural born citizen when they drafted and adopted the Constitution, a natural born citizen was a child born in a country to parents who were its citizens at the time of the child’s birth. Minor v. Happersett (1875). See Emer de Vattel, The Law of Nations, Section 212 (1758) (1797) (“The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens.”); accord U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) (held that a Fourteenth Amendment citizen “at birth” includes a child born in the United States to permanently domiciled and resident alien parents who are neither foreign diplomats nor military invaders and confirmed Minor’s definition that a natural born citizen is a child born in a country to parents who were its citizens at the time of the child’s birth).
De facto President Barack Obama, Senator Ted Cruz, and Senator Marco Rubio were all not born in the United States to two U.S. citizen parents. Obama may have been born in the United States to a U.S. citizen mother, but he was born to a non-U.S. citizen father. Cruz may have been born to a U.S. citizen mother, but he was born in Canada to a non-U.S. citizen father. Rubio may have been born in the United States, but he was born to two non-U.S. citizen parents. None of them were born with sole allegiance to the United States. They were all born subject to a foreign power. None of them are therefore Article II natural born citizens.
Simple Questions...
ReplyDelete1/
Mario,
Here are simple constitutional intent questions for Democratic and Republican "natural born Citizen" new meaning neo-birthers, including BIG Talkers on radio and tv, and online BIG Bloggers, who are soooooooooo very concerned about the integrity of the U.S. Constitution, except for the Article II eligibility issue for some opaque reason:
Article II - Section 1 - clause 5
No Person except a natural born Citizen,..., shall be eligible to the Office of President;...."
Amendment XII - clause 2 - entire last sentence
"But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States"
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Article II was adopted on September 17, 1787, ratified first by Delaware on December 7, 1787 and ratified on June 21, 1788 by New Hampshire, the ninth state, officially establishing the Constitution. On July 26, 1788, New York was the eleventh state to ratify, and on September 13, 1788 the Continental Congress put the new Constitution into operation. North Carolina ratified on November 21, 1789 and Rhode Island, the thirteenth state, ratified on May 29, 1790. Almost seventeen years after September 17, 1787, Amendment XII was ratified on June 15, 1804.
Why are the dates important? In seventeen years, the September 17, 1787 original meaning of "natural born Citizen" was EITHER still the same original meaning on June 15, 1804 OR it was NOT.
So, if a caller is able to break through the call screen filters to talk about POTUS eligibility with the radio BIG Talkers, here are a few hypothetical questions for radio BIG Talkers Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, Dana Loesch and et al., whoever "et al." may be since there are soooooooooo many "et al." BIG Talkers and wanna be BIG Talkers:
Caller on the radio to Sean Hannity:
Sean, because you claim Ronald Reagan as a political guiding light, what do you think Reagan as President may have said about the original intent of Article II and Amendment XII in the context of POTUS eligibility? Since Amendment XII was ratified almost seventeen years after Article II was adopted, do you think that Pres. Reagan would say that "no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President" in Amendment XII would mean the same thing as "No person except a natural born Citizen...shall be eligible to the Office of President" in Article II?
Sean:
Before I answer I need to ask, are you a Joseph Farah fanatic and WND.com reader, and how did you get passed the call screener? Well, since you made it on the radio, it is an easy question with an easy answer: Yes, Pres. Reagan would probably agree that they mean the same thing today in 2015 as they both meant in 1787 and 1804.
Guest on the radio to Mark Levin:
Mark, what do you think Reagan as President may have said that both statements meant in 1787 and 1804? Do you think that Pres. Reagan would say that a "natural born Citizen" would have ONLY singular U.S. citizenship of ONLY one nation ONLY by being born on U.S. soil/jurisdiction ONLY to two U.S. citizen married parents?
Mark:
Get off my phone you big dope! Mr. Screener, how did this Constitution fanatic get through?
Guest on the radio to Glenn Beck:
Glenn, since the truth lives on your radio and tv programs and does not have an agenda, what do you think Reagan as President may have said that both statements meant in 1787 and 1804? Would Pres. Reagan say that the original intent in 1787 was singular U.S. citizenship of only one nation by being born on U.S. soil to two U.S. citizen married parents,
Simple Questions...
ReplyDelete2/
but that the original intent seventeen years later in 1804 was dual U.S./foreign citizenship by being born on U.S. soil/jurisdiction to only one U.S. citizen parent, and that EITHER singular U.S. citizenship OR dual U.S./foreign citizenship was A-OK for POTUS eligibility?
Glenn:
How did you get passed the call screener? Are you a Sheriff Joe Arpaio fanatic as well as a Joseph Farah and WND.com fanatic?
Guest on the radio to Rush Limbaugh:
Rush, since excellence in broadcasting is your theme, what do you think Reagan as President may have said that both statements meant in 1787 and 1804? Would he say that Sen. Rand Paul is a "natural born Citizen" since he was born with singular U.S. citizenship of only one nation by being born on U.S. soil/jurisdiction to two U.S. citizen married parents, and that Sen. Marco Rubio was ALSO an "nbC" even though he was born on U.S. soil to two married parents were were NOT U.S. citizens?
Rush:
Click. What the...? Snerdly, how did this Constitution fanatic make it passed you?
Guest on the radio with Laura Ingraham:
Laura, since you were a law clerk for Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas and you know the U.S. Constitution, what do you think Reagan as President may have said that both statements meant in 1787 and 1804? Would he say that Carly Fiorina is a "natural born Citizen" since she was born with singular U.S. citizenship of only one nation by being born on U.S. soil/jurisdiction to two U.S. citizen married parents, and that Sen. Ted Cruz was ALSO an "nbC" even though he was born on foreign soil that was NOT U.S. jurisdiction and born to one U.S. citizen parent married to a non-U.S. citizen?
Laura:
Click. Another Constitution fanatic, sheesh. I'm just trying to defeat ObamaCare and Obama's economic nonsense, so I can,t be bothered about the POTUS eligibility issue, pun intended, of any person.
Guest on the radio with Dana Loesch:
Dana, you obviously know the U.S. Constitution, especially the Second Amendment, so what do you think Reagan as President may have said that both statements mean in 1787 and 1804? Since the Second Amendment was intended to be perpetually “necessary to the security of a free State,” do you think that Reagan would say that Article II and Amendment XII were intended to be perpetual too, and, unless amended, they would both mean the same thing in 2008-2015 as they meant in 1787 and 1804, which is that POTUS eligibility required ONLY singular U.S. citizenship of ONLY one nation ONLY by birth on U.S. soil/jurisdiction ONLY to two U.S. citizen married parents.
Dana:
Reagan would probably say that the original intent of the Second Amendment was perpetual defense against tyranny, and that both Article II and Amendment XII were perpetual defense against foreign agents usurping control and command of our tripartite Federation, Congress, Executive and Judiciary.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Well, Mario, one question remains:
When will the radio and tv BIG Talkers define and defend ALL of the Constitution, not just Article I or Article V or Amendment XIV, and start defending the original intent of "natural born Citizen" in Article II and Amendment XII as having the original meaning of ONLY singular U.S. citizenship ONLY by birth to two U.S. citizen married parents? When? With the 2008-2015 track record of the radio and tv BIG Talkers, probably not until the day that the competing ideologies that promote political tyranny and political/religious tyranny are defeated on the same day, which will most likely happen on the day that snowballs melt in the fires of hades.
Art
U.S. Constitution: The Original Birther Document of the Union
( http://originalbirtherdocument.blogspot.com/ )
Chief Justice Waite did not say children of aliens and permanent residents are not natural born citizens so according to the obots we can assume they are. Cruz actually might be a 14th amendment citizen of the US if his parents gave up their Cuban citizenship before he was born.
ReplyDeleteLeo,
ReplyDeleteBeing born out of the United States, Cruz surely cannot be a "born citizen" under the Fourteenth Amendment, not to be conflated and blended and therefore confused with a "natural born citizen" as defined under the common law upon which Minor v. Happersett (1875) explained the Framers relied for their definition of a natural born citizen (defining the clause as a child born in a country to parents who were its citizens at the time of the child's birth).
But telling us what he cannot be does not tell us what he might be. More on his later.
Here is the favorite Obot argument on who is a natural born citizen: The Constitution recognizes only two classes of citizens: natural born and naturalized. By definition, citizenship gained automatically at birth can only be natural born.
ReplyDeleteThis is an old Obot trick, trying to bootstrap a person to be a natural born citizen. The Obots first argue that there are only two types of citizens under the Constitution, a natural born citizen and a naturalized citizen. Then they give us their definition of what is a naturalized citizen. Once that definition is given, they then conclude that if a person is not naturalized under that definition, that person cannot be anything but a natural born citizen. But the Obot argument is fallacious, for we do not get to being a natural born citizen by manipulating the definition of "naturalized" citizen.
First, the Constitution only lists two types of memberships in the United States, one is that of a "citizen" and the other is that of a "natural born citizen." The Constitution does not qualify the word "citizen" with the adjective "naturalized."
Second, on the definition of naturalized, there is naturalization as defined by the Constitution and naturalization as defined by Act of Congress. The former, which is the supreme law of the land, is broader than the latter, with the Constitution considering all those who are not natural born citizens to be naturalized.
Third, the Fourteenth Amendment neither repealed nor amended Article II's natural born citizen clause and its meaning under the common law. Nor does that Amendment define the clause.
Fourth, Acts of Congress do not and cannot amend the Constitution generally or Article II's natural born citizen clause specifically, as defined under the applicable common law.
Fifth, under the applicable common law, only those who are born in the country to parents who were citizens at the time of the child's birth are natural born citizens. Minor v. Happersett (1875). That means that under the Constitution and common law, anyone who is not born under those birth facts and circumstances is naturalized, even though the Fourteenth Amendment or Act of Congress may by such positive laws adopt that person as a "citizen" of the United States "at birth" and again by statute (not by Constitution) deem such citizenship at birth not to be naturalization.
This means that any person who is a "born citizen" under either the Fourteenth Amendment or Act of Congress, who is not born in the United States to parents who were both U.S. citizens at the time of the child's birth, is a "born citizen," but not a "natural born citizen."
This also means that all natural born citizens are born citizens, but not all born citizens are natural born citizens.
Using set theory language, the natural born citizens is a proper subset of the born citizens.
Perpetual Original Meaning...
ReplyDelete1/
Mario,
In reading your three posts of two parts each on April 8, 2015 at 12:58 PM about the Fourteenth Amendment, April 8, 2015 at 6:37 PM about Virginia Minor and April 8, 2015 at 9:31 PM about Wong Kim Ark, something became clear to me that clarifies the perpetual original intent of Article II, the Twelfth Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Fourteenth Amendment - List 1-10 - April 8, 2015 at 12:58 PM
[...snip...]
“Fifth, Wong Kim Ark, like Minor, said that the Constitution, which already included the Fourteenth Amendment, did not define a natural born citizen.“
[...snip...]
“Eight, Wong Kim Ark held that Wong was a "citizen" of the United States from the moment of birth by virtue of the Fourteenth Amendment, not by virtue of the common law which defined a natural born citizen.“
Minor v. Happersett - April 8, 2015 at 6:37 PM
[...snip...]
“The Court showed through its definition of a natural born citizen that women were always citizens, even before the Fourteenth Amendment. But even though the Court found that a woman was a citizen, it found that her citizenship did not give her any constitutional right to vote.“
U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark - April 8, 2015 at 9:31 PM
[...snip...]
“As can be seen from his quote above, even Binney recognized that a natural born citizen was a child born in the country to citizen parents and that a child born in the country to alien parents could be at best a citizen. Indeed, this was the law of nations rule and it was this rule which guided the nation on the national level as to who were the citizens and the natural born citizens by birth in the country.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
This is what became clearer after considering the original intent of Article II, the Twelfth Amendment, the Fourteenth Amendment and the holdings of the 1875 Minor v. Happersett Court and the 1898 U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark Court.
The 1868 Fourteenth Amendment language in the first sentence of Section 1, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States...are citizens...,” which John Bingham, the main author of Section 1, intended first for the 1865 Thirteenth Amendment free Negroes of the Union, north and south, had ONLY one original intent for the free Negroes of the Union: ONLY singular U.S. citizenship of ONLY one nation, America. PERIOD! It is common sense obvious that John Bingham and the other framers of the 1868 Fourteenth Amendment did NOT intend for the “All persons born....” free Negroes of the Reconstruction Union to have dual U.S./foreign citizenship, just as John Jay, author of “natural born Citizen,” George Washington, President of the 1787 Constitutional Convention and the framers of Article II, did NOT intend for the 1787 “WE the People...more perfect Union....” citizens to have dual U.S./English citizenship.
So, to put the obviousness of the 1787 Article II, the 1868 Fourteenth Amendment, the 1875 Minor v. Happersett Court and the 1898 U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark Court in the context of the eligibility issue of 2008-2016, a quick look first at the language of the 1787 Article II and the 1804 Amendment XII will clarify original intent from another angle.
Article II - Section 1 - clause 5
“No Person except a natural born Citizen...shall be eligible to the Office of President...."
Amendment XII - clause 2 - entire last sentence
"But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States"
Article II was adopted on September 17, 1787. Almost seventeen years later, Amendment XII was ratified on June 15, 1804.
Perpetual Original Meaning...
ReplyDelete2/
With that being said, what would be the original meaning of “natural born Citizen” in Article II and “constitutionally ineligible” in Amendment XII in the context of POTUS eligibility from 1787/1804 to 2016? Would the original meaning be singular U.S. citizenship OR dual U.S./English (foreign) citizenship? Well, since Amendment XII was ratified less than seventeen years after Article II was adopted, "But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President" in Amendment XII would probably mean the SAME thing as "No person except a natural born Citizen...shall be eligible to the Office of President" in Article II: ONLY singular U.S. citizenship–ONLY one nation (America)—ONLY by birth to two U.S. citizen married parents—ONLY birth on U.S. soil.
Sen. Rand Paul IS eligible to be POTUS according to Article II, Amendment XII and the 1875 Minor v. Happersett Court since he is a "natural born Citizen" by being born with singular U.S. citizenship of only one nation (America) by being born on U.S. soil/jurisdiction to two U.S. citizen married parents.
Carly Fiorina IS eligible to be POTUS according to Article II, Amendment XII and the 1875 Minor v. Happersett Court since she is a “natural born Citizen” by being born with singular citizenship of only one nation (America) to two U.S. citizen married parents.
Sen. Ted Cruz is NOT eligible to be POTUS according to Article II, Amendment XII and the 1875 Minor v. Happersett Court because he was born to ONLY one U.S. citizen parent married to a non-U.S. citizen, and because he was born on foreign soil that was NOT under U.S. jurisdiction. However, according to the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act, the statute under which he was born, Sen. Cruz is a “citizen” of the U.S. by birth to one U.S. citizen parent.
Sen. Marco Rubio is NOT eligible to be POTUS according to Article II, Amendment XII and the 1875 Minor v. Happersett Court, even though he was born on U.S. soil, because his parents were NOT U.S. citizens. However, according to the 1898 U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark Court, Sen. Rubio is a “citizen” of the U.S. by birth on U.S. soil even though he was born to parents who were NOT U.S. citizens.
Sen. Rand Paul, Carly Fiorina and Virginia Minor have ONLY singular U.S. citizenship.
The 1785 Minor v. Happersett Court, in tacitly referring to the 1787 Article II, said that Virginia Minor was a U.S. “citizen” because she was a “natural born Citizen” by birth to two U.S. citizen married parents. The Court did NOT use the 1868 Fourteenth Amendment to declare Virginia Minor a “citizen” OR a “natural born Citizen.”
Sen. Ted Cruz, Sen. Marco Rubio and Wong Kim Ark have dual U.S./foreign citizenship.
The 1898 U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark Court, in explicitly saying that Wong Kim Ark was ONLY a “citizen,” did not tacitly refer to the 1787 Article II, but it did explicitly refer to the 1868 Fourteenth Amendment, because, even though Wong Kim Ark was born on U.S. soil, he was born with dual U.S./foreign citizenship, NOT singular U.S. citizenship by being born to two U.S. citizen parents, as originally intended by John Bingham and the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment, for the children and the children's children of the 1865 Thirteenth Amendment free Negroes.
Art
U.S. Constitution: The Original Birther Document of the Union
( http://originalbirtherdocument.blogspot.com/ )
My bad about cruz being a 14th citizen, I meant to say rubio. Addicting info had a article taking cheap shots at the birthers saying rubio was not eligible. There were a lot of brain dead comments from people there so I hope you chime in mario.
ReplyDeleteI know art is a fan of cruz but it must be obvious by now that cruz is not a patriot because if he was he would say he is not eligible and either is the current disgrace in white house.If Cruz was honest he would suggest amending article 2 to say a citizen is eligible as well as imo candidates passing a background check for the public to see.
ReplyDeleteThe founding fathers didn't need it in writing what a natural born citizen is. Its obvious. No man made law can create one. If your father is not a US Citizen, you are a citizen of his nation, you cannot be a natural born citizen of this one. The founders understood this. The wife becomes a citizen of the husbands nation, two become one, this is the essence of a marriage. Natural law does not recognize dual citizenship, man made law does.
ReplyDeleteWhen you write a law, its to make a man made directive. If it was a natural law, you don't need a man made law. Natural born citizenship is that simple.
I just posted this at Western Free Press:
ReplyDelete@HistorianDude @LeoDerosia @apuzzo2009 @GerryNance
You said:
"The entire act [the Naturalization Act of 1790] was massively rewritten in 1795. The change to the wording was perhaps the most trivial change, and it does not make the fact of the 1790 act disappear.
The Framers themselves believed that Congress could create natural born citizens by statute in a naturalization act. Because that is exactly what they did."
This is a bunch of manufactured hogwash. The Naturalization Act of 1790 was not only "massively rewritten" by the Third Congress. Rather, that Congress repealed it in its entirety. Five years and radical ideas coming out of Europe demonstrated to then-Representative James Madison, President George Washington, and the Congress that they would have to make U.S. citizenship a little harder to obtain and to make sure that adopted citizens were truly attached to the new republic, its Constitution, and its republican principles.
With Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 saying that in the future being a citizen of the United States was not sufficient to be eligible for the Office of President and that only a natural born citizen would do, the change by the James Madison led Congress, with the approval of President George Washington, in 1795 from "shall be considered as natural born citizens" to "shall be considered as citizens of the United States" was huge in informing the public that the First Congress did not mean to imply that a child born out of the United States to U.S. citizen parents was eligible to be President.
In any event, the Naturalization Act of 1790 was just that, a naturalization act, and only meant to convey when it said "shall be considered as" natural born citizens (clearly recognizing that there were natural born citizens created by some other means), that children born out of the United Stated to U.S. citizen parents were to enjoy all the privileges, immunities, and rights as enjoyed by those other natural born citizens, which because of Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 could not include the privilege of being elected President.
Furthermore, the Constitution in matters of citizenship gave to Congress only the power to establish a uniform rule of naturalization. Extending this power to its maximum, it did not include the power to make natural born citizens, for the naturalization laws simply do not reach them as objects other than to confirm who they are by not acting upon them. With the Third Congress and President Washington knowing this, they confirmed their knowledge by making the change in language from natural born citizen to citizen of the United States.
Finally, no one today can benefit from the Naturalization Act of 1790, for its was repealed by the 1795 Act and its framework and "natural born citizen" language were never again used by any subsequent Congress.
Hence, it is simply a sham for Senator Ted Cruz or anyone on his behalf to argue that the 1790 Naturalization Act confirms that he is a natural born citizen.
Response to me from HistorianDude:
ReplyDeleteBlah, blah, blah… all that mind reading and hand waving, but no actual evidence from Mario.
The 1790 Act is the only statute in the history of the United States that has ever bothered to use the phrase “natural born citizen.” It was also passed by a Congress overwhelmingly populated by Framers (to include James Madison) and signed by the President of the Constitutional Convention himself, George Washington. They believed (as proved by the act’s passage and signing) that Congress had the power to make natural born citizens by statue, and to do so in a naturalization act. We know they believed it, because that is exactly what they did.
There is no other document, source, correspondence, record or “emanation” that offers a more explicit understanding of what the Framers believed the power of Congress to be on this specific issue, and regarding this specific Constitution term; “natural born citizen.”
The Constitution gives Congress the power, “To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.” Lacking an explicit Constitutional proscription otherwise, Congress has vast powers “in matters of citizenship.” They also, as the source of all Federal statutory law, have the legal power to augment, extend, amend or supersede the common law any time they wish.
No one is pretending to benefit from the 1790 law. We are simply using that law for what it is; the only evidence we have of the Framer’s original intent regarding Congressional power to define natural born citizenship.
~~~~~
My reply to HistorianDude:
Blah, blah, blah… all that mind reading and hand waving, but no actual evidence from Frank.
That the Naturalization Act of 1790 was passed and that it used “shall be considered as natural born citizens” does not prove your point.
That it was passed does not mean that Congress believed it had the power to “make natural born citizens by statute,” a ridiculous argument given that natural born citizens are not made by statute just like man and his natural children are not made by statute.
Congress through a naturalization act did not make a natural born citizen. Congress only set up a statutory scheme whereby those children born out of the United States to U.S. citizen parents would have the same privileges, immunities, and rights as the natural born citizens, except the privilege of being elected President.
The necessary and proper clause is not a clause which gives Congress powers which the Constitution itself does not give to it. If that were the case, there would not be any limit to Congress’s powers which is totally contrary to the whole notion of the Constitution which created a national government of limited powers.
There is no issue that Congress can generally abrogate the common law. It cannot abrogate that common law if that common law defines a constitution principle like the natural born citizen clause, for to do so would be to amend the Constitution without constitutional amendment.
Congress only has the powers which the Constitution gives to it. It does not take on powers because the Constitution does not say it does not have those powers. Whatever powers the Constitution does not give to Congress are retained by the states and the people.
I agree that the early naturalization acts are evidence of the Framers’ intent on how they defined a natural born citizen. But that realization helps me, not you. As I have argued over the years, the acts, which were passed by members of Congress many of whom were Founders and Framers, show that the Framers and Congress defined a natural born citizen as a child born in the country to parents who were both U.S. citizens at the time of the child’s birth.
Clarity vs Blah Blah Blah
ReplyDeleteMario,
Your two part reply on April 16, 2015 at 3:27 PM and 5:51 PM to HistorianDude/aka Frank: "Blah, blah, blah ... but no actual evidence from Frank" is right on the money.
Frank and other "natural born Citizen" new meaning neo-birthers who promote the one U.S. citizen parent theory can not use the 1790 Naturalization Act OR the 1795 Naturalization Act to defend the one U.S. citizen parent theory, whether or not the child is born on U.S. soil as Obama claims he was OR foreign soil as Cruz was OR U.S. soil to two non-U.S. citizen parents as Rubio was.
Both the 1790 and the 1795 Acts suggest ONLY singular U.S. citizenship for a child born on foreign soil to two U.S. married parents. The 1790 Act called the child a "natural born citizen," the 1795 Act called the child a "citizen," and both Acts explicitly refer to "parents," plural, suggesting that BOTH parents have ONLY U.S. citizenship. So, BOTH parents having ONLY U.S. citizenship means that the child born on foreign soil in 1790 and 1795 to two U.S. citizen married parents has ONLY singular U.S. citizenship.
The obvious conclusion is, as you wrote: "...the First Congress did not mean to imply that a child born out of the United States to U.S. citizen parents was eligible to be President." Also, the Third Congress also did not mean to imply that a child born on foreign soil was eligible to be POTUS when it changed the “natural born Citizen” language to “citizen.”
The language of both the 1790 and 1795 Naturalization Acts means that the 1787 Article II "natural born Citizen" language could ONLY mean that ONLY singular U.S. citizenship derived by birth to two U.S. citizen married parents was original birther John Jay's "original genesis original intent" for underlining the word "born" in "natural born Citizen" in his note to George Washington which was codified in Article II.
Fast forward to 2015:
The 1787 John Jay and Article II meaning of "natural born Citizen" as ONLY singular U.S. citizenship by birth to two U.S. citizen parents ONLY on U.S. soil/jurisdiction is supported by the "parents," plural" language of both the 1790 and 1795 Naturalization Acts, which means that both Obama and Cruz are not Article II natural born citizens since they were NOT born with ONLY singular U.S. citizenship by being born ONLY on U.S. soil/jurisdiction ONLY to two U.S. citizen married parents.
That is why the 2008-2015 new meaning neo-birthers ahistorical theory that "natural born Citizen" means dual U.S./foreign citizenship by being born on either U.S. OR foreign soil to ONLY one U.S. citizen parent is nonsense, mere incongruent and incoherent blah blah blah "dual citizenship" nonsense that is not supported by the language of Article II and the 1790 and 1795 Naturalization Acts, or ANY immigration/naturalization statutes since then.
Art
U.S. Constitution: The Original Birther Document of the Union
( http://originalbirtherdocument.blogspot.com/ )
Part I of II
ReplyDeleteFrom Western Free Press:
HistorianDude said to me:
You know, repeating my posts back to me word for word are going to make some people think I must be smarter than you are, and that you parrot me because you are unable to come up with an original rejoinder. Of course, they would be right. That said...
Show me where the Constitution prohibits Congress from augmenting the common law definition of natural born citizen. If it is not prohibited, then it is allowed.
Let's lovingly consider this profoundly stupid assertion of yours; "The necessary and proper clause is not a clause which gives Congress powers which the Constitution itself does not give to it."
We'll ignore the tautology for now.
No, it gives Congress powers which the Constitution itself does not give explicitly to it but are required to implement the letter and spirit of the document. The Framers were fully aware that a Constitution was merely a framework, and that Congress would need broad latitude to turn it into a comprehensive system of law. So, the Framers gave them that latitude.
The necessary and proper clause also does not deny Congress the powers that the Constitution does not deny them. And the Constitution does not prohibit them from the ancient power of statutory law to augment, extend, revise and supersede common law.
Congress can not only abrogate the common law, it can completely replace it. Across the entire history of the common law, statute has had that prerogative. To the extent that the Constitution enshrines some aspect of the common law as an explicit Constitutional imperative (and in truth, that would be descriptive of most of the Constitution) it is no longer common law; it is Constitutional law.
The Constitution does not define natural born citizen, and so has enshrined no specific definition of of natural born citizen into Constitutional law. And let us not forget that prior to the framing the definition of natural born citizen/subject already had both a common law and a statutory component. Parliament had long before extended the common law definition to include the children of British subjects born abroad. The 1790 Naturalization Act was to that extent merely a replication of the rules as the Framers had known them since birth.
Again, the 1790 Act proves that the Framers believed Congress did have the power to create natural born citizens by statute. Because that is exactly what they did.
Your final paragraph is merely a descent back into blinkered delusion. Too bad.
~~~~~
Continued . . .
II of II
ReplyDeleteMy response:
It is basic constitutional law that the national government of the United States is one of limited powers which are given to it by the Constitution and that constitutionally, it cannot take what the Constitution does not give to it expressly or by reasonable implication. The powers of Congress are carefully listed in Article I, Section 1 says “[a]ll legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in Congress of the United States. . .” The only instance in the Constitution wherein Congress is given any power over citizenship is in Section 8, Clause 4 where it is given the power to “establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization” and in Article II, Section 2 wherein the Senate is given a say over the treating making power of the President in that the proposed treaty needs the consent of two thirds of the Senator present on a vote. It is self-evident that a power to naturalize does not include a power to make on a natural born citizen, which principle would be as much an oxymoron as a dead life in the literal sense. It is exactly to ward off people like you who use the Constitution for whatever purpose suits you that the Ninth Amendment was passed. That Amendment provides: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” So, Frank, if the Constitution does not give a power to Congress, that power, if not prohibited by it to the States, is reserved to the states or to the people. The power to define a natural born citizen any differently than it is currently defined is not given to Congress. Rather, it is reserved to the people who can act on that power by amending the constitutional definition of the clause if they so desire.
The necessary and proper clause gives Congress the power to make laws in furtherance of the powers that it has. It cannot be used to given Congress a power it does not have. I have shown that Congress does not have the power to define a natural born citizen. Congress does not gain a power to define a natural born citizen under the “spirit of the Constitution” argument, because the only spirit exiting is one of naturalization. Hence, the clause does not help you.
Again do not repeat your straw man argument that Congress has the power to abrogate the common law. Again, Congress cannot abrogate a common law rule that is part of the supreme law of the land, which as Minor v. Happersett (1875) explained the definition of a natural born citizen is just that. Such a common law definition is, indeed, constitutional law. Congress simply amending such constitutional common law rule or simply constitutional law with a statue would be amending the Constitution without constitutional amendment.
Finally, what Congress did with the Naturalization Acts of 1790 and 1795 and with acts thereafter speaks for itself. Your spin on what it did does not change what it did which is well documented. Simply stated, Congress through a naturalization act went from equating to the constitutional limit that it could a child born out of the United States to U.S. citizen parents to a natural born citizen, and then to a citizen of the United States, and never again used natural born citizen in any of its naturalization acts. The only way you can defeat those simple facts is to simply make believe that the 1790 is not a naturalization act, that Congress did not say “shall be considered as,” and that the 1795 Act never existed and repealed the 1790 Act, which is what Laurence H. Tribe, Theodore B. Olson, Neil Katyal, and Paul Clement have done in their works.
Continued . . .
You refused to address my last paragraph which said: I agree that the early naturalization acts are evidence of the Framers’ intent on how they defined a natural born citizen. But that realization helps me, not you. As I have argued over the years, the acts, which were passed by members of Congress many of whom were Founders and Framers, show that the Framers and Congress defined a natural born citizen as a child born in the country to parents who were both U.S. citizens at the time of the child’s birth. To your dismay, this paragraph is perfectly correct.
ReplyDeleteI think frank arduini is jealous of mario for some reason. He likes to debate mario and declares himself the winner as well as being much smarter. You do not have to be smart to have wisdom and a wise man will follow biblical principles of honesty and humility. I think if you are not honest and humble then you are not very smart even if you have a high iq.
ReplyDeleteI just posted this comment at Western Free Press to Frank Arduini, a/k/a Historian Dude
ReplyDelete@HistorianDude
I see that you work as hard and creatively as Justice Gray did in Wong Kim Ark to convince us that the English common law had anything to do with defining national U.S. citizenship.
But there is no need to fret. Emer de Vattel in Section 212 of The Law of Nations (1758) (1797) defined "natives, or natural-born citizens" (exactly so written in the 1797 English translation) as "those born in the country, of parents who are citizens.” The unanimous U.S. Supreme Court in Minor v. Happersett (1875) defined "natives, or natural-born citizens" (exactly so written in the Court's opinion), as "all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens."
Checkmate, Dude.
Frank Arduini keeps trying at Western Free Press.
ReplyDeleteFrank Arduini:
Further regarding Apuzzo's dependence on a secret new meaning for "natural born citizen" in the Constitution, Justice Antonin Scalia had this to say in the case District of Columbia v. Heller:
"In interpreting this text, we are guided by the principle that “[t]he Constitution was written to be understood by the voters; its words and phrases were used in their normal and ordinary as distinguished from technical meaning.” United States v. Sprague, 282 U.S. 716, 731 (1931) ; see also Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 188 (1824). Normal meaning may of course include an idiomatic meaning, but it excludes secret or technical meanings that would not have been known to ordinary citizens in the founding generation."
Mario Apuzzo:
@HistorianDude
Contrary to you bald-faced lie, I do not rely upon any "secret new meaning” for natural born citizen.
The clause "natural born citizen" existed in English translations of ancient Latin text pertaining to the citizenship of ancient Rome. Scholars and historians who studied Roman citizenship law would have known how such citizenship was defined by Roman law.
Natural born citizen was defined by the law of nations and American common law which incorporated its citizenship principles and which both separated and defined both "citizen" and "natural born citizen."
Natural born citizen was not defined by the English common law which did not separate its "subjects" from its "natural born subjects" and define them separately from one another.
The anonymous English translator 10 years following the adoption of the Constitution, replaced "natives, or indigenes" with "natives, or natural-born citizens" in Vattel's Section 212. See The Law of Nations (1797). Clearly, he had to have gotten his impetus to do that from the Framers' understanding and that of the public as made publicly known during the 10 years following the adoption of the Constitution.
Chief Justice John Marshall in the Venus (1804), Justice Daniel in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), the unanimous U.S. Supreme Court in Minor v. Happersett (1875), and both the majority and dissent in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) understood what a natural born citizen was. They all defined one as a child born in a country to parents who were its citizens at the time of the child's birth.
Hence, there are no "secret or technical meanings that would not have been known to ordinary citizens in the founding generation" of the natural born citizen clause.
On the other hand, to ascribe to a natural born citizen the meaning that an English natural born subject had under the English common law, when there does not exist any evidence that that is what the Framers and founding generation did, would surely be to give to the natural born citizen clause a secret or technical meaning that would not have been known to ordinary citizens in the founding generation.
You have been and remain in Checkmate Dude.
36 years...
ReplyDeleteMario,
What a difference 36 years makes.
In 1979 the Hartford Courant had an article about Republican Sen. Lowell Weicker. It looks like he was clear about "natural born Citizen" requiring two U.S citizen married parents, but not so sure about birth on foreign soil to two U.S. citizen parents.
BirtherReport.com has the 1979 newspaper picture of Sen. Weiker's eligibility doubts, "Weicker Wants Eligibility Test."
>> http://www.birtherreport.com/2015/04/headliner-april-19.html
In paragraph one Sen. Weicker wants someone to challenge his eligibility to be POTUS.
In paragraph two, the journalist wrote, "...The U.S. Constitution says only a natural born Citizen' may become president and it isn't clear whether an American citizen born abroad is eligible."
In paragraph three Sen. Weicker expects a court challenge to his POTUS eligibility.
In paragraph four Sen. Weicker admits that it is possible that he could be embarrassed if he is found to be not eligible to be POUTS.
In paragraph five Sen. Weicker accuses the Republican Party of being more concerned about philosophy (aka the original meaning of "natural born Citizen") than about winning an election, and adds that winning is being in touch with reality and people while philosophy (aka being a "natural born Citizen") is NOT being in touch with reality.
In paragraph six Sen. Weicker says that a president is preferable to a pope, implying that being good and doing good is not being in touch with reality and people, while winning an election (aka whatever it takes, even cheating) is being in touch with reality.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Fast forward 36 years from 1979 to 2015/16:
The Republican Party is more concerned about winning than it is about philosophy (speaking the historical truth about the original intent meaning of "natural born Citizen").
The Republican Party does NOT want a court challenge to the eligibility of any person, Democrat OR Republican, and prefers the "theory" of ONLY one U.S. citizen parent and the child with dual U.S./foreign citizenship being eligible to be POTUS if that is what it takes to win the presidency.
Sen. Cruz definitely does NOT want a court challenge, because, as Sen. Weicker suggested, if being born on foreign soil to "TWO" U.S. citizen parents makes POTUS eligibility iffy, well, being born on foreign soil to ONLY "ONE" U.S. citizen parent is definitely iffy too.
Sen. Rubio definitely does NOT want a court challenge, because as Sen Weicker suggested, if his own birth on foreign soil to "TWO" U.S. citizen parents is iffy, well the conclusion today in 2015 is that being born on U.S. soil to "ZERO" U.S. citizen parent is definitely iffy too.
So, that leaves Carly Fiorina, Gov. Scott Walker, Sen. Rand Paul, Dr. Ben Carson, etc., all "natural born Citizens" because they have
-- ONLY citizenship of one nation
-- ONLY birth on U.S. soil/jurisdiction
-- ONLY singular U.S. citizenship
-- ONLY birth to two U.S. citizen married parents.
Art
U.S. Constitution: The Original Birther Document of the Union
( http://originalbirtherdocument.blogspot.com/ )
Original Intent...
ReplyDelete1/
Mario,
Yesterday BirtherReport.com had a post titled "Regent University Law Review: Obama Article II Usurpation Should Not Be Ignored Or Dismissed!?"* with a link to the Regent University blog of Prof. Pryor**.
* http://www.birtherreport.com/2015/04/regent-university-law-review-obama.html
** http://pryorthoughts.blogspot.com/2015/03/ted-cruz-cant-be-president.html
"John Jones published a scholarly paper in the Regent University Law Review on the Article II "natural born Citizen" requirement controversy. Regent University Law Professor C. Scott Pryor highlighted the paper in a recent blog post also taking a swipe at the recent Harvard Law Review propaganda piece on the Article II requirement.
"Jones laid out the case that the founders relied on Vattel's writings for defining "natural born Citizen" noting:...."
You might want to look at Professor Pryor's blog* to read the comment by "Kevin Davidson" who closes his comment with a Dr. Conspiracy type of swagger, the bravado of a person who believes the incoherent theory of birth to one U.S. citizen parent with the child having dual U.S./foreign citizenship makes the child eligible to be POTUS:
"I agree with Mr. Jones, that birthers have muddied the waters and sown confusion on the question of presidential eligibility; however, I do not see that the works of Mr. Jones can be distinguished from the birthers in any way, and I am one of the nation's foremost experts on birthers."
Mario, Kevin's comment is just waiting for your clarifying historical info.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
I posted a comment late last night after the time listed for Kevin Davidson's post, but before Kevin's comment was approved this morning, so my comment does not relate to Kevin's insinuations about the historical relevance of Emer de Vattel.
My comment has not been approved yet, if ever. This is what I wrote on Prof. Pryor's blog.
Original Intent...
Professor Pryor,
Since this is the first time I have posted here on your blog, I will keep this very short. I usually post long comments at Mario Apuzzo's Natural Born Citizen blog ( http://puzo1.blogspot.com/2015/03/a-response-to-neil-katyal-and-paul.html ), but I have a few comments that I will bounce off of your quote:
"Just what does "natural-born citizen" mean? Born anywhere in the world to American citizens? Of course. Born in America to non-citizens? Seems so. But might there be more to the constitutional phrase than the obvious? And would the Framers of the Constitution have intended to convey the "more"?"
Original Intent...
ReplyDelete2/
>> "Just what does "natural-born citizen" mean?
John Jay had only one meaning when he underlined the word "born" in "natural born Citizen" in his July 25, 1787 note to George Washington. Jay meant ONLY singular U.S. citizenship, ONLY one nation, ONLY U.S. soil/jurisdiction, ONLY birth to two U.S. citizen married parents. Jay obviously did NOT mean dual U.S/English (foreign) citizenship only four years after the 1783 Treaty of Paris that ended the war of independence from England.
>> "Born anywhere in the world to American citizens? Of course."
Under the 1790 Naturalization Act, yes, of course.
When born on foreign soil to U.S. citizen parents the child is identified in the 1790 naturalization statute as a "natural born Citizen" but obviously NOT eligible to be POTUS.
Under the 1795 Naturalization Act and ALL subsequent statutes and acts of Congress, no, of course.
When born on foreign soil to U.S. citizen parents the child is identified in the 1795 naturalization statute as a "citizen" and also, obviously, still NOT eligible to be POTUS.
>> "Born in America to non-citizens? Seems so. "
No, NOT a "natural born Citizen," only a "citizen" if born in America to non-citizens, according to the 1868 Fourteenth Amendment as interpreted by the 1898 U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark Court which held that Wong Kim Ark, born on U.S. soil to two non-U.S. citizens parents, was a "citizen" and NOT a "natural born Citizen."
Also, definitely NOT under the Fourteenth Amendment with the original intent of John Bingham, the main author of the first sentence of Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States...," language which was designed primarily for the 1865 Thirteenth Amendment free Negroes to be "citizens" with ONLY singular U.S. citizenship of ONLY one nation, America, not dual U.S./foreign citizenship, and so not eligible to be POTUS.
>> "But might there be more to the constitutional phrase than the obvious?"
What is "more" than the obvious if the obvious is the original intent?
>> "And would the Framers of the Constitution have intended to convey the "more"?"
Since the original intent is the original intent, what is "more" than the original intent that negates the original intent?
Maybe this brief comment will inspire others at Regent University School of Law to become informed about original birther John Jay and his original genesis original intent for underlining the word "born" in "natural born Citizen" in his note to his friend George Washington.
Of course, we are probably on the same side of the ideological divide in America, even if we may disagree about the original meaning of "natural born Citizen." I am simply presenting a view that is different from the 2008-2015 "natural born Citizen" new meaning neo-birthers, whom some call Obots or Cruzbots, who posit the theory that a child born to only one U.S. citizen parent with the child having dual U.S/foreign citizenship means that the child is eligible to be POTUS.
Art
U.S. Constitution: The Original Birther Document of the Union
( http://originalbirtherdocument.blogspot.com/ )
Sheesh...
ReplyDeleteMario,
Bryan Gene Olson/aka NotLinda and Kevin/aka Slartibartfast sure do write a whole lotta time wastin' nuthin' against you over at CafeConLecheRepublicans. First Kevin, now Bryan is suggesting that he may no longer post there, which will free up a lot of your time. If the two "natural born Citizen" new meaning neo-birthers are gonna quit insulting you with multi-syllabic words, maybe your last comment to Kevin/Slartibartfast about "natural born Citizen" being a proper subset of "born citizen" should be preserved here on your own blog for future historians.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
April 20, 2015 at 6:17 am
Slartibartfast,
"Bryan Gene Olson was very clear numerous times in each one of his statements which I have cited and quoted with time stamp that he was comparing the natural born citizens with the born citizens. In each one of his statements he correctly said that the natural born citizens is a proper subset of the born citizens. The statements stand for themselves. You and Mr. Olson are free to after the fact comment upon what his intent may allegedly have been, but neither of your commentaries changes the plain words that are contained in his correct statements.
"In any event, Mr. Olson should be proud of what he wrote because it is true that all natural born citizens are born citizens, but not all born citizens are natural born citizens. The natural born citizens are only those born in the country to parents who were its citizens at the time of the child’s birth. All born citizens who are not natural born citizens are citizens under either the Fourteenth Amendment (for those born in the United States to one or two alien parents) or naturalization Act of Congress (for those born out of the United States to one or two U.S. citizen parents). This means that one can be a born citizen under either the Fourteenth Amendment or Act of Congress and not also be a natural born citizen. The simple reason for that is that the Fourteenth Amendment and Acts of Congress making one a born citizen provide for a different standard than does a natural born citizen. A Fourteenth Amendment born citizen, while born in the United States, could be missing birth to two U.S. citizen parents. An Act of Congress born citizen is born out of the United States and also could be born to just one rather than two U.S. citizen parents.
"So, you see what Mr. Olson stated in his statements is correct. The natural born citizens is a proper subset of the born citizens. So there is no need to fret.
Posted by Mario Apuzzo, Esq.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
If all "born citizens" are eligible to be POTUS as the 2008-2015 "nbC" new meaning neo-birther theory claims, original birthers John Jay, George Washington and ALL of the 1787 Article II language framers wasted their time claiming that ONLY a "natural born Citizen" could be eligible to be POTUS, at least until the last of the "...or a Citizen of the United States at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution..." died sometime in the mid to late 1800s. They would simply have said that ALSO dual U.S./foreign citizenship by birth to one OR zero U.S. citizen parents on either U.S. soil OR foreign soil was equal to ONLY singular U.S. citizenship by birth to two U.S. citizen married parents only on U.S. soil.
Simple, huh?
See how easy it is to be a "natural born Citizen" new meaning neo-birther in 2015 America? EVERYBODY is eligible no matter where they are born, and if a child is born on U.S. soil to ZERO U.S. citizen parents like Sen. Rubio, Gov. Jindal and Gov. Haley, BINGO, they are extra special because ONLY U.S. soil is more important than the U.S. citizenship status of the parents, and they can be POTUS too.
Art
U.S. Constitution: The Original Birther Document of the Union
( http://originalbirtherdocument.blogspot.com/ )
The scrub of the USCIS site has begun. The Your gov't and you study guide and answer keys until today said that you had to be born in the United States to be President. As of today it now says you have to be a native-born citizen...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/files/Government_and_You_handouts.pdf
The scrub of the USCIS site has begun. The Your gov't and you study guide and answer keys until today said that you had to be born in the United States to be President. As of today it now says you have to be a native-born citizen...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/files/Government_and_You_handouts.pdf
Peter Lettkeman,
ReplyDeleteI put that url into google and retrieved the original document from google cache.
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ReplyDeleteSlartibartfast is posting repeatedly:
On April 19th, 2015 at 2:43pm, Mario said [at Café Con Leche Republicans]:
“The author of the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause, Senator Jacob Howard said, ‘This amendment which I have offered is simply declaratory of what I regard as the law of the land already, that every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States.’”
Thus reputed attorney Apuzzo admits that the 14th Amendment did not change the existing law, being merely declaratory of what was already the law since the ratification of the Constitution. Therefore it did not create the third class of “citizen at birth” on which Mario’s house of cards depends and President Obama, a citizen under the 14th Amendment declaration of the law under the Constitution as originally written, is a natural born citizen.
In other words, Senator Howard, the Framer of the 14th Amendment, says that President Obama (who you admit is a citizen under that 14th Amendment) is a US citizen by virtue of natural law and national law. There is simply no other way to interpret his statement and “born a citizen by virtue of natural law” and a “natural born citizen” seem an awful lot like the same thing to me.
~~~~~
Slartibartfast repeatedly posts this same statement, arguing that since I quoted Senator Howard, I have shown that my positon on the meaning of an Article II “natural born citizen” is incorrect and that therefore de facto President Obama, presumably born in the United States to a U.S. citizen mother, but to a non-U.S. citizen father, is an Article II natural born citizen.
What is nice about Slartibartfast's little game is that it has backfired upon him. Apart that Senator Howard only explained that persons satisfying the Fourteenth Amendment without more were "citizens of the United States" and did not say they were "natural born citizens," and that it was only his opinion as to what the law of the land was which he said was merely confirmed by the Fourteenth Amendment, I have shown Slartibartfast that there is a conflict between to what source Senator Howard looked to define the Fourteenth Amendment's "born . . . in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" and to what source Justice Gray in Wong Kim Ark looked in making that determination. As to what that source was which provided the meaning of "subject to the jurisdiction thereof," Howard said it was "natural law and national law." But Justice Gray in Wong Kim Ark said it was colonial English common law. I also explained to Slartibartfast that the Constitution did not adopt the English common law as national law and that no English or American court, not even Wong Kim Ark, ever referred to the English common law as "natural law" or "national law." Therefore, Howard could not have had the English common law in mind when he made his statement and he surely could have mentioned the English common law if it was that law upon which he was relying to inform what the law of the land was which he said the Fourteenth Amendment was merely confirming. I asked him to reconcile the contradiction or in default thereof to pick whether Howard or Gray was correct. I even explained to Slartibartfast that I believed that Howard was correct, for our nation since its Founding, in matters of citizenship, adopted the law of nations into our national common law to define our national citizenship (not to be conflated or blended and therefore confused with state citizenship), and that the law of
Continued
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ReplyDeletenations is natural law applied to the affairs of nations and was accepted by the Founders and Framers as "national law" or national common law. He has not been able to shake off the Howard-Gray contradiction nor has he chosen who of the two, Howard and natural law and national law as the source or Gray and colonial English common law as the source, is correct. Hence, he is stuck in the know-nothing hole he has created for himself.
So, it is useless for Slartibartfast to repeat me quoting Senator Howard as somehow showing that I have conceded anything which runs against my position as to what are the classes of persons in the world in reference to membership, or citizenship in the United States. These persons are: (1) a "natural born citizen" of the United States, who national common law defines as a child born or reputed born in the United States to parents who were both U.S. citizens (citizens or natural born citizens) at the time of the child's birth; (2) a "citizen" of the United States "at birth," who the Fourteenth Amendment and naturalization Act of Congress (8 U.S.C. Sec. 1401(a) define as a person born in the United States and "subject to the jurisdiction thereof," and who other naturalization Acts of Congress defines as a person born out of the United States to one or two U.S. citizen parents; (3) a "citizen" of the United States "after birth," who is neither born in the United States nor born to at least one U.S. citizen parent, by virtue of satisfying the requirements of naturalization Acts of Congress or treaties; and (4) an alien, who is neither born in the United States nor born to at least one U.S. citizen parent, and who is not able to demonstrate that he or she satisfies the citizenship requirements of national common law, the Fourteenth Amendment, Acts of Congress, or treaties, and who is therefore not a member of the United States, but can be a resident thereof by satisfying the requirements of naturalization Acts of Congress or in default thereof, not only an alien but also a non-resident of the United States.
It is also silly for Slartibartfast to think that he can come to the rescue of Bryan Gene Olson and erase his concession contained in quotes that I have reproduced, which logically and mathematically follows from my position as stated above, in which Mr. Olson agrees with me that, therefore, the natural born citizens is a proper subset not only of the citizens, but also of the citizens "at birth."
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ReplyDelete“This amendment which I have offered is simply declaratory of what I regard as the law of the land already, that every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States.” Senator Howard referring to the Fourteenth Amendment citizenship sentence.
Senator Howard did not state what the facts and circumstance were which in his opinion made one born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof. In interpreting the Fourteenth Amendment, The Slaughterhouse Cases (1873) stated that a child born in the United States to alien parents was not a citizen of the United States under the Amendment. With that statement, the Court could only be saying that a “citizen” of the United States by birth in the country under the Fourteenth Amendment was a child born in the United States to parents who were both U.S. citizens at the time of the child’s birth. This was the definition of a natural born citizen as confirmed by the unanimous U.S. Supreme Court in Minor v. Happersett (1875) just 2 years later. Hence, if according to the U.S. Supreme Court both a natural born citizen and a Fourteenth Amendment “citizen” of the United States at birth had to satisfy the same standard, i.e., born in the United States to two U.S. citizen parents, one born a citizen under the natural law and national law to which Senator Howard referred was, indeed, a natural born citizen and ipso facto a citizen of the United States under the Fourteenth Amendment, with the latter nomenclature being what Senator Howard used in his statement given that that is the style used by the Fourteenth Amendment to which he was referring. So, under natural law and national law which became national common law, the only person who became a citizen by birth in the country was a child born in the country to parents who were citizens, who was called a natural born citizen. That natural born citizen was also ipso facto a citizen of the United States under the Fourteenth Amendment. All the rest of the people had to be naturalized by Acts of Congress or treaties in order to be admitted to membership in the United States which was called “citizen” of the United States. This interpretation is also consistent with the early naturalization Acts of Congress (1790, 1795, 1802, and 1855), which all treated children born in the United States to alien parents as alien born and in need of naturalization under Acts of Congress.
But if we are to interpret the Fourteenth Amendment as Wong Kim Ark did, i.e., that even children born in the United States to qualifying alien parents are born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, and therefore included as “citizens” of the United States at birth, then we are no longer using Howard’s natural law/national law and Slaughterhouse Cases meaning of born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof. Rather, as Justice Gray demonstrated, he used a different standard, one that was based on the colonial English common law. With the abandonment of the Howard natural law/national law and The Slaughterhouse Cases standard and adoption of the colonial English common law standard, a Fourteenth Amendment “citizen” of the United States at birth no longer was necessarily also a natural born citizen, but rather only a citizen of the United States at birth under the Amendment.
Continued . . .
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ReplyDeleteDe facto President Barack Obama was presumably born in the United States to a U.S. citizen mother, but to a non-U.S. citizen father. He therefore does not meet the natural law/national law and The Slaughterhouse Cases standard of the Fourteenth Amendment which Minor explained was a child born in a country to parents who were its citizens at the time of the child’s birth. Rather, he meets Wong Kim Ark’s colonial English common law standard which provides that even children born in the country to alien parents are included as citizen at birth. Since this latter standard is not equivalent to the standard used to define a natural born citizen, Mr. Obama is at best a “citizen” of the United States “at birth” by virtue of the Fourteenth Amendment, but not also an Article II natural born citizen by virtue of “natural law and national law” which Minor explained was incorporated into common law to which the Framers looked to define the clause.
To be eligible to be President today, Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the Constitution provides that being a "citizen" is not sufficient. Rather, it requires that one be a "natural born citizen."
ReplyDeleteIn our constitutional republic, a member of the United States is called a "citizen." Under the Constitution, there are only two classes of citizens, the natural born citizen and all others who are just citizens. This constitutional scheme demonstrates that all natural born citizens are citizens, but not all citizens are natural born citizens. Indeed, there is a critical constitutional distinction between a citizen and a natural born citizen, with only the latter being eligible to be President and Vice-President.
Under the common law that informed the Framers as to its definition, a natural born citizen was a child born in a country to parents who were its citizens at the time of the child's birth. See Emer de Vattel, The Law of Nations, Section 212 (1758) (1797) ("The citizens are the members of the civil society: bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens"); Minor v. Happersett (1875) ("all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became. . . natural-born citizens"). Accord U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) ("The child of an alien, if born in the country, is as much a citizen as the natural born child of a citizen, and by operation of the same principle"). The principle is basic--by nature there must be citizens before there can be natural born citizens and by the law of nations only citizen parents can produce natural born citizen children in the nation of which they are members. This basic structure is evidenced from Minor and Wong Kim Ark, which demonstrate that all citizens who are not natural born citizens are citizens under the Fourteenth Amendment, Acts of Congress, or treaties, but not citizens under the common law that defines a natural born citizen.
De facto President Barack Obama, Senator Ted Cruz, Senator Marco Rubio, and Governor Bobby Jindal are all not Article II "natural born citizens." None of them were born in the United States to two U.S. citizen parents which is the constitutional definition of a natural born citizen. Minor; Wong Kim Ark. All being born in the United States, but not to two U.S. citizen parents, Obama (if born in the United States), Rubio, and Jindal are "citizens" under the Fourteenth Amendment and Cruz, being born in Canada to a U.S. citizen mother and non-U.S. citizen father, is a "citizen" by way of naturalization under a naturalization Act of Congress. But none of them are "natural born citizens" under the common law to which the Framers looked to define a natural born citizen.
Mario, do you know when or if bernie sanders father naturalized? BS said his father immigrated from poland
ReplyDeleteThere is illiteracy for people who can not read; innumeracy for people who can not do arithmetic and other things mathematical. Apparently we need a term for people who just can not grasp something very obvious and thoroughly backed up as for example what a "natural born citizen" is. These people if they are being honest really suffer from a severe cognitive failure. Perhaps the Greek anosagnosia would serve that purpose. Mario has been lecturing these people and answering their queries for years now. Illiteracy is almost always do to a lack of education. Innumeracy seems to be due to bad teachers. This inability to grasp what a natural born citizen seems to be due to a fixation of an alternative definition which the persons believe is liberating and democratic and so on.
ReplyDelete@ William St. George
ReplyDeleteI disagree. These people are not confused or lacking in cognitive skills. They KNOW the right answer. They are simply and perversely pounding square pegs into round holes. They are doing it for ideological reasons. They are not stupid - just corrupt.
There are various hit pieces being pushed and published by Obot sympathizers. These writers make fun of Emer de Vattel. Of course, they also then also make fun of the "birthers" for following Vattel's writings on the meaning of a natural born citizen. What these ignorant writers do not realize is that how Vattel defined a natural born citizen in Section 212 of The Law of Nations (1758) (1797) is the same as our U.S. Supreme Court in The Venus (1814) (Chief Justice John Marshall), Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) (Justice Daniel), Minor v. Happersett (1875) (unanimous U.S. Supreme Court), and U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) (majority and dissent) defined a natural born citizen. That definition, as stated by Vattel and confirmed by these Supreme Court cases has always been a child born in a country to parents who were its citizens a the time of the child's birth.
ReplyDeleteThis constitutional definition disqualifies from being President current de facto President Barack Obama, Senator Ted Cruz, Senator Marco Rubio, and Governor Bobby Jindal, for none of them were born in the United States to parents who were both U.S. citizens at the time of their child's birth.
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ReplyDeleteJudge Bent from the Paige v. Obama Vermont ballot challenge said that “Vattel’s ‘natives or natural born citizens’ statement has no Constitutional significance.”
But the historical and legal records shows that Judge Bent is mistaken that Vattel’s definition of a natural born citizen has not constitutional significance. Consider the following evidence, which is not intended to be exhaustive:
(a) Emer de Vattel, the Founders’ and Framers’ favorite commentator on the law of nations, said in Section 212 of his world-renowned treatise, The Law of Nations:
The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. As the society cannot exist and perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights. The society is supposed to desire this, in consequence of what it owes to its own preservation; and it is presumed, as matter of course, that each citizen, on entering into society, reserves to his children the right of becoming members of it. The country of the fathers is therefore that of the children; and these become true citizens merely by their tacit consent. We shall soon see whether, on their coming to the years of discretion, they may renounce their right, and what they owe to the society in which they were born. I say, that, in order to be of the country, it is necessary that a person be born of a father who is a citizen; for, if he is born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country.
Emer de Vattel, The Law of Nations, or Principles of the Laws of Nature, Applied to the Conduct and Affairs of Nations and Sovereigns, bk. 1, c. 19, sec. 212 Citizens and natives (London 1797) (1st ed. Neuchatel 1758).
(b) In The Venus case, Chief Justice John Marshall, a Founder who was the fourth Chief Justice of the United States and whose court opinions helped lay the basis for American constitutional law, joined by Justice Livingston, said:
Vattel, who, though not very full to this point, is more explicit and more satisfactory on it than any other whose work has fallen into my hands, says “The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives or indigenes are those born in the country of parents who are citizens. Society not being able to subsist and to perpetuate itself but by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights.”
The Venus, 12 U.S. 8 Cranch 253, 289 (1814) (C.J. Marshall concurring as to this part of his decision).
(c) In Inglis, the U.S. Supreme Court held:
If born [in New York] after the 4th of July 1776, and before the 15th of September of the same year, when the British took possession of New York, his infancy incapacitated him from making any election for himself, and his election and character followed that of his father, subject to the right of disaffirmance in a reasonable time after the termination of his minority; which never having been done, he remains a British subject, and disabled from inheriting the land in question.
Inglis v. Sailors’ Snug Harbor, 28 U.S. 99, 120-27, 3 Pet. 99. (1830). The Court held that a child born in New York after July 4, 1776 to British subject parents was a British subject, and not a “citizen of the United States.”
Continued . . .
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ReplyDeleteJustice Story in dissent stated:
The question then arises as to what was the operation of the treaty upon his son, the demandant, who was then an infant of tender years and incapable of any election on his own part. It appears to me that upon principles of public law as well as of the common law, he must if born a British subject, be deemed to adhere to, and retain the national allegiance of his parents at the time of the treaty. Vattel considers the general doctrine to be that children generally acquire the national character of their parents, Vattel, B. 1, ch. 19. sec. 212, 219, and it is certain, both by the common law and the statute law of England, that the demandant would be deemed a British subject. The argument itself assumes that the demandant now acts officially in that character, and that ever since his arrival of age, he has adhered to his British allegiance.
Inglis, at 28 U.S. at 170 (Story, J., dissenting).
But despite his recognition of the Vattel rule on citizenship, Justice Story found that based on the English common law jus soli rule the child was not born a British subject, but rather an “American citizen.” The Court rejected Justice Story’s view expressed by him in his dissenting opinion that the child’s U.S. citizenship was to be determined under the English common law jus soli rule, which made no reference to the citizenship of the child’ parents. Justice Story found that the child born in New York to alien parents was an “American citizen.” On the contrary, the majority of the Court held that he was an alien.
(d) Justice Joseph Story, who historians agree reshaped American law as much or more than Marshall or anyone else, changed his position on the English common law in the later-decided Shanks decision. There he referred to the Inglis decision and stated that that decision had provided the rules of citizenship. There he followed the majority opinion of Inglis. Providing the same Vattelian definition without citing Vattel, he explained:
Whether she was of age during this time does not appear. If she was, then her birth and residence might be deemed to constitute her by election a citizen of South Carolina. If she was not of age, then she might well be deemed under the circumstances of this case to hold the citizenship of her father; for children born in a country, continuing while under age in the family of the father, partake of his national character, as a citizen of that country.
Shanks v. Dupont, 28 U.S. 242, 245 (1830).
(e) Justice Daniel concurring in Dred Scott cited Vattel and The Law of Nations and provided his definition of natural born citizens and took out of Vattel’s definition the reference to “fathers” and “father” and replaced it with “parents” and “person,” respectively, and stated:
Thus Vattel, in the preliminary chapter to his Treatise on the Law of Nations, says: ‘Nations or States are bodies politic; societies of men united together for the purpose of promoting their mutual safety and advantage, by the joint efforts of their mutual strength. Such a society has her affairs and her interests; she deliberates and takes resolutions in common; thus becoming a moral person, who possesses an understanding and a will peculiar to herself.’ Again, in the first chapter of the first book of the Treatise just quoted, the same writer, after repeating his definition of a State, proceeds to remark, that, ‘from the very design that induces a number of men to form a society, which has its common interests and which is to act in concert, it is necessary that there should be established a public authority, to order and direct what is to be done by each, in relation to the end of the association. This political authority is the sovereignty.’ Again this writer remarks: ‘The authority of all over each member essentially belongs to the body politic or the State.’
Continued . . .
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ReplyDeleteBy this same writer it is also said: ‘The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority; they equally participate in its advantages. The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. As society [60 U.S. 393, 477] cannot perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their parents, and succeed to all their rights.’ Again: ‘I say, to be of the country, it is necessary to be born of a person who is a citizen; for if he be born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country. The inhabitants, as distinguished from citizens, are foreigners who are permitted to settle and stay in the country.’ (Vattel, Book 1, cap. 19, p. 101.)
Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393, 476-77 (1857) (Daniel, J., concurring).
(f) Rep. John Bingham, in the House on March 9, 1866, in commenting on the Civil Rights Act of 1866 which was the precursor to the Fourteenth Amendment and on the meaning of a natural born citizen paraphrased Vattel’s definition of the clause thus:
[I] find no fault with the introductory clause, which is simply declaratory of what is written in the Constitution, that every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen. . . .
John A. Bingham, (R-Ohio) US Congressman, March 9, 1866 Cong. Globe, 39th, 1st Sess., 1291 (1866), Sec. 1992 of U.S. Revised Statutes (1866).
Bingham had stated the same thing in 1862:
Does the gentleman mean that any person, born within the limits of the Republic, and who has offended against no law, can rightfully be exiled from any State or from any rood of the Republic? Does the gentleman undertake to say that here, in the face of the provision in the Constitution, that persons born within the limits of the Republic, of parents who are not the subjects of any other sovereignty, are native-born citizens, whether they be black or white? There is not a textbook referred to in any court which does not recognise the principle that I assert.
Cong. Globe, 37th, 2nd Sess., 407 (1862).
(g) The unanimous U.S. Supreme Court in Minor v. Happersett said:
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.
Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. (21 Wall.) 162, 167-68 (1875).
Continued . . .
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ReplyDelete(h) Justice Gary in Wong Kim Ark explained that Chief Justice Waite said:
“Allegiance and protection are, in this connection” (that is, in relation to citizenship),
reciprocal obligations. The one is a compensation for the other: allegiance for protection, and protection for allegiance. . . . 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 [p680] 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.
Minor v. Happersett (1874), 21 Wall. 162, 166-168. The decision in that case was that a woman born of citizen parents within the United States was a citizen of the United States, although not entitled to vote, the right to the elective franchise not being essential to citizenship.
Wong Kim Ark, at 679-80 (citing and quoting Minor v. Happersett).
These statements coming from our U.S. Supreme Court when referring to the constitutional definition of a natural born citizen cite and quote Vattel’s definition of a natural born citizen or when not specifically citing or quoting him still repeat the basic premise found in Vattel’s Section 212, i.e., that a “natural-born citizen” is a child born in a country to parents who were its “citizens” at the time of the child’s birth. When defining a natural born citizen, the U.S. Supreme Court has never looked to the English common law for that definition, but rather always to Vattel and his Section 212 of The Law of Nations. Even Rep. Bingham, when specifically defining a natural born citizen in Congress, gave a Vattelian definition of that clause and not one found in the English common law.
The fundamental nature of these statements by our U.S. Supreme Court and notable authorities are virtually a mirror of each other and of how Vattel defined a natural born citizen. With these constitutional statements regarding a natural born citizen being similar and without doubt having their basis in how Vattel defined a natural born citizen in Section 212, it should be readily seen that Judge Bent’s statement that Vattel’s definition of a “natural-born citizen” has no constitutional significance is erroneous.
Lastly, Obama eligibility supporters contend that the Framers got their definition of a natural born citizen from William Blackstone and the English common law. But where is their list of evidence which demonstrates their position to be true?
If one is born under U.S. national common law with no allegiance to any foreign power (born in the United States to U.S. citizen parents), then one is an Article II "natural born citizen." If one is born under U.S. national common law with allegiance to a foreign power, one can be a "citizen of the United States" "at birth" if one satisfies the requirements of either the Fourteenth Amendment (born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof) or a naturalization Act of Congress (born out of the United States to one or two U.S. citizen parents). If one is born with allegiance to a foreign power, one can be a "citizen of the United States" after birth if one satisfies the requirements of a naturalization Act of Congress or treaty (born out of the United States to two alien parents and satisfies all requirements of those laws after birth). The Obots cannot shake off these simple truths.
ReplyDeleteThe Framers commanded that future Presidents and Commanders in Chief of the Military be born with sole allegiance to the United States. They did not permit any person who was subject to any foreign power from the moment of birth to be a future President and Commander.
If born in the U.S. Obama is a Fourteenth Amendment citizen, but not a natural born citizen, for he would have been born with allegiance to the United States and Great Britain and Kenya. Rubio and Jindal are Fourteenth Amendment citizen, but not natural born citizens, for they were born with allegiance to the United States and Cuba and India, respectively. Cruz is a citizen of the United States under a naturalization Act of Congress, but not a natural born citizen, for he was born with allegiance to the United States, Canada, and Cuba. As we can see, none of them were born not subject to any foreign power. The reality of their birth allegiance disqualifies them from being natural born citizens.
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ReplyDeleteAtticus Clarence Darrow posted at Western Free Press:
In his blog, Mario wrote on May 7, 2015 “Obama eligibility supporters contend that the Framers got their definition of a natural born citizen from William Blackstone and the English common law. But where is their list of evidence which demonstrates their position to be true?
The answer is quite simple.
The drafters of the Constitution did not write the Constitution in a vacuum but were cognizant of English common law. "The framers of the Constitution were familiar with common-law concepts and the words and phrases employed by common-law lawyers." In re Gannon, 27 F. 2d 362 , 363 (ED PA 1928).
In fact even Justice Thomas acknowledged the influence of common law in the Constitution. "[I]s true that we frequently consult English history and common law in attempting to determine the content of constitutional provisions.” Loving v. United States, 517 US 748, 779 (1996) (Thomas, J., dissenting).
Similarly the Supreme Court in Moore v. United States 91 U.S. 270(1875) noted: “That is the system from which our judicial ideas and legal definitions are derived. The language of the Constitution and of many acts of Congress could not be understood without reference to the common law.” Id at 274.
Courts have recognized that the drafters of the constitution of who most were lawyers were influenced by the principles and history of the common law that we inherited from the English. “The principles and history of the common law were well known to the framers of the Constitution and the members of the First Congress; it was from that system that their terminology was derived; and the provisions of the Constitution and contemporaneous legislation must be interpreted accordingly.” Southern Pacific Co. v. Jensen, 244 US 205, 230 (1917)(Pitney, J. dissenting); See also Smith v. Alabama, 124 U. S. 465, 478 (1888)(“The interpretation of the Constitution of the United States is necessarily influenced by the fact that its provisions are framed in the language of the English common law, and are to be read in the light of its history.”)
Since the drafters of the Constitution wrote it in the language of the English common law then according to statutory construction that unless otherwise defined in the Constitution, words are to be taken at their ordinary and contemporary meaning.“ A fundamental canon of statutory construction is that, unless otherwise defined, words will be interpreted as taking their ordinary, contemporary, common meaning.” Perrin v. United States, 444 US 37,42 (1979).
Moreover, if the use of words in the Constitution had a common law meaning then the courts must infer the incorporation of this common law meaning unless the language of the Constitution compels a different meaning.”[G]uided by the principle that where words are employed in a statute which had at the time a well-known meaning at common law or in the law of this country they are presumed to have been used in that sense unless the context compels to the contrary.” Standard Oil Co. of NJ v. United Sates, 221 US 1, 59 (1911); Neder v. United States, 527 US 1, 21 (1999)(It is a well-established rule of construction that "`[w]here Congress uses terms that have accumulated settled meaning under ... the common law, a court must infer, unless the statute otherwise dictates, that Congress means to incorporate the established meaning of these terms.')(internal citations omitted).
Continued . . .
II of II
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, if words were created not by positive law but rather by judicially created concept then any interpretation of those words other than their common law meaning must be specific and clear. "The normal rule of statutory construction is that if Congress intends for legislation to change the interpretation of a judicially created concept, it makes that intent specific." Stillians v. Iowa, 843 F.2d 276, 280 (8th Cir.1988)(quoting Midlantic Nat'l Bank v. New Jersey Dep't of Envtl. Protection, 474 U.S. 494, 106 S.Ct. 755, 88 L.Ed.2d 859 (1986)). Thus, it is proper to consider that Congress acts with knowledge of existing law, and that "absent a clear manifestation of contrary intent, a newly-enacted or revised statute is presumed to be harmonious with existing law and its judicial construction." Johnson v. First Nat'l Bank of Montevideo, 719 F.2d 270, 277 (8th Cir.1983), cert. denied, 465 U.S. 1012, 104 S.Ct. 1015, 79 L.Ed.2d 245 (1984). Estate of Wood v. CIR, 909 F. 2d 1155,1160 (8th Cir. 1990).
In other words, If drafters of the Constitution used words in the Constitution that have a common law meaning then it is PRESUMED that drafters intended common law application of the words UNLESS there is language in the Constitution that intended a contrary interpretation of the words.
It was Blackstone's Commentaries of the Laws of England (1765) that summarized the status of children of aliens born in England when he wrote:
"The children of aliens, born here in England, are generally speaking, natural born subjects, and entitled to all the privileges of such."
This is the English common law rule as articulated by Chief Justice Coke's opinion in Calvin's Case (1608).
“We thus have an acknowledgment that our law in this area follows English concepts with an acceptance of the jus soli, that is, that the place of birth governs citizenship status except as modified by statute.” Rogers v. Bellei, 401 US 815, 828 (1971).
As such, it is inconceivable for the framers of the Constitution to "import" a foreign idea of natural born citizenship based on the bloodline of fathers and not based on the English common law as stated by Blackstone.
@Atticus Clarence Darrow
ReplyDeleteTalking about the English common law in some general way is not evidence of your position that the Framers got their definition of a natural born citizen from the English common law.
Minor v. Happersett (1875) confirmed that the Framers got their definition of a natural born citizen from the common law. The Court said that under that common law, a natural born citizen was a child born in a country to parents who were its citizens at the time of the child's birth. The Court added that under that same common law, all the rest of the people were "aliens or foreigners," who could be naturalized under positive law. Minor even said that "there have been doubts" whether a child born within the jurisdiction to alien parents was a citizen under the Fourteenth Amendment, referring to the Slaughterhouse Cases (1873) which had stated that children born in the United States to former or free slaves could be citizens under the Fourteenth Amendment, but children born to alien parents could not. Given that the English common law did not require citizen parents in order for a child born in the King's dominion to be a natural-born subject, we know that Minor's definition of a natural born citizen could not have been one found under the English common law. So what is your point in presenting us a discussion on the English common law?
The SC has had controversial rulings and opinions over the past 200 plus years but minor is not one of them. I never knew what a nbc was until 2012 but I have always known you cannot twist and distort a plain statement in a unanimous supreme court opinion. The truth will always win out over the obot lies and even though being a real nbc is irrelevant now we should never stop trying to make people aware
ReplyDeleteMy local newspaper published a list of announced presidential candidates and those who are likely to announce.
ReplyDeleteOn the former list are Senator Ted Cruz and Senator Marco Rubio. On the latter list is Governor Bobby Jindal.
All three are (allegedly) not natural born citizen and are therefore not eligible to occupy the office of the President of the United States.
As I have followed the controversy over the years, I am persuaded by the arguments that a natural born citizen is one born in a country to parents who are citizens of that country.
My question is this. Is there anyone who is going to challenge the eligibility of the three persons mentioned above?
Has any court been presented with the following argument taken from Cohen v. Virginia 19 U.S. 64
(1821)?
It is most true that this Court will not take jurisdiction if it should not; but it is equally true that it must take jurisdiction if it should. The judiciary cannot, as the legislature may, avoid a measure because it approaches the confines of the Constitution. We cannot pass it by because it is doubtful. With whatever doubts, with whatever difficulties, a case may be attended, we must decide it if it be brought before us. We have no more right to decline the exercise of jurisdiction which is given than to usurp that which is not given. The one or the other would be treason to the Constitution. Questions may occur which we would gladly avoid, but we cannot avoid them. All we can do is to exercise our best judgment and conscientiously to perform our duty. In doing this on the present occasion, we find this tribunal invested with appellate jurisdiction in all cases arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States. We find no exception to this grant, and we cannot insert one.
That certainly does not sound like Justice Thomas!
(I found this thanks to CDR Kerchner, who responded to a post of mine on birtherreport.com.)
How much longer are the courts and we the people going to leave the question of who is natural born citizen unanswered?
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ReplyDeleteThe definition of a natural born citizen has been confirmed by the unanimous U.S. Supreme Court in Minor v. Happersett (1875) which 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 [p168] 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. The words "all children" are certainly as comprehensive, when used in this connection, as "all persons," and if females are included in the last they must be in the first. That they are included in the last is not denied. In fact the whole argument of the plaintiffs proceeds upon that idea.
Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162, 167-68.
Continued . . .
II of III
ReplyDeleteThe Supreme Court started by saying that the Constitution, which then already included the Fourteenth Amendment, did not define a natural born citizen, and that its meaning was to be found in the common law the nomenclature with which the Framers were familiar when they drafted and adopted the Constitution. It explained the difference under that common law between being a citizen and being a natural born citizen. It said that at common law a child born in a country to parents who were its citizens was not only a citizen, but also a natural born citizen. It further added that under that same common law, all other people who were not born under such facts and circumstances were “aliens or foreigners,” who could be naturalized under Acts of Congress or treaties. The Court explained that there was no doubt that a natural born citizen at common law was a citizen of the United States, both before and after the Fourteenth Amendment was passed. The Court added that there were doubts whether a child born in the United States to alien parents was a citizen of the United States, both before and after the Amendment was passed. In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court had stated in The Slaughterhouse Cases (1873), which was decided by virtually the same Court as the Minor Court except for Chief Justice Chase who had since passed away, that a child born in the United States to alien parents was not a citizen of the United States under the Fourteenth Amendment. So if a person was a natural born citizen, there was no doubt that one was a citizen of the United States under any law. If one was born in the United States to alien parents and hence not a natural born citizen, the Supreme Court had said in 1873 that one was not a citizen of the United States, either at common law or under the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court also found that women were included in “all children” at common law and “all persons” under the Fourteenth Amendment. Since Virginia Minor, a women, was born in the United States to citizen parents, which made her a natural born citizen at common law, there was no doubt that she was a citizen of the United States both before and after the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment. Hence, the Court did not have to address the open question of whether a child born in the United States to alien parents, although not a natural born citizen and therefore not a citizen at common law, was a citizen of the United States under the new positive law known as the Fourteenth Amendment.
After finding that women like Virginia Minor were citizen of the United States, the Minor Court then had to decide whether being such a citizen gave one a privilege or immunity under Article IV, Section 2 which included the right to vote in the states. Even though Virginia Minor was a natural born citizen at common law and therefore a citizen of the United States under the Fourteenth Amendment, the Court ultimately held that, given the then-existing state of the law which the Court said it was duty bound to follow, being a citizen of the United States did not bring with it a constitutional right to vote to be enjoyed by both men and women and which a state could not abridge under its laws. So in the end, Virginia Minor won the citizenship battle, but lost the voting war. The Constitution was eventually amended on August 18, 1920 with the Nineteenth Amendment, which provides that neither the United States nor any state shall deny or abridge the right of citizens of the United States to vote on the account of sex.
Continued . . .
III of III
ReplyDeleteIn U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), Wong was born in the United States, but to alien parents. So, the Court could not find, like Minor had done for Virginia Minor, that Wong was a citizen of the United States by virtue of being a natural born citizen. Rather, it had to analyze whether Wong could be a citizen of the United States by satisfying the requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment. Hence, the Court had to address the Fourteenth Amendment question left open by Minor and the Court did answer that question. Wong Kim Ark confirmed Minor's definition of a natural born citizen. But then it went ahead and held, with the aid of colonial English common law, that Wong was a born in the United States and “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” Hence, the Court held that Wong was a born citizen of the United States, not by virtue of being a natural born citizen of the United States, but rather by virtue of the Fourteenth Amendment, which, although it required birth in the country, did not require birth to U.S. citizen parents, which was required for children born out of the United States if they were to be born citizens of the United States. So, while Wong Kim Ark answered the Fourteenth Amendment question left open by Minor, it did not disturb its holding regarding the definition of a natural born citizen. Wong Kim Ark also confirmed that children born out of the United States to U.S. citizen parents could be citizens of the United States, not because they could be natural born citizens and therefore citizens, but rather only because they could be citizens through a naturalization Act of Congress. Accord Rogers v. Bellei, 401 U.S. 815 (1971) (a person born out of the United States to U.S. citizen parents can be a citizen of the United States only if Congress allows it through one of its naturalization acts and such person therefore becomes a citizen of the United States “at birth” through naturalization).
This means that today a natural born citizen is still a child born in the United States to parents who were both U.S. citizens at the time of their child's birth. The U.S. Supreme Court has never given any other definition of the clause.
So we are full circle to the understanding that all natural born citizens are born citizens. But not all born citizens are natural born citizens. Stated in set theory language, the natural born citizens is a proper subset of the born citizens.
Under the U.S. Supreme Court's definition of a natural born citizen as demonstrate above, de facto President Barack Obama, Senator Ted Cruz, Senator Marco Rubio, and Governor Bobby Jindal are all not natural born citizens. Obama (if born in the United States), Rubio, and Jindal are Fourteenth Amendment born citizens of the United States under Wong Kim Ark. Cruz is a born citizen of the United States under a naturalization Act of Congress and is therefore a citizen of the United States through naturalization which clearly disqualifies him from being a natural born citizen. None of them are born citizens by being natural born citizens. Rather, they are born citizens by satisfying either the Fourteenth Amendment (for those born in the United States to one or two qualifying alien parents) or a naturalization Act of Congress (for Cruz who was born in Canada to a U.S. citizen mother and a non-U.S. citizen father).
I appreciate your response to my post.
ReplyDeleteAs I said, I accept the definition of natural born citizen as presented by you and others.
My concern is whether anyone is going to challenge the candidacies of Cruz, Rubio and Jindal.
And based on the past record of innumerable challenges, the challenges will not result in a definitive answer.
Somehow, someone has to get the Supreme Court to accept an eligibility challenge - and the Court should, based on Cohen v. Virginia.
Who is that someone and will the Court be convinced to rule on the definition of natural born citizen as recalled in Minor?
I hope I have not misunderstood. I was looking for a way to get a definitive answer to the question such that Cruz, Rubio and Jindal will be disqualified, as well as all future non natural born citizens.
Then there's the dilemma of the sitting ineligible president.
"Challenge" dittos Doublee...
ReplyDeleteMy purpose in posting my comment follows your previous comments and question to and of Mario.
Doublee, on May 15, 2015 at 1:21 PM and on May 15, 2015 at 4:40 PM you asked:
"My question is this.
"Is there anyone who is going to challenge the eligibility of the three persons mentioned above [Cruz, Rubio, Jindal]?
"Has any court been presented with the following argument taken from Cohen v. Virginia 19 U.S. 64 (1821)?
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
>> 'It is most true that this Court will not take jurisdiction if it should not; but it is equally true that it must take jurisdiction if it should.
>> 'The judiciary cannot, as the legislature may, avoid a measure because it approaches the confines of the Constitution.
>> 'We cannot pass it by because it is doubtful.
>> 'With whatever doubts, with whatever difficulties, a case may be attended, we must decide it if it be brought before us.
>> 'We have no more right to decline the exercise of jurisdiction which is given than to usurp that which is not given.
>> 'The one or the other would be treason to the Constitution.
>> 'Questions may occur which we would gladly avoid, but we cannot avoid them.
>> 'All we can do is to exercise our best judgment and conscientiously to perform our duty.
>> 'In doing this on the present occasion, we find this tribunal invested with appellate jurisdiction in all cases arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States.
>> 'We find no exception to this grant, and we cannot insert one.'
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"That certainly does not sound like Justice Thomas!
[...snip...]
"How much longer are the courts and we the people going to leave the question of who is natural born citizen unanswered?
On May 15, 2015 at 4:40 PM you continued:
[...snip...]
Somehow, someone has to get the Supreme Court to accept an eligibility challenge - and the Court should, based on Cohen v. Virginia.
Who is that someone and will the Court be convinced to rule on the definition of natural born citizen as recalled in Minor?
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Since recent history has revealed that federal and state Courts have shirked their judicial fiduciary duty concerning POTUS eligibility, I do not trust the Courts, either the state Courts or the federal John “call it a tax” Roberts Court, so my purpose in my comment is to propose a double "challenge" with an immediate state and federal Court effort as you suggest. Since Article II is a Federal issue, we also need a Federal Article V amendment when "...on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments,..." so that WE the People can guide the administrators of OUR Federation, the federal Supreme Court, the federal Legislature, the federal Executive, AND also the administrators of OUR state governments.
In addition, hear! hear!, to your call for somebody!, anybody!, who?!, to present an immediate challenge against the unconstitutional assertions of Cruz, Rubio and Jindal and et al., We the People MUST also immediately begin a federal Article V effort to educate the current John “call it a tax” Roberts Supreme Court and the “go along to get along” administrators of OUR federal government concerning the original genesis original intent of "natural born Citizen" in Article II section 1 clause 5.
The federal Article V is a common law and positive law/constitutional Article 9 and Article 10 "states rights" and Jeffersonian “nullification” stand by which We the People can assert OUR authority over the current administrators of OUR federal government, executive, legislative and judiciary, and also the administrators of OUR state governments.
Art
U.S. Constitution: The Original Birther Document of the Union
( http://originalbirtherdocument.blogspot.com/ )
Jindal will be the third gop ineligible candidate if he runs....do not say a damn thing about it either bobby you power hungry fraud
ReplyDeleteI of II
ReplyDeleteLeo,
You are correct that Governor Bobby Jindal, like de facto President Barack Obama, Senator Ted Cruz, and Senator Marco Rubio, is not a natural born citizen and therefore not eligible to be President. He was born in the United States to parents who were both not U.S. citizens. His parents were both citizens of India and not citizens of the United States when he was born. He did not, through jus sanguinis, i.e., inheritance of citizenship and allegiance from one's parents, inherit U.S. citizenship from both of his parents. He was therefore under U.S. law born subject to a foreign power which in his case is India. He is in a worse position than a U.S. citizen who became so after his or her birth through naturalization, for that person had to swear off any allegiance to any foreign power prior to becoming a U.S. citizen. Not that it would make him a natural born citizen, Jindal has never even renounced his allegiance to that foreign power which is India.
For the sake of national security and preservation of the constitutional republic and the ideals under which it was founded, there simply is no way that the Framers would have accepted as being eligible to be President and Commander in Chief of the Military a person who was born after the adoption of the Constitution, and was not born in the United States (in which case under jus soli would become a citizen of and in allegiance with the foreign country in which born) or did not inherit at the time of birth U.S. citizenship from both parents (as explained would become a citizen of and in allegiance with the foreign country of both parents and after the Cable Act of 1922 one or both parents). It was only by being born in the United States to parents who were both U.S. citizens at the time of the child’s birth or at least not aliens that such a person was under U.S. law born with sole allegiance to the United States and therefore not born subject to any foreign power. See Minor v. Happersett (1875) (“all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens … were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners”); the Civil Rights Act of 1866 (“All persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States,” which allowed children born in the United States to former slaves who, while not citizens under Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), were not aliens). With parents either being both citizens or both aliens under then-existing law, the only child that the Framers saw to be a natural born citizen was one born in the United States to two citizen parents. The Framers did not accept even as a citizen any child born in the United States to alien parents, unless that child’s parents naturalized during his or her years of minority and the child was dwelling in the United States or the child-turned adult naturalized on his or her own upon becoming an adult. It was only through the Fourteenth Amendment, as interpreted by U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), that a person such as Jindal can even be a citizen of the United States “at birth.” The fact that today he is a citizen of the United States “at birth” under the Fourteenth Amendment, which neither repealed nor amended Article II’s natural born citizen clause, nor does it define a natural born citizen, does not bestow upon him the status of a natural born citizen.
Continued . . .
II of II
ReplyDeleteThe Framers would therefore not have accepted someone like Jindal, born a citizen of and in allegiance to the United States, only under the Fourteenth Amendment, but also born a citizen of and in allegiance to India, as being a natural born citizen. In the minds of the Framers, someone like Jindal would not have even been a citizen, unless his parents naturalized during his minority and he was dwelling in the United States at that time or he naturalized on his own upon becoming an adult. Not being a citizen, let alone a natural born citizen, the Framers would not have accepted someone like Jindal as being eligible to be President and Commander in Chief of the Military.
I of II
ReplyDeleteObot commenter, Lupin, is spreading the idea that I have retreated from my position that a natural born citizen must be born to two citizen parents. This is false.
I am absolutely amazed that someone like Lupin, a French lawyer, with all his years of study, could make such a mixed up salad out Vattel. Lupin maintains that when Vattel wrote "parens" in Section 212, he meant relatives and not parents. Lupin is very wrong. He also maintains that Vattel only required that the father be a citizen, not both the father and mother. Again he is wrong.
The word “parens” can have an ambiguous meaning in French when standing alone, with its meaning possibly being parents, relatives, blood relatives, etc. But when the word is read in context, the meaning becomes clear. In Section 212, Emer de Vattel used “parens,” and within the context of that section there is no doubt that he meant parents. He clearly says born to “parens.” Children are born to their father and mother, not to some undefined relatives. One would have to have some wild imagination to think that Vattel meant to say born to uncles, aunts, cousins, etc. Even in Section 212 itself, Vattel in French wrote: "Parens Citoyens," followed by "Pe'res," "Pe'res," and "pe're Citoyen." So what followed "parens" was "pe'res" and pe're." "Parens" meant parents and "pe'res" and "pe're" meant fathers and father. So fathers and father related to parents and of course is one of the parents. If "parens" meant relatives, Vattel would not have focused on the father as he did. Vattel's structure also follows from the idea that parents got their citizenship from the husband (father of the children). Hence, Vattel explained how the parents of the child got their citizenship and that was from the father. Lupin's position is utter bunk given the context of Vattel's entire treatise in which he makes numerous references to the father and mother and never to any extended family or relatives. Every English translation since 1759-60 to the present has translated “parens” to parents. Finally, every U.S. Supreme Court that has cited and quoted Vattel's Section 212, starting with Chief Justice John Marshall In The Venus (1814), has accepted that "parens" meant "parents." So, Lupin's argument that within the context of Section 212, “parens” means relatives is absurd.
Continued . . .
II of II
ReplyDeleteRegarding whether one or two citizen parents are needed, clearly it is two. When defining a natural born citizen, Vattel said In Section 212: “The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens.” That is his definition of natives, which he calls natural born citizens. In that definition he used "parens" (parents) followed in his explanation of that definition by "pe'res" and "pe're" (fathers and father). Vattel did not say born to a father or fathers. If Vattel meant that only a father citizen was sufficient, he would have written: “The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of fathers who are citizens.” After all, he used that exact word in the explanation of the definition. Since he used "parents" and later "fathers" in the same paragraph, there is no doubt that Vattel when he said "parents" was referring to both the father and mother and that they had to both be citizens at the time of the child's birth in the country of which they were citizens in order for their child to be a natural born citizen.
Vattel’s reference to fathers and father was only to show how the parents became citizens themselves, with their citizenship and allegiance following that of the husband (father of the child). He later focused on the father because parents obtained their citizenship through the father. The father was only the means by which parents obtained their citizenship. The end result was still that the child needed both a father and mother who were both citizens. And under jus sanguinis, it was only by being born to two citizen parents that the child inherited his or her common citizenship from both of them and not some other foreign citizenship from one of them. Put all together, a child born in the country to parents who were both its citizens inherited from his or her parents one and only one citizenship and allegiance and acquired only one citizenship and allegiance from the country in which born. Born under such circumstances, the child was born with unity of citizenship and allegiance and not subject to any foreign power. Hence, unitary citizenship and allegiance required not only birth in the country, but also birth to two citizen parents.
So, Lupin is wrong on both translation of “parens” within the context of Section 212 and on his position that one citizen parent is sufficient to make one a natural born citizen. When Vattel wrote “parens” in Section 212, he meant parents and when he wrote parents, he meant two citizen parents, not one.
Jindal should not even be a 14th amendment citizen at birth and I have 3 sc justices in wka who agree with me as well as the us senators who wrote the 14th. No country I have ever heard of would recognize inherited citizenship based on blood relatives unless the brs were also the parents. The minor court would have a lot more say on US Constitution than some anonymous french speaking obot clown...if the 3 Amigos actually did love the US then they would drop out of the race and scream that they and contemptible fraud currently squatting in the house of We the People are not eligible
ReplyDeleteLet's do it again...
ReplyDeleteMario,
Emer de Vattel and John Jay would agree with your expositions on May 21, 2015 at 8:48 and 8:50 PM re Vattel and "fathers," "father," and the unity of allegiance and citizenship by marriage of the child's father and mother. Just as it takes two to tango, as the saying goes, and produce a child, it also takes two U.S. citizens, i.e. the singular unity of two U.S. citizenships, to produce a singular U.S. citizen identified as a "natural born Citizen" who is the ONLY U.S. citizen eligible to be POTUS.
My emphasis here is in addition to your exposition.
The "it" that should be done again is an amendment similar to the 14th Amendment permanent correction of the absurd holding of the 1857 Taney Court in Dred Scott v. Sanford which held that Scott, after a ten year effort, being a Negro, whether a resident of a free state or a resident of a slave state, was not a federal U.S. citizen so he could not sue to proclaim his new freedom acquired by running away from his owner who took Scott on business trip from a slave state to a free state and simply continuing to reside in a free state.
The 1866 Civil Rights Act, a statute of Congress, helped to continue the effort of Republican President Abraham Lincoln with the 1865 13th Amendment to free the Negroes, but it took the 1868 14th Amendment, under the guidance of Representative John Bingham, the lead author of the amendment, and Senator Jacob Howard, the author of the first words of the first sentence of section 1, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States...are citizens," to permanently protect the freedom of the Negroes set free by the 1865 13th Amendment that was passed with the guidance of Republican President Abraham Lincoln BEFORE the confederate states were allowed back into the Union as voting members.
The "it" that needs to be done again is not a statute of Congress but an Article V amendment, initiated by Congress or by the "several states", to correct the absurdity of the 1898 U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark Court holding that a child born on U.S. soil to alien parents was a "jus soli" citizen with the concomitant absurdity promoted over the decades that ONLY "jus soli" was the original intent of the 14th Amendment, with the addition of the absurd implication developed over the decades that ONLY "jus soli" is good 'nuf to be a "natural born Citizen" of the "We the People...Union" and thus eligible to be POTUS.
As with the 1866 Civil Rights Act, a statute of Congress, all of the immigration and naturalization statutes defining citizenship are not good 'nuf to permanently correct the absurdity of the 1898 Court holding in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark.
Only an amendment to the constitution will be good 'nuf to protect the original genesis original intent of John Jay in underling the word "born" in "natural born Citizen" with the ONLY meaning of ONLY singular U.S. citizenship ONLY by birth on U.S. soil ONLY to two U.S. citizen married parents.
Emer de Vattel and John Jay would probably say dittos to an Article V amendment, too, to correct the 1898 Court.
Art
U.S. Constitution: The Original Birther Document of the Union
( http://originalbirtherdocument.blogspot.com/ )
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ReplyDeleteTo find the meaning of an Article II “natural born citizen,” one must understand that the solution lies in resolving a conflict of laws problem. That problem is whether we are to apply national law or state law to define the clause. Clearly, the answer is that we are to apply national law which finds its expression in the law of nations, and not state law which had its source in colonial English common law. The law of nations defined a natural born citizen as a child born in a country to parents who were its citizens at the time of the child’s birth. The Framers saw that definition as being part of our national law. They therefore accepted that national definition as the meaning of a natural born citizen when they drafted and adopted the Constitution. Allow me to explain.
The clauses “Citizen of the United States” and “natural born Citizen” appear in the U.S. Constitution at Article II, Section 1, Clause 5. The original Constitution does not define those clauses. The Fourteenth Amendment does define a “citizen of the United States.” Acts of Congress and treaties also define a “citizen of the United States.” Hence, natural born citizen is a matter governed by the original Constitution. Citizen of the United States is a matter governed by both the original Constitution and the Fourteenth Amendment, along with Acts of Congress and treaties. As can be seen, natural born citizen and citizen of the United States refer to membership in the United States, with the former being one of the requirements for being President. These are matters of national scope which require uniformity throughout the United States. In fact, the Framers in Article I, Section 8, Clause 4 ordained that “[t]he Congress shall . . . establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization . . throughout the United States.” Hence, national law is to provide the uninform rules of decision in defining these national terms and not diverse local state law. The English common law was selectively adopted only by most of the states and became state law until abrogated by state legislatures. The national government did not adopt that law on the national law and therefore that law never became uniform national law. Not being uniform national law, the Framers did define a natural born citizen and a citizen of the United States under that local state law. Rather they looked to national law to do so. In identifying that national law, they looked to principles of equity, natural justice, and reason. They found those principles in the law of nations.
The Framers’ looked to Emer de Vattel as their best source on the meaning of the law of nations. As to citizenship, Vattel wrote:
The citizens are the members of the civil society: bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. As the society cannot exist and perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights. The society is supposed to desire this, in consequence of what it owes to its own preservation; and it is presumed, as matter of course, that each citizen, on entering into society, reserves to his children the right of becoming members of it. The country of the fathers is therefore that of the children; and these become true citizens merely by their tacit consent. We shall soon see, whether, on their coming to the years of discretion, they may renounce their right, and what they owe to the society in which they were born. I say, that, in order to be of the country, it is necessary that a person be born of a father who is a citizen; for if he is born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country.
Continued . . .
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ReplyDeleteThe Law of Nations, Sec. 212 Citizens and natives (London 1797) (1st ed. Neuchatel 1758). Here we can see that Vattel defined the natives, or natural-born citizens as “those born in the country, of parents who are citizens.”
Our national law did, indeed, borrow from the law of nations, whose citizenship principles as expressed by Vattel were incorporated into American national common law and in the naturalization Acts of Congress, all of which became part of our national law and supreme law of the land. This is the common law of which the unanimous U.S. Supreme Court in Minor v. Happersett (1875) spoke when it explained:
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 [p168] 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.
Minor, at 167-68.
As we can clearly see, the common law to which Minor referred could not have been the English common law, which made no reference to the citizenship of the child’s parents. Rather, it was American national common law which had its source in the law of nations and which placed critical importance on whether a child’s parents were U.S. citizens at the time of the child’s birth.
From all this we can see that the conflict of laws problem is resolved. In defining a natural born citizen, we are to apply national law and not state law. That national law defines a natural born citizen as a child born in a country to parents who were its citizens at the time of the child’s birth. This is the only definition of the clause that has ever been recognized and confirmed by our U.S. Supreme Court. See Minor v. Happersett (1875); accord U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898). Upon ratification of the Constitution, this definition became part of the supreme law of the land and, never having been repealed, amended, or otherwise changed by constitutional amendment, including the Fourteenth Amendment, or the U.S. Supreme Court, is still the constitutionally controlling definition of the clause today.
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ReplyDeleteMany President Obama supporters are accusing the Republicans of being dishonest for what they say is attacking Obama on his eligibility, but not Senator Ted Cruz. They have it wrong.
Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 provides that for those born before the adoption of the Constitution, having satisfied the 35 years age and 14 years residency requirements, being a "citizen" of the United States was sufficient to be eligible to be President. It also provides that for those born after the adoption, only a "natural born citizen" of the United States is eligible to be President. We can see from this constitutional scheme that in the United States there are only “citizens” or “natural born citizens” and that all natural born citizens are citizens, but not all citizens are natural born citizens.
The Framers used the natural born citizen clause to assure that future Presidents and Commanders in Chief of the Military would be born citizens of and in allegiance with only the United States from the moment of birth and throughout their lives. They figured that such a person would be one to least have sympathies for some foreign power or influence which could result in harm to the best interests of the United States and its people.
Since the Framers wrote citizen and natural born citizen into the Constitution, the next question is what do these terms mean? The Founders and Framers looked to natural law and the law of nations and the Enlightenment for principles which justified and motivated the American Revolution, the Declaration of Independence, and the writing of the Constitution. The Framers also knew that citizenship and allegiance can be either inherited from one’s parents (jus sanguinis) or acquired from being born in a country (jus soli). Hence, when the Framers wrote the Constitution, a citizen was any member of the United States made so by any legal means, which include the American Revolution, Acts of Congress, or treaty. The early naturalization Acts of Congress reflected this understanding. As time went on and because of the immediate need to make freed slaves citizens of the United States, the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Fourteenth Amendment were added to the list of laws that can make citizens. These laws, while capable of making one a citizen from the moment of birth or after birth, did not make one a natural born citizen.
Continued . . .
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ReplyDeleteIn contradistinction, a natural born citizen was a child born in a country to parents who were its citizens at the time of the child's birth. Emer de Vattel, The Law of Nations, Section 212 (1758) (1797); Minor v. Happersett (1875); accord U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898). A natural born citizen had to do nothing other than be born in the county to parents who were both members of that country. No law, including any naturalization act or treaty, was needed to make him or her a natural born citizen. This universal and immutable principle that defined a natural born citizen was incorporated into American national common law. See Minor (so defined a natural born citizen under the common law to which the Framers would have looked for the definition). During the Founding and until the Cable Act of 1922 was passed, married parents of children were either both U.S. citizens or both aliens. Hence, citizen parents meant that both father and mother had to be citizens. The liberation of wives from their husband’s citizenship done by the 1922 Cable Act has not nor could it amend the constitutional rule that both father and mother had to be citizens at the time of their child’s birth in their country in order to make a natural born citizen.
The definition of a natural born citizen as reflected in American common law is the supreme law of the land and to date has never been changed by any constitutional amendment or decision of the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Anti-Obots (which is not the Republican Establishment) argued that de facto President Barack Obama was not a natural born citizen because, even if he was born in the United States, he was not born to two U.S. citizen parents (his father was a non-U.S. citizen). They also maintain that Senator Ted Cruz is also not a natural born citizen (he was born in Canada to a U.S. citizen mother and non-U.S. citizen father). Senator Marco Rubio and Governor Bobby Jindal are also not natural born citizens (they were born in the United States to two non-U.S. citizen parents). Obama (if born in the United States), Rubio, and Jindal are “citizens” “at birth” under the Fourteenth Amendment, by the only fact of being born in the United States. Cruz is a “citizen” “at birth” under a naturalization Act of Congress by the only fact of being born to one U.S. citizen parent. None of them were born with the complete facts and circumstances needed at birth to be a natural born citizen. They are all missing either birth to two U.S. citizen parents or birth in the United States. They are all therefore born not in sole allegiance to the United States, but also subject to a foreign power, a condition that the Framers did not allow future Presidents and Commanders to have. Being born subject to foreign powers and influence, they are not nor can they be natural born citizens.
Great natural born Citizen diagrams...
ReplyDeleteHi Mario,
A few days ago on BirtherReport.com someone posted a link to a blog with accurate diagrams showing the difference between a singular U.S. natural born citizens vs. dual U.S./foreign citizens.
Here is the url ( http://petesresearchonnaturalborncitizenship.blogspot.com/ ).
I liked the diagrams so I posted some of the diagrams on my blog
( http://originalbirtherdocument24.blogspot.com/ )
with some of the Democrat and Republican presidential candidates.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
P.S.
Relative to Article II, Sen. Rand Paul's vociferous and correct rant against the Patriot Act yesterday, Sunday May 31, 2015, is what is needed on the floors of the House and the Senate.
If political push comes to political shove, maybe Sen. Paul, if he is not aware of Vattel, Minor v.Happersett, U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, and et al., and singular U.S. citizenship vs. dual u.S./foreign citizenship, maybe the Senator will also vociferously comment about the original genesis original intent reason for original birther John Jay's underlining the word "born" in "natural born Citizen" in his note to his friend George Washington as a reference to meaning only singular U.S. citizenship by being born only on U.S. soil only to two U.S. citizen married parents.
Who knows, maybe Sen. Paul, or Carly Fiorina, or, who knows, maybe even Sen. Cruz and Sen. Rubio, may see this note, someday, and also see the natural born citizen diagrams created by Peter Lettkeman.
Art
U.S. Constitution: The Origian Birther Document of the Union
( http://originalbirtherdocument24.blogspot.com/ )
I disagree that John McCain is a "Natural-Born Citizen" The strict requirement is that an NBC is one born IN a country of citizen parents. McCain is a "Citizen"by statute but he is not a "Natural Born Citizen". McCain meets the 100% American Jus Sanquinis requirement since both his parents were Americans themselves. However, McCain does not meet the U.S. Jus soli requirement. McCain was born in Colon,Panama. Bases in foreign nations are NOT U.S. soil. Pursuant to the Panama Canal Zone Treaty, Colon,Panama and Panama City, Panama were explicitly excluded from the parameters of the "Panama Canal Zone".McCain was born outside the United States.
ReplyDeleteJohn Laity,
ReplyDeleteJohn McCain was born in Panama to U.S citizen parents where were serving the armies of the state. He is therefore reputed born in the United States to U.S. citizen parents. That makes him a natural born citizen. See Emer de Vattel, The Law of Nations, Section 217 (1758)("§ 217. Children born in the armies of the state or in the house of its minister at a foreign court. For the same reasons also, children born out of the country, in the armies of the state, or in the house of its minister at a foreign court, are reputed born in the country; for a citizen who is absent with his family, on the service of the state, but still dependent on it, and subject to its jurisdiction, cannot be considered as having quitted its territory.")
Maybe you will reconsider your position in light of this authoritative source upon which the Framers relied for their definition of an Article II natural born citizen.
Mario,
ReplyDeleteAlthough we all agree that 212 is the definative source for natural born citizen. How about we consider the following.
213 refers to resident aliens (inhabitants)
214 Naturalization-Begining with the Act of 1790 we allowed those that lived in a state for two years a resident to naturalize as well as those children born abroad of a citizen father who had been a resident of the United States (this prevented second generation foreign born from being citizens)
215 Children born abroad in the first sentence says that "It is asked whether the children born of citizens in a foreign country are citizens? The laws have decided this question in several countries, and their regulations must be followed." Do we account for this in the Act of 1790 under section 214?
216 Children born at sea. We follow this.
217 Children born in the Armies. We account for them under 214 in that we grant no special allocations for the children born in the Armies any different than we do children born of other citizens. The Act of 1790 makes no distinction or am I missing something. If this is the case they are treated as if they are section 215 children of which we account for under 214.
With the lack of historical legislation to grant specific allowances for a child born in the Armies of which the Congress has attempted as recently as 2008 and the stance the founders had on standing Armies I think that my theory is a more practical application and understanding of how the founders utilized chapter 19.
From the man who was part of both the Act of 1790 and 1795 which is the thorn in our side.
http://teachinghistory.org/history-content/ask-a-historian/24671
In June of 1787, James Madison addressed the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia on the dangers of a permanent army. “A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty,” he argued. “The means of defense against foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people.” That Madison, one of the most vocal proponents of a strong centralized government—an author of the Federalist papers and the architect of the Constitution—could evince such strongly negative feelings against a standing army highlights the substantial differences in thinking about national security in America between the 18th century and the 21st.
28 February 2008 S.2678[24] Claire McCaskill MO as part of a military funding bill “Children of Military Families Natural Born Citizen Act – Declares that the term “natural born Citizen” in article II, section 1, clause 5 of the Constitution, dealing with the criteria for election to President of the United States, includes any person born to any U.S. citizen while serving in the active or reserve components of the U.S. armed forces.”
Your thoughts kind sir.