The Elephant in the Constitution that No One References when dealing with the Natural Born Citizen Issue

The Elephant in the Constitution that No One References when dealing with the Natural Born Citizen Issue

Posted on January 17, 2016 by Tim Brown

The issue over the idea of natural born citizen is being touted quite a bit leading up to the GOP debate this week and in its wake, too many people are confused and have not looked at what the Constitution says, nor have they taken the time to go back and see how the founders understood the term. They regurgitate what conservative talking heads and such spew out about Supreme Court rulings and cite laws that do not deal with the term natural born citizen. However, the elephant in the room (or the Constitution) that is never addressed is the differences of how there are the apparent differences of citizens in the Constitution itself.
I have alluded to this previously when pointing out that the Constitution specifically addresses in the very qualifications that there are natural born citizens and citizens.
Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the US Constitution reads:

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. (Emphasis mine)

Now, there is no question that men like Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Bobby Jindal all meet the criteria of being at least 35 years old and have been residents in the States. There is also no question that these men are citizens. The question is, are they natural born citizens?
The other night in the debate, Ted Cruz mixed up natural born citizen and citizen just like he has in the past. However, he’s not the only one that does that. There are lots of people who claim you are either a citizen or a naturalized citizen and there is nothing else that can be added to another kind of citizen, but that’s not what the framers had in mind and it isn’t even what the Constitution presents to us.
First, as has been very eloquently presented by Publius Huldah, the founders had at least three copies of Vattel’s Law of Nations in their possession during the first Constitutional Convention and they made use of it. In that book, it is the first place that we read about a natural born citizen. Vattel writes concerning citizens and natives:

The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. As the society cannot exist and perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights. The society is supposed to desire this, in consequence of what it owes to its own preservation; and it is presumed, as matter of course, that each citizen, on entering into society, reserves to his children the right of becoming members of it. The country of the fathers is therefore that of the children; and these become true citizens merely by their tacit consent. We shall soon see whether, on their coming to the years of discretion, they may renounce their right, and what they owe to the society in which they were born. I say, that, in order to be of the country, it is necessary that a person be born of a father who is a citizen; for, if he is born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country. (Emphasis mine)

Clearly, Vattel, in defining natural born citizen, would have deemed Obama, Cruz, Jindal and Rubio as those who are not natural born citizens. I really don’t think there is any argument against Vattel on that. However, the question is, does the Constitution follow that thinking? Lo, and behold, it does.
As cited above, there is a clear distinction between a natural born citizen and the citizens in the grandfather clause. While many of those in America would be considered citizens at the time of the founding, they would never be natural born citizens and so this was the need for the grandfather clause.
But consider in addition to Article II, Section 1 that deals with the requirement to be a natural born citizen for the President, that there are other requirements for representatives and senators and notice the language:
Article I, Section 2 states:

“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, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.”

Article I, Section 3 states:

“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, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.”

Do you notice something that is obviously missing from a requirement of these offices that is in the requirement for President? That’s right, there is no requirement for representatives and senators to be natural born citizens. Rather, the framers simply used the term citizen, as they did in Article II, Section 1. We can also see that they emphasized a length of time one had to be a citizen to hold that office (7 years for a representative and 9 years for a senator).
So, what is the issue, you ask? Clearly, the framers saw, for lack of a better term, “different classes of citizens.” This has nothing to do with diminishing the rights of any citizen, but distinguished who would have the privilege of serving in these offices and who could not.
The real difference here is this: natural born citizen is a fact and citizen is a legal status.
Get that?
And lest you think I’m straining at gnats here, understand that the “devil is always in the details,” or in this case, the distinction of natural born citizen and citizen. The framers have even written in such a way to make that distinction. Every other place in the Constitution, only the term citizen is used and I believe it was a clear indication of protecting an office that only one man holds and they wanted to ensure that his loyalties were not divided with dual citizenship allegiances.
My contention in this matter is not about personalities. I have addressed the issue with Obama and now I’m addressing it with those who claim to be on my side. The issue is one of principle. To mix and match citizen with natural born citizen is to undermine the very wording of the Constitution and distinction of those terms for the purpose of holding office.
This article is far longer than I desired it to be already, but I hope that it sets a foundation of understanding that the Constitution presents the two citizens as distinct. I will continue my thoughts on this in a future installment. Stay tuned.
Courtesy of Freedom Outpost.




Thanks to: http://www.dcclothesline.com

http://www.oom2.com/t35172-the-elephant-in-the-constitution-that-no-one-references-when-dealing-with-the-natural-born-citizen-issue

Purpleskyz.  The article I read yesterday about Rubio; his parents came to the United States in 1956.  Marco was born in 1971 and his parents became United States Citizens in 1975.  This is going to call his qualifications into question also.

yep!

I guess they figure since Obama was able to pull it off twice why not go for it. lol

The rules just do not seem to apply any longer do they?

The Bushes did the same thing, as they were natives of Germany, and defected here, so legally, they should NEVER have been president, EITHER one of them-And you can see exactly why- Look what they did to this country, and Obastard will TRY to finish what they started-

Actually they do. The author has neglected to mention other pertinent facts, including historical law. First of all, this has never been tested in court regarding presidential eligibility, so we have to depend oh historical law and cases tangential to this all. There are plenty of cases on the other side of the coin, establishing that a child born in the US of citizens of another country is indeed, by virtue of birth a Natural Born Citizen, however I did not find any cases that address children born abroad of American citizens.

British Law however was quite clear that a child born of British subjects outside of the British Empire were indeed British subjects by birth and uses the term Natural Born in describing them. Remember as former subjects of the British Crown, the framers of our Constitution would have been intimately familiar with this law and the language of it as well. Further Blackstone's Commentaries, arguably the most authoritative commentaries on British Law, also clearly stated this:

all children, born out of the king's ligeance, whose fathers were natural-born subjects, are now natural-born subjects themselves, to all intents and purposes, without any exception; unless their said fathers were attainted, or banished beyond sea, for high treason; or were then in the service of a prince at enmity with Great Britain.

But was this what the Framers of the Constitution had in mind? I submit that the evidence clears indicates it was. In 1790 the first congress passed the "Naturalization Act of 1790." Keep in mind that most of the members of this congress were also members of the Constitutional Convention. Also remember that the President George Washington was also a member, and was in fact the president of the convention, presiding over all sessions. He was also very deliberate and careful in his decisions, constantly aware that everything he said or did was precedent setting, even vetoing bills because he was unsure of their constitutionality. With that in mind, remember he signed this act into law. So what did the law say?

[mention]The Naturalization Act of 1790
8. Ch. 3, 1 Stat. 103 (repealed 1795)[/mention] wrote:
provided that “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 later act did not include the words "Natural Born," but I'm trying to keep this short, so I will only point out that correspondence between Washington and and first Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story support the natural born citizen interpretation. In fact in his commentaries, Joseph Story wrote:

the purpose of the natural born Citizen clause was thus to “cut[] off all chances for ambitious foreigners, who might otherwise be intriguing for the office; and interpose[] a barrier against those corrupt interferences of foreign governments in executive elections.”

Keep in mind his own children were born abroad. We do also have some precedent, as about a half dozen candidates have similar pedigrees, Most recently, George Romney, Mitt's father, Barry Goldwater, John McCain, and Lowell Weicker. Perhaps in that there is legal precedent after all, and not just of usage, since the US Senate unanimously voted:

The U.S. Senate unanimously agreed that Senator McCain was eligible for the presidency, resolving that any interpretation of the natural born citizenship clause as limited to those born within the United States was “inconsistent with the purpose and intent of the ‘natural born Citizen’ clause of the Constitution of the United States, as evidenced by the First Congress’s own statute defining the term ‘natural born Citizen.’”

I have to conclude that while the Constitution Convention never defined "Natural Born" and the Supreme Court has not ruled on it's meaning, the preponderance of evidence states that Ted Cruiz, (and on the other side, born in the US of non-citizen parents,) Marco Rubio, and Bobby Jindall would all meet the intent and the letter of the law in this matter.

terbo56 wrote:The Bushes did the same thing, as they were natives of Germany, and defected here, so legally, they should NEVER have been president, EITHER one of them-And you can see exactly why- Look what they did to this country, and Obastard will TRY to finish what they started-

Huh? Pappa Bush was born in Milton MA, and his Son was born in New Haven CT. That is a matter of public record.

In 1991, I read, I believe it was in the New York times, or U.S.A. today, that they had in fact, defected from Germany, this is what I read, and from what I gather, there were other people that knew this, too, just sayin'-Their last name, in Germany was 'Sherff'-They own the 'Commerz' { German} bank in Houston, Texas-

Maybe it does not matter any longer because there is no restrictions like citizenship to be the CEO of a corporation, which is actually what that person that is most likely already hired for that job is. Which is also why the supreme court could not oust Obama when he failed to show a valid birth certificate. Only matters if you follow the articles of the Constitution not the articles of the corporation. Maybe there is another aspect that I am unaware of though on how this could not be an issue any longer.