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Friday, July 19, 2013

The Constitution, the Rule of Law, and the “Natural Born Citizen” Clause: A Response to Artsy Fartsy Squeeky Fromm Girl Reporter







The Constitution, the Rule of Law, and the “Natural Born Citizen” Clause:  A Response to Artsy Fartsy Squeeky Fromm Girl Reporter

By Mario Apuzzo, Esq.
July 19, 2013











Artsy Fartsy Squeeky Fromm Girl Reporter (“Squeeky Fromm”) continues in vain to try to persuade the public that she has refuted my position that an Article II “natural born Citizen” is a child born in the country to parents who were its “citizens” at the time of the child’s birth. 

I.                 
   
Squeeky Fromm has taken a stab at my Jack Maskell article, The Fallacies of Congressional Legislative Attorney Jack Maskell’s Definition of a “Natural Born Citizen,”  accessed at http://puzo1.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-fallacies-of-congressional.htmlYou can read her response here. http://birtherthinktank.wordpress.com/2013/06/08/he-says-apuzzo-i-say-a-pazzo/

She says that I have misread
Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1875), because the Court said that “new citizens may be born or they may be created by naturalization.” I say, so what in light of the fact that the Court also 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.”  Id. at 167-68.  Hence, the Court said that at common law, if one was not born in the country to citizen parents, one was an “alien or foreigner.” This is the same exact treatment that Congress gave to children born in the United States to alien parents in its Naturalization Acts of 1790, 1795, 1802, and 1855. In these acts, Congress treated children born in the United States to alien parents as alien born and in need of naturalization.  So Squeeky Fromm has proven nothing other than to show that she does not understand what she reads.

Then Squeeky Fromm turns to my logical analysis of the Maskell fallacious argument. In the first part of her attempt at logic, it is quite clear that she has totally missed my point about Maskell’s first argument being invalid. I showed that Maskell’s first argument as having this invalid logical form (“natural born Citizen”=NBC; “citizen at birth”=CAB):

All NBCs are CABs.
All X’s are CABs.
Therefore, all X’s are NBC.

To show the invalidity of this argument, I wrote:

All poodles are dogs.
Bubbles is a dog.
Therefore, Bubbles is a poodle.

Squeeky Fromm says that this argument is not valid and faults me for presenting it. She misstates my presentation, even attempting to prove me wrong by showing through some other irrelevant logical argument why this argument is not valid. I said that this is the argument presented by Maskell.  But I said that this is Maskell’s argument and that it is not valid because it violates the rule of the undistributed middle and is also fallacious for affirming the consequent. So, what is ironic is that Squeeky Fromm attacks me, in her twisted and incorrect way, for the argument when what she is really doing is attacking Jack Maskell.

Then Squeeky Fromm takes a shot at the second part of my analysis of the Maskell argument.  I recast his argument as follows to make the argument valid: 

All CAB’s are NBCs.
All X’s are CAB’s.
Therefore, all X’s are NBCs.

In my article, I explained that I took Maskell’s invalid argument (above) and made it valid through this logical form. I did this to show where Maskell’s informal fallacy is hidden. I showed how this argument is logically valid, but unsound because its major premise, All CAB’s are NBCs, is false. I explained that Maskell has not presented any evidence to prove the truth of this major premise. I presented U.S. Supreme Court case law which addressed the meaning of a “natural-born citizen” and this case law does not support Maskell’s thesis that all “citizens at birth” are “natural-born citizens.” See below for a summary of these cases.  And even though Squeeky Fromm comes to Maskell’s aid, she also does not present any evidence to show that Maskell’s major premise, as reconstructed by me, would be true. What she does in place of presenting any evidence that the major premise is true is just to say that the premise does not strike her “as being facially incorrect, invalid, or untrue.” From this statement we can see that Squeeky Fromm has very little understanding of informal logic and fallacies. An informal fallacy has the exact facial appeal that she relies upon. But when its underlying truth is tested, it fails.

I have demonstrated how Maskell has not proven that his major premise is true. I have also presented evidence that shows that his major premise is false. I have therefore unmasked the informal fallacy of the Maskell major premise, i.e., that all “citizens at birth” are “natural born Citizens.” Yet, Squeeky Fromm says that I have proven nothing. On the contrary, she is the one who just says a lot of mixed up nothing, demonstrates how incapable she is of understanding case law, and proves how ignorant she is when it comes to logic.
II.                 
In her June 12, 2013 “Distributed Muddle” article, accessed at http://birtherthinktank.wordpress.com/2013/06/12/mario-apuzzo-esq-s-distributed-muddle/ ,
Squeeky Fromm tries to persuade that she successfully addressed my criticisms of Congressional Attorney Jack Maskell’s thesis (his major premise) that all born citizens are “natural born citizens.”  From her article we can see that she is starting to understand the world of logic a little better. But she does not admit the blunder that she made with the first part of my logical presentation in which I expose why to argue, that since all “natural born Citizen” are “citizens at birth,” and since Barack Obama is a “citizen at birth,” he is a “natural born Citizen,” is logically invalid.  We have to recognize this argument and show that it is invalid because it is one of the means by which Maskell arrives at his conclusion that Obama is a “natural born citizen.”   

Second, Squeeky Fromm, underplays the second part of my logical analysis where I show, by converting Maskell’s invalid argument into a valid argument, that Maskell’s second argument is unsound because the major premises is false.  Maskell’s second argument can only be all “citizens at birth” are “natural born citizens,” and since Obama is a “citizen at birth,” he is a “natural born citizen.”  Maskell’s major premise in this argument would be all “citizens at birth” are “natural born Citizens.” Squeeky Fromm fails to understand the importance of the maneuver of taking someone’s invalid argument and making valid. It is done to show that if the argument is to succeed, then its premises must be true. And it is here that I have shown that Maskell’s major premise is false and therefore also his conclusion that Obama is a “natural born citizen.”    

Squeeky Fromm just blows this point off by simply saying that there is just a disagreement between Maskell and me on the definition of a “natural born Citizen.” Now is that not just genius for Squeeky Fromm to figure out. I have challenged both Maskell and Squeeky Fromm to provide evidence that Maskell’s major premise is true. We do not hear from Maskell nor do we expect to.  And from Squeeky Fromm, who loves to make herself heard on a daily basis, she simply says that
United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898) trumps Minor. So there you have the strength of their argument which is supposed to prove that Maskell’s major premise is true. We know that Minor defined a “natural-born citizen” as a child born in the country to parents who were its citizens at the time of the child’s birth. And we also know that Wong Kim Ark, interpreting the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment and its “subject to the jurisdiction” clause, and ultimately defining a “citizen of the United States” at birth under that amendment, did not alter Minor’s definition of a “natural-born citizen,” and even distinguished a “natural-born citizen” from a “citizen of the United States” at birth under that amendment.  Squeeky Fromm is just making stuff up given that she has nothing else to present to us which would show that the Maskell major premises is true. 

So, Maskell’s first argument, that since Obama is a “citizen at birth” he is a “natural born Citizen” is not valid. And his second argument which necessarily contains the major premise, all “citizens at birth” are “natural born Citizens,” has no historical and legal support. Hence, Maskell’s argument, no matter which one we choose as to what is a “natural born Citizen” and whether Obama meets that definition, is false. 

III.              

Squeeky Fromm also comes to the aid of Ted Cruz in her June 25, 2013 article published at http://birtherthinktank.wordpress.com/2013/06/25/with-2020-foresight-the-once-and-future-apuzzo/ In this piece, which she passes off as a decision against me rendered by an imaginary judge, she argues, albeit without any historical or legal support, that my definition of a “natural born citizen,” i.e., a child born in the country to parents who were its “citizens” at the time of the child’s birth is wrong.  She maintains that Cruz, who was born in Canada to a non-U.S. “citizen” father and a U.S. “citizen” mother is a “natural born citizen.” 

She attempts to dismiss Minor as being irrelevant to the issue of both Obama and Cruz’s eligibility, arguing that Minor did not define or deal with children born inside the United States to alien parents. This is incorrect. Minor told us that at common law with which the Framers were familiar, such children were “aliens or foreigners.” Here is the quote from the Court:  “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.”  We can see from what the Court said that at common law if a child was born in the United States to alien parents, the child was an “alien or foreigner.”  It also follows from this common law rule that at common law (not to be confounded with statutes), any child who was born out of the United States, regardless of whether born to “citizen” parents or alien parents, was also an alien or foreigner.  This common law rule was reflected in Congress’s Naturalization Acts of 1790, 1795, 1802, and 1855 which treated children born in the United States to alien parents as alien born and naturalized at birth children born out of the United States to “citizen” parents or naturalized them after birth if born to alien parents.  

She states that the clause “natural born citizen” “was discussed at length in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark.” This is false. Wong Kim Ark discussed at length the English common law and an English “natural born subject.” The English common law defined neither a “citizen” nor a “natural born citizen.”  Justice Swayne in United States v. Rhodes, 27 F. Cas. 785 (Cir.Ct. D. Ky. 1866) (No. 16,151), told us that neither a “citizen” nor a “natural born citizen” were defined by the English common law. The court said that “British jurisprudence, whence so much of our own is drawn, throws little light upon the subject.  . . . Blackstone and Tomlin contain nothing upon the subject. ”  Id. at 788.  So, Wong Kim Ark, which spent much time on analyzing the English common law, could not have been analyzing the meaning of a “natural born citizen” which clause was not even found in that law. 

Squeeky Fromm quotes Wong Kim Ark’s comment that the English common law jus soli rule continued “to prevail under the Constitution as originally established.” This statement does not prove that a “natural born citizen” was defined under English common law and not under the law of nations. What this statement means is that through the time of the adoption of the Constitution, the states, which selectively adopted the English common law until abrogated by state legislatures, decided who their citizens were and that they to some undefined degree used the jus soli English common law rule to make that decision. These state citizens became “citizens of the United States” upon the adoption of the Constitution. But then in 1790, Congress passed the Naturalization Act of 1790, followed by that of 1795, 1802, and 1855. After that, the states, to whatever degree they still applied the English common law, could no longer naturalize anyone after birth and their state citizens were no longer recognized as national citizens or what the Constitution called “citizens of the United States.” The only common law rule that Congress did not nor could abrogate was that of the law of nations/American national common law which the Founders, Framers, and Ratifiers used to certainly and uniformly define a “natural born citizen.” And that definition was a child born in a country to parents who were its “citizens” at the time of the child’s birth.

Squeeky Fromm repeats that “citizens at birth” are equivalent to “natural born citizens.”  But like Jack Maskell, she begs the question that all “citizens at birth” are “natural born citizens.” Other than just assuming, like Jack Maskell, that her statement is true, she fails to provide any evidence that her statement is true. Hence, that the Fourteenth Amendment or a Congressional Act might declare someone born either in the United States or out of it to be a “citizen at birth” does not prove that that person is a “natural born citizen.”

She argues that Ted Cruz is a “natural born citizen” under 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1401(g).  Here, she makes the absurd argument that Cruz is a “natural born citizen” by way of a naturalization act of Congress.  Using her logic, the “natural born citizen” clause would have no meaning or limits if Congress could simply naturalize anyone at birth which Squeeky Fromm then considers to be a “natural born citizen.”  She looks to the Naturalization Act of 1790 for support. Regarding whether children born out of the United States to U.S. “citizen” parents are “natural-born citizens,” the Naturalization Act of 1790 does not help Squeeky Fromm because the 1795 Act, with the work of James Madison, repealed it and replaced “natural born citizen” with “citizen of the United States.” Despite her statement that Congress never did so, the 1795 Act, with James Madison’s influence, plainly shows from its text that “Congress intended to limit the rights of foreign born citizens at birth to some quanta less than that of a natural born citizen.” Furthermore, Wong Kim Ark informed us that the Fourteenth Amendment “has not touched the acquisition of citizenship by being born abroad of American parents, and has left that subject to be regulated, as it had always been, by Congress in the exercise of the power conferred by the Constitution to establish an uniform rule of naturalization.” So, Wong Kim Ark told us that children born out of the United States to U.S. “citizen” parents become “citizens at birth” under Congress’s naturalization powers. That means they are naturalized at birth. By her own concession, if they are naturalized, they cannot be “natural born citizens,” regardless of when they obtain their citizenship.

Squeeky Fromm puts forth a straw man argument, arguing that it is an injustice that the children born abroad to our military should be denied the status of “natural born citizens.”  But she misstates my position on that issue.  I have always argued, under Vattel’s Section 217, a child born out of the United States to U.S. “citizen” parents serving the defense of the United States (“the armies of the state”) is reputed born in the United States and therefore a “natural born citizen.” This rule makes John McCain, who was born to U.S. “citizen” parents serving the U.S. national defense, a “natural born citizen” regardless of where in Panama he may have been born.

Squeeky Fromm argues that my position that if Congress makes one a “citizen” at birth, then Congress naturalized that person to be a “citizen” at birth is absurd because Congress in 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1401(a) passed a statute which also acts upon the “natural born citizens.”  But that Congress may choose to pass a statute acting upon “natural born citizens” does not make those persons naturalized citizens.  Those persons are “natural born citizen” and they do not lose that status because Congress may pass a naturalization statute which also acts upon them. 

Squeeky Fromm engages in an invalid logical argument, arguing: All "natural born citizens" are "citizens at birth," and since Ted Cruz is a "citizen at birth," he is a "natural born Citizen." As I have shown above, this argument violates the rule of the undistributed middle. It is also fallacious for affirming the consequent. As I have already explained, Jack Maskell commits the same logical errors.  She also commits logical error when she argues: All “natural born citizens are not naturalized citizens. Since Ted Cruz is not a naturalized citizen, he is a “natural born citizen.” She does not understand that we cannot arrive at an affirmative conclusion by way of one or two negative premises. 

Squeeky Fromm argues that “natural born citizens” are not naturalized citizens. Citizens “may be born or they may be created by naturalization.”  She adds that Cruz is a “born citizen” and not a naturalized citizen. She concludes that since he is “born a citizen” and not naturalized, he must be a “natural born citizen.”  Her argument fails because she does not account for how “born citizens” are made. “Born citizens” may be made by American national common law, by the Fourteenth Amendment, or by Acts of Congress. Per Minor, only the ones made by American national common law are “natural-born citizens.” Those made by the Fourteenth Amendment and Acts of Congress are “citizens of the United States” at birth. So, as we can see, just being a “born citizen” or “citizen at birth” does not automatically make one a “natural born citizen.”

Squeeky Fromm’s argument that since parentage is irrelevant for “citizens at birth” under the Fourteenth Amendment, therefore it must also be irrelevant for “natural born citizens” fails for at least two reasons. First, as I have shown above, there are different types of “citizens at birth,” and that parentage might not be relevant to one type does not mean it is not relevant to another type (which is the “natural born citizen” type). 


Squeeky Fromm begs the question that the Fourteenth Amendment defines a “natural born citizen.” She may say it, but she does not prove it. Actually, the Fourteenth Amendment is a red herring when it comes to defining a “natural born citizen.”  Why do I say that the Fourteenth Amendment is a red herring when it comes to defining an Article II “natural born Citizen?”  People like Squeeky Fromm love to use the Fourteenth Amendment as support in the “natural born Citizen” debate.  The amendment provides them with a moral argument for their definition of a “natural born Citizen” which has a great appeal with the American public.   That moral appeal is based on the history and purpose of the amendment.  We cannot forget that Congress passed the amendment as part of its Reconstruction after the Civil War.  It was to guarantee, among various things, the freed slaves citizenship through birth in the United States.  The amendment was designed to put an end for good to the Dred Scott decision, which had denied freed blacks the right to U.S. citizenship.  The amendment made sure that no state could abridge the privileges and immunities enjoyed by “citizens of the United States.”  The amendment also introduced the concept of due process as the protector of life, liberty, and property from abusive state action (the Fifth Amendment prohibits the federal government from depriving one of due process), and obligated the states to extend equal protection of the laws to any person present within its jurisdiction.  The Amendment came to be used as a primary tool to combat racism and discrimination, not only against blacks, but all people who suffered such illegal activities at the hands of any state.  So the amendment is not only connected to citizenship, but it is also supposed to protect our freedom and secure many rights of the individual.  With all that, the amendment packs a strong emotional punch.  So, people like Squeeky Fromm have found a great friend in the Fourteenth Amendment in their attempt to convince people that the amendment defines a “natural born citizen.” 

The problem for Squeeky Fromm is that while the amendment defines two classes of citizenship, federal and state, and has done great things for protecting life, liberty, and property, and the civil rights of all persons present on American territory, it has nothing to do with defining a “natural born Citizen.”  But that surely does not stop Squeeky Fromm from using the amendment when it comes to providing us with a definition of a “natural born Citizen.”  After all, how could she pass it up after all it has done for the betterment of American society?  So people like Squeeky Fromm will continue to tell the public how could anyone dare believe that a “natural born citizen” is not defined by that amendment which does so much to protect our American way of life. 

But the simple truth is that Squeeky Fromm conflates and confounds a “citizen” under the amendment with an Article II “natural born citizen.”  Anyone who will just stop and read the amendment can readily see that it does not even mention the clause “natural born Citizen.”  Rather, it mentions “citizen of the United States,” which citizenship status Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 tells us is no longer sufficient for one to be eligible to be President today.  If one also looks further into the amendment, one will learn that it neither repealed nor amended Article II’s “natural born Citizen” clause and therefore left that clause to be defined as it had always been defined under American national common law.  And that definition is, as confirmed by the unanimous U.S. Supreme Court in Minor and the majority and dissent in Wong Kim Ark, a child born in the country to parents who were its “citizens” at the time of the child’s birth. 

Squeeky Fromm argues that there is no sign of Emer de Vattel post Wong Kim Ark and therefore Vattel is dead. This is false. Minor’s definition of a “natural-born citizen,” being a paraphrase of Vattel’s
The Law of Nations (London 1797) (1st ed. Neuchatel 1758), comes from Vattel. Wong Kim Ark did not disturb that definition nor did it have to in order to find that Wong was a “citizen of the United States” at birth under the Fourteenth Amendment. Nor has any other decision of the U.S. Supreme Court. Hence, Vattel still lives and reigns after Wong Kim Ark and even to the present.

Squeeky Fromm also fails to understand this fundamental truth--that one becomes at once a “citizen at birth” and does not need naturalization does not mean that one was not naturalized. See Calvin’s Case (1608) which was decided in England in 1608. That case proves that being a “citizen at birth” can entail having been naturalized at birth which necessarily excludes one from being a true “natural born citizen.” Calvin was born to Scottish parents in the country of Scotland, after 1603, the year in which the English throne under the Tudor dynasty descended to the Stuart King, James VI of Scotland, making him James I, King of both England and Scotland. Since Calvin was born after 1603, he was considered a postnati. The English Parliament for political and social reasons refused to naturalize the Scottish Calvin as an English “natural born subject” by statute. Since Parliament would not naturalize him by statute, it was decided by the King’s men that they would get the courts to do so by common law (judge made law). Lord Coke found that under natural law Calvin at birth, having been born in the King’s dominion (Scotland), owed natural allegiance to James as King of England and Scotland, by owing that allegiance to the natural body (as distinguished from his political body and the laws of England that came with it) of the King who reigned over both kingdoms. So because Calvin owed natural allegiance to the natural body of the King and that natural King also ruled over England, Lord Coke found that Calvin also owed allegiance to the King as King of England. So it did not matter that Calvin at birth was not bound by the laws of England. What mattered was that by natural law he was bound by natural allegiance to the King who also ruled over England. Lord Coke then, from the single circumstance of Calvin being born in the King’s dominion, naturalized Calvin at birth vis-a'-vis England and ruled that he was a “natural born subject” of England. Calvin’s Scottish parents (the antenati) were eventually naturalized by statute as English subjects. Calvin’s case proves the fundamental rule that gaining subject status at birth under the English common law rather than a statute does not prove that one is a “natural born citizen,” for that status was gained through judicial naturalization at birth  See also Emer de Vattel, The Law of Nations, Section 214 Naturalisation (1758) (correctly understanding Calvin’s Case said: “Finally, there are states, as, for instance, England, where the single circumstance of being born in the country naturalises the children of a foreigner”); Wong Kim Ark (said that persons who are born abroad to U.S “citizen” parents and who are U.S. citizens at birth are nevertheless so naturalized by Congressional Acts; Rogers v. Bellei, 401 U.S. 815(1971) (considers persons born abroad to U.S. citizen parents who are citizens at birth to be naturalized at birth; J. Black dissenting in Bellei also said: "All means of obtaining American citizenship which are dependent on congressional enactment are forms of naturalization"). 

IV.         
     
On July 14, 2013, Squeeky Fromm took another jab at my Jack Maskell refutation.  She says: 
“You see the same thing when Mario Apuzzo, Esq. tries to cobble Logical Syllogisms into his Birther legal theories when such techniques are totally inappropriate in situations where the major premises themselves which [sic] are at issue. (See Note 1, below.)

Note 1. For an example of Apuzzo’s sashay into Putative Pedantics, see:http://birtherthinktank.wordpress.com/2013/06/12/mario-apuzzo-esq-s-distributed-muddle/ .”
Squeeky Fromm read my article entitled , The Fallacies of Congressional Legislative Attorney Jack Maskell’s Definition of a “Natural Born Citizen,”  accessed at http://puzo1.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-fallacies-of-congressional.htmlShe learned something about logic from my article.  Now she attempts to use that little bit that she learned to sound authoritative and show that she won the argument.  

I clearly stated the two possible sources for Jack Maskell’s erroneous conclusion that Barack Obama is a “natural born citizen.”   

The first source rests on invalid logical argument.  We can all agree on the statement that all “natural born citizens” are born citizens.  From this truism, Maskell wants us to believe that since Barack Obama is a born citizen, he is also a “natural born citizen.”  This is a logically invalid argument.  It is as invalid as arguing that all poodles are dogs, and since Bubbles is a dog, Bubbles is a poodle.  The fallacy is clear to see once identified.  The problem with these fallacious arguments is in recognizing them when someone is trying to give us a snow job. 

The second source is based on unsound logical argument.  An argument can be logically valid but unsound (false).  This occurs when the argument is valid as to its form, but upon investigation, one learns that either the major or minor premise is false which produces a false conclusion.  In my article, I took Maskell’s invalid argument and made it into a valid one by presenting it in a valid logical form.  Thus I produced: 

All born citizens are “natural born citizens.”    
Obama is a born citizen.
Therefore, Obama is a “natural born citizen.” 

I demonstrated that while this argument is valid as to its form, it is unsound because the major premise, All born citizens are “natural born citizens,” is false.  It is false because the Founders, Framers, and Ratifiers wrote “natural born citizen,” not “born citizen.”  It is false because just being born a citizen has never been the test for being a “natural born citizen.”  The expression born citizen does not tell us how one becomes a born citizen.  It does not tell us who shall be said to be a born citizen.  It does not tell us what the facts and circumstances are which the definition of a “natural born citizen” states are necessary and sufficient to make one a born citizen and therefore a “natural born citizen.”  No U.S. Supreme Court has ever defined a “natural born citizen” by saying that anyone who is a born citizen is a “natural born citizen.”  There simply is no U.S. Supreme Court case that supports such a proposition.  Congress has never defined a “natural born citizen” as simply anyone who is born a citizen.  In other words, neither Jack Maskell nor anyone else has presented historical and legal evidence which demonstrates that all born citizens are “natural born citizens.”  On the contrary, I have shown that there has only ever been one definition of a “natural born citizen” and that is a child born in the country to parents who were its “citizens” at the time of the child’s birth.  This definition is, indeed, a real definition, for it provides those facts and circumstance which must be met in order for one to be a “natural born citizen.” 

Squeeky Fromm also tells us that no one ever heard of Emer de Vattel and that he is a non-figure when it comes to defining a “natural born citizen.”  She adds: 

“1. Most of us have some memory of high school civics class, and no memory whatsoever of anybody called Emer de Vattel. The Birthers try to supplant our non-existent memory with false memories of Vattel and his alleged two citizen parents theory of natural born citizenship. There are actually some people who now claim to remember being taught about Vattel in this light, and absolutely NO TEXTBOOKS which support that memory.”

Apart from all the extant historical evidence which proves Squeeky Fromm to be wrong about the definition of a “natural born citizen” and Vattel’s connection to that definition, there are numerous cases which show her to be wrong.  See: 

1.         Emer de Vattel, The Law of Nations, Section 212 Citizens and natives (London 1797) (1st ed. Neuchatel 1758):  “The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens.’” 

2.         The Venus, 12 U.S. 8 Cranch 253, 289 (1814) (C.J. Marshall concurring):  “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 [having equivalent meaning to "natural-born citizens”] 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.’”  

3.         Inglis v. Sailors’ Snug Harbor, 28 U.S. 99 (1830): 

“II. The second general question is, whether John Inglis, the demandant, was or was not capable of taking lands in the state of New York by descent.

This question is presented under several aspects, for the purpose of meeting what at present from the evidence appears a little uncertain, as to the time of the birth of John Inglis. This question as here presented, does not call upon the court for an opinion upon the broad doctrine of allegiance and the right of expatriation, under a settled and unchanged state of society and government. But to decide what are the rights of the individuals composing that society, and living under the protection of that government, when a revolution occurs; a dismemberment takes place; new governments are formed; and new relations between the government and the people are established.”

After stating that the English common law broad allegiance no longer applied to the new America after the Revolution, it held:  


“2. 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). Rejecting the English common law jus soli rule and the rule of perpetual allegiance that may have prevailed in a state unless abrogated by statute and used for deciding questions of inheritance of lands located within a state’s jurisdiction, which rules were adopted by Justice Johnson and Justice Story in their concurring opinions, and rather adopting the national jus sanguinis rule of the law of nations, the Court held that if the child was born in New York when it was a new state to alien parents, the child followed the condition of his alien father, which could have been cast off at the age of majority, and never having been done the son was therefore neither a “natural born Citizen” nor a “citizen of the United States,” but rather alien born.  So, even though the child was born in New York after the Revolution, the U.S. Supreme Court, regardless of what the common or statutory law of New York might have been on the subject of allegiance, still ruled that the child was alien born, because the father was an alien at the time of the child’s birth. 

4.        Shanks v. Dupont, 28 U.S. 242, 245 (1830):  As we saw above, in Inglis, Justice Story was in the minority on the question of whether the demandant was a citizen of the State of New York and thus a U.S. citizen.  Relying upon the English common law jus soli rule, he had ruled that if born in New York after July 4, 1776, but before the 15th of September of the same year, when the British took possession of New York, he was a U.S. citizen even though his father was a British subject.  But in Shanks, which was decided after Inglis, he accepted that the American Revolution changed the rules of allegiance in the new America and changed his position on allegiance and U.S. citizenship.  Here he started by saying: 


“After the elaborate opinions expressed in the case of Inglis vs. The Trustees of the Sailor’s Snug Harbour, ante p. 99, upon the question of alienage, growing out of the American Revolution; it is unnecessary to do more in delivering the opinion of the court in the present case, than to state, in a brief manner, the grounds on which our decision is founded.”

Justice Story, adopting the Inglis majority position which rejected the jus soli (citizenship through place of birth) of the English common law and accepted the jus sanguinis (citizenship inherited from parents) of the law of nations, then went on to explain: 

“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.” Justice Johnson, dissenting for other reasons, said that Ann Scott (married Ann Shanks) “was a native born citizen of South Carolina, daughter of a native born citizen of North Carolina,” and that her being a citizen of South Carolina at the moment of her birth was established by the “leading maxim[] of common law,” “proles sequitur sortem paternam,” which means “the offspring follows the condition of the father.” Black’s Law Dictionary 1091 (5th ed. 1979).

5.         Barry v. Mercein, 46 U. S. 103 (1847):  Argument of counsel for John A. Barry, a British “natural born subject:”

“4.  The plaintiff in error being of legeance to the crown of England, his child, though born in the United States during his father’s temporary residence therein – twenty-two months and twenty days – not withstanding its mother be an American citizen, is not a citizen of the United States. It is incapacitate by its infancy from making any present election, follows the legeance of its father, partus sequitur patrem, and is a British subject. The father being domiciled and resident within the dominions of Her Britannic Majesty, such is also the proper and rightful domicil of his wife and child, and he has a legal right to remove them thither. The child being detained from the father, its natural guardian and protector, without authority of law, and writ of habeas corpus ad subjiciendum is his appropriate legal remedy for its restoration to him from its present illegal detention and restraint. Constitution United States, art. 3, sec. 2; Judiciary Act, 1789, sec. 11; Inglis v. Trustees Sailor’s Snug Harbor, 3 Peters, 99; 7 Anne, cap. 5; 4 Geo. III. cap. 21; Warrender v. Warrender, 2 Clar. & Fin. Ap. Ca. 523; Story’s Confl. Laws, 30, 36, 43, 74, 160; Shelford on Marriage, Ferg. Rep. 397, 398.” 

6.         Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393, 476-77 (1857) (J. Daniel concurring):  The decision only dealt with the question of whether Dred Scott was a “citizen of the United States.”  Nevertheless, Justice Daniel, concurring, defined a “natural born citizen.” While as repugnant as slavery was and still is, no court or amendment has over turned the meaning of “natural-born citizen” from Dred Scott as described by Justice Daniel nor has there ever been a need to do so.  The main point is that in deciding what a "citizen" was in 1856, both the majority and dissent went back to 1787 to examine what the Framers and the people of that time considered a "citizen" to be.  The Court said that the Constitution must be understood now as it was understood at the time it was written.  The judges did not disagree that one had to look back to the Founders.  What they disagreed on is what the public opinion was at that time as to whether a freed slave was a “citizen.”  In this regard, we know that the Court’s holding that freed slaves were not “citizens of the United States” was overruled by the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Thirteenth (ratified in 1865) and Fourteenth (ratified in 1868) Amendment, none of which repealed or amended Article II’s “natural born Citizen” clause. 

As to the “natural born Citizen” clause, Justice Daniel 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 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.” 

(quoting and citing Emer de Vattel, The Law of Nations, Section 212 (London 1797) (1st ed. Neuchatel 1758)).  It should be noted that Justice Daniel took out of Vattel’s definition the reference to “fathers” and “father” and replaced it with “parents” and “person,” respectively.  It is true that it was only Justice Daniel in his concurrence that defined a “natural born Citizen” the way he did.  But on more than one occasion, the United States Supreme Court has defined what a "natural born Citizen" is.  Justice Daniel’s definition of a “natural born Citizen” was first confirmed by Chief Justice John Marshall in The Venus (1814) and later confirmed by the unanimous Court in Minor and both the majority and dissent in Wong Kim Ark.  To this day, that definition has never been changed.    


7.         Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162, 168-170 (1875):  The unanimous U.S. Supreme Court explained:  “The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens."  Hence, the Court said that neither the original Constitution nor the Fourteenth Amendment (ratified in 1868) defined a "natural born citizen." In fact, there is nothing in the text of or debates on the Fourteenth Amendment which in any way suggests that it amended Article II and its "natural born citizen" clause.  The Court said that the Amendment did not add to the privileges and immunities enjoyed by the people prior to the adoption of that Amendment.  We know that these privileges and immunities enjoyed as a citizen of a state had been protected from state deprivation by Article IV and privileges and immunities enjoyed as a citizen of the United States were now also protected from state abridgement by the Fourteenth Amendment.  Hence, the Amendment could not have granted the privilege and right of being elected to the Office of President to persons who did not have that privilege and right prior to its adoption. 
 

The Court then further explained that since the Constitution did not provide the meaning of a "natural born citizen,"    

"[r]esort 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. ”

Id. at 167-68. 

Hence, a child born in a country to parents who were its “citizens” was not only a “citizen” like them, but also a “natural-born citizen,” which maybe his or her parents were not.  Under that same common law, all the rest of the people were "aliens or foreigners," who the Court later explained could become "citizens of the United States" by satisfying naturalization Acts of Congress or maybe the Fourteenth Amendment.  The Court also sua sponte  stated that "some authorities" went further and included as "citizens"  children "born within the jurisdiction" to alien parents.  The Court said that while "there have been doubts" about whether such children born  in the United States to alien parents were "citizens," there never had been any doubts that children born in the country to citizens parents, who the Court called "natural-born citizens," were "citizens."  So the Court basically said that with the "natural born citizens," there were no doubts that they were "citizens."  But with non-"natural born citizens," such as children born in the United States to alien parents, who could look to no other law other than the Fourteenth Amendment to gain U.S. citizenship status, there could be doubts about whether they were even just "citizens." So, exactly from where did the citizenship doubts to which the Court was referring come? They surely did not come from the English common law which based on birthright, naturalized at birth as "natural-born subjects" children born in the King's dominion to alien parents.  So the Court could not have been looking to the English common law for its definition of a "natural born citizen," for that law provided no doubt as to the "natural-born subject" status of children born in the King's dominion to alien parents.  Also, the Court's doubts could not have come from the common law to which the Court said the Framers looked for their definition of a "natural born citizen," for under that common law there was no doubt that such children were not "natural born citizens."  Rather, those doubts came from the new Fourteenth Amendment and its ambiguous "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" clause, which the U.S. Supreme Court in The Slaughterhouse Cases (1873) (virtually the same Court as the Minor Court) said excluded from U.S. citizenship children born in the United States to alien parents.  So these Fourteenth Amendment potential citizens could not be "natural born citizens" under Minor's formulation, for there was no doubt that they did not meet its common law definition of the clause. They also could not even just be "citizens of the United States" under the English common law, for that law had no application in national U.S. citizenship.  The doubts were whether they could be plain "citizens of the United States" under the Fourteenth Amendment. With Virginia Minor being born in the country to "citizen" parents and thus a "natural born citizen," which without any doubt made her a "citizen" and therefore qualified to receive the privileges and immunities available under Article IV and the protection of the Fourteenth Amendment (which the Court eventually held did not include the right to vote), Minor said that it was not necessary to resolve the question that it raised about Fourteenth Amendment citizenship.   U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) eventually resolved this question.  See my discussion below on Wong Kim Ark. 

 
8.         Ex parte Reynolds, 20 F.Cas. 582, 5 Dill. 394, No. 11,719 (C.C.W.D.Ark 1879):  The Circuit Court of the Western District of Arkansas explained:

“[W]hen the question arises as to what people a person belongs, what rule is to govern in the solution of the problem?

There is no statute law on the subject. We find that the question before the country at one time, as to who was a white person and who was a member of the African race, was solved by legislative or       constitutional enactments defining the nationality of persons according to the quantum of white or African blood in the veins of the persons.

These laws were all enactments of the states, and had reference to the African race alone. The United States never had any statute law on the subject (and has not now) with regard to persons who are not subject to its jurisdiction. Now, in this case, as the 38th article of the treaty only permits an American citizen, or a white person, to expatriate himself -- to throw off his allegiance to the government of the United States -- and place himself beyond the jurisdiction of its courts by marriage to a Choctaw and residence in their country, we must somewhere find a rule to define who is a Choctaw, in [**15]  a case where there is mixed parentage. Does the quantum of Indian blood in the veins of the party determine the fact as to whether such party is of the white or Indian race? If so, how much Indian blood does it take to make an Indian, or how much white blood to make a person a member of the body politic known as American citizens? Where do we find any rule on the subject which makes the quantum of blood the standard of nationality? Certainly not from the statute law of the United States; nor is it to be found in the common law. In the case of United States v. Sanders [Case No. 16,220], the court held that the quantum of Indian blood in the veins did not determine the condition of the offspring of a union between a white person and an Indian; but further held that the condition of the mother did determine the question. And the court referred to the common law as authority for the position that the condition of the mother fixed the status of the offspring. The court is sustained in the first position by the common law, and also in the last position, if applied to the offspring of a connection between a freeman and a slave, upon the principle handed down from the Roman civil law,  [**16]  that the owner of a female animal is entitled to all her brood, according to the maxim partus sequitur ventrem. But by the common law this rule is reversed with regard to the offspring of free persons. Their offspring follows the condition of the father, and the rule partus sequitur patrem prevails in determining their status. 1 Bouv. Inst., 198, § 502; 31 Barb. 486; 2 Bouv. Law Dict. 147; Shanks v. Dupont, 3 Pet. [28 U.S.] 242. This is the universal maxim of the common law with regard to freemen -- as old as the common law, or even as the Roman civil law, and as well settled as the rule partus sequitur ventrem -- the one being a rule fixing the status of freemen; the other being a rule defining the ownership of property -- the one applicable to different political communities or states, whose citizens are in the enjoyment of the civil rights possessed by people in a state of freedom; the other defining the condition of the offspring which had been tainted by the bondage of the mother.
No other rules than the ones above enumerated ever did prevail in this or any other civilized country. In the case of Ludlam v. Ludlam, 31 Barb. 486, the court says: "The universal maxim of [**17]  the common law being partus sequitur patrem, it is sufficient for the application of this doctrine that the father should be a subject lawfully, and without breach of his allegiance beyond sea, no matter what may be the condition of the mother."

The law of nations, which becomes, when applicable to an existing condition of affairs in a country, a part of the common law of that country, declares the same rule. Vattel, in his Law of Nations (page 101), says: "As the society cannot exist and perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, these children naturally follow the condition of their fathers and succeed to their rights. * * * The country of the father is, therefore, that of the children, and these become true citizens merely by their tacit consent." Again, on page 102, Vattel says: "By the law of nature alone, children follow the condition of their fathers and enter into all their rights." This law of nature, as far as it has become a part of the common law, in the absence of any positive enactment on the subject, must be the rule in this case.”

Id. at 585, 18 Alb.Law J. 14-17 (cited with approval in United States v. Ward, 42 F.320; 1890 U.S. App. LEXIS 1586; 14 Sawy. 472 (C.C. S.D.Cal 1890) and Keith v. United States, 8 Okla. 446, 448, 58 P. 507 (1899)).   

9.         Ludlam v. Ludlam, 26 N.Y. 356 (1883):  “Vattel says: ‘ Society not being able to subsist and perpetuate itself, but by the children of its citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers and succeed to all their rights.’ B. 1, ch. 19, § 212.” 

10.       United States v. Ward, 42 F.320 (C.C.S.D.Cal. 1890):  “By the common law this rule [partus sequitur ventrem] is reversed with regard to the offspring of free persons. Their offspring follows the condition of the father, and the rule partus sequitur patrem prevails in determining their status. 1 Bouv. Inst., 198, § 502; 31 Barb. 486; 2 Bouv. Law Dict. 147; Shanks v. Dupont, 3 Pet. [28 U.S.] 242. This is the universal maxim of the common law with regard to freemen -- as old as the common law, or even as the Roman civil law, and as well settled as the rule partus sequitur ventrem -- the one being a rule fixing the status of freemen; the other being a rule defining the ownership of property -- the one applicable to different political communities or states, whose citizens are in the enjoyment of the civil rights possessed by people in a state of freedom; the other defining the condition of the offspring which had been tainted by the bondage of the mother.

No other rules than the ones above enumerated ever did prevail in this or any other civilized country. In the case of Ludlam v. Ludlam, 31 Barb. 486, the court says: ‘The universal maxim of the common law being partus sequitur patrem, it is sufficient for the application of this doctrine that the father should be a subject lawfully, and without breach of his allegiance beyond sea, no matter what may be the condition of the mother.’

The law of nations, which becomes, when applicable to an existing condition of affairs in a country, a part of the common law of that country, declares the same rule. Vattel, in his Law of Nations (page 101), says: ‘As the society cannot exist and perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, these children naturally follow the condition of their fathers and succeed to their rights. * * * The country of the father is, therefore, that of the children, and these become true citizens merely by their tacit consent.’ Again, on page 102, Vattel says: ‘By the law of nature alone, children follow the condition of their fathers and enter into all their rights.’ This law of nature, as far as it has become a part of the common law, in the absence of any positive enactment on the subject, must be the rule in this case.”   

11.       United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649, 679-80 (1898):  Confirmed Minor’s “natural-born citizen” definition when it 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” (citing and quoting Minor), and not being limited by the definition of a “natural-born citizen” when defining who a “citizen” was under the Fourteenth Amendment, held that a child born in the United States to domiciled and resident alien parents was a “citizen” under the Fourteenth Amendment.   

Wong Kim Ark eventually resolved Minor's open question, holding that a child born in the United States to permanently domiciled and resident alien parents was a "citizen of the United States" from the moment of birth by virtue of the Fourteenth Amendment.  It is critically constitutionally important to understand that the Court held Wong to be a "citizen" under the Fourteenth Amendment.  It did not hold that he was a "natural born citizen" under the common law with which the Framers were familiar when they drafted the Constitution and which according to Minor provided the definition of a "natural born citizen."   

People like Squeeky Fromm also use Wong Kim Ark to tell us about how the decision so well met the needs of our nation of immigrants who have come to our shores thirsting for freedom and opportunity, mixing that noble goal into the definition of a “natural born citizen.”  The simple response to this “feel good” argument is that immigrants coming to America are looking to become “citizens,” not “natural born citizens,” which is a status that their children can enjoy like the children of the Founders, Framers, and Ratifiers enjoyed.  Hence, this appeal to tradition is nothing but a fallacious argument applied to the definition of a “natural born citizen.”      

Despite Squeeky Fromm’s lack of memory of who Emer de Vattel was, all these decisions from our U.S. Supreme Court and these lower courts confirmed Vattel’s Section 212 definition of the “natural-born citizens” as “those born in the country, of parents who are citizens.”  This is the only definition of the clause that has ever existed and which has been recognized by our U.S. Supreme Court.  The conditions of being born in the country to “citizen” parents are both necessary and sufficient conditions of being a “natural born Citizen.”  The definition of a “natural born Citizen” therefore excludes anyone who is either not born in the country (or its jurisdictional equivalent) or not born to parents (both parents) who are its “citizens” at the time of the child’s birth or both. 

Squeeky Fromm takes the second part of my article, the one related to an unsound argument, and presents herself as some authority on the matter.  She presents a statement suggesting that I, the one who raised and discussed the issue in the first place, do not recognize the issue concerning the truth of the major premise.  I clearly not only recognized the issue, I created it as part of my logical analysis.  I also demonstrated, as can be seen above, how there is no truth to the Jack Maskell thesis that all born citizens are “natural born citizens.”   I did all that so that the public can see how Jack Maskell ultimately is wrong in his argument.
  
V.                 

Squeeky Fromm’s most recent foray is bringing Trayvon Martin into the “natural born citizen” debate. In her article, The George Zimmerman Verdict and Birtherism, at http://birtherthinktank.wordpress.com/2013/07/16/the-george-zimmerman-verdict-and-birtherism/ , she argues that Birthers are like “Trayvonites.”   She argues that the Zimmerman verdict was correct because the rule of law and the right to self-defense required it, but that Trayvon Martin’s supporters refuse to see the light.  What Squeeky Fromm fails to understand is that the Constitutionalists (whom she calls the “Birthers”) have taken the position that they have because of the Constitution and the rule of law.  What is ironic is that a commenter on her blog, “Joel Lawler,” has attacked her as being a racist for her pro-Zimmerman position.  He has told her to “take a deep look into your own sad racist soul.”  She defends her position, saying that the evidence and law require it.   So here we see Squeeky Fromm arguing that such decisions must be decided by the Constitution and the rule of law and not by other extraneous factors such as emotion, anger, prejudice, or revenge.  But she does not grant the “Birthers” the same right to argue that Obama is not a “natural born Citizen.”  We can only conclude from Squeeky Fromm’s inconsistent positions that the Constitution and the rule of law count for her only when it is politically expedient that they do so.    

So, Squeeky Fromm has failed to discredit my Jack Maskell refutation in her several articles (the links are above).  She continues to embarrass herself with her own artistic muddle.  She understands what the Constitution and the rule of law mean, but she applies them selectively and only for political expediency.     

In referring to the topic of her gaslighting article ( http://birtherthinktank.wordpress.com/2013/07/14/are-the-birthers-gaslighting-themselves/ ) blogger ppsimmons, this is what Squeeky Fromm ironically said to one of her sycophants: 

"Hi FrankB!!!

Thank you!!! Somebody had to de-construct him. Why do these guys try to put on airs like they know what they are talking about??? All they do is make trouble for themselves.” 

Too bad that Artsy Fartsy Squeeky Fromm Girl Reporter does not follow her own advice. 

Mario Apuzzo, Esq.
July 19, 2013
Updated March 8, 2014
####


Copyright © 2013
Mario Apuzzo, Esq.
All Rights Reserved
     

3179 comments:

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Stan said...

Thank you, Mario, not only for your continued impeccable clarity on this issue, but for your patience in staying with it through all comers. Please continue to keep the information 'out there'. Don't waver, don't tire. Detractors will finally get the message, and realize that they are not going to be able to silence you. or wear you down; that you are not to be trifled with.

The truth WILL out. If you keep it out there. And keep giving us the ammunition we need to counter the arguments of the leftists who are trying to hijack the American Republic, and its Constitution, in furtherance of their nefarious ends.

Unknown said...

no evidence was presented that showed gz was guilty of 2nd degree murder and no evidence was presented in minor that a child of a alien was ever a NBC. Another great essay mario with more proof that both parents must be us citizens. If fromm reads this then my message to her is to wish in one hand and defecate in the other and see what fills up first. Squeaky, you should be honored a great teacher of Article 2 and the US Constitution even mentions you. Thanks again mario for a excellent history lesson.

thalightguy said...

nlyieldiMario,

Great article, thanks for clearing up the Dred Scott opinion.

I still do not understand how the U.S. could accept the Southern States ratification of the 13th Amendment and then force them to ratify the 14th Amendment by denying them representation.

Carlyle said...

Yes, not to divert this blog into a whole other can of worms - - -

But much we have been taught about Lincoln being an exemplary hero and the cause and outcome of the civil war is all wrong.

Of particular interest, here, however - - - The 14th was the capstone and crown on the great movement to subvert the states to the over-reach of the federal government.

Before the 14th, we could still at least pretend that the constitution was the charter of the federal government, given by the sovereign states. After the 14th, you all of a sudden had all that upended and reversed. From that fateful day we have had the supremacy of the federal government. Like it or not.

From that day forward, you will find that a vast proportion of the USSC cases have been all about the 14th and that is essentially what "constitutional law" has become. Kevin Gutzman in his enlightening book "Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution" points out that at our universities, constitutional scholars don't even study the constitution anymore, they just study USSC cases and precedents!


Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

I of II

Here is a great example of Obot tripe manufactured by none other than the Obot Grand Knight, Dr. Conspiracy. At his blog he tells a commenter, Evidence Tracker, who argues that Obama, no matter where he was born, is not and cannot be a “natural born citizen” because he was surely born a British citizen through his British father. Here is Dr. Conspiracy’s reply:

“The laws of other countries (in this case England or Kenya) do not decide who is eligible to be President of the United States. Obama was a “Citizen of the UK and Colonies” and later a citizen of Kenya by their laws, but not by the laws of the United States, and is not a citizen of any other country today by anyone’s law.”~~Dr. Conspiracy. http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/2013/07/1000-words/#comments .

Dr. Conspiracy starts with a straw man. Of course, the laws of other countries do not decide who may be President of the United States. But the laws of the United States do. The Founders, Framers, and Ratifiers did not believe in double or multiple allegiances at birth or after birth. They sought in the future to keep out of the office of President and Commander in Chief of the Military any person who they viewed to be a foreigner. They viewed any child born after July 4, 1776 to a non-U.S. citizen father as owing allegiance at birth to a foreign nation and therefore not a U.S. “citizen” unless naturalized during his or her minority or as an adult. See the Naturalization Acts of 1790, 1795, 1802, 1855, The Venus, Inglis and Shanks discussed in my essay above. Hence, in their eyes, that child was an alien or foreigner born, regardless of whether any foreign nation exercised any jurisdiction over that child and regardless of whether the child’s parents were and their child was born subject to the laws of the United States or any individual state.

To avoid that any person born an alien or foreigner could be President, they provided in Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the Constitution, that among other things, future Presidents and Commanders had to be “natural born Citizens” in order to be eligible for those offices. We know that the Constitution, including the Fourteenth Amendment, does not define a “natural born Citizen.” Minor v. Happersett (1875); U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898). We also know that the common law, the nomenclature of which the Framers were familiar when they drafted the Constitution, defined a “natural-born citizen” as a child born in the country to parents who were its “citizens” at the time of the child’s birth. Minor; Wong Kim Ark. Dr. Conspiracy, like many of his ilk, conveniently ignores this American constitutional law.

Dr. Conspiracy concedes that Obama at birth was a “Citizen of the UK and Colonies” and later a citizen of Kenya. But he attempts to explain away these extremely pesky facts by contending that Obama’s foreign birth status was produced by the laws of Kenya and Great Britain, not by the laws of the United States. What Dr. Conspiracy conveniently omits is that the United States, like all civilized nations which adhere to the law of nations, recognizes another nation’s sovereign right to declare qualifying person’s (either through jus soli or jus sanguinis) citizens of those nations. Hence, if someone is born a citizen of some foreign nation based on a law that is recognized by the United States, the United States will recognize that birth status and not act, like Dr. Conspiracy, as though such birth status does not exist. Moreover, the United States, under the same law of nations, will also acknowledge the citizenship status of the parents of a child that may be born in the United States. If those parents are not U.S. citizens, the United States will recognize, honor, and be appropriately guided by that fact.

Continued . . .

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

II of II

Finally, it could also be true that today, Obama is a “citizen” only of the United States. But so what. That fact does not satisfy the Minor/Wong Kim Ark common law “natural-born citizen” test. That test is not what citizen the person is today. Rather, that test is was the child born in the United States (or its jurisdictional equivalent) and what citizens were the child’s parents when the child was born.

No matter how hard Dr. Conspiracy spins the Obama birth story to satisfy his corrupt and anti-constitutional political agenda, or how much he engages in a straw man argument about how wanting any “investigation” of Obama’s place of birth may be, or how much he attempts to con the public into believing that a “citizen” is the same as a “natural born Citizen,” or how much he and his sycophants beat up on some vulnerable target, he cannot change the conceded facts and millennia of law. Even if Obama was born in Hawaii, a fact which he has not yet conclusively proven notwithstanding, Obama’s presentation of the only alleged “official” and competent evidence of his birth which to date is an internet electronic image of a birth certificate (which has been electronically manipulated) and the many law suits which have challenged his place of birth (no competent evidence of place of birth such as a U.S. birth certificate or U.S. passport introduced into evidence in any case nor do we find a copy of any Obama Jr. U.S. birth certificate in Obama Sr.’s or Soetoro’s INS files), the Founders, Framers, and Ratifiers still would have viewed him as having been born with a foreign allegiance, which in their eyes would have made him an alien or foreigner born and therefore not eligible to be President and Commander. They would have considered him as having been born with a foreign allegiance, an alien or foreigner, and not a “natural born Citizen” because, while born to a U.S. citizen mother, he was born to a non-U.S. citizen father which also made him at birth a “Citizen of the UK and Colonies” and later a citizen of Kenya. Being born subject to a foreign power, they would not have considered him without naturalization a “citizen,” let alone a “natural born Citizen.” It matters not whether or not Great Britain or Kenya would or could ever lay any claim or jurisdiction over him. But matters most is that he was born with loyalty and allegiance to those foreign nations. So even if some later law made Obama a citizen at birth, that law would not have amended the Constitution and would not have made Obama a “natural born Citizen.” The Fourteenth Amendment is a perfect example of such subsequent law. As I have explained in my essay, the Fourteenth Amendment is a red herring. As both Minor and Wong Kim Ark inform, that amendment does not define a “natural born Citizen.” As the text and its debates plainly show, it did not amend or repeal Article II’s “natural born Citizen” clause. If born in Hawaii, Obama would be a born citizen under that amendment, but he would not be an Article II “natural born Citizen.” So, we cannot conclude from the proposition that all “natural born Citizens” are citizens at birth, that all citizens at birth are “natural born Citizens,” for to do so is to confound a necessary condition (citizen at birth) as though it were a sufficient condition.

So, Dr. Conspiracy can keep producing the same old political propaganda. But what he repeatedly writes simply cannot convert Barack Obama into an Article II “natural born Citizen” and eligible to be President and Commander in Chief of the Military. A “natural born Citizen” is just that and all of Dr. Conspiracy’s articles, words, and saying so cannot change what nature has made and what the Constitution commands for those unique and singular all-powerful civil and military offices of the President and Commander in Chief of the Military.

Anonymous said...

I received a strange response from her as a comment to my recent exposition titled: "The British Roots of Presidential Eligibility"

She didn't dispute any point I made but expounded at length about the proper process of asking and answering questions in court.(?) That's pretty odd considering how many points I made that she supposedly should have countered unless she no longer disbelieves them.
Here's something I just came across for the first time after googling "natural citizen"; it's at http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2840767/posts

"Natural born citizenship: A natural born citizen is one whose citizenship is not granted by law or by any act of a sovereign, but inheres naturally in the person from birth according to principles that don't depend on laws or decisions of a sovereign. The rest of this essay will fully justify this definition."
~ ~ ~ ~
"Why did the Constitution limit the power it granted Congress over matters of citizenship to naturalization? Because Citizenship acquired solely by any law passed by Congress cannot logically be anything other than naturalized citizenship—by definition of naturalization. It's logically impossible for any act of Congress to make anyone a citizen by natural law. At most, such a law would be declaratory of natural law—because a citizen by natural law is a citizen no matter what laws Congress may or may not enact.

In fact, given the Founders' understanding of natural law versus man-made law, it would have been a logical contradiction to grant Congress the power to change or define natural law on any subject, not just regarding citizenship—because natural law, by late 18th-century definition, cannot be made by a legislature or head of state. That's why Congress was granted no such powers in any domain at all. Such a power could be used, among other things. to change the meaning of words, including those in the Constitution itself. The dangers of that should be obvious.

If Congress had the power to make anyone a natural citizen, it would also necessarily have the power to strip citizenship from anyone it chose. The fact it cannot logically have any such power—and is granted no such power by the Constitution—is one of the fundamental protections against tyranny. The power to revoke even natural law citizenship by law is the power to commit any act against anyone that the sovereign power of war permits.

So why didn't the Constitution define the term natural born citizen? For the same reason it could only grant Congress the power to define naturalized citizens. For the Constitution to actually define the term "natural born citizen" would necessarily mean that that status would be granted by man-made law, and not by natural law. That's why the Constitution provides no definition, and why it must be a court that decides who is and who is not a natural born citizen by applying natural law principles—which is exactly how English common law handled questions of natural citizenship."

The page is very, very extensive in length. Scanning down it I happened to stop at this gem:
"In addition to going to war, the US took other measures to deal with the problem of having its sailors impressed into the British Navy: On February 9, 1813, the US House of Representatives passed a law that required that all the officers and three fourths of the seamen on a ship of the United States be natural born citizens. Whatever "natural born citizen" meant to the founding generation (many of whom were still alive and serving in Congress at the time,) the US Congress of 1813 thought that requiring a person to be such would prevent the British definition of "natural born subject" from applying to such a person—which means that a "natural born citizen" of the US could not have been born on British soil, nor could a "natural born citizen" of the US have even one British parent."

Anonymous said...

A "citizen at birth" is a legal citizen via beneficent automatic naturalization at birth by law.

A "citizen by birth" is one born as a natural citizen by Natural Law.

One is artificial man-made citizenship while the other is nature-made citizenship.

Not all born citizens are natural citizens because some are born to aliens and not Americans.

Not all natural citizens are born citizens because some are man-made natural citizens via the American fiction of law known as the doctrine of citizenship equivalency by which all citizens are deemed to be natural citizens.

Obama is neither a natural citizen nor a born citizen since his father was neither an American nor an immigrant, and thus the 14th Amendment did not apply to him.

His mother was not the head of the household since she claimed his father as her husband, and she therefore couldn't pass her citizenship to her son.
He was therefore born solely as a British subject through inheritance of only his father's nationality. He never became a naturalized American citizen and so remains to day without American as well as Kenyan citizenship.
His presumed citizenship is purely a produce of executive branch policy, -not law.
obama--nation.com Adrien Nash

Stranger said...

Dr. Conspiracy (Kevin Davidson) issued a challenge to birthers to write in 1000 words or less why his birth certificate was not legitimate.

I was the only one to respond. Now his cite is off-line. Don't know why but can only hope that he saw the light. But that would be too good to be true.

Anyway, I posted it to facebook here: Why Obama’s LF COLB can’t be believed (look for the Alvin smiling face)
https://www.facebook.com/obamarelease.yourrecords

I also posted it to the RealityCheck blog, but not to my own blog yet.
Adrien Nash

Unknown said...

what us law ever said a child of a alien is a NBC? None. A real NBC is out of the reach of congress and self serving, slimy politicians. It is well known citizenship laws of each country do not supercede each other anyways. Kate Middleton will shortly be giving birth to a future king or queen of England not because of location but by virtue of father being Prince William, grandson of Queen Elizabeth.As mario astutely pointed out, a King inherits the throne by blood. That to me is the essence of being natural born

Stranger said...

Adrien Nash
Mario wrote: "So, Wong Kim Ark told us that children born out of the United States to U.S. “citizen” parents become “citizens at birth” under Congress’s naturalization powers.
That means they are naturalized at birth.
By her own concession, if they are naturalized, they cannot be “natural born citizens,” regardless of when they obtain their citizenship."

Good catch on her logical fallacy, but no points for supporting the notion that anyone has the authority to regulate natural citizenship. It is the result of patrilineal descent, not contrived national borders, so they are irrelevant to it.
No one has a right to declare that American children are foreigners and thus in need of being naturalized.
Congress was given no authority over the citizenship of children of citizens because they are automatically born as citizens, -not as foreigners! This is really elementary, -seemingly too elementary for a complex legal mind to absorb.

But then a mindset is fostered by law school that worships at the alter of government power, and ascribing more power to government than it was granted is the standard track that most lawyers operate on. They can't see the natural forest for the legal trees.

js said...

The founding fathers operated under the premise that natural law, not man made law, was the foundation of the US Constitution.

This is established in the Declaration of Independence when they cite the "Laws of Nature, and of Natures God" which gives men inalienable rights, the nature of which natural born citizenship belongs.

Anonymous said...

Vattel: " these children naturally follow the condition of their fathers and succeed to their rights.

The country of the father is, therefore, that of the children,...

‘By the law of nature alone, children follow the condition of their fathers and enter into all their rights.’ This [is a] law of nature, ...”

It is crystal clear that Vattel never, ever tied geographic national territorial boundaries to the inherited national membership of children of citizens. Not ever.

He associated those born in a country of its citizens with natural membership in the country (how could he not) but that association is quite different from being TIED to the location of one's birth as an essential factor in establishing that membership. IT IS NOT TIED TO IT! It is simply naturally coincidental to it.

An analogy would be saying that children born to parents in the home that they own are natural children of that family.

THAT is exactly a reflection of the Vattelian statement that Mr. Apuzzo misconstrues to assert that, by analogy, the children are not natural members of the parents' family unless they are born in the home. Rather, they must be adopted by law if born elsewhere.

Well, they are associated with the home because that was where they were born, BUT their membership in their own family is NOT determined by where they were or were not born. It was determined by their father (and mother), -by blood and not boundaries.
That's Vattel, -that's Natural Law. Why is that too difficult to grasp?

It's not, and so it should be, but that would require acknowledging the promotion of a logical error, and renouncing that error. That is where the roadblock sits.
Leo Donofrio quit the practice of law shortly after I pointed that error out to him. Perhaps it was the straw that broke the camel's back. It is a very, very huge error to have to acknowledge, almost insurmountable.

It would require a Herculean amount of courage to do it as it would diminish one's reputation considerably. But which is worth more, -a stellar reputation among fans or the actual truth?
Adrien Nash

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

Adrien Nash, h2ooflife,

You are incorrectly reading Emer de Vattel, Section 212-217, The Law of Nations (London 1797) (1st ed. Neuchatel 1758). Hence, there is no error to which I need to admit when it comes to my position on Vattel’s and the Constitution’s definition of a “natural born citizen.”

Allow me to summarize it for you very simply:

Adherence to the rule under the law of nature (jus sanguinis, i.e., national membership inherited alone from parents)

+ adherence to the rule under positive law (jus soli, i.e., national membership acquired alone from the place of birth)

= a “natural born citizen” under the law of nations, under American national common law, and ultimately under Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 the Constitution.

This means that a “natural born citizen” is a child born in the country (or its jurisdictional equivalent) to parents who were its “citizens” at the time of the child’s birth. Vattel; Minor v. Happersett (1875); U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898).

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

Squeeky Fromm, Girl Reporter has responded to this article. Her response may be read here: “Mario Apuzzo, Esq. Is All Wet!!! (Part I, The Witch Test), accessed at http://birtherthinktank.wordpress.com/2013/07/23/mario-apuzzo-esq-is-all-wet-part-i-the-witch-test/ . I am disappointed in her response.

She does not refute anything that I have presented in my articles on Jack Maskell. She wants to make her readers believe that she is in control of the issue. She seeks to accomplish that by presenting information on logical reasoning. But all she does is just recast what I have already said in my articles without showing how I am wrong.

She also does not understand why I first exposed Jack Maskell’s argument (all natural born citizens are citizens at birth, and since Obama is a citizen at birth, he is a natural born citizen) as an invalid one, and then recast it (all citizens at birth are natural born citizens, and since Obama is a citizen at birth, Obama is a natural born citizen) as a valid one (valid only as to its logical form) to show that it is unsound (false). It is false because its major premise, all citizens at birth are natural born citizens, is false, which makes its conclusion, Obama is a natural born citizen, false.

She offers nothing original and as refutation on her part in Part I (syllogisms or logical forms). I hope her Part II (substantive arguments) will present something real.

Ray said...

I.

Nationality determines the political status of an individual, nationality determines allegiance.

Domicile determines civil status.

For example, a foreign national can not vote but is liable for a crime.

II.

A person born to foreign national(s) has divergent allegiance and civil status.

For example, from the Naturalization Act of 1790 until today, a child born abroad to US citizen parents is a US citizen - the nationality, the political status, of the child follows that of the parent.

The civil status of that child is, like that of the parents, determined by domicile.

Thus: A native born person's allegiance and civil status may be divergent. The citizenship may be foreign, although not necessarily, and the civil status is determined by domicile.

III.

A person born in country to US citizen parents is a US citizen, the political status of the child follows that of the parent.

The civil status of that child is, like that of the parents, determined by domicile.

Allegiance and civil status coincide.

Thus: The law of nature and civil law coincide.

Natural born is native born plus consanguinity.

Unknown said...

Mario Apuzzo, Esq wrote:
"Dr. Conspiracy starts with a straw man."

It's not a straw man. "Evidence Tracker" really did argue that Obama, no matter where he was born, is not and cannot be a natural born citizen because he was born a British citizen through his British father.

"Of course, the laws of other countries do not decide who may be President of the United States. But the laws of the United States do. The Founders, Framers, and Ratifiers did not believe in double or multiple allegiances at birth or after birth."

The founders and framers were not of one mind, nor is there any evidence that you speak for a significant portion of them. We know from Perkins v. Elg, 307 U.S. 325 (1939) that a natural-born U.S. citizen *can* also be a citizen of another nation.

***

Mario Apuzzo, Esq wrote:
"Dr. Conspiracy concedes that Obama at birth was a 'Citizen of the UK and Colonies' and later a citizen of Kenya. But he attempts to explain away these extremely pesky facts by contending that Obama’s foreign birth status was produced by the laws of Kenya and Great Britain, not by the laws of the United States. What Dr. Conspiracy conveniently omits is that the United States, like all civilized nations which adhere to the law of nations, recognizes another nation’s sovereign right to declare qualifying person’s (either through jus soli or jus sanguinis) citizens of those nations. Hence, if someone is born a citizen of some foreign nation based on a law that is recognized by the United States, the United States will recognize that birth status and not act, like Dr. Conspiracy, as though such birth status does not exist."

Now that's a straw man. Dr. Conspiracy did not say we act as if the other nation's laws do not exist. He said they "do not decide who is eligible to be President of the United States". Consider a child born in New Jersey to an American mother and a dual U.S. / U.K. citizen father. That child may be born a British citizen through his British father, and we can respect British law considering the father a citizen and granting the child citizenship by jus sanguinis. Yet also is that child born in the U.S. to parents who are U.S. citizens and thus fulfills even *your* stated criteria for being a natural-born U.S. citizen. Evidence Tracker's point was in error, for the reason Dr. Conspiracy explained.

***

Mario Apuzzo, Esq wrote:
"Moreover, the United States, under the same law of nations, will also acknowledge the citizenship status of the parents of a child that may be born in the United States. If those parents are not U.S. citizens, the United States will recognize, honor, and be appropriately guided by that fact."

The United States now counts two Presidents born to fathers who were not U.S. citizens. All the branches of government recognize their presidencies. There is a recent fringe that tried to fight it, but they lost every time.

Unknown said...

I do not think children following the condition of the father or parents is anything earth shattering, that would be totally natural. The quote mario wrote in latin has probably been around since roman empire and who could argue with it? Any real children of obama sr would be british colonial subjects like him and of course ineligible to be CiC of US Military.

Anonymous said...

Mario: " my position on Vattel’s and the Constitution’s definition of a “natural born citizen.”

You err in your manner of thinking. Neither Vattel nor the Constitution contain a "definition" of "natural born citizen". That is the case because those words are not a "term" that can mean something other than what the words mean in the English language.

You have never shown anything otherwise because they have never meant anything other than what the Law of Nature dictates that those words mean.
If they were a term of legal art then there would have been no reason for Vattel to not emphasize the meaning of such a term. But no such term existed in Vattel's writing nor in his thinking, -as my analogy reveals;

" children born to parents in the home that they own are natural born children of that family."

Your baseless claim is: "the children are not natural members of the parents' family unless they are born in the home. Rather, they must be adopted by law if born elsewhere."
You cannot explain how your definition is logically different nor how Vattel mandated, in specific language, place of birth as being mandatory in natural citizenship.

I quoted about four references of his which clearly excluded any reference to place of birth, -instead his words show the simple natural law definition of natural citizenship (inheritance from a citizen father).

You pretend two great pretenses: 1. natural citizenship as a concept which does not in fact exist, and therefore needs no explanation; (as if references to it are not found in a thousand different places and as if one of them is not that of Vattel)

2. John Jay was a dolt who didn't understand the meaning of the words when he underlined the word "born". He foolishly assumed that the words meant what the English language dictates instead of what your latter-day "term of art" doctrine ascribes to them.

Please explain John Jay's erroneous thinking. You can't, and so you won't because he was not a drinker of you the "naturalborncitizen" doctrinal Kool-aid that clings to the fiction of a non-existent, federal "American national common law" and any reference to the "rules" of citizenship in the actual law of nations (which governs relationships between nations)

You cannot explain how natural citizenship in a nation is different from natural membership in a country, nor how a mother's child is not both (regardless of which border it is born within).

You cannot explain how a father's child becomes an alien if born somewhere other than on the soil of the nation to which he belongs.
You cannot explain the natural principle by which off-spring do not belong to their parents' group if not born within the borders of their habitual territory.
You cannot explain what natural membership is because it is something that destroys your theory of a Frankenstein hybrid of natural law joined to the artificial human contrivance of national borders.

js said...

there h2ooflife goes again

slicing and dicing words and putting them into out of context conclusions that end up as blatant lies

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

Adrien Nash, h2ooflife,

The fundamental flaw in your argument is that you fail to recognize that membership does not exist only within an isolated and closed state of nature, but rather within an environment populated by the nations of the world. Your definition about natural membership assumes an isolated state of nature. But your definition is both not realistic and not applicable to a world populated by sophisticated societies which we call countries or nations, each with its own sovereignty and right to determine who shall be its members or what republics call “citizens.” Hence, it is not only the state of nature that dictates the status of being a “natural born citizen.” Rather, it is the law of nature applied to the affairs and relationships of nations which becomes the law of nations.

And what may that law of nations say about who are the “natural born citizens?” Nations rely upon both jus sanguinis (membership inherited alone from parents) and jus soli (membership acquired alone from the place of birth) when granting the status of “citizen.” Hence, the combination of the rule under the law of nature (membership inherited alone from parents or jus sanguinis) and positive law (membership acquired alone from the place of birth or jus soli) creates the definition of a “natural born citizen” under the law of nations. So, the law of nations recognizes 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. Through this definition, all the nations of the world are able to logically, consistently, and peacefully decide who its natural members are.

Stranger said...

Adrien Nash:
Wow! What you wrote is so wonderful that I would be irresistibly inclined to embrace it. It makes perfect sense. The problem is that it is factually false. The issue isn't about what facilitates what is convenient for nations. Nations and the law of nations is irrelevant to natural citizenship.

You continue to adhere to the fallacy that natural citizenship does not exist. That jus sanguinis is not the ancient tradition of most of the world. That it is not what Vattel makes perfectly clear, -the issue of a father's membership in his own society, country and nation.
Natural membership is not dictated by government because government has no authority over it. It is outside of the closed realm of law and government. It is not the result of any law or any court. It is identical to one's membership in their own family. It's natural.

The American family would still exist even without the federal government, just as it did before the Constitution was adopted. The United States was only a country with natural members but not a nation with natural citizens until then. Only with an established central government did the union of sovereign American States become a real nation. Then the natural members of the country became the natural citizens of the nation.

Who were the natural members? The natural citizens of the States. They were those born to citizens. Children of foreigners (citizens of other colonies/ states) born in a foreign state, were not citizens of that state but of the state of their father. I believe you know that to be a fact.
If so, then how can you pretend natural citizenship is not real? As if the Laws of Nature and Nature's God MUST be married to artificial man-made law?
LIFE and the births resulting from Life have no connection to geography, borders, government, laws, courts, etc. That is what the use of the word "natural" conveys and was meant to convey.

Birth is a natural event. Life is a natural phenomenon. Law is irrelevant until alien-ness is introduced. Only then does law and government have a place in citizenship.
That's why Congress has no authority over the citizenship of natural American children except to verify, document, and validate it, -NOT to grant it.
READ my latest & last (?) exposition on the subject, which mentions you by name and refutes your position: http://h2ooflife.wordpress.com/2013-07-24/alien-babies-versus-immigrant-babies/ Membership in the American Family

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

Adrien Nash, h2ooflife,

In your imaginary state of nature, there is no sign of law, government, or political institutions, but yet you say that there are members of that natural society. Do your really believe that members of that savage place would go about having babies in distant lands belonging to other savage people? Do you really believe that if women had babies in such distant lands, the savage people of those distant lands would protect both foreign mother and her baby? The reality is that there really would not be any such “foreign” births.

In civilized and free societies, foreign births occur because we can expect those nations to protect both mother and child located on its territory, even if they are foreigners. But the consequence is that with birth on the territory of a nation, comes the right of that nation to decide if that child born on its territory becomes at the moment of birth a member of that nation. This reality inserts into the definition of a “natural born citizen” the necessary condition, along with the necessary condition that the child be born to “citizen” parents, that the child be born in the country.

Stranger said...

A. Nash
Mario wrote: "Do your really believe that members of that savage place would go about having babies in distant lands belonging to other savage people?"

I'm confused. So you are saying that in pre-Constitution America each of the separate colonies / states were "savage places"?

Each of them considered citizens of other states to be foreigners because they were citizens of other sovereign nations. Also, do you suppose that citizens of competing Greek City-States must have been "savages" also since they were separate states even though they were one country (like America was before the nation was formed)?
They, like all countries, did not become nations until they became united. Countries are not devoid of governance but it exists on a smaller scale, beginning at the family level, then the clan level, then the tribal level, and finally the state level.

When states united because they are one people, then they form a nation. When a nation conquers other nations, then you have an empire. Empires are unnatural and have no natural citizens because they are composed of disparate peoples of different nations.

The natural citizens of nations and states are nothing other than the natural members of the country or countries that form the nation.
Texas was once a separate republic but its people were natural members of the American family. Upon becoming a state, its members because American citizens.
I don't believe that either state or federal law was needed to state that State citizens upon statehood would become U.S. citizens *by law*. Law was not involved. Their membership was natural.

"But the consequence is that with birth on the territory of a nation, comes the right of that nation to decide if that child born on its territory becomes at the moment of birth a member of that nation."

Nations are given no such authority. Dictators may seize it but not representatives of free republics that believe in the Law of Nature and unalienable rights. They only allow laws to be enacted to deal with children of outsiders, not their own children.

You have a fundamentally flawed understanding of the nature of free republics, placing the ultimate authority in the hands of the government instead of the People who created it. Governments have no rights that the people do not give them.

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

Adrien Nash, h2ooflife,

Your use of settled colonial America and the Greek city states to attempt to show that my “savage people” argument is wrong is devoid of any sense. My reference to “savage people” is limited to people living in a state of nature with no protection for life, liberty, and property. It is a place where the physically strong, whether as one or as a group, control all and take all as and when they may wish.

Ancient Greece and colonial America were not societies existing in such a state of nature. Both Greece and colonial America already had in place the institutions of positive laws and government, all of which limited human impulse to harm and to take what belonged to another. They extended protection to all friendly people in their territories. They understood that nations with their boundaries created the right to exert power and control internally over people and externally against any invading or threatening foreign enemy.
The English Kings considered their nation their dominion and demanded and accepted allegiance from all those present in that dominion who were not foreign diplomats or members of invading armies. Children born in the King’s dominion, regardless of the citizenship of the parents, were considered English “natural born subjects.” Imposing allegiance and subjecthood , whether temporary upon aliens present in the dominion, or for life upon their children born in the dominion, was good policy for a King wanting to build his power and armies. This is a policy which the Founders, Framers, and Ratifiers did not adopt for the new constitutional republic.

Moreover, you have not presented any evidence that the law of nations (not to be confounded with the strict law of nature) looked only to parentage when deciding who the members of a country or nation were. Please provide this evidence.

Also not helpful to your argument and surely not convincing is your stating commonplace things and then mixing in your unsupported personal opinions about citizenship.

MichaelN said...

Back on the topic of the conniving of Jack Maskell.

There is a need for a pro-active public information campaign to expose Jack Maskell's deliberate deception.

Headlines something like.....

"Congressional Research Officer Deliberately Misleads the US Congress - Massive Media Cover-Up"

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

The American nomenclature of citizenship:

“Citizens:”

A. “Natural born citizen” (“NBC”)-defined by American national common law-a NBC is a child born in the country to parents who were its “citizens” at the time of the child’s birth.

B. “Citizen of the United States” (“COTUS”):

1. Citizen at birth (“CAB”)-defined by the 14th Amendment and Acts of Congress; and

2. Citizen post birth (“CPB”)-defined by Acts of Congress and treaties.

All “citizens” have equal privileges, immunities, and rights, except only a NBC can be President or Vice-President.

Unknown said...

Mario Apuzzo Esq. wrote:
"A. “Natural born citizen” (“NBC”)-defined by American national common law-a NBC is a child born in the country to parents who were its 'citizens' at the time of the child’s birth."

I don't recall if you tried the "American national common law" line in court, but here's why if fails:

"There is no common law of the United States, in the sense of a national customary law, distinct from the common law of England as adopted by the several States each for itself, applied as its local law, and subject to such alteration as may be provided by its own statutes. . . . There is, however, one clear exception to the statement that there is no national common law. 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."
United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898) at 655, quoting Smith v. Alabama, 124 U.S. 465 (1888).

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

Unknown,

Here is why what you wrote about there not being such a thing as American national common law fails:
I don’t recall if you ever fully read United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898), the same case that you cited in your comment, which explained:

“’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 [680] parents who were its citizens, became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction, without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first. For the purposes of this case it is not necessary to solve these doubts. It is sufficient, for everything we have now to consider, that all children, born of citizen parents within the jurisdiction, are themselves citizens.’”

Id. at 679-80 (citing and quoting Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162, 167-68 (1875)).

Now, please do tell us how the “common-law” to which Minor and Wong Kim Ark referred in the above quotation is the English common law. I never knew that “there have been doubts” under the English common law about whether a child born in a country to alien parents was a “natural-born subject.” Maybe you can explain how the Minor Court could make such an incorrect statement given that there never had been any doubts about whether under English common law, all children born within the King’s dominion and under his protection, regardless of the citizenship of the child’s parents (provided the parents were not foreign diplomats or members of invading armies), were English “natural born subjects.” Please do tell all.

And while you are on a roll, please do tell us how Smith v. Alabama, 124 U.S. 465 (1888) has anything to do with citizenship.

Unknown said...

it sounds to me like anyone born in the kings dominion was a natural born subject for life whether they wanted to be or not haha. I was never a Supreme Court Chief Justice like John Marshall or Morison Waite but i suspect when Justice Waite wrote how the NBCs or natives "at common law" are described in the "nomenclature of the Framers" i suspect he was using vattels law of nations. Until or if Article 2 is amended then what the Framers considered a NBC still stands 226 years later. Barry has no power under the US C and his whole gang should be removed immediately.

Stranger said...

“’At common- law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children, born...of...parents who were... citizens, became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also."

Whether you take it as edited or in original form, both refer to one thing, and it is NOT common law. It is Natural Law.
The claim that such a citizenship principle is tied to human law is false or worse, a big fat lie, unless you recognize that common law recognizes the principle of Natural Law as the basis of citizenship.
Natural Law is not "my opinion", -it is fundamental to all free nations because it is the source of their people's membership. All natives are natural members but not all natural members are native-born, just as all children are not born at home because some are born outside, -in a hospital. Regardless of where born, they are still members of the family, just as with citizens and citizenship.
A. Nash

js said...

Unknown is so abstract, out of context, and his lack of pure common sense leaves him to appear uneducated.

Common law is not codified like civil law. Common law is built upon precedents, in courts that follow and enforce civil laws. Civil laws are codified, unlike common law. Common law is apt to change upon the sense of Justice held by Jurors, while Civil law is set in Statute, and normally can only be changed by legislation.

The perception that Unknown presents is that this "English" common law was some ultimate authority within US Courts. That is a complete fable. The pilgrims who populated this land were from many different nations. People from all over Europe had immigrated to the new world, and many legal traditions built upon local precedent came with them. While it can be established that many of those traditions were common Christian values, it puts the concept that only English common law was a controlling factor in the initial US Courts on its ears.

US Common law began the day the first shot was fired in the Revolution, which was an expression of our society, that we reject the rule of the English, and the revolt against their authority was the total rejection of their laws and control over our affairs.

Local courts and communities began picking and choosing what common law was in our nation from the very start. To instill the notion that we adopted English Common Law is nothing more than flagrant ignorance of what common law is. This can no more be expressed than by pointing out that each states courts held different precedent to rule by. In Pennsylvania it was England, Irish, Welsh, Dutch and German all mixed within the states boundaries as its initial population. Every States Constitution, rule of law, and Courts were different, which demonstrates the absence of a single common law between them all.

The expression of what common law was, in the United States, is one that needed to evolve from the traditions of many countries into a melting pot of peoples from many nations, and what came out was US precedent, or, the Common Law of the United States.

Beyond that, English Common Law presented the King of England, and the entire Nation itself, as the Church of England, and its leader as the representative of Christ on Earth, making the State itself a part and parcel of the Church. English citizens themselves were obligated to be members of that Church, if there were to be considered its citizens, or subjects of the King, because the sovereign rights of citizens were not recognized under English Common Law, nor were inalienable rights as expressed in the Declaration of Independence, which is a foundational document of the US Constitution.

The notion that our founding fathers would adopt English Common Law is an insult to the Constitution that our founding fathers established which restricted the Government from "respecting an establishment of (any) religion". This simple fact demonstrates the error in the claim that we bound ourselves to the Common Law of England, instead of recognizing that the Common Law of the United States existed at the time the Founding Fathers put the Natural Born Citizenship clause into the US Constitution.

That we would allow English Monarchial (precedent) traditions to rule this new nation can be no further from that truth.

Stranger said...

Adrien Nash;
Elian Gonzales: ripped from the arms of his adopting American relatives by a government goon squad and shipped back to the very land that his mother had died trying to escape from. Why?

Because government has no authority over the custody of children in the absence of evidence of abuse. They are not under government jurisdiction because they belong to their parents as an unalienable Natural Right. That is Natural Law

The law of nations follows the principles of natural law, one of the chiefest of which is the right of belonging to one's own parents, along with the property rights of parents over their own children.
The United States government had no jurisdictional authority that could counter the law of nations and the Natural Law principles on which it is based. That is why he had to be returned,-not to Cuba, but to his father.

Government has no authority to ignore and violate natural rights. The law of nations recognizes such rights of nations and individuals.

The law of nations does not support your theory, it destroys it. Why didn't the U.S. exercise its sovereignty over all souls on its soil, such as Elian? Because it had no sovereignty. It had to comply with Elian's father's natural right to have custody of his own child.
His child didn't belong to the U.S. nor to Cuba, but to a father with rights that the U.S. government recognizes as absolutely unalienable.
Unalienable why? Because of natural connection. Place of birth is irrelevant. Irrelevant in both family bond and a nation's bond when both parents are from the same national family.

Unknown said...

that was a good point about elian gonzalez, the biological father had every right to have his son back unless the boy was abused.

Unknown said...

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. wrote:
"'At common- law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that [...]'"

You and other Obama deniers have certainly tried that one in court. No need for me to explain why it fails.

In answer to your query, the quote there is considering multiple bodies of law and multiple authorities.


Mario Apuzzo, Esq. asked:
"And while you are on a roll, please do tell us how Smith v. Alabama, 124 U.S. 465 (1888) has anything to do with citizenship."

Smith v. Alabama about citizenship? Were do you get these ideas?

Unknown said...

JS wrote:
"The perception that Unknown presents is that this 'English' common law was some ultimate authority within US Courts."

I'd appreciate it if you would refrain from making up positions for me, particularly ones directly opposite to what I've actually argued. The quote I cited began, "There is no common law of the United States".

JS, you got it totally, completely, utterly wrong. Our nation did not adopt the English law, just the language.

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

Unknown,

Your response could work only on those who are impressed with low information. Your answer will also impress the other back slappers like you on Fogbow.

Like I always say, when an Obot cannot answer a question in this public debate on the meaning of a “natural born citizen,” he/she just points to the post-Obama lower courts. The problem with that approach is that those courts never demonstrated how their decisions are correct. Hence, the Obots appeal to authority in name only, but not in substance. That is a classic example of exalting form over substance. Your relying on the courts for any explanation about what Minor meant by “common-law” gets you nowhere simply because the courts themselves have refused to touch that issue. There is no explanation by any post-Obama lower court on the meaning of “common-law” in Minor.

You said: “In answer to your query, the quote there [referring to Minor’s “common-law” quote] is considering multiple bodies of law and multiple authorities.” First, above you rely on the courts to bail you out on this question, but none of the courts that you rely upon have so stated. Second, you fail by vaguely telling what Minor’s “common-law” is, but not addressing my point at to what it is not. You are correct in your ambiguous statement as to what it is. But since your statement is so vague and ambiguous, we have to dig into what Minor’s “common-law” is not. And it is here that you and all other Obots who have never answered my question in this regard fail miserably. You do not refute my position that when Minor defined a “natural-born citizen” under the “common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar,” the common law to which the Court referred was not and could not be the English common law given the definition that the Court gave of a “natural-born citizen, i.e., the “natural-born citizens” are children born in a country to parents who were its “citizens;” that is said that at “common-law” any child not born in the country to “citizen” parents was an “alien or foreigner;” and that it said “there have been doubts” whether a child “born in the jurisdiction” to alien parents was even a “citizen” under the Fourteenth Amendment or any other law (most likely referring back to The Slaughterhouse Cases and other authorities).

Clearly, given what Minor said about what the “common-law” provided and how it treated children born in the jurisdiction to alien parents, it could not have been referring to the English common law which for centuries had considered a child born in the King’s dominion and under his protection an English “natural-born subject.” See Calvins’s Case (1608), William Blackstone, and so many more commentators on the laws of England. So you fail by evading the issue of the meaning of Minor’s “common-law” by telling us in an undefined way what Minor’s “common-law” is, but not addressing my point as to what it is not.

Also, your attempt at trying to convince us that there is some constitutional difference between “the English common law” and “the language of the English common law” is really a bad joke. I would love for you to tell us all what the difference is. Maybe your Fogbow buddies can help you on this project.

Finally, Alabama v. Smith is a case upon which you rely in your argument that a “natural born citizen” is defined under English common law. I asked you to explain what that case has to do with citizenship. Your lame, flippant, and childish response is: “Smith v. Alabama about citizenship. Were [sic] do you get these ideas?” Clearly you did not have the mental capacity to remember that I got the idea from you.

Unknown said...

at least 4 different supreme court cases take a quote out of law of nations to describe the natives or NBCs and the minor court says this description is part of the common law in the nomenclature that the Framers were familiar with. I am completely disgusted by these state courts for willfully ignoring this. btw, i was listening to wayne madsen talk about the obama gangs war on freedom of the press. Michael Hastings seems to be the latest victim. Obamao also misuses the espionage act to threaten reporters

js said...

unknown sputters out...again...



"I don't recall if you tried the "American national common law" line in court, but here's why if fails:..."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"


Seems like that's exactly what you said, and you posted it. Abstractly speaking, you don't have a leg to stand on, but nice try. Spinning the lie into something else just doesn't fool me.

Unknown said...

i had some liberal call the birthers the lunatic fringe and flat earth society yet she could not answer my question about how could the child of a alien be a natural born citizen of the US? I also directed her to minor and the Venus without a response. Chief Justices John Marshall and Morrison Waite were apparently members of the lunatic fringe so i feel we are in good company.

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

dh,

The Obots or Anti-Constitutionalists deny American history and what the new America made. To justify their position, they take us back to colonial America and act as though we never had a Revolution. They try to bamboozle us with their absurd position that the Founders, Framers, and Ratifiers wrote the presidential eligibility requirements into the Constitution, which we know they included to determine who was going to be the future President and Commander in Chief of the Military of the new constitutional republic, with the King and Queen in mind and without considering why they had the Revolution in the first place.

They cannot win one argument and the only way they can soothe their wounds and defeat is by calling us names.

Unknown said...

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. wrote:
"Like I always say, when an Obot cannot answer a question in this public debate on the meaning of a 'natural born citizen,' he/she just points to the post-Obama lower courts."

You chose to bring your arguments to those court. Your courts told you what the obots had told you. Don't obots get any credit for being right?


Mario Apuzzo, Esq. wrote:
"The problem with that approach is that those courts never demonstrated how their decisions are correct."

That's not how the system works. Parties to cases don't decide whether the courts are right, particularly not losing parties. It's the other way around. The judges decide. That's why they're called "judges".


Mario Apuzzo, Esq. wrote:
"You are correct in your ambiguous statement as to what it is. But since your statement is so vague and ambiguous, we have to dig into what Minor’s 'common-law' is not."

You are digging in your imagination. The Court's statement there is general, and as we know from your own results in court, does not mean what you've held.

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. wrote:
"Also, your attempt at trying to convince us that there is some constitutional difference between 'the English common law' and 'the language of the English common law' is really a bad joke. I would love for you to tell us all what the difference is. Maybe your Fogbow buddies can help you on this project."

Consider, "No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States". For the meaning of the terms we look to English law, yet the clause makes our law starkly different from England's. Too hard a concept?

I do enjoy your various lines such as "bad joke". Think of all the times you called a point ludicrous, a joke, or even an outright lie, only to see the Court make the same point in ruling against you.


Mario Apuzzo, Esq. wrote:
"Finally, Alabama v. Smith is a case upon which you rely in your argument that a “natural born citizen” is defined under English common law."

Nope. U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, as any reader can confirm with a glance upward. Is a little honesty too much to ask?

Unknown said...

js wrote:
"Seems like that's exactly what you said".

If that's exact, what happened to the part: "There is no common law of the United States, in the sense..."

Whatever your issues, JS, you falsely attributed to me the idea that English common law has authority in the United States. You got it totally, completely, utterly wrong, and your false claim of exactness following a deceptive snip shows that you know it.

js said...

Unknown said......well...it don't matter what Unknown said....but..we will put it all up anyways.

(begin quote)
“I don't recall if you tried the "American national common law" line in court, but here's why if fails:

"There is no common law of the United States, in the sense of a national customary law, distinct from the common law of England as adopted by the several States each for itself, applied as its local law, and subject to such alteration as may be provided by its own statutes. . . . There is, however, one clear exception to the statement that there is no national common law. 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."
United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898) at 655, quoting Smith v. Alabama, 124 U.S. 465 (1888).
(end of quote)


So, to speak that line “BUT HERE”S WHY IT FAILS” and then….to quote Smith v. Alabama…which explicitly states that “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” does, as a matter of fact, imply that English Common Law dictates what the US Constitution means. Judicial error, error upon error, and Unknowns error which he used as a basis to rebut Mario with.

The US Constitution is not based in or on English Common Law. The precepts that ECL is based upon is repugnant to the US Constitution.

There is nothing in history, no document, nothing at all, that indicates such a thing ever entered the minds of the Founding Fathers, who swore their sacred honor to the creation of that document. The founding fathers detested the corruption and tyranny of the English. To suggest that they wrote the US Constitution, and made it's meaning dependent upon English Common Law to determine the content in the Constitution, is a joke.

“We, Therefore, the Representatives of the UNITED States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.--And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

Find that in English Common Law and I will apologize.

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

Unknown,

(1) You have failed miserably to address my comments here in which I stated that the Founders, Framers, and Ratifiers did not use English common law to define an Article II “natural born Citizen,” but rather American national common law, and that when the unanimous U.S. Supreme Court in Minor v. Happersett (1875) said that the Framers defined a “natural-born citizen” under the “common-law,” the Court was not and could not have been referring to the English common law, but rather to that same American national common law. I explained that the Court could not have been referring to the English common law because given what Minor said about what the “common-law” provided and how it treated children born in the jurisdiction to alien parents (it said they were “aliens or foreigners”), it could not have been referring to the English common law which for centuries had considered a child born in the King’s dominion and under his protection, regardless of the citizenship of his or her parents, an English “natural-born subject.”

You evade my point about Minor and what that “common-law” was not by not answering me and rather by saying that “[the Court’s statement there is general.” Do you really believe that you are going to fool us with your equivocation? You also attempt to further avoid addressing the point by saying that the courts do not agree with me in that regard. First, your statement that what Minor said about the “common-law” is “general” is nothing more than you talking utter nonsense. To say that how Minor defined a “natural-born citizen” under the “common-law” is “general” means absolutely nothing. Also, none of the post-Obama courts upon which you rely even addressed the question of what did Minor mean by “common-law,” but you want us to credit those courts with providing us with an answer.

So you continue to fail by evading the issue of the meaning of Minor’s “common-law,” by telling us in an undefined way what Minor’s “common-law” is, telling us that it is “general,” but not addressing my point as to what it is not.

(2) You again resort to the opinions of some post-Obama lower courts as your evidence that you have won the public debate of the meaning of the “natural born Citizen” clause. You continue to fail to address my point that the public debate on the definition of a “natural born Citizen” has not ended with these unsupported decisions. The decisions might end the matter in the case that was before the court, but the decisions, because they do not contain a demonstration as to how they arrived to their conclusions, do not come close to ending the public debate which you continue to keep losing.

You talk about “how the system works.” Again, we are in the court of public opinion, not in a court of law. You are the one who does not know how that system works.

(3) I said to you:

"Also, your attempt at trying to convince us that there is some constitutional difference between 'the English common law' and 'the language of the English common law' is really a bad joke. I would love for you to tell us all what the difference is. Maybe your Fogbow buddies can help you on this project."

You responded:

“Consider, "No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States". For the meaning of the terms we look to English law, yet the clause makes our law starkly different from England's. Too hard a concept?”

What a continuing joke for you to think that the nonsense that you wrote is an answer to my question. So please do tell all of us how we are to look to the English common law for the definition of a “natural-born citizen,” but yet come away with a definition that is “starkly different from England’s.”

(4) Finally, I see that you still cannot defend your reliance upon Smith v. Alabama as proof that we are to define a “natural-born citizen” under the English common law. Your pointing now to Wong Kim Ark rather than Smith does not get you off the hook for initially touting Smith.

Unknown said...

i find it hard to believe children of white settlers born in lakota territory in 1800s would be considered natives by the tribe and eligible to be chief someday. How can the child of any alien father ever be considered a native or NBC of any tribe or nation? Being a member of a tribe is the same as being a citizen of a country but that does not automatically make all tribe members / citizens natives merely due to location of birth. Article 2 says only a nbc is eligible now, not dual citizens or citizens.

js said...

Gets it all out in the open now.

Unknown is resorting to straw man arguments still. He has not changed. "You didn't answer my question" is his begged attempt at significance, yet his intentional and willful ignorance of facts are the core anchors of his questions.

Its nothing more than Alinsky tactics. They repeat the lie over and over, no matter how much they ignore the truth, they want you to think they are telling the truth.

The real truth is...intentional omissions, which willfully attempt to hide facts that, if known, would demand a completely different conclusion, are factual lies.

So its not uncomfortable for me to say, without any reservation, that unknown is in fact a liar.

Unknown said...

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. wrote:
"You have failed miserably to address my comments here in which I stated that the Founders, Framers, and Ratifiers did not use English common law to define an Article II 'natural born Citizen,' but rather American national common law, [...]"

I showed how it fails with the quote from Wong. Apart from adopting the language of English common law, "There is no common law of the United States, in the sense of a national customary law, distinct from the common law of England as adopted by the several States each for itself, applied as its local law, and subject to such alteration as may be provided by its own statutes." Has the Supreme Court reversed itself on that?


Mario Apuzzo, Esq. wrote:
"it could not have been referring to the English common law which for centuries had considered a child born in the King’s dominion and under his protection, regardless of the citizenship of his or her parents, an English 'natural-born subject.'"

Sigh. Your argument shows that it could not have been referring *exclusively* to English common law. It was referring to *multiple* bodies of law and *multiple* authorities, Vattel clearly among them.

What it is not is a statement of American law, national or otherwise. We do not have that kind of national common law. The Minor Court was considering who was a citizen before the adoption of the 14'th Amendment, when a uniform rule of naturalization was the one federal power on citizenship. Native births were under state jurisdiction, where common law was common. The English tradition dominated, as also explained U.S v. Wong Kim Ark; for the specific quote refuting your theory see Purpura v. Obama.


Mario Apuzzo, Esq. wrote:
"You evade my point about Minor and what that 'common-law' was not by not answering me and rather by saying that '[the Court’s statement there is general.' Do you really believe that you are going to fool us with your equivocation?"

Who is fooling you is you. Do you ever look back at your past arguments with obots? At all the things we told you that courts later confirmed?


Mario Apuzzo, Esq. wrote:
"You again resort to the opinions of some post-Obama lower courts as your evidence that you have won the public debate of the meaning of the 'natural born Citizen' clause."

No, I cite the results of your own legal actions to debunk you. I don't think you have, nor want, a rational concept of the public debate. You have, pardon the cliche, poisoned your own well.


Mario Apuzzo, Esq. wrote:
"So please do tell all of us how we are to look to the English common law for the definition of a 'natural-born citizen,' but yet come away with a definition that is 'starkly different from England’s.'"

That answers my question above, "Too hard a concept?" I pointed to law being starkly different, while words and their meanings were the same. You somehow arrived at the idea that I should show "a definition that is starkly different". No. We adopted the English language, including English legal terminology. We did not, at the national level, adopt English law. Too hard a concept?


Mario Apuzzo, Esq. wrote:
"Finally, I see that you still cannot defend your reliance upon Smith v. Alabama as proof that we are to define a 'natural-born citizen' under the English common law. Your pointing now to Wong Kim Ark rather than Smith does not get you off the hook for initially touting Smith."

That answers my question above, "Is a little honesty too much to ask?" You say that *now* I'm pointing to Wong Kim Ark and that I initially touted Smith. So can you find me citing Smith v. Alabama anywhere other than within a citation of U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark?

Unknown said...

where does it say in article 2 a dual citizen is eligible? All i see is natural born citizen

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

Unknown,

You do not understand the meaning of “national customary law.” You also do not understand that the law of nations was adopted by the Constitution and became part of the supreme law of the law. As such, the law of nations produced, when its principles and views were relied upon by our U.S. Supreme Court, American national common law (more on this in my next essay).

While Minor, when it referred to the common law the nomenclature with which the Framers were familiar when they adopted the Constitution, could have been referring to, as you say, “ ‘multiple’ bodies of law and ‘multiple’ authorities, Vattel clearly among them,” those bodies of law and authorities, for sure, did not include the English common law. Given the definition of a “natural-born citizen” that the Minor Court gave under that “common-law,” and its exclusion from birthright citizenship under that “common-law” of all children born in a country to alien parents (it called them “aliens or foreigners”), you simply cannot demonstrate that the Court included within all that “multiple” law and authorities, the English common law.

You have no response to my arguments and you, in your effort to win this public debate on the meaning of an Article II “natural born Citizen,” again simply resort to help from the handful of post-Obama lower courts that have ruled on (not to be confounded with decided) the issue of whether Obama is a “natural born Citizen.” As I have repeatedly told you, those decisions are not helpful because they do not demonstrate how they arrived at their conclusion on the meaning of a “natural born Citizen” and how Obama meets that definition. Things are so bad that these courts, apart from how they have evaded addressing the issue of the two-U.S. “citizen” parents prong of the “natural born Citizen” clause, have even gone as far as saying that Obama was born in the United States with no such evidence existing in the evidentiary record before them or any other court in the nation. I have also told you that by relying upon those lower court cases, you are exalting form over substance.

You argue that “[w]e adopted the English language, including English terminology. We did not, at the national level, adopt English law. Too hard a concept?” I love how you attempt to have it both ways. Because of the historical and legal record, you are compelled to admit that the United States did not on the national level adopt the English common law. But that does not stop you. You then attempt to give us a snow job by telling us that we still speak English and by suggesting that the “natural born citizen” clause is somewhere to be found in the language of the English common law. Well, the last time that I or anyone else looked, they also speak English in Australia and the clause is nowhere to be found in the English common law. But wait, and much to your dismay, I and others, including the unanimous U.S. Supreme Court in Minor v. Happersett, have found the clause in American national common law that has its source in the law of nations.

Finally, regarding Smith v. Alabama, since you cannot support your citing of the case for showing that a “natural born Citizen” is to be defined under English common law and want to blame the case popping up at all in this debate all on Wong Kim Ark, without a doubt the case cannot be used for any such thing.

So, Unknown, it looks like again, as always, you lose on all points.

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

I of II

The Obots say that a child does not need a Congressional Act to make him or her a “natural born Citizen.” They say that is the reason why Congress never passed any statute acting upon children born in the United States, for all these children were “natural born Citizens.” For example Slartibartfast said to davidfarrard on August 1st, 2013 at 7:33 pm , at http://birtherthinktank.wordpress.com/2013/07/23/mario-apuzzo-esq-is-all-wet-part-i-the-witch-test/#comments :

“They [the Founders and Framers] said nothing at all in the whole naturalization act (or, I’m guessing, any naturalization act) about children born in the US (at least apart from tribal land inside the US). This was because there was no need to make naturalization laws regarding these children as they were already natural born citizens (with the usual exceptions). Face it David, there is no positive law regarding native born citizens (excepting the 14th Amendment which is merely declaratory of existing law) which can only mean that all native born citizens (such as President Obama) are natural born. See, even your own arguments can be turned against you.”

First, it is false to say that Congress never passed a statute acting upon children born in the United States because they are, subject to the exceptions for a parent who is a foreign diplomat or member of an invading army, all “natural born Citizens.” The “common-law” the nomenclature of which the Framers were familiar when they adopted the Constitution left children born in the country to alien parents as “aliens or foreigners.” Minor v. Happersett (1875). Congress could have accepted these children as “citizens of the United States” at birth through its naturalization powers and statutes. But it chose not to make these children “citizens of the United States” at birth. The Naturalization Acts of 1790, 1795, 1802, and 1855 treated all children born in the United States to alien parents as alien born and in need of naturalization post birth.

“Publius,” probably James Madison who was President then, on October 7, 1811, commenting and applying the Naturalization Act of 1802, which was the same as the Naturalization Act of 1790 and 1795 concerning the particular at issue, published in the The Alexandria Herald, concerning the “Case of James McClure:”

“Mr. Rodman hints, that it would have been sufficient for James McClure to have been born in the United States—he is mistaken. The law of the United States recognizes no such claim. The law of Virginia, of 1792, does—for, “all free persons born within the territory of this commonwealth,” is deemed a citizen. The law of Virginia considers him as a son of the soil. An alien, as well as a citizen, may beget a citizen, but the U. States’ act does not go so far. A man must be naturalized to make his children such.”

The historical record tells us that Secretary of State, James Monroe, who was serving the James Madison Administration, eventually declared McClure alien born, but a “Citizen of the United States” (not a “natural born Citizen”), not because he was born in South Carolina on April 21, 1785, but because a few months after he was born, his British father naturalized as a “citizen of the United States” which made his minor child then dwelling in the United States a “citizen of the United States” under the Naturalization Act of 1802. I will take Publius’ and the James Madison’s Administration’s word in 1811 on what the early naturalization acts meant rather than Slartibartfast’s and the Obots’ in 2013. For more information on the James McClure case, see my brief filed in the Kerchner and Laudenslager v. Obama Ballot Challenge in the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, accessed at http://www.scribd.com/doc/83104811/Kerchner-Laudenslager-v-Obama-Ballot-Challenge-Brief-on-Behalf-of-Objectors-Filed-28Feb2012 .

Continued . . .

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

II of II

Hence, here we have James Madison, and if not him then the James Madison Administration, confirming that children born in the United States to alien parents were alien born. As such they were not “citizens of the United States” at birth, let alone “natural born Citizens” as the Obots would like us to believe.

The Civil Rights Act of 1866 also provided that any child born in the United States and “not subject to any foreign power” was a “citizen of the United States” from the moment of birth. But still, these children could be “citizens of the United States” from birth only if they were born “not subject to a foreign power,” which could only mean born to U.S. “citizen” parents or at least to parents who were through generations no longer subjects of any foreign powers such as slaves or former slaves.

Second, Obots say that children born out of the U.S. to U.S. “citizen” parents are also “natural born Citizens.” They take this position despite that Congress said by way of a naturalization statute, the 1790 Naturalization Act, that they “shall be considered as natural born citizens,” and then by way of another naturalization statute, the 1795 Naturalization Act, removed “natural born citizen” and replaced it with “citizen of the United States.” Never again did Congress treat out-of-country born children to be “natural born citizens.” So Congress saw fit to have to pass a naturalization act to treat these out-of-country born children as though they were first, “natural born citizens,” and then just “citizens of the United States.” Following Startibartfast’s logic, that anyone who is a “natural born Citizen” does not need a naturalization act to become a “citizen,” since Congress saw the need to pass a naturalization act to make these foreign-born children “citizens, they cannot be “natural born Citizens.” Additionally, from 1802 to 1855, any child born out of the United States to U.S “citizen” parents who became citizens after 1802 were alien born. But the Obots still tell us that children born out of the United States to U.S. “citizen” parents are “natural born Citizens.” Furthermore, the Obots credit Congress with the power to make children born out of the United States “natural born citizens,” as in the 1790 Act, but do not credit it with the power to withdraw that birth status from such children, as in the 1795 Act and all that followed. Finally, to believe that Congress, to which the Constitution in matters of citizenship gives only the power to make uniform the naturalization laws (which has nothing to do with a “natural born Citizen”), can make “natural born Citizens,” one of the constitutional requirements to be eligible to be President, as it pleases, all without constitutional amendment, is absurd.

Unknown said...

I had a obot say Article 2 does not say a dual citizen is ineligible so obviously that would make a dual citizen eligible. I guess the same reasoning would make a foreign citizen or martian eligible and only a citizen of the US is not eligible now. Another one said anyone born in US is natural born and i should get that thru my thick skull even though natural born citizen is not found in 14th. He also said the minor quote on a NBC came from the english common law haha despite the fact Judge John Marshal specifically cited vattel in the Venus. the King of England had subjects he bossed around and not independent citizens who have free will and are rightful masters of the Us Government. Another said he is a NBC and even if he became a citizen of another country he would still be eligible even though that would make him a dual citizen or foreign citizen. Your ancestors on both sides did not have to be US citizens for last 200 years to be a native or NBC, you only have to be a second generation american and your parents only have to be citizens. Some obots also say obama was not born into the allegiance of the UK so i ask them what allegiance would the son of a british colonial citizen be born into? It is a unquestioned natural right that the child inherits the citizenship of the father as well as the mother now.

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

Obot Slartibartfast at http://birtherthinktank.wordpress.com/2013/07/23/mario-apuzzo-esq-is-all-wet-part-i-the-witch-test/#comments says that the Founders, Framers, and Ratifiers could not have relied upon Vattel for their definition of a “natural born Citizen” because an English translation of Vattel which used the exact clause “natural-born citizen” did not appear until 1797. (English translations since 1759 used “natives, or indigenes” rather than “natives, or natural-born citizens.”). Rather than Vattel, he argues that the Founders, Framers, and Ratifiers used William Blackstone and the English common law for their definition of a “natural born Citizen.” Slartibartfast’s position is hilarious.

First, he totally ignores that it was common during the Founding for many, including many of the Founders, Framers, and Ratifiers, to read books and to communicate in French.

Second, he fails to understand that the unanimous 1797 English translator replaced “indigenes” with “natural-born citizen” because the U.S. Constitution used “natural-born citizen” and the translator living at that time would have known what meaning the Founding generation gave to the clause and that that meaning came from Vattel.

Third, Slartibartfast also ignores the fact that nowhere in Blackstone’s Commentaries or in the English common law can we find the clause “natural-born citizen.” Rather, what we find there is “natural-born subject.” So, surely what is good for the goose is good for the gander.

Fourth, Slartibartfast provides absolutely no evidence establishing a real link (not to be confounded with a link based on his imagination or wishful thinking) between the “natural born Citizen” clause and Blackstone and the English common law.

Fifth, Slartibartfast, for his convenience fails to tell us that the U.S. Supreme Court, when defining a “natural-born citizen,” has always referred to or paraphrased Vattel and his Section 212 definition of the clause (that is one of the Constitutionalists’ link to Vattel) and never to William Blackstone and his English common law definition of a “natural-born subject.” And when providing that definition, the U.S. Supreme Court has always explained that a “natural-born citizen” (Chief Justice John Marshall in The Venus (1814) cited and quoted Vattel, but used “indigenes” rather than “natural-born citizen”) is a child born in the country to parents who were its “citizens” at the time of the child’s birth.

Stranger said...

correction: in the French original, Vattel referred to "les indigenes o les naturels" (the natives or natural members of a country) His words had no direct connection to citizenship since that relates to nations, not countries. Countries exist even without governments, but citizens don't because they are members of nations by being the natural members of the country that forms the nation.

Natural Citizen: one born of American citizens.

Born citizen: one born with citizenship.

an unnatural Natural citizen: one who became a citizen by law but by the "fiction of law" known as the doctrine of citizenship equivalency was made equal to all natural citizens by having been "natural-ized" by law.

an unnatural born citizen: one naturalized via the adoption of law into the American family at birth via State law (when national jus soli did not exist via the 14th Amendment)or via post-1898 Supreme Court holding.

John Jay realized the danger in the ambiguity of the language describing natural born subjects since it had been bleached of true meaning by the British government, so he underlined the word "born" to show he was not adapting those three words as some "term of art" which was defined by anything other than the meaning of the words themselves.
The CiC must be born as a natural citizen; a born natural citizen, a natural born citizen.

Other nations which lack the doctrine of citizenship equivalency can strip naturalized citizens of their citizenship for criminality. The United States cannot do that because all citizens are natural citizens except for minors with provisional citizens. Adrien Nash

bdwilcox said...

Mario,

I know you're already aware of this but others might not be:

"The popularity of languages changes over time, and there are many lingua francas that are of historical importance. These include French, which was the language of European diplomacy from the 17th century until the mid-20th century, and Classical Chinese, which served as both the written lingua franca and the diplomatic language in Far East Asia until the early 20th century. French and Chinese are still significant lingua francas today.
...
French was the language of diplomacy from the 17th century until the mid-20th century, and is still a working language of some international institutions. It was also the lingua franca of European literature in the 18th century. French is still seen on documents ranging from passports to airmail letters. Until the accession of the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Denmark in 1973, French and German were the official working languages of the European Economic Community."

From Wikipedia's list of Lingua Francas.

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

In my comment of August 4, 2013 at 12:18 AM, at "Second," I wrote "unanimous translator" rather than "anonymous translator." Please note the correction.

Maybe it was "divine Providence" which caused me to write "unanimous" rather than "anonymous," for the anonymous translator knew that the Founders, Framers, and Ratifiers were unanimous on the meaning of a "natural-born citizen" and that it could be found in Vattel's Section 212 of The Law of Nations.

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

Stranger, Adrian Nash,

“You said: correction: in the French original, Vattel referred to "les indigenes o les naturels" (the natives or natural members of a country) His words had no direct connection to citizenship since that relates to nations, not countries. Countries exist even without governments, but citizens don't because they are members of nations by being the natural members of the country that forms the nation.”

Mr. Nash, you and I again disagree. First, so that there is no misunderstanding, Vattel wrote “Les naturels, ou indigenes.” The words are interchangeable and they both mean “natural born citizen.” The English word “native” was used because of the word “indigenes,” which we use to refer to indigenous or native populations such as American Indians. In any event, the words “Les naturels, ou indigenes,” or “the natives, or indigenes,” or “the natives, or natural-born citizens,” all mean the same thing which is “natural born citizens.”

Second, you are wrong that Vattel’s “words had no direct connection to citizenship since that relates to nations, not countries.” Your distinction between nations and countries, saying that nations have citizens but countries have members is all of your own imagination.

Vattel first defines the term, “country” as “the state of which one is a member,” adding that this is the meaning of the term which is to be used in the law of nations. Sec. 122. He further defines “country” as “the state, or even more particularly the town or place where our parents had their fixed residence . . . and of which his parents were members when they gave him birth.” Id. Later, Vattel explains that a nation is made up of its country or countries. In his CHAPTER XIX, entitled “Of our Native Country, and several Things that relate to it,” he adds that all a nation’s countries make up its territory and that the nation exercises its sovereignty over all its countries and territory. All of a nation’s countries and territories are also subject to the nation’s laws. Vattel stresses the critical importance of “love of country, --a virtue so excellent and so necessary in a state.” Sec. 211. He states that a “citizen” is a member of the “civil society” (Sec. 212), which can only mean “country,” for the chapter in which he writes is about “Native Country” and he sets out to “explain several things that have a relation to this subject [country], and answer the questions that naturally arise from it.” Sec. 211. Then he adds that the “natural-born citizens” are those born in the country to parents who were already “citizens” of that country when the child was born. Sec. 212. Vattel finds it necessary that a child be born in the country to parents who were its “citizens” so that the place where the child is born is not only the place of the child’s birth, but also the country that the child will learn to love, cherish, preserve, and protect with his or her life.

Stranger said...

Adrien Nash writes:
Mario, you've mistranslated not only the words of Vattel but the order as well. "les naturels or les indigenes
" translates only one way but you have it translated the wrong way by having les naturels being translated as "the natives" and worse you then translate "les indigenes" as "natural born citizens

"les naturels" translates as "the naturals" -nothing else. You have no authority as a translator of 18th century French to expand or distort or re-formulate what "the naturals" means.

It, like "natives" only refers to members of a country; -the natural members (inhabitants), or natives.

You falsely, and without any basis, proclaim that countries and nations are synonymous as if the words have no distinction when everyone knows that they do, i.e., America is our country, -it's not our nation.
The United States is our nation, -it's not our country. Nations have formal governments. Countries may have no government as we think of government, only tribal government.

One can be a native, -a natural member, of a country that has no formal government and is not a nation. As were the Australian aboriginal peoples.
They were not "citizens" of their native country because it was not a nation. Only nations have citizens just as only Kings and dictators have subjects.
The Israelites, having entered Canaan, were a nation in search of a country to make their own. Before leaving Egypt they were not a nation because they were under Egyptian jurisdiction. That pattern was the opposite of the normal one, which is: a people, a country, a nation.
Vattel described how nations are composed of...of what? Of countries or a country. How exactly is that not exactly what I've written? His use of the word country is synonymous with our use of the word
county" unless he was referring to empires.

"Vattel first defines the term, “country” as “the state of which one is a member,”" (a member, -not a citizen)

You are unwilling to grasp that Vattel was not ordained by God with the authority to define anything. And he did not. He described reality and definitions weren't needed to explain it.
You need to refrain from viewing his text as holy script which produces the final word on anything.

If you are unwilling or unable to acknowledge that fact then you are either disingenuous or conceptually handicapped.

This is not a matter of disagreement; it is a matter of fact or error. Dismissal and distortion do not change reality. Vattel's relevance is based on the accuracy of his descriptions, not on their legal divinity.

Unknown said...

vattel is not exactly the only one to say love of country and i am happy to stand with General of the Armies of the United States George Washington, mario and 100s of millions of US citizens since 1776 who have been blessed by the Creator in being born or naturalized here. A citizen is just a member of a country and stranger seems like a real nitpicker. I love my country and want us to be that shining city President Reagan talked about. We all know President Kennedys famous speech about what can we do for our country

Stranger said...

Vattel didn't make a rule. Vattel didn't give a definition. Vattel made an observation and gave a description of how countries and nations are populated. He stated the obvious to any mind that isn't too distracted to even see the obvious. That is why no judge or justice has legitimized his "definition" since that's impossible being as he never gave, nor could give, an official definition of anything.

He was not an official definer for any government. He was a philosophical observer who pretty much got everything right except his insistence that the King should have more power to force the people to be subservient to the divine authority of the Church.
A. Nash

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

I of II

I just left this comment for Bob Quasius at Café Con Leche Republicans, at http://www.cafeconlecherepublicans.com/is-ted-cruz-a-natural-born-citizen/#comment-20561

Bob Quasius said to davidfarrard:

“You’re confusing ‘natural law’ with ‘natural born citizenship.’ The constitution doesn’t define the term “natural born citizen” because it was widely understood under common law at the time, as was birthright citizenship. Under the English Common law that became American common law, anyone born a citizen was a natural born citizen. Under English law via statute, not common law, those born abroad of English subjects were considered natural born subjects provided their parents met residency requirements. The U.S. continued the practice after Independence, but birth abroad to citizens was provided by statute, not common law.”

These statements are incorrect as applied to defining an Article II "natural born citizen." Following the American Revolution, the Founders, Framers, and Ratifiers never adopted the English common law as national law. This is critically important to understand because the "natural born citizen" clause is a national concept. Presidential eligibility could be determined only by a uniform standard that was national in scope and that applied equally to all the states. Note that Founders, Framers, and Ratifiers also made our national naturalization laws uniform by removing from the state the power to naturalize anyone after birth and giving that power exclusively to Congress.

On the other hand, most of the new states selectively adopted the English common law, but only until abrogated by their legislatures. The states also continued to naturalize persons under their state statutes, but only until Congress passed the first naturalization act in 1790.

State laws, which were based on the English common law or which were naturalization acts, were used to define a "citizen of the United States" before the adoption of the Constitution and before Congress passed its first Naturalization Act in 1790. But after that date, a “citizen of the United States” could come into being only by satisfying national law which was passed by Congress. This means that before the adoption of the Constitution, under Article II, Section 1, Clause 5, anyone becoming a “citizen of the United States” as of the time of the adoption of the Constitution by whatever means available, i.e., becoming a “citizen” of one of the states at birth under the English common law as adopted by any state, by naturalization after birth through the force of and adherence to the American Revolution (applicable to our early Presidents), or under state naturalization statutes (used to make more “citizens” after birth), was eligible to be President. But for those born after the adoption of the Constitution, only those satisfying the national and uniform definition of a “natural born citizen” could be eligible to be President.

And regarding a “natural born citizen,” the Founders, Framers, and Ratifiers, for children born after July 4, 1776, used the law of nations which they incorporated into American national law for their definition of the clause. That definition was a child born in the country to parents who were its “citizens” at the time of the child’s birth. See The Law of Nations, Section 212-217 (London 1797) (1st ed. Neuchatel 1758); Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162, 167-68 (1875); U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649, 679-80 (1898). This national scheme of U.S. citizenship was confirmed by our early Congresses in the Naturalization Act of 1790, 1795, 1802, and 1855, which treated children born in the United States to alien parents as alien born. By the express wording of these naturalization acts we can see that Congress never saw the need to nor did it ever act upon children born in the United States to U.S. “citizen” parents.

Continued . . .

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

II of II

The Founder, Framers, and Ratifiers did give Congress the power to naturalize any child that was born out of the United States. In 1790, through the Naturalization Act of 1790, Congress naturalized at birth children born out of the United States to U.S. citizen parents as “natural born citizens.” Congress repealed that law in 1795 through the Naturalization Act of 1795, which treated such children as “citizens of the United States.” By seeing the need to naturalize such children, and further by changing their naturalized birth status from that of a “natural born citizen” to that of a “citizen of the United States” (under Article II, Section 1, Clause 5, children born after the adoption of the Constitution who were “citizens of the United States” and not “natural born Citizens” were no longer eligible to be President), our early Congress clearly signaled that such children were not only not “natural born citizens,” but were also not eligible to be President. Congress to this day has never again used the clause “natural born citizen” in any of its naturalization acts and also not even in the Fourteenth Amendment. This can only mean that Congress has seen children born U.S. “citizens” under such laws as “citizens of the United States,” but not as “natural born citizens.”

So, you are incorrect in your position that the Founders, Framers, and Ratifiers defined a “natural born citizen” under English common law, for they did not do any such thing. Rather, they defined a “natural born citizen” under American common law which had its origins in the law of nations. And that definition was a child born in the country (or its jurisdictional equivalent as in being born out of the United States to parents serving the national defense) to parents who were its “citizens” at the time of the child’s birth. Under this definition, and even under early Congress’s naturalization acts, any child born in the United State to alien parents was alien born and in need of naturalization. Such child was not and could not be a “natural born citizen.”

You are also incorrect in your position that children born out of the United States to U.S. “citizen” parents who are not serving the U.S. national defense (like Senator Ted Cruz who was born in Canada to a U.S. “citizen” mother and a Cuban father) are “natural born citizens.” The Founders, Framers, and Ratifiers saw any child born out of the United States, even to U.S. “citizen” parents, as being naturalized at birth, at first as a “natural born citizen,” but then as a “citizen of the United States.” Naturalizing him or her as such at birth and also eventually treating such child only as a “citizen of the United States,” they did not see such a child to be a “natural born citizen.”

Unknown said...

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. wrote:
"You do not understand the meaning of 'national customary law.'"

Unless and until the United States Supreme Court overturn U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, its meaning is what is manifest in the Majority Opinion.


Mario Apuzzo, Esq. wrote:
"You also do not understand that the law of nations was adopted by the Constitution and became part of the supreme law of the law."

I understand well enough to appreciate your correct use of the lower case there: "the law of nations". The term appears as "The Law of Nations" in the Constitution, but not because it means the title of a particular treatise. Lots of terms are capitalized in the Constitution for reasons that are now archaic. The law of nations pertains to international accord and has nothing to do with who can be president.


Mario Apuzzo, Esq. wrote:
"You have no response to my arguments and you, in your effort to win this public debate on the meaning of an Article II 'natural born Citizen,' again simply resort to help from the handful of post-Obama lower courts that have ruled on (not to be confounded with decided) the issue of whether Obama is a 'natural born Citizen.' As I have repeatedly told you, those decisions are not helpful because they do not demonstrate how they arrived at their conclusion on the meaning of a 'natural born Citizen' and how Obama meets that definition."

And then we read the decisions and you are debunked.


Mario Apuzzo, Esq. wrote:
"Things are so bad that these courts, apart from how they have evaded addressing the issue of the two-U.S. 'citizen' parents prong of the “natural born Citizen” clause, have even gone as far as saying that Obama was born in the United States with no such evidence existing in the evidentiary record before them or any other court in the nation."

Look on the bright side: The courts had the courtesy not to laugh in your face as you presented crank nonsense. That's better than you do in the public debate.

Have you considered how lucky you are that Kerchner v. Obama never reached your factual allegations? Think of the trouble you and your client could have gotten into for signing and swearing to those fabrications.


Mario Apuzzo, Esq. wrote:
"Finally, regarding Smith v. Alabama, since you cannot support your citing of the case for showing that a 'natural born Citizen' is to be defined [...]"

I supported what I wrote. You, not so much. Care to try again? Show me ever citing Smith other than within a citation of Wong, as you implied I did. Show me saying or implying that Smith v. Alabama was about citizenship, as you said that I did.

js said...

from Federalist Blog (Was U.S. vs. Wong Kim Ark Wrongly Decided?

by P.A. Madison on December 10th, 2006 )



In reading the majorities opinion in Wong Kim Ark, one cannot help but wonder why so much emphasis is being placed on such obscure and irrelevant historical overviews as colonial and foreign law. With two previous court decisions, a United States Attorney General Opinion over the meaning of the Fourteenth’s citizenship clause, and law previously made over alien citizenship via birth, leaves one to wonder what is going on here?

Deeper into the decision, Justice Horace Gray (writing for the majority) reveals exactly what the majority is up to: They are attempting to avoid discussion over the construction of the clause by the two Senators whom are most responsible for its language found under the Fourteenth Amendment, Jacob M. Howard and Lyman Trumbull. They are also attempting to keep their prior adjudication to what “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” means in Elk v. Wilkins out of the discussion or else Wong Kim Ark can’t be said to be a citizen of the United States.

It is clear the Wong Kim Ark majority recognized the only viable approach to the conclusion they sought was to somehow distant themselves from the recorded history left behind by the citizenship clause framers. Justice Gray made no attempt to hide this fact when he wrote: “Doubtless, the intention of the congress which framed, and of the states which adopted, this amendment of the constitution, must be sought in the words of the amendment, and the debates in congress are not admissible as evidence to control the meaning of those words.”

Whatever credibility the court may had at the beginning was soon lost when Gray wrote:


The words “in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” in the first sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution must be presumed to have been understood and intended by the Congress which proposed the Amendment … as the equivalent of the words “within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States…”

Here the court is assuming what Congress may have intended while also arguing the written debates that could easily disclose this intent is inadmissible as evidence. This has to be one of the most incompetent and feeble rulings ever handed down by the Supreme Court.

js said...

Rep. John A. Bingham, chief architect of the 14th Amendments first section, said this national law (Section 1992 of the US Revised Statutes) was “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.” If this law was simply to reaffirm the common law doctrine then the condition of the parents would be totally irrelevant. (Fed. Blog)



Seems like the SCOTUS is used to making bad decisions!!

js said...

The United States Attorney General (who was a Republican Senator involved in the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1866) in 1873 ruled the word “jurisdiction” under the Fourteenth Amendment to mean:


The word “jurisdiction” must be understood to mean absolute and complete jurisdiction, such as the United States had over its citizens before the adoption of this amendment… Aliens, among whom are persons born here and naturalized abroad, dwelling or being in this country, are subject to the jurisdiction of the United States only to a limited extent. Political and military rights and duties do not pertain to them. (14 Op. Atty-Gen. 300.)

In Elk v. Wilkins, 112 U.S. 94, the court was specifically asked to address “subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” and held it meant:


The persons declared to be citizens are “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” The evident meaning of these last words is not merely subject in some respect or degree to the jurisdiction of the United States, but completely subject to their political jurisdiction and owing them (U.S.) direct and immediate allegiance. And the words relate to the time of birth in the one case, as they do to the time of naturalization in the other. Persons not thus subject to the jurisdiction of the United States at the time of birth cannot become so afterwards except by being naturalized, either individually, as by proceedings under the naturalization acts, or collectively, as by the force of a treaty by which foreign territory is acquired.

Here we have the framers, the Attorney General and the Elk court all agreeing that “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” means political attachment. The question begs, what happened to the adopted meaning?

In Wong Kim Ark the court made a weak attempt to marginalize its holding in Elk on the grounds that decision “concerned only members of the Indian tribes within the United States, and had no tendency to deny citizenship to children born in the United States of foreign parents of Caucasian, African or Mongolian descent not in the diplomatic service of a foreign country.”

(Same Fed.Blog)

js said...

Point in fact, the Ark case got it wrong. Its not if the SCoTUS wants to correct anything, but the fact that the SCoTUS made the error voids its own decision.

Just like when they claimed that blacks were property in Dred Scott V Sanford. SCoTUS decisions are not law, they can violate the law, and the SCoTUS has the DUTY to interpret the law, but when they err, it is not a creation of law, but judicial misconduct.

Stranger said...

from obama--nation.com; some new thoughts:
If Vattel was undoubtedly writing about countries in the sentence using "les naturels ou les indigenes" then the correct translation is "the natural inhabitants or natives" .

On the other hand, if he was referring to nations then "les naturels" refers to natural citizens because nations have citizens not inhabitants.

Countries (land + natives) have inhabitants while Nations (natives + government) have citizens.

Hamilton's version of presidential eligibility says No person shall be eligible except one who is now a citizen of one of the states or hereafter shall be born a citizen of the United States.

That covered the present and the future equally, so no grandfather "exception" idea applies. Same with the final version.

The concept of a grandfather clause is predicated on the idea that without it the founders' generation would not have been allowed to be President because they were not "natural born citizens of the United States" which the wording does NOT require.
They only have to be what they all were; "natural born citizens" of their own sovereign State instead of being naturalized citizens or born citizens with alien fathers.
If the word "natural" was omitted, then all alien-born children of un-naturalized immigrants would be eligible if the state in which they were born bestowed citizenship upon them at birth. But that would allow the sons of foreign nobles and royals if born in the U.S. to one day be President, and avoidance of such an influence is why the use of the word "natural" was imperative.
~ ~ ~
The quote by James Madison regarding the idea that place of birth was the principle at work in the United States needs to be understood from a realistic viewpoint.
Reality could accommodate that as a possibility while simultaneously recognizing that jus soli citizenship is not natural citizenship. One does not preclude the other.

All that needs to be recognized is that jus soli citizenship is citizenship by a policy of convenience and ownership, -ownership passed down from royal ownership of a kingdom and its subjects, -aristocratic ownership of an estate and it's native-born serfs, and plantation ownership with its native-born slaves, while natural jus sanguinis citizenship is national membership by blood connection. By birth to a citizen mother and father.
That is identical in nature to membership in one's own family. That membership is not dependent on location of birth, nor law, nor government. It is purely natural, and not a form of adoption.
A Nash

Stranger said...

Mario wrote: The Founders, Framers, and Ratifiers saw any child born out of the United States, even to U.S. “citizen” parents, as being naturalized at birth, at first as a “natural born citizen,” but then as a “citizen of the United States.”

Your understanding of citizenship in the United States is fundamentally warped. Do you realize that the theory you espouse means that natural citizenship via jus sanguinis did not exist in America? All citizenship is purely jus soli citizenship by your flawed reckoning. You illegitimately assert that Americans do not give birth to Americans, naturally. They give birth to aliens if birth is abroad. That's your position, (one that I've repeatedly disproven).

That's just great. It supplies a boat-load of ammo to your opponents who argue the same thing (all jus soli, all the time). Which side are you on? (rhetorical question)
That also means that the word "natural" has no meaning whatsoever. That fits in with your dogma that NBC is a term of art so the words themselves are not representative of what the words mean individually and can therefore be asserted to have the meaning that you've inauthoritatively ascribed to them.
That meaning is a bastardization of language that is hand-in-hand with the British bastardization of
"natural born subject", -which also abandoned the meaning of the word "natural". You view is just as baseless and unprincipled as the monarchist anglophiles who came to label even the alien-born children "natural born subjects" when "natural" was totally inapplicable and inappropriate.
You need to cease connecting the law of nations to intra-national law and policy regarding citizenship. Such matters have nothing whatsoever to do with the law between nations.
I repeat: Neither you nor your ignorant opponents can explain how a "term of art" could allow the underlining of one of its constituent words as John Jay underlined born. The only explanation is that the words were no more a term of art than are those of a phrase like "pretty young woman". (pretty woman = natural citizen; young woman = born citizen) If one underlines the word "young" that is proof that the words are not a term of art.
Accept the truth of that logic.
A Nash obama--nation.com

Stranger said...

js wrote: " SCoTUS decisions are not law, they can violate the law, and the SCoTUS has the DUTY to interpret the law, but when they err, it is not a creation of law, but judicial misconduct."

Forget about referring to Dred Scott. We have an even more egregious and obvious violation of the Constitution in the SCoTUS opinion on the health care act. Rewriting it regarding Medicare (strike one) changing the mean of "penalty" (strike two); not disallowing a taxing bill from coming from the Senate (strike three); not striking the whole thing because of a lack of a severability clause (strike four).

Talk about a Supreme Court completely disconnected from the Constitution and the rule of law.
A Nash

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

Unknown,

I of II

Your mention of the need for me to have U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) overturned is nothing but a red herring and a straw man argument. There is no need from me to have Wong Kim Ark overturned. While the Court engaged in much fudging to arrive at its conclusion that Wong, born in the United States to alien parents, was a “citizen of the United States” at birth under the Fourteenth Amendment, in arriving at that conclusion it did not define an Article II “natural born citizen” any differently than did the unanimous U.S. Supreme Court in Minor v. Happersett (1875). And that definition is a child born in the country to parents who were its “citizens” at the time of the child’s birth or as both courts specifically 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. “ Minor at 167-68; Wong Kim Ark at 679-80.

With the question being whether Wong was a “citizen of the United States” under the Fourteenth Amendment, not a “natural born Citizen” under Article II, Wong Kim Ark, in interpreting and applying the Fourteenth Amendment, did not see itself bound by the “common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar” and which they used to define a “natural-born citizen.” In fact, Wong Kim Ark distinguished its legal problem from one presented by that “common-law” and the “natural born Citizen” clause. First, Wong Kim Ark never ruled that Minor was mistaken in its statement of how that “common-law” defined a “natural-born citizen.” Second, Wong Kim Ark, arguing from analogy, used the citizenship practice of the colonies and the new states (not to be confounded with the citizenship practice of the national government) which relied upon the English common law to define a “citizen of the United States” under the Fourteenth Amendment, not to be conflated and confounded with an Article II “natural born Citizen.” Wong Kim Ark therefore held that a child born in the United States to domiciled and resident alien parents was born “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and therefore a “citizen of the United States” at birth. Wong Kim Ark made it clear two separate times that it was distinguishing between a “citizen” under the Fourteenth Amendment and a “natural born Citizen” under Article II. It therefore held that, by virtue of being “born in the country” (like being born in the King’s dominion and under his protection), a child born in the United States to domiciled and resident alien parents was as much a “citizen” as a “natural born” citizen child born in the country to “citizen” parents. It is not logical to compare something to itself. Clearly, then, from the Court’s comparison between a “natural-born citizen” and a “citizen of the United States” under the Fourteenth Amendment, the Court distinguished the two classes of “citizens,” demonstrating that while both were “citizens,” only those children born in the country to “citizen” parents were “natural-born citizens.” So as you can see, Unknown, while Wong Kim Ark made many misstatements about American history and law, there is no need to overturn Wong Kim Ark.

You used the term, “national customary law.” I said that you do not know what it means. You respond that Wong Kim Ark used it and are not able to provide any explanation on what the Court meant when it used that phrase.

Your little lecture on the law of nations is another straw man. I never said that the law of nations mentioned in the Constitution is a specific citation of Vattel’s The Law of Nations (1758).

Continued . . .

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

II of II

You boldly proclaim that “[t]he law of nations pertains to international accord and has nothing to do with who can be president.” As is normal for you, you are wrong. Not only were the Founders, Framers, and Ratifiers highly influence by the law of nations and the writings of the publicists, one of which was Vattel, when they conceived the Revolution and wrote the Constitution, but that law and those natural law writings also defined a “natural born citizen,” the exact term used by the Founders, Framers, and Ratifiers in Article II. The Founders, Framers, and Ratifiers were not influenced by the English common law in justifying the Revolution and in constituting the new nation, and the “natural born Citizen” clause is not found in the English common law. Hence, common sense tells us that the law of nations has a lot to do with defining a “natural born Citizen.” And more than common sense, we actually have the unanimous U.S. Supreme Court in Minor, like Chief Justice John Marshall in The Venus (1814) and Justice Daniels in Dred Scott (1857) (not to mention the holdings of Inglis (1830) and Shanks (1830)) defining a “natural-born citizen” exactly how Vattel defined one in Section 212 of his The Law of Nations (London 1797) (1st ed. Neuchatel 1758).

You just proclaim that if we read the post-Obama lower court decisions, they demonstrate that they have debunked me. But you are not able to articulate anything from those decisions which supports your lie.

You calling my “natural born citizen” position “crank nonsense,” without demonstrating how that is so, only shows that it is your sophomoric reasoning that is crank nonsense. I know a child of 11 years old that has more reasoning power than you.

Finally, on Smith v. Alabama, you threw it into the mix here in your fruitless effort to show us that an Article II “natural born Citizen” is supposed to be defined under English common law. Hence, you own the decision, not me.

So, Unknown, as I said before, I will say it again, you still lose on all points. Why do you not get Fogbow Foggy and some notable “authority” to help you?

Stranger said...

js, the quotes regarding jurisdiction are highly significant and pivotal. I've asserted the same thing in dozens of expositions without the benefit of being backed by them, so it's great to see official confirmation.

As a grateful response I'm inspired to share something that I've never published before because it's about the best thing I've ever written, plus it's 12 pages long. It makes as plain as day what the fundamental basis of citizenship it, and it's something that everyone has forgotten.
It's titled:
BEARING ARMS, TRUE FAITH & ALLEGIANCE

http://h2ooflife.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/bearing-arms-true-faith-and-allegiance.pdf

Without being enlightened by what it reveals, people are simply in the dark as to the full obligation of citizenship. A Nash

Stranger said...

js quoted: "within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty"

My how easy it is to ignore the parents, and yet they are central to their child's citizenship. Why? Because the subjection under which the child is born is not determined by where it is born but to whom it is born, meaning the parents are the determinant rather than the government of the land in which it enters the world.
Subjection flows from father to son as well as to wife and daughter, neither of which were subject to the obligations of citizenship because they were the objects that the obligation mandated be protected. The men defend the women and children. A Nash

Stranger said...

js wrote: "This has to be one of the most incompetent and feeble rulings ever handed down by the Supreme Court." (WKA)

Were it not for the usurpation of the Presidency, the fallaciousness of WKA probably would have gone on forever as unaddressed and unrecognized, much less understood.
Now, with the many examples of where it distorted, omitted, lied and erred, even a 5th grader can see through its perversion. But the thing is, they used an illegitimate means to accomplish a benevolent and beneficial result.

The problem is not their holding, which ignored precedent, but the bastardization of their holding by the Attorney General that interpreted it for the executive branch employees involved in nationality administration.
He went a bridge way too far by extending it to include not just children of immigrants who were members of American society, but ALL children of all foreigners born in the U.S. excepting only foreign ambassadors.
THAT was based on nothing other than The King's Law governing children of all foreigners, including even those visiting for a day or a week. I call that monarchical hegemony against the children of non-immigrant visitors.
A Nash

Unknown said...

wka was not a citizen under the 14th amendment because his alien parents were not subject to us jurisdiction and chinese were not allowed to be citizens because of chinese exclusion act. The US Constitution gives congress powers of naturalization, not the supreme court. Like mario has pointed out, any law or supreme court decision that is not in line with the Constitution is invalid. Everything obama has done as defacto president is worthless because he does not meet the simple requirement of being a NBC. Foreign citizens, dual citizen and a citizen of the us are not eligible

Carlyle said...

I could not agree more. I am probably even more emphatic (and have written here many times) that a lot of what the USSC does is unconstitutional.

In fact, go back to the beginning. Where in the constitution does it say that the USSC is the "interpreter" and "decider" of the constitution? That is a totally self-defined role for them.

However, it has been that way for like TWO CENTURIES! It is deeply inbred into the collective psych and into traditional national civics. So what can we do about it? i.e. To whom can we appeal a USSC decision?

Given that The States chartered the Federal Government, it is only logical that The States, some consortium of The States, or a committee thereof should be the final arbiter of constitutional issues. (How can a branch of the Federal Government adequately police the Federal Government - it is absurd and ridiculous on the face of it!)

But that was never done and I see little hope of changing that in the future. So FOR ALL PRACTICAL purposes, the USSC rulings are the supreme law of the land. I wish that were not true, but I see no way around it.

We have become an oligarchy ruled by a dictator and "seven old men" appointed by the dictator or his predecessor(s).

How can this possibly work out well?

Stranger said...

"Foreign citizens, dual citizen and a citizen of the us are not eligible"

It's erroneous to bastardize the meaning of "a citizen of the United States". All natural citizens are U.S. citizens, but not all U.S. citizens are natural citizens. It is those U.S. citizens who are not also natural citizens who are ineligible. They include naturalized citizens, derivative citizens, 14th Amendment immigrant-born-in-the-US citizens, mass-naturalized-by-Congress citizens.
It's like all show-dogs are dogs, but not all dogs are show-dogs, -but in an opposite sense because instead of only about 3% of the population being natural citizens, it's more life 97% are.
100% are eligible to serve in every office in America except the lone exception of the Command in chief of the military. Why would any patriotic American want to abolish the safe-guard put in place by the founders? It's all about protecting one individual who floated in on a cloud of grandiose expectations. A Nash

Stranger said...

So tragically true. The fact is that we are not governed. We are RULED by an oligarchy of 12 Kings who are answerable to no one, even the people, except at election time 3 of them face possible expulsion.
We have a dictator in the White House who is essentially not accountable to Congress in any effective way. We have leaders of the House and Senate who are unaccountable except to the forces that they kow-tow to. And the SCOTUS which does whatever the hell its members want, with half or more completely oblivious to the Constitution, reason, and American values and principles.

Now, with the passage of the NDAA, we are ripe for Tin Badge dictatorship. Obama isn't the one to go there but that the possibility even exists is unthinkable.
Congress is worthless. They don't write nor read what they pass. I'll bet that not a single one of them knew or imagined that the NDAA lacked language making unconstitutional arrest powers not applicable to American citizens.

Mediocrity reigns supreme. Intellectual acuity and constitutional fidelity are missing from the national landscape.

Stranger said...

dick head wrote: "wka was not a citizen under the 14th amendment because his alien parents were not subject to us jurisdiction"

I surmise that one consequence of that opinion was that the Attorney General determined that if the child is subject then it must be through his father being subject. Therefore, if the immigrant father is fully subject just like citizens are subject, then we can draft him and ignore his exemption from duty to protect his adopted country, -an exemption always allowed since he is a foreign national.
Like I've related before, an old Mexican national once told me that he was charged, tried, convicted, and imprisoned during WWII for not yielding to U.S. conscription while living in the U.S. I could hardly believe it. That had to be a consequence of the WKA holding.
A Nash

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

Stranger or Adrien Nash,

I call the Obots or Anti-Constitutionalists, among other things, the Conflationists. They take a “citizen of the United States” at birth under the Fourteenth Amendment or Act of Congress and conflate and confound it with an Article II “natural born Citizen,” thereby reading the “natural born Citizen” clause right out of the Constitution. They, including Congressional Attorney Jack Maskell, arrive at their erroneous conclusion by two ways:

1. They argue the obvious that a “natural born Citizen” is a citizen at birth. Then they fallaciously conclude that any person who is a citizen at birth is therefore a “natural born Citizen.” As I have already explained this is what their argument looks like in logical form: All poodles are dogs; Bubbles is a dog; Therefore Bubbles is a poodle. This argument is logically invalid which also shows how logically invalid the Obots’ argument is.

2. As I have already also explained, the only other argument that they can make is that all citizens at birth are “natural born Citizens.” From that major premise they would add that any person who is a citizen at birth, is a “natural born Citizen.” While this argument is logically valid, it is logically unsound (false), because there is no historical or legal evidence which shows that the major premise, all citizens at birth are “natural born Citizens” is true. Hence, this argument contains a false major premise which leads to a false conclusion.

I have asked the Obots to provide historical and legal evidence that demonstrates that their major premise, all citizens at birth are “natural born Citizens,” is true. So far, their mental capacity ("intellectual acuity") has enabled them to comment only on Bubbles’ name and no more.

Unknown said...

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. wrote:
"Your mention of the need for me to have U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) overturned is nothing but a red herring and a straw man argument. There is no need from me to have Wong Kim Ark overturned."

Actually what I said was that unless and until Wong is overturned, the quote I cited stands, with its meaning manifest. Whether you feel need to overturn it is entirely up to you. As you know from your own results, Wong is the case modern courts cite in deciding against your theory, just as we obots explained long ago.


Mario Apuzzo, Esq. wrote:
"First, Wong Kim Ark never ruled that Minor was mistaken in its statement of how that 'common-law' defined a “natural-born citizen."

You, not the Minor nor Wong Courts, are mistaken on that. The Wong Court, in both the majority and minority opinions, understood your favorite quote from Minor as the inclusive statement that it logically, legally, and grammatically is. See the quote from Wong spanning pages 6 and 7 in Purpura v. Obama, your own case, which includes, "all person born in the allegiance of the United States are natural-born citizens."

The Wong minority opinion likewise includes the Vattel-derived quote, but also says (at 714), "In my judgment, the children of our citizens born abroad were always natural-born citizens from the standpoint of this Government." Were you correct that the definition of "natural-born citizen" is a child born in the country of parents who are citizens, then Chief Justice Fuller would be saying: In my judgment, the children of our citizens born abroad were always born in the country of parents who were citizens from the standpoint of this Government. Is that not a contradiction?


Mario Apuzzo, Esq. wrote:
"You used the term, 'national customary law.'"

I quoted the U.S. Supreme Court using it, with sufficient context for its meaning to be manifest. You can proclaim that I do not understand it, but I'm a pretty mainstream obot and the real-world authorities have repeatedly confirmed our understanding of Wong and refuted yours.

Unknown said...

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. wrote:
"You just proclaim that if we read the post-Obama lower court decisions, they demonstrate that they have debunked me. But you are not able to articulate anything from those decisions which supports your lie."

Let's take a look and see who is lying. Your claim there was: "You [...] simply resort to help from the handful of post-Obama lower courts that have ruled on (not to be confounded with decided) the issue of whether Obama is a 'natural born Citizen.' As I have repeatedly told you, those decisions are not helpful because they do not demonstrate how they arrived at their conclusion on the meaning of a 'natural born Citizen' and how Obama meets that definition."

I responded, "And then we read the decisions and you are debunked." Easy enough to check.

Oh look -- here's one of those courts demonstrating how it arrived at its conclusion:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/88910250/Purpura-Moran-Initial-Decision-of-ALJ-Masin

Here's another:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/113533939/VT-Paige-v-Obama-Et-Al-DeCISION-Vt-Super-Ct-Nov-2012

Is there a limit to the number of links I can include in a comment? I have more.

Of the courts that reached your legal theory, I believe they all rejected it citing U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, much as obots had been explaining to you for years.

I know of two courts that dismissed you without explanation: the U.S Supreme Court and the NJ Supreme Court. You named "lower courts", but it was the higher courts that declined to explain. Courts with discretionary jurisdiction have rejected Obama eligibility appeals every time, letting the lower court decisions stand.

You may not like the reasoning of the courts in your cases and you are free to rail against it. Losing parties and losing attorneys often come out dissatisfied. That's not the same as the courts not demonstrating how they arrived at their conclusions.

Stranger said...

"You can proclaim that I do not understand it, but I'm a pretty mainstream obot and the real-world authorities have repeatedly confirmed our understanding of Wong and refuted yours."

All that real-world authorities have is their own opinions. You are both wrong in your views. Mario is wrong in regard to the belief that natural citizenship does not exist, and hence any American child born two feet over the border is an alien in need of the permission of the government to be a citizen.

You are wrong in regard to the view that all native-born citizens are also natural citizens. Natural citizenship only comes from birth. Only citizen parents can give birth to children who are natural citizens. Immigrants cannot.

They give birth to alien-born 14th Amendment "sons of the soil" jus soli citizens, none of whom are natural citizens who comprise about 97% of the population. That 3% or so of the population are those addressed in the presidential eligibility clause by the words "No person", meaning "no citizen" with foreign alienage. A Nash

Stranger said...

Mario, the conflationists have something in common with you and it is the belief that you must not take the words "natural" "born" and "citizen" as actual words but must accept them as being a single unitary "term of art" word. (in effect: naturalborncitizen)
I share that that view is erroneous and consequently both of your theories that rest on it are also erroneous.
Dueling "term-of-art" meanings can be argued til the cows come home, but if the words mean only what their individual meanings convey then they cannot be misconstrued to have a different meaning that is only explained via someone's interpretation of the "term of art" meaning.

If both sides abandoned the term-of-art presumption then the only meaning remaining is that of the words themselves, which convey citizenship by inheritance via birth to citizen parents. That is the definition of natural citizenship.
But no one wants to talk about natural citizenship because it explodes their cherished views, (along with Obama's eligibility). Adrien Nash
[All natural born citizens are born citizens, but not all "born citizens" are natural citizens because some are merely legal citizens, hence the need for the descriptor "natural" to differentiate.]

Stranger said...

A Nash says:
unknown responded, "And then we read the decisions and you are debunked." Easy enough to check.
Oh look -- here's one of those courts demonstrating how it arrived at its conclusion:..."

You are blindly ignorant of how to use words correctly. Mario stated that those courts did not demonstrate how they reached their conclusion and that was because they did not reach any conclusion.

They merely *decided* on the basis of what other lap-dog jurists had decided before them. That is not a conclusion reached by examining the truth of the matter, but by avoiding it. That's evasion not conclusion.

The ignorance of the man is made clear by his ignorant presumption that native-birth is synonymous with natural membership in the nation. That has never been true because natural citizenship is related solely to birth, -not place of birth, and birth is related solely to one's mother, (and father). If they aren't Americans then their child cannot be a natural America.

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

Unknown,

I of II

When you proclaim victory just by saying that Wong Kim Ark supports your position or that of the post-Obama lower courts, but without demonstrating how it does, you are doing nothing but begging the question. You citing to those lower courts without showing how the rationale, if any, of those courts addressed the issues is of little intellectual value.

You did not address my points on Minor and Wong Kim Ark. You make believe that you are by quoting parts of my arguments, but your responses are just a repetition of the same old Obot talking points that do not refute my points, but rather only advance yours.

You attempt to escape the clutches of the unanimous U.S. Supreme Court in Minor by telling us that the Court’s definition of a “natural-born citizen” was only inclusive, and not exclusionary. Your position has no merit. First, the Court told us that the Constitution, including the Fourteenth Amendment, did not define a “natural-born citizen.” Second, it then said that the Framers defined the clause under the “common-law” the nomenclature of which they were familiar when they drafted the Constitution. Third, it then explained how that "common-law" defined a "natural-born citizen." It said that under that “common-law,” a child born in the country to parents who were its “citizens” at the time of the child’s birth was not only a “citizen,” but also a “natural-born citizen.” That statement in and of itself is sufficient to inform who was included and excluded from the definition. Why would we think that the Framers had some other yet-to-be discovered definition of a “natural-born citizen” that would make itself finally known in 1898? Fourth, we also know from what the Court added after it defined a “natural-born citizen” that the definition it gave of a “natural-born citizen” was both inclusive and exclusive. The Court added that at "common-law," if children were not born in the country to parents who were its "citizens" at the time of their birth, those children were "aliens or foreigners." That language explained that if one did not satisfy certain conditions at the moment of birth, then one was not born a “citizen,” let alone a “natural-born citizen.” That is without any doubt, language of exclusion. Fifth, Minor even added that despite what “some authorities” maintained, “there have been doubts” which it was not necessary for it to resolve whether a child “born in the jurisdiction” to alien parents was a “citizen.” This last statement was surely a reference to the Fourteenth Amendment and not to the “natural-born citizen’’ clause. Even Wong Kim Ark in 1898 read the Court’s statement as a reference to that amendment when in interpreting that amendment it said that the Minor Court was not committed to holding that children born in the United States to alien parents were not “citizens” under that amendment.

Continued . . .

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

II of II

And Wong Kim Ark did not take any issue with Minor’s exclusionary language. It did not say that Minor was wrong for finding that the common-law excluded such children from U.S. citizenship. Rather, Wong Kim Ark went on a different path than the “common-law” one of Minor. Wong was not limited nor did it want to be limited to the “common-law” to find Wong to be a “citizen” at birth. If anything, Wong would not have been found to be a “citizen” at birth if that law had to be relied upon. Wong Kim Ark used the Fourteenth Amendment, with the aid of the colonial English common law, which was not the same “common-law” (which was American national common law) to which Minor referred, to find that Wong was a “citizen of the United States.” In fact, Wong Kim Ark said that Minor was not committed to excluding children born in the United States to alien parents from being “citizens” under the Fourteenth Amendment (not to be confounded with Minor’s “common-law”). But the Fourteenth Amendment was a constitutional amendment, not the “common-law” of which Minor spoke and which it said provided the Framers with their definition of a “natural-born citizen.” So we can see that in the end, Wong Kim Ark did not nor did it have to hold that Wong was a “natural-born citizen.” And it could not, given the American national common law definition of a “natural-born citizen” which Minor had confirmed in 1875 and which Wong Kim Ark itself acknowledged in 1898. Rather, having access to the Fourteenth Amendment with its more liberal “subject to jurisdiction thereof” clause, and its reliance upon the notion of broad allegiance existing under the old English common law, it only held that Wong was a “citizen” under the Fourteenth Amendment.

The quote from Rhodes, “all persons born in the allegiance of the United States are natural-born citizens” proves nothing. Rhodes was a case about who was a “citizen” under the Civil Rights Act of 1866. Additionally, Justice Swayne did not define what those words mean and what connection they had to a “natural born Citizen.” Finally, Justice Swayne was part of the unanimous U.S. Supreme Court in Minor. And I have already explained what Minor said about who was a “natural-born citizen” under the “common-law.”

You are willing to say that the Wong dissenting opinion “includes the Vattel-derived quote,” but you avoid making the same Vattel admission with respect to the unanimous U.S. Supreme Court decision in Minor and also the majority in Wong Kim Ark. You attempt to get as much mileage as you can from the Wong Kim Ark dissenting opinion, even propping it up so high that you want it to trump the majority opinion.

You also have difficulty distinguishing between what the Founders, Framers, Ratifiers, and people accepted in 1789 and incorporated into the Constitution versus what Chief Justice Fuller, based on his personal judgment, believed “this Government” to accept as public policy in 1898.

Regarding “national customary law,” you can tell us all you want that Wong Kim Ark cited the decision and therefore all the blame rests with that decision. But you still cannot tell us how it supports your position.

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

Stranger or Adrien Nash,

You continue to reap from me as Stranger and sow as if your own as Adrien Nash. Then you attack me on that part which does not suit you.

Your repeating your personal views about what U.S. citizenship should be without any historical or legal support, or on any sense of reality, means nothing. You continue incessantly about your “natural citizen,” existing in a vacuum, in some imaginary world without borders, government, or laws. Do you really think that is how our world is constituted? Your position that governments do not have power to decide whether children born out of their territory shall be citizens of their nations is utterly absurd.

Regarding my position on a “natural born Citizen,” I have demonstrated that our early Congress had seen fit to apply its naturalization powers upon persons born in the United States to alien parents and on persons born out of the United States, whether to U.S. citizen parents or to alien parents. The only persons upon whom early and current Congress has never exercised its naturalization powers are those born in the United States to “citizen” parents. That alone tells us what a “natural born Citizen” is, i.e., a child born in the country to parents who were its “citizens” at the time of the child’s birth.

Unknown said...

children of foreigners cannot possibly be born in the allegiance of the US. I witnessed my wifes naturalization ceremony and like every member of congress, military, federal judges and illegal/legal presidents she took a oath of allegiance to the US Constitution and the United States and also pledged to defend her new country and the US C if need be. She is not a NBC of the US but her allegiance now lie with the US as a citizen of the US and if she is not eligible to be CiC then why would a dual citizen be eligible when A2 clearly says only a NBC is now eligible? Congress and these state judges should be ashamed of themselves and removed for violating their oath

Stranger said...

" The only persons upon whom early and current Congress has never exercised its naturalization powers are those born in the United States to “citizen” parents.

A Nash says: Your concept of what naturalization is is fundamentally and fatally flawed. It can't be fixed. Only aliens can be natural-ized, or made into natural citizens. American children are American by birth and it is the job of government to protect their birthright citizenship from ignorant bureaucrats suffering from the delusion that jus soli citizenship is somehow connected to natural citizens.
Aliens are not people born abroad, just as citizens are not people born in the United States. Neither idea as any validity. Only citizens produce new natural citizens. All other citizens are produced by government.

No government citizen is eligible to be President because they do not have an American father and mother. Those who do, like children born outside of American territory to past, present and future Presidents,whether born before, during, or after their presidency, are also Americans who are eligible to be President also, just like their father.

Would you care to elucidate exactly why such a President's child is an alien by American principles? What sane founder would have considered for a minute such an absurd idea? Perhaps you, like me, have no children and so can't relate to how a father feels about who and what his children belong to, personally and nationally.

Only the embrace of jus soli can argue that such is the case. So I must assume that you are a true believer in a bastardized version of jus soli because what you proclaim is certainly not citizenship by descent, nor natural citizenship of any kind.

"You continue to reap from me as Stranger and sow as if your own as Adrien Nash."

With some unknown exceptions I ceased reaping from you almost three years ago, and it took me about two for the scales of delusion I absorbed from you to fall off. I refer to the delusion that "natural born citizen" is a term of art and one that needs defining.
My writings for a long time regurgitated that from you until the light of the simple truth finally dawn in my unshackled mind.
The words mean what the words mean and nothing else, and the entire edifice you have built half based on a false meaning is an unnecessary impediment to people understanding the simple Natural Law truth.
The Law of Nature is the Law of Natural Membership. It has nothing to do with law or government and exists without them. It existed a billion years before them and will still exist a million years after them. By that law we are members of our parents' group, -both their family group and their national group. A Nash

Stranger said...

" dick head said: children of foreigners cannot possibly be born in the allegiance of the US."

Under the fundamental principles of the Law of Nature on which the United States is founded, the notion of allegiance from birth is abolished. In its play is the individual responsibility of Citizenship. We all are kings and responsible for the defense of our kingdom, if...(and it's a big "if"), we are adults and male.
Children and females are not subject to that responsibility because they are our protected class. They are not citizens in the same sense. Just as children are not citizens at all in the true sense of its meaning, so females are lesser citizens also because their citizenship requires significantly less of them.

They are more akin to American subjects. Subjects have equal rights with citizens but not equal responsibility because citizens are not under the protection of the nation since they are the nation, at least the skeleton without it cannot stand in perpetuity.
Female foreigners were once not allowed to naturalize because they could not be subjected to an oath that was written exclusively for men. That oath has never changed.
The full truth is revealed in: BEARING ARMS, TRUE FAITH & ALLEGIANCE

http://h2ooflife.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/bearing-arms-true-faith-and-allegiance.pdf Adrien Nash

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

Stranger or Adrien Nash,

I of II

Yours is a failure of recognizing context of the real world and that the law of nature when applied to the affairs of nations becomes, through the fusion of natural law and positive law, the law of nations. Yours is a failure to recognized that there can be no civilized society with natural law alone, and that it is only when natural law joins with positive law that we have civilized society and nations.

You continue with your natural law rant. You believe in some imaginary place where all things take on their character strictly from nature. You refuse to recognize that ordered society can come about only through laws, regulations, rules, and government with its various institutions, which together not only work to advance, protect, and preserve the society and its inhabitants, but also formally define and confirm individual rights and obligations.

“Natural born” can be applied to any living organism, not only to humans. But when we add the word “citizen” to those two words, we load the phrase with particular context. That context emanates from ordered society and not just from a state of nature as you advocate. The word “citizen” applies only to civilized society. The Greeks and Romans brought order on a large scale to a state of nature. In order to accomplish that and preserve what they created, they had to identify who were going to be members of their societies or what they called cities. They called those city members “citizens.” Indeed, it was these “citizens” who participated in the decisions to protect and preserve the city. The power that a person gained by being considered a “citizen” was the ability to participate in political, religious, economic, and military matters. With exceptions made for women and minors, this participation carried with it obligations in these areas. But with obligations also came the recompense of protection and stature and supremacy over those inhabitants who were not “citizens.” And most relevant for our purposes, in order to be a “citizen” in the Greek and Roman societies, one had to be born to “citizen” parents. This ancient law, which was passed down to the civilized nations of the world through the generations, became incorporated into the law of nations.

Continued . . .

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

II of II

The Founders, Framers, Ratifiers, and the American people, in their quest for freedom, autonomy, and control over government, threw off through Revolution the designation of British “subject,” and adopted in its place the name American “citizen” as the name of membership in the new constitutional republic known as the United States of America. The free and independent states that replaced the British colonies came together to form a national union and to adopt a Constitution. In America, the word “citizen” now carried with it a new civil society called a republic which was a legal entity; a membership in that society which was a legal status that guaranteed one privileges and immunities; a Constitution (both the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union of 1781 and the new one of 1787) which was a legal document; and, among other offices, a President that was a legal office in the republic under the second Constitution. And with these legal constructs and the Constitution of 1787 came the power of the nation (the states united in one nation) to define who were and who were going to be the new national “citizens.” The new nation defined all those persons who became and who in the future would become members of the nation. The nation called one class of membership “citizen of the United States.” It decided that that status could be acquired by whatever means recognized, at first, by state law, and then under the new Constitution and Acts of Congress, exclusively by Congress. And also under the new Constitution the nation called another class of membership, “natural born citizen.” It decided that that status belonged only to children born in the country to parents who were its “citizens” at the time of the child’s birth.

So from this sophisticated and advanced form of civilization, we can see that we are not talking only about as you contend people living in some imaginary state of nature. Rather, we are dealing with an advanced civil society in which its members live within a legally structured environment. Apart from whatever rights they may have from nature alone, which may not be identified until legally confirmed, it is this legal structure which gives these members and people inhabiting within the nation’s borders their confirmed rights and obligations. And it is this legally constructed context, based on natural law, which gives life to the meaning of a “natural born Citizen” and a “citizen of the United States.”

Stranger said...

Adrien Nash writes:
Mario, the law of nations is unrelated to the principles and foundations of national law and national policy.
No fusion is relevant except in regard to relationships between nations. The law of nations is merely a convention of agreed protocols that all nations must respect in order to be respectable in the the sphere of civilized nations. It has nothing to do with internal policy except in regard to violating it.

You say: "You continue with your natural law rant", to which I respond: "You continue with your human law rant."

You fail to realize that your concepts about what I believe are completely without any basis, resulting in your mischaracterizing what I've presented. You argue that I hold some invented position regarding society being subject only to natural law. That is utterly absurd.
You state that natural law and human law work together to confirm individual rights and obligations, and yet that is not the case in a literal sense. Fundamental obligations are not spelled-out in any philosophical manner in human law.

The reason that government can conscript men and send them to their death in battle is not spell-out anywhere, and hence not "confirmed". It does not need to be because it is Primal. A Priori. Such elements of life are never put into writing.

Where is it written that man has an inherent right of self-defense? It is not even written in the Bill of Rights because is to too fundamental to need to be written. So also is the issue of belonging. Where is it written that parents own their own children and not Uncle Sam? Where is it written that families belong to their own clan? or State? or nation? No where. That is because such things are the bedrock beneath the foundation of nations. The foundation needs to be described, but the bedrock does not.

There will never be a law which states that children belong to their parents, nor to the group that their parents belong to, including their national group. That is because such a right does not come from government nor human law.
It is from outside of the legal system. It is a psychological and sociological reality rooted in the very nature of sentient life.
It does not come from government nor does it depend on it either. Government is what exists within its context. Not the other way around.

"in order to be a “citizen” in the Greek and Roman societies, one had to be born to “citizen” parents." But why? You give no explanation, but I will.
Because children belong to their parents and to whatever unit that their parents are members of. Their membership is a natural inheritance from their father. That is how most social beings on planet earth are wired.

That is natural law. That law is not derived from human law. Rather, human law is derived from it.
That law has nothing whatsoever to do to the law that governs the relationships between nations (the law of nations).

"The new nation defined all those persons who became and who in the future would become members of the nation. The nation called one class of membership “citizen of the United States.”
Clearly, you are the one living in an imaginary realm. "the nation defined"? What hogwash. Not only did "the nation" not define anything, but neither did the framers since the nature of both natural citizenship and legal citizenship went completely UNdefined. Hence we are still talking about the matter.

Stranger said...

Adrien Nash writes: I advise you to drop the theory that natural born citizens are not citizens of the United States but are separate and apart from them. Such warped logic can't get past even a 5th grader. That's like saying that poodles are not dogs because they are not the same as all other dogs.

"It decided that that status belonged only to children born in the country to parents who were its “citizens”..."

Other than in your fairy tale, no such thing was ever "decided", -not by the Constitutional Convention, nor by Congress or the Supreme Court, and hence all there is is speculation and presumption about a description describing those who undoubtedly are Americans by birth.

Are they the only Americans by birth? The first Congress, with many of the founders and framers serving in it, made sure that the nation understood that American children born outside of American borders were not only citizens, but wholly and completely American citizens by birth, even going so far as to label them as such so that all would know that what was missing from the Constitution was not deliberate but inadvertent (because of the tiny size of the number of such children,one of which was a son of John Jay, who knew a thing or two about national allegiance).

By their deliberate choice of words, the first Congress of the United States corrected the over-sight of the Constitution by ordering that all recognize American children born abroad as what they are, namely "natural born citizens".

You, by promoting the dogma that you do, find yourself in the uncomfortable position of having to declare that they didn't know what the hell they were doing, and were just plain stupid because what they did did not comform to your ideology about citizenship.

Well, it's not a toss-up. Your ideology has to give way to what they clearly believed and put into law with the expectation that it would remain in law in perpetuity.

Regretably, it was placed where it did not rightfully belong since presidential eligibility is not the focus of a naturalization act, and hence the two descriptors "natural" and "born" were later excised for simplicity.
Such a stream-lining of future acts carries no implication whatsoever that by refraining from fully characterizing foreign born Americans as being citizens natural born, they were therefore deliberately though covertly "stating" that they were less than fully American and were therefore merely aliens being naturalized into American citizenship by Congress.
One has to be smoking hash to come to such a baseless assumption. The only focus of naturalization law is to identify them as being American born citizens, and not foreigners.
That is an obvious self-evident fact.
You need to stop worshiping at the alter of the goddess of jus soli. She is a false god.

Stranger said...

Adrien Nash quotes Mario:
"it is this legal structure which gives these members...their confirmed rights and obligations."

You've failed to learn what I've shown you about obligations. They are primal aspects of life, NOT something that the government imposes. They exist apart from government. All it does is require that men do their natural duty, which is to defend the defenseless and defend the country. That is a primal, tribal obligation which is also incorporated as a necessity of national survival.

So obligations are not "given" to citizens. They are born under them and they come to fruition at maturity. Then the state has the right to exercise FULL jurisdiction and conscript the unwilling into national service and see to it that they fulfill their duty as men and as citizens.
But it is better that they recognized their obligation and enlist instead.

Unknown said...

and 5 years later the nat act of 1795 said children born outside of us to citizens would be citizens of the US, not NBCs. GW signed this into law.

Stranger said...

A Nash writes: Your phraseology is not very precise. The 1795 act did not say that American children born abroad were NOT American children but were aliens instead. It merely omitted a irrelevant aspect of the nature of their citizenship since a naturalization and citizenship act is not the logical vehicle for the issue of Presidential eligibility.

Beware of falling into the assumption that no citizen of the United States is a natural born citizen. If you fall into that delusion, you'll need to have a mental health check-up.

All natural born citizens are citizens of the United States, -in fact natural citizens of the United States, rather than legal citizens.

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

Stranger and Adrien Nash,

I of III

Your arguments are disjointed.

You make universal statements from my statements which are not universal and then present the contradiction to prove me wrong. This a straw man argument.

You do not really refute what I say. You simply quote a part of what I say and then go on your rant about natural law which does not prove anything that I said to be incorrect.

You also appropriate mine as yours. You then create disagreement on some insignificant point which gives you a springboard with which to lecture me on positions which you have gotten from me in the first place, thereby making you in your mind master and lord over all that is “natural born citizen.”

You exalt natural law over all things in the universe, arguing that you are correct under natural law in your position that the definition of an American "natural born citizen" does not contain any requirement that the child be born in the country. Your argument about natural law is incomprehensible. No one knows what all our natural or fundamental rights and obligations are until they are recognized, confirmed, and protected by positive law. That is the fundamental reason we have the Ninth (regarding rights) and Tenth Amendments (regarding powers which emanate from those rights). Indeed, nature does not in and of itself reveal all. So, the Ninth and Tenth Amendments alone demonstrate the error in your thinking.

Depending on the laws and customs of the society, governments can conscript into their armies anyone they want. The only thing stopping them is adherence to positive law, if any exists, or a nation which it offends and which is more powerful. In the early 1800’s, Great Britain impressed Americans (Great Britain said they were perpetual English “natural-born subjects) into its navy. It did not much care what the United States thought about it. The United States could not stop Great Britain simply with positive law to which Great Britain was willing to submit. Hence, the United States reverted to force which in part manifested itself in the War of 1812. Today, because nations have a greater respect for the rule of law, civilized governments do not conscript people into their armies through any “primal” right, but rather because their positive and international laws so allow them.

You question where it is written that “man has an inherent right of self-defense? It is not even written in the Bill of Rights because is to too [sic] fundamental to need to be written.” Here, you suggest that man has such a right regardless of what any positive law might say. I guess you did not understand anything about the George Zimmerman case. He argued that he had such a natural right to self-defense. Still, the government prosecuted Zimmerman for murder or manslaughter and he was compelled to go through a legal process based on positive law in which he had to challenge his accusers and defend himself from those charges.

Continued . . .

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

II of III

You know very little about the history in the United States concerning the power that parents had over their children. Custody as we understand and use the term today did not exist centuries ago in England and in early America. Indeed, “[o]ur children be not in potestate parentum, as the children of the Romans were. . . That which is theirs they may give or sell, and purchase to themselves other lands and other moveables the father having nothing to doe therewith. And therefore emancipatio is clean superfluous.” Sir Thomas Smith, De Republica Anglorum (1583). The early common and statutory law of England and early American did not contain any idea of parents having power over their children. Children had very little rights in old England and colonial America. Masters and lords (owners of land) ruled over children, not parents. Children were allowed to make contracts giving away all “their” property and were also easily put to death, even for “petty” crimes. Children had guardians usually only if they were heirs of land. The law protected children only if they had status. This was the product of a feudal society, where everything was based on birth status and land rights rather than on free will and consent. In such a feudal society, children’s parents had virtually no authority over their own children.

John Locke and other continental natural law writers such as Samuel von Pufendorf and Hugo Grotius, on the other hand, explained based on natural law how children did not have mental or moral capacity to make any decisions (lacked the ability to reason) and therefore followed the condition of their parents, with the biological father having a duty based on natural law and marriage to provide for his children. William Blackstone also appealed to natural law as the source of the obligation of a father to care for his legitimate children until 21 years of age (his obligation was justified because of his marriage and causing their birth). They explained how children, while needing protection, did not have the capacity to consent to life’s obligations. A 1660 English statute did place a father’s power over that of the lord with respect to his children. Some American colonies also gave to fathers certain custodial powers over their children. But not much was done in the citizenship area.

The new America eventually adopted the consent-based Lockean/natural law/law of nations view of children and parents, i.e., that children, not having the capacity to consent to any allegiance or citizenship, or to be governed, followed the condition of their parents in matters of allegiance and citizenship which allegiance and citizenship they could cast off upon reaching the age of discretion (21 years old). See Emer de Vattel, Sections 212-216, The Law of Nations (1758) (children follow the condition of their parents). See also Thomas Jefferson and his 1779 citizenship laws for Virginia (same). St. George Tucker, Blackstone Commentaries (1803) (same); Contra William Rawle, who rejected this consent-based view and consequently, relying upon the English common law and early state citizenship practice that relied upon that law rather than on the new American national common law which the Founders, Framers, and Ratifiers adopted for the new republic, erroneously concluded in, A View of the Constitution of the United States (1825): “Therefore every person born within the United States, its territories or districts, whether the parents are citizens or aliens, is a natural born citizen in the sense of the Constitution, and entitled to all the rights and privileges appertaining to that capacity.”

Continued . . .

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

III of III

But the Lockean and Jeffersonian parent-based citizenship prevailed in the new republic. Consent-based citizenship was incorporated into the new American national common law (see Minor’s “common-law” which Minor said provided that children born in the county to parents who were its “citizens” became themselves at birth “citizens” and also “natural-born citizens”) and its citizenship laws (see the Naturalization Acts of 1790, 1795, 1802, and 1855 which treated children born in the United States to alien parents as “aliens or foreigners” like their parents, and provided that minors would automatically become U.S. citizens when and if their parents naturalized while the children were dwelling in the United States) which provided that allegiance and citizenship of children followed that of their parents, with children also having the natural right to cast off that allegiance and citizenship and take on a different one upon reaching the age of majority. So as you see, a parent’s power over his or her children and allegiance and citizenship may have its fundamental bedrock laid on natural law, but until those natural rights and obligations of children and their parents and allegiance and citizenship were recognized and confirmed by positive law, what existed in natural law really did not matter. Indeed, natural law is everybody’s friend, for even Lord Coke in 1608 said that Calvin owed the King allegiance under natural law.

Our Constitution adopted the nomenclature of American national common law to describe membership in the United States. The Constitution uses “natural born citizen” and “citizen of the United States” as words of art to describe membership in the United States. Hence, all members are either “natural born citizens” or “citizens of the United States.” If this is not so there would not have been any need for the Founders, Framers, and Ratifiers to hold that “citizens of the United States” born after the adoption of the Constitution are not eligible to be President, for the Third Congress to change “natural born citizen” as written in the 1790 Naturalization Act to “citizen of the United States” in the Naturalization Act of 1795, and for Congress to describe the new citizen at birth under the Fourteenth Amendment, the definition of which was in derogation of American national common law that defined a “natural born citizen,” as a “citizen of the United States” rather than a “natural born citizen.” Other than to confirm the obvious that all privileges, immunities, and rights possessed by a “citizen of the United States” are also possessed by a “natural born citizen,” it serves no practical or even theoretical purpose and proves absolutely nothing to maintain that all “natural born citizens” are “citizens of the United States.”

js said...

I don't know how many times people thank you Mario, but I would like to truly say "Thank You".

You have really kept the path straight and narrow so to speak, never losing sight of the most important thing that any American should be doing, defending the Constitution of the United States.

You are a Patriot of this nation and it is hard to find those in this day and age.

Thanks, you have meant a lot to me, holding on to the light in the darkest, always ready to help the rest of us find the way.

Unknown said...

i have no problem with a child born outside of us to americans being called natural citizens but they are not eligible in most cases. George Washington personally signed the na 1795 into law which said they were citizens of the us, not NBCs, who by then were not eligible in article 2. The Framers had final say on the US C and everything they put down in 1787 is still the supreme law of the us today until amended.

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

js,

Thank you for those kind words. They are highly appreciated.

We should all realize that in fighting for the Constitution, including the "natural born Citizen" clause, we are really fighting for a way of life that is based upon fundamental freedom principles in which the Founders, Framers, and Ratifiers believed when they conceived of the new America.

Stranger said...

dick head wrote: George Washington personally signed the na 1795 into law which said they were citizens of the us, not NBCs, who by then were not eligible in article 2.

Your sloppy use of language is a result of sloppy thinking. You say the 1795 act said they were U.S. citizens, not NBCs, meaning that it declared them to not be natural born citizens while declaring them to be citizens of the United States.
That's what your words mean, and by them natural born citizens are not citizens of the United States because such citizens are separate and apart from U.S. citizens.

In other words, natural citizens of the United States are not citizens of the United States. That is what you are saying and thinking because that is what Mario is thinking and proclaiming. Do you embrace such irrationality also?
By what logic is it necessary for a naturalization statute to delineate which form of citizenship an American has in order to declare that they are not foreigners?

By what logic is it necessary for a naturalization statute to intrude into the issue of presidential eligibility?
You've read the reasons for calling foreign born Americans natural born citizens. You need to re-read them again and again until they begin to sink in because they sure haven't so far. A. Nash

Stranger said...

A. Nash writes:
William Rawle His grandfather was William Rawle (1694–1741) and his great-grandfather was Francis Rawle (1663–1727), who authored some early pamphlets printed by Benjamin Franklin before he started his own business.
Rawle studied law in New York and at the Middle Temple, London, and was admitted to the bar in 1783. William Rawle founded The Rawle Law Offices in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1783, and this firm has continued to the present day as the oldest law firm in continuous practice in the United States, Rawle & Henderson LLP.

In 1791 President Washington appointed him United States district attorney for Pennsylvania. He also served as counsel for the First Bank of the United States.

In 1830 Rawle assisted in revising the civil code of Pennsylvania. He took much interest in science, philanthropy, and education, and was active in groups supporting these.
He was a founder and first president of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, president of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, and for forty years served as a trustee of the University of Pennsylvania.
Author of: A View of the Constitution of the United States (1825)
* * *
So Mario, you have to pit your comparatively meager credentials against his and then declare him to be wrong but yourself to be right, and he is wrong and you are right, and yet you can't acknowledge that such an impeccable pedigree does not shield one from making a fundamental error, such as both you and he have made.

And yet even though he could and did make such an error, you couldn't and didn't.

Why would such self-validation be legitimate, or embraceable without impeccably logical evidence?

Only fundamental truth governs fundamental matters. Not opinions, including yours or mine, nor human law. It exists apart from the contrivance of government, in a natural universe of fundamental truths and relationships, and when the people and authorities are ignorant of those truths, then they follow opinions that are founded on nothing, as is your belief that natural citizenship is defined by the arbitrary opinion of men and not by the laws of language and nature.

Stranger said...

Mario wrote: “…but until those natural rights and obligations of children and their parents and allegiance and citizenship were recognized and confirmed by positive law, what existed in natural law really did not matter.”
That sounds right but is in fact incorrect. Fundamental rights, as I’ve pointed out to you, are almost never written into law because they are “a priori” as the bedrock on which a legal framework is built to protect those rights and require the fulfillment of those obligations.

Positive law isn't needed for the right to life, liberty, property, family, justice, and natural group membership to be real and recognized by government as unalienable. Living beings enter the world with certain incontestable rights, beginning with the right to breath. Government and human law are not needed to validate that right, and thus there is no such law protecting one’s right to breath. Nor to be a member of one’s natural national group.
That natural membership is something that Law doesn’t grant, nor can it revoke it. Just ask yourself: “Can the government revoke my citizenship?” The answer is "no", because it doesn’t own it. You do. Just like you own your membership in your own family.
No one and no thing can revoke it, only you yourself can do that voluntarily. Just as only citizens themselves can expatriate themselves by choice or actions.

The ignorant government that thought as you think, for four generations thought it had the authority to revoke the citizenship of Americans who returned to live in the land of their birth after being naturalized. The entire federal establishment thought that it possessed the authority to legislate regarding the citizenship of those to whom it had given citizenship.
But then something over-turned the entire apple cart and revealed the whole government for generations to be ignorant of fundamental American principles.
continued...

Stranger said...

A.Nash continues...

That something was Afroim v Rusk. Beginning with its ruling by the Supreme Court, it began to be made clear that citizenship once given is not revokable because it no longer belongs to the government.

It is no longer naturalized citizenship, because it became, via the doctrine of citizenship equivalency, natural citizenship –just like those born being Americans by nature. Such foreigners had been remade or reformed as natural Americans. THAT is a fundamental doctrine on which our nation is founded. It’s about time that you learned about it and recognized it. Natural citizens cannot be made and unmade.
I’ll be explaining the history of that American error in: “The Da Vinci Code of U.S. Citizenship.” –someday hopefully soon.

Congress possess no authority over the citizenship of American citizens except to grant it to those who have no natural right to it. Children of Americans have an absolute unalienable birthright to belong to the same groups as their parents, including their racial group, ethnic group, religious group, and national group. Such membership is not in the hands of the government or else it would not be known as " natural". It would instead be "legal".


Mario wrote that “citizens of the United States” must be a legal “term of art” or else “…there would not have been any need for the Founders, Framers, and Ratifiers to hold that “citizens of the United States” born after the adoption of the Constitution are not eligible to be President”

Mario! Your thinking cap is on backwards. They held no such thing. They provided two exceptions to their blanket prohibition against anyone serving as President, and one of those two exceptions expired upon the Constitution’s adoption.

Which one was that? The category that included all United States citizens of all sorts. After adoption, only United States citizens of a particular sort would be allowed to serve. Those allowed to serve were all white male English-speaking educated state or federal citizens, but they were more than just that since they were also natural citizens of their home State. They were natural born Virginians, -natural born Georgians, natural born Pennsylvanians, etc., -all with American parents.
All natural born citizens are citizens of the United States or else we live in Bizarro World where words have no established meaning.

No authority exists, nor have you ever quoted any, that defines "citizen of the United States" as your imagination has contorted it to mean. It is purely your unique invention and ought to find its rightful place in the circular filing cabinet since it does not reflect reality.

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

Stranger or Adrien Nash,

If all “natural born Citizens” are “citizens of the United States” as you contend, the Third Congress would not have removed “natural born citizen” from the 1790 Act and replaced it in the 1795 Act with “citizen of the United States.” If those children born out of the United States to U.S. citizen parents were still “natural born citizens,” because as you contend the “citizens of the United States” include the “natural born citizens,” what purpose could the Third Congress, including James Madison and President George Washington, have had to want to call those children “citizens of the United States” rather than “natural born citizens?” Why did they not leave them as “natural born citizens” if that is what they were supposed to be even though as you say they called them “citizens of the United States” and again as you say that class of citizens still included the “natural born citizens” and therefore those children were still to be considered “natural born citizens” even though they were called “citizens of the United States?”

js said...

Stranger wrote;
"Mario wrote that “citizens of the United States” must be a legal “term of art” or else “…there would not have been any need for the Founders, Framers, and Ratifiers to hold that “citizens of the United States” born after the adoption of the Constitution are not eligible to be President”

Mario! Your thinking cap is on backwards. They held no such thing. They provided two exceptions to their blanket prohibition against anyone serving as President, and one of those two exceptions expired upon the Constitution’s adoption. "


Taken in context of what the US Constitution says, Mario is right on target. You make something simple into a complex thing, and it only served error.

"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; "

Upon the adoption of the Constitution;

"No person except a natural born citizen"

and

"a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution"

Were the only 2 classes that was eligible to be POTUS.

Upon the death of that generation, only one class remained, children of parents who were citizens, the natural born citizens who didn't owe any allegiance to any nation besides the USA.

The founding fathers restricted citizens of the US from ever being POTUS. There is no question to that fact.

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

Stranger or Adrien Nash,

You, like the Obots and their followers, are helplessly confused about “natural born citizens” and “citizens of the United States.”

A member of the United States is called a “citizen.” Under the Constitution, there are two different classes of “citizens,” one is called “natural born Citizen” and the other “Citizen of the United States.” A “natural born citizen” is not a “citizen of the United States” and a “citizen of the United States” is not a “natural born citizen,” but they are both “citizens,” just like a natural rose is not an artificial rose and an artificial rose is not a natural rose, but they are both roses. Under Article II, Section 1, Clause 5, a “citizen of the United States” was eligible to be President only if in being with that status as of the time of the adoption of the Constitution. For those born after the adoption of the Constitution, only the “natural born citizens” are eligible to be President.

Natural law, the law of nations, the Constitution, Acts of Congress, and other applicable laws decide what privileges, immunities, and rights “natural born citizens” and “citizens of the United States” have. A “natural born citizen” enjoys all the privileges, immunities, and rights enjoyed by a “citizen of the United States,” but the reverse is not true, for today a “natural born citizen” is eligible to be President and Vice-President, but a “citizen of the United States” is not.

If Barack Obama was born in Hawaii, he along with Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Bobby Jindal, and Nikki Haley are all “citizens of the United States” at birth. All acquire their birth status by virtue of the Fourteenth Amendment, except for Ted Cruz, who acquires his by naturalization act of Congress. But whether their status is acquired under the Fourteenth Amendment or Act of Congress, their presidential fate does not change, for they are all “citizens of the United States,” but not “natural born Citizens.” The first constitutional problem for all four is that, not being born in the country to parents who were its “citizens” at the time of their birth, they are not “natural born Citizens.” The second constitutional problem is that while they may be “citizens of the United States today, they are not “Citizen[s] of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution.”

In other words, anyone who today is neither a “natural born Citizen, [n]or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution,” like Barack Obama, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Bobby Jindal, and Nikki Haley, is not eligible to be President.

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

Stranger or Adrien Nash,

So you believe that having a government job or descending from any such person makes one smarter than someone who does not have such a job or so descend.

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

Stranger or Adrien Nash,

You are so full of contradictions.

You value someone’s argument based on “credentials,” but want us to value yours when you have no such credentials.

You tell us that truth lies somewhere which is not attainable for man to reach, but then you want us to believe what you, a man, are saying.

The rest of what you say is downright made up fantasy that makes no sense.

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

Stranger or Adrien Nash,

You said:

“Positive law isn't needed for the right to life, liberty, property, family, justice, and natural group membership to be real and recognized by government as unalienable. Living beings enter the world with certain incontestable rights, beginning with the right to breath. Government and human law are not needed to validate that right, and thus there is no such law protecting one’s right to breath. Nor to be a member of one’s natural national group.”

Tell that to a criminal defendant facing the death penalty, or to a woman wanting an abortion or someone wanting to prevent one or the fetus wanting to come out alive, or to someone who is not a U.S. citizen but wants to be one, or to a mother about to lose parental rights to her child, or to someone just found liable to pay the plaintiff one million dollars.

Suffice it to say that you have a lot of learning to do.

Stranger said...

A. Nash writes:
Mario, you make two gigantic errors, the worst of which is that you validate your misconstruence from the position that it is fact when it is not. It, in fact, is not supported by anything except your desire that it be fact.
You cannot prove a supposition by claiming that it is not a supposition and therefore as a fact it is self-validating.

First you must prove two things that you know you can't prove. The first is that there is any historical record that your invented view ("citizen of the United States") was the view of the framers and universally known and adopted as a term of art.

That is impossible for two reasons. There is no record of the use of "a subject of the British Empire" being treated solely as a term of art.
Second, there is no record of, nor reason for, "a citizen of the United States" to have appeared out of nowhere (in a country only a decade old) as a full-fledged "term of art". Please explain when and how and why that happened.

It didn't happen. Not back then and not ever until you invented the idea.
Your second giant error is in taking a position against sane and settled constitutional interpretation which takes words to mean what they mean, and doesn't attach some arcane meaning to them. You have no right to toss that approach in the trash.

In the naturalization acts, a citizen of the United States distinguishes a person from citizens of other countries. It is not enough to declare one "a citizen" (as opposed to a foreigner) because the nation of which one is a citizen must be stated, -otherwise ambiguity is the unwanted result.
Americans born abroad are "citizens"; great! but of what? Of England (if born there)? They aren't citizens of the world, they are citizens of a nation. Which nation? The United States.
No nation on earth world fail to name itself as the nation in which their foreign-born children are citizens, including the U.S.

If later Congresses knew the reason why they were identified as natural born citizens by the first (which I've explain exhaustively in many responses and expositions) then they would still have wanted to label them correctly as "natural born citizens of the United States" in order to be specific, and unambiguous.

All white male citizens of the Union of the States who were alive before the Constitution's adoption were eligible to serve as President, including the 2-3% who had been foreigners or born of them.

After adoption only members of the Union (citizens of the United States) who were born as natural citizens of the state of their birth were eligible, with all other fellow citizens of the United States (the 2-3%) being barred.

All poodles are dogs. All citizens are citizens of the United States.
Not all dogs are poodles. Not all CotUS are natural born.

Stranger said...

A. Nash replies:

Mario wrote: You value someone’s argument based on “credentials,” but want us to value yours when you have no such credentials.~

Do you have a drinking problem? Seriously, where in the world did you get such an invented idea?
I value no one's credentials. I presented the credentials of a man who far exceeds you in proximity to the Revolution and in high position in the government.
You pretend that your credentials make your adopted theory infallible and yet there we saw a man with far greater credentials and he was flat out wrong. So why exactly can't you be flat out wrong also?

Lesson: credentials mean nothing, including yours, when it comes to matters of natural philosophy.

It is not a legal issue. It's a sociological & philosophical issue. No one in the legal arena is an expert in that arena by mere possession of a law degree.

I could mention that my brother is an attorney and agrees with me completely. What authority would that convey? None. Opinions are irrelevant. Supreme Court justices rarely agree on things so agreement means nothing (unless it's unanimous)

Mario wrote: "You tell us that truth lies somewhere which is not attainable for man to reach, but then you want us to believe what you, a man, are saying."

False on two accounts. I never, ever hinted that truth is "unattainable". I proclaim that it is self-evident to any mind not shut tight to protect its treasured bias.
Second, I never, ever call on anyone to believe my exposition. I just present what is, and their capacity for factual and abstract thinking are all that's needed for them to ascertain the truth for them self. Deep calleth unto deep.

"The rest of what you say is downright made up fantasy that makes no sense."

And yet you never fail to avoid mentioning what exactly it is that "makes no sense". You issue a simpleton's blanket dismissal like an irritated monarch. That is not debate. How can one argue or clarify a point if it goes unidentified?

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

Stranger or Adrien Nash,

I see that you cannot answer my question which is why would the Third Congress in the Naturalization Act of 1795 call a child born out of the United States to U.S. citizen parents a “citizen of the United States” when the First Congress called such a child in its Naturalization Act of 1790 a “natural born citizen,” if its intent was as you maintain to still consider that child a “natural born citizen?” Your logic means that the Third Congress just cast that child among the class of persons called “citizens of the United States,” with the expectation that somewhere in that class was another subset called the “natural born citizens” whose definition everyone was supposed to know and which was supposed to define the true birth status of that child. It is patently absurd to think that the Third Congress would have changed the nomenclature of that child from “natural born citizen” to “citizen of the United States” while still believing and intending that that child was to be a “natural born citizen.” What benefit could Congress have wanted to gain by its change in nomenclature (from “natural born citizen” to “citizen of the United States”) which was worth more than what the First Congress did which was as the Obots contend to call that child a “natural born citizen” so as to avoid doubt among the people that such a child was in fact (not just considered as) a “natural born citizen,” and therefore actually eligible to be President?

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

We have this from Artsy Fartsy at her blog:

"Kark Denninger, the guy who runs Market Ticker, is a very intelligent person who sadly flirted with the two citizen parents nonsense. I am not sure if he is still of that persuasion, or if he maybe wised up after a few more courts threw the nonsense out. I told him that it was crap, and got 'DQ’ed' for it, which is about the same thing as a ZOT! over at Free Republic. I did an article here when it happened.”

http://birtherthinktank.wordpress.com/2013/08/14/the-fuller-brush-off/

Artsy Fartsy has the nerve to write that the Minor v. Happersett (1875) unanimous U.S. Supreme Court two-U.S. citizen parent requirement to be a “natural born citizen” is nonsense. She has failed miserably to demonstrate any such thing. The only thing that she has done is to say that the Fourteenth Amendment and U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) prove her right which I have shown is utter nonsense.

She also puts forth the laughable theory that a naturalized citizen at birth is a “natural born citizen,” using that argument to advocate that Senator Ted Cruz is a “natural born citizen.”

js said...

Why would Congress drop the word natural born? Did they have the authority under the Constitution to declare who was and was not a natural born citizen? From what I understand, that was not within their power, which makes sense that it would be altered.

For the definition on who was a natural born citizen, in accordance with what the founding fathers understood that term to mean, we must deal with intent. As I posted before, the exclusion of foreign influence into the Oval Office is a certain and indisputable purpose, and that we can safely surmise that as the founding fathers intent.

So, the answer to Mario's question that stranger refused to reply to, must be that either they retracted the term NBC because they didn't have that authority to make such a law, or, they figured it was more than obvious to the world that foreign born children of US Citizens hinged on the plans of those parents. IF they permanently reside in that foreign nation, certainly the child would have a legitimate right to citizenship of that foreign nation, leaving open the door to potential foreign influence.

Stranger said...

WHY AMERICAN’S BORN ABROAD ARE ELIGIBLE TO BE PRESIDENT

http://h2ooflife.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/americans-born-abroad.pdf

This will illuminate facts you haven't yet thought about. A.Nash

js said...

A lot of assumptions and mistakes Nash.

Assuming what the 3rd congress meant when they removed natural born and reverted to simply citizenship is a leap of faith.

Any woman who married a husband of different nationality automatically was considered a citizen of her husbands country.

You talk about Natural Law principle, yet you ignore the Law of Nations in your entire multipage excuse making theory. Such is the weakness of your presentation, that the Constitution assigns the authority to enforce the law of nations to Congress, while the notion of "Natural Law principle" is non-existent in any of the founding fathers writing, and the Constitution.

Bottom line, your failure to cite the source's of your claims is the greatest failure in the whole mess. When you make claims using things like Natural Law principle, without any basis or consideration as to how that source could have been used, then its like pulling a rabbit out of hat trick.

Unknown said...

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. wrote:
"When you proclaim victory just by saying that Wong Kim Ark supports your position or that of the post-Obama lower courts, but without demonstrating how it does, you are doing nothing but begging the question."

Then we look up at what I actually wrote and see that from my first post here I showed how Wong refutes one of your notions. There's plenty more. For years Obots have been explaining how your cases fail, and overall we correctly foretold the real-world outcomes.


Mario Apuzzo, Esq. wrote:
"You citing to those lower courts without showing how the rationale, if any, of those courts addressed the issues is of little intellectual value."

Even zero "intellectual value" would be a vast improvement over the negative value you inflict. After you wrote that those lower courts "do not demonstrate how they arrived at their conclusion", I responded with verifiable facts. I linked actual court opinions in your own cases. You had called my references to your court results my "lie" [August 9, 2013]. One of us was lying and I demonstrated which.

Unknown said...

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. wrote"
"A member of the United States is called a 'citizen.' Under the Constitution, there are two different classes of 'citizens,' one is called 'natural born Citizen' and the other 'Citizen of the United States.' A 'natural born citizen' is not a 'citizen of the United States' and a 'citizen of the United States' is not a 'natural born citizen'"

The notion that a U.S. "natural born citizen" is not a "citizen of the United States" is ludicrous on its face, and easily refuted. In the Constitution we read:

"No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States," Article I, Section 2, Clause 2.

"No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States," Article I, Section 3, Clause 3.

Were the Constitution's use of "Citizen of the United States" a term that excludes natural-born citizens, then the clauses above would exclude natural-born citizens from being Representatives or Senators in the Article I Congress. Natural-born citizens can serve, have served, and do serve as Representatives and Senators in the United States Congress.

js said...

Unknown said:
"(From Mario said-)there are two different classes of 'citizens,' one is called 'natural born Citizen' and the other 'Citizen of the United States.' A 'natural born citizen' is not a 'citizen of the United States' and a 'citizen of the United States' is not a 'natural born citizen'"

The notion that a U.S. "natural born citizen" is not a "citizen of the United States" is ludicrous on its face,..."

Am I missing something or is unknown playing games with words…

Mario cited 2 classes of citizens, an NBC and a Citizen in the Constitution. His description is that both are citizens, but that a NBC is not just a Citizen. Then Unknown said the notion that is “ludicrous on its face” and cites the Constitution in regards to Citizenship requirements for the House of Rep’s and the Senate, but omitted the explanation and the difference between those two and the qualification for President. Of course, if he properly analyzed the entire constitutional foundation, he would have to conclude that Mario was right, instead, he omitted the information in order to come to a fault ridden conclusion. As a matter of fact, many posts over the last year by Unknown, is filled with omission, to include both of the above.
To some people, the truth is a simple, straightforward issue. To people like Unknown, who is obviously subject to a reprobate mind, he must wiggle and squirm and use tactics such as this omission he used today to make himself seem to be superior to others. A tactic that most of the rest of us find distasteful and low class, not worth the consequence. The lie that they spin in the confused state they find themselves in twists their minds to do what is not convenient.

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

Unknown,

I of II

(1) Your simply repeating how the courts make your case without demonstrating what case the court have made is simply of no value. Your links do not prove anything. Why not give us the reasoned rationale, if any, from those court decisions which show that you are correct.

(2) I said: "A member of the United States is called a 'citizen.' Under the Constitution, there are two different classes of 'citizens,' one is called 'natural born Citizen' and the other 'Citizen of the United States.' A 'natural born citizen' is not a 'citizen of the United States' and a 'citizen of the United States' is not a 'natural born citizen'"

You responded: “The notion that a U.S. "natural born citizen" is not a "citizen of the United States" is ludicrous on its face, and easily refuted. In the Constitution we read:

‘No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States,’ Article I, Section 2, Clause 2.

‘No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States,’ Article I, Section 3, Clause 3.

Were the Constitution's use of ‘Citizen of the United States’ a term that excludes natural-born citizens, then the clauses above would exclude natural-born citizens from being Representatives or Senators in the Article I Congress. Natural-born citizens can serve, have served, and do serve as Representatives and Senators in the United States Congress.”

First, what is funny is that you said that my position is ludicrous on its face, yet the only proof that you present that I am wrong is your Congressperson eligibility analogy which does not prove me wrong. As I have explained, a natural rose is not an artificial rose and an artificial rose is not a natural rose, but they are both roses. These roses enjoy all the "privileges, immunities, and rights" possessed by roses, except to whatever degree limited by those who may have an enforceable interest in the matter.

Under Article I, a Representative or Senator has to be at least a “Citizen of the United States” for 7 and 9 years, respectively. That “Citizen of the United States” status, like the status of being 25 or 30 years old is only a minimum to be satisfied. It would be pretty ridiculous to argue that the Framers required someone to be only 25 or 30 years old to be eligible for the House and Senate, respectively. Like the congressional clause does not say that 50-year-old's are also eligible, it does not say that “natural born Citizens” are also eligible. It does not say it because there was no need to say it. It was self-evident from the clause itself. It is absurd to argue that a “natural born Citizen,” who could be president, could not be a Senator or Representative. So your point proves nothing.

Continued . . .

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

II of II

Second, your argument that a “natural born citizen” is a “citizen of the United States,” even if correct, does not help you.
Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 says that for those born before the adoption of the Constitution, “citizens of the United States” are eligible to be President, and that after the adoption of the Constitution, only “natural born Citizens” are so eligible. For future presidents, they had to be “natural born Citizens” by satisfying the definition of a “natural born citizen” under American national common law which borrowed its definition from the law of nations which became part of our national law and incorporated in Article III “Laws of the United States.”

It is well established that the Fourteenth Amendment neither repealed nor amended Article II’s “natural born citizen” clause.
Congress, which the Constitution in matters of citizenship gives the power only to make uniform the laws of naturalization, also does not have the constitutional power to change the meaning “natural born Citizen.”

It would be unreasonable to conclude that a “natural born citizen” has over the course of history become a “citizen of the United States,” for, in light of how Article II, Section, 1, Clause 5 makes a constitutional distinction between the two classes of “citizens, such a position would be tantamount to reading the “natural born Citizen” clause out of the Constitution. Hence, even assuming that the class of “citizens” which the Fourteenth Amendment or any Act of Congress calls “citizens of the United States” includes or incorporates the class called “natural born citizens,” such inclusion and incorporation does not change the definition of the underlying “natural born citizen” class which must continue to exist given its inclusion in Article II, Section 1, Clause 5.

Clearly, under the Fourteenth Amendment, a “citizen of the United States” includes a person who becomes a citizen after his or her birth. So, even though the amendment calls this person a “citizen of the United States,” this person is not eligible to be President because this person is not a “natural born citizen.” The same logic and rationale applies to anyone else whom the Fourteenth Amendment or Act of Congress declares to be a “citizen of the United States.” That person still has to prove that he or she meets the definition of a “natural born citizen” in order to be eligible to be President. So, covering a “natural born citizen” with the “citizen of the United States” blanket does not alter what is underneath. You still have to prove that the interested person is a “natural born citizen.” And we have seen that the definition of the clause is a child born in the country to parents who were its “citizens” at the time of the child’s birth. Thus, even if we call a “natural born citizen” a “citizen of the United States,” nothing changes, for the interested person still has the same constitutional burden to prove that he or she is a “natural born citizen,” which under the common law definition of the clause means proving that he or she was born in the country to “citizen” parents.

Stranger said...

"an artificial rose is not a natural rose, but they are both roses."

Not really. Only nature produces roses, just like only nature produces natural citizens.
Artificial roses, like artificial citizens, are man-made. They are created by human law.

It is true that there are two classes of citizens; one is citizens of the United States and the other is provisional citizens of the United States.
All types of citizens who are not provisional citizens are members of sub-classes of citizens of the U.S. Natural citizens are one sub-class but comprise about 97%. Naturalized citizens are another and only constitute several thousands each year. The Native-born 14th Amendment citizen sub-class comprises most of the 3%

Obama is not a member of any of those. His a member of the sub-class of presumptive citizens whose citizenship is strictly the result of an erroneous policy and not actual U.S. law. A Nash

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

We have this over at Reality Check’s blog:

“NBC, in responding to Adrien Nash, says:

August 17, 2013 at 8:47 pm

The Wong opinion doesn’t support either of your positions because it doesn’t pertain to natural citizenship, and it doesn’t grant citizenship to children of any foreigners except immigrants.
You must not have read the opinion and the briefs and the lower court.
Poor Adrien.

I bet you cannot even describe the Wong opinion and the arguments that led to the decision.
*****************

My response:

Guess what, nbc? I read Wong Kim Ark.

I just love how the Obots cannot provide one quote from Wong Kim Ark which demonstrates that the Court held Wong to be a "natural born Citizen." If I am wrong, provide the quote.

And when I say provide the quote, I mean language which includes the name Wong in it or some reference to him and that the Court is holding that he was a "natural born Citizen."

Please, I do not need any dissertation on the English common law and how it defined a "natural born subject" or your personal opinion on how any specific part of Wong Kim Ark should be interpreted.

So, you have the challenge. Provide the quote.

Unknown said...

Mario Apuzzo, Esq wrote:
"Your simply repeating how the courts make your case without demonstrating what case the court have made is simply of no value. Your links do not prove anything."

"What case the court have made"? You still have it backwards. Making the case was your job.
As for the links, they disprove your claim that the lower courts did not demonstrate how they reached their conclusion.


Mario Apuzzo, Esq wrote:
"Why not give us the reasoned rationale, if any, from those court decisions which show that you are correct."

Obots have been explaining to you for years that the controlling case, as far as concerns the native-born, is U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark. Courts confirmed it. You still go on with nonsense such as, "The quote from Rhodes, 'all persons born in the allegiance of the United States are natural-born citizens' proves nothing. Rhodes was a case about[...]"

See your own case, Purpura v. Obama, which cited that quote. The Court's rationale was based on the authority of Wong, not Rhodes. You might wish that the quote did not appear in Wong, but there it is. The problem is not that obots can not or will not present reasoned rational. I've explained this one over and over. The problem is that when your theories are refuted you invent some alternate reality that works better for you.

Unknown said...

Mario Apuzzo, Esq wrote:
"First, what is funny is that you said that my position is ludicrous on its face, yet the only proof that you present that I am wrong is your Congressperson eligibility analogy which does not prove me wrong."

It's not analogy. In the language of the Constitution, one must be a "Citizen of the United States" to be a Representative or Senator. You Mr. Apuzzo, had made the ludicrous claim, "a 'natural born citizen' is not a 'citizen of the United States'". If that's not what you meant to write, just say so.


Mario Apuzzo, Esq wrote:
"Under Article I, a Representative or Senator has to be at least a 'Citizen of the United States' for 7 and 9 years, respectively. That 'Citizen of the United States' status, like the status of being 25 or 30 years old is only a minimum to be satisfied."

Which refutes your claim, "a 'natural born citizen' is not a 'citizen of the United States'". Were it correct, a U.S. natural-born citizen could *not* meet the minimum requirement of being 7 or 9 years a Citizen of the United States.


Mario Apuzzo, Esq wrote:
"It would be pretty ridiculous to argue that the Framers required someone to be only 25 or 30 years old to be eligible for the House and Senate, respectively. Like the congressional clause does not say that 50-year-old's are also eligible, it does not say that 'natural born Citizens' are also eligible."

50-year-olds "have attained to the Age of thirty Years", so they meet the age requirement as stated. You claimed that in the Constitution 'citizen of the United States' is a term of art, and "a 'natural born citizen' is not a 'citizen of the United States'". In the Congressional eligibility clauses you have the Framers using a term of art that excludes natural-born citizens where they meant to include natural-born citizens.


Mario Apuzzo, Esq wrote:
"Second, your argument that a 'natural born citizen' is a 'citizen of the United States,' even if correct, does not help you."

The argument that helps me is yours: "a 'natural born citizen' is not a 'citizen of the United States'". It helps obots show that you don't know what you are talking about.

Stranger said...

How can Mario not know what he's talking about? It's all too clear and simple. What he's unwilling to do is to acknowledge the truth about what he's talking about because if "a citizen of the United States" is not a term of art, then why should anyone believe that "natural born citizen" is a term of art?
If it isn't, then his theory, in which he has invested everything, is invalid because then the words would simply mean what they mean and not convey some specially contrived meaning which he has invented from a miscontruence of a description of natives written by Vattel.
Mario has latched onto place-of-birth as being requisite to natural citizenship in addition to its real basis, -namely a citizen father. And the reason he clings to place-of-birth is....nothing.
Vattel makes absolutely clear repeatedly that national membership is by descent from a father who is a member regardless of where his child is born. I can read that in plain English is all of Vattel's writing on the subject. You can read it also, but for some inexplicable reason, Mario can't read what is right there in plain English. It's one of the mysteries of the Ages. A Nash

js said...

Me thinks Unknown has gone off the deep end.

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

I of II

We have more from super Obot, Reality Check. Here is another one of his latest from his blog:

Reality Check responds to David Farrar:

August 18, 2013 at 9:08 am

David Farrar said

'The fact that a definition of a natural born Citizen is missing from the US Const. wasn’t an oversight, or a simple lapse in judgment. The founders, framers and ratifiers of the US Const. knew perfectly well what a ‘natural born’ subject was before the American revolution.'

Well that paragraph was OK but then you devolved into your magic sovereign citizen bullcrap.

The people who wrote the Constitution were well aware of what the term natural born had meant for over 100 years in English common law. That is why several state documents used the terms “natural born subject” and “natural born citizen” interchangeably after the Declaration and even after the ratification of the Constitution.

No, the language of the Naturalization Act of 1790 does not help your case either as you, Apuzzo, and others have been shown many times.

***************

My response:

First, I see that Reality Check is out and about playing his little word games. The last time that I looked at the Constitution of the United States of America it said "natural born Citizen," not "natural born." But then I can see how you and other Obots do not want to address that little pesky fact. Here, the Obots want their cake and to eat it too. On the one hand, they want to feed us a story that the Founders, Framers, and Ratifiers defined an American “natural born Citizen” the same as the English and colonists defined an English “natural-born subject.” But then on the other hand, by hiding the other parts of the clauses, i.e., “Citizen” and “subject,” they avoid having to deal with the philosophical and political differences that the Founders, Framers, and Ratifiers saw between a “citizen” and a “subject.” Showing the complete language of each clause, they would be compelled to address that undeniable part of our historical development and to explain how an American “natural born Citizen” could be an English “natural-born subject.”

Second, Reality Check fails to tell us that what the states did with their citizenship laws is one thing, but what the nation did on the national level with national citizenship is another. Reality Check, like other Obots, just cannot or make believe that they cannot understand the difference.

Third, Reality Check, like other Obots, simply cannot read the plain and clear words of the Naturalization Act of 1790 and understand how that Act and other Congressional naturalization acts that followed confirm that a “natural born Citizen” is a child born in the country to parents who were its “citizens” at the time of the child’s birth.

The Constitution provides for only two “citizen” classes, “natural born Citizen” and “citizen of the United States.” There are no other “citizens” mentioned. Minor v. Happersett (1875) told us that under the “common-law” the nomenclature of which the Framers were familiar when they drafted the Constitution, children born in the United States to parents who were “citizens” at the time of the child’s birth were “natural-born citizens.” Minor added that children not born with those birth circumstances were at “common-law” “aliens or foreigners.” In other words, under “common-law,” a child born in the United States to alien parents was an “alien or foreigner.” Then who were the “citizens of the United States?”

Continued . . .

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

II of II

We know that the original American patriots were the first “Citizens of the United States” by virtue of the Declaration of Independence and by their adherence to the American Revolution. These first “Citizens of the United States” were grandfathered to be eligible to be President by Article II, Section 1, Clause 5. The Founders, Framers, and Ratifiers saw the need for the nation to make more “citizens of the United States.” The Constitution gave Congress the power to make “citizens of the United States” by exercising the naturalization powers. Congress first exercised this power in 1790 with the Naturalization Act of 1790. The act of March 26, 1790, 1 Stat. 103, c. 3, provided for the naturalization of aliens and then provided that "the children of such persons so naturalized, dwelling within the United States, being under the age of twenty-one years at the time of such naturalization, shall also be considered as citizens of the United States. And the children of citizens of the United States that may be born beyond sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens.”

So, our law (“common-law” and statutory) covered all children born both in and out of the United States as follows:

1. Under the Constitutional America national “common-law,” those born in the U.S. to “citizen” parents were “natural born Citizens.”

2. Under our Constitutional American national “common-law” and statutory law, those born in the U.S. to alien parents could only be aliens. They could not be “natural born Citizen,” for under the “common-law,” they had to be born to “citizen” parents to inherit that status. Nor could they be “citizens of the United States” under the 1790 Act because their parents were not naturalized. Those children could, however, under that 1790 Act become “citizens of the United States” if their parents naturalized before their minority and if the children were dwelling in the U.S. at that time or after, or if those children naturalized on their own when reaching the age of majority.

3. Under the 1790 Act, those born out of the United States to U.S. “citizen” parents were naturalize at birth and the act mandated that they “shall be considered as natural born citizens.” The Naturalization Act of 1795 also naturalized those children at birth, but significantly, changed their birth status from “shall be considered as natural born citizens” to “shall be considered as citizens of the United States.” Under both of these Acts, those born out of the U.S. to aliens were also aliens even though the statute did not say so.

4. The Fourteenth Amendment, which defines a “citizen of the United States” (including within that class those who acquire that status either at birth or after birth) and not a “natural born Citizen,” neither repealed nor amended Article II’s “natural born Citizen” clause.

5. U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), which construed and applied the Fourteenth Amendment, did not define a “natural born Citizen” any differently that how Minor defined one, i.e., a child born in the country to parents who were its “citizens” at the time of the child’s birth. With no other U.S. Supreme Court decision acting on the matter of the definition of a “natural born Citizen” and with no constitutional amendment ever being passed on the matter, this means that today the definition of a “natural born Citizen” is still a child born in the country to parents who were its “citizens” at the time of the child’s birth.

So, Reality Check is pure out of luck.

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

Unknown,

I see that you have difficulty in distinguishing between just citing to a case and providing a link to it and actually explaining how that case reasoned and came to its conclusion from that reason.

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

Unknown,

I of II

You said: “In the language of the Constitution, one must be a ‘Citizen of the United States’ to be a Representative or Senator.” You make this argument in your attempt to show that it cannot be that a “natural born Citizen” is not a “citizen of the United States” because then a “natural born Citizen” would not be eligible to be either a Representative or Senator. You thus call my position absurd.

But the absurdity is all yours, reading a “citizen of the United States” to include as a subset the “natural born Citizens.” Your approach is tantamount to reading the latter clause out of the Constitution or rendering the “natural born Citizen” clause mere surplusage. Your logic is like making natural roses a subset of artificial roses. While they are both roses, either one cannot be a subset of the other, for each one has its own separate and distinct definition and its own life. And for sure, that which is natural cannot merge into that which is artificial and vice versa. And even if the natural could merge into the artificial, the natural surely does not lose its nature, unless our intent is and we have the ability to destroy the natural. These observations lead us to these understandings.

The more reasonable approach is to understand that the clauses “natural born citizens” and “citizen of the United States” are words of art with distinct and separate constitutional meanings and that the two clauses are not to be conflated. You have problems doing that because of the Congressional eligibility clause calling for “citizens of the United States.”

As I have already explained, in inserting “citizen of the United States” in Article I Congressional eligibility, the Founders, Framers, and Ratifiers were only providing for minimum requirements. As to citizenship, these minimum requirements went to a minimum of allegiance and citizenship. Since “citizens of the United States” continued to be eligible in the future for those wanting to be Representatives or Senators, unlike “citizens of the United States” for the Office of President who were no longer so eligible if born after the adoption of the Constitution, there was no need for Congress to say that either a “natural born citizen” or a “citizen of the United States” for the minimum of 7 or 9 years but only as of a set date were eligible for the office of Representative or Senator, respectively. Still, do you really believe that the Founders, Framers, and Ratifiers, in stating that would-be Representatives had to be at least 25 years old and “citizens of the United States” for at least 7 years and would-be Senators at least 30 years old and “citizens of the United States” for at least 9 years, believed that a person who was at least 25 or 30 years old and who had been a “natural born Citizen” for those same years did not “attain” that level of allegiance and citizenship attained by a person meeting the eligibility requirements to be Representative or Senator? I hope that you do not tell me that that is what you believe because you would further reveal how absurd your position is.

Continued . . .

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

II of II

Like I have always said, the Obots, because their position on the meaning of a “natural born Citizen” is contrived and false, are full of contradiction. You are no exception. You want to hold me to the exact language of the Constitution, but do not yourself want to be so held. Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 also says that if born prior to the adoption of the Constitution, a “citizen of the United States” was eligible to be President, but for those born after the adoption of the Constitution, only “natural born Citizens” are so eligible. But you have no problem making Fourteenth Amendment/Wong Kim Ark “citizens of the United States” eligible to be President today. Also, the text of the Fourteenth Amendment plainly and clearly only includes the clause “citizen of the United States.” But you somehow find in the amendment also the “natural born Citizen” clause. And this is not to count all acts of Congress which use only “citizen of the United States,” but like the Fourteenth Amendment, you also find in those laws the clause “natural born Citizen.”

Finally, do you think that just because you cloak a “natural born Citizen” with the “citizen of the United States” mantel, that you no longer have to prove what a “natural born Citizen” is or that you can get away with your scheme with just defining a “citizen of the United States? So, even if a “natural born Citizen” is a “citizen of the United States,” you still lose because you still have not provided historical and legal evidence demonstrating that all citizens at birth are “natural born Citizens.”

Dr-RJP said...

Beginning on page 47,in the chapter, "Assertion of Two Citizen-Parent Requirement," McCaskell fraudulently uses "bait-and-switch" by first having one instance of the term, "natural-born" followed by copius instances of either "native-born" or, more egregiously, just "citizen."

He also tries to claim that SCOTUS has never set a precedent for Article II eligibility as being "born on US soil to two US citizen parents," yet the findings and holdings of Minor v. Happsersett do exactly that.

Any troll who tries to deny it is either a moron or a liar.

Unknown said...

Mario Apuzzo, Esq wrote:
"But the absurdity is all yours, reading a 'citizen of the United States' to include as a subset the 'natural born Citizens.'"

All mine? Mr. Apuzzo, your own blog featured a Venn diagram showing "citizen of the United States" to include as a subset the Article II "natural born citizens". (On another issue your court results refute the Venn diagram, but that Article II natural born citizens are citizens of the United States is clear.)

http://puzo1.blogspot.com/2010/11/of-trees-and-plants-and-basic-logic_05.html

I don't see anywhere you noted that the Venn diagram is wrong, much less absurd. So when did reading 'citizen of the United States' to include as a subset the 'natural born Citizens' go from being part of featured explanation of your theory on your blog to being an absurdity that's all mine? What happened between 05 Nov 2010 and now to cause that vast change?

MichaelN said...

js said...

"Why would Congress drop the word natural born? Did they have the authority under the Constitution to declare who was and was not a natural born citizen? From what I understand, that was not within their power, which makes sense that it would be altered.

For the definition on who was a natural born citizen, in accordance with what the founding fathers understood that term to mean, we must deal with intent.
As I posted before, the exclusion of foreign influence into the Oval Office is a certain and indisputable purpose, and that we can safely surmise that as the founding fathers intended.

---------------------
Quote:
"Among those citing Vattel in legal cases and government documents, were Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, James Wilson, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay, and John Marshall. John Adams, the future delegate to the Continental Congress, second President of the U.S., and father of President John Quincy Adams, recorded in his Diary on Feb. 1, 1763, that after spending the day frivolously, instead of reading and thinking, ``The Idea of M. de Vattel indeed, scowling and frowning, haunted me.''
In 1765, Adams copied into his Diary three statements by Vattel, ``of great use to Judges,'' that laws should be interpreted according to the intent of the author, and every interpretation which leads to absurdity should be rejected."


Jack Maskell of the CRS (US Congressional Research Service)in his political bias has willfully, dishonestly and deliberately mislead the US Congress.

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

Unknown,

You are pathetic. Is this the best that you can do, taking an article written by Commander Kerchner and representing it as though I wrote it? Commander Kerchner, my former client and good friend, wrote the article to which you refer on November 5, 2010. It is entitled, “Of Trees and Plants and Basic Logic: Trees are plants but not all plants are trees. Likewise, "natural born Citizens" are "Citizens at Birth" but not all "Citizens at Birth" are "natural born Citizens"! Citizen at Birth (CAB) does NOT identically equal Natural Born Citizen (NBC) at Birth. Obama is NOT a Natural Born Citizen of the USA.
http://puzo1.blogspot.com/2010/11/of-trees-and-plants-and-basic-logic_05.html .

You also misrepresent what Commander Kerchner presented. His ven diagram does not feature “citizen of the United States” as you misrepresent. The diagram says “a Citizen of the United States.” He uses the indefinite article “a” to show that he is only referring to a U.S. “citizen.” You conveniently left out the “a” in your comment. Additionally, Commander Kerchner also did not place his designation in quotes so as to signal that he was referring to the constitutional term of art, “Citizen of the United States.” Moreover, if you read his article, you will not find him stating at any time that a “natural born Citizen” is a “citizen of the United States.” If you want to know more about what the Commander meant, you can ask him about it.

But more devastating to your asinine comment about a ven diagram is that if you click on the ven diagram in Commander Kerchner’s article, it will take you to my article entitled, “Article II "Natural Born Citizen" Means Unity of Citizenship and Sole Allegiance At Birth, accessed at http://puzo1.blogspot.com/2009/04/article-ii-natural-born-citizen-means.html . I published this article on April 23, 2009, or almost one year and seven months before Commander Kerchner’s. In this article, I explain how all “natural born Citizens” are citizens at birth, but not all citizens at birth are “natural born Citizens.” I explain:

“Consequently, naturalized citizens stand on an equal footing with born Citizens (who are so recognized and confirmed by the 14th Amendment or by an Act of Congress and who can be but not necessarily are also “natural born Citizens”) except that they cannot be President or Vice President, for they were born with an allegiance not owing to the United States and acquire that sole allegiance to the United States only after birth. Surely, if a naturalized citizen, even though having sole allegiance to the United States, is not Constitutionally eligible to be President, we cannot expect any less of someone who we are willing to declare so Constitutionally eligible.”

If you will take the time to look at my ven diagram, there is no inclusion of any “citizen of the United States.” My ven diagram is all about born citizens, showing that all “natural born Citizens” are citizens at birth, but not all citizens at birth are “natural born Citizens.” I demonstrate this in the diagram by showing that there are jus sanguinis born citizens and jus soli born citizens who are not “natural born Citizens.” But those who are both jus sanguinis and jus soli born citizens are “natural born Citizens.”

So, as before, Unknown, you have failed again. By the way, next time, try writing something that addresses the real issues one of which is that the Obots have failed to present any historical and legal evidence demonstrating that all citizens at birth are "natural born Citizens."

Stranger said...

Dr. Ron Polland said...

"He also tries to claim that SCOTUS has never set a precedent for Article II eligibility as being "born on US soil to two US citizen parents," yet the findings and holdings of Minor v. Happsersett do exactly that."

There is only the holding. It does not include any definition of NBC. Nothing has legally defined those words and nothing needs to because they mean exactly what they imply and there is no mystery surrounding them. You and Mario have much to learn about the nature of natural citizenship. You should start with this: WHY AMERICANS BORN ABROAD ARE ELIGIBLE TO BE PRESIDENT
http://h2ooflife.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/americans-born-abroad.pdf

and this: THE NATURE OF NATURAL CITIZENSHIP http://h2ooflife.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/the-nature-of-natural-citizenship.pdf
and these: ~UNLIMITED & UNTOUCHABLE CITIZENSHIP
~NATURAL CITIZENSHIP: BEYOND ALL LAWS
~THE IMMUTABLE NATURE of NATURAL CITIZENSHIP obama--nation.com A. Nash

Stranger said...

Mario wrote: "Your approach is tantamount to reading the latter clause out of the Constitution or rendering the “natural born Citizen” clause mere surplusage. Your logic is like making natural roses a subset of artificial roses"

What are you thinking? "surplusage"? That's saying that it is being defined as synonymous as if real roses and artificial roses are considered synonymous. Why can't you get that the root category for roses is roses. Subcategories are "real" and fake.

The root category for citizenship is "citizens", -only it isn't because that does not identify which country it refers to. The root category is citizens of...of what?...of the United States. The name of the nation can't be omitted unless no other nation on earth has citizens except the United States.
(which reminds me that you can't even use the initials USA unambiguously because they also stand for Union of South Africa. Nor can you use the term United States unambiguously since the national name of Mexico the country is The United States of Mexico.)

In the category of U.S. citizens are the sub-categories of natural citizens (about 97%), naturalized citizens,(less than a fraction of 1 %) and native-born constitutional citizens via the 14th Amendment (about 3%+/-).
Obama does not fit into any of those categories. He is not an American citizen by American law but merely by American policy. A. Nash

Stranger said...

Mario's gigantic conceptual error is in tossing out the baby with the bath water. What bath water? Natural Law. What baby? Natural citizenship.
By Natural Law, as expounded on by Vattel, citizenship or national membership is passed from father to son. End of story. The children of citizens are citizens just like their parents, though born anywhere in the world, just like in the natural realm.
But instead of understanding that there are also legal natural citizens (a kind of oxymoron via a fiction of American law known as the doctrine of citizenship equivalency) it became necessary for John Jay to distinguish the two, and so he had to resort to calling what he sought to convey "natural born citizens.

That distinguished them from naturalized natural citizens.

The framers understood that there were basically only two categories of citizens: real natural citizens and every one else.
Mario has fabricated a third category which combines the two separate factors of jus sanguinis with jus soli. What he can't do is name just a single State of the Union that required of its citizens that they be both in order to be considered citizens. What state said that neither jus soli was enough nor jus sanguinis was enough?

No such policy or law ever existed and never will. The natural citizens of the States were those born of citizens of the colonies before independence. Yes, they were CITIZENS of the colonies while also being subjects of the Crown. They were natural born citizens and eligible to be President because they were born of citizens per natural law.

It was only after the Crown sought to destroy their liberty and re-subject them to serfdom that their citizenship status was challenged by the King's agents engaged in wrecking the institutions of American governance.

I repeat; The founders were almost all natural born citizens of their home State (nation) and as such were eligible to be President, not because of a non-existent grandfather clause which was merely a door opened for the naturalized foreign-born among them whom they personally knew and trusted with their lives. A. Nash

Stranger said...

Mario wrote: So, even if a “natural born Citizen” is a “citizen of the United States,” you still lose because you still have not provided historical and legal evidence demonstrating that all citizens at birth are “natural born Citizens.”

They can't present evidence that does not exist, but forget about "evidence"; they can't provide even a smidgen of logical explanation. Their entire house of cards rests on backing to the hilt the bastardization of the words of "natural born subject" which the British committed in order to claim dominion over children of foreign immigrants, as well as to protect them from social and perhaps employment discrimination. You know, the kind in American faced by Native Americans, Asians, Catholics, Italians, Poles, Africans, etc.

In descending order: EARTHLINGS--> HUMANS--> AMERICAN NATIONALS--> U.S. CITIZENS--> NATURAL BORN CITIZENS--> DOMESTIC BORN OR FOREIGN BORN NATURAL CITIZENS.

Those not mentioned are "other", meaning the 3% or so who are not natural citizens because of foreign alienage. Obama is in the "other" category (U.S. citizen by policy) What could be simpler? A. Nash

Stranger said...

Michael wrote: "Jack Maskell of the CRS (US Congressional Research Service)in his political bias has willfully, dishonestly and deliberately mislead the US Congress."

After all of the silence from Congress regarding so much that is blatantly unconstitutional, one has to wonder if the pretty little lies he told them were not just what they wanted to hear.
I mean, just look as some of the instances where John McCain is as close to Obama as only his own wife ever gets. Is that the face of opposition? (and I'm talking about even when he was running against him!) They are all in the same big fat Statist oligarchic club.

js said...

MichaelN said;

"Jack Maskell of the CRS (US Congressional Research Service)in his political bias has willfully, dishonestly and deliberately mislead the US Congress."

I think the right term is "willfully defrauded". At his level, the competence is expected to be the top of the game, not a biased, error filled statement the which was delivered to the Peoples representatives.d

Carlyle said...

SIGH

As always, once there are a few hundred discussions of 'trees', I feel compelled to remind everybody of the 'forest'.

Something close to half the comments on this blog seem insane - i.e. not sane - i.e. not passing the sanity test or even the smell test.

Why did the Founding Fathers put the NBC clause in the constitution? Why did they mention it at all? Was it so as to be RESTRICTIVE or was it to remind us some time in the distant future to be Politically Correct and Multi-Culti inclusive?

With apologies to Mario and others who try to reason with 'flat earthers' and such, that is wasted effort and will come to naught. CLEARLY the FFs were trying to limit foreign influence as much as they reasonably could. This simple fact alone should inform the more astute as to the nature and meaning of the NBC criterion.

Now, there is a whole other debate which could be had. If the OBOTS and others were well-meaning, one could suppose that they would focus their efforts on THIS issue:

Given Global Economy and Global Politics, such as the world has evolved to, and the USA has been caught up in -- Is it time to change or repeal the NBC clause? I have my strong opinions on that matter, but it still seems like something that intelligent people could debate.

So much of what passes for Modern Politics doesn't even make any sense, that I get so sick of it.

Soapbox: Off Now

Unknown said...

hannity had connie mack and some sleazy democratic hack on last night talking about ted cruz, the birthers and obamas BC.Minor v happersett was not mentioned and neither was the electronic forgery BC. Ted is obviously eligible because he is going to renounce his canadian citizenship. It just shows how controlled the major media is not to mention minor which is the 800 pound gorilla of Article 2 eligibility. Stranger, children born outside of USA to us citizens are "citizens of the united states", not NBCs, in NA 1795. George Washington signed off on NA 1795 and article 2. Try getting your head out of your backside

Unknown said...

the minor description of the natives or NBCs is a definition stranger, right out of the common law of the Framers which is rarified air indeed.

Anonymous said...

Leo, you can lead a horse to water...

Alchemy cannot change lead into gold, nor can certainty change error into fact. If you are a person who cares more for truth than for certainly then you will benefit mightily from what I've just published. It will open any eyes that are not deliberated kept tightly shut.
Read it and learn the truth, -see the light, or remain in the pseudo-light of your ignorant false certainty. Adrien Nash

NATURALIZATION: The Key to Understanding Presidential Eligibility

http://h2ooflife.wordpress.com/2013/08/20/naturalization-understanding-presidential-eligibility/

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

Stranger or Adrien Nash,

Your statement that there does not exist a definition of a “natural born citizen” is absurd. The Framers wrote a constitution which is a legal document. Do you think that a legal document, especially the Constitution, could be given any meaning if its terms did not have a definition?

Your point gains in more absurdity when we consider that, as far as we know, the Framers did not even debate the meaning of the “natural born citizen” clause.

Add more absurdity given that the clause was used for Presidential eligibility.

Add even more absurdity given that we are talking about a citizenship status which for time immemorial and for all nations has always had a definition.

Add even more absurdity given that there is no record of which we are aware that the meaning of a “natural born citizen” was debated in the states’ Ratifying Conventions. Do you think that the clause would have made it that far and without any fanfare if there was no definition to the clause?

Your point is, like so many of your positions, utter nonsense.

Stranger said...

A. Nash writes:
Mario's problem is that he doesn't understand the meaning of "definition". I've invited him to explore that vastness of its meaning at its massive Wikipedia web-page & links but he is avoiding exposure to anything that exposes the falsity of his assumptions.

The depth of its meaning makes his political theorizing look like child's play in comparison.

Also, he mistakes "understanding" for definition. Everyone had an understanding of what a citizen is, as well as what a natural citizen is and a born citizen as well. It doesn't take a genius to understand the meaning of the combination of the three words. They STILL mean the same thing but without the ambiguity that the two adjective-noun versions produce.

And finally, together they do not constitute a "clause" or "term of art" which is "defined" elsewhere. The meaning of the combination of the three words is contained within the meaning of the individual words. It's so simple and normal that even a 4th grader can understand.
Does one need some arcane knowledge of sociological history to understand what a natural born athlete is?
Let's do a comparison:
A natural athlete: one whose ability is innate without the necessity of extensive training

A natural citizen: one whose citizenship is innate without the necessity of law.

A born athlete: one whose ability is so innate that he had to have had it since birth.

A born citizen: one whose citizenship is innate because he was born with it. Born being a citizen without any assistance of law, or with the assistance of law (the WKA holding). cont...

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

"What is a Birther?

A Birther is a person who loves this country and will not be intimidated by those who don't.

A Birther knows and understands the Constitution and will not compromise or shy away from protecting it.

A Birther will not be intimidated into silence even if he finds himself isolated or occupying a jail cell.

A Birther believes in the rule of law and won't look away from it for personal gain or political standing.

A Birther will not forsake his principles, for any candidate, left, right or middle.

A Birther will not shut up, sit down and be quiet so a pompous fraud can make money signing books.

A Birther has investigated and compiled facts and data which are irrefutable.

A Birther is a Constitutionalist

A Birther is a Conservative

A Birther is an American"

Dwight Kehoe, Managing Editor TPATH

Read the full article at http://www.tpath.org/commentary.php#SargeantLevin

Stranger said...

A Nash continues...

Does it really boggle the mind to combine those two definitions into one? Why would a manufactured "legal definition" be required for understanding when the words do all of the explaining themselves?

The same questions apply to natural born citizen but Mario has never had to answer them until I started asking them. Both he and his opponents cling to the false belief in the "term of art" misconstruence.

His opponents present a 100% wrong explanation of "its" meaning, while Mario only embraces half of their error, thus being half correct. And he does so for no good reason whatsoever. He can't explain to anyone why jus soli is an element of natural citizenship.

That is like saying that being a Damn Yankee is an element in being a patriotic Southerner. OIL & WATER PEOPLE! They do not, did not, and will not ever combine.

Barack Obama is not a natural born citizen because his father was an alien, not because he might not have been born on U.S. soil.
But Mario clings to the unholy combination of two opposing philosophies. It's a bone he can't let go of.
He is a master at shooting down the falsity of the opponents' native-born = natural born argument but can't see why his argued "definition" might have a flaw of its own. Which it does have. It goes a bridge too far by contorting descriptive words into an official, legal "definition" when there has never been any authoritative definition given being as there is no authority to give one. All we've ever gotten were passing descriptions of the nature of the citizenship of those born in the homeland of their parents who are citizens. None of which are all-inclusive nor definitively exclusive, (never using the words “all” nor “only”).

Stranger said...

"A Birther is a person who..."

...preaching to the choir, but good preaching. A little off the mark in the use of a term that isn't broad enough, requiring something more along the lines of "Tea Party Patriot" or just plain Constitutional Conservative.

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

Unknown has published this comment at another one of my articles. I have published it there and also here.

Unknown has left a new comment on your post "The Natural Born Citizen Clause of Our U.S. Consti...":

In your last three paragraphs, you suggest that Obama is a U.S./British dual citizen at birth. I submit to you that this is patently incorrect - Obama was British EXCLUSIVELY. Since Obama does NOT meet the "subject to the jurisdiction" clause of the 14th Amendment, Section 1, U.S. citizenship is DENIED to him.

Posted by Unknown to Natural Born Citizen - A Place to Ask Questions and Get the Right Answers at August 20, 2013 at 8:03 PM

My response: If Obama was born in the United States, a case can be made that he was born in the United States and "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" thus making him a "citizen of the United States" under the Fourteenth Amendment. Through his British father and the British Nationality Act of 1948, he was also born a British citizen. Because he was not also born to U.S. "citizen" parents (both father and mother), which caused him to be born a British citizen also, he is not and cannot be an Article II "natural born Citizen."

daddynoz said...

Press Statement
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State
Washington, DC
July 29, 2011

On behalf of President Obama and the people of the United States, I am delighted to congratulate the people of Switzerland on the 720th anniversary of your republic this August 1.

In the seven centuries since the first Federal Charter was signed, the Swiss Confederation has played an important role in world affairs. Your rich history of neutrality gives you the ability to mediate and reconcile difficult conflicts. You have been a vital partner for over 30 years representing American interests in Iran and other countries throughout the world.

America’s Founders were inspired by the ideas and values of early Swiss philosophers like Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui and Emer de Vattel, and the 1848 Swiss Constitution was influenced by our own U.S. Constitution. Swiss commitment to democracy is an example for nations and people everywhere who yearn for greater freedoms and human rights.

As you celebrate this special day, know that the United States stands with you and we look forward to a future filled with friendship and cooperation.

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

Stranger or Adrien Nash:

I of II

You said:

“Barack Obama is not a natural born citizen because his father was an alien, not because he might not have been born on U.S. soil.
But Mario clings to the unholy combination of two opposing philosophies. It's a bone he can't let go of.

He is a master at shooting down the falsity of the opponents' native-born = natural born argument but can't see why his argued ‘definition’ might have a flaw of its own. Which it does have. It goes a bridge too far by contorting descriptive words into an official, legal ‘definition’ when there has never been any authoritative definition given being as there is no authority to give one. All we've ever gotten were passing descriptions of the nature of the citizenship of those born in the homeland of their parents who are citizens. None of which are all-inclusive nor definitively exclusive, (never using the words ‘all’ nor ‘only’).”

The unanimous U.S. Supreme Court does not agree with your position that the “natural-born citizen” clause does not have a definition and that birth in the country is not one of the necessary elements to be a “natural-born citizen.” Minor v. Happersett (1875) 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 parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first. For the purposes of this case, it is not necessary to solve these doubts. It is sufficient, for everything we have now to consider, that all children, born of citizen parents within the jurisdiction, are themselves citizens.”

Id. at 167-68. The fallacy contained in your argument is in converting Minor into a case which gives us sufficient conditions (what you call description) for one to be recognized as a “natural-born citizen” when it in fact gave us necessary and sufficient conditions for defining a “natural born Citizen.” To accomplishing your goal and mislead the public, you mask the Founders’ and Framers’ intent in including the “natural born Citizen” clause in Article II and Minor’s intent when it defined that clause. “Natural born Citizen” is a presidential and commander in chief eligibility clause designed to exclude from those singular and all-powerful foreign policy and military offices foreign allegiance, influence, and attachment. This means that it must and does present a bright line definition for establishing presidential and military commander eligibility. Hence, its material elements certainly include certain persons and exclude others. The first evidence of exclusion is presented by the Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 itself which excludes “Citizens” who are not “natural born Citizens” from being eligible to be President if born after the adoption of the Constitution. Hence, we can see that the Founders and Framers in placing the “natural born Citizen” clause in Article II meant to include some and exclude others from being eligible to be President.

Continued . . .

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

II of II

Naturally following the Founders’ and Framers’ purpose in inserting the clause in Article II, in defining a “natural born Citizen,” Minor, telling us that the Framers relied upon the “common-law” to define a “natural-born citizen,” excluded under that specific law from “natural-born citizen” status those who did not meet the two sufficient and necessary conditions that it gave. The two conditions were (1) born in the country (2) to parents who were its “citizens” at the time of the child’s birth. So, Minor’s definition of “natural born Citizen” is one of exclusion and inclusion. At common law, those who satisfied the two sufficient and necessary conditions were included to be “natural-born citizens.” Those who did not satisfy those conditions were excluded from being “natural-born citizens” and declared to be “aliens or foreigners.” As Minor plainly explained, this means that at common law, if one was not born in the United States, one was an “alien or foreigner.” This also means that at common law, if one was not born to U.S. “citizen” parents, one was also an “alien or foreigner.” Minor did leave open the question of whether a child “born in the jurisdiction” to alien parents was a “citizen of the United States” under the Fourteenth Amendment.

American national “common-law” has not been the only means by which U.S. “citizens” have been recognized under national law.

U.S. citizenship, limited to and called “citizens of the United States,” has also been created under Acts of Congress, passed by Congress under its naturalization powers since 1790. Congressional naturalization Acts make “citizens of the United States” at birth or after birth by recognizing birth out of the country to one or two U.S. “citizen” parents as sufficient conditions to gain such right.

Congress also created more U.S. “citizens,” again limited to and called “citizens of the United States,” by way of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which it superseded with the Fourteenth Amendment. The Fourteenth Amendment makes “citizens of the United States” at birth by recognizing birth in the United States while “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” as sufficient conditions to gain such right. U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) answered the question left open by Minor and held that a child born in the United States to domiciled and resident parents, while not a “natural-born citizen, was still born in the country and “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States (only subject to U.S. laws rather than born to U.S. “citizen” parents) and under the Fourteenth Amendment as much a “citizen” as a “natural-born citizen” and therefore a “citizen of the United States” at birth. As Wong Kim Ark demonstrates, this citizen at birth is not to be conflated and confounded with an Article II “natural born Citizen.”

So, neither the Fourteenth Amendment nor any Act of Congress has ever changed the American national common law definition of a “natural born Citizen” which both Minor and Wong Kim Ark inform is a child born in the country to parents who were its “citizens” at the time of the child’s birth.

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

Stranger or Adrien Nash,

Rather than addressing what Minor and Wong Kim Ark explained and held, you waste our time with your nonsense about what “definition” means. Your next argument is going to be that I do not “understand” (I am assuming that I can use that word) what a “natural born citizen” is because I do not know what “is” means.

Unknown said...

a obot told me minor did not address if children of aliens born in US are NBCs haha so it was probably just a oversight on their part by not including parents who are aliens. Stranger, GW was The Founder, The Framer, a 2 term legitimate President, our top commander in the revolutionary war and only 6 star General of the Armies of the United States which he attained by a act of Congress in 1976. If you ever surpass him and they rename the countrys capitol after you and build a massive statue in your honor then let me know but until then a child born outside of us to americans is a "citizen of the US" according to GW and still ineligible in article 2 unless they were born at time of adoption

Stranger said...

A. Nash writes:
Mario rightfully condemns the bastardization of logic that the Obamunists engage in, and yet he relies on the exact same form of distortion as they do. He bastardizes the simple truth about what the Minor court "defined", claiming that they defined something that they never even addressed, namely the origin of natural citizenship itself.
Instead they merely defined what is seen in the last sentence of the block Mario quotes: "It is sufficient, for everything we have now to consider, that all children, born of citizen parents within the jurisdiction, are themselves natural born citizens.”

So how come I'm "right" and Mario is wrong when the truth is right there in front of everyone? Because it isn't. I added what Mario adds in his mind and thinking even though it isn't there. I added the words "natural born" which in fact are not found in that "defining" quote.

Mario claims that they defined something that they didn't define, since all they defined was children born within the jurisdiction of citizen parents.

Here's the error in his thinking: (he's right to think that children born within the jurisdiction to citizen parents are all natural born citizens.)
Where he is wrong is in conflating that fact with a notion that says something very similar, namely; all natural born citizens are: ~the children born within the jurisdiction to citizen parents.

That is his misconstrued notion of a definition, but that is not what the court said or defined. Instead they defined such children as "citizens" (as opposed to foreigners or aliens).

So the court told us who such children are ("citizens") but did that definition of such children define ALL citizen? Of course not. Did it define all natural born citizens? Most definitely not.
Some are born within our borders and some are born outside of our borders.
Just as some citizens are born of citizens and some citizens are not.

Just as some citizens are citizens at birth and some citizens are not.

Just as some citizens are citizens by law and most citizens are not.

What the court said in no way whatsoever denied the possibility that natural born citizens are both the children born within the jurisdiction to citizen parents as well as children born of citizen parents anywhere in the world.
He cannot show where they excluded such children or defined the nature of their national membership. All he can show, which is vastly insufficient, is the fact that such children are "citizens". Period. Nothing more. That is what the court observed and that is all that it "defined".

His mental gymnastics can’t make cats into caterpillars.

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

How can anybody in good conscience believe that Congress through its naturalization powers can create a “natural born citizen?”

If the Founders, Framers, and Ratifiers believed that “natural born citizen” meant citizen at birth, i.e., any citizen at birth was a “natural born citizen,” then why did the First Congress, as evidenced by the “Naturalization Act of 1790, believe that it had to include them in its naturalization act and say in that act that children born out of the United States to U.S. citizen parents “shall be considered as natural born citizens,” utilizing language which legislatures used when they naturalized someone to be a “natural born citizen” or “natural born subject” even after birth? Why did Congress include these children in its naturalization act and say that they were to be “considered as” “natural born citizens,” rather than say that they were in fact “natural born citizens?”

Additionally, why did the Third Congress, with the work of James Madison and with the approval of George Washington, feel compelled to change the birth status of those same citizens at birth from “shall be considered as natural born citizens” to “shall be considered as citizens of the United States?” After all, the Third Congress was well aware that Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 provided that “citizens of the United States” were eligible to be President only if in being at the time the Constitution was adopted and that after that time period one had to be a “natural born citizen” to be so eligible. If early Congress and George Washington believed that citizens at birth were “natural born citizens,” why did they take that birth status away from them by considering them only “citizens of the United States” rather than “natural born citizens?”

Moreover, if these children born out of the United States to U.S. “citizen” parents were “natural born citizens,” why did Congress in the Naturalization Act of 1802 make any child born out of the country to U.S. “citizen” parents who became “citizens” after 1802 alien born and no longer “citizen of the United States?” It took Congress, through the Naturalization Act of 1855, 55 years to make children born out of the United States to U.S. “citizen” parents “citizens of the United States” at birth again. How could someone who was a “natural born citizen” fall victim to Congress’s naturalization power and not even be a “citizen of the United States” at all for 53 years?

Finally, the Fourteenth Amendment talks about being born in the United States and being “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” at the time of birth in order to be a “citizen of the United States” at birth. With that amendment’s emphasis on being subject to the jurisdiction of the United States at the time of birth, how can we accept a child who is not born “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States to be a “natural born Citizen?”

Stranger said...

A. Nash replies: Mario, if you really and truly wanted to learn the answers to the questions that you've posed, then all you need do is read the recent expositions that I've written and posted on my blog. They are answered in a crystal clear manner. They share that things that haven't yet entered your thinking. You will never learn the answers until you read and contemplate what is now available to all. You really need to read: NATURALIZATION: The Key to Understanding Presidential Eligibility. Without it you will remain in the dark.

js said...

Presidential Eligibility Tutorial

This is good.

js said...

Your basic tutorial tells you this;

Supreme Court: Throughout U.S. history, various individuals have expressed their personal opinion that all children born on U.S. soil (except the children of foreign ambassadors and alien enemies) are natural born citizens, regardless of their parents' citizenship. But the Supreme Court has never embraced this viewpoint, and on several occasions, has made decisions contrary to it.

In Inglis v. Trustees (1830) and Elk v. Wilkins (1884), the plaintiff was born in the United States, of a father owing allegiance to a sovereignty other than the United States. In each case, the Court determined that the plaintiff did not acquire U.S. citizenship at birth: his nationality at the time of birth was that of his father, not his birthplace [32].

In U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), the Supreme Court -- in an apparent departure from prior precedent -- ruled that children born in the United States, of permanently-domiciled alien parents, are U.S. citizens. But, to this day, the Supreme Court has never ruled that such children are natural born citizens. On the contrary, our nation's highest court, in its majority opinions, has consistently used the term "natural born citizen" only in reference to persons born on U.S. soil, to U.S.-citizen parents.
•In Scott v. Sandford (1856), Justice Daniel's concurring opinion characterized, as unexceptionable (beyond criticism or objection), the viewpoint that:
"natural-born citizens are those born in the country of parents who are citizens" (Scott v. Sandford, 1856)

•In Minor v. Happersett (1875), the Supreme Court defined two classes of persons. The first class consists of children born in the United States, of U.S.-citizen parents. The second class consists of all other U.S.-born children, regardless of their parents' citizenship. The Court used the term "natural born citizen" only in reference to the first class. Regarding members of the second class, the Court doubted they were even citizens, let alone natural born citizens. In the Court's opinion, natural born citizens are "distinguished from" aliens or foreigners, suggesting that a natural born citizen is someone who is not a "foreigner" (foreign citizen) at birth [05].

•In Kwock Jan Fat v. White (1920), the Supreme Court referred to Mr. Kwock as a natural born citizen. He was born in the United States. His father was a native-born U.S. citizen; and his mother was a U.S. citizen by marriage [99].

•In Perkins v. Elg (1939), the Supreme Court referred to Marie Elizabeth Elg as a natural born citizen. She was born in the United States. When she was born, her father was a U.S. citizen by naturalization, and her mother was a U.S. citizen by marriage.

To this day, whenever an Opinion of the Supreme Court has referred to an individual as a "natural born citizen", the individual was always born in the United States, of U.S.-citizen parents. The Supreme Court has never, in any of its majority opinions, used the term "natural born citizen" in reference to someone whose parents were not both U.S. citizens.

(From the "Presidential Eligibility Tutorial" by Stephen Tonchen)

js said...

RE: Stranger@12:40am

" Here's the error in his thinking: (he's right to think that children born within the jurisdiction to citizen parents are all natural born citizens.)
Where he is wrong is in conflating that fact with a notion that says something very similar, namely; all natural born citizens are: ~the children born within the jurisdiction to citizen parents."


look at that use of the word "all"...how can you have a natural born citizen...who was not the child...of citizen parents...if what you say is true, that Mario was correct, in the previous statement which states the very same thing...Ohhh...ya...gotcha...you must be enjoying your right to post nonsense, eh?

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

js,

All “natural born citizens” are “the children born within the jurisdiction to citizen parents."

X is a “natural born citizen.”

X is a child born within the jurisdiction to citizen parents.

As I have explained in several of my articles here, being born within the jurisdiction to citizen parents are necessary and sufficient conditions of being a “natural born citizen.” In other words, a person cannot be a “natural born citizen” unless the person is born within the jurisdiction to citizen parents. If a person is not born within the jurisdiction to citizen parents, the person is not a “natural born citizen.” At the same time, if someone is born within the jurisdiction to citizen parents, one is a “natural born citizen,” for those conditions are not only necessary but also sufficient to make one a “natural born citizen.”

But to argue from the major premise, All “natural born citizens” are “the children born within the jurisdiction to citizen parents," that if one is a child born within the jurisdiction to citizen parents, one is a “natural born citizen,” would be invalid if such conditions were only necessary and not also sufficient to make one a “natural born citizen.” Such an invalid argument is called affirming the consequent and also violates the rule of the undistributed middle. The major and minor premises are both true, but the conclusion is false. But given the Minor and Wong Kim Ark U.S. Supreme Court definition of a “natural born citizen,” we know this not to be the case because being born in the jurisdiction to citizen parents are both sufficient and necessary conditions of being a “natural born citizen.” But we cannot say the same for this Jack Maskell argument: All “natural born citizens” are citizens at birth. Barack Obama (or Ted Cruz) is a citizen at birth. Therefore Obama (or Cruz) is a “natural born citizen.” This argument is fallacious because it affirms the consequent and violates the rule of the undistributed middle. While being a citizen at birth is a necessary condition of being a “natural born citizen,” there is no historical or legal evidence that demonstrates that just being a citizen at birth is sufficient to make one a “natural born citizen.” In fact, we know that both the Fourteenth Amendment and Acts of Congress on their face alone call its citizens at birth "citizens of the United States," and not "natural born citizens."

This leads to my other argument that I have already explained in my articles. Maskell may argue that all citizens at birth are “natural born citizens,” and since Obama (or Cruz) is a citizen at birth, he is a “natural born citizen.” Again as I have already explained, this is a logically valid argument, but it is unsound. It is unsound because the major premise is false which leads to a false conclusion. The major premise, all citizens at birth are “natural born citizens,” is false because there is no historical or legal evidence which demonstrates it to be true. Neither Jack Maskell nor any Obot has presented any such evidence. What they have presented is what they personally think the law should be, not what the law is.

Stranger said...

A. Nash responds:
js wrote: "you must be enjoying your right to post nonsense, eh?"

Your lack of comprehension is not indicative of incomprehensibility, but merely your failure to grasp what has been shared. When something isn't immediately clear to your thinking, you declare a parsing of particulars as nonsense when to others it is as clear as day. It's all due to how the mind works, or doesn't work.
Mario's manner of thinking falsely assumes that because all citizens who fit a certain criteria are natural born citizens, therefore all natural born citizens must fit that criteria as if it is what defines them, when it is NOT what defines them.
The co-incidental location of one's birth is not an element of the principle by which a child is born as a natural citizen. It is as unnecessary as requiring that all natural Scandinavians, having been born with blue eyes, are therefore defined as Scandinavians because they have blue eyes,and were born in Scandinavia -as if there are no other Scandinavians who do not have blue eyes.

Mario makes an enormously erroneous assumption defying logic when he claims: "being born within the jurisdiction to citizen parents are necessary and sufficient conditions of being a “natural born citizen.”

The lazy and indoctrinated mind reads right through that statement without noticing what should not be included in it, namely: "necessary".
Without the addition of "necessary" the statement would be true because those were sufficient conditions, but they were not the only conditions because they were not the fundamental conditions, which were having a father who was an American (as the sole criteria which E. Vattel repeatedly mentioned).

Stranger said...

A, Nash writes:
js, The Tonchen tutorial should be required reading for everyone opining on the subject of presidential eligibility. It's full of irrefutable facts that debunk Obama's eligibility.

"The Supreme Court has never, in any of its majority opinions, used the term "natural born citizen" in reference to someone whose parents were not both U.S. citizens."

One could and probably should go one step farther to put things in the Constitutional perspective by simply stating the same thing but in reference only to the father since it was his nationality that was transmitted to his foreign born or native-born children along with his foreign-born wife. The head of the household was the ultimate power in the family, and society.

Things have changed but history hasn't changed. Without an American father one cannot be a natural born American citizen.

Carlyle said...

I also feel compelled to remind everyone that The Constitution is supposed to be easy to understand and something that normal Americans can understand.

I admit to historical and evolutionary complications in that technology and relationships are much advanced than 200 years ago. That, for example, opens up potential debate about the meanings of free speech and the allowable forums and technologies, etc.

But on the core essence, and unchangeable things, things should mean what they say and assume the simplest and most obvious meanings.

Is it really necessary (or even meaningful) to have a debate, some 200 years on, about the meaning of NBC? Shouldn't we all just agree it means the same thing now as it did way back then?

If it takes several paragraphs (or pages!) of chopped logic to try to explain it, you can bet that is wrong.

Why is it so hard for people to grasp that the NBC clause was meant to be RESTRICTIVE?

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

Mike(https://openid.aol.com/opaque/55f3e78a-0cdf-11e3-8fb1-000f20980440) has left a new comment on your post "Obama - Maybe a Citizen of the United States but N...":

The framers of the 14th Amendment in 1866, did define what is a "natural born citizen" of the United States. In their discussions they determined that jus solis (born on the land,) was inadequate, and that jus sanguinis (born of the blood) was the appropriate means to determine the citizenship of any person, also known as the law of nations.

As is provided for by Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee stated, "Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, James F. Wilson of Iowa, confirmed this in 1866:

“We must depend on the general law relating to subjects and citizens recognized by all nations for a definition, and that must lead us to the conclusion that every person born in the United States is a natural-born citizen of such States, except that of children born on our soil to temporary sojourners or representatives of foreign Governments.”

In is much as Barack Obama, Sr. the currently established father of Barack Hussein Obama, was as described by Mr. Wilson, a temporary sojourner, who was only visiting the United States, and never applied for citizenship, was a citizen of Kenya, and ergo, a British subject, by Mr. Wilson's description, Barack Hussein Obama, is by birth a subject of the British Empire, and not a "natural born citizen" of the United States of America, and is therefore, ineligible to seek, let alone occupy the office of President of the United States, under the qualifications set forth in Article 11, Section 1, Paragraph 4, of said Constitution.

This however, would also exclude Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio, as eligible for the Office of President, as Senator Cruz's father was not a U.S. citizen at the time of his birth in Canada, and nor was the father of Marco Rubio, who became a naturalized citizen in 2005.

To further this, the intent of the framers of the 14th Amendment would also exclude Mitt Romney from the office of President of the United States, in that, in as much as his grandparents, rescinded their U.S. Citizenship, when they moved to Mexico, where Mr. Romney's father George, was born, making him a Mexican citizen by birth, who was never naturalized upon his return to U.S. soil, Mitt Romney, is also by birth, a Mexican citizen.

When a child inherits the citizenship of their father, they become a natural-born citizen of the nation their father belongs regardless of where they might be born. It should be pointed out that citizenship through descent of the father was recognized by U.S. Naturalization law whereby children became citizens themselves as soon as their father had become a naturalized citizen, or were born in another country to a citizen father.

Yes, birth is prima facie evidence of citizenship, but only the citizenship of the nation the father is a member.

I acquired this information from another blog, and can be read here:
http://www.federalistblog.us/2008/11/natural-born_citizen_defined/

Posted by Mike to Natural Born Citizen - A Place to Ask Questions and Get the Right Answers at August 24, 2013 at 1:05 PM

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

Mike,

I of III

1. You said:

“The framers of the 14th Amendment in 1866, did define what is a "natural born citizen" of the United States. In their discussions they determined that jus solis (born on the land,) was inadequate, and that jus sanguinis (born of the blood) was the appropriate means to determine the citizenship of any person, also known as the law of nations.”

I do not agree with this statement. The framers of the Fourteenth Amendment defined a “citizen of the United States,” not a “natural born Citizen.” However the former was defined or came to be defined does not change the meaning of a “natural born citizen.” As I have repeatedly argued, it is grave constitutional error to conflate and confound a Fourteenth Amendment “citizen of the United States” with an Article II “natural born Citizen.”

2. You said:

“Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, James F. Wilson of Iowa, confirmed this in 1866:

'We must depend on the general law relating to subjects and citizens recognized by all nations for a definition, and that must lead us to the conclusion that every person born in the United States is a natural-born citizen of such States, except that of children born on our soil to temporary sojourners or representatives of foreign Governments.'"

First, this quote only goes to show that a child born in the United States to “temporary sojourner” parents was to be excluded under the Fourteenth Amendment. The quote cannot be used to exclude children born in the United State to alien parents who were domiciled and residents of the United States.

Second, the U.S. Supreme Court in The Slaughterhouse Cases took Wilson’s statement one step further and excluded from U.S. citizenship children born in the United States to alien parents, regardless of whether they were temporarily or permanently in the United States. See The Slaughterhouse Cases 16 Wall. 36, 73 (1873) (the Court said that “[t]he phrase, ‘subject to its jurisdiction’ was intended to exclude from its operation children of ministers, consuls, and citizens or subjects of foreign States born within the United States”).

Third, the U.S. Supreme Court in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark in 1898 refused to follow the lead of The Slaughterhouse Cases and interpreted the “subject to the jurisdiction” clause more broadly, i.e., to encompass within it alien parents who were domiciled and resident in the United States and held that a child born in the United States to domiciled and resident parents was a “citizen of the United States” at birth, not to be conflated and confounded with an Article II “natural born Citizen.” But the Wong Kim Ark interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment does not change the meaning of an Article II “natural born Citizen,” for again, the amendment defines a “citizen of the United States,” not a “natural born Citizen.”

Fourth, and more important, this quote and case law show that the Fourteenth Amendment did not adopt the English common law jus soli rule which did not give any controlling effect to whether a child’s parents were temporarily in the King’s dominion. On the contrary, the English common law provided that such persons, provided they were not children of foreign diplomats or military invaders, by merely being present in the King’s dominion, were “subjects” of the King and owed him temporary and local allegiance and their children born in the King’s dominion were English “natural-born subjects.” What this shows is that if the Fourteenth Amendment, which was designed to expand who could be “citizens of the United States” at birth by birth in the United States, by requiring a heightened degree of jurisdiction, did not follow the English common law rule of broad allegiance to the King, surely neither did Article II which was designed to provide for the new constitutional republic the highest form of allegiance and citizenship for the future offices of President and Commander in Chief of the Military.

Continued . . .

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

II of III

3. You said:

“To further this, the intent of the framers of the 14th Amendment would also exclude Mitt Romney from the office of President of the United States, in that, in as much as his grandparents, rescinded their U.S. Citizenship, when they moved to Mexico, where Mr. Romney's father George, was born, making him a Mexican citizen by birth, who was never naturalized upon his return to U.S. soil, Mitt Romney, is also by birth, a Mexican citizen.”

My information is that Mitt Romney was born in the United States to U.S. citizen parents, thereby making him a “natural born citizen.” What evidence do you have that Mitt Romney’s grandparents “rescinded their U.S. citizenship”? U.S. law is very demanding when it comes to persons renouncing their U.S. citizenship. Please cite the applicable law and provide the facts which show that each and every material element of that law have been proven so as to demonstrate that Mitt’s grandparents renounced their U.S. citizenship.

4. You said:

“When a child inherits the citizenship of their father, they become a natural-born citizen of the nation their father belongs regardless of where they might be born.”

This is not the correct definition of a “natural born citizen.” A “natural born citizen” is a child born in the country to parents who were its “citizens” at the time of the child’s birth. See Emer de Vattel, Section 212, The Law of Nations (1758) and the numerous cases cited in my article above that confirm his definition. This means that the child must be born in the United States or its jurisdictional equivalent, which applies to our military personnel giving birth abroad while serving our national defense. The child must also be born to U.S. “citizen” parents. The parents can be either “natural born citizens” or “citizens of the United States,” at birth or after birth “Parents” means the natural union of two parents which given the laws of nature requires a father and mother. These “natural born citizen” birth circumstances are the only combination of events occurring at birth which best assure that a child is born with sole allegiance and unity of citizenship at birth to the United States. Any other definition, allegedly required because of changing social norms or values, needs a constitutional amendment, which would be an affirmation of the will of the people.

Continued . . .

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

III of III

5. You said:

“It should be pointed out that citizenship through descent of the father was recognized by U.S. Naturalization law whereby children became citizens themselves as soon as their father had become a naturalized citizen, or were born in another country to a citizen father.”

While this statement is almost true, the statement still does not go directly to defining a “natural born citizen.” The Naturalization Acts of 1790, 1795, 1802, and 1855, all Acts passed by Congress under its Article I, Section 8, Clause 4 naturalization powers, treated children born in the United States to alien parents as alien born and in need of naturalization. Under these acts, when the parents naturalized as “citizens of the United States,” their minor children, if dwelling in the United States at that time or thereafter, also become automatically “citizens of the United States” after birth and never at birth.

As to children born out of the United States, except for the Naturalization Act of 1790, which treated children born out of the United States to U.S. citizen parents as “shall be considered as natural born citizens,” which the Naturalization Act of 1795, with the work of James Madison, changed to “shall be considered as citizens of the United States,” no naturalization act of Congress, has ever defined a “natural born citizen.”

Indeed, these Acts of early Congress, which included the First and Third Congress and the approval of George Washington, were jus sanguinis based (citizenship inherited by birth to parents) and not jus soli based (citizenship acquired by birth on a nation’s soil).

Congress acting upon the citizenship status of children born in the United States to alien parents or upon children born out of the United States to U.S. citizen or alien parents, and never acting upon the citizenship status of children born in the United State to U.S. citizen parents, provides incontrovertible evidence that the children born in the United States to citizen parents, being beyond the reach of Congress’s naturalization powers, were and continue to this day to be the “natural born citizens.”

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

The European, at Dr. Conspiracy’s blog, said on August 21, 2013 at 1:48 am:

“It is stunning how much some birthers hate Pres. Obama. They eat up one of their own (conservatives) [Ted Cruz] hoping that this will somehow get BHO out of office.”

http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/2013/08/yeah-cruz-is-eligible/#comments .

Again, by statements made by Obots we gain insight into their character. Here we have “European” attacking the “Birthers'” motives rather than their arguments. But what is most disturbing is how European reveals that we are not to go against our “own” when it comes to the world of politics.

Such insight explains a lot about the Obot position on Barack Obama and Ted Cruz.

Unknown said...

Mario Apuzzo, Esq wrote:
"You are pathetic. Is this the best that you can do, taking an article written by Commander Kerchner and representing it as though I wrote it?"

False. I accurately referred to the Venn diagram featured on your blog. It's attributed to "thebirthers.org", not to either you or Kerchner by name. I don't know who's behind thebirthers.org so I made no representation whatsoever on authorship.


Mario Apuzzo, Esq wrote:
"You also misrepresent what Commander Kerchner presented."

And then we look at what I wrote and see that you tell not the truth.


Mario Apuzzo, Esq wrote:
"His ven diagram does not feature 'citizen of the United States' as you misrepresent. The diagram says 'a Citizen of the United States.' He uses the indefinite article 'a' to show that he is only referring to a U.S. 'citizen'."

I cannot tell what you are saying. Obviously "citizen of the united states" is in "a citizen of United States". When you now say, "only referring to a U.S. 'citizen'", is that your term-of-art that excludes natural born citizens?

Your ludicrous claim was:
[begin quote]
a "natural born citizen" is not a "citizen of the United States"
[end quote]

Is there some special magic to you putting uses of "a" outside the quotation marks? Are you following identifiable rules of language, or making up your own?


Mario Apuzzo, Esq wrote:
[begin quote]
But more devastating to your asinine comment about a ven diagram is that if you click on the ven diagram in Commander Kerchner’s article, it will take you to my article entitled, “Article II "Natural Born Citizen" Means Unity of Citizenship and Sole Allegiance At Birth, accessed at http://puzo1.blogspot.com/2009/04/article-ii-natural-born-citizen-means.html . I published this article on April 23, 2009, or almost one year and seven months before Commander Kerchner’s. In this article, I explain how all “natural born Citizens” are citizens at birth, but not all citizens at birth are “natural born Citizens.” I explain:
[end quote]

I don't see that your April 23, 2009 article took either side on your ludicrous claim here, "a 'natural born citizen' is not a 'citizen of the United States'". I do not know whether you had already come up with that nonsense at the time.

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

Unknown,

I see that you do not have anything substantive to say. Playing your little word game and just making inane remarks does nothing but show that you have nothing meaningful to say for your position.

Unknown said...

obots like to use the word ludicrous a lot which is something they are experts at along with lying. Actually they are nor very good at lying but it is not from lack of effort. Speaking of ludicrous, a obot told me the supreme court has not decided if a child of a alien born here is a NBC yet and he also asked me where minor said a child of a foreigner is NOT a NBC? A child of a alien is still a citizen of a foreign country even if born here and would not be eligible as a dual citizen anyways. Obots are like rats stuck in a box they cannot get out of, not to insult rats or other vermin by comparing them to a teacherous obamabot. lame cherry said the Founders did not want a foreigner anywhere near the Presidency which i agree with 100%. If Article 2 was actually enforced then it has the power to throw out this whole administration and render everything this gang has done and obama has signed meaningless. Thanks to all the patriots in Congress for staying silent and keeping the charade going. I am glad ted cruz is running because maybe your average clueless american might research this subject and figure out he is not eligible. John Nolte of breitbart said there is no question cruz is eligible haha without going into the pesky details found in minor or NA 1795 of course.

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

leo derosia,

You said that "Obots are like rats stuck in a box they cannot get out of."

You are so correct. The Obots are full of contradictions and inconsistencies. They have taken such unreasonable positions on and told so many lies about the meaning of a "natural born citizen" that they no longer know what is up or what is down. The only thing left for them to do is either convert to the side of the truth or self-destruct. Despite their wishful thinking, whether Obama is President and will stay President does not change their fate.

Stranger said...

A. Nash writes:
Here's a few thoughts to mull over. Does Israel allow Arab-born Israeli citizens to have any association with its atomic weapons? How about no chance in a billion? Why? The same concerns as those of the framers of the Constitution regarding foreign influence gaining position in the command of the American military via election to the presidency.

You can't have people that you can't fully trust wielding ultimate power. Hence no native-born son of foreigners being allowed since they are not natural members of the nation due to their direct connection to a foreign power through their foreign father.

The early naturalization acts omitted addressing the native-born sons of foreigners specifically, so would they therefore be automatically included among the sons made citizens upon their father's naturalization, or can the obamunists claim that they were excluded in effect because as justice Gray and other native-birth-ers proclaim; "it's the law of the land inherited from the English common law."?
That would have to suppose that all of those Congresses embraced jus soli as a nation-wide "given" and de facto national policy even in the absence of it being passed in any form of law, and that they therefore didn't bother to state the "obvious", -namely that the native-born are automatically citizens of their own state of birth.
BUT...no federal law governed the principle that each semi-sovereign state followed and legislated as the basis of its citizenship. Congress had no say in determining which principle the States embraced and therefore there could not have been a national policy for Congress to have universally acknowledged as "the law of the land", -a law so endemic to all of the states that it need not even be mentioned in the naturalization acts since "everyone" "accepted" that it (jus soli) was the law of the land.
How could any sane person espouse such a view unless absurdly ignorant and absurdly self-confident in their presumptuous viewpoint?

So either all of the Congresses that passed the naturalization acts had no other thought than that just soli was the unwritten (and thus not actually legal) policy of the U.S. or all of them understood that the mention of the children of immigrants included all children, regardless of where born. It can't be both, and showing which it was should be fairly easy. Quotes are in order, if anyone's got some.

Stranger said...

A. Nash writes:

Here's a thot to ponder: When the 14th Amendment was written, single foreign women could not become naturalized because having American citizenship was pointless since they couldn't take the oath swearing to bear arms to defend the nation, and since female Americans had no major civic rights and thus were no different from foreign women aside from during travel outside of the country.

So, since the subjection to the jurisdiction of the national government required by the 14th Amdmt was applicable solely to males who one day would grow up to be responsible for national defense as well as civic and political positions and duties, AND..since nationality was passed from the father to the children, how could the native-born daughter of a lesbian couple be born as a 14th Amendment citizen?
She would be born to women who were not fully citizens themselves, -whose citizenship equality was none-existent except as a fiction of law. Neither she nor her mothers would ever be fully subject to the authority that governments exercise over male CITIZENS, and so without an acknowledged American male father, how could such a daughter even be considered to be an American citizen?
A citizen via what mechanism? Jus Sanguinis only applied by law well into the 20th Century after women's suffrage was obtained, and even then it was only in circumstances of foreign birth.
Also, there was no precedence for citizenship of married mothers to pass to their children, so even if one of the two women was considered the head of the household, such a position didn't even conceptually exist at the time within marriage since the head would only be the husband and father.

It's a very confusing hypothetical philosophically, traditionally, legally, and completely unknown to the common law. Spanning ages to when such a situation was socially unthinkable makes it even more muddied.

But what is clear is that in certain circumstances citizenship could only be ascribed as a matter of policy and not a matter of law. Obama's citizenship is equally extra-legal since WKA doesn't cover children born to non-immigrant aliens. Hence he isn't a citizen by WKA, naturalization, jus sanguinis, nor statutes naturalizing foreign-born children of American women.
His supposed citizenship is purely a presumption of long established institutionalized policy error, not U.S. law or SCOTUS holding.

thalightguy said...

Here's something to ponder...

Were the children of the recently freed Slaves (both of whom were born within the U.S.) that became citizens under the 14th Amendment also "natural born Citizens"?

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

Adrien Nash,

I of IV

You said:

“The early naturalization acts omitted addressing the native-born sons of foreigners specifically, so would they therefore be automatically included among the sons made citizens upon their father's naturalization, or can the obamunists claim that they were excluded in effect because as justice Gray and other native-birth-ers proclaim; ‘it's the law of the land inherited from the English common law.’?”

Now you’re talking! It’s great to see you and I agree on such important matters. That the early naturalization acts did not act upon children born in the United States is one of the biggest lies going. Let us take a look at the Naturalization Act of 1790:

"An Act to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization.

"Sec. 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That any alien, being a free white person, who shall have resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States for the term of two years, may be admitted to become a citizen thereof, on application to any common law court of record, in any one of the states wherein he shall have resided for the term of one year at least, and making proof to the satisfaction of such court, that he is a person of good character, and taking the oath or affirmation prescribed by law, to support the constitution of the United States, which oath or affirmation such court shall administer; and the clerk of such court shall record such application, and the proceedings thereon; and thereupon such person shall be considered as a citizen of the United States. And the children of such persons so naturalized, dwelling within the United States, being under the age of twenty-one years at the time of such naturalization, shall also be considered as citizens of the United States. And the children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens: Provided, That the right of citizenship shall not descend to persons whose fathers have never been resident in the United States: Provided also, That no person heretofore proscribed by any state, shall be admitted a citizen as aforesaid, except by an act of the legislature of the state in which such person was proscribed."

Act of March 26, 1790, entitled "An Act to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization," 1 Stat. 103, c. 3.

Continued . . .

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

II of IV

The language that is key to our understanding is: “And the children of such persons so naturalized, dwelling within the United States, being under the age of twenty-one years at the time of such naturalization, shall also be considered as citizens of the United States.” The Obots need to tell us where Congress says that the language only applies to children born out of the United States? Of course, they cannot. When Congress wanted to tell us that it was referring to children born out of the United States it did so in this very act when it said: “And the children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens.” The Acts of 1795 (which removed “natural born citizen” and replaced it with “citizen of the United States”), 1802, and 1855 contained basically the same language regarding “the children of such persons so naturalized.” So why do the Obots not share with us how they arrive at their position that the statute’s language, “[a]nd the children of such persons so naturalized,” only applied to children born out of the United States? The truth of the matter is that Congress made it clear that it made no distinction between children born in or out of the United States when such children had alien parents. Place of birth did not control. Rather, what controlled was the citizenship status of the child’s parents. Regardless of where the child was born, if that child’s parents were aliens, that child did not become a “citizen of the United States” until that child’s parents naturalized and that child was dwelling in the United States or if the parents did not naturalize during the child’s minority, only if the now adult naturalized on his or her own. The rule could not have been more clearly stated. Of course, those who seek to distort, manipulate, and rape our history for political gain have difficulty reading such clear text.

Furthermore, the James McClure citizenship case of 1811, about which I have written at length in my legal briefs to the courts and on this blog, interpreted and applied the 1802 Act.

The Naturalization Act of 1795 had provided in pertinent part:

“SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That the children of persons duly naturalized, dwelling within the United States, and being under the age of twenty-one years, at the time of such naturalization; and the children of citizens of the United States, born out of the limits and jurisdiction of the United States, shall be considered as citizens of the United States.”

And the Naturalization Act of 1802 provided in pertinent part:

“SEC. 4. And be it further enacted, That the children of persons duly naturalized under any of the laws of the United States, or who, previous to the passing of any law on that subject, by the government of the United States, may have become citizens of any one of the said States, under the laws thereof, being under the age of twenty-one years, at the time of their parents being so naturalized or admitted to the rights of citizenship, shall, if dwelling in the United States, be considered as citizens of the United States."

Continued . . .

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

III of IV

The McClure case interpreted the 1802 Act. That case, decided by the James Madison Administration, yes I said James Madison, more than clearly proves that the Obots are not telling us the truth. “Publius” (probably James Madison who was President then) on October 7, 1811, commenting and applying the Naturalization Act of 1802 (which was the same as the Naturalization Act of 1790 and 1795 in the particular at issue) in The Alexandria Herald, concerning the “Case of James McClure,” stated:

“Mr. Rodman hints, that it would have been sufficient for James McClure to have been born in the United States—he is mistaken. The law of the United States recognizes no such claim. The law of Virginia, of 1792, does—for, “all free persons born within the territory of this commonwealth,” is deemed a citizen. The law of Virginia considers him as a son of the soil. An alien, as well as a citizen, may beget a citizen, but the U. States’ act does not go so far. A man must be naturalized to make his children such.”

Publius, in 1811, living when the acts were passed by Congress, and the James Madison Administration would know what the First, Third, and Seventh Congresses intended when they passed the early naturalization acts. In that connection, Publius tells us that it did not matter where a child was born. Regardless of where the child was born, if the child’s parents were aliens, the child was alien born. Regardless of where the child was born, the child’s parents had to naturalize in order to make their minor children citizens or the child upon reaching the age of majority had to naturalize on his or her own. The historical record tells us that Secretary of State, James Monroe, who was serving the James Madison Administration, eventually declared McClure alien born, but a “Citizen of the United States” (not a “natural born citizen”), not because he was born in South Carolina on April 21, 1785, but because a few months after he was born, his British father naturalized as a “citizen of the United States.” I will take Publius’ and the James Madison’s Administration’s word in 1811 on what the acts meant and who was a “natural born citizen” rather than the Obots’ today.

Continued . . .

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

IV of IV

As I have explained for some time now, the early naturalization acts are incontrovertible proof of how the Founders, Framers, and Ratifiers defined a “natural born citizen.” These acts conclusively prove that our nation did not adopt the English common law jus soli rule, but instead the law of nation’s jus sanguinis rule. These acts prove that the Founders, Framers, and Ratifiers deemed a child born in the United States to alien parents as alien born. Accord Minor v. Happersett (1875). They prove that they defined a “natural born citizen” as a child born in the country to parents who were its “citizens” at the time of the child’s birth.

For more information on the James McClure case, see my brief filed in the Kerchner and Laudenslager v. Obama Ballot Challenge in the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, accessed at http://www.scribd.com/doc/83104811/Kerchner-Laudenslager-v-Obama-Ballot-Challenge-Brief-on-Behalf-of-Objectors-Filed-28Feb2012 .

Carlyle said...

in re: Were the [underage] children of the recently freed Slaves (both of whom were born within the U.S.) that became citizens under the 14th Amendment also "natural born Citizens"?

Of course not, that is absurd. Why would such a question even cross your mind. Now, the children of those children - golden. All just as it should be.

Each NBC is a citizen in their own right, and born into a culture of citizens. What could be simpler and more obvious?

PS - a simple consideration of the times, and the purpose, of the 14th amendment also reveals that Anchor Babies are a bizarre hoax. It could not possibly under any stretch of a sick imagination be so construed. The one and only purpose was to grant immediate citizenship to people (e.g. slaves) who had been living in the US, under the jurisdiction of the US, but who had previously lived under the legal disability of not being citizens.

This is all really simple. It is only when trying to pound square pegs into round holes to fit an Agenda that weirdness ensues.

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

Carlyle,

Freed slaves qualified for first generation U.S. citizenship under both the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Fourteenth Amendment. The courts created a way to expand those laws to include children born in the U.S. to alien white and Asian parents.

First, the New Jersey Supreme Court in Benny v. O'Brien (1895), 29 Vroom (58 N.J.Law)invented that blacks and whites had to be treated equally and so we needed a new rule for children born in the U.S. to white alien parents or else blacks could not be citizens under the Fourteenth Amendment which was totally not true.

Second, then U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark said that the colonial English common law had to be followed to interpret the Fourteenth Amendment (again not true), which allowed the Court to get around the long-standing strict American common law requirement, as confirmed by Minor, of needing "citizen" parents in order to be born a "citizen" and a "natural born citizen" by virtue of birth in the United States.

So here we can see the divergent paths the courts took in order to arrive at a desired result.

Stranger said...

A. Nash writes:
Under the British Crown, mere presence within the Kingdom produced so-called temporary allegiance and mandated obedience, thus making a foreigner a subject since he was subject to British rule, and that then made any child born to him a born subject automatically. But...not so in the United States. Mere presence alone did not a subject nor a citizen make. One remained a subject of their foreign sovereign until they renounced his authority over them completely and took the oath of Allegiance & Renunciation to become an American. Only then did his children also become American, regardless of native-birth, with the exception of some four of the States which allowed jus soli citizenship for immigrants' children.

So....the jurisdiction mentioned in the 14th Amendment did not apply to a foreign father's child previous to the Wong ruling because the father was not under American jurisdiction until he became an American citizen. Only then did he become responsible for the operation, and perpetuation and defense of the nation. As a CITIZEN.
The Wong holding changed that, making him and his children responsible for national defense, but not for the operation and perpetuation of the nation since he remained a non-citizen while his native-born child acquired a nationality that he himself did not possess. -A break in the unity of the family nationality status.

The court thereby create a quasi-citizen in the foreign parent, -one responsible like all adults for the defense of their society, but not a full fledged member because he remained tied to his foreign king and government as their subject.

So the lying pretense of Gray and his cohorts flew in the face of actual English common law rather than following it because in Britain one became a quasi-subject by mere presence within the realm. That was certainly not true of foreigners present in America. They did NOT become Citizens due merely to their presence in the States, until the court threw out a century of American tradition and court holdings and put foreign men under American jurisdiction, along with their native-born children, as well as their foreign-born children who remained as quasi-citizens like their father when they reached adulthood.

Stranger said...

A. Nash writes:
Subjection to the jurisdiction of the central government was directly tied to gender. An illiterate impoverished freed male slave had all of the rights of citizenship while the wealthy, respectable wife of the President had none. Women were quasi-citizens because they were exempt from the duties and obligations of citizens, (which from their perspective meant the "rights" of citizens). Hence subjection and nationality did not flow through them but solely through the man (or head) of the household.

Carlyle said...

Mario - you are too nice. You mentioned 'DIVERGENT paths to arrive at a desired result", you should have said "INSANE paths ..."

My wife used to work in a very complex and politicized work environment (not government - just posturing, infighting, backstabbing, "damn the rules" anything to get ahead").

She got fed up to the point of being seriously paranoid and reactionary and eventually moved on. Her boss (actually himself not all that bad) used to berate her for assuming Evil Intentions against various antagonists, when he suggested it was more likely Ineptitude.

In that particular (true!) parable, I think the boss was wrong. Similarly, many like to attribute all current national issues to Racism or Amateurism. I remain convinced that THEY ARE INDEED OUT TO GET US!

That may sound paranoid, but every scrap of evidence screams out!

Carlyle said...

Further regarding 14th Amendment citizens -

Please come back full circle and read my comment (4th one) near beginning of this thread.

Carlyle said...

While we are at it - let's consider motivations. Don't you think it is an important consideration? Apparently prosecutors against heinous crimes think so (obviously, except in the recent incident of the Disgruntled Workman who went all postal over at Ft. Hood).

WHY - OH WHY - would anyone argue one way or another as to the meaning and purpose of the NBC clause?

It is one thing to try to be precise and attempt to suss out what it really means - for the framers, and now. But let us explore motivation for a moment.

1. Why would anyone carry the flag for the restrictive version of NBC? Only two clear reasons come to mind: a) deep loyalty for America and extreme concern about foreign influence and possible enemies within; b) race hatred and bias against multi-culti.

2. Why would anyone carry the flag for the inclusive version of NBC? Got me!? I can think of no valid reason whatsoever.

Now, you have to admit that some are filled with hate - but it seems pretty clear that this would be an unnoticeable few. Perhaps more of us are concerned about the impact on American ideals and morals from unbridled multi-culti. I admit to having that concern. But by far the overriding consideration has to be the Manchurian Candidate scenario. Even if you divorce that concern from the instant situation, it is not a precedent we want to be setting.

But in fairness to giving the other side equal time - please explain. What possible good purpose is there in arguing FOR inclusiveness? Even if the history of the NBC consideration leaned toward inclusiveness, given current world dynamics, shouldn't we be screaming for reform?

Even so, I am not necessarily arguing for draconian laws as to who is eligible. But should not we insist that our news media and our congressmen, who have the wherewithal and resources to know such things, explain to us the facts on the ground?

OBOTs are fond of pointing out that The Obama was elected and that all else is a moot point. Laying aside the fraud issue, do you really believe that?

Nobody elected the actual Obama. What they elected was a carefully manufactured cartoon - a caricature - someone who never existed and never will.

Do you honestly think that The Real Obama (even what little we know now for sure) could possibly get elected?

Robert said...

Trying to put myself in the perspective of the Founders, I think that they made the requirements for POTUS not as restrictive as possible, but as open as they possibly could while still maintaining the security of the Free Constitutional Republic.

Remember, they were used to having a King who would only ever descend from other Kings and Royal Families.

To open up the possibility of becoming POTUS to those merely born of two citizen parents within the jurisdiction of the nation was a huge broadening of the concept of descent of power. This includes over 95% of the population! But, this allowed for even those who were not born of property and title to reach the highest office. Of course, all still were supposed to go through the thorough public examination that they expected to happen through the age and residency requirements.

But, clearly, that is as far as they were willing to go. Being a natural born citizen: one born in the country to citizen parents, is probably the most open policy ever considered by any nation.

In the case of Obama, we see one who has subverted all of the requirements of the office. He was born of a foreign father in a place unknown. And, the sealing of all of his personal records pretty much circumvents the purpose of the age and residency requirements. He came to office as a foreign blank slate. Our founders would be stunned in disbelief (and probably would have been out forming militias - 5 years ago).

Ironically, Obama is now embarked on an open campaign to de-legitimize our Congress and our Courts so that he can become an absolute dictator. Unfortunately, like the frogs in the slowly heating pot, these folks apparently have no clue what is going on around them. They are still under the illusion that they can sacrifice any parts of the Constitution that they wish and still maintain the protections of the other parts. Well, it clearly doesn't work that way, does it? Now we have a group that has no idea what,if any, parts of the Constitution are respected or by whom. We do all know that Obama has absolutely no respect for the Constitution, because he has said as much.

This, of course, is no surprise. Remember, Obama and his friends calculated that 25+ million may have to be "sacrificed" to attain their goal. And they were OK with that. Oh, and just a note for historical perspective, this number always includes not only the "opposition" party, but very large numbers of "useful idiots" or "kool-aid" drinkers - just like the guys who argue here - in pointless unfounded circles - against Mario.

Last point: The Constitution has absolutely no power to preserve, protect, and defend itself. It's a piece of paper.

That job is up to us: We the People.

Thank you, Mario!!

Mario Apuzzo, Esq. said...

Robert,

You said:

“In the case of Obama, we see one who has subverted all of the requirements of the office. He was born of a foreign father in a place unknown. And, the sealing of all of his personal records pretty much circumvents the purpose of the age and residency requirements. He came to office as a foreign blank slate. Our founders would be stunned in disbelief (and probably would have been out forming militias - 5 years ago).”

You have nailed it perfectly on Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 presidential eligibility which provides:

“No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.”

A “natural born citizen” is a child born in the country to parents who were its “citizens” at the time of the child’s birth. Obama might have been born in Hawaii, but he surely has not provided any competent evidence of that alleged fact to one of the many courts in which he was sued. Hence, from a strictly legal perspective, we do not know where he was born. This is astounding given the numerous opportunities that Obama had to present such evidence to a court of law.

But regardless of where he was born, he is still not a “natural born citizen” because, while born to a U.S. “citizen” mother, he was not also born to a U.S. “citizen” father.

Additionally, to further compound the doubts regarding his eligibility, he has refused to provide the American people with vital documents (education, work, and travel) which go to show that he satisfies the purpose of the age and residency requirements which is to have a would-be president conduct himself for the requisite number of years as an American so that he or she will create a verifiable record by which to be judged.

Thank you, Robert, for an excellent post.

Ray said...

I think everyone here will appreciate this article about the jurisdiction clause of the 14th Amendment.

http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2006/03/from-feudalism-to-consent-rethinking-birthright-citizenship

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