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Logical: Founders Fathers Intent: The Real Purpose Of The "Natural Born Citizen" Requirement
Birther Report
2/8/2016
Excerpt:
Birther Report reader sent in the following:
I have sent this to at least 15 pundits and news people from Rush, to Hannity, to O'Reilly, To Beck and no one will acknowledge that there may at least be a question to be discussed here but rather, like the militant global warming crowd who demand that it is settled science, demand that this is settled law.
The purpose of the "Natural Born Citizen" requirement.
Constitutional provision:
Section 1 of Article Two of the United States Constitution sets forth the eligibility requirements for serving as president of the United States:
“ No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
Ted Cruz, in my opinion, is the closest thing to a "rock-ribbed conservative" we have running for President and I admire and support him in his position as a Senator but because at the times of their births, Ted Cruz (father was not a citizen), Marco Rubio (both parents were not citizens), Bobby Jindal (both parents were not citizens), Nikki Haley(father was not a citizen, mother unknown) and Barack Obama (father was not a citizen) are all ineligible to be President or Vice President due to the "Natural Born Citizen" requirement.
"The purpose of the natural born citizen clause is to protect the nation from foreign influence. Alexander Hamilton, a Convention delegate from New York, wrote in Federalist No. 68 about the care that must be taken in selecting the president: "Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption. These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one quarter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils." St. George Tucker, an early federal judge, wrote in 1803 that the natural born citizen clause is "a happy means of security against foreign influence", and that "The admission of foreigners into our councils, consequently, cannot be too much guarded against." Delegate Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina said in a speech before the Senate, "to insure experience and attachment to the country, they have determined that no man who is not a natural born citizen, or citizen at the adoption of the Constitution, of fourteen years residence, and thirty-five years of age, shall be eligible."
"There was also a perception that a usurper from the European aristocracy could potentially immigrate and buy his way into power.Constitutional scholar Akhil Amar points out that the laws of England specifically allowed a foreign-born head of state, and that this had been an unhappy experience for many who had immigrated to the United States."
A Natural born (born of two parents that are citizens at the time of the birth of the person in question) is distinctly different from simply a citizen by birth, a native born citizen or of course a naturalized citizen. There is an important reason that the founders included the words "Natural Born" only for the offices of President and Vice President and not for Senators and Representatives. That reason is because of the Commander in Chief responsibilities for the President.
So let's say that Barbara Streisand and Cher were to travel to Germany (via a time machine) and North Korea and hook up with Hitler and Kim Jong-un and have a child by each. Would those children be eligible to be POTUS? No, of course not. This was exactly the kind of thing the founders were trying to protect against. The main threat in their time being the British. By putting at least one generation between a President and the country or countries of his family origins, it was hoped that a divided allegiance could be avoided for the Commander in Chief of the U.S. military, not to mention the welfare of the U.S.A. in general.
What Did Our Framers mean by “natural born Citizen”? The meaning of this term is not set forth in The Constitution. What does this tell us?
That they all knew what it meant. We don’t go around defining “pizza,” because every American over the age of four knows what a pizza is.
Our Framers had no need to define “natural born Citizen” in the Constitution, because by the time of the Federal Convention of 1787, a formal definition of the term consistent with the new republican principles already existed in Emer Vattel’s classic, Law of Nations.
And we know that our Framers carefully studied and relied upon Vattel’s work.
Emer de Vattel (25 April 1714 – 28 December 1767) was a Swiss philosopher, diplomat, and legal expert whose theories laid the foundation of modern international law and political philosophy. He is most famous for his 1758 work (The Law of Nations or the Principles of Natural Law Applied to the Conduct and to the Affairs of Nations and of Sovereigns) which focused largely on the rights and obligations of citizens and states. The Law of Nations has been described as "unrivaled among such treatises in its influence on the American founders".
Book 1. OF NATIONS CONSIDERED IN THEMSELVES.
By:Emmerich de Vattel
CHAP. XIX.
OF OUR NATIVE COUNTRY, AND SEVERAL THINGS THAT RELATE TO IT.
§ 211. What is our country.
The whole of the countries possessed by a nation and subject to its laws, forms, as we have already said, its territory, and is the common country of all the individuals of the nation. We have been obliged to anticipate the definition of the term, native country (§ 122), because our subject led us to treat of the love of our country — a virtue so excellent and so necessary in a state. Supposing, then, this definition already known, it remains that we should explain several things that have a relation to this subject, and answer the questions that naturally arise from it.
§ 212. 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.
§ 215. Children of citizens born in a foreign country.
It is asked whether the children born of citizens in a foreign country are citizens? The laws have decided this question in several countries, and their regulations must be followed.(59) By the law of nature alone, children follow the condition of their fathers, and enter into all their rights (§212); the place of birth produces no change in this particular, and cannot, of itself, furnish any reason for taking from a child what nature has given him; I say "of itself," for, civil or political laws may, for particular reasons, ordain otherwise. But I suppose that the father has not entirely quitted his country in order to settle elsewhere. If he has fixed his abode in a foreign country, he is become a member of another society, at least as a perpetual inhabitant; and his children will be members of it also.
.................................
View the complete Birther Report presentation, including comments, at:
http://www.birtherreport.com/2016/02...tent-real.html
CONTINUED IN THE FOLLOWING REPLY
Birther Report
2/8/2016
Excerpt:
Birther Report reader sent in the following:
I have sent this to at least 15 pundits and news people from Rush, to Hannity, to O'Reilly, To Beck and no one will acknowledge that there may at least be a question to be discussed here but rather, like the militant global warming crowd who demand that it is settled science, demand that this is settled law.
The purpose of the "Natural Born Citizen" requirement.
Constitutional provision:
Section 1 of Article Two of the United States Constitution sets forth the eligibility requirements for serving as president of the United States:
“ No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
Ted Cruz, in my opinion, is the closest thing to a "rock-ribbed conservative" we have running for President and I admire and support him in his position as a Senator but because at the times of their births, Ted Cruz (father was not a citizen), Marco Rubio (both parents were not citizens), Bobby Jindal (both parents were not citizens), Nikki Haley(father was not a citizen, mother unknown) and Barack Obama (father was not a citizen) are all ineligible to be President or Vice President due to the "Natural Born Citizen" requirement.
"The purpose of the natural born citizen clause is to protect the nation from foreign influence. Alexander Hamilton, a Convention delegate from New York, wrote in Federalist No. 68 about the care that must be taken in selecting the president: "Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption. These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one quarter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils." St. George Tucker, an early federal judge, wrote in 1803 that the natural born citizen clause is "a happy means of security against foreign influence", and that "The admission of foreigners into our councils, consequently, cannot be too much guarded against." Delegate Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina said in a speech before the Senate, "to insure experience and attachment to the country, they have determined that no man who is not a natural born citizen, or citizen at the adoption of the Constitution, of fourteen years residence, and thirty-five years of age, shall be eligible."
"There was also a perception that a usurper from the European aristocracy could potentially immigrate and buy his way into power.Constitutional scholar Akhil Amar points out that the laws of England specifically allowed a foreign-born head of state, and that this had been an unhappy experience for many who had immigrated to the United States."
A Natural born (born of two parents that are citizens at the time of the birth of the person in question) is distinctly different from simply a citizen by birth, a native born citizen or of course a naturalized citizen. There is an important reason that the founders included the words "Natural Born" only for the offices of President and Vice President and not for Senators and Representatives. That reason is because of the Commander in Chief responsibilities for the President.
So let's say that Barbara Streisand and Cher were to travel to Germany (via a time machine) and North Korea and hook up with Hitler and Kim Jong-un and have a child by each. Would those children be eligible to be POTUS? No, of course not. This was exactly the kind of thing the founders were trying to protect against. The main threat in their time being the British. By putting at least one generation between a President and the country or countries of his family origins, it was hoped that a divided allegiance could be avoided for the Commander in Chief of the U.S. military, not to mention the welfare of the U.S.A. in general.
What Did Our Framers mean by “natural born Citizen”? The meaning of this term is not set forth in The Constitution. What does this tell us?
That they all knew what it meant. We don’t go around defining “pizza,” because every American over the age of four knows what a pizza is.
Our Framers had no need to define “natural born Citizen” in the Constitution, because by the time of the Federal Convention of 1787, a formal definition of the term consistent with the new republican principles already existed in Emer Vattel’s classic, Law of Nations.
And we know that our Framers carefully studied and relied upon Vattel’s work.
Emer de Vattel (25 April 1714 – 28 December 1767) was a Swiss philosopher, diplomat, and legal expert whose theories laid the foundation of modern international law and political philosophy. He is most famous for his 1758 work (The Law of Nations or the Principles of Natural Law Applied to the Conduct and to the Affairs of Nations and of Sovereigns) which focused largely on the rights and obligations of citizens and states. The Law of Nations has been described as "unrivaled among such treatises in its influence on the American founders".
Book 1. OF NATIONS CONSIDERED IN THEMSELVES.
By:Emmerich de Vattel
CHAP. XIX.
OF OUR NATIVE COUNTRY, AND SEVERAL THINGS THAT RELATE TO IT.
§ 211. What is our country.
The whole of the countries possessed by a nation and subject to its laws, forms, as we have already said, its territory, and is the common country of all the individuals of the nation. We have been obliged to anticipate the definition of the term, native country (§ 122), because our subject led us to treat of the love of our country — a virtue so excellent and so necessary in a state. Supposing, then, this definition already known, it remains that we should explain several things that have a relation to this subject, and answer the questions that naturally arise from it.
§ 212. 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.
§ 215. Children of citizens born in a foreign country.
It is asked whether the children born of citizens in a foreign country are citizens? The laws have decided this question in several countries, and their regulations must be followed.(59) By the law of nature alone, children follow the condition of their fathers, and enter into all their rights (§212); the place of birth produces no change in this particular, and cannot, of itself, furnish any reason for taking from a child what nature has given him; I say "of itself," for, civil or political laws may, for particular reasons, ordain otherwise. But I suppose that the father has not entirely quitted his country in order to settle elsewhere. If he has fixed his abode in a foreign country, he is become a member of another society, at least as a perpetual inhabitant; and his children will be members of it also.
.................................
View the complete Birther Report presentation, including comments, at:
http://www.birtherreport.com/2016/02...tent-real.html
CONTINUED IN THE FOLLOWING REPLY
Comment