The historical consensus
Prior to 2008, no American authority in history ever denied the universal consensus that anyone born a citizen of the United States within one of the 50 states qualifies as a natural born citizen and, meeting the additional requirements of age and residency, is eligible to run for President of the United States. The Framers of the Constitution had very little to say on the subject, but other contemporary authorities such as William Rawle, appointed by George Washington as District Attorney for Pennsylvania, wrote in 1825:
…he who was subsequently born a citizen of a state became at the moment of his birth a citizen of the United States 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
In 1844, assistant Vice Chancellor Lewis H. Sandford of the 1st Circuit of the New York Chancery Court, after surveying the legal history of this question, wrote in the case of Lynch v Clarke that it was the “universal impression of the public mind” that:
The term citizen was used in the constitution as a word, the meaning of which was already established and well understood. And the constitution itself contains a direct recognition of the subsisting common law principle, in the section which defines the qualification of the President. “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,” … The only standard which then existed, of a natural born citizen, was the rule of the common law, and no different standard has been adopted since. Suppose a person should be elected President who was native born, but of alien parents, could there be any reasonable doubt that he was eligible under the constitution? I think not.
This was affirmed by Edward Bates, US Attorney General under Abraham Lincoln, who wrote in 1862:
And our Constitution, in speaking of natural born citizens, uses no affirmative language to make them such, but only recognizes and reaffirms the universal principle, common to all nations, and as old as political society, that the people born in a country do constitute the nation, and, as individuals, are natural members of the body politic.
And just this past year, retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote:
All of our Presidents have, to date, been born in the 50 states. Notably, President Obama was born in the state of Hawaii, and so is clearly a natural born citizen.
Despite this clear historical consensus, the candidacy of Barack Obama brought out a number of people challenging the status quo, who even made claims that they were taught otherwise in their high school Civics courses, even though no curriculum or text book has ever been found to support this notion.
The historical controversy
Despite the historical consensus, there has not been universal agreement in the United States about citizenship, far from it. When I opened this article with the universal statement, “anyone born a citizen of the United States within one of the 50 states qualifies as a natural born citizen,” I carefully avoided the controversy by using the qualifying phrase, “born a citizen.” There have been throughout our nation’s history those who have disagreed with the proposition that persons born in the United States are automatically citizens. The most notable example of those denied citizenship by some were those born in the United States into slavery. Mr. Bates and Mr. Rawle (and probably Mr. Sandford) were staunch abolitionists. Others, like Supreme Court Chief Justice Taney writing his opinion in the case of Dred Scott v Sandford (1857), declared that no black man could be a citizen of the United States within the definition of the Constitution.
The United States Civil War decided the question, abolished slavery, and set the climate for the ratification of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States that forever settled the question of citizenship for those born in the United States and under its jurisdiction. (Certain persons such as the families of foreign ambassadors are by treaty not under the jurisdiction of the United States, and so not covered by the 14th Amendment. The US Supreme Court in United States v Wonk Kim Ark clarified who is included under the jurisdiction of the United States, and concluded that the children of resident aliens are covered.)
The current controversy
In the historical record, we find the phrases “born a citizen,” and “natural born citizen” and “native born citizen” used interchangeably. While one might draw some technical distinction between the terms, early authorities generally did not. This leads to confusion, and opens the door to those would want to interpret the historical record as if these distinctions existed. What the various proponents of the novel theory that natural born citizens must have “two citizen parents” are actually doing is resurrecting the historical argument over who is born a citizen (an argument that is now settled) and trying to avoid what the historical record says by trying to hide among doubts as to who was considered a citizen.
Learn more
- Response to Eligibility Primer (Part 1)
- Response to Eligibility Primer (Part 2)
- Understanding “natural born citizen”
- Indiana appeals court defines “natural born citizen”
- Is the natural born citizen argument over?
- Supreme Court Justice Scalia believes natural born citizenship is jus soli
- Natural born citizen: clarified!
- De Vattel for Dummies
- Natural Born Citizen for Dummies
(Applauds) That is a great article. Thank you for this, and for the others.
Justice Ginsberg in Tuan Anh Nguyen v. INS – Oral Argument
“My grandson was born in Paris of U.S. citizen parents.
I had never considered him a naturalized citizen of the United States, but is that his correct status?”
Further on, we have Justice Ginsberg saying…..
“There is a debate over whether my grandson is a natural born citizen.
I think he is”
Ergo: sanguinis is required to make a NBC, soli makes it even better.
It’s the age old principle, sovereign begets sovereign, via royal blood-line.
In US the citizens are the sovereigns, so it follows, sovereign citizen begets sovereign citizen.
It’s really that simple, except to those who have bigoted political bias and wish it was otherwise.
Here’s what Justice Antonin Scalia, had to say in 2005 …
“”The worst thing about the Living Constitution is that it will destroy the Constitution.”
Read the whole speech here ………..
http://www.cfif.org/htdocs/freedomli…nal-speech.htm
Reply With Quote
So Justice Antonin Scalia asks Davis some leading questions and suddenly (for some wishful thinkers) Scalia ‘endorses’ the notion of jus soli only to make a NBC ….. LOL
Justice Antonin Scalia speaks ….
“Now, in asserting that originalism used to be orthodoxy, I do not mean to imply that judges did not distort the Constitution now and then, of course they did. We had willful judges then, and we will have willful judges until the end of time. But the difference is that prior to the last 50 years or so, prior to the advent of the “Living Constitution,” judges did their distortions the good old fashioned way, the honest way — they lied about it. They said the Constitution means such and such, when it never meant such and such.”
Scalia speaks ……………..
“It’s a big difference that you now no longer have to lie about it, because we are in the era of the evolving Constitution. And the judge can simply say, “Oh yes, the Constitution didn’t used to mean that, but it does now.” We are in the age in which not only judges, not only lawyers, but even school children have come to learn the Constitution changes. I have grammar school students come into the Court now and then, and they recite very proudly what they have been taught: “The Constitution is a living document.” You know, it morphs.
Well, let me first tell you how we got to the “Living Constitution.” You don’t have to be a lawyer to understand it. The road is not that complicated. Initially, the Court began giving terms in the text of the Constitution a meaning they didn’t have when they were adopted.”
> Further on, we have Justice Ginsberg saying…..
> “There is a debate over whether my grandson is a natural born citizen.
I think he is”
> Ergo: sanguinis is required to make a NBC, soli makes it even better.
You are really logic-impaired, aren’t you?
Ginsberg’s statement does *not* refute “jus soli suffices” because he deals with a case where there is no jus soli, so he asks if jus sanguinis can suffice if there is no jus soli.
That is not hard to understand for a child, why is it for you?
> Initially, the Court began giving terms in the text of the Constitution a meaning they didn’t have when they were adopted.
Your quote is senseless. No-one claims NBC means something different today than it did for the Founders. No-one claims you need to adhere to the “Living Constitution” school of thought to have NBC mean “jus soli only”.
> It’s the age old principle, sovereign begets sovereign, via royal blood-line.
Then why can children of kings who do *not* have a royal mother become kings?
Why can children of queens who do *not* have a royal father become kings?
> In US the citizens are the sovereigns, so it follows, sovereign citizen begets sovereign citizen.
Then how can, by your twisted logic, two naturalized citizens beget a natural born citizen? That would be like two non-royals begetting a king, wouldn’t it?
More from Antonin Scalia …..
“I think the very terminology suggests where we have arrived — at the point of selecting people to write a constitution, rather than people to give us the fair meaning of one that has been democratically adopted. And when that happens, when the Senate interrogates nominees to the Supreme Court, or to the lower courts — you know, “Judge so-and-so, do you think there is a right to this in the Constitution? You don’t? Well, my constituents think there ought to be, and I’m not going to appoint to the court someone who is not going to find that” — when we are in that mode, you realize, we have rendered the Constitution useless, because the Constitution will mean what the majority wants it to mean. The senators are representing the majority, and they will be selecting justices who will devise a constitution that the majority wants. And that, of course, deprives the Constitution of its principle utility. The Bill of Rights is devised to protect you and me against, who do you think? The majority. My most important function on the Supreme Court is to tell the majority to take a walk. And the notion that the justices ought to be selected because of the positions that they will take, that are favored by the majority, is a recipe for destruction of what we have had for 200 years.
To come back to the beginning, this is new — 50 years old or so — the Living Constitution stuff. We have not yet seen what the end of the road is. I think we are beginning to see. And what it is should really be troublesome to Americans who care about a Constitution that can provide protections against majoritarian rule. Thank you.”
Ginsberg is a she.
Ginsberg thinks her grandson, who was born ONLY jus sanguinis, is a natural born citizen of U.S.
Do you have a comprehension problem, as well as a gender recognition problem?
Non-royals wouldn’t be sovereigns, silly, so how could non-sovereigns beget sovereigns?
It would be like two sovereign citizens begetting sovereign citizens, same as in a monarchical realm, where sovereigns beget sovereign, just like I said.
It’s hereditary, by the Law of Nature, natural law.
MichaelN believes that blood changes when you get naturalized. Orly at one time claimed that Chester Arthur (same thing with Spiro Agnew, I guess) was no problem, because by naturalizing, he changed his blood and of course that of his son. One journalist then got her so far as to say if they dug up Obama Senior and Congress bestowed US citizenship on him, Obama Junior would be alright too. I do not know whether Orly and her steadfast Ozzie supporter still believe that.
Actually, I think it is possible under the laws of Britain for two non-royals to produce a royal. Consider this case: father (because of Salic law, it will be a man, usually), unlikely (because of all those ranking before him) heir to the throne, only he is a Roman Catholic, marries an Anglican noble lady. If their issue is raised as Anglicans, I pretend that they are eligible to the throne. And if everybody higher up in rank were to die, except for their father, I believe that they would ascend to the throne passing their father by.
.
(Silly spellchecker changes Sprio Agnew into Spiro Agnes)
Isn’t Scalia the guy that said women should not be allowed to vote?
Scalia will say anything to get a headline. And you will notice that even Scalia did NOT vote to have the birther cases included in conference, so even he does not think the birther case is part of the original constitution.
Was her grandson born abroad? Yes? THEN he needs citizen parents. If he wasn’t, he doesn’t.
Not sure what hard to comprehend about that.
The American definition of natural born citizen has never changed. It’s based on the British definition of a natural born subject, which “born in the territory and under the jurisdiction of the king.”
Anyone born in the US is a natural born citizen as long as his parents are not diplomats or members of an invading army. Its’s always been that way, and not only that, but the 14th Amendment clarifies what the rule has always been.
Complications only arise when American parents have a child outside the borders of the US. Then the law has to clarify the child’s status.
It’s really simple for anyone not twisting and wiggling to reach the result they want. Scalia would approve.
Funny, nobody objected when Albert I became King of Belgium, and neither of his begetters were sovereigns.
Henry VII is a better example, being British, or Welsh, and 1688 Dutch William III, but that guy was already Stadhouder (more or less hereditary president) of Holland.
> Ginsberg thinks her grandson, who was born ONLY jus sanguinis, is a natural born citizen of U.S.
Yes, and she says there’s debate about that. If your opinion was correct, there would be no debate.
Ginsberg effectively says: “In the case of my grandson, where there is no jus solis, only jus sanguinis, he is a natural born citizen, too”.
That’s because jus solis is the common definition for NBC and jus sanguinis without jus solis is the debatable additional definition.
If jus sanguinis *plus* jus solis were the common definition of NBC, why would she argue her grandson is an NBC in her opinion? How would she argue away the soil prerequisite?
If jus sanguinis *alone* were the common definition of NBC, why would she have to argue at all?
It is fairly clear who has the comprehension problem. You’ll note J. Ginsberg is discussing a question that is actually a matter of debate in the legal and scholarly communities. Is a person born overseas to citizen parents a natural born citizen? That is a question open to debate. It comes down the the question of can congress broaden the common law definition of natural born citizen, or does it take a Constitutional amendment. Are they natural born, or naturalized at birth? J. Ginsberg takes a position that many (as did the whole of the Senate did with McCain), but not all in the legal community take (Michigan Law did an entire symposium on the question). Why is it that you can’t find any justices asking the same question in regards to a person born on the soil? Oh yeah. Because there is no actual debate on the subject, and normally, Supreme Court justices don’t waste their time asking questions of settled law.
And what you quotes from J. Scalia have to do with anything is truely mistifying….particularly since I’m guessing Scalia is probably the last justice on the bench you could convince to rely on a 18th century Swiss writer as a basis of US law.
MichaelN, I’m still waiting to hear an answer to a question I have posited numerous times. If Barack Obama is ineligible to be president because of his father’s Kenyan citizenship, which was public knowledge since the campaign, why was he certified and inaugurated as President?
No other discussion on this topic has any meaning until you can explain how an established fact that everyone knew disqualifies him, yet he was still allowed to become President.
Scalia writes:
“What I look for in the Constitution is precisely what I look for in a statute: the original meaning of the text, not what the original draftsmen intended” (A Matter of Interpretation, Federal Courts and the Law, 1997)
So what is the definition of “natural born”?
Justice Scalia stated,
“In interpreting this text, we are guided by the principle that “[t]he Constitution was written to be understood by the voters; its words and phrases were used in their normal and ordinary as distinguished from technical meaning.” .. Normal meaning may of course include an idiomatic meaning, but it excludes secret or technical meanings that would not have been known to ordinary citizens in the founding generation”
Justice Scalia said this on English Law,
“Of course, the foreign law I think is relevant is very old foreign law — very old English law. Because what is meant by the terms of the Federal constitution is dependent upon what Englishmen in 1791 considered to be due process of law, or what they considered to be cruel and unusual punishment. So I use foreign law all the time – but it is all very old English law.”
And we know what the English Law term of art “natural born” meant. As Justice Blackstone said,
“The children of aliens, born here in England, are, generally speaking, natural-born subjects, and entitled to all the privileges of such.”
And what did Justice Scalia say about Justice Blackstone,
“Blackstone, whose works, we have said, “constituted the preeminent authority on English law for the founding generation,”
From Scalia’s concurrence in Miller v. Albright:
Source: Tuan Anh Nguyen v. INS – Oral Argument
Scalia is no friend of the birthers 🙂
Uh-oh- Don’t give MichaelN any future ammunition 😉
My sister (a NBC) went to Italy for school, married an Italian, and had two daughters born in Italy. When they all moved back to the US, the girls were issued US Passports, didn’t go through any naturalization process, and my sister was told at the time that the State Dept. considered them Americans. One American parent was enough for a foreign birth.
> but it excludes secret or technical meanings that would not have been known to ordinary citizens in the founding generation
To the point. That’s why birfers fail so utterly in trying to establish Vattel as authoritative (with regard to NBC) for the Founders. Because Vattel was not authoritative (wrt NBC) in the legal world. So believing the Founders meant his NBC definition would mean they were using a “secret or technical meaning that would not have been known to ordinary citizens in the founding generation”.
Or, as I always say, if the birfers were right, the Founders were pranks who secretly meant a term with 400+ years of established meaning to have a different second meaning not known to even a small part of the general public. And, according to the birfers, all they did was leave a clue by writing about the “Law of Nations” elsewhere in the Constitution, expecting people to understand they were talking about a book by a Swiss guy.
And that’s why the whole NBC thingy will never fly the way the “I don’t know where he was born” meme did when Trump pimped it.
Which makes it doubly stupid all birfers are now going “it was never about the BC, it was always about the British father” – yeah right, as if they couldn’t have concentrated on the NBC issue without going after the BC. After all, if they had been right, Obama’s own admissions as to his father would have been enough. And he would have been forced to show a BC pointing to an American father to prove them wrong.
But they didn’t, which shows what a lie their “we have always been at war with Eurasia” is.
Ginsberg never stated that jus sanuinis was necessary, nor did she imply that. She merely expressed a view that she had believed that jus sanguinis was most likely sufficient. She never said that jus soli was insufficient.
In any event, your reasoning is contradictory unless we ignore the fact that it is impossible under US law to acquire citizenship at birth by both jus soli and jus sanguinis. The statutory provisions that allow for acquisition of citizenship by jus sanguinis apply only to those born outside the United States. It is an either/or proposition.
If we assume that jus sanguinis is necessary, then those who have citizenship by virtue of jus soli (the vast majority of US citizens) would be ineligible. If jus soli is better than jus sanguinis, then every person who has citizenship by virtue of jus soli is at least as eligible as anyone who is a US citizen by virtue of jus sanguinis.
It’s funny…
The same oral arguments that MichaelN is citing has Justice Antonin Scalia directly saying that Natural Born Citizenship is “jus soli”. That actually happens a little bit above the thing that Justice Ginsburg says, basically saying that it’s not only Jus Soli, but it incorporates anybody born a citizen.
In reality, if the case ever did get to the U.S. Supreme Court, there’d be a 9-0 decision on the Jus Soli part of it. There’d probably be between a 7-2 and a 9-0 decision declaring anybody born a U.S. Citizen to be a Natural Born Citizen.
Justice Antonin Scalia would probably write the majority opinion, considering how well versed he is in Blackstone and English Common Law.
Justice Antonin Scalia in the Oral Arguments of Tuan Anh Nguyen v. INS:
“Well, maybe.
I’m just referring to the meaning of natural born within the Constitution.
I don’t think you’re disagreeing.
It requires jus soli, doesn’t it?”
Oh, the link was: http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/2009/09/supreme-court-justice-scalia-believes-natural-born-citizenship-is-jus-soli
‘generally speaking’
But Blackstone was not specific and Lord Coke was specific when he stated that the aliens whose children ‘born here in England’ must be born ‘under the ligeance of a subject’ to be natural born subjects.
In other words, those aliens had to be subjects of the sovereign, for their children, if born in England, to be natural born subjects.
In England, it was the subject status of the parent father that was inherited by the child.
The child had to be ‘naturalized by procreation and birthright’, a natural born subject,due by ‘nature and birthright’, by the Law of Nature.
Two essential qualities were required to be a natural born subject, jus soli was not the only qualifier & jus sanguinis was the paramount quality according to English common law.
Without the parent father being a subject of the sovereign, a child born to such an alien cannot be a natural born, even if born in England.
There is nothing in what Scalia says that says that it doesn’t require jus sanguinis.
He would have to have said something like ….. “it requires ONLY jus soli, doesn’t it”
You are deluding yourself…………… your entire argument is based on absurdity and bigoted political bias….. you don’t want the truth …………. you are reading-in things that have not been said………… you only want what you wish things should be.
waiting for MichaelN’s famous dishonestly edited quote…. waiting for it… waiting…
waiting…
Well Michael tries to smear Sandra Day O’Connor on another site by cherry picking a quote from a bio which mentions Conservatives were concerned about her credentials when she was nominated.
Michael doesn’t think Sandra Day O’Connor is qualified to have an opinion on the matter, because, apparently, his Consittutional experience is far more than hers.
Nope – you been passing this nonsense off for a while now. Can you cite someone other them yourself who believes that load?
And you still have to explain Chief Justice Cockburn:
“By the common law of England, every person born within the dominions of the Crown, no matter whether of English or of foreign parents, and, in the latter case, whether the parents were settled, or merely temporarily sojourning in the country, was an English subject; save only the children of foreign ambassadors (who were excepted because their fathers carried their own nationality with them), or a child born to a foreigner during the hostile occupation of any part of the territories of England. No effect appears to have been given to descent as a source of nationality.”
“The law of the United States of America agrees with our own. The law of England as to the effect of the place of birth in the matter of nationality became the law of America as part of the law of the mother country, with the original settlers carried with them.”
Now, I know you think he is wrong but he is the expert on English Law not you.
And then there is William Rawle,
“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 I know you think he is wrong, but he is an expert on the Constitution not you. And he was appointed to be the United States District Attorney for Philiadelphia by President Washington and you were not.
And then there is this by James Madison,
“It is an established maxim that birth is a criterion of allegiance. Birth however derives its force sometimes from place and sometimes from parentage, but in general place is the most certain criterion; it is what applies in the United States”
And I know you think he is wrong but he is the expert on American citizenship at the time of the Constitution and you are not.
MichaelN, I see you’re back in the thread, so I’m still waiting for the answer to my previous question.
If Barack Obama is ineligible to be president because of his father’s Kenyan citizenship, which was public knowledge since the campaign, why was he certified and inaugurated as President?
Chemtrails? 😉
P.S. You won’t get a rational response to your question from a birther.
It’s not possible.
And there is no indication in any of Scalia’s remarks that it actually does require Jus Sanguinis, MichaelN. Scalia said that Natural Born Citizenship related to Jus Soli, or right of the soil. He directly said that Natural Born Citizenship was right of the soil. It seems odd for him to say that, when you’re arguing that he actually meant that it was right of the blood.
He said “[Natural Born Citizenship] is Jus Soli, isn’t it?” You’re deluding yourself if you actually believe that because he didn’t use the word “only” that he must secretly mean that it means the exact opposite of what it means.
Projecting much, MichaelN. I honestly am beginning to think that you’re not a real birther, and are just some troll deciding to have a little fun. There is no way that you can actually believe that when Justice Antonin Scalia says that Natural Born Citizenship is Jus Soli, that it secretly means that he believes that it’s really Jus Sanguinis, when for the most part, those things are mutually exclusive in law.
As I have noted before, jus soli and jus sanguinis are mutually exclusive in US citizenship law. Jus soli means no jus sanguinis.
I know, but I can’t really understand or follow debates on law. I look at all this talk about “Vattel” and “English common law” and “Perkins vs Elg” and “U.S. vs. Wong Kim Ark” and various other cases and quotes from Founding Fathers and see it as all just icing. I just look at the cake, comprised of three simple facts.
1) Barack Obama’s father was a British subject at the time of the president’s birth.
2) Everyone knows this.
3) Barack Obama was still inaugurated as President of the United States on January 20th, 2009.
It’s like if you saw a massive mathematical equation, and right smack dab in the middle of it was “multiply by zero”. Then you know that it’s useless bothering to think through any of the rest of the computations, since that multiplication by zero will just suck everything into a mathematical black hole.
ROTFL… The irony…. The irony… Sorry MichaelN, I had no idea that the facts would hit you so hard…
English definition of natural born, according to Lord Coke (Calvin’s case, cited in Wong Kim Ark, but the pertinent part not mentioned) is that if the alien parent father is not a subject of the sovereign (nothing to do with jurisdiction) then a child born in England to that non-subject father, cannot be a natural born subject.
Ergo: the subject/citizenship status of the parent father is the primary criteria in determining his child’s natural born subject status or non-subject status.
It is absurd t0 propose that the framers would have been derelict in their imperative to secure and protect the office of POTUS from any foreign influence, persuasion and claim.
It is an insult to the wisdom of the highly educated framers to propose that they would have not sought to require the highest imaginable allegiance possible for eligibility of POTUS.
That high allegiance can only be via being born in the nation, to parents who are citizens of that nation, any allegiance less than this would be uncertain and dubious.
Revionists in the legal fraternity, over time, have cherry-picked born to an alien makes a natural born’ from English common law, but they have omitted to mention that that although English common law allows children of aliens to be natural born if born in the land, the alien parent (visiting England) was considered as a subject of England and without the alien parent being a subject of the sovereign, a child born to a non-subject alien visiting England, cannot be a natural born unless born under the allegiance of a subject’.
In short the English common law actually requires jus soli and jus sanguinis (born in the land and to citizen parents) to make a natural born.
Here’s a direct quote from the benchmark English common law case i.e.Calvin’s case from which the alien parent = natural born’ was cherry-picked from, and the requirement for the subject/citizenship status of the parent was ignored and covered-up. (“issue” is a child)
“that issue is no subject to the King of England, though he be born upon his soyl, and under his meridian, for that he was not born under the ligeance of a subject”
Here’s another …… (Calvin was held to be a natural born subject of England)
“Calvin the plaintiff, naturalized by procreation and birth right”
TWO qualities to make a natural born subject, so there goes the absurd notion of only jus soli out the door.
This has been covered-up by and/or ignored by the revisionist elements of the legal fraternity & Co, dating back to early days of the republic.
Then why did they only require 14 years residency? Why not require Presidents to never have left the country?
I knew you couldn’t resist for long… Remember, everytime I see you post that lie, I’m going to counter it with the truth.
Here is the full sentence:
“for if enemies should come into the realm, and possess a town or fort, and have issue there, that issue is no subject to the King of England, though he be born upon his soyl, and under his meridian, for that he was not born under the ligeance of a subject, nor under the protection of the King.”
This is the part that you conveniently leave out when you spam us:
“for if enemies should come into the realm, and possess a town or fort, and have issue there,”
Try to follow;
Leaving aside, for the moment, your bullsh*t “two-citizen parent” theory, most experts will tell you that a child born in the United States is a natural-born citizen, with the following exceptions:
1. A child born to a diplomat.
2. A child born to an invading soldier.
Are you with me so far?
Now, reading the full sentence, it is clear the subject being discussed is an invading soldier. How do I know? The clue is the part that you always leave out: “for if enemies should come into the realm, and possess a town or fort,”
What the Full sentence does, is describe a situation (number 2, above) in which it is universally acknowledged where a child, although born here, is NOT considered a natural born citizen. Why? Because an exception is made for the children of invading soldiers.
You are repeatedly claiming that you found a case of a child simply being born here, and not being a natural born citizen: “that issue is no subject to the King of England, though he be born upon his soyl, and under his meridian, for that he was not born under the ligeance of a subject, nor under the protection of the King.”
What you are not letting the reader know, by cutting off that first part, is that you have found a situation where the child, although born here, is not considered natural born because it is from one of the two exceptions to the natural born rule.
You know, this part: “for if enemies should come into the realm, and possess a town or fort,”
To try and dumb it down further:
1- There are two exceptions to being natural born.
2- You found a case that describes one of the two exceptions.
3- You obscure that the case is referring to one of the two exceptions.
4- You believe it proves your point. It doesn’t. It proves you found a case describing one of the known exceptions, as well as you are dishonest.
The reason WHY the child is not considered natural born does matter MichaelN. It matters because there are two universally acknowledged exceptions to Jus soli*, and your situation describes one of them.
Duh.
Definition: Jus soli(Latin: right of the soil),[1] also known as birthright citizenship, is a right by which nationality or citizenship can be recognized to any individual born in the territory of the related state.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_soli
If what I say is wrong MichaelN, why not just leave the first part of the sentence when you quote it? Afraid it would show that you are full of sh*t?
What is your Mom’s email, MichaelN? I want her to know she raised a habitual liar and a bullsh*t artist.
Actually, it is you who cherry picks quotes – which is the main reason you still cannot find a legal authority who agrees with you.
And you still have yet to explain Chief Justice Cockburn:
“By the common law of England, every person born within the dominions of the Crown, no matter whether of English or of foreign parents, and, in the latter case, whether the parents were settled, or merely temporarily sojourning in the country, was an English subject; save only the children of foreign ambassadors (who were excepted because their fathers carried their own nationality with them), or a child born to a foreigner during the hostile occupation of any part of the territories of England. No effect appears to have been given to descent as a source of nationality.”
“The law of the United States of America agrees with our own. The law of England as to the effect of the place of birth in the matter of nationality became the law of America as part of the law of the mother country, with the original settlers carried with them.”
Now, I know you think he is wrong but he is the expert on English Law not you.
And then there is William Rawle,
“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 I know you think he is wrong, but he is an expert on the Constitution not you. And he was appointed to be the United States District Attorney for Philiadelphia by President Washington and you were not.
And there is Zephaniah Swift,
“The children of aliens born in this state are considerded as natural born subjects and have the same rights with the rest of the citizens.“
Of course, you think he is wrong, but he was the Chief Justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court, and you were not.
And of course, there is still James Madison,
“It is an established maxim that birth is a criterion of allegiance. Birth however derives its force sometimes from place and sometimes from parentage, but in general place is the most certain criterion; it is what applies in the United States”
And I know you think he is wrong but he is the expert on American citizenship at the time of the Constitution and you are not.
So were Chief Justice Cockburn, William Rawle, Zephaniah Swift, and James Madison, all revisionists?
> It is an insult to the wisdom of the highly educated framers to propose that they would have not sought to require the highest imaginable allegiance possible for eligibility of POTUS.
That high allegiance can only be via being born in the nation, to parents who are citizens of that nation, any allegiance less than this would be uncertain and dubious.
Then why oh why, Michael, have they left open the case where a “natural born citizen” (by your definition) acquires a second citizenship later in life, maybe as early as the day after his birth?
Why did they not ensure that not only “not natural *born*” citizens but also “after-birth dual citizens” were barred from becoming POTUS?
As to this day, no birfer has been willing and/or able to answer this simple question.
Why did the Founders allow little NBC John Doe to acquire Iranian citizenship at the age of 1 (or 18 or whenever) and become POTUS despite having obvious legal and emotional allegiance to Iran?
Why did they think that someone who willingly becomes a citizen of an enemy state after his birth is a better POTUS than someone who just happens to be born to a naturalized US citizen father one day before his naturalization becomes effective?
So, Michael, were your glorified Founders stupid idiots? Or is simply your premise (that NBC means what you think it means) totally bogus? Which of the two is it, since there is no third option?
This was part of Lord Coke’s argument that “neither soil nor climate” made the child born into the birth of a natural born subject, but the fact whether the child was born under natural ligeance to the King.
a} children born in Calais or Tournai at the time when these towns on French and German soil were possessions of the King of England, were natural born subjects of England and could own land in England. Charles Blount, 5th Baron Mountjoy was allowed to own land in England. You have been told this twice already.
b) on the other hand, children of ambassadors and invading armies , though born on English soil, were not natural born subjects. The sentence that you quoted refers to that: “for if enemies should come into the realm, and possess a town or fort, and have issue there, that issue is no subject to the King of England, though he be born upon his soyl, and under his meridian, for that he was not born under the ligeance of a subject, nor under the protection of the King.”
You have been told not twice but hundreds of times, here and elsewhere that chopping off important parts of sentences like that, is not only manifestly dishonest, but downright being economical with the truth. Still you keep doing it. And apart from that, still you keep chopping off the last part of the quote that starts with Shirley, to obfuscate the fact “is strong enough to make a natural subject” did NOT mean “is strong enough to make HIM a natural subject”
“which local obedience, being but momentary and incertain, is strong enough to make a natural subject; for if he hath issue here, that issue is a natural born subject:”
You have been economical with the truth for years now. Bowls of rice, Michael.
Thanks for saying that. You have just proven Wong Kim Ark was rightly decided. Because it does not matter a jot what Lord Coke said in Calvin’s Case (just like it does not really matter what Vattel really said) what matters to interpret the term”natural born citizen” as used in the Constitution is precisely what the legal fraternity thought on September 17 (see, I am using the US convention), 1787.
Folks, is there really any reason to argue with MichaelN anymore, since he just confessed he is pursuing a chimaera?
What is an insult to the framers is for one to project their beliefs onto the framers rather than look at what they and their generation said and did. None of these clowns can point to any evidence that the framers or anyone in their generation agreed with them. The fact is that the most important framers didn’t want any restrictions on office holding at all. The ones that did only wanted to made the foreign born ineligible. No one ever suggest limiting eligibility of anyone born in the United States for, as Madison said, allegiance was defined by place of birth,not parentage. One can look all day before seeing any legal authority of such period stating otherwise. Of course, the framers came from states that had adopted the English common law, including Clavin’s Case, and all case law for the next half century on citizenship and alienage would be based upon interpretation of English law and it was all jus soli. Of course, no one interpreted Calvin’s Case like Mikey. Rather, it is simply a fact that “natural born citizen” and “natural born subject” were conflated by everyone during this period. There is actually a whole body of case law interpreting English statutes regarding natural born subjects in the United States. Those are the facts and that is what court look at. People like Mikey know nothing about how courts interpret the Constitution.
Finally, the notion that anyone in the United States would think a child born of English parents on American soil would owe allegiance to England is again just ignorant of history for even England during such period would even claim such child owed allegiance to England. A child of English parents born in the US was an English subject by statute, but England wouldn’t claim the allegiance of such child unless it went back to England since England recognized jus soli as the dominant rule.
May one ask,
What is it about the citzenship status of the US President that so exercises and vexes MichaelN, a non US citizen or resident who lives in Australia.
Not saying he should not have an opionion, heaven forbid but why the vehemence, documented falsehoods, bone deep abhorrence of the current POTUS etc.
Inquiring minds would like to know.
I can only speculate that it might have something to do with the fact that Julia Gillard, the current Prime Minister of Australia, was born a British citizen in Wales. I would guess that Michael dislikes her, whether because she is from the Labour party, a woman, or likely in his case, both. His twisted mind may believe that if he can somehow convince Americans Obama is ineligible, he might be able to convince Australians that Ms Gillard is also ineligible. Of course, neither is true, but when has the truth ever mattered to Michael.
Then, why was framer Richard D. Spaight part of a caucus in 1824 that nominated Albert Gallatin for the Vice Presidency? Gallatin was Swiss born. His parents were foreigners, too. If the purpose of the NBC clause were to prevent foreign influence surely the grandfather clause would also have been written to prevent foreign influence. It didn’t. Foreigners were eligible for the presidency under the grandfather clause of Article 2.
Furthermore, one of the framers, James Wilson, was born in Scotland. He attended the University of Glasgow like Spaight. Spaight lived in Scotland from the age of 8 to the age of 20.
MichaelN seems to believe that there is a difference between an Article II “natural born citizen” and a 14th Amendment “born citizen.”
Unfortunately for him, no judge and no court in the United States agrees with his position.
The 14th Amendment says “ALL PERSONS BORN OR NATURALIZED…” It makes no exceptions for presidential or vice presidential candidates.
A born citizen is a natural born citizen under Supreme Court precedent and by statute.
Ah, the ‘sovereign’ citizen… Yes, there are a few who have similar beliefs, poorly founded in legal precedents, and based on a flawed understanding of the 14th Amendment, which was merely declaratory of the Constitution.
The 14th Amendment reminds us that under our original Constitution there are but two sources of citizenship: Natural-born or natural-ized.
It’s so trivially simple that one may wonder why people still get it wrong.
Source: US v. Mitchell, 405 F. Supp. 2d 602 – Dist. Court, D. Maryland 2005
Indeed, quote mining, especially when it ignores the proper context is not only not very helpful but also strongly frowned upon.
Both of Andrew Jackson’s parents were born in Ireland. President Jackson’s face is on the US Twenty Dollar bill today. His parents’ “allegiance” didn’t seem to effect his ability to be a loyal American.
Since there is no record of any discussion or debate about the term “natural born citizen” at the meetings of the Constitutional Convention, it is merely an 18th Century term of art that has been supplanted in the late 19th, 20th and 21st century by the term “Citizen of the United States at birth” which has statutory imprimatur.
If the current conservative majority on the US Supreme Court thought that there was a serious constitutional issue to be ruled upon, they would have already agreed to hear one of the Obama eligibility appeals that have reached them. They have rejected them all, without comment.
Those Americans who question Barack Obama’s allegiances should vote against him for reelction in 2012. However as of today, his job approval rating is at 52% approve and 43% disapprove.
Actually that is not correct. What the ruling observed is that if the father lacks allegiance, that is, is not obliged to follow the laws of the sovereign, then his offspring are not natural born. This excludes children born to invading military and foreign dignitaries. Children born to alien parents, not belonging to these classes, are born owing allegiance and thus natural born.
Or a much simpler explanation exists: That your revisionism is wrong…
Can we agree, then, that the whole of the legal establishment, indeed, every legal scholar in the history of the English language, disagrees with your reading of Calvin’s Case?
If that is the case, why are you wasting your time here instead of writing and publishing the journal article to end all journal articles – disproving the interpretation held by every legal scholar in the history of the English language?
No one here is going to believe you over every legal scholar in the history of the English language, no matter how many times you repeat your nonsense.
What’s more important is that no judge & no court is going to accept his argument over every legal scholar in history, and Barack Obama is now President. The only impediment to Barack Obama being President in 2013-2016 is the possibility that a viable GOP candidate for the office will emerge… and so far the GOP isn’t having much luck with that. See http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2011/05/poll_dennis_kucinich_would_bea.html and http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Elections/President/2011/0519/Can-Newt-Gingrich-save-his-campaign
Maybe Ron Howard will make a movie about MichaelN’s life and his amazing discovery that the entire US legal system is based on a mistake, and thus is null and void.
MichaelN: Why was Barack Obama inaugurated as president if he was not a natural born citizen due to the citizenship status of his father?
RIO has at least come up with an answer. A staggeringly stupid and racist answer (Congress covered it up so that the savage black people wouldn’t riot), but an answer nonetheless. Do you have an answer?
I just looked a bit closer at Pauline Hanson’s article on Wikipedia, and found this:
“Hanson alleged in her 2007 autobiography Pauline Hanson: Untamed & Unashamed that a number of other politicians had dual citizenship yet this did not prevent them from holding positions in Parliament.”
“Other” politicians being a reference to her friend Heather Hill being denied a seat in parliament for having used her British passport after receiving Australian citizenship. And quite obviously a snipe at Gillard. Surprise, when Pauline, born in Australia to Australia-born parents, contemplated moving to Britain (she reneged on that, probably after finding out Britain is not as white as she thought), she mysteriously did not need a visum – having kept citizenship inherited from her grandfather (now that could not possibly have been an automatic procedure).
> No one here is going to believe you over every legal scholar in the history of the English language, no matter how many times you repeat your nonsense.
No-one here or anywhere else outside the Birther Bizarro World.
Obviously Michael is pi**ed that he isn’t even a celebrity among the birfers who rather look to Apuzzo when it comes to arguing their silly NBC redefinition.
That’s right, the aliens visiting in amity were subjects, due to allegiance to the sovereign, children born to said subjects were NBS.
If the parent was not a subject, e.g. an enemy alien, then his child was not a NBS even when born in England …………… all because of the status of the parent.
England – parent not a subject = child not a natural born
USA – parent not a citizen = child not a natural born
You’re wrong.
Great analysis, Michael, except it’s wrong. That’s simply not how American law works. Maybe that’s because every judge and legal scholar disagrees with your interpretation of Calvin’s Case. But, I’m certain that if you keep repeating yourself on anti-birther websites, the legal community will, one day, take notice and change their ways!
Why is it ‘wrong’?
Because you rely on fallacy?
e.g.
“Description of Appeal to Common Practice
The Appeal to Common Practice is a fallacy with the following structure:
X is a common action.
Therefore X is correct/moral/justified/reasonable, etc.
The basic idea behind the fallacy is that the fact that most people do X is used as “evidence” to support the action or practice. It is a fallacy because the mere fact that most people do something does not make it correct, moral, justified, or reasonable.
Also Known as: Ad Populum
Description of Appeal to Popularity
The Appeal to Popularity has the following form:
Most people approve of X (have favorable emotions towards X).
Therefore X is true.
The basic idea is that a claim is accepted as being true simply because most people are favorably inclined towards the claim. More formally, the fact that most people have favorable emotions associated with the claim is substituted in place of actual evidence for the claim. A person falls prey to this fallacy if he accepts a claim as being true simply because most other people approve of the claim.
Also Known as: Appeal to the Old, Old Ways are Best, Fallacious Appeal to the Past, Appeal to Age
Description of Appeal to Tradition
Appeal to Tradition is a fallacy that occurs when it is assumed that something is better or correct simply because it is older, traditional, or “always has been done.” This sort of “reasoning” has the following form:
X is old or traditional
Therefore X is correct or better.
This sort of “reasoning” is fallacious because the age of something does not automatically make it correct or better than something newer. This is made quite obvious by the following example: The theory that witches and demons cause disease is far older than the theory that microrganisms cause diseases. Therefore, the theory about witches and demons must be true.”
Not only is your entire argument based on absurdity, it also relies on fallacy in a vein attempt to make it seem valid. …………… when it’s not.
Now you explain how Lord Coke and English common law is ‘wrong’.
Interesting.
The law is what judges say it is. Period.
Law is not science. It is not amenable to experimental falsification. The entire idea of citiizenship is an artificial construct from the scientific point of view. There is no gene that determines citizenship. I defy you from the geneomic sequence to tell an American from a Bolivian or a Swede.
Because you’re still spouting nonsense and you truly have no rational idea what you’re babbling about.
It’s bizarre and pathetic garbage based on bigoted fantasies and delusional extremism.
Our laws are not what you deliberately distort and falsify them to be.
That is why you’re wrong.
No, there’s nothing particularly interesting about people having rights to citizenship in more than one country, something which many hundreds of millions do. Someone born in Australia acquires Australian citizenship. If their ancestors came from elsewhere, as is the case for all non-Aboriginals (or even Aboriginals who came from East Africa if you go back far enough), then, depending on the laws of that country, they might have citizenship rights there as well. Since some countries choose to grant those rights down through multiple generations almost anyone might find they were a potential dual citizen. Mario Apuzzo could certainly claim Italian citizenship if he chose to as could his children. Even you Michael, might have citizenship rights in some country that your ancestors came from, and you might never even have been there. Yet you are still an Aussie and can be PM were your fellow Aussies foolish enough to elect you. What do you think of that?
This is getting really sad. It seems to be a common trait of people like Michael and paraleaglenm that they have their argument and no matter how much authority one cites they are not changing. Certain people don’t understand how the law works and are not going to be taught here.
Michael simply is too ignorant of history to know that aliens were sometimes called subjects in both England and the United States. Such is because the term meant that one had subjected himself to a duty of allegiance. Didn’t mean they had the rights of naturalized subjects or citizens. As a matter of history, they didn’t. Hence, Blackstone included aliens in his section of subjects, Framer James Wilson call aliens temporary subjects and the supreme court said domiciled aliens were subjects. Indians and slaves were also called subjects since they owed allegiance. Coke and later English jurists said the same class of persons were natural born subjects, the later jurists just didn’t call aliens subjects probably because it would confuse idiots. However, they reached the same result, just didn’t use the same words. Hence, even if Coke said the parents had to be subjects, then one would have to read him as saying everyone is a subject except children of ambassadors and invading enemies. So every child other than children of children of ambassadors and invading enemies were natural born subjects. Justice Gray said every child other than children of children of ambassadors and invading enemies was a citizen. Is it possible even Michael can see they reach the same results. But Michael can’t seem to understand this as his posts make clear he doesn’t understand anything about the law and is best ignored as he will repeat the same thing a thousand times like he did on Fogbow.
MichaelN: Why is it wrong’?
Because you rely on fallacy?
e.g.
“Description of Appeal to Common Practice
You see the problem is, that is how the law works. We rely on judicial precident. That whole list of purported fallicies doesn’t apply, because in fact, predicent can rather loosely be described as anyone of those statements. You see, the fact that every single judge has interpreted Lord Coke a certain way for 400 years makes that interpretation the law. Even if you did discover some new hidden meaning in what Lord Coke said 400 years ago, and that by some miracle, you, overcoming the great disability of never having studied the law, managed to do what 400 years of legal scholars couldn’t, the law is what every single judge said it was for 400 years, not what Lord Coke said. Of course the reality is that ever single legal scholar hasn’t been wrong for the past 400 years, and your novel reading is what is in error.
And you are correct, just because the law has been jus soli for 400 years, doesn’t make it necessarily better. It merely makes it the law. However, rather than lying about what the Common Law actually is, or what Lord Coke said, you should be arguing that the law should be changed, and give the reasons. Lawyers do that all the time (at least the ones honest enough not to fabricate the law).
No. Our argument relies on the law and precident. Your argument is not only absurd, but universally acknoweldged as wrong.
As has been explained 100 times here, it is neither Lord Coke or the English common law that are wrong. It is just your novel interpretation, that directly contradicts 400 years of precident, that is wrong.
Real simple, if enough of the AMERICAN (not Australian) people and government decide that the MichaelN’s view is right they can use the handy dandy Constitutional Amendment process to make it so.
Until then MichaelN you are SOL
Whilst digesting that MichaelN, inquiring minds are STILL waiting on your explaination at to why you are so exercised by the citizenship of the President of a country you have no link to.
Wasn’t that a Beautiful Mind?
The pattern I’m starting to notice is that the judicial authorities are wrong because they interpret law differently, and Birthers are right because they are right. Birthers are trying to found a National Tautology Club, I guess (motto: The First Rule of Tautology Club is the First Rule of Tautology Club).Was it RIO who was spouting off some garbage about how the matter of presidential eligibility was too important to be handled by the Supreme Court, who he described as something like “nine fools in robes”?
In other words, if a Birther case went to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court said “Barack Obama is a natural born citizen due to the status of his birth in Hawaii; the status of his parents’ citizenship is irrelevant”, the argument would then shift to “the Supreme Court is interpreting the definition of natural born citizen incorrectly”.
MichaelN, your arguments are bunk. It is absurd to think that the Founders would want as president someone without the highest possible allegiance of four citizen grandparents. I mean, if my father was born in Des Moines, IA; and his father was born in Yonkers, NY; and his mother was born in Los Angeles, CA; and my mother was born in Patterson, NJ; and her father was born in Northern California (where the girls are warm), but her mother was born in Germany during the rise of the Third Reich, how do we know that I’m not a secret agent paving the way for the eventual rise of the Fourth Reich? How can I be trusted with the office of President?
Let me make it even more interesting for you.
I was born in the United States, Both of my parents were U.S. citizens born in the United States, so even you would not dispute that I am a natural-born citizen.
However, my paternal grandmother was born in Ireland. Under Irish law, this makes me eligible for Irish citizenship. All I have to do is complete the requisite paperwork, provide proof of my grandmother’s birth and my relationship to her, and Voila! I am now a dual citizen of the United States and Ireland.
The question is – upon becoming a dual citizen, am I no longer a natural-born citizen? If I am no longer a natural-born citizen, what kind of citizen am I?
Clearly, I retain my U.S. citizenship, unless I renounce it. Clearly, I do not suddenly become a naturalized citizen, because I was born a citizen and have never been naturalized.
Please cite some legal precedent to support your position.
So pathetic, Michael. I’m not “appealing” to common practice, I’m defining terms according to common usage.
The Constitution isn’t interpreted by secret meanings of terms only known to Australians posting on blogs read by a few hundred die-hard anti-birthers, Michael. The Constitution is interpreted by the meaning assigned to those terms by the individuals writing that Constitution, and by the common men reading that Constitution.
The way you’re reasoning, Michael, is to say that if someone talked of witches and demons, they must have meant microorganisms, since witches and demons don’t cause disease.
Let’s just simplify your argument:
The Founders said jus soli, but they meant jus sanguinis, because it’s better and Michael believes he’s found the key to unlocking the mysteries of Calvin’s Case.
The critical factor is allegiance or ligeance. Go read Calvin’s Case and look at the definition of ligeance/allegiance, or, in your case, Ctrl-F the Case and see the uses of those terms. The thing that an enemy alien shared with a diplomat? They were not in ligeance with the King. You can even see it in the section about Sherley. You can see it in the other quote you love from Calvin’s Case:
Well, guess what happens with an alien in the United States, as soon as they enter the United States, they owe allegiance to the government. Carlisle v. United States:
Aliens who came into the United States were as much subjects/citizens of our nation as the aliens who went into the England of Calvin’s Case. They could be tried for treason. They still had to naturalize. Similar property restrictions applied. If anything, the alien in the United States was in a better position than the alien in England.
Let me summarize my argument for you, Michael:
1. You are wrong that Calvin’s Case requires some pseudo-naturalization of aliens.
2. Even if you were right, aliens were treated exactly the same in the United States.
Why do you NEVER even attempt to prove that aliens in the United States were treated differently? You rely entirely on nonsense arguments like, “obviously they were treated differently because aliens in the US had to naturalize” (ignoring, of course, that they still had to naturalize in England).
That’s gotta burn MichaelN’s ass that you quoted correctly… 😉
It says of “ligeance of a SUBJECT” ………………… it doesn’t say of the King.
It is via the subject status of the PARENT that the child gets to be a NBS.
Even the part when Coke spoke about ambassadors and their English wives, who have children abroad that are NBS, supports the PRIMARY quality of jus sanguinis as essential for NBS, where the ambassadors ligeance is so strong that it trumps born outside of England, where jus soli is irrelevant.
The point is that the subject status of the parent father is of paramount importance in BOTH INSTANCES, i.e. if the child is born IN England and if the child is born OUT of England.
Coke:
“The place is observable, but so as many times ligeance or obedience without any place within the king’s dominions may make a subject born, but any place within the king’s dominions may make a subject born, but any place within the king’s dominions without obedience can never produce a natural subject. And therefore if any of the king’s Ambassadors in forein Nations, have children there of their wives, being English women, by the Common Laws of England they are natural born subjects, and yet they are born out of the king’s dominions.”
“The place” is only “observable”, it is the ligeance of the subject that is the essential, paramount determining factor.
Coke:
”
“Ligeance is a true and faithful obedience of the subject due to his Sovereign”
“There be regulary (unlesse it be in special cases) three incidents to a subject born. 1. That the parents be under the actual obedience of the king. 2. That the place of his birth be within the king’s dominion. And 3. the time of his birth is chiefly to be considered;”
Sanguinis AND soli
Aliens visiting USA don’t have “a true and faithful obedience of the subject due to his Sovereign”
Let’s substitute ‘citizen’ for ‘subject’, as you like to do when it suits your agenda.
Aliens visiting USA don’t have “a true and faithful obedience of the citizen due to his sovereign Citizens”
To achieve this the USA requires oath of allegiance as a process of naturalization.
I wonder why MichaelN is flogging this schlock here, and not teaching Constitutional law at Harvard, when he clearly believes he belongs?
It’s like saying goes, we can’t ever fix the county because the only people who know how are cutting hair and driving cab.
“The definition and two-parent requirement has been reiterated by the Supreme Court and other courts in the cases of The Venus, 12U.S. 253(1814), Shanks v. Dupont, 28 U.S. 242 (1830), Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1856), Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1875) , Ex parte Reynolds, 20 F. Cas. 582 (C.C.W.D. Ark 1879), United States v. Ward, 42 F. 320 (1890); Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898), and Ludlam, Excutrix, & c., v. Ludlam, 26 N.Y. 356 (1863). It has also been confirmed by renowned legislators, including Senator Trumbull, the author of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and Representative John A. Bingham, the architect of the 14th Amendment to our Constitution.
In the case of The Venus 12 U.S. 253, 289 (1814), Justice John Marshall said: “Vattel, who, though not very full to this point, is more explicit and more satisfactory on it than any other whose work has fallen into my hands, says ‘The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives or indigenes are those born in the country of parents who are citizens. Society not being able to subsist and to perpetuate itself but by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights.’”
Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857)
“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. . . .” Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393, 476-77 (1857). As can be seen from the quoted language, the Court actually removed from the Vattel’s definition the reference to “fathers” and “father” and replaced it with “parents” and “person,” thus showing that it is not just one parent (the father) that needs to be a citizen, but the “parents,” i.e., both mother and father.
Chief Justice Waite, in Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1874), stated: “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.” Here we can see that the U.S. Supreme Court in all three of these cases adopted Vattel’s definition of what a “natural born Citizen” is, and specifically repeated his two U.S.-parent test. Dred Scott even removed the word “father” and replaced it with the word “parents.”
Fourteenth Amendment. Senator Trumbull, when commenting on that Amendment declared: “The provision is, that all persons born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens.’ That means subject to the complete jurisdiction thereof.’ What do we mean by complete jurisdiction thereof?’ Not owing allegiance to anybody else. That is what it means.” Sen. Howard added: “the word jurisdiction, as here employed, ought to be construed so as to imply a full and complete jurisdiction on the part of the United States, coextensive in all respects with the constitutional power of the United States, whether exercised by Congress, by the executive, or by the judicial department; that is to say, the same jurisdiction in extent and quality as applies to every citizen of the United States now.”
In The Slaughter-House Cases, 83 U.S. 36, 73 (1873), in discussing the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment’s citizenship clause said: “[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.”
http://puzo1.blogspot.com/2009/09/natural-born-citizen-clause-requires.html
Quoting Dred Scott to make your case, MichaelN?
How low will you go?
I knew you were obsessed with Obama, but I didn’t think you had been fitted for a white hood.
You are quoting a man, who on these very same arguments, had to answer a show cause order as to why the court should not sanction him for raising frivolous arguments? You are quoting a DWI attorney, not a Constitutional scholar. His arguments are laughed out of court, and you come here acting like you have something? This is even more pathetic than you constant misinterpretations and misrepresentations of Calvin’s case.
As a matter of fact, they do.
Carlisle v. US:
“Every foreigner born residing in a country owes to that country allegiance and obedience to its laws so long as he remains in it…”
The law is against you, Michael. And quoting loser Mario won’t change that.
Michael: Not only are you quoting out of context, you’re quoting very old, outdated cases to say the least. It’s the equivalent of my attempting to argue the phlogiston theory by quoting a bunch of 17th century papers and pretending they represented current science. I would be laughed out of the profession.
Can you find any recent cases that support your position? I won’t even ask for 21st century, 20th will do.
But of course Marshall did not use such a short citation from Vattel, but a much longer one. Marshall made the citation to find a definition of “domicile.” So it is somewhat of a fraud to suggest that the quotation goes with “more satisfactory” when the question was not about citizenship but domicile.
I think that this is a fraud.
In the first case, Marshall did not adopt Vattel’s definition of “natural born citizen” but rather adopted his definition of “domicile” with the former just incidental material in the citation. In the Dred Scott “US Supreme Court” did not adopt this definition, but rather one justice only adopted it. Finally in Minor, the court did not state a definition; it was talking about citizenship in general and clearly equated being “born a citizen” to “natural born citizen.”
Of course it doesn’t matter what I say; what matters is that no court will take up your crank theory and if somehow they did, you’d lose. It is also interesting that you cited what are two of the widely acknowledged worst decisions of the US Supreme court Dred Scott and the Slaughter-House Cases.
Whatever.
MichaelN,
Again, MichaeN is just showing his ignorance by quoting Apuzzo, another idiot. In The Venus, one Justice quoted Vattel solely on the issue of domicle of a citizen in time of war. The citation was not the opinion of majority and had nothing to do with citizenship at all. Any lawyer would understand that a citation on the issue of domicile cannot be cited as authority on anything other than domicile and any court would probably sanction any lawyer trying to claim it did. The same thing with Dred Scott as again Apuzzo is not citing the majority, but the opinion of one Justice who cited Vattel solely on the issue of whether citizens had equal rights. If you ever go to law school you would find out that you have to look at the context of a citation and one can only claim a quotation is authority on natural born citizenshp if it is defining natural born citizenship. Duh.
The rest of Apuzzo’s citations are pretty much the same Cases and citations that have nothing to do with citizenship at all. Sorry, Wong Kim Ark is the only case that addressed the issue and you clowns cannot deal with that. Probably shouldn’t get your Constitutional law advice from a DWI attorney.
Your quote of Trumbull is pure ignorance. Trumbull talked of “complete jurisdiction” regarding indians who lived on territory we didn’t completely control. Trumbull said over and over and over that children of aliens were citizens, that the President needed to a native-born citizen, that the English rule was the universal rule, that one owed allegiance to one’s place of birth and on and on. If one doesn’t think Trumbull embraced jus soli, one simply has done no research. Of course, MichaelN has done no research and his posts get dumber and dumber.
Then their would be no need for naturalization and oath of allegiance would there?
So, ‘every foreigner born residing in a country’ that ‘owes to that country allegiance and obedience to its laws so long as he remains in it’, actually owes true and faithful allegiance to his home country and lesser ‘allegiance and obedience’ to the LAWS ONLY of the country he is visiting.
From U.S. Supreme Court
Carlisle v. United States, 83 U.S. 16 Wall. 147 147 (1872)
“Aliens domiciled in the United States owe a local and temporary allegiance to the government of the United States; they are bound to obey all the laws of the country not immediately relating to citizenship during their residence in it, and are equally amenable with citizens for any infraction of those laws.
The alien owes allegiance to the US laws only & owes NO ALLEGIANCE to the sovereign citizens.
Funny thing, that the aliens referred to in Carlisle were enemy aliens & according to your principles cannot qualify as having ANY allegiance and obedience of a subject/citizen.
The aliens’ true and faithful allegiance was with their home nation sovereign & their temporary allegiance (if any in this case of Carlisle) was merely to the law, whereas a citizens of the country he was visiting owed complete true and faithful allegiance and obedience to BOTH their fellow sovereign citizens, the constitutional republic government AND the law.
Futhermore & generally speaking, due to international treaties, a US citizen within US would not normally be given over to a foreign government for legal prosecution, (the allegiance cuts both ways) but due to an alien’s true and faithful allegiance and obedience that is owed to his home nation sovereignty, he can be given over, hence the alleged allegiance of an alien that you absurdly suggest has some kind of equal footing with that of a US citizen doesn’t exist.
The mad part of your absurd argument is that you would have the children of these alien ‘traitors’ be eligible for the office of POTUS. ………… what a joke.
Your example was not a good choice ………….. try again.
No, Mike this is not the court accepting Vattel’s definition. Here let me paraphrase it for you and include the courts decision:
Obots and Birthers belive that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves. But Obots go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class, Birthers have doubts. This court will not decide who is correct.
Of course there would, for the foreign born persons who wish to immigrate to the US and become US Citizens.
Do they have naturalization statutes in England? Yes, they do. The alien in England and the alien in America both owe allegiance and both require naturalization.
And if you’d read Calvin’s Case, you’d know that Sherley, tried for treason, was an enemy alien. Enemy alien isn’t something the alien does, it’s something that the alien’s NATION does!
What happens with Sherley’s kids?
So, Sherley’s kid, the child of a traitor, is a natural born subject and eligible for the Privy Counsel.
Maybe you should try READING the cases you’re talking about!
Oops, Sherley is a traitor, not an enemy alien. Sherley’s kids are natural born subjects, but the invading soldier (whose nation is at war with England) is an enemy alien.
Why do you think Sherley’s different than the invading soldier, Michael?
Thought this might be of interest …………………. food for thought.
http://careers.state.gov/uploads/7a/3e/7a3e09941d0d9861c0906b45b2af86d2/DualCitizenship.pdf
Seems like Obama is clearly example 7.1, and wouldn’t be denied security clearance. Dual citizenship came from his parent and there is no evidence he has exercised any British rights or duties (or Kenyan).
The US Constitution forbids corruption of the blood as a punishment for treason. You can’t punish the kids for the crimes of the father. That’s something that was done in England. The Founders EXPLICITLY rejected the notion that dad’s crimes, even reason, should be punished by denying things to the children.
Your ignorance of the US constitution is insulting, Michael!
It should be pretty clear by now that trying to have honest debate with Michael is pointless. No matter what point of fact you raise he’s simply going to continue along the road of dishonesty, outright fabrications, and diversionary verbal diarrhea.
The problem is that while honest debate takes time, effort, and real research, conspiracy schlock does not. While you folks are working hard to make a solid case, Michael is simply cut-and-pasting whatever conspiracy crap he needs from nutter blogs. Consider also that there simply is no way for you to convince him with facts or logic, because there simply is no possibility that he will change his mind, no matter what. You might as well argue with a rock. There’s as much chance of convincing the rock, but at least you won’t have to listen to the rock spouting obvious crap.
If every constitutional expert in the US cannot convince Michael that a black man can be President, then why waste your effort on him?
Ooooops.
http://citizenwells.wordpress.com/2011/05/19/obama-2012-made-in-the-usa-made-definition-fictitious-invented-obama-attorneys-paid-in-the-usa-with-taxpayer-dollars/#comments
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BygadqqiFH8&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqvvqGqpkgE&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6W9z_-eKOG0&feature=player_embedded
He was an alien in amity, then turn-coated.
Because he was an alien in amity and a subject, it was reasoned that treason was the appropriate indictment.
On the other hand, the enemy alien was NOT a subject, it was because he was not a subject, with the ligeance of a subject, his kid cannot be a NBS even when the kid is born in the land ……………. it’s all about the subject status of the parent father.
What was that about “corruption of the blood as a punishment for treason”?
How come the kid could not be a NBS, he was born jus soli wasn’t he?
Answer: because the ESSENTIAL & PARAMOUNT quality required was for the parent father to be a subject.
I will clarify
Greg said:
“You can’t punish the kids for the crimes of the father.”
In the case of an alien enemy visiting England, then how come the kid could not be a NBS, he was born jus soli wasn’t he?
It’s not the kid’s fault, ‘you can’t punish the kids for the crimes of the father’ ……….. right?
In today’s world of USA with enemy insurgents acting outside the scope of foreign sovereignty, coming into the land breeding enemies, there is no way of knowing who’s an alien enemy or alien friend.
Larry Wells finally found Bigfoot?
Are there delusional lunatics from Australia coming here breeding enemies?
That sounds like a job for Planned Parenthood and Homeland Security.
Say hello to some what you call ‘natural born citizens’, the pool of allegiance & obedience ridden flock to choose your POTUS from.
http://www.propagandamatrix.com/images/january2007/220107mexicans5.jpg
Here’s your ‘natural born’ USA ‘evolving’, just the way certain fools would allow.
“A story carried on the liberal website Alternet, charts an explosion in brutal murders of blacks by Hispanic street gangs in L.A. Far from being gang on gang violence, the Latinos are targeting innocent blacks in accordance with a concerted ethnic cleansing campaign that seeks to eradicate all blacks from Hispanic neighborhoods.”
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/january2007/220107mexicangangs.htm
And you spew your silly racist accusations of people who seek to preserve the great nation that it took the blood, sweat and tears to establish.
Well it appears that’s what useful idiots are good for, kumbaya, kumbaya.
FIFY
Interesting you brought that up.
All the warning signs are right there in front of your face.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vxJD3az3nk&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qX4dcvIYk9A&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4MTQVMatW0&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOtGr1JFCnE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdPSqL9_mfM&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FO3NBqT3LBc&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Fjj6a8aBNU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DM45kYAKyCU&feature=related
A person can’t do anything to make himself an alien enemy, Michael.
Also, you do realize that Latino street gang is not the same as illegal immigrant, right? I don’t think we need help protecting OUR nation from the likes of you, a racist Aussie who doesn’t know jack-all about the Constitution!
I am finding, more and more, that the 2 parent argument from Michael and others is just a cover for, your position, station, clan, class, etc, in life is all decedent from your father. You are born to a station from you father and you can go no further (i.e. born to a class or citizenship or clan, etc.). It is quite the defense of feudalism. However, the concept of being born to a “station” in life is an insult to liberty and very un-American.
I should also note that Michael is also saying the important part is the father? Are we including some Jedi Pauly now? What is next, that Obama Sr., being the sole provider of “position” is of the wrong seedline?
Huh?
You wanna run that again?
Hey MichaelN, surprised to see you still here, what with the rapture and all
I’m just going to comment on this one as I know quite a bit about what was going on here.
Firstly, Philedelphia law states that anyone can strand 10 to 15 feet away from the door of a polling station. The men were standing at this distance and not causing any obstruction to people going in and out.
Second during the video you can clearly see a white man standing nearby and there was no harassment. Indeed as they were running up you can clearly see a white guy walking back and forth talking into a mobile phone with no interference from the panthers, and there was an Asian woman standing at the door when they started talking. No sign of intimidation
There was no shouting by the 2 black men, they were standing there peacefully. There was no swearing at the cameramen either. They spoke quietly for a minute or 2 then the Black Panthers ignored them.
One person claimed she heard people being shouted at but everyone else contradicted that claim.
When the police were called the man with the billy club left peacefully and with no fuss whatsoever.
The other man produced his Poll watchers card and was allowed to remain by the police. he had ever legal right to stand wherever he wanted as a poll watcher even against the door, but he was standing with his friend the legal distance away from the door.
While the video is rolling you can see people going in and out of the polling station with no harassment from the black panthers. Indeed the panthers only spoke to the camraman when spoken to. And after a while just ignored the cameramen. No threats, they just blanked them, which obviously seemed to confuse the hell out of the cameraman.
When the case came up in court the Black panther failed to appear but the court found him guilty of a misdemenor because of the billy club. No-one questioned his right to be there.
Finally, that was a black district that went 90% for Obama, If the guys HAD been blocking voters odds are they would have been costing Obama votes.
Seriously, in a country with as much gun ownership as America you are wetting your pants over a billy club?
And a few more things the blind birther bigots willfully ignore:
Bush DOJ decided New Black Panthers no major case
The charges against the New Black Panthers were downgraded by the Bush Department of Justice:
The decision not to file a criminal case occurred before Obama was even in office.
This means that the case was downgraded to a civil case 11 days before Obama was inaugurated, 26 days before Eric Holder became attorney general, and about nine months before Thomas Perez was confirmed as head of the Civil Rights Division.
From Media Matters:
# Adams has admitted that he does not have first-hand knowledge of the events, conversations, and decisions that he is citing to advance his accusations;
# The Bush administration’s Justice Department — not the Obama administration — made the decision not to pursue criminal charges against members of the New Black Panther Party for alleged voter intimidation at a polling center in Philadelphia in 2008;
# The Obama administration successfully obtained default judgment against Samir Shabazz, a member of the New Black Panther Party carrying a nightstick outside the Philadelphia polling center on Election Day 2008;
# The Bush administration DOJ chose not to pursue similar charges against members of the Minutemen, one of whom allegedly carried a weapon while harassing Hispanic voters in Arizona in 2006;
# No voters have come forward to claim that they were intimidated from voting on account of the New Black Panthers standing outside the polling center in 2008;
So, no matter how many times J. Christian Adams declares that the Obama administration refuses to protect the rights of white people — and no matter how many times Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh repeat it — it’s not true.
(excerpt – source: http://blogs.ajc.com/cynthia-tucker/2010/07/12/bush-doj-decided-new-black-panthers-no-major-case/
To Suranis:
P.S. Thanks. I don’t click on MichaelN’s spam links knowing they are most likely links to racist stupidity and senseless propaganda.
Sometimes they aren’t.
Sometimes they are links to senseless stupidity and racist propaganda.
Good point! 😀
So what did Lord Coke in Calvin’s case mean when he said …
“Calvin the plaintiff, naturalized by procreation and birthright“?
and
“that issue is no subject to the King of England, though he be born upon his soyl, and under his meridian, for that he was not born under the ligeance of a subject“?
How come no one here has or can show that this means that only jus soli is required to be a natural born subject/citizen?
(let the diversions, avoidance of the point and ad hominem begin) LOL
How come you still can’t honestly quote Lord Coke. I mean it’s not like you haven’t been called out on it 100 times. It’s not an ad hominem a liar and point out you’ve been dishonestly quoting Calvin’s case your entire time here. Please pay attention to the clause before what you quote.
“for if enemies should come into the realm, and possess a town or fort, and have issue there, that issue is no subject to the King of England, though he be born upon his soyl, and under his meridian, for that he was not born under the LIGEANCE of a subject, nor under the protection of the King.”
MIchaelN still flogging his horse burger I see.
MichaelN- Do you think we have the tiny memory of birthers and have already forgotten your hundreds of dishonest posts?
If it doesn’t change the meaning, how come you keep chopping off the beginning?
“for if enemies should come into the realm, and possess a town or fort, and have issue there,
Who is this describing, MichaelN? Could it be an enemy soldier?
Again, why do you never include the first line? You know that your dishonesty regarding this is known far and wide, and you are now just another birther running joke…..
MichaelN, to continually chop off the beginning of the statement, even after being called on it, is no less than lying. It shows a complete lack of ethics, honor and values. It is good the Doc is much more patient than I since I would have probably banned you for repeating constantly repeating only the partial statement.
Speaking of the King of England, I watched The King’s Speech last night and found it a very enjoyable movie.
It was OK, but i thought “The Social Network”, “True Grit” and “Winter’s Bone” were all more deserving of the Best Picture.
In my mind, “The King’s Speech” is a usurper to the title that rightfully belongs to one of those films. I can find dozens of film critics that agree with me and I won’t even have to take quotes out of context, nor attempt to mind read dead people.
How come no Birther can explain why Barack Obama’s election was certified by Congress and inaugurated even though he was apparently not eligible to hold office due to a publicly known fact?
I’d love to hear an answer, though I think I’d rather here you answer the other posters’ questions regarding your dishonest quote mining.
Why is anyone bothering to respond to Aussie Mike anymore?
The correct answer anymore to him is
“Whatever Aussie Mike, whatever”
Meanwhile the American voters will continue to interpret the Constitution the way we have for the last 200 hundred years.
Or perhaps the stock answer to MichaelN should always be…..
“for if enemies should come into the realm, and possess a town or fort, and have issue there,”
since that is the one thing he seems unable, or unwilling, to understand; the one thing that screws up his whole line of “reasoning”.
“for if enemies should come into the realm, and possess a town or fort, and have issue there,”
Parent with no ligeance of a SUBJECT = no subject = child not a NBS, even if born in the land = jus sanguinis required as ESSENTIAL for NBS = Wong Kim Ark ruled a ‘citizen’ only, even after all the dicta in WKA case about definition of NBC with reference made to English common law as the defining source.
= SCOTUS agrees with what Lord Coke said, i.e. jus sanguinis is the primary essential requirement to make a natural born.
Keep squirming.
“for if enemies should come into the realm, and possess a town or fort, and have issue there,”
Jus sanguinis is not the same as ligeance, Michael. Ligeance is what is required
In Calvin’s Case and WKA. But, I’m sure that if you keep repeating your misreading of Calvin’s Case here, the Supreme Court will correct the record. We know they’re big readers of this blog’s comments!
Reminds me of this old thing:
http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/2009/03/supreme-court-reads-birther-blog/
Says the person who has to butcher quotes to support the claim…Yeah…I’m really squirming…..I mean it’s not like I have 400 years of jurisprudence behind me. Oh wait, I do. Never mind.
“for if enemies should come into the realm, and possess a town or fort, and have issue there,”
“of a subject” = the status of the parent is essential in determining who is a NBS
keep squirming
Then those enemies are not subjects, so their kids cannot be NBS.
But if they are subjects (not enemies) their kids can be NBS (if born in the realm)
Hey MichaelN:
“for if enemies should come into the realm, and possess a town or fort, and have issue there,”
🙂 😉
“for if enemies should come into the realm, and possess a town or fort, and have issue there,”
“for if enemies should come into the realm, and possess a town or fort, and have issue there,”
Hey don’t look at me. I got bored with the silly fool a while ago.
Oh yeah, “for if enemies should come into the realm, and possess a town or fort, and have issue there,” 😀