On March 20, Larry Klayman filed a lawsuit in Leon County, Florida Circuit Court. The case is Voeltz v Obama. Another defendant is Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner. The lawsuit urges the state to keep President Obama off the November 2012 ballot on the grounds that he does not meet the constitutional qualifications. The complaint argues that “natural-born citizen” means the child of an adult U.S. citizen, and also disputes the authenticity of the long-form birth certificate the President released last year. Here is the seven-page complaint.
Florida is one of the states that has a policy of not printing presidential candidates’ names on the general election ballot if the candidate does not meet the constitutional qualifications. For example, in 2008, the Socialist Workers Party presidential candidate, Roger Calero, did not meet the constitutional qualifications. States that nevertheless printed his name on the November 2008 ballot, or accepted him as a declared write-in candidate, are Connecticut, Delaware, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Vermont, and Washington. The Socialist Workers Party was on the ballot in Florida in 2008 but the state would not print Calero’s name, so the SWP used a stand-in, James Harris, in Florida and certain other states.
Seriously Larry?
NBC = AT BIRTH allegiance to a regime.
naturalization = change in allegiance to another regime.
See the U.S.A. naturalization laws – i.e. the OATH that new U.S.A. naturalized citizens take when they get their final naturalization document.
Difficult ONLY for legal history MORONS.
—
Foreign females (both legal and illegal) having births physically in the U.S.A. are NOT subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S.A. regime in 14th Amdt, Sec. 1.
Waiting for SCOTUS to clean up one more of its own messes.
If anyone can do it, Larry Klayman can. Obama has not produced valid legal proof of his eligibility. Vital documents attributed to him are proven forgeries. More are simply hidden. The official Sheriff Arpaio investigation confirmed the already irrefutable proof, now under rules of evidence, by professionals. A little harder for arrogant judiciary to slough off. The legal natural born citizen arguments are substantiated: http://www.art2superpac.com/issues.html
All that is left is to compel the system to honestly rule on it. It would be a big, BIG mistake to continue the biggest political fraud in history.
How many subversions thus far of the 1787 Constitution, as amended by the robot party hacks in the courts ??? — to be *politically correct*, of course.
NO foreign regime connection allowed for a U.S.A. CIC — for obvious reasons.
See the various nonstop machinations in Europe for centuries as to who was a legal successor to the various dead kings/queens, etc. — NOT to happen in the U.S.A.
The meaning of Natural Born Citizen comes from the common law and refers to US citizens who were citizens at birth, as opposed to naturalized citizens who were not citizens at birth. ALL US citizens who were born in the USA are Natural Born Citizens.
“Under the longstanding English common-law principle of jus soli, persons born within the territory of the sovereign (other than children of enemy aliens or foreign diplomats) are citizens from birth. Thus, those persons born within the United States are “natural born citizens” and eligible to be President….”—- Edwin Meese, et al, THE HERITAGE GUIDE TO THE CONSTITUTION (2005) [Edwin Meese was Ronald Reagan’s attorney general, and the Heritage Foundation is a well-known Conservative organization.]
“What is a natural born citizen? Clearly, someone born within the United States or one of its territories is a natural born citizen.” (Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on OCTOBER 5, 2004)–Senator Orrin G. Hatch (R-UT).
“Prior to the adoption of the constitution, the people inhabiting the different states might be divided into two classes: natural born citizens, or those born within the state, and aliens, or such as were born out of it. The first, by their birth-right, became entitled to all the privileges of citizens; the second, were entitled to none, but such as were held out and given by the laws of the respective states prior to their emigration. …St. George Tucker, BLACKSTONE’S COMMENTARIES: WITH NOTES OF REFERENCE TO THE CONSTITUTION AND LAWS OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND THE COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA. (1803)
“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.”—William Rawle, A VIEW OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 2d ed. (1829)
“Concerning specifically the reading into the Constitution of a two-citizen- parent requirement for “natural born” citizenship status, it should be noted that there is, significantly, no historical nor controlling legal holding in American jurisprudence to support the argument that parental citizenship governs and controls the eligibility of a native born U.S citizen to be President. As indicated in the discussion of the history of the constitutional provision, there is also no justification for this unique theory, which would exclude an entire class of native born U.S. citizens from eligibility for the Presidency, in any of the statements or writings of the framers of the Constitution, or in the entire record of the ratification debates of the United States Constitution.”– Qualifications for President and the “Natural Born” Citizenship Eligibility Requirement, Jack Maskell, Congressional Research Service, November 2011.
Foreign folks ILLEGALLY in the U.S.A. are INVADERS — even if they are highly pregnant women having foreign fathers —
voluntarily in the U.S.A.
or involuntarily in the U.S.A. — i.e. forced into the U.S.A. (sex/drug gangs, etc.) or by accident — shipwrecks, etc.
What SANE regime EVER has declared that the kids of such INVADERS are NBC of the regime involved ???
How about those hoards of Japanese military invaders of soverign U.S.A. territory in 1941-1945 ??? — raping all sorts of American, etc. women — some of whom had kids.
Were such Japanese Empire father kids subjects of the EVIL Japanese Empire or U.S.A. NBC kids ???
ehancock,
The “common law” that defines a “natural born Citizen” is not the English “common law,” but rather American “common law.” See Minor v. Happersett (1875) (defined a “natural born citizen” as a child born in a country to citizen parents); U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) (defining a “citizen” under the colonial English common law but accepting Minor’s American “common-law” definition of a “natural born citizen”). Clearly, that definition, requiring citizen parents, is not based on the English common law and this is the word of our U.S. Supreme Court in both Minor and Wong Kim Ark. Rather, that definition is based on natural law and the law of nations.
The quote that Obama supporters plaster all over the internet as being made by Edwin Meese was not made by him, but rather by James C. Ho. Meese was only the editor of the book in which the Ho article appeared. Ho does not provide any authority for his definition.
Senator Hatch’s statement is also not supported by any authority.
Also, your quote of St. George Tucker is not accurate and misleading. You, along with others who surf the net in defense of Obama, have left out the first part of the quote which shows that Tucker was only repeating what someone else said. Here is the full quote:
“A very respectable political writer makes the following pertinent remarks upon this subject. ‘Prior to the adoption of the constitution, the people inhabiting the different states might be divided into two classes: natural born citizens, or those born within the state, and aliens, or such as were born out of it. The first, by their birth-right, became entitled to all the privileges of citizens; the second, were entitled to none, but such as were held out and given by the laws of the respective states prior to their emigration.’”
Also, this quote only addresses citizenship before the Constitution was adopted. The Constitution recognizes this “citizen” as an Article I “Citizen.” If you read what Tucker wrote on the subject, you will see that the first “Citizens” were only treated as or deemed to be “natural born Citizens” because they, with at least 35 years of age and 14 years of residency within the United States, had the right to be elected President. They were not actually “natural born Citizens.” Tucker wrote: “Persons naturalized before the adoption of the constitution, it is presumed, have all the capacities of natural born citizens. See C. U. S. Art. 1, 2.” In fact, the Framers had to grandfather the first Article I “Citizens” to be eligible to be President. But for those born after the Constitution was adopted, along with the minimum of 35 years of age and 14 years of residency within the United States, only the true “natural born Citizens” could be eligible to be elected President, i.e., only those children who were born in the country to citizen parents.
Also, and on the contrary, Tucker believed that the “civil right” to be elected President belonged only to the children of citizens. See http://puzo1.blogspot.com/2012/03/putative-president-barack-obamas.html.
Additionally, Tucker did not agree with Rawle, not only on expatriation but also on defining a “natural born Citizen.” Tucker is much more authoritative than Rawle.
I note that missing from your and Jack Maskell’s definition of a “natural born Citizen” is any reference to any founders or U.S. Supreme Court cases that support your revisionist jus soli definition of an Article II “natural born Citizen.”
Mario Apuzzo, Esq.
http://puzo1.blogspot.com.
Mario Apuzzo and two other birther lawyers have the strange notion that Minor vs Happersett, which states right in it that it was not going to decide and is dicta (because it is a voting rights case and the quotation they cite is about citizenship) is a precedent. It is not. Precedents are recognized as such. It is not possible to have a secret precedent.
So, if Minor vs Happersett really did rule that two citizen parents are required then at least one of the six hundred or so lawyers on the Electoral College would have known that it was a precedent and would have changed her or his vote to vote against Obama (none of them did), and the same applies to the 500 or so lawyers in the US Congress, at least one of them would have voted not to confirm Obama. But not one recognized that Minor is a precedent, and of course it is not a precedent.
Even if it were a precedent, and it isn’t, it was before the Wong Kim Ark case which ruled six to two that every child born in the USA is Natural Born.
The actual words of that ruling were:
““It thus clearly appears that, by the law of England for the last three centuries, beginning before the settlement of this country and continuing to the present day, aliens, while residing in the dominions possessed by the Crown of England, were within the allegiance, the obedience, the faith or loyalty, the protection, the power, the jurisdiction of the English Sovereign, and therefore every child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject unless the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign State or of an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was born.
III. The same rule was in force in all the English Colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the Constitution as originally established.”
Now that ruling is the law. That is why it was referred to in the Meese volume. Sure Meese did not write all the words in his book. But are you saying that he did not commission conservative legal scholars? Or that the Heritage Foundation did not commission conservative legal scholars???
And, in fact, what the Meese quotation says is just what the Wong Kim Ark ruling says:
““Under the longstanding English common-law principle of jus soli, persons born within the territory of the sovereign (other than children of enemy aliens or foreign diplomats) are citizens from birth. Thus, those persons born within the United States are “natural born citizens” and eligible to be President….”—- Edwin Meese, et al, THE HERITAGE GUIDE TO THE CONSTITUTION (2005) [Edwin Meese was Ronald Reagan’s attorney general, and the Heritage Foundation is a well-known Conservative organization.]
Both say that the meaning of Natural Born Citizen comes from the common law. Both say that the meaning refers to the place of birth, as Tucker used it, not to the parents of the citizen (as Vattel, who was not even mentioned once in the Federalist Papers, is said to have used it [though his words were not translated to use the term Natural Born Citizen until ten years after the US Constitution])
Either honestly, or probably not so, birther lawyers claim that the Wong Kim Ark quotation does not say that all children born in the USA (except for the children of foreign diplomats and invaders) are Natural Born. But that is exactly what it says. And some birther lawyers claim that the Wong Kim Ark ruling did not say that Wong Kim Ark was a Natural Born Citizen. But, it did rule that he was a citizen. And it did say that every child born in the USA was natural born, and he was born in the USA–so he was both a citizen and natural born and hence a Natural Born Citizen.
It is strange that only these three or four birther lawyers do not see this fact. Perhaps they think that Wong Kim Ark was not really a ruling.
Yes, I agree with you, American common law applies. Indeed, that is what the Wong Kim Ark ruling says. You remember the words: ”
III. The same rule was in force in all the English Colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards..”
Moreover, it is not a question of whether the common law applies. The issue is whether the words Natural Born come from Vattel or “natural law” or from the common law, and the Supreme Court, and the Meese volume, and virtually everyone but the birther lawyers say that it comes from the common law.
Vattel, as I said, was not even mentioned once in the Federalist Papers. John Jay was a LAWYER, an expert in the common law. He even wrote the common law into the 1777 Constitution of New York. IF he had been referring to the Vattel definition or to “Natural Law,” he would have said.
Re: ““A very respectable political writer..”
Thank you for pointing that out. I may have given the impression that I was quoting Tucker as an authority. If so, forgive me. My intent was to use Tucker as an example of how the phrase Natural Born Citizen was actually used at the time that the Constitution was written. It was in his book published in 1803. And, as you kindly pointed out, he was quoting another writer.
Well, guess what that does. It shows that TWO American writers at about the time of the writing of the Constitution were using Natural Born Citizen to refer to the place of birth, only the place of birth, no mention of parents. Have you got ANY writers at the time who used the term Natural Born Citizen (or for that matter Natural Born Subject) to refer to the parents of the citizen?? Any example at all???
Don’t you think that if the writers of the US Constitution were to use the term Natural Born in any other way than the way that they were familiar with (and they were mainly lawyers), they would have TOLD US?
Regarding the odd birther notion that the framers having had to grandfather themselves because they thought that they were British. This is an amusing idea, but it is not relevant. And it is not true.
Most of us are familiar with the fact that after the US got its independence from Britain, a lot of other countries did too. Do you think that the new citizens of Ireland or India or Israel etc thought of themselves as British before their countries became independent? NO. The Irish always considered themselves Irish, and the Americans considered that they were American, even before the Revolution. The grandfather clause has nothing to do with the US-born leaders, such as Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Madison. It was inserted to allow for leaders who were not even born on US soil, such leaders as Alexander Hamilton, to become president.
There have been seven US presidents who had foreign parents including Obama.
Thomas Jefferson
Andrew Jackson
James Buchanan
Chester A. Arthur
Woodrow Wilson
Herbert Hoover
Obama.
Of these two fell under the grandfather clause, Jefferson and Jackson.
As to the others, the ones who were not under the grandfather clause:
Birthers claim that James Buchanan’s father was naturalized before his birth. Unfortunately for them, THERE IS NO EVIDENCE OF IT. No evidence at all.
Birthers claim that Chester A. Arthur hid the fact that his father was not a US citizen. Unfortunately for them, THERE IS NO EVIDENCE OF IT. There is no evidence that Chester A. Arthur kept his father’s citizenship secret. So, it is likely that people knew about it when he was picked to run as Garfield’s vice president.
And Wilson’s and Hoover’s mothers were foreign citizens.
Birthers say that they had been naturalized before the births. Actually, they were only made US citizens due to laws that made women who married US men automatically US citizens. That is hardly the same thing as being naturalized, in which you have to give up your citizenship in the foreign country and swear an oath. Because Woodrow Wilson’s mother never formally gave up her British citizenship, Woodrow was, at birth, a dual citizen.
Turning back to Jackson. BOTH of his parents were not US citizens at the time that he was born. Neither of his parents were US citizens at the time that he was born.
Granted that he was under the grandfather clause. But rationally IF the citizenship of the parents really had an effect on a person’s loyalty Jackson would be the least loyal of presidents, far less loyal than those with two citizen parents and less loyal than those with one citizen parent. Yet Jackson–with two foreign parents–was the most fiercely loyal of them all.
So, there is the argument for biology, which is more rational than law. IF we have a large number of presidents with foreign parents, and there is no evidence that they were more disloyal than presidents with two citizen parents, then what is the evidence that presidents whose parents are not US citizens are more disloyal than presidents whose parents were US citizens. And, if there is no evidence to convince us–then what is the evidence that the writers of the US Constitution believed it either???
If we today do not believe that a US-born child of foreign parents will tend to be less loyal than the US-born child of US parents (and Jackson’s loyalty shows that the US-born children of foreigners can be highly loyal), why believe that the writers of the US Constitution believed it either?
If they had believed it, they would have said it. But they didn’t say it. All that they did was use the term Natural Born, which referred at the time to the place of birth, not to the parents.
Three state courts and one federal court have now ruled specifically that Obama is a Natural Born Citizen, all citing the Wong Kim Ark decision as the basis of their decision. Birther lawyers continue to claim that Natural Born comes from Vattel or from “Natural Law” (which a dozen natural law philosophers all thought was different), but there is no evidence for that, and there are actual examples of Americans using the term Natural Born in the way that it was used in the common law.
Re: “Foreign folks ILLEGALLY in the U.S.A. are INVADERS — even if they are highly pregnant women having foreign fathers —”
Obama’s father (and Rubio’s and Jindal’s parents) were in the USA quite legally.
Moreover, your idea that an illegal alien is an enemy invader for the purposes of Natural Born status is simply your opinion. There has not been a single legal ruling that said any such thing.
Indeed, the courts have ruled that even the children of illegal aliens are Natural Born.
Diaz-Salazar v. INS, 700 F.2d 1156 (7th Cir. 1983) (child born in US to Mexican citizen is “natural born citizen” of US):
“Petitioner, Sebastian Diaz-Salazar, entered the United States illegally [from Mexico] in 1974 and has been living and working in Chicago since that time. *** The relevant facts which have been placed before the INS, BIA, and this court can be summarized as follows: The petitioner has a wife and two children under the age of three in Chicago; the children are natural-born citizens of the United States.”
Probably you would like to pass a constitutional amendment saying that the US born children of illegal aliens are not citizens and not natural born. You have the right to petition your legislators to do what you desire. But right now the meaning of Natural Born Citizen includes all children born in the USA except for the children of foreign diplomats and actual invaders (enemy armies and navies).
Re: “How about those hoards of Japanese military invaders of soverign U.S.A. territory in 1941-1945 ??? — raping all sorts of American, etc. women — some of whom had kids.”
Although Japan did bomb several parts of America, the only part of the USA that was actually occupied by Japan were the Aleutian Islands of Attu and Kiska, both very small and very cold. I do not believe that there were any Eskimo women on the islands at the time.
Theoretically, however, if the Japanese had brought their own women with them and children were born on the islands of Attu and Kiska–well, then, they would not have been US citizens.
Re Tucker. You refer to this, which is your summary of what he is supposed to have said: “Tucker even told us that the “civil right” to be elected President belonged only to the children of citizens which informs us that he too defined a “natural born Citizen” as a child born to citizen parents”
Please provide a citation and the full quotation.
Re Ramsay: It is important to stress that Ramsay was not giving his definition of Natural Born. He was giving his definition of what is required to become a citizen. His idea of citizenship law is now irrelevant. What applies is US statute law on citizenship, and the 14th Amendment.
But Ramsay never said that “you have to have two citizen parents to be natural born.” He said that you have to have two citizen parents to be a citizen. As far as we know Ramsay used Natural Born the way that Tucker did and the way that it was used in the common law.
How many times has SCOTUS over-ruled its brain dead MORON earlier opinions as being UN-constitutional ???
Answer – see the Const Annotated at the end.
Too many New Age know-it-all MORONS to count.
Lucky 13 —
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/hlaw:@field(DOCID+@lit(fr00379))
The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 [Farrand’s Records, Volume 3]
Page 61
LXVIII. John Jay to George Washington.3
[Note 3: 3 Documentary History of the Constitution, IV, 237.]
New York 25 July 1787
Permit me to hint, whether it would not be wise & seasonable to provide a a strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government; and to declare expresly that the Command in chief of the american army shall not be given to, nor devolve on, any but a natural born Citizen.
———–
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/hlaw:@field(DOCID+@lit(fr003113))
The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 [Farrand’s Records, Volume 3]
Page 76
XCIX. George Washington to John Jay.2
[Note 2: 2 Documentary History of the Constitution, IV, 269.]
Philadelphia Sept. 2d 1787
I regret not having had it in my power to visit New York during the adjournment of the Convention, last Month. — not foreseeing with any precission the period at which it was likely to take place or the length of it, I had put my carriage in the hands of a workman to be repaired and had not the means of mooving during the recess but with, or the curtisy of, others.
I thank you for the hints contained in your letter
———-
The NBC language was a September, 1787 LATE addition in the 1787 Federal Convention. See Farrand.
ZERO debate on the NBC language — ALL of the delegates knew what it meant.
———-
Jay would be appointed to be the first Chief Justice of SCOTUS by President Washington in 1789.
ehancock,
(1) You said: “But not one recognized that Minor is a precedent, and of course it is not a precedent.”
In Lockwood, Ex Parte (Ex Parte Lockwood), 154 U.S. 116 (1894), the Court looked to Minor and said: “In Minor v. Happersett, 21 Wall. 162, this court held that the word ‘citizen’ is often used to convey the idea of membership in a nation, and, in that sense, women, if born of citizen parents within the jurisdiction of the United States, have always been considered citizens of the United States, as much so before the adoption of the fourteenth amendment of the constitution as since.”
Then in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898), the Court said in referring to Minor: “The decision in that case was that a woman born of citizen parents within the United States was a citizen of the United States, although not entitled to vote, the right to the elective franchise not being essential to citizenship.” U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649, 680 (1898).
Looks like both Lockwood and Wong told us that Minor “held” or made a “decision” about Virginia Minor’s citizenship. Id. at 680.
(2) Your said: “Even if it were a precedent, and it isn’t, it was before the Wong Kim Ark case which ruled six to two that every child born in the USA is Natural Born.”
The Court said no such thing. Provide the actual quote from the Court. Nowhere will you find mentioned in the Wong decision that the Court ruled that Wong was a “natural born Citizen.” Rather, what the Court held was that Wong, being born in the United States to domiciled alien parents, was a “citizen” under the Fourteenth Amendment. You cannot produce one quote from the Court which shows that it found Wong to be a “natural born Citizen.” You are simply making stuff up and putting words into the Court’s mouth that do not exist.
(3) You said: “[E]very child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject unless the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign State or of an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was born.”
Article II says “natural born Citizen,” not “natural born subject.” The latter is a much looser term, with broad allegiance, which also includes naturalized subjects. The former is a word of art, and idiom which per Minor only had one definition which created no doubt as to its meaning.
(4) You said: “Vattel, who was not even mentioned once in the Federalist Papers.”
There exists so much historical evidence showing the great influence that Vattel had over the Founders and Framers that your statement does not merit a response.
(5) You said: “Moreover, it is not a question of whether the common law applies. The issue is whether the words Natural Born come from Vattel or “natural law” or from the common law, and the Supreme Court, and the Meese volume, and virtually everyone but the birther lawyers say that it comes from the common law.”
You are being dishonest here. I said the definition of a “natural born Citizen” comes from American “common-law,” not English “common-law.” Show me that given how Minor defined a “natural born Citizen,” it used English “common-law” rather than American “common-law.” You cannot.
(6) You said: “Have you got ANY writers at the time who used the term Natural Born Citizen (or for that matter Natural Born Subject) to refer to the parents of the citizen??”
David Ramsay, Thomas Jefferson, St. George Tucker, and Chief Justice John Marshall defined birthright citizenship as belonging only to the children of citizens. That means that they defined a “natural born Citizen” as a child born to citizen parents. From U.S. Supreme Court cases such as The Venus, 12 U.S. (8 Cranch) 253, 289 (1814) (Marshall, C.J., dissenting and concurring for other reasons), Inglis v. Sailors’ Snug Harbor, 28 U.S. 99 (1830), Shanks v. Dupont, 28 U.S. 242, 252 (1830), Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393 (1856) (Daniels, J., concurring); Minor v. Happersett, and U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, we known that the full definition is a child born in the country to citizen parents.
(7) You said: “Regarding the odd birther notion that the framers having had to grandfather themselves because they thought that they were British. This is an amusing idea, but it is not relevant. And it is not true.”
Of course you want to make anything that moves a “natural born Citizen” so you do not have to explain anything. Your position on the grandfather clause is rather absurd. You maintain that anyone who is born a U.S. citizen is a “natural born Citizen.” We know that the Founders and Framers were not born U.S. citizens. They could not be “natural born Citizens,” for they were born English “natural born subjects.” They were naturalized to be U.S. citizens through the Declaration of Independence and by adhering to the Revolution. Great Britain also recognized them as such through the Treaty of Peace of 1783. Hence, they not only do not meet your own incorrect definition of a “natural born Citizen” (born a citizen), they were in fact not “natural born Citizen,” but rather only “Citizens.”
(8) You said: “[T]here is no evidence that they were more disloyal than presidents with two citizen parents.”
The “natural born Citizen” clause presents a bright line rule for eligibility. Either one is a “natural born Citizen” or one is not. It matters not what one’s personal situation is which is only relevant, after one meets the eligibility requirements, to convince the public to vote for one.
Clearly Mr. Klayman brings something new to the table, conciseness. Mr. Apuzzo (commenting here) should study Klayman’s technique.
Mr. Apuzzo says: “The ‘natural born Citizen’ clause presents a bright line rule for eligibility. Either one is a ‘natural born Citizen’ or one is not. It matters not what one’s personal situation is which is only relevant, after one meets the eligibility requirements, to convince the public to vote for one.”
That’s right, and based on the Jay letter, and Federal Convention delegate Pinckney’s later comment, the founders understood the Constitution’s intent to be that the President is “not a foreigner” and that he “have an attachment to the country.” In order to insure these, the Constitution requires that the US President be born a citizen, i.e., a natural born citizen.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines “natural born” this way: “Having a specified position or character by birth; used esp. with subject.” So a natural born CITIZEN would be one having the position of CITIZEN by birth. The OED gives an example of the phrase in a sentence:
“Every one who first saw the light on American soil was a natural-born American citizen.” That was from Bancroft’s “History of the United States”.
There is a reason why Klayman will lose: he is wrong.
Re:
“You cannot produce one quote from the Court which shows that it found Wong to be a “natural born Citizen.” You are simply making stuff up and putting words into the Court’s mouth that do not exist. ”
Lawyers are supposed to know about logic, and I was told that you are a lawyer.
So, under logic, syllogisms, when there is a statement that uses the word EVERY, that means that every single member of the class is referred to. And when the Supreme Court says EVERY CHILD, that does not mean some children. It means all of them.
What the Supreme Court said was that EVERY child born in the USA (except for the children of foreign diplomats and foreign invaders) was NATURAL BORN.
Wong Kim Ark was born in the USA, and his parents were not foreign diplomats or foreign invaders. He must therefore fall under the category NATURAL BORN. He, and all the other children like him. Wong Kim Ark fell into the category Natural Born, and he was ruled by the court–as you said (thank you)–a US citizen. He was therefore both a US citizen and Natural Born, and was hence, duh, a Natural Born Citizen.
Re: “We know that the Founders and Framers were not born U.S. citizens. They could not be “natural born Citizens,” for they were born English “natural born subjects.”
Keep spinning. They were Britisn Subjects. They became American citizens automatically on July 4, 1776. The Irish, who were born before Ireland became independent, became Irish citizens when Ireland became independent from Britain. Both the Irish and the Americans were Irish and American before the dates of independence. Both received their legal citizenship with the legal transfer of government, but they were Irish or American long before the legal transfer.
They were BORN Americans and BORN Irish. They were Natural Born before the transfer of power. But Alexander Hamilton was not Natural Born. He was not born in one of the 13 original colonies, and hence he was not a Natural Born citizen under the common law, which referred to the place of birth. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson (despite his foreign mother) and James Madison were all Natural Born Citizens due to their place of birth. But Alexander Hamilton wasn’t. The grandfather clause was for Hamilton, not for Washington.
And that, of course, turns out to be the way that Americans at the time actually used the term Natural Born. Here is an example from 1803 (which, you have pointed out, two American writers had stated, so it is the example of the use of the term by two writers):
“Prior to the adoption of the constitution, the people inhabiting the different states might be divided into two classes: natural born citizens, or those born within the state, and aliens, or such as were born out of it. The first, by their birth-right, became entitled to all the privileges of citizens; the second, were entitled to none, but such as were held out and given by the laws of the respective states prior to their emigration. …St. George Tucker, BLACKSTONE’S COMMENTARIES: WITH NOTES OF REFERENCE TO THE CONSTITUTION AND LAWS OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND THE COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA. (1803)
The actual use of the term Natural Born Citizen (1) refers only to the place of birth; and, (2) applied even before the adoption of the Constitution. To be sure, it does not say “Prior to the Declaration of Independence”–but the Irish example still holds, and the stated meaning of the place of birth still holds.
Re: “The “natural born Citizen” clause presents a bright line rule for eligibility. Either one is a “natural born Citizen” or one is not.”
I COMPLETELY AGREE. WE ARE IN 100% AGREEMENT.
But, what is the meaning of Natural Born? The overwhelming consensus of scholars holds that it comes from the common law and refers to the place of birth.
Only under your definition, which has no proof, and which has actual examples to the contrary, would we have to exclude some really fine presidents who had foreign parents. If Thomas Jefferson were running today, under your notion he would not be eligible. His mother was foreign. If Andrew Jackson were running today, under your notion he would not be eligible, BOTH of his parents were foreign.
However, neither of them would have to be excluded today because the meaning of Natural Born does not refer to parents. It refers to the place of birth, and Jefferson and Jackson were born in the USA.
I would agree with you completely that if the writers of the Constitution had said “two citizen parents,” or “one citizen parent”–that would be the rule. But they did not say it.
So, IF the Minor vs Happersett ruling had actually believed that two citizen parents were required, it would have been wrong. Fortunately, it did not say any such thing. I agree that it has been used as precedent in other cases. In fact, it was quoted (but not about two citizen parents) in Wong Kim Ark. Still, the fact remains that Wong Kim Ark was after Minor, so if Minor had actually been a ruling, then Wong Kim Ark would have overturned it. And Wong Kim Ark said that EVERY CHILD BORN IN THE USA IS NATURAL BORN.
Re: “f course you want to make anything that moves a “natural born Citizen”
Answer: Absurd. A naturalized citizen is not a Natural Born Citizen.
Let’s look at BHO senior. He was born in Kenya Colony.
However, not every person born in Kenya Colony was a subject on the King of England at that time period.
In 1919 at Zanzabar, BHO seniors father was naturalized
as a Subject of the Sultan of Zanzibar by decree. This
would make BHO senior at his birth a Subject of the Sultan of Zanzibar also at his birth and a British Protected Person, because Zanzibar was a Protectorate
of the King of England until December 9, 1963.
For BHO junior who was born on Mombasa Island in the
then Kenya Protectorate, he would also be a Subject of
the Sultan of Zanzibar and a British Protected Person.
BHO junior would be at the date of his birth a Subject of the Sultan of Zanzibar and a British Protected Person
if he was born in the United States, under the terms
of the Zanzibar Naturalization Decree of 1919 and the
British Nationality Act 1948. My research shows that
BHO junior was born on Mombasa Island, in the then Kenya
Protectorate (status at time of BHO junior’s birth on
August 4, 1961).
I can not see why so many people refer to the “British
Nationality Act of 1948” (sic.). The proper form is the
“British Nationality Act 1948”. There is no “of” in its
title.
Sincerely, Mark Seidenberg, Chairman, American Independent Party of California.
Re: “For BHO junior who was born on Mombasa Island in the
then Kenya Protectorate…”
Obama was born in Hawaii, as his birth certificate, the confirmation of THREE Republican officials and the 1961 birth notices in the Hawaii newspapers show. In 1961 the birth notices were only sent to the papers by the DOH of Hawaii, and they only did it when the child had received a Hawaii birth certificate, and they did not issue Hawaii birth certificates in 1961 to people who were born outside of Hawaii.
For those of you who still believe that Obama could have been born somewhere else than in Hawaii, a question for you:
I’ll bet that you know (but, actually, you may have forgotten) that the US government requires, and has long required, that a child being carried into the USA must have some kind of official travel document to be admitted. This is usually a US passport for the child. Or, it could be the fact that the child is entered on the mother’s US passport. Or, it could be a US visa for the child on a foreign passport. Without one of those, we would not let the child into the country.
So, IF Obama really had been born in Kenya (or in any country other than the USA), he would have had to have one of those documents–wouldn’t he? His family would have had to show the passport, wouldn’t they? To show the passport, they would have had to have applied for the passport or the visa for Obama. And, if Obama really were born in Kenya (or another country), they would have had to have applied for it in the US consulate or embassy there, wouldn’t they?
Such applications are FILED by the US government. The documents exist in multiple files, the actual application itself, communication about it with Washington, entries in the passport file, entries in the application file, entries in the places where the child is carried into the USA. The Bush Administration was in charge of the State Department and the INS for eight years before Obama was elected. Don’t you think that they would have checked the claim that he was born outside the USA?
All they had to do was find one of those files and McCain would win the election.
Well, they never did. There is no such file.
So the question is, do you think that the Bush Administration was part of the plot?
Do you think that the files, the documents, the application for the documents, the communications about the documents were all lost or hidden? Remember, they are in multiple files, the file of the passport holder, the files of applications for passports, the files in the US embassy in foreign countries, the files in the State Department and in the INS (which would have checked in Obama at an entry point if he had actually traveled in 1961)–and yet no document has been found. Why not?
The absence of the travel document, plus the Hawaii birth certificate, plus the confirmation of the facts on it by three Republican (and several Democrat) officials, plus the birth notices in the Hawaii newspapers in 1961, plus the witness who remembers being told of the birth and writing home about it (to her father, named Stanley, about the unusual event of a birth to a woman named Stanley). All this is evidence that Obama was born in Hawaii. Oh, and by the way, Obama’s Kenyan grandmother NEVER said that Obama was born in Kenya. That was the first of the birther lies. She said repeatedly in the taped interview that he was born in Hawaii. And she said in another interview, with the Hartford Courtant newspaper, that the first that her family had heard of Obama’s birth was IN A LETTER FROM HAWAII.
Under British Law, if BHO junior’s father was a British Protected Person and a Subject of the Sultan of Zanzibar
at his birth, than BHO junior is also at his birth a
British Proected Person and a Subject of the Sultan of
Zanzibar at his birth. This would be the case if he was
born in Hawai’i. I do not believe that BHO junior was born in Hawai’i, because on August 28, 1961 (at 24 days
of age) he boarded the ship S.S. Uganda at Mombasa Island on a voyage to Tilbury Dock, Port of London
(arriving on September 20, 1961) with his mother.
Five days latter, viz., September 25, 1961, Stanley Ann
Obama was in a class at the University of Washington Extention, Seattle. The air flight was on B.O.A.C.
from London to Montreal, Canada. It is still unknown
to me how Stanley Ann and her baby BHO junior got from Montreal to Seattle. However, in September, 1961, British Columbia and Washington State had an open border.
Sincerely, Mark Seidenberg, Chairman, American Independent Party of California
ehancock,
In your post # 18, you stated that a child to travel
into the United States must have some kind of travel
document “to be admitted”. Have you ever read the
term (slur) WOP, viz. With Out Papers!?
I have never stated that BHO was ever “admitted” into these United States. I also find no “admission records” that John McCain III was ever admit into the United States. There is no record of a Panama Passport ever issued to John McCain III. Remember, John S. McCain III was born out of wedlock in the Colon Hospital
on Colon Island, Republic of Panama. At birth John
McCain III was a Citizen of Panama. I have found no
document showing he has lost his Panama citizenship.
John S. McCain was born on August 29, 1936 and was not
included in the collective naturalization act of August
4, 1937, because his parents were never married at the
time of his birth and his mother Robert McCain nee Wright was not employeed by either the United
States Government or the Panama Railroad Company (or its
successor in title) at the time of John S. McCain III birth in the Republic of Panama.
You asked also, about documents needed to enter the United States in the case of BHO junior with his mother.
That was a question I had at one time. However, you
and I thought, there most be documentation to have a
lawful admission. What if the was no admission from
British Columbia to the State of Washington!?
I was informed that a baby could enter Canada on a non stop flight from London in 1961 without papers. B.O.A.C. did not charge for an infants passage at the
time, according to records I found at the SFO Museum.
In 1961 no papers were need to fly from Montreal to Vancouver, only an airline ticket for Stanley Ann Obama.
Since, the airlines did not collect revenue of a infant
without a seat, IATA did not require any documents on a
domestic flight within Canada.
Sincerely, Mark Seidenberg, Chairman, American Independent Party
issued to
Mario,
I. Quoting US v Wong Kim Ark:
“It thus clearly appears that, by the law of England for the last three centuries, beginning before the settlement of this country and continuing to the present day, aliens, while residing in the dominions possessed by the Crown of England, were within the allegiance, the obedience, the faith or loyalty, the protection, the power, the jurisdiction of the English Sovereign, and therefore every child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject unless the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign State or of an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was born.
III. The same rule was in force in all the English Colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the Constitution as originally established.”
1. The Court in this brief passage therefore made the following CLEAR AND UNAMBIGUOUS STATEMENT:
Every child born in England of alien parents was a NATURAL-BORN SUBJECT unless the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign State or of an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was born.
2. The phrases “natural born citizen” and “natural born subject” were clearly and undeniably used INTERCHANGEABLY in the early United States. The following link alone is solid PROOF of that:
http://bit.ly/GRoSAo
As if that were not enough, the Supreme Court in Wong Kim Ark also approvingly quoted Justice Gaston of the Supreme Court of North Carolina, in his statement that the term “citizen” is “PRECISELY ANALOGOUS” to the term “subject:”
“Upon the Revolution, no other change took place in the law of North Carolina than was consequent upon the transition from a colony dependent on an European King to a free and sovereign State; . . . British subjects in North Carolina became North Carolina freemen; . . . and all free persons born within the State are born citizens of the State. . . . The term ‘citizen,’ as understood in our law, is precisely analogous to the term ‘subject’ in the common law, and the change of phrase has entirely resulted from the change of government. The sovereignty has been transferred from one man to the collective body of the people, and he who before as a ‘subject of the king’ is now ‘a citizen of the State.'”
3. The Court in the brief passage above also made the following CLEAR AND UNAMBIGUOUS STATEMENT:
“The same rule was in force in all the English Colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the Constitution as originally established.”
The Supreme Court in US v Wong Kim Ark therefore CLEARLY stated that THE RULE IN FORCE IN THE ENGLISH COLONIES BEFORE INDEPENDENCE, IN THE UNITED STATES AFTER INDEPENDENCE, AND IN THE UNITED STATES AFTER THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CONSTITUTION WAS THAT EVERY CHILD BORN ON OUR SOIL OF ALIEN PARENTS (unless meeting those limited exceptions) WAS A NATURAL BORN CITIZEN OR SUBJECT HERE.
To claim that the Supreme Court stated otherwise, or that they failed to make the claim that they made above, is simply a lie.
II. Quoting US v Wong Kim Ark again:
“The foregoing considerations and authorities [that is, the Court’s entire discussion to date] irresistibly lead us to these conclusions: the Fourteenth Amendment affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory, in the allegiance and under the protection of the country, including all children here born of resident aliens, with the exceptions or qualifications (as old as the rule itself) of children of foreign sovereigns or their ministers, or born on foreign public ships, or of enemies within and during a hostile occupation of part of our territory, and with the single additional exception of children of members of the Indian tribes owing direct allegiance to their several tribes. The Amendment, in clear words and in manifest intent, includes the children born, within the territory of the United States, of all other persons, of whatever race or color, domiciled within the United States. Every citizen or subject of another country, while domiciled here, is within the allegiance and the protection, and consequently subject to the jurisdiction, of the United States. His allegiance to the United States is direct and immediate, and, although but local and temporary, continuing only so long as he remains within our territory, is yet, in the words of Lord Coke in Calvin’s Case, 7 Rep. 6a, “strong enough to make a natural subject, for if he hath issue here, that issue is a natural-born subject;” and his child, as said by Mr. Binney in his essay before quoted, “if born in the country, is as much a citizen as the natural-born child of a citizen, and by operation of the same principle.” It can hardly be denied that an alien is completely subject to the political jurisdiction of the country in which he resides…”
Let’s condense that and pull out the most relevant parts:
The allegiance TO THE UNITED STATES of every citizen or subject of another country, while domiciled here, is “strong enough to make a natural subject,” and “IF HE HATH ISSUE [a CHILD] HERE, THAT ISSUE [or, that CHILD] IS A NATURAL-BORN SUBJECT” [quoting the words of English or, in United States terms — a NATURAL-BORN CITIZEN.]
It is therefore CLEAR and UNDENIABLE that the United States Supreme Court found Wong Kim Ark to be not ONLY a “citizen” — they ALSO found — and they stated it as an “IRRESISTIBLE” “CONCLUSION” — that Wong Kim Ark was “NATURAL BORN.”
And they stated that, clearly, not once but twice.
The Supreme Court CLEARLY found that Wong Kim Ark was a NATURAL BORN CITIZEN.
III. Furthermore, even Justice Fuller in the dissent in the case recognized that the majority had found Wong Kim Ark to be a natural born citizen and therefore eligible to be President:
“I submit that it is unreasonable to conclude that “natural-born citizen” applied to everybody born within the geographical tract known as the United States, irrespective of circumstances, and that the children of foreigners, happening to be born to them while passing through the country, whether of royal parentage or not, or whether of the Mongolian, Malay or other race, were eligible to the Presidency, while children of our citizens, born abroad, were not.”
All of these being the case, it is PERFECTLY CLEAR that the Supreme Court in US v Wong Kim Ark found young Mr Wong to be NOT ONLY “a citizen,” but a NATURAL BORN CITIZEN. To deny their plain words and state that they made no such clear statement is simply to lie; and if you deny those plain words and claim that they failed to find Wong Kim Ark to be a natural born citizen, then you, sir, are a liar.
Dear Mark Seidenberg, Chairman, American Independent Party
I know what it means to be without papers. People slip across the Mexican and Canadian borders. But Hawaii does not have a border with either of them.
Also I notice your ravings about Obama could have been flown to Canada and then to the USA. This is possible, but hardly likely.
The usual practice, in hundreds of thousands of cases, is to fly directly back from where you have been. Only if the parents were actually trying to smuggle Obama into the country would they have taken an expensive side trip to Canada or Mexico and then slipped Obama across the border.
But for this to have happened they really must have thought that Obama had a chance of becoming a president one day. For all other purposes, including welfare, being naturalized is just as good as being natural born. But dream on. Maybe he was teleported from Kenya to Hawaii or carried by angels.
Here are the facts. There is no document in Kenya showing that Obama was born there or that his mother was there in 1961. (The Kenyan grandmother did NOT say that he was born there).
There is no US document showing that Obama’s mother traveled outside of the USA in 1961 or that Obama received a visa or was entered on his mother’s passport. There is no INS record of Obama having been admitted to the USA in 1961.
(There is no reason to discuss the difference with McCain; he was born to a military family. Others required passports and were checked by INS.)
And, there is a birth certificate from Hawaii for Obama. One that was confirmed as factual by three Republican (and several Democrat) officials in Hawaii. The director of health of Hawaii stated that she had seen the long form being copied and that it was given to Obama’s lawyer. And there is the additional confirmation of the birth notices in the newspapers (which in those days were sent to the papers by the DOH of Hawaii, and only by the DOH; Hawaii papers did not take birth notice advertisements for that section of the paper.)
Further to Mark Seidenberg, Chairman, American Independent Party’s ravings.
If he had flown from London to Canada, then there would be a Canadian record of his arrival. Therefore, according to you, Canada is part of the enormous worldwide plot to hide Obama’s travels in 1961.
Re: “There exists so much historical evidence showing the great influence that Vattel had over the Founders and Framers that your statement does not merit a response. ”
I repeat, Vattel was not mentioned even once in the Federalist Papers. The common law was mentioned about twenty times. Moreover, the writers of the Constitution were mainly LAWYERS (as was John Jay). When they used the term Natural Born it would of course be the meaning from the common law, which they were familiar with. If they had intended to use the Vattel definition, they would have said so.
PRECISELY they would have said so. They didn’t.
Moreover, if they had been referring to the concept put forth by Vattel, then they would have used the TERM used by Vattel: “indigene,” which is a word used in English as well as in French. Or, they would’ve used a close English equivalent, such as “indigenous person.” They would NOT have used the term “natural born,” which as Mario Apuzzo has (somewhat, in his twisted way) noted, is a “term of art.”
“NATURAL BORN” had a SPECIFIC meaning, and it had held that meaning for CENTURIES. The term itself came directly from English common law; therefore it can only be understood in those terms and with the meaning it had always held.
Moreover, the term “natural born” was NOT used as an English-language translation for Vattel’s word “indigenes” until 10 years AFTER the Constitution was written. To claim that the words meant something other than what they had ALWAYS meant is simply ludicrous.
Further: We KNOW (thanks to Professor Donald Lutz) how relatively popular Vattel’s influence was on the Founders as compared to the influence of the common law. And the answer is: NOT VERY. Vattel was only one in a very long list of writers quoted by the Founders, and he was WAY down the list. About THIRTIETH, to be exact. The Founding Fathers quoted Blackstone — the authority on the English common law — roughly SIXTEEN TIMES for every ONE time that they quoted Vattel.
So the proposition that the Framers of the Constitution were referring to Vattel when they wrote “natural born citizen” is simply ludicrous.
ehancock
My suggestion is read: James Kirkmen’s FORT JESES: A Portugese Fortress on the East African Coast (1974).
Stanley Ann Obama was working the excavation at Fort
Jesus on Mombasa Island under Dr. James Kirkmen. I
knew Dr. Kirkman when I was a student at Cambridge
University.
Next, during the 2008 compaign the Obama Campaign came
up with the story of Dr. West and “Stanley gave born”
story. The story was that Dr. West told a dinner
party that “Stanley gave birth” to a baby with a musical
sounding name” to a dinner party in Waikiki on August 4, 1961, at the Outrigger Canoe Club. First the last
seating for dinner was at 8:00 p.m. Then note the time
of the preported Birth for BHO junior. Also note that
the Outrigger Canoe Club is in Diamond Head and not in
Waikiki. The navtivity story used by the Obama Campaign
in 2008 is crazy.
Sincerely, Mark Seidenberg, Chairman, American Independent Party
ehancock and Dr. Conspiracy,
It is evident from your responses that you are not able to refute my arguments. All your rhetoric might impress the uninformed, but not the informed.
Re: “It is evident from your responses that you are not able to refute my arguments. All your rhetoric might impress the uninformed, but not the informed.”
That is a long way of saying: “I’m not going to reply to your points.” It is a way of saying: “I cannot prove that the Americans who wrote the US Constitution were using the term Natural Born in a way other than in the common law. It is a way of saying: “I cannot show that the Wong Kim Ark ruling did not say that EVERY child born in the USA (except for the children of diplomats etc) is NATURAL BORN.”
IT is a way of saying: “I cannot refute what Meese said, or what the three state courts and one federal court which have all ruled that Obama is a Natural Born Citizen” have said.
You say that we cannot refute you, but we showed that the Wong Kim Ark ruling said EVERY child, and we showed that the way that Natural Born was used in AMERICA (not Switzerland) at about the time that the Constitution was written was the way that it is used in the common law—-not the way that it is used by Vattel.
ehancock,
You might believe (or feign to believe) that you made some magic showing regarding the meaning of a “natural born Citizen.” But your writings prove otherwise. You have done nothing but present a bunch of manipulated and distorted information which finds no basis in the very citations you cite. For example, you keep repeating that Wong Kim Ark held that Wong was a “natural born Citizen,” but your fail to provide one quote from the Court (not your spin on what the Court said about a “natural born subject”) that proves your point.
Re: “your fail to provide one quote from the Court (not your spin on what the Court said about a “natural born subject”) that proves your point.”
Here it is again:
“It thus clearly appears that, by the law of England for the last three centuries, beginning before the settlement of this country and continuing to the present day, aliens, while residing in the dominions possessed by the Crown of England, were within the allegiance, the obedience, the faith or loyalty, the protection, the power, the jurisdiction of the English Sovereign, and therefore every child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject unless the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign State or of an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was born.
III. The same rule was in force in all the English Colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the Constitution as originally established.”
That quite clearly states that the rule applied in the United States after the Declaration of Independence and “continued to prevail under the Constitution as originally established.”
What rule is being referred to?
The rule that said that EVERY child was Natural Born.
There is that, plus I showed that the way that Americans at about the time of the Constitution had used the term Natural Born was the way that it was used under the common law.
The issue here is was Obama or McCain a citizen of the United States at birth. The answer is no. Both were
conceived in Hawai’i, but neither was born in the United States. Barack H. Obama II, mother at the time of Obama’s birth was only 18 years of age, therefore,
she could not have spent 5 years in the United States after the age of 14, when she gave birth to BHO II.
Roberta McCain nee Wright was a United States Citizen at
the birth of John S. McCain III, on August 29, 1936, however he was born out of wedlock in the Republic of
Panama (external of the Canal Zone) at the Colon Hospital on the island Colon. At the time of McCain’s
birth, Roberta McCain nee Wright was not employed by the
United States Government nor the Panama Railroad Company
or it successor in title. If one reads the Act of Congress of August 4, 1937, you would understand that
John S. McCain III is a citizen of Republic of Panama
and not part of the collective naturalization act of
Congress dated August 4, 1937.
Sincerely, Mark Seidenberg, Chairman, American Independent Party of California
Mario,
I see that you are at a complete loss to refute the fact that the plain words of the Supreme Court in United States v Wong Kim Ark state exactly what you claim they do not state.
I told you that you would be better off to play the role of the guy who woke up one day and realized that all the stuff he was telling everybody was wrong. You just can’t go out and push an entire boatload of nonsense to the public without expecting — without knowing that someday, somebody is going to call you on it. And it’s not just me. More and more people are waking up, every day, to the fact that the Court in US v Wong Kim Ark quite CLEARLY found Wong to be a NATURAL BORN CITIZEN.
Do you have any idea what a complete fool you increasingly look in the eyes of the world?
It’ll be entertaining to see what word-twisting you come up with to try and prove that the sky is green and the grass is powder blue.
Mark Seidenberg said:
“Barack H. Obama II, mother at the time of Obama’s birth was only 18 years of age, therefore,
she could not have spent 5 years in the United States after the age of 14, when she gave birth to BHO II.”
That applies only to births outside of the USA. There is no law that a woman who gives birth in the USA has to be a certain age or the child is not a US citizen.
ehancock
You are correct that the 5 years residents applies to
births outside the United States, but even that is
retricted to certain places outside the United States.
However, BHO II was born on Mombasa Island in the Kenya
Protectorate (of the sovereign Sultanate of Zanzibar
to a British Protected Persons father under the terms
of both the British Nationality Act 1948 and the Hague
Convention of Nationality of 1930. Mombasa is a sister
city of Honolulu, that is the only connection Mombasa Island has with the City of Honolulu.
As I see it, the records show Stanley Ann Obama departing Mombasa Island on August 28, 1961 on a voyage
to Tilbury Dock with her son. There was no why she
could register the birth of Obama at either the United
States Consulate at Dar or the United States Cosulate
Generalate at Niarobi.
The issue was very clear, in 1961, Stanley Ann could
of taken the baby BOH II with only a Mombasa Birth
Certificate because the baby was a subject of the Sultan
of Zanzibar. She could have not left Mombasa by
air with just the birth certificate, because MOI at the
time was a regional airport.
The reason going to Niarobi or Kampala would of done her
no good in geting “out of Africa”, because he would
have to transit the territory of a differant foreign
state, viz. Italy.
If Stanley Ann arrived in New York with the baby Obama
who was not a citizen at birth, she would have been
deported back with Obama to London. There is no great
conspircy here. I do not believe Stanley Ann did not
know from living in Seattle Area that the boarder was
open between British Columbia and Washington State.
The bottom line is with a Kenya Protectorate issued
birth certificate, a subject of the Sultan of Zanzibar
could of got to Canada with only a birth certificate.
No one at the time expected Obama to run for President.
It was that an 18 year old woman with her son wanted
to return to the United States and could not have had
a lawfull entry in to the United States if she took a
air route from MOI to NYC on BOAC.
Her classes started at UW Extention, Seattle on September 25, 1961. Stanley Ann Obama was admitted by
a mailed application on Saturday, August 19, 1961.
Extension Office at UW was not open to the public on
Saturdays in 1961. So the only way Stanley Ana got
admitted to the UW extention was by a mailed application.
BHO I knew by August 31, 1961 that Stanley Ann Obama
was admitted to UW extension. Jerome Corsi, was wrong
as to when Stanley Ann Obama started classes at UW.
She did not start classes on Saturday, August 19, 1961.
There was no classes on Saturdays at UW in 1961.
Again also at play in the law is the Zanzibar Naturalization Decree 1919.
Note, the reason Stanley Ann did not take regular classes at UW for the first two quarters, was that
she was to young for regular classes. The UW housing
requirements were 19 years or older to not live with
parents or husband at that time.
Sincerely, Mark Seidenberg, Chairman, American Independent Party
Mark, which lying, faked “Kenyan birth certificate” do you have reference to?
John Woodman,
I made no reference to a “lying faked Kenya birth certificate”. However, I have seen over the years
all kinds of fake birth documents for both McCain and
Obama.
One of the first documents that I know as a fake was
the one from Canada. That was the one signed by Dudley
Doright. The most famous forgery came out of the White
House last April. The Cold Case Posse in Maricopa County declared that one a forgery.
Sincerely, Mark Seidenberg, Chairman, American Independent Party of California
Re: “However, BHO II was born on Mombasa Island in the Kenya…”
The above is an excellent example of why Ann Coulter, Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly have all called birthers CRAZY.
For those of you who still believe that Obama could have been born in Kenya, or in fact in any foreign country, a question for you:
I’ll bet that you know (but, actually, you may have forgotten) that the US government requires, and has long required, that a child being carried into the USA must have some kind of official travel document to be admitted. This is usually a US passport for the child. Or, it could be the fact that the child is entered on the mother’s US passport. Or, it could be a US visa for the child on a foreign passport. Without one of those, we would not let the child into the country.
So, IF Obama really had been born in Kenya (or in any country other than the USA), he would have had to have one of those documents–wouldn’t he? His family would have had to show the passport, wouldn’t they? To show the passport, they would have had to have applied for the passport or the visa for Obama. And, if Obama really were born in Kenya (or another country), they would have had to have applied for it in the US consulate or embassy there, wouldn’t they?
Such applications are FILED by the US government. The documents exist in multiple files, the actual application itself, communication about it with Washington, entries in the passport file, entries in the application file, entries in the places where the child is carried into the USA. The Bush Administration was in charge of the State Department and the INS for eight years before Obama was elected. Don’t you think that they would have checked the claim that he was born outside the USA?
All they had to do was find one of those files and McCain would win the election.
Well, they never did. There is no such file.
So the question is, do you think that the Bush Administration was part of the plot?
Do you think that the files, the documents, the application for the documents, the communications about the documents were all lost or hidden? Remember, they are in multiple files, the file of the passport holder, the files of applications for passports, the files in the US embassy in foreign countries, the files in the State Department and in the INS (which would have checked in Obama at an entry point if he had actually traveled in 1961)–and yet no document has been found. Why not?
The absence of the travel document, plus the Hawaii birth certificate, plus the confirmation of the facts on it by three Republican (and several Democrat) officials, plus the birth notices in the Hawaii newspapers in 1961, plus the witness who remembers being told of the birth and writing home about it (to her father, named Stanley, about the unusual event of a birth to a woman named Stanley). All this is evidence that Obama was born in Hawaii. Oh, and by the way, Obama’s Kenyan grandmother NEVER said that Obama was born in Kenya. That was the first of the birther lies. She said repeatedly in the taped interview that he was born in Hawaii. And she said in another interview, with the Hartford Courtant newspaper, that the first that her family had heard of Obama’s birth was IN A LETTER FROM HAWAII.
Oh and by the way, the check-in point for travelers from Kenya in 1961 would have been in New York, since there were no direct flights from Kenya to Hawaii. And the INS files in New York are not missing, and the various State Department files of applications for documents in Kenya and of documents granted in Kenya still exist.
Mark, you’ve asserted that Obama was born on Mombasa Island and stated, “As I see it, the records show Stanley Ann Obama departing Mombasa Island on August 28, 1961 on a voyage to Tilbury Dock with her son.”
That’s an assertion. You’ve produced precisely zero evidence of your assertion.
Anybody can assert anything. Here we go. I assert that the shipping records clearly indicate that a shipment of 4.2 metrics tons of 99.4% pure unobtainium (of the crystalline blue-silver high-diffraction form, not the inferior powdered grade) was secretly loaded aboard the SS Groucho Marx (registered in Malta) off the coast of Zanzibar on the night of April 19, 2003. From there it was transferred to the United States, offloaded in New Jersey and transported by truck to a secret underground facility in West Virginia. This shipment of unobtainium was then loaded as fuel into the high-tech mind control machines that require massive amounts of power for the continual worldwide transmissions that keep people from seeing that Mr. Obama and certain other high officials including most of the Cabinet members and Vice-President Joe Biden as well as many foreign heads of state are secretly reptilian beings from Alpha Draconis, who now control the political and economic systems of the world.
That’s my assertion. Do you have any more actual, real evidence for your assertion that I do for mine?
ehancock is quite correct that flights to Honolulu from Kenya would have gone through New York, although I don’t discount the possibility of a flight that would have gone through some other city in the eastern United States.
Nonetheless, I think by FAR the most likely route would have been through New York. I actually traced a likely route for such a traveler in a recent post at my blog. The likely airline would’ve been BOAC (a predecessor to today’s British Airways). This was probably THE ONLY way of getting from Kenya to Honolulu without switching back and forth between airlines.
The travel path would’ve taken 3 to 4 days, and it would’ve gone from Nairobi, Kenya, to Entebbe, Uganda; from Entebbe to Khartoum, Sudan; from Khartoum to Rome; from Rome to London; from London to New York; from New York to San Francisco; from San Francisco to Honolulu. It’s not a trip that either a pregnant 18-year-old or an 18-year-old with a newborn would likely make. Especially since a round trip — just in airfare — appears to have cost around six months’ income.
Actual timetables for such a trip are available via two links in the article posted here.
ehancock,
You provide the following quote as proof that Wong Kim Ark held that Wong was a “natural born Citizen.”
“It thus clearly appears that, by the law of England for the last three centuries, beginning before the settlement of this country and continuing to the present day, aliens, while residing in the dominions possessed by the Crown of England, were within the allegiance, the obedience, the faith or loyalty, the protection, the power, the jurisdiction of the English Sovereign, and therefore every child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject unless the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign State or of an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was born.
III. The same rule was in force in all the English Colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the Constitution as originally established.”
First, I note that you are not able to point to the actual holding of the case for support of your position. Rather, you resort to the Court’s discussion of the English common law to do so. Your effort is not enough to support your argument. It you are going to tell us that the Court held a certain way, then you have to provide for us the actual holding of the case that supports your position. You simply cannot do that which shows that your position is only wishful thinking.
Second, Wong said the the English common law jus soli rule “continued to prevail under the Constitution as originally established.” The Court provides no authority or other support for its statement as it may apply to the national government. It does not tell us whether the English common law rule, which may have continued to prevail in the states, also applied on the national level. In fact, the Court did not even raise the issue of the English common law being retained in many states, but not on the national level. The historical and legal evidence shows that the English common law was only selectively adopted in the states, but not on the national level. The Naturalization Acts of 1790, 1795, 1802, and 1855, which are jus sanguinis based, abrogated on the national level any English common law rule that may have prevailed in the colonies and states before the adoption of the Constitution. Clearly, only the states selectively adopted the English common law. The federal government did not adopt the English common law. Hence, Wong Kim Ark used a rule that may have applied in the states but not on the national level to help it decide whether Wong was born “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and therefore a “citizen” under the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court did not hold that Wong was an Article II “natural born Citizen.”
Third, the Wong decision distinguished between a “natural-born citizen” and a “citizen,” saying that the former is a child born in the country to citizen parents. Wong even cited and quoted Minor for this definition. What Wong added is that a child born in the U.S. to alien parents is as much a “citizen” as the “natural born” child born in the U.S. to citizen parents. But we know that under the Constitution the two types of born “citizens,” along with those persons who are naturalized to be “citizens” after birth, are equal in every respect except only a “natural born Citizen” is eligible to be President and Vice-President.
You have not shown that Wong Kim Ark held that Wong was an Article II “natural born Citizen.” Rather, the Court only held that he was a Fourteenth Amendment “citizen”
I have never met Lucas Smith, however, the purpored birth domument he obtained from the Coast Provencial General Hospital of Mombasa seem to be correct information, unlike the first birth certificate which
in my view is a forgery.
First I iterviewed a German wowan who was at the Port
Ritz Airport on August 4, 1961. Who saw an American white young lady refused boarding,because she was to
far gone in a pregnacy to be allowed on an airplane
at that time. A doctor was called from the hospital
across from the terminal Both the Hospital across from
the terminal building and the hosital on the Lucas produced Birth Certificate were under the same hospital
administration.
The administrator of the Port Ritz Hospial is the same
person on the Lucas Birth Certifcate.
As for the nativity story of the Obama campaign in 2008,
Dr. West assertion is totaly off the wall. How could
he have arrived in time to be seated at the Outrigger Canoe Club is in Diamond Head!? That story by the
Obama Campaign placed him at the dinner party at the
Outrigger Canoe Club after it stopped serving for that
night. The last seating was a 8:00 p.m. They startd to
clean the kitchen at 8:37 p.m.
John Woodman, do you believe as Jerome Corsi that Stanley Ann Obama was in Seatle on August 19, 1961 taking classes on a Saturday
If so do you also believe that Stanley Ann gave birth
to Obama in Honolulu on August 4, 1961? If so how did
she get in the extension office to register in classes
on a Saturday, when it was closed for walk ins? Do you
believe she was traveling by air within a few days after
birth!?
The issue as I see it is on August 25, 1961 a passenger
departs Dar for France on the S.S. Uganda. Arrives in
France on September 12. On August 28, 1961 Stanley Ann
departs Mombasa Island on the same ship. Passenger talks with Stanley Ann Obama during that voyage. Stanley Ann Obama arrives at Tilbury Docks on September 20, 1961. Stanley Ann is in class at UW extension
class starting on September 25, 1961.
Sincerely, Mark Seidenberg, Chairman, American Independent Party of California
Re: “Rather, you resort to the Court’s discussion of the English common law to do so.”
Yes I did. And in that discussion the court stated that the rule was in force in the American colonies and in the United States.
Re: “Your effort is not enough to support your argument.”
That is a matter of opinion. YOU, of course, say that the discussion in Wong Kim Ark is insufficient. But the Meese volume (edited by Meese, with conservative lawyers as writers) says
““Under the longstanding English common-law principle of jus soli, persons born within the territory of the sovereign (other than children of enemy aliens or foreign diplomats) are citizens from birth. Thus, those persons born within the United States are “natural born citizens” and eligible to be President….”—- Edwin Meese, et al, THE HERITAGE GUIDE TO THE CONSTITUTION (2005) [Edwin Meese was Ronald Reagan’s attorney general, and the Heritage Foundation is a well-known Conservative organization.]
Which is very similar to what the Wong Kim Ark quotation says.
And, though your OPINION claims that the Wong Kim Ark did not state that every child born in the USA is Natural Born, three state courts and a federal court now disagree, saying specifically that the Wong Kim Ark decision does indeed provide that a child born in the country regardless of the citizenship of the parents is Natural Born.
For example: “Based on the language of Article II, Section 1, Clause 4 and the guidance provided by Wong Kim Ark, we conclude that persons born within the borders of the United States are “natural born Citizens” for Article II, Section 1 purposes, regardless of the citizenship of their parents. Just as a person “born within the British dominions [was] a natural born-born subject” at the time of the framing of the U.S. Constitution, so too were those “born in the allegiance of the United States [ ] natural-born citizens.”— Ankeny v. Governor of the State of Indiana, 916 NE2d 678, 688 (2009), (Ind.Supreme Court, Apr. 5, 2010)
Re: “The Court provides no authority or other support for its statement as it may apply to the national government. ”
Gee, too bad, but a six to two ruling of the US Supreme Court is still the law of the land.
Re: “The historical and legal evidence shows that the English common law was only selectively adopted in the states, but not on the national level. ”
The issue continues to be whether the MEANING of Natural Born comes from the common law or from some other source. If it was used by most of the states, it confirms what Tucker said about Natural Born status referring to the place of birth and not to the parents. IF you can find a state that required two citizen parents for anything–please show it.
Re: “The federal government did not adopt the English common law.”
Of course it didn’t. But when it used common law terms like habeas corpus it used them the way that they were used in the common law. It is up to you to show that the meaning of Natural Born does not come from the common law. If it comes from the common law, it refers to the place of birth, not to the parents.
Re: “The Court did not hold that Wong was an Article II “natural born Citizen.”
Are you being deliberately obtuse? This was a citizenship case, the bottom line to be decided was whether or not he was a citizen. IF it had been a presidential eligibility case the ruling would have focused on Natural Born Citizen, but it was not an eligibility case, so the ruling focused on citizenship. It ruled that Wong Kim Ark was a citizen.
HOWEVER, the words quoted show very clearly that a solid majority of the court believed that the term Natural Born comes from the common law (not from Vattel), and that it means that every child, EVERY CHILD born in the USA is Natural Born. Wong Kim Ark was born in the USA. He is therefore Natural Born. He is both Natural Born and a citizen, a Natural Born Citizen.
Re: “Third, the Wong decision distinguished between a “natural-born citizen” and a “citizen,” saying that the former is a child born in the country to citizen parents. ”
The Wong Kim Ark decision never said any such thing. (You claim that it did, show the actual words.)
The Wong ruling cited the Minor vs Happersett case for this portion of its ruling:
“In Minor v. Happersett, Chief Justice Waite, when construing, in behalf of the court, the very provision of the Fourteenth Amendment now in question, said: “The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that.” And he proceeded to resort to the common law as an aid in the construction of this provision. 21 Wall. 167.”
In other words, the Wong ruling cites the Minor ruling as confirming that the common law applies. NOT VATTEL. NOT “natural law.” This citation does not help your case, it is against it. The effect of the citation is that BOTH the Minor vs Happersett ruling and the Wong Kim Ark ruling say that the source of legal terms that are not defined is the common law.
It also quoted the Minor vs Happersett case as saying:
“Minor v. Happersett (1874), 21 Wall. 162, 166-168. The decision in that case was that a woman born of citizen parents within the United States was a citizen of the United States, although not entitled to vote, the right to the elective franchise not being essential to citizenship.”
Yet you say that the Minor vs Happersett case stated that a person with two citizen parents and born in the USA was a Natural Born Citizen. The Wong decision states that she was ruled to be a citizen. Yet you claim that the Minor vs Happersett case was a ruling on Natural Born status.
Re: “But we know that under the Constitution the two types of born “citizens,”
There is only one type of a born citizen. If there had been a legal distinction between people just born in the country and people born of one or two citizen parents, there would have been legislation to that effect, and articles written about it–but there is no such thing. Since there is only ONE kind of a born citizen, there are only two categories of citizens, Natural Born and naturalized.
The understanding of the term Natural Born goes considerably beyond the law. As late as WWI men who registered for the draft were asked whether they were citizens, and then, if they were, whether they were naturalized or natural born. There were only TWO categories (not three or more as you dream.)
The court held that Wong was a 14th Amendment citizen, as are all children born in the USA. It also ruled that all children, except for the children of foreign diplomats, are Natural Born. Wong Kim Ark was both a citizen and Natural Born.
Mark Seidenberg said: “I have never met Lucas Smith, however, the purpored birth domument he obtained from the Coast Provencial General Hospital of Mombasa seem to be correct information…”
Dream on. Lucas Smith was a convicted felon, one of whose crimes was forgery. And Lucas Smith used to participate on blog discussions a lot, but whenever he was asked to show that he had gone to Kenya as he had claimed, he simply faded away. And he used USA date formats on the document (month/day/year) and not the British format (day/month/year) used in Kenya.
Marrio Apuzzo, Esq.
I found your posting of interest. On January 13, 2012,
I submitted to Secretary of State Debra Bowen 14 names
for the California POTUS AIP primary. She rejected 11
of the person on the list. Two of the number were Eskimos, viz., Todd Palin (former first dude of
Alaska) and Walter Nayakik (son of only know person to
get born on Wrangell Island, Alaska of the Arctic Ocean).
Eskimos are citizens by a collective naturaliazation
act (not the 14th Amendsment)effective January, 1941.
Unlike Article 14 Amendment citizens, they only get their citizenship by birth in the United States. They
can not pass that citizenship on to their children
if that child was born outside the jurisdiction and
territory of the United States).
For Eskimos the status of their parents does not matter
in obtaining citizenship. It is only based on birth location. Here, the Minor Cass should not apply, because an Eskimos Citizenship is only based on birth
location an not citizenship at birth of their parents.
Therefore, can Eskimos meet the requirement of being
a natural born citizenn in your view, based on Minor?
Sincerely, Mark Seidenberg, Chairman, American Independent Party of California
If I recall correctly, MULTIPLE forgeries.
The hospital administrator name, if I recall correctly, is misspelled.
Something should be noted here: It would be perfectly possible to produce an apparently authentic fake Kenyan birth certificate with no readily identifiable signs of forgery. Therefore, unless it comes with an absolute pedigree, no supposed “Kenyan birth certificate” can really be trusted.
People who are perfectly willing to deny the authenticity of an American birth certificate that half a dozen State officials of both parties, including two Governors, have publicly avowed is absolutely authentic — are also perfectly willing to take the word of a multiple forger that a plain paper document he produces is a true and authentic birth certificate from Africa.
All of that said — I lived in Britain for six years. And the date “11/29/1942” on the Lucas Smith certificate (which I actually had not noticed before) is VERY strong evidence that authoritatively establishes Smith’s “birth certificate” as being as phony as a $3 bill.
John Woodman,
I have been in England as a student at Cambridge University, so I have not lived there as long as you.
I can not see why just because little-endian applies
in Englsnd that system is required in territory
of the sultanate of Zanzibar. Just because Queen Elizebeth II in 1961 was the protector for the Sultan
of Zanzibar did not end the practice of Zanzibar. At
the time both Saudi Arabia and Oman (like its sister
sultanate of Zanzibar used both the little-endian
and the middle-endian in a dating systems.
The next thing your going to tell me is the standard for right of way in England should be the same in Zanzibar and the Kenya Protectorate in 1961.
I have visit the United States Virgin Islands and recall
that they still use the old Danish standard which was the same as the current English Standard of Right of ways.
You need understand that dating in Eastern Africa is not
the same as in England.
Sincerely, Mark Seidenberg, Chairman, American Independent Party of California
First of all, even if the dates were American-style, the document you present will still require FAR more proof than you present in order to be acceptable.
Birthers are remarkably stubborn about applying vastly different standards of evidence to the things they want to be true, versus the things they don’t want to be true.
But the dates weren’t American-style.
Kenya, including Mombasa, was ruled by the British starting before 1900. So that entire area of Africa had been under British rule for more than 60 years. Mombasa was the capital of the British East Africa Protectorate.
A quick search on google books turns up Kenya Legislative Council Debates from 1962. All dates are (as expected) British-style.
The purported (I can barely get myself to utter the words) “birth certificate” that you present by multiple-offense convicted forger Mr. Smith is as phony as a $3 biil.
And yet, again, you will willingly believe a known criminal with multiple offenses for forgery when he presents you with a badly cooked-up “birth certificate,” while at the same time proclaiming that half a dozen elected state officials of both parties, the President of the United States (like him or not), the First Lady of the United States (like her or not), reporter Savannah Guthrie — who held Obama’s certified birth certificate and felt the raised seal, Obama’s high school English teacher who testified to having heard of his birth at the time in Hawaii, and your own eyes (for there’s an actual photograph of the dang thing) are all bald-faced liars.
Typical birther. Doesn’t matter what the evidence is. Only what you want to believe is “true.”
Moreover Mark Seidenberg has not answered the question of HOW Obama could have been born in Kenya and travel to the USA without there having been a travel document, such as a visa or his being entered on his mother’s passport, found. Nor is there a record of Obama having been admitted to the USA by the INS. Nor is there a 1961 record of Obama’s mother having left the USA or returned to the USA by the INS. Nor is there any document in Kenya showing that she was there.
Lucas Smith, the convicted felon, claimed to have gotten the “birth certificate” in Mombasa, Kenya. But Smith has always refused to show a Kenya stamp on his passport. Are you willing to believe a convicted felon who claims to have gotten something in Kenya but who refuses to prove that he had gone to Kenya????
ehancock,
(1) Like I told you, your Meese reference is really to James C. Ho, who wrote the article. Mr. Ho assumes without proving that simply being born a “citizen[] from birth” makes one a “natural born Citizen.” Mr. Ho has no authority for this proposition and neither do you.
(2) You said: “[T]hree state courts and a federal court now disagree, saying specifically that the Wong Kim Ark decision does indeed provide that a child born in the country regardless of the citizenship of the parents is Natural Born.”
First, I have shown that the Wong Kim Ark holding says no such thing. You have not been able to demonstrate that the holding includes declaring Wong a “natural born Citizen.” These opinions contend that the Wong Kim Ark holding can be expanded to mean that the Court declared Wong a “natural born Citizen.” The courts do not show how they arrive at their conclusion. They just simply say it without demonstrating that what they are concluding is based on historical evidence and case law. What these courts do is simply take the word “citizen” and insert in its place “natural born Citizen” without demonstrating why a “natural born Citizen” should be defined the same way that Wong defined a “citizen.”
(3) You are making stuff up about St. George Tucker. As I have explained and demonstrated several times, Tucker said that the “civil right” to be elected President belonged only to the children of citizens. That explanation of the right to be elected President specifically includes the need to have citizen parents. Tucker did not include in his definition of “natural born Citizen” place of birth as you ascribe to him. From what Tucker said, we can conclude that he defined a “natural born Citizen” as a child born to citizen parents. Tucker rejected William Blackstone’s position of expatriation and “natural born subject.”
(4) You said: “It is up to you to show that the meaning of Natural Born does not come from the common law. If it comes from the common law, it refers to the place of birth, not to the parents.”
I never said that the meaning of a “natural born Citizen” does not come from the “common law.” What I have said is that it comes from the law of nations which was incorporated into American common law which became part of Article III’s “Laws of the United States.” I have therefore said that the definition of a “natural born Citizen” comes from American “common law,” not English “common law.” I showed you that Minor’s definition of a “natural-born citizen” is based on that American “common law.” Minor included in the definition citizen parents. The English “common law” made no reference to citizen parents when it defined a “natural born subject.” Hence, clearly, Minor did not use English “common law.” I have not seen one Obama defender yet explain what “common law” Minor used given that its “natural-born citizen” definition included citizen parents. I am sure that you will not address this question either and rather, just evade answering it.
(5) You said: “Are you being deliberately obtuse? This was a citizenship case, the bottom line to be decided was whether or not he was a citizen. IF it had been a presidential eligibility case the ruling would have focused on Natural Born Citizen, but it was not an eligibility case, so the ruling focused on citizenship. It ruled that Wong Kim Ark was a citizen.”
The one that is obtuse is you. Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 says that for those born after the adoption of the Constitution, a “Citizen” is not eligible to be President. Rather, the article requires a “natural born Citizen.” The burden is on you to show Obama is an Article II “natural born Citizen.” It is not sufficient that you cite a case such as Wong Kim Ark and tell me that Obama is a “citizen” under that case and therefore by some unexplained leap of constitutional logic also a “natural born Citizen.”
(6) You said: “HOWEVER, the words quoted show very clearly that a solid majority of the court believed that the term Natural Born comes from the common law (not from Vattel), and that it means that every child, EVERY CHILD born in the USA is Natural Born. Wong Kim Ark was born in the USA. He is therefore Natural Born. He is both Natural Born and a citizen, a Natural Born Citizen.”
You are just making stuff up. Wong Kim Ark cited and quoted Minor for the definition of a “natural born Citizen.” As I have always maintained, Minor’s definition comes from American common law, not English common law. That American common law came from the law of nations. Minor and Wong Kim Ark defined a “natural born Citizen” the same as did Vattel in Section 212 of The Law of Nations. So where are you going? You have no place to escape. The only thing that you can do with Wong Kim Ark (assuming Obama was born in the United States) is show that Obama was born a “citizen.” But you have no basis to conclude he was a “natural born Citizen.”
Minor told us that a “natural born Citizen” is not defined by the Fourteenth Amendment. It also did not engage in “jurisdiction” analysis in determining if Virginia Minor was a “citizen.” But Wong Kim Ark defined Wong’s citizenship status exactly under that Amendment and also engaged in “jurisdiction” analysis. Hence, that alone tells us that Wong Kim Ark did not define a “natural born Citizen,” but rather a “citizen” under the Fourteenth Amendment.
(7) You said: “Re: ‘Third, the Wong decision distinguished between a ‘natural-born citizen’ and a ‘citizen,’ saying that the former is a child born in the country to citizen parents.’ The Wong Kim Ark decision never said any such thing. (You claim that it did, show the actual words.)”
Here is the Wong Kim Ark quote that shows that the Court distinguished between a “natural-born citizen” (born in the country to citizen parents) and a “citizen” (born in the country to alien parents):
“‘The child of an alien, if born in the country, is as much a citizen as the natural-born child of a citizen, and by operation of the same principle.’” Wong Kim Ark at 169-70 (citing and quoting Horace Binney, The Alienigenae of the United States Under the Present Naturalization Laws (1853)).
(8) You said: “Yet you say that the Minor vs Happersett case stated that a person with two citizen parents and born in the USA was a Natural Born Citizen. The Wong decision states that she was ruled to be a citizen. Yet you claim that the Minor vs Happersett case was a ruling on Natural Born status.”
All “natural born Citizens” are “citizens,” but not all “citizens” are “natural born Citizens.” So, Minor, treating Virginia Minor as “natural-born citizen,” also found her to be a “citizen.” Minor was a ruling on “natural born Citizen.” The Court provided a clear definition of the clause, one which the Court said was not in doubt. It said that “there have been doubts” whether a child born in the United States to alien parents was a “citizen.” The Court’s reference to “citizen” was not a reference to “natural born Citizen,” for the Court had already defined a “natural-born citizen.” Rather, the reference to “citizen” was whether a child born in the United States to alien parents is born “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and therefore a Fourteenth Amendment “citizen.”
(9) You said: “Since there is only ONE kind of a born citizen, there are only two categories of citizens, Natural Born and naturalized.”
Wong Kim Ark created a new type of born citizen, one that is born in the U.S. to one or two domiciled alien parents. Never before had our U.S. Supreme Court tied the citizenship status of a child who was born in the United States to the domicile of his or her parents. Under all our naturalization acts up to that time, a child born in the United States had to be born to citizen parents in order to be a “citizen.” And the only birthright citizenship that existed for children born in the United States was that of a “natural born Citizen.” The born “citizen” that Wong Kim Ark created is born subject to a foreign power and is not and cannot be a “natural born Citizen,” who is born in the full and complete allegiance and jurisdiction of the United States. Since that citizen is not a “natural born Citizen, that citizen is a naturalized citizen, although one that is naturalized at birth.
(10) You said: “The court held that Wong was a 14th Amendment citizen, as are all children born in the USA. It also ruled that all children, except for the children of foreign diplomats, are Natural Born. Wong Kim Ark was both a citizen and Natural Born.”
You just keep repeating the same thing over and over, i.e., that Wong Kim Ark ruled that Wong was a “natural born Citizen.” But you fail to show it. Your repeatedly saying it without showing it is not convincing.
Mario,
I am responding to some of the points you’ve made to ehancock:
First, I note that you are not able to point to the actual holding of the case for support of your position. Rather, you resort to the Court’s discussion of the English common law to do so. Your effort is not enough to support your argument. It you are going to tell us that the Court held a certain way, then you have to provide for us the actual holding of the case that supports your position. You simply cannot do that, which shows that your position is only wishful thinking.
This statement is absolutely outrageous and utterly hypocritical on your part — YOU who CLAIM that Minor v Happersett supposedly set a “BINDING PRECEDENT” as to a supposed “definition” of natural born citizen. The phrase from Minor that you proof-text for your utterly bogus claim is not only NOWHERE REMOTELY NEAR to being the “holding” that you now demand for Wong Kim Ark — in fact, it’s not even directly relevant to the decision in Minor v Happersett, as it was freely acknowledged in advance by all parties that Virginia Minor was, in fact, a citizen of the United States.
Your hypocrisy in making this demand of US v Wong Kim Ark, when you abuse Minor v Happersett by taking dicta from a discussion that was clearly peripheral — since it was conceded by all parties that Virginia Minor was a US citizen — and then attempting to elevate that dicta to the status of a “binding precedent,” is just breathtakingly brazen.
By your own words you have been condemned.
Second, Wong said the the English common law jus soli rule “continued to prevail under the Constitution as originally established.”
Yes, that is PRECISELY what the Court said.
The Court provides no authority or other support for its statement as it may apply to the national government. It does not tell us whether the English common law rule, which may have continued to prevail in the states, also applied on the national level.
Now you just look like a plain idiot. The CONSTITUTION (since you somehow seem to have failed to notice) is the fundamental governing instrument of our NATIONAL GOVERNMENT.
If the English common law rule “continued to prevail under the Constitution as originally established,” then by definition it continued to prevail “under” the national government, because the Constitution IS the fundamental governing document of our entire national government.
And plainly, there were “citizens of the United States” from the very beginning of the nation. Who were they? If you were a citizen of one of the United States, then you were a citizen of the United States. Ramsay in 1789 — whom you are so fond of relying on as an authority — stated that citizenship resulted from this citizenship relationship with “some one of the United States.”
So if the jus soli rule of the English common law “continued to prevail under the Constitution as originally established,” in the States, then it necessarily continued to apply in the United States. Because if the jus soli rule made you a citizen of North Carolina, it thereby made you a citizen of the United States.
The Naturalization Acts of 1790, 1795, 1802, and 1855, which are jus sanguinis based, abrogated on the national level any English common law rule that may have prevailed in the colonies and states before the adoption of the Constitution.
Sure they did — on the points that they addressed.
Unlike your gullible, eager-to-believe-anything-birther audience, I’ve actually read these laws. These were laws regarding the naturalization of foreigners into citizenship, and declaring that the children born abroad of US citizens were citizens. They had absolutely NOTHING to say about the citizenship of persons born on US soil, and DID absolutely nothing to change the rule that had always applied — the same rule that the Supreme Court in US v Wong Kim Ark referred to.
Claiming that they did is like claiming that a law simply allowing for the importation of automobiles into the United States overruled all the laws specifying how domestic car companies could make their cars.
Surely you can’t possibly be that stupid, Mario. So it seems obvious to me that you’re simply lying.
And of course those Acts are — partially “jus sanguinis based” — as they had to do with citizenship for children born out of the jurisdiction of the United States. Since they were dealing with persons born outside of the United States, they couldn’t possibly be “jus soli based” — as for those people there was no US soil to base the law on.
As you well know, the citizenship laws of probably every country on earth contain both jus soli (“by soil”) and jus sanguinis (“by blood”) components.
The Court did not hold that Wong was an Article II “natural born Citizen.”
The Court PLAINLY FOUND — and stated it as an “IRRESISTIBLE” “CONCLUSION” that the allegiance TO THE UNITED STATES of every citizen or subject of another country, while domiciled here, is “strong enough to make a natural subject,” and “IF HE HATH ISSUE [a CHILD] HERE, THAT ISSUE [or, that CHILD] IS A NATURAL-BORN SUBJECT” [quoting the words of English or, in United States terms — a NATURAL-BORN CITIZEN.]
It is therefore CLEAR and UNDENIABLE that the United States Supreme Court found Wong Kim Ark to be not ONLY a “citizen” — they ALSO found — and they stated it as an “IRRESISTIBLE” “CONCLUSION” — that Wong Kim Ark, who was precisely described in the exact terms above, was “NATURAL BORN.”
Third, the Wong decision distinguished between a “natural-born citizen” and a “citizen,” saying that the former is a child born in the country to citizen parents. Wong even cited and quoted Minor for this definition.
The Wong decision did no such thing, and you know it.
What Wong added is that a child born in the U.S. to alien parents is as much a “citizen” as the “natural born” child born in the U.S. to citizen parents.
More smoke and mirrors — because you purposefully omit the clause that immediately precedes the very one that you quote!
Quoting the Supreme Court: Every citizen or subject of another country, while domiciled here, is within the allegiance and the protection, and consequently subject to the jurisdiction, of the United States. His allegiance TO THE UNITED STATES is direct and immediate, and, although but local and temporary, continuing only so long as he remains within our territory, is yet, in the words of Lord Coke in Calvin’s Case, 7 Rep. 6a, “strong enough to make a natural subject, for if he hath issue here, that issue is a NATURAL-BORN subject;”
Quoting Apuzzo: You have not shown that Wong Kim Ark held that Wong was an Article II “natural born Citizen.” Rather, the Court only held that he was a Fourteenth Amendment “citizen.”
One only has to read the words of the Supreme Court in Wong Kim Ark, directly above, to know that you’re a liar.
Re: “You just keep repeating the same thing over and over, i.e., that Wong Kim Ark ruled that Wong was a “natural born Citizen.” But you fail to show it. Your repeatedly saying it without showing it is not convincing.”
Well of course YOU are not going to be convinced. But the Meese VOLUME (written by Ho, but he is a conservative legal scholar selected by Meese) is convinced and so are three state courts and one federal court.
You are a lawyer and yet you do not understand logic. In elementary logic, syllogisms, if ALL men are mortal and Mario is a man, then Mario is mortal. Moreover, once I have said ALL men are mortal and Mario is a man, I do not have to say “Mario is mortal.” It is unnecessary to say it. The fact that Mario is a man is logically necessary from the first two statements. He falls into the category of mortal because all men do.
So, if EVERY child born in the USA is Natural Born, then Wong Kim Ark, who was born in the USA, is Natural Born. And, since he was ruled to be a citizen by the court he is both Natural Born and a citizen—-a Natural Born Citizen.
This logic is obvious, and it has been found so by the three state courts and the federal court in Obama’s case and in statements by several other courts about the US-born children of other foreigners. The Wong Kim Ark decision was a recognition of the meaning of the term Natural Born that had been assumed by Tucker in 1803 (and whomever he was quoting before that) and by Rawle in 1829–and of course by Blackstone considerably before that.
Re: “Never before had our U.S. Supreme Court tied the citizenship status of a child who was born in the United States to the domicile of his or her parents.”
Answer: YES. Shocking isn’t it. That is what landmark decisions do. They are, by definition, the first. There has to be a first in anything, and in this case the Wong Kim Ark decision was the first SUPREME COURT decision to link the place of birth with citizenship. But it was not the first American court to do so. Lynch vs Clark had done so in New York in 1844 (Lynch v. Clarke, 3 N.Y.Leg.Obs. 236, 1 Sand. Ch. 583 (1844).)
“It is an indispensable proposition, that by the rule of common law of England, if applied to these facts, Julia Lynch was a natural born citizen of the United States. And this rule was established and inflexible in the common law, long anterior to the first settlement of the United States and, indeed, before the discovery of America by Columbus. By the common law, all persons born within the ligeance of the crown of England, were natural born subject, without reference to the status or condition of their parents. So if a Frenchman and his wife, came to England, and had a son during their stay, he was a liege man. This was settled law in the time of Littleton, who died in 1492. And its uniformity through the intervening centuries may be seen by reference to the authorities, which I will cite without further comment [list of citations to cases/authorities].”
Not surprisingly, the Wong decision uses similar language:
“The fundamental principle of the common law with regard to English nationality was birth within the allegiance, also called “ligealty,” “obedience,” “faith,” or “power” of the King. The principle embraced all persons born within the King’s allegiance and subject to his protection.”
And (quoting 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.”
In short, the parents (decent) have no effect on nationality under the common law.
So the question is whether Natural Born is a common law term or whether it comes from some other source. Since Natural Born was in COMMON use (not just legal use) in the United States as late as WWI and it meant citizenship at birth since there were only two categories of citizen, it is highly unlikely that the term Natural Born came from Vattel or from “natural law.”
You keep coming back to the Wong Kim Ark case, but the meaning of Natural Born was obvious to Tucker in 1803 and to the men who registered for the draft in WWI. Natural Born means a citizen at birth; people born in the country are Natural Born. Naturalized people are NOT natural born.
There is no legislation or articles specifying that there are three or more categories: naturalized, and native born to one citizen parent and native born to two citizen parents. There are only two categories, naturalized and Natural Born.
To be sure, IF the framers had said “two citizen parents” or “natural born, as Vattel use the term,” that would indeed be the definition under the Constitution. But they didn’t.
Re: “As I have explained and demonstrated several times, Tucker said that the “civil right” to be elected President belonged only to the children of citizens. ”
I have asked you to show the quotation from Tucker that allegedly said it because, frankly, I do not believe it.
He did say: “”Prior to the adoption of the constitution, the people inhabiting the different states might be divided into two classes: natural born citizens, or those born within the state, and aliens, or such as were born out of it. The first, by their birth-right, became entitled to all the privileges of citizens; the second, were entitled to none, but such as were held out and given by the laws of the respective states prior to their emigration. …St. George Tucker, BLACKSTONE’S COMMENTARIES: WITH NOTES OF REFERENCE TO THE CONSTITUTION AND LAWS OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND THE COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA. (1803)”
And, as you have pointed out, he was quoting someone else, so at least two Americans believed it at the time. What did they believe, that there was a right under the law?? No. The quotation simply shows that they assumed that Natural Born comes from the common law and hence must refer to the place of birth. Neither of these men thought that there was a real chance that Natural Born meant something OTHER than in the common law—meaning that it referred to parents.
Since none of the framers apparently (my search) ever used Natural Born in the Vattel definition but many had used it in the common law definition, it is difficult to hold that they really thought that two citizen parents are required. (Maybe they thought that only one citizen parent was required??) But the fact remains that they never said that ANY citizen parents were required.
As I have shown seven US parents have had foreign parents. Some of them were great. Two of the great ones, Jefferson and Jackson, fell under the grandfather clause. That means that under your absurd definition of Natural Born they would not be eligible to be president if they ran today. Under the common law definition they would be eligible. It seems absurd to rule out the chances of electing these two great men without actual evidence that the writers of the Constitution were following Vattel.
I have known some US-born people whose parents were not US citizens. In my experience they were not any less loyal than the US-born children of US-citizens. Since there is no evidence of there being a difference where loyalty is concerned, why assume that the writers of the Constitution thought so? To be sure, if they had said, “we believe that the US-born children of foreigners are likely to be less loyal than the US-born children of US citizens” that would be the law–but they never did.
Under the principle of strict construction it is not allowed for justices to rationalize that two-citizen parents are required when no legislation and no guidance of any kind says that the writers of the Constitution thought so. Under the principle of original intent, the meaning of Natural Born comes from the common law and refers to the place of birth.
You lose.
Re: “I have not seen one Obama defender yet explain what “common law” Minor used given that its “natural-born citizen” definition included citizen parents. I am sure that you will not address this question either and rather, just evade answering it. ”
No problem. Under English and American common law a person born in the USA with two citizen parents is a Natural Born Citizen. In fact, the Minor vs Happersett decision says that that was never doubted. And I agree, there is no doubt that a person born in the US of two citizen parents is a Natural Born Citizen.
No doubt whatsoever. But the fact that there is no doubt about two citizen parents does not mean that there is doubt about one citizen parent. Those with two citizen parents are within the category, but are those with only one citizen parent within the category?
The Minor vs Happersett ruling does not say. Does it say that persons without any citizen parents are NOT in the category? NO it does not say that either.
Is the statement in Minor vs Happersett a definition? No, it is simply a statement that two are certain (one might be and the same with none).
Is it even a legal specification? NO, the court was merely saying that Minor (the plaintiff) had lots of the attributes of a citizen, place of birth and parents (and they could have added a New York accent). If I said that it was never doubted that all living men with red blood cells were able to ride bicycles would that mean that the men had to have red blood cells?
A couple of comments to ehancock.
So the question is whether Natural Born is a common law term or whether it comes from some other source.
Yes, and the answer to that question is that “natural born” is clearly a common law term.
First, that is where the term came from.
Secondly, we have abundant record of its use in that context.
Third, as far as I’m aware NO ONE — Mr. Apuzzo included — has produced any evidence whatsoever that the term “natural born” was ever used, even once, in the English language before the writing of the Presidential eligiblity clause to refer directly to Emerrich de Vattel’s doctrine that “indigenes” were both born on the soil and had two citizen parents.
Fourth, we have hard evidence as to the relative influence on our Founding Fathers of Blackstone and the English common law, versus Vattel. Blackstone was quoted by the Founding Fathers nearly 16 times as frequently as they ever quoted Vattel.
All of these being the case, it is not simply clear — it’s abundantly clear where the term “natural born” came from. And knowing where it came from tells us what it means. Unless Apuzzo or someone else can prove that the term radically changed in its meaning, then it has to mean what it always meant.
Such a proof that the meaning changed would need abundant and clear documentation of its use to clearly mean what Apuzzo claims it means. But Apuzzo can’t produce even one instance where any of the Founding Fathers, any of the Framers of the Constitution, or the writer of any legal dictionary ever stated that being “natural born” required both birth on the soil and having two citizen parents. Not one.
He attempts to do so with David Ramsay. But let’s see what Apuzzo writes about Ramsay:
In his 1789 essay, while not using the phrase “natural born Citizen,” Ramsay…
Aha. Ramsay never used the phrase “natural born citizen.” Well, that lets Ramsay out, doesn’t it?
What Apuzzo also does not tell his gullible audience about Ramsay is that Ramsay’s essay never once even mentions the citizenship situation of a child of two alien immigrant parents born on US soil after American independence — which after all is what we are talking about.
If this isn’t the topic of Ramsay’s essay, then what the heck is?
Ramsay’s essay has solely to do with the citizenship division of people in the United States, at the time of independence, into citizens of the new United States, and continued subjects of Great Britain. Prior to independence, the people of the United States had been subjects of Britain. Some were Revolutionaries, and some were British Loyalists. Did all go with the new nation? No.(In fact, Peter Van Schaack, whose reading of Vattel Apuzzo quotes for supposed evidence of Vattel’s influence on the “Founding Fathers,” was manifestly NOT a Founder at all, or even a Revolutionary — he was a British Loyalist who moved back to Britain for 7 years after American independence!)
Apuzzo also fails to tell his gullible audience that Ramsay’s tract wasn’t some cool-headed, academic, scholarly helpful essay on citizenship for the general information of interested parties. Oh, no. David Ramsay was a man with a personal axe to grind. And that axe is precisely what this essay — actually, this marketing piece — was all about.
Ramsay had been beaten for a seat in the US House of Representatives by Mr. William Loughton Smith — and was earnestly seeking to have Mr. Smith disqualified. He based this disqualification appeal on the grounds that Mr. Smith, born in the United States, had been in Europe getting his education at the time of independence, and Smith’s parents had died before independence.
Ramsay therefore claimed that Smith couldn’t meet the citizenship qualifications, as his parents just might have turned out to be Loyalists instead of Revolutionaries; and Smith himself wasn’t in the country at the time of independence.
There’s more that Apuzzo doesn’t tell his gullible audience — lots more.
Ramsay’s position on citizenship, when put to a vote in Congress, was REJECTED in just about the most resounding way possible. His contestation of Smith’s seating — based on the exact arguments put forth in the “citizenship” essay that Apuzzo quotes — was voted down THIRTY-SIX TO ONE. This was one of the earliest and most decisive bitch-slaps of American legislative history.
There are therefore MULTIPLE fallacies and distortions in Apuzzo’s unconscionable attempt to use Ramsay to bolster his house-of-cards claims. Ramsay never mentions “natural born citizen.” Ramsay had a clear personal axe to grind. Ramsay was completely silent on the status of the children of aliens born after American independence. And most importantly, Ramsay’s citizenship claims were slapped into oblivion by our early leaders.
In fact, this resounding rejection of Ramsay’s views on citizenship was led by none other than James Madison, the “Father of the Constitution.” It was on this exact occasion that Madison stated, “It is an established maxim that birth is a criterion of [the] allegiance [that creates citizenship]. 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.”
Quoting ehancock again:
I have known some US-born people whose parents were not US citizens. In my experience they were not any less loyal than the US-born children of US-citizens.
I’ve no doubt this is the likely and typical experience.
And this is in an age in which the world is vastly smaller, and a person’s country or culture of past heritage is therefore much closer, than it ever could’ve been in the Founders’ day. We have telephones; we have air travel. And yet we can detect no discernible lack of loyalty in persons whose parents were not citizens at the time of their birth. In the days of the Founders, such communications and travel took weeks if not months.
If we find no discernible lack of loyalty whatsoever in our vastly smaller modern world on the part of citizens whose parents weren’t citizens at birth, then to suppose that the Founding Fathers did not even remotely approach being anything like credible.
And ehancock: Your explanation, two posts up, of what Minor v Happersett actually says, is crystal clear and dead-on accurate.
I would also like to comment on the idea that the term “natural born” must refer to “natural law,” and that “natural law” means Vattel’s definition of “indigene” (NOT “natural born citizen,” which as we’ve seen is an English common law term that had no relation whatsoever to Vattel’s writings).
I agree that the word “natural” in “natural born subject/ citizen” has clear reference to natural law. It’s just not the particular idea of “natural law” that was espoused by foreign, Swiss philosopher Vattel.
It is instead the natural law known and understood in our OWN heritage, the English heritage.
As an aside here, I will note that not once in any history book have I ever read of the thirteen original Swiss colonies, or of our letter to the King of Switzerland declaring our independence, or that our language in the United States is the French language.
Instead we speak of the thirteen original English colonies — all thirteen of them. We gained our Independence from the King of England, and to this day the language of our entire nation is the English language.
So what, exactly, was the NATURAL LAW that was understood in OUR heritage?
It was this: A person born in a country or realm was born into a NATURAL relationship with the country or realm he was born in. This was specifically embodied in the actual person of the King or Queen. It was also a two-way relationship, a two-way allegiance. The King or Queen was expected to provide a certain amount of protection and government for the benefit of the subject who was born under his or her rule.
Just as a person was born into a particular family, by this understanding, a person was also born into a particular kingdom or dominion. Birth in your family made you a member of your family. Birth in England made you a member of England.
It was natural — and more than natural. It was regarded as part of the natural and divine order of the world, set up by God himself.
Quoting Polly Price in her 1997 article in the Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities, titled, “NATURAL LAW AND BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP IN CALVIN’S CASE,”
[Lord] Coke [who presided over the landmark 1607 citizenship decision] wrote that “[t]he law of nature is that which God at the time of creation of the nature of man infused into his heart, for his preservation and direction; and this is lex aeterna, the moral law, called also the law of nature.” Coke further wrote: And the reason hereof is, for that God and nature is one to all, and therefore the law of God and nature is one to all. By this law of nature is the faith, ligeance, and obedience of the subject due to his Sovereign or superior. . . . This law of nature, which indeed is the eternal law of the Creator, infused into the heart of the creature at the time of his creation, was two thousand years before any laws written, and before any judicial or municipal laws.
This basic idea, that nations themselves, and kings, and governments, were the creation of God himself was clearly stated by the Apostle Paul in the New Testament:
Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. — Romans 13:1
From there it is only a small step to the conclusion that a person born within a kingdom owes natural — and divinely ordained — allegiance to that kingdom; and that the king, operating under divine authority, naturally owes something in return — all of those obligations that a just king owes to his subjects.
This ancient, theological, Judeo-Christian view of natural law is contrasted with the relatively rather pagan, almost Darwinian view of natural law being espoused by birthers: that “it takes two leopards to make a leopard.”
But which view of natural law is “superior” here is not the issue. The issue is: which view of natural law is OUR view? Which view of natural law gave rise to the definition of “natural born citizen.”
And the answer to that question is crystal clear. “Natural born” itself is a term that came from the English common law. And we have abundant use of the precise term, “natural born,” in this context all through English and American history. No one has produced any record whatsoever that the term was ever used in the English language — even once, prior to the writing of the Constitution, even to refer Vattel’s concept.
It is therefore crystal clear that “natural born” meant what it had always meant. And yes, it is natural law. And this term, derived from natural law, had always included the children, even of aliens, born on the soil.
I apologize for some minor errors in formatting. There are a couple of occasions when I failed to properly close an italics tag. 🙂
Mario Apuzzo said: “Since that citizen is not a “natural born Citizen, that citizen is a naturalized citizen, although one that is naturalized at birth. ”
If I understand you correctly, you believe that a child born in the USA of foreign parents is a naturalized citizen.
So, when American men were asked in the draft registration for WWI whether they were naturalized citizens or natural born citizens, all those of them–probably hundreds of thousands of men–who had replied “natural born” when they had been born in the USA of foreign parents were making a mistake?
Just a few remarks on the first of the further comments by Mr. Apuzzo:
MA: (1) Like I told you, your Meese reference is really to James C. Ho, who wrote the article. Mr. Ho assumes without proving that simply being born a “citizen[] from birth” makes one a “natural born Citizen.” Mr. Ho has no authority for this proposition and neither do you.
You protest too much, Mario. First of all, it doesn’t matter that the article wasn’t personally written by Edwin Meese, Attorney General under President Ronald Reagan. As editor of the book, he has placed his personal stamp of approval on the article and all of the information that it contains. As so has the conservative Heritage Foundation. So has the executive editor and constitutional historian Dr. Matthew Spalding. So has senior editor and legal scholar Dr. David Forte, a professor of law and former Chief Counsel to the United States Delegation to the United Nations.
Set dead against this parade of distinguished luminaries we have Mario Apuzzo, Esq. Let’s look at his qualifications, as stated by his own law firm:
“Our law firm is led by Atty. Mario Apuzzo. He specializes in personal injury, criminal law, municipal law, matrimonial law, and real estate.”
Don’t get me wrong. I have no objection whatsoever to a man bettering himself by becoming involved in loftier national issues. But if one does so, he should do so on the side of accuracy and truth.
Secondly, it’s not just Reagan’s Attorney General, the Heritage Foundation, constitutional historian Dr. Spalding, and former Chief Counsel Dr. Forte that Mr. Apuzzo has set himself against. Oh, no. It’s the understanding and consensus of the entire past and present legal, historical and educational professions. This can easily be seen by reading through this list of approximately 400 quotes on Presidential qualifications pulled from the entire collection of books referenced by google books on the subject.
Third, James C. Ho’s authority comes from the United States Supreme Court. You’ve done nothing to invalidate the evidence presented above that the Supreme Court, in US v Wong Kim Ark, CLEARLY found that Wong Kim Ark — born on US soil to two parents who were not US citizens and could never become so — was not “just” a citizen — he was also NATURAL BORN.
Promoting novel (and plainly false) legal theories that go against the understanding and consensus of the entire legal and historical profession, not just currently but throughout the whole of American history, may gain you points with a certain subset of people who desperately want to believe the pretty stories — but it’s not a way to be taken seriously by any intelligent and reasonably impartial observer who reads more than just your blog.
Before leaving this question, let’s look again at what the Heritage Guide to the Constitution (2005), edited by former Ronald Reagan’s Attorney General Edwin Meese, says about the citizenship qualification for Presidential eligibility:
“Under the longstanding English common-law principle of jus soli, persons born within the territory of the sovereign (other than children of enemy aliens or foreign diplomats) are citizens from birth. Thus, those persons born within the United States are “natural born citizens” and eligible to be President.
We can certainly continue going through the additional points you made one by one, but even a look at this first one shows serves to illustrate that you are virtually alone in the legal and historical universe (especially now that Leo Donofrio has retired from the scene) in trying to make the futile and false case that being a natural born citizen requires two citizen parents. True, being virtually alone on a position is not necessarily an indication your position is wrong, but we have literally mountains of other evidence (see some of the above comments, for example, by ehancock and myself) that establish that.
John Woodman,
I read your entire response. Nothing but bunk. You can scream all you want but you make no point with those of us who know the deal. You can fool the ignorant, but you cannot fool the knowing. Take your baseless drivel some where else with the likes of you. You think you are some God-given gift to us who seek the truth. Go look for an audience some where else. You can probably find some comfort in the lap of those who would deny us the chance to appear and speak.
Mario,
I read your entire response. Nothing but bunk… scream all you want… baseless drivel… You think you are some God-given gift…
That’s a really great way of saying you can’t refute the facts presented.
Thank you for playing, sir.
Incidentally, there’s much more that can be said about Mr. Apuzzo and his bogus claims. I have, for example, an entire draft article that I’ve never yet gotten around to publishing regarding Apuzzo’s complete misrepresentation of statements that I made regarding his “logic” concerning Minor v Happersett.
Earlier this year, Apuzzo filed a 199-page legal “brief” in the case of Tisdale v Obama. This appears to pretty much represent Apuzzo’s entire collection of birther arguments.
As noted elsewhere, many of the authorities that Apuzzo cites in this “brief” deny or present evidence that runs counter to his bogus claims. The ones that I personally have noted include:
Thomas Jefferson
James Madison
Alexander Hamilton
St. George Tucker
Lord Coke
Lynch v Clarke
Attorney General Edward Bates
The 1857 New York Statute
Justice Gaston
James Scott Brown
William Rawle
US v Wong Kim Ark
If Mr. Apuzzo would like, we can get into the painful details of how these authorities that he cites as supposedly supporting his position generally present evidence against it. We’ve already mentioned one of them above — James Madison, the “Father of the Constitution.”
Finally, as ehancock notes, courts have consistently ruled against Apuzzo’s position. One ruling that ehancock doesn’t mention here was handed down just a couple of weeks ago in the Arizona ballot challenge case of Allen v. Arizona Democratic Party. This case was heard ON THE MERITS, which are the exact same claims made by Apuzzo regarding both Minor v Happersett and US v Wong Kim Ark. And it was dismissed with prejudice. Here’s what the judge had to say (legal citations only deleted, solely for the sake of readability):
“Arizona courts are bound by United States Supreme Court precedent in construing the United States Constitution… and this precedent fully supports that President Obama is a natural born citizen under the Constitution and thus qualified to hold the office of President… Contrary to Plaintiff’s assertion, Minor v. Happersett… does not hold otherwise.“
Oh… and I should add that the #1 Court case named as a reference for the statement that Supreme Court precedent “fully supports that Obama is a natural born citizen under the Constitution and thus qualified to hold the office of President” was, of course, US v Wong Kim Ark.
Reply to #51. Att: ehancock
The airline ticket s circa 1961 had a six month life. So
Ann D. Obama would have needed a return ticket out of Africa.
The answer is once Stanley Ann D. Obama could not get on
EAA flight # 120 on August 4, 1961, from its stop at
Port Reitz Airport, viz., between Dar Es Salaam and
Niarobi, the ticket need to be rewrote on a BOAC plated
ticket.
The ticket from London to either Montreal or Vancouver
would be on IATA group ticket stock. That would repect
the addition 10% fare of the one way for infant Obama.
Obama did not need a separt travel document to fly from
London to Montreal or on to Vancouver,British Columbia
with his mother in 1961.
Other than that what are your concerns?
My next question to you is why do you think I believe Obama was born in Kenya Colony? I not the events of
1913, in exchange of formal letters between the British
Foreign Office and the British Colonial Office. However, those letter are not binding on the United States foreign relations.
Obama at birth was a British Protected Person under the
terms of the British Nationality Act 1948. He was also
a Subject of the Sultan of Zanzibar like his father and
grandfather (since 1919 Zanzibar Naturalization Decree).
The events of December 9 to 12, 1963, happened after Obama was living in Honolulu.
Barack H. Obama I entered the United States in 1959 from
Canada as a Subject of the Sultan of Zanzibar.
I have hear of no lawful entry into the United States from British Columbia during the several date window
prior to September 25, 1961.
EHancock, where do you believe Barack Obama II was for the several days before Stanley Ann D.Obama started the
exetension class at U Deh on September 25, 1961?
She enroll by mail at the Anthropology class on August 19, 1961. When and how do you think Obama got to Seattle,
Washington by September 25, 1961?
Sincerely, Mark Seidenberg, Chairman, American Independent Party
Mark,
As far as I’m aware, you have no actual evidence that Barack Obama was born in Kenya. A bit of hearsay, and a bit of speculation.
It’s clear, for example, that Lucas D. Smith’s purported “Kenyan birth certificate” is a plain forgery.
Now you claim that Mrs. Obama flew — at great expense — through Canada. Why? There’s no reason. Like all birthers, you are pushed by the known facts to more and more complicated theoretical scenarios, none of which is remotely likely in the first place, and which end up being so complex as to be completely ludicrous.
Again, what actual evidence (other than a bit of hearsay and known forged fake “certificates”) do you have that any of these things happened? None.
There is a tremendous double standard on the part of birthers when it comes to evidence. If it can be shown that a single American citizen was born in Kenya during the year in question… omigod! That’s proof that it was Barack Obama.
On the other hand, the official word of the State of Hawaii counts for nothing. The complete failure of anyone to uncover any real evidence that the birth certificate is a forgery (notwithstanding the entirely speculative nonsense claims coming out of Joe Arpaio’s office, virtually all of which were factually debunked six months before Arpaio’s press conference) counts for nothing. And the half dozen Hawaii state officials from both parties who have all publicly and personally affirmed that Obama was indeed born in Hawaii also count for nothing.
It’s all a way of stacking the deck so that the facts, the evidence, and the actual truth don’t matter in the least — Obama’s “ineligible,” no matter what the evidence.
John Woodman,
My 199-page brief was not filed in the Tisdale v. Obama case. Rather, it was filed in the Kerchner and Laudenslager v. Obama ballot objection action in the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania. The Court never reached the merits of my brief. Judge Keith B. Quigley, on behalf of the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, said he had no jurisdiction to decide whether Obama was constitutionally eligible to be President and therefore entitled to appear on the primary presidential ballot in Pennsylvania.
Regarding Tisdale v. Obama, I have just recently filed an amicus curiae brief in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, along with my motion to file the brief. My Pennsylvania and Tisdale briefs are different, with the latter brief being 7000 words which is the maximum allowed in the Fourth Circuit for an amicus brief. I therefore could not include in the Tisdale brief much information that is found in my Pennsylvania brief.
I would love to see your “draft article” which you say refutes my arguments. I have seen you arguments to date and none of them refute anything that I have said on this topic. So I hope you will present new and challenging arguments.
Finally, as far as your citing to current cases (three state decisions rendered in Indiana, Georgia, and Arizona, and one federal decision rendered in the federal court in Virginia, Tisdale), which you say support your position that any child born in the U.S., regardless of the citizenship of the parents, is a “natural born Citizen,” those cases are in error, for they all strictly rely upon United States v. Wong Kim Ark’s holding which only said that a child born in the United States to domiciled alien parents was born “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and therefore a “citizen” under the Fourteenth Amendment. Even Wong Kim Ark itself informs us that that is not the definition of an Article II “natural born Citizen.” Rather, Wong Kim Ark itself, when referring to a “natural born Citizen,” cited and quoted Minor’s definition which it gave as a child born in a country to citizen parents.
John Woodman,
At Post @ 61 you gave almost 400 cites. Have you read
them or most of them!? The first entry is William Rawle,
A VIEW OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (1825) with a quote from page 80, stating that:
“Every person born within the United States, its territories and its districts, weather the parents are
citizens or aliens, a natural born citizens in the sense
of the constitution, an entitled to all the rights and
privilages…”
Wow, than I guess the status of Obama’s birth location
can go away. Being born on Mombasa on August 4, 1961,
would mean under this Rawle theory that Obama is a natural born citizen, because Mombasa was annexed into
Zanzibar in 1837. Then Congress created the United States District of Zanzibar for the jurisdiction for the
United States Consular Court in the 19th Century. Then
also any of the current billions in China can also run
for POTUS, because Congress also created the United States District of China over one hundred years ago when
it created the United States District Court for China.
Those appeals went to the 9th Circuit Count of Appeals
in San Francisco.
The question for Mr. John Woodman, do you believe Mr.
Rawle correct that United States Districts are included within the meaning of the United States for the application of the constitution of the Unitd States?
Sincerely, Mark Seidenberg, Chairman, American Independent Party of California.
P.S. The issue of districts within consular court jurisdiction was covered by the case of ROSS v. KISSENGER circa 1973. It was before the Honorable
Judge Curtis of the Central California District Court
at Los Angeles. This case went forward during Judge
Curtis handling of the EQUITY FUNDING case. Which most
attorney read in they graduated from Law School after
1974.
Mario,
You are entirely correct in stating that your 199-page brief was filed in Kerchner v Obama and not Tisdale v Obama. I stand corrected on that point. The brief you filed in Tisdale was only 42 pages. I had actually caught that small error and was about to correct it.
MA: The Court never reached the merits of my brief.
Lucky for you.
MA: …those cases are in error, for they all strictly rely upon United States v. Wong Kim Ark’s holding which only said that a child born in the United States to domiciled alien parents was born “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and therefore a “citizen” under the Fourteenth Amendment.
That’s nonsense, and you know it. The plain language of the Court in US v Wong Kim Ark makes it quite clear, not once but twice, that the child born in the United States to domiciled alien parents is not only a “citizen” but also “NATURAL BORN.” The Court specifically uses the words “NATURAL BORN,” and states that as an “irresistible” “conclusion.” Anyone who can read can see the falsity of your claim on this point. This is why your position lost in all four of those cases, and it’s why your position will ultimately lose in every future case that is brought to court on the same issue.
Are you ready to go 0 for 5?
Mark,
The first thing to note is that William Rawle, writing as far back as 1825 — and just like essentially every other authority who has ever spoken on the subject, including Ronald Reagan’s Attorney General Edwin Meese — directly contradicts Mr. Apuzzo’s claims.
Let’s read that again. William Rawle, A View of the Constitution of the United States of America, in the year 1825:
“Every person born within the United States, its territories and its 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.”
You couldn’t possibly contradict Mario Apuzzo’s claims more directly. And Rawle was not merely a specialist in personal injury, criminal law, municipal law, matrimonial law, and real estate. He was United States District Attorney for Pennsylvania, and the first President of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. His words on the matter were quoted in the 1866 Congressional debates on who was a citizen.
Rawle continues: “[W]hen we are informed that… no person is eligible to the office of president unless he is a natural born citizen, the principle that the place of birth creates the relative quality is established as to us.”
In other words, Rawle tells us natural born citizenship (and Presidential eligibility) is created by the place of birth, and that this is an “established” “principle.”
Therefore, if Mr. Obama was born in the United States, he is plainly eligible. So are Bobby Jindal and Marco Rubio.
You contend, in the face of all known facts, that Obama was born in Mombasa, Kenya. Where’s your evidence? Given the abundant and certified evidence that he was in fact born in Honolulu, your evidence had better be something more than speculation and hearsay. It had better be damn good.
Most of my studies on the history of the Sultanate of Zanzibar, came about from two classes I took on Sub-Sahara History at San Francisco State College in the
1960’s. Therefore, when I first raised birther issues
of Obama at a hotel in Concord, New Hampshire in December, 2006, I was well aware that Mombasa Island was
annexed by the Sultan of Oman and Zanzibar in 1837.
Zanzibar was a hot topic in Africa Studies because it was lost to Red China and Cuba funded uprising on January 12, 1964. Remember Zanzibar became a member
state of the United Nations on December 16, 1963.
Therefore, at the time of Barack Obama’s birth on August
4, 1961 the Sultan of Zanzibar was “protected” by Queen
Elizebeth II. Barack H. Obama II was at birth a
subject of an Arab Sultan of Zanzibar and had a legal
loyalty to his Sultan.
Sincerely, Mark Seidenberg, Chairman, American ndependent Party of Californa
John Woodman,
Rawle cites no authority for his position. Nor is there any authority that supports what he wrote.
My good friends, William Ramsay and St. George Tucker, among other great American founders, shred Rawle to pieces.
Rawle forgot that Congress in 1790 passed the Naturalization Act of 1790 (also in 1795, 1802, and 1855) which abrogated the English common law in the United States on the national level which is where U.S. citizenship belongs.
It appears that Rawle still thought that the United States applied the English common law on the national level which the historical record shows it did not.
William Rawle was shown to be wrong in The Venus, Inglis, Shanks, Dred Scott, Minor, and Wong Kim Ark, all cases of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Finally, you need to show me one’s works rather than one’s titles for me to be convinced about one’s position.
Mario Abuzzo Esq.
You stated that Rawle was wrong many cases, e.g., The Venus and Dred Scott, which I have read. I have not
read the other. However, on the two cases I have read,
how was he wrong?
As to the Act of 1802 and Act of 1855, I know the acts,
but my guess the reads to not know those acts. the reason I know those two Act of Congress was because they
were raised by the Attorney General several times in opinions. I had communication with Departmnt of Justice
in the 1970’s about one of the AG Opinions, because of a
spelling error in the AG Opinion. I was informed that
the AG Opinion did in fact have the aforesaid error in
spelling, and that the next bound volume the spelling
error would be corrected by placing a correctjkn on an error sheet front of the opinion text. However, I have not seen a bound AG Opinion since I was told of the correction back in the 1970’s. The spelling error was
“Gnap” (sic.) for “Guap”, now it is call “Yap”.
Sincerely, Mark Seidenberg, Chairman, American Independent Party
Mario,
Don’t you mean David Ramsay? The exact same David Ramsay whom you shamelessly misrepresent and falsely rely on — which shameless misrepresentation and false reliance I dealt with fairly extensively in post #56?
Don’t you mean the same David Ramsay whose position on citizenship — the exact same position that you rely on for your claims — was slapped down in an utterly humiliating THIRTY-SIX TO ONE vote, led by none other than James Madison, the “FATHER of our Constitution?”
As for St. George Tucker:
You claim regarding Tucker that he “believed that the ‘civil right’ to be elected President belonged only to the children of citizens.”
You make this claim, but as far as I can tell you provide absolutely no quote from Tucker whatsoever to support it, either here or at your blog.
Moreover, ehancock has specifically asked you for the quote, twice, and you haven’t provided it. Where’s the quote? Put up or shut up.
At this moment, we have absolutely no quote whatsoever from St George Tucker to show that he ever supported your claim. Even if he did, he would be one voice among dozens — if not hundreds — that does.
But so far, we have absolutely zero evidence from Tucker to support your claim.
Here’s what we know he DID say, though. We know for a fact that he approvingly quoted another writer who said the following:
“Prior to the adoption of the constitution, the people inhabiting the different states might be divided into two classes: natural born citizens, or those born within the state, and aliens, or such as were born out of it.”
Tucker therefore clearly told us that — prior to the Constitution, at least, “NATURAL BORN CITIZEN” meant someone who was BORN WITHIN THE STATE.
If that’s what it meant “prior to the Constitution,” then that’s what it meant at the time that the Constitution was established. So Tucker tells us that’s what it meant when the Presidential eligibility clause was written.
The authority you quote as supposedly being in support of your position therefore refutes you. You have provided no quote from Tucker to the contrary. Even if you did, you would probably only show that he had inconsistent opinions on the subject. But I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for you to produce that actual quote. You certainly haven’t produced it so far.
MA: Rawle forgot that Congress in 1790 passed the Naturalization Act of 1790 (also in 1795, 1802, and 1855) which abrogated the English common law in the United States on the national level which is where U.S. citizenship belongs.
I’ve already dealt with this, and you’ve posted no response. An Act doesn’t “abrogate” a matter that it doesn’t address. Not one of these acts addressed the status of a person born on US soil. Therefore this claim as well is false.
Let’s see. You’ve failed on Rawle (post #71). Your only excuse it that Rawle “cites no authority.” That’s bogus. Rawle is an authority.
You’ve failed — comprehensively — on Ramsay (post #56). You’ve failed on Tucker, unless you can produce that quote; and to some degree even if you can.
You’ve failed on Wong Kim Ark, as you have in no way refuted the plain statements made by the Court in that case (see post #21). As shown by ehancock, you’ve failed on Minor v Happersett (see posts #55 and #53). You’ve failed on Vattel (posts #24 and #25). You’ve failed on the common law rule (post #53).
You’ve failed on the Naturalization Acts (post #53). You’ve failed on natural law (post #58). You’ve failed on Meese and the Heritage Foundation (post #61). And you’ve failed in the courts (post #64 and elsewhere).
I’ll say this for you, though: You’re consistent.
That makes eleven consecutive failures, by my count. Shall we go for a baker’s dozen?
Mark Seidenberg,
I was also wondering about the spelling error. I thought that what the writers meant to convey is that they were referring to a cat which they spelled in German as “katze.” But in any event, I do believe that eventually the matter was resolved.
Mario Apuzzo, Esq
The Attorney General did make a spell error. He spelt Guap as Gnap (sic.). The current spelling for the islands are Yap.
Sincerely, Mark Seidenberg, Chairman, American Independent Party of California
Mark,
I know that and you know that I know that so why do you repeat yourself. Maybe you might want to speak to me directly about it. You can even call me and we will straighten the matter out. What do you say?
John Woodman,
(1) What I have written on April 2, 2010 on David Ramsay speaks for itself and can be read at Founder and Historian David Ramsay Defines a Natural Born Citizen in 1789 , accessed at http://puzo1.blogspot.com/2010/04/founder-and-historian-david-ramsay.html. Readers can read Ramsay’s dissertation on citizenship on their own and do not need your sophomoric comments to help them understand what he wrote.
On the Ramsay-Smith debate, Ramsay had maintained that William Smith had not been a citizen of the United States for the requisite 7 years under Article I, Section 2 because he stayed in Britain while the Revolution was going on and only came back to the United States when it was over and thereby not being present and residing in revolutionary America for the needed 7 years. The House did have an investigation on the matter. During the debates, William Smith argued that he was a “citizen” and even cited Emer de Vattel for support and said he did not have enough money to come back to America. During the whole ordeal, Ramsay was treated with respect for his stature as a physician and historian. Smith was able to convince the House that he was a 7-year citizen and so he prevailed.
This does not mean that Ramsay’s writings on the meaning of birthright citizenship following July 4, 1776 are incorrect. Ramsay maintained that birthright citizenship following July 4, 1776 belonged only to the children of citizens. Thomas Jefferson in 1779 and St. George Tucker in 1803 said the same thing. You cannot provide me with one source during that time period (a contemporaneous source) which responded to Ramsay saying that he was mistaken in what he wrote on the meaning of birthright citizenship. Also, the historical record is filled with the significant contributions that Ramsay made to the revolutionary cause. Historians on the revolution often cite and quote Ramsay on the happenings of the revolution and the political philosophy that followed.
(2) Your ignorance on St. George Tucker shows brightly. I guess I will have to do a separate post on Tucker so that you can learn more about him. Stay tuned at my blog where I will publish a separate essay on how Tucker defined a “natural born Citizen.”
(3) Here is the actual text of Act of March 26, 1790, entitled “An Act to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization,” 1 Stat. 103, c. 3:
“An Act to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization.
“Sec. 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That any alien, being a free white person, who shall have resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States for the term of two years, may be admitted to become a citizen thereof, on application to any common law court of record, in any one of the states wherein he shall have resided for the term of one year at least, and making proof to the satisfaction of such court, that he is a person of good character, and taking the oath or affirmation prescribed by law, to support the constitution of the United States, which oath or affirmation such court shall administer; 662*662 and the clerk of such court shall record such application, and the proceedings thereon; and thereupon such person shall be considered as a citizen of the United States. And the children of such persons so naturalized, dwelling within the United States, being under the age of twenty-one years at the time of such naturalization, shall also be considered as citizens of the United States. And the children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens: Provided, That the right of citizenship shall not descend to persons whose fathers have never been resident in the United States: Provided also, That no person heretofore proscribed by any state, shall be admitted a citizen as aforesaid, except by an act of the legislature of the state in which such person was proscribed.”
The language that is key to our understanding is: “And the children of such persons so naturalized, dwelling within the United States, being under the age of twenty-one years at the time of such naturalization, shall also be considered as citizens of the United States.” Now tell me where Congress says that the language only applies to children born out of the United States? You cannot. You will note that when Congress wanted to tell us that it was referring to children born out of the United States it did so in this very act when it said: “And the children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens.” The Acts of 1795 (which removed “natural born citizen” and replaced it with “citizen of the United States”), 1802, and 1855 contained basically the same language regarding “the children of such persons so naturalized.” So why do you not share with us how you arrive at your position that the statute’s language, “[a]nd the children of such persons so naturalized,” only applied to children born out of the United States. For your information, “Publius” or who was probably James Madison also agrees with me. See the article by Attorney Leo Donofrio published at his blog at http://naturalborncitizen.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/alexandria-herald.pdf .
(4) Rawle provides absolutely no authority that supports his position that a child born in the United States to alien parents can be a “natural born Citizen.” Rawle is not a self-executing authority on any given point. He can become an authority on a given point if and only if he explains how he arrives at his conclusion. He has to show how he arrives at his “natural born Citizen” definition which he does not. Rawle stands all alone on what he said. I will not simply accept his net opinion on the meaning of a “natural born Citizen” given that there is no contemporaneous historical evidence showing that he was correct. On the contrary, I have many authorities from the founding period and U.S. Supreme Court and lower court cases which show that a “natural born Citizen” is a child born in the country to citizen parents. All these authorities and case law show, unlike Rawle, that Vattel was correct.
(5) You say that I failed on Wong Kim Ark when it is you that failed. See Charles Gordon in his, Who Can Be President of the United States: The Unresolved Enigma, 28 Md. L.Rev. 1, 31-32 (Winter 1968) (says that Wong had nothing to do with defining a “natural born Citizen”); and Ankeny v. Governor of the State of Indiana, 916 N.E.2d 678 (Ind. Ct.App. 2009), transfer denied, 929 N.E.2d 789 (2010) (in Footnote 14 the court said that while “[w]e note the fact that the Court in Wong Kim Ark did not actually pronounce the plaintiff a ‘natural born Citizen’ using the Constitution’s Article II language,” such realization was unexplainably “immaterial”).
(6) On Minor, you have failed to provide any reasonable explanation why the Supreme Court in Minor included “citizen parents” in its definition of a “natural-born citizen” if as you say the English common law provided the definition of that clause. Again, the English common law did not concern itself with the citizenship of a child’s parents. So, the failure is yours.
(7) You say I failed on Vattel. You comments are frivolous given that our U.S. Supreme Court has cited and quoted Vattel’s definition of a “natural born Citizen” numerous times. The is so much historical evidence showing the influence that Vattel had during the founding and in the Framers drafting the Constitution. On your frivolous translation argument, our U.S. Supreme Court has used Vattel to say “natural-born Citizen.”
(8) Your attempt to show that the English common law continued to prevail on the national level by depending on the Constitution itself is absurd. The states, when they wanted to show that they still retained the English common law put it in their constitutions and statutes. I guess your limited intellect never noticed that unlike various states constitutions and statutes which said that the English common law was retained in the states except to the extent the state legislature by statute abrogated that law, there is no statement in the Constitution or any Act of Congress which provided that the English common law continued to prevail on the national level.
(9) No court has yet to reach the merits of my position on the meaning of an Article II “natural born Citizen.”
So I guess when we look at the score card, the loser is you, not me.
Wow, Mario!
That’s quite a punch you threw on this last one.
Woodman is staggering to get up off the canvas.
Most of the issues relating to Mombasa Island and its status as a United States District go back to exclusion of the island by the terms of a 1906 treaty between the United States and Great Britian related to Zanzibar. Mombasa Island is the remainder of the United States Consular Court District of Zanzibar.
In post 61 it states by Rawle that districts of the United States are included in the United States for the
operatoin of what constitutes the United State as to
persons born in the United States. By the above stated
1906 treaty Mombasa is the remainder of the Unitedtend States District of the Consular Court of Zanzibar.
Then do contend [John Woodman] that a Mombasa remainder of Zanzibar as the remainder to a United States district within the meaning of the Constition make Obama
at birth a natural born citizen because Mombasa Island
is part of greated United States district of consular
court jurisdiction?
Sincerely, Mark Seidenberg, Chairman, American Independent Party of California
Re: “David Ramsay Defines a Natural Born Citizen in 1789 , accessed at http://puzo1.blogspot.com/2010/04/founder-and-historian-david-ramsay.html. ”
Answer. Not that is not true. In that quotation Ramsey is describing his opinion of what a citizen is. He is not giving his definition of Natural Born. There is no evidence that he used Natural Born in any way other than in the common law, and according to my research John Adams, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and James Wilson and John Jay never use the term other than the way that it was used in the common law.
In LONG quotations, in a draft treaty with Britian, Ben Franklin, John Adams and John Jay all used the term Natural Born Citizen as an exact parallel with Natural Born subject. US citizens when in Britain were to get the same rights and privileges as Natural Born Subjects of Britain, and British subjects, while in the USA, were to get the same rights and privileges as Natural Born Citizens.
Re: “Thomas Jefferson in 1779 and St. George Tucker in 1803 said the same thing.”
Please show the quotations HERE. I still do not believe you, and you have not shown the quotations on this site.
Re: The naturalization act. That act ADDS the children of US citizens born overseas to the existing definition of Natural Born Citizens. The existing definition of Natural Born Citizens came from the common law and referred to the place of birth, as Tucker, Rawle and the US Supreme Court in Wong Kim Ark all recognized.
Re: “And the children of such persons so naturalized, dwelling within the United States, being under the age of twenty-one years at the time of such naturalization, shall also be considered as citizens of the United States.” Now tell me where Congress says that the language only applies to children born out of the United States? You cannot. ”
Big deal, they left out the Natural Born. Why did they leave out the Natural Born? Because it was OBVIOUS. The children born in America became citizens under the law. They were Natural Born already because Natural Born meant BORN IN THE COUNTRY. There is no reason to add “born in the country” to a US citizen who was indeed born in the country.
HOWEVER, the children of US citizens born outside of the USA were NOT born in the country, so that was the reason to add it. The Naturalization Act extended the definition of Natural Born, making it that a person was Natural Born if he or she were either born in the USA or born of US citizens abroad. However, you did not mention but that section of the act, the one that enabled foreign born US citizens of US parents to be considered Natural Born was subsequently repealed.
Re: “(6) On Minor, you have failed to provide any reasonable explanation why the Supreme Court in Minor included “citizen parents” in its definition of a “natural-born citizen” if as you say the English common law provided the definition of that clause. Again, the English common law did not concern itself with the citizenship of a child’s parents. So, the failure is yours. ”
Answer: It is not a definition. It is a description of Minor’s status. Nowhere does it say: “Natural Born Citizen requires two citizen parents.” And, as I said, it simply said that a person with two citizen parents born in the USA was without doubt a Natural Born Citizen. It did not say, and in fact it said that it would not rule on this matter, whether a person born in the USA of ONE citizen parent or NO citizen parents was not in fact also Natural Born. The Minor vs Happersett case is not a ruling on Natural Born status. But, if it were, it would be overturned by the Wong Kim Ark case, which said repeatedly that the meaning of Natural Born comes from the common law and refers to the place of birth, and that EVERY child born in the USA is natural born.
Re: “Rawle provides absolutely no authority that supports his position that a child born in the United States to alien parents can be a “natural born Citizen.”
Answer: Rawle, like Tucker, is an example of how AMERICAN scholars used the term Natural Born. They used it the way that the common law did, not the way that Vattel did.
Re: “You say I failed on Vattel. You comments are frivolous…”
Vattel is not mentioned even once in the Federalist Papers, and no contemporary AMERICAN writing at the time of the US Constitution can be found using the phrase Natural Born the way that it was TRANSLATED to read (ten years AFTER the US Constitution was written). No US Supreme Court ruling, except perhaps for the Dred Scott decision said that two citizen parents were REQUIRED, and the Wong Kim Ark ruling said very clearly that the meaning of Natural Born refers to the place of birth and that every child born in the USA is natural born.
Re: “Your attempt to show that the English common law continued to prevail on the national level by depending on the Constitution itself is absurd.”
You are trying unsuccessfully to create a straw man. I never said any such thing. I said that the US uses the term Natural Born the way that it was used in the common law, just as it uses the term Habeas Corpus the way that the common law did, and the US Supreme Court agreed in the Wong Kim Arc ruling, and the Meese volume (using conservative legal scholars approved by Meese and the Heritage Foundation) agrees, as does, so far, three state courts and one federal court, and that is also the reason that the US Congress confirmed Obama’s election without a single member voting against and why the US Electoral College gave Obama exactly the same number of electoral votes that he had received in the general election, meaning that not one single elector changed her or his vote to vote against.
You did not answer my question on your allegation that a US-born child of foreigners is a naturalized citizen at birth why in WWI the draft authorities asked men who registered for the draft whether they were US citizens, and then, if they were, whether they were naturalized or natural born. My question was whether the hundreds of thousands of men whose parents were not citizens (that was the time of high immigration) should have put down “naturalized” and not Natural Born?
ehancock,
Your answers do not merit any substantive response. You have done nothing but rehash your previous distorted and manipulated information, provided personal opinion, used nonresponsive statements, and injected it all as a response to my comments. I will respond to you should you have anything new to say.
On your last point about people not knowing that they were “naturalized,” what I said is that people who are “citizens” but not “natural born Citizens” are necessarily “naturalized,” either “at birth” or after birth. It matters not that someone may not know that he or she was naturalized at birth or what their citizenship status may truly be. Such person’s citizenship status does not at all depend on what that person believes it to be.
For example, how many people who are born abroad to one or two U.S. citizen parents are U.S. citizens “at birth” and do not know that their status derives from being naturalized “at birth” by an Act of Congress?
As one more example, how many people who were born betweeen 1802 and 1855 abroad to citizen parents who became U.S. citizens after 1802 believed they were U.S. citizens but under then existing Congressional statute (Naturalization Act of 1802) were aliens? As you can see, these persons’ citizenship status was established by objective law and not by what the person subjectively believed it to be.
Finally, let us not forget the plight of Japanese Americans who were born in the United States to Japanese parents who were under the Fourteenth Amendment and Wong Kim Ark born “citizens of the United States” and who you incorrectly call “natural born Citizens,” who were placed into WWII concentration camps for the sole reason of being born to Japanese parents.
Re: “Such person’s citizenship status does not at all depend on what that person believes it to be. ”
It seems obvious that the US government would not ask people to make mistakes about their citizenship status. If the US government at the time used the term Natural Born exactly the way that it was used in the common law and assumed that everyone who filled in the form exactly the way that it was used in the common law, then everyone must have used the term Natural Born Citizen the way that it was used in the common law.
You have not YET given an example of a founder or a framer who used the term Natural Born in the Vattel sense. And Natural Born was commonly used in the common law sense at the time that the Constitution was written, and during WW1, and by the Wong Kim Ark Supreme Court decision, and it is currently being used that way by three state courts and one federal court. And, if there were a single member of congress who believed that two citizen parents were required, at least one would have voted not to confirm Obama’s election.
You are making up a myth, a myth that there is a secret meaning of Natural Born, one that the US Supreme Court did not recognize in the Wong Kim Ark ruling. A meaning that gets TWO citizen parents out of the air. Vattel was not even translated to include the words “Natural Born Citizen” until ten years after the US Constitution, and in his book The Law of Nations Vattel himself never recommends that any official in a government be even a citizen, much less a two-parent citizen citizen.
ehancock has given us some excellent words that bear repeating:
You have not YET given an example of a founder or a framer who used the term Natural Born in the Vattel sense. And Natural Born was commonly used in the common law sense at the time that the Constitution was written, and during WW1, and by the Wong Kim Ark Supreme Court decision, and it is currently being used that way by three state courts and one federal court. And, if there were a single member of congress who believed that two citizen parents were required, at least one would have voted not to confirm Obama’s election.
You are making up a myth, a myth that there is a secret meaning of Natural Born, one that the US Supreme Court did not recognize in the Wong Kim Ark ruling. A meaning that gets TWO citizen parents out of the air. Vattel was not even translated to include the words “Natural Born Citizen” until ten years after the US Constitution, and in his book The Law of Nations Vattel himself never recommends that any official in a government be even a citizen, much less a two-parent citizen citizen.
Mario is on the ropes and fighting for what’s left of his shattered reputation here. As I advised him before, he would do better to come forward and say, “Hey, you know what, guys? I was wrong all the time.”
Every protest, every denial he makes only invites further and deeper investigation of the issue.
Every further, deeper investigation only turns up new evidence against him and more organized presentations of that evidence. All that he can do is repeat the same falsehoods while attempting to throw more dust in the hair, hoping to churn up enough dust that his coughing audience will say, “Man, I can’t see who’s winning the fight — must be Mario.”
And on the sidelines, the few undiscerning people who believe him cheer him on and hail him as a hero. Why? Because they are not interested in the conversation as a sorting out, as a discovery of the truth. They aren’t interested in actually evaluating evidence. They don’t care about learning whether Mario’s claims hold up under scrutiny or not.
They’ve already chosen their side: to believe Mario no matter how many times he’s shown to be wrong, no matter how many distinguished authorities, including Founding Fathers, Supreme Court Justices and Attorneys General, directly state that Mario’s claims are total rubbish, no matter what falsehoods Mario tells them.
Because it’s not the objective truth that matters to people like Ike — it’s the agenda. The agenda, in this case, is to find that the current President is ineligible, one way or another, with no regard at all as to whether he objectively is or not. And that false agenda is what they mean by the “truth.” In fact, it would not be an overstatement to say that the agenda here is nothing short of a political hanging, if it can be done fairly, and if not, then a political lynching.
This is what it is to be a birther.
The by-product of all this is the damage that Apuzzo’s false claims are doing to our entire political system; with fallout that (in my personal opinion) is more likely to harm conservatives than it is to harm Mr. Obama. Apuzzo now has conservatives falsely questioning the eligibility not only of Barack Obama, but also of Mario Rubio (who is a likely Vice-Presidential candidate), Bobby Jindal, Mitt Romney and even Rick Santorum. I hope that he is proud of the corruption of public understanding of our Constitution, our Supreme Court decisions, and the rule of law that his propaganda has engendered. I hope the personal adulation of fawning sycophants like Ike is worth it to Mr. Apuzzo in light of the damage he has done and is doing to our country, and also in light of the contempt with which the more intelligent and even-minded observers now regard him.
Mr. Apuzzo invites a more detailed, point-by-point refutation of his claims. There is nothing in the way of this. In the meantime, what we’ve already seen is damning enough. I invite readers to further explore the issue for themselves along the lines that have already been raised. Anyone who is in sincere doubt about whether Mr. Apuzzo’s claims have any validity will find those doubts relieved by reading extensively for themselves. Birthers such as Ike, of course, won’t do such reading. Why should they? It doesn’t further their goal. Even if they do, they will do so only to see what proof-texts they can pull out to “prove” that Mario’s right.
It is now the work week, and I have a wife and six children to support. Any silence or lapse of response on my part should not be taken as concession of a single point. Even a reading through of the list of roughly 400 quotes on Presidential eligibility that I mentioned above (in post #61) will serve to illustrate to anyone who’s interested how very alone Mr. Apuzzo is against the entire weight of legal, scholarly and historical opinion that has been expressed by virtually every authority who has ever spoken on the subject. There is plenty more illustration of how cracked Apuzzo’s claim is in further independent exploration of any of the 11 points that I noted at which Mr. Apuzzo has failed.
For the moment, I will leave some of this conversation in the able hands of ehancock and anyone else who would like to further point out the fallacy of Mr. Apuzzo’s claims.
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ehancock,
The Constitution at Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 says that “Citizens of the United States” could be President if they had that status at the time the Constitution was adopted. It adds that for those born after its adoption, one must be a “natural born Citizens.” Since Obama was born in 1961, it is not sufficient for him to be a “Citizen of the United States” in order to be eligible to be President. Rather, he must be a “natural born Citizen.”
That the President must be a “natural born Citizen” has never been changed. Virtually every American text book on our Constitution and government and Secretary of State instructions to run for President tell us that the President must be a “natural born Citizen.” There does not exist any source, including any legal precedent, that I am aware of which says that a current President can be a mere “citizen of the United States” and not a “natural born Citizen.”
I have provided many sources, both historical and legal, which define a “natural born Citizen” as a child born in the country to citizen parents. This definition has never been changed. This definition is not a secret definition. This definition has been the consensus definition of our U.S. Supreme Court as last confirmed by Minor v. Happersett (1875) and United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898). I have also provided many sources (Congressional Acts, treaties, and case law) which show that if one is a U.S. “citizens” but not a “natural born Citizen,” then one is a “citizen of the United States.”
Wong Kim Ark held that Wong was a “citizen of the United States.” That holding cannot be used to establish that either Wong was or Obama is a “natural born Citizen,” for the Wong Court simply did not say so in its holding and nothing in its decision can reasonably lead us to extend its holding to make Wong and Obama a “natural born Citizen.” Whether Wong was an Article II “natural born Citizen” was simply not the “single question” before the Court. Rather, that “single question” was whether Wong was a “citizen of the United States” under the Fourteenth Amendment.
Again, the American common law definition of a “natural born Citizen” has never been changed. It is a child born in the country to citizen parents. Obama’s father was not a U.S. citizen when Obama was born. Obama is not a “natural born Citizen” and is not eligible to be President. It’s that simple.
Sorry, this one is just SO obvious and SO blatant that I want to quickly mention it.
Apuzzo says:
(5) You say that I failed on Wong Kim Ark when it is you that failed. See Charles Gordon in his, Who Can Be President of the United States: The Unresolved Enigma, 28 Md. L.Rev. 1, 31-32 (Winter 1968) (says that Wong had nothing to do with defining a “natural born Citizen”);
Mario Apuzzo thus quotes Charles Gordon and his essay Who Can Be President of the United States: The Unresolved Enigma as supposedly being in support of his position.
It seems clear to me — and it ought to be clear to anyone who actually does research the issue — that Mario Apuzzo can’t possibly be this stupid. That just doesn’t seem to be within the realm of possibility. The only conclusion that I can rationally come to is that Mr. Apuzzo is simply lying. Why? Because, just as in case after case where I’ve tracked down the authorities that Apuzzo cites, it turns out that Mr. Gordon not only does not support his claim, he in fact directly refutes it.
One only needs to quote the very first paragraph of Mr. Gordon’s 1968 essay to once again make an utter fool of Mr. Apuzzo:
The approach of our 45th presidential election once evokes once again the question of constitutional eligibility. Under the presidential qualification clause of the Constitution, only “natural born” citizens are qualified for this highest office. It is clear enough that native-born citizens are eligible and that naturalized citizens are not. The recurring doubts relate to those who have acquired United States citizenship through birth abroad to American parents. Can they be regarded as “natural born” within the contemplation of the Constitution?
This in fact is what his entire paper is about.
So Gordon divides citizens into three categories —
* the native-born (completely without respect to parentage), of whom he tell us it is CLEAR ENOUGH that they are ELIGIBLE;
* the naturalized (who are equally clearly ineligible)
* and those born abroad to American parents. It is this group that Gordon tells us that all of the remaining doubts relate to.
So Charles Gordon tells us that those citizens who are native-born (that is, born on US soil) — completely without regard as to the status of their parents, are clearly eligible.
Charles Gordon, like so many of the authorities he quotes, clearly refutes Mario Apuzzo.
Splat.
This was the sound of Fail #12, and 12 is a good even number for me to go and get some useful work done.
Apologies for an extra “once” and a formatting error. Let’s try that again:
==============================
Sorry, this one is just SO obvious and SO blatant that I want to quickly mention it.
Apuzzo says:
(5) You say that I failed on Wong Kim Ark when it is you that failed. See Charles Gordon in his, Who Can Be President of the United States: The Unresolved Enigma, 28 Md. L.Rev. 1, 31-32 (Winter 1968) (says that Wong had nothing to do with defining a “natural born Citizen”);
Mario Apuzzo thus quotes Charles Gordon and his essay Who Can Be President of the United States: The Unresolved Enigma as supposedly being in support of his position.
It seems clear to me — and it ought to be clear to anyone who actually does research the issue — that Mario Apuzzo can’t possibly be this stupid. That just doesn’t seem to be within the realm of possibility. The only conclusion that I can rationally come to is that Mr. Apuzzo is simply lying. Why? Because, just as in case after case where I’ve tracked down the authorities that Apuzzo cites, it turns out that Mr. Gordon not only does not support his claim, he in fact directly refutes it.
One only needs to quote the very first paragraph of Mr. Gordon’s 1968 essay to once again make an utter fool of Mr. Apuzzo:
The approach of our 45th presidential election evokes once again the question of constitutional eligibility. Under the presidential qualification clause of the Constitution, only “natural born” citizens are qualified for this highest office. It is clear enough that native-born citizens are eligible and that naturalized citizens are not. The recurring doubts relate to those who have acquired United States citizenship through birth abroad to American parents. Can they be regarded as “natural born” within the contemplation of the Constitution?
This in fact is what his entire paper is about.
So Gordon divides citizens into three categories —
* the native-born (completely without respect to parentage), of whom he tell us it is CLEAR ENOUGH that they are ELIGIBLE;
* the naturalized (who are equally clearly ineligible)
* and those born abroad to American parents. It is this group that Gordon tells us that all of the remaining doubts relate to.
So Charles Gordon tells us that those citizens who are native-born (that is, born on US soil) — completely without regard as to the status of their parents, are clearly eligible.
Charles Gordon, like so many of the authorities he quotes, clearly refutes Mario Apuzzo.
Splat.
This was the sound of Fail #12, and 12 is a good even number for me to go and get some useful work done.
John Woodman,
Your haughtiness is really becoming tiresome.
The only purpose for which I cited Gordon is to show that he concludes like me that Wong Kim Ark’s holding was not about defining a “natural born Citizen.” You fail to address that. Fail.
You say that Gordon says that a “native-born” citizen is eligible to be President. First, the Constitution says that only the “natural born Citizens” are eligible. It does not use the word “native-born” citizen. Second, why do you not provide for us how Gordon defines a “native-born” citizen.” Provide direct quotes and not your self-serving interpretations. Third, well, of course. Vattel and the many cases that I have cited (including the U.S. Supreme Court cases of Minor and Wong Kim Ark) say that the “natives, or natural-born citizens” are those children born in the country to citizen parents. So you fail again.
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Mario,
My haughtiness?
You’re the person who claims that respected scholar William Rawle was wrong.
You’re the person who claims that our Founding Father, James Madison — known as “the Father of the Constitution” — didn’t know what he was talking about when he stated that birth on the soil is what applies in the United States.
You’re the person who claims that David Ramsay (not Father of the Constitution James Madison) was right in his views on citizenship, when the conflicting positions of both were put to a vote, and Ramsay was voted down 36 to 1.
You’re the person who claims that the United States Supreme Court, who plainly stated, not once but twice, that a person born in Wong Kim Ark’s exact situation was “natural born,” said no such thing.
You’re the person who admits that the Court said the the English common law jus soli rule “continued to prevail under the Constitution as originally established,” but then claim those words don’t actually mean anything.
You’re the person who claims that the Court in Minor v Happersett gave a clear and restrictive definition of “natural born citizen” that assuredly excluded the children born on US soil of non-citizen parents, when that Court itself told us quite plainly that they weren’t going to attempt to address the citizenship status of that particular group of people.
You’re the person who claims that Vattel provided the meaning of “natural born citizen,” when it’s crystal clear that the phrase never came from Vattel but instead came directly from English common law, and was never even translated as “natural born citizen” until 10 years after the Constitution was written.
You’re the person who claims that the Naturalization Acts abrogated areas of law that they never even addressed.
You’re the person who claims, without evidence, that the Founding Fathers adopted a foreign view of natural law proposed by Swiss philosopher Vattel, instead of the understanding of natural law that had always held in our own nation’s heritage — a distinctly English heritage of English colonies that had been ruled by an English king and adjudicated by English judges.
You’re the person who cites Georgetown Professor Charles Gordon as an authority who is supposedly on your side and then flies off the handle when it’s shown that Gordon, in the very paper you cite, directly contradicts your claims.
You’re the person who claims that Ronald Reagan’s former Attorney General Edwin Meese, the distinguished scholars with him, the respected Heritage Foundation, the judges in three state courts and one federal court, and virtually every authority who has ever issued an opinion on the subject throughout the whole of United States history, are all utterly without a clue as to what the meaning of “natural born citizen” is.
And you accuse others of haughtiness?
Re: “Wong Kim Ark held that Wong was a “citizen of the United States.”
Sure. It was a citizenship case. The bottom line was that he was a citizen.
However, the Wong Kim Arc ruling (1) stated that the meaning of Natural Born comes from the common law. (Hence the court did not believe that it came from Vattel); and (2) stated that under the common law EVERY child born in the USA is Natural Born.
Since Wong Kim Ark was born in the USA he falls under the category of Natural Born. And since he was a citizen, he was both Natural Born and a citizen—a Natural Born citizen. That logic has been accepted by the Meese volume and three state courts and a federal court specifically on Obama, and such courts as these referring to the US-born children of foreign parents:
Mustata v. US Dept. of Justice, 179 F.3d 1017 (6th Cir. 1999) (children born in US to two Romanian citizens described as “natural born citizens” of the US):
“Petitioners Marian and Lenuta Mustata are citizens of Romania. At the time of their petition, they resided in Michigan with their two minor children, who are natural born citizens of the United States.”
Diaz-Salazar v. INS, 700 F.2d 1156 (7th Cir. 1983) (child born in US to Mexican citizen is “natural born citizen” of US):
“Petitioner, Sebastian Diaz-Salazar, entered the United States illegally [from Mexico] in 1974 and has been living and working in Chicago since that time. *** The relevant facts which have been placed before the INS, BIA, and this court can be summarized as follows: The petitioner has a wife and two children under the age of three in Chicago; the children are natural-born citizens of the United States.”
Nwankpa v. Kissinger, 376 F. Supp. 122 (M.D. Ala. 1974) (child born in US to two Biafra citizens described as “natural born citizen” of the US):
“The Plaintiff was a native of Biafra, now a part of the Republic of Nigeria. His wife and two older children are also natives of that country, but his third child, a daughter, is a natural-born citizen of the United States.”
That is why not a single member of Congress voted against Obama’s confirmation, and none is making statements about two citizen parents being required now. And not a single member of the Electoral College changed her or his vote.
So what’s the count up to now?
I’m getting one conservative national legal foundation, one State Solicitor General, one former Chief Counsel to the United States Delegation to the United Nations, one United States District Attorney, a couple of respected law professors and legal scholars, one United States Attorney General, and one Founding Father and Father of the Constitution that our humble personal injury attorney claims are all fools.
Oh — I left out 535 Members of Congress and 538 members of the Electoral College. Sorry about that. Anybody else?
So, ehancock — if we count the legal foundation as a separate “person,” and James Madison as only one (I personally think he, being Father of the Constitution, should count for more but it’ll get messy if we go down that road), that makes one thousand eighty-one people, all of whom are in some significant position of authority, whom our humble personal injury attorney is calling fools.
Plus you and me, which makes a grand total of 1,083. So far. Unless I’ve missed someone. Which I probably have.
Darn it! I left out four State court judges and three federal court judges, all of whom are unanimous in their absolute and direct contradiction of Mr. Apuzzo’s claims.
That brings us up to 1,090 specific persons mentioned in this thread whom our humble personal injury attorney claims are all completely and irredeemably wrong in their understanding of what a “natural born citizen” is. 1,088 of these are in significant and recognized positions of authority.
Oh, and we have yet to identify anybody who clearly agrees with Mr. Apuzzo. He can produce not one single quote from the Founding Fathers or any authority, from the whole of United States history, who says plainly, “Two citizen parents, plus birth on US soil, are required in order to be a natural born citizen.”
He’s got Herb Titus. Anybody else? Oh, and Leo Donofrio, who’s also claimed to be the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit of God on earth. I don’t know of anybody else.
So if we’re generous and exclude ehancock and John Woodman and include all of Apuzzo and Herb Titus and the Paraclete (and I think that’s a stretch) then that would stack up 1,088 to 3.
Unless of course we include the Father of the Constitution as more than one, as I suggested earlier. But again, let’s be generous.
So that’s our basketball scorecard. 1,088 to 3. Think it’ll go into overtime?
I haven’t attempted to mine any of those 400 or so quotes from google books for additional authorities who say Apuzzo’s cracked. I guess we can get into that if we need to.
John Woodman,
You only confirm that you are, indeed, haughty.
All your rhetoric does not change history one iota.
Seen that you have nothing new to add to your lame arguments, you and I are done debating here.
You have not been able to convincingly address one of my points. You have failed despite your self back slapping.
Should you posts anything new that addresses my legal arguments in a meaningful way, I will answer you. Of course, you are also welcome to post at my blog.
Heh.
All your rhetoric doesn’t change history one iota, Mario.
It doesn’t change the clear common law rule that all children born on the soil were natural born — unless the children of foreign royalty, foreign diplomats or invading armies.
It doesn’t change the fact that this exact rule — as the Supreme Court in US v Wong Kim Ark told us in very clear and unambiguous terms — applied here in America back at the very beginning when our future States were only British colonies, at the time we declared Independence, and in the years after we established our Constitution.
It doesn’t change the fact that you can’t legitimately claim that the words “natural born” in “natural born citizen” have any meaning different from the words “natural born” in “natural born subject,” since in the early history of our country the terms “natural born citizen” and “natural born subject” were used entirely interchangeably.
It doesn’t change the fact that the term “natural born” was used in the English language for literally centuries before the writing of the Constitution, that it relied on the English understanding of natural law, that it came directly from the English common law, and that it was well known and commonly used in that context.
It doesn’t change the fact that the Founding Fathers and the Framers of the Constitution, being lawyers, were well acquainted with the term and its long-standing meaning.
It doesn’t change the fact that John Jay, in his letter to George Washington, chose to underline the word “born,” and not the word “natural,” suggesting that his emphasis and concern was on future Presidential candidates being born US citizens rather than on any supposed “natural” characteristic of such births.
Your rhetoric doesn’t change the fact that the records of the Constitutional Convention that gave us our Constitution contain absolutely no debate whatsoever on the meaning of “natural born” — indicating clearly that its meaning was perfectly well understood by all of the Framers, and was therefore the meaning that it held in the English language for centuries.
It doesn’t change the fact that the term “natural born” was, as far as we know, never used in the English language to refer specifically to Vattel’s idea of a person born on the soil to two citizen parents until 10 years after the writing of the Presidential eligibility clause, and that no one — yourself included — has ever produced any direct evidence at all to the contrary.
It doesn’t change the fact that the Founding Fathers are known to have referred to Blackstone, the authority on the English common law, roughly sixteen times for every one time that they referred to Vattel — who was about 30th in a very long list of writers sometimes quoted by the Founding Fathers. Blackstone was third.
It doesn’t change the fact that James Madison, the “Father” of our Constitution, stated clearly that both place of birth and parentage were possible measures of the allegiance that makes for citizenship, but “in general place is the most certain criterion; it is what applies in the United States.”
It doesn’t change the fact that he made that statement in a direct and personal disagreement with your guy Ramsay, who was backed in that disagreement by his exact citizenship essay that you quote — and it doesn’t change the fact that Ramsay was voted down by a humiliating 36 to 1.
It doesn’t change the fact that the term “native-born” has been used throughout our history to mean “born in the United States;” that “native-born” has consistently implied “natural born,” and that there are a huge number of historical quotes that use the terms virtually synonymously — including many quotes that state being “native-born” as one of the qualifications for being President.
Your rhetoric doesn’t change the fact that the Naturalization Acts of 1790, 1795, 1802 and 1855 did not “abrogate” previous law on matters on which they were silent, and that they had nothing at all to say about the citizenship of persons born on US soil.
It doesn’t change the fact that even though the Supreme Court in Minor v Happersett remarked that Virginia Minor was without a doubt a natural born citizen, the same Court told us in no uncertain terms that they weren’t going to attempt to address the citizenship status of persons born on US soil of non-citizen parents.
It doesn’t change the fact that even if they had created a definition of “natural born citizen” (which they manifestly didn’t), any statement by the Court in that case attempting to define “natural born citizen” would have been pure dicta and therefore could not possibly have legally created the “binding precedent” you claim — as Virginia Minor’s citizenship had been conceded by all parties in the case and therefore was not at all an issue that was being brought before the Court.
It doesn’t change the fact that even if they had created a binding precedent defining “natural born citizen” (which they manifestly did not, for the multiple reasons above), any such definition would’ve been overruled by the later Supreme Court case US v Wong Kim Ark.
Your rhetoric doesn’t change the fact that the Court in US v Wong Kim Ark clearly told us not once but in two different ways that a person in Wong Kim Ark’s exact situation — born on US soil of two parents who were not and never could become US citizens — was himself not only a “citizen,” but also “natural born.” Nor does it change the fact that the second time around, they described this as an “irresistible” “conclusion,” based on the entire discussion of all past history and legal precedent they had gone through, which ran to roughly 50 pages.
Your rhetoric doesn’t change the fact that many highly distinguished authorities (see above) refute you. It doesn’t change the fact that there are literally hundreds and hundreds of quotes on Presidential eligibility available in Google’s collection of books that refute you as well — or the fact that you haven’t produced a single quote from any of those books that says being a “natural born citizen” requires both birth in the country and of two citizen parents.
Your rhetoric doesn’t change the fact that even many of the authorities that you quote claiming that they support you bring evidence against your claims — including Charles Gordon who, as we have seen, directly refutes you.
Finally, your rhetoric doesn’t change the fact that all of the State and federal court judges that we or you have produced during this discussion — every single one of four State court judges and three federal court judges — have been perfectly unanimous in their absolute and direct repudiation of your claims.
That being the case, Mario, you will do very well to do what you propose to do — retreat back to the comfort and safety of your blog.
You see, embarrassing things can happen when promoters of completely false Constitutional theories step out in the public away from an environment in which they can moderate every post.
Mario Apuzzo, Esq. was asked this a day ago and has not answered yet:
Re: “Thomas Jefferson in 1779 and St. George Tucker in 1803 said the same thing.”
Please show the quotations HERE. I still do not believe you, and you have not shown the quotations on this site.
Mario Apuzzo, Esq. was asked this two days ago and has not answered yet:
Re: “Thomas Jefferson in 1779 and St. George Tucker in 1803 said the same thing.”
Please show the quotations HERE. I still do not believe you, and you have not shown the quotations on this site.
John Woodman,
You state that Children Born on the soil are natural born. That is not the case for several types of citizens.
Let’s look at Eskimos. Eskimos such as Todd Palin or
Walter Nayakik, which I submit to run for POTUS was
rejected by Secretary of State Debra Bowen of California
to run on the American Independent party June 5, 2012
primary. They were both born in Alaska. But they were
in a class of persons that could not receive citizenship
from their parents. Because they were of the Eskimo Race and there was seven great grand parents that could
have been citizens in Todd Palin case, he had one great
grand parent that was an Eskimo. So by the fact that
one great grand parents was an Eskimo, he had no requirement to have any of his parents at birth be a
United States Citizen. All he had was for his mother to
have given birth in the United States. There if a child
of Todd Palin were to be born outside the United States.
His child would not be a United States Citizen.
There was a case in the 1950’s prior to Alaska becoming
a state when an Eskimo born in the Alaska Territory
and a resident of California with a Drivers License, was trying to retun from Mexico and was denied entry into the United States with his mixed race child, and could get that child United States Citizenship because the 1940 Act of Congress, did not pass citizenship rights to Eskimos not born in the United States.
It was one of my views to see how Secretary of State
Debra Bowen would treat Eskimo Citizens, viz., where
they “natural born” or not. It looks like Debra Bowen
rejected these two Eskimo’s because the Act of 1940,
did not make Eskimos “Natural-Born” Citizens. so they
can not run for POTUS.
Sincerely, Mark Seidenberg, Chairman, American Independent Party of California
I think my above post is not clear after reading it.
An Eskimo not born in the United States is not a United
States Citizen. If one is 1/16 part Eskimo in blood,
one is classed as an Eskimo.
If a natural born citizen is one with United States
Citizen parents. Then the question comes to play,
if there is no requirement to have United States
Citizen Parents, than can one be a natural born Citizen
under the terms of the Act of 1940.
This came up in the 1940’s in relation to the cases
of citizenship of the family Prokopioff, Golodoff,
Prossoff, Pursoff, Artumonoff, Lokanin, and Hodikoff.
Several native Alaskan were captured by the Japanese
during World War II, they were keeped in a building
prison camp near Otanu on the Island Hokkaido. The
child born in that prison camp were declared to be
not United States Citizens, because they were not
born in the United States. Even though their parents were United States Citizens,by the Act of Congress
dated 1940. The United States Government told the
Japanese Government that these children were not
Citizens of the United States, but were just wards
of the United States Government.
Sincerely, Mark Seidenberg, Chairman, American Independent Party of California
You state that Children Born on the soil are natural born. That is not the case for several types of citizens.
The 14th Amendment and 8 USC § 1401 define citizenship at birth. One of these is part of the Constitution itself, and the other is a statute.
It seems clear from US v Wong Kim Ark (1898) that any citizenship under the 14th Amendment is “natural born” citizenship, as the Court said that the purpose of the 14th Amendment was not to create any new restrictions on citizenship, but to make sure that the citizenship rules that had previously applied only to white people now applied to others as well.
Any distinction or exception from such natural born citizenship would not be racially based. It would be government-entity/ jurisdiction based, as the 14th Amendment contains the clause “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”
If it’s an Eskimo who is fully under a tribal government and has nothing to do otherwise with American society, I would think that it could be possible that such a person might be held not to be a natural born citizen of the United States. I personally don’t think that’s likely, though. For one thing, I don’t know that there are any truly isolated pockets of Eskimos or Indians left. I would suspect that they’re all engaged with modern society and that individuals from those communities would be held to be “subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.”
If you go back and really read the debates on the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and on the 14th Amendment, “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States really means “a part of our society and subject to the laws of the United States.”
Yes, I know that at least one quote has been pulled completely out of the context of those debates that on the surface might make you think otherwise. But if you read the discussion of what “subject to the jurisdiction” means, in context of the entire debates, it’s clear what they’re talking about. “Subject to the jurisdiction” really means subject to US laws.
The situation at the time — 150 years ago — was that there were large populations of people living under tribal governments that were solely subject to those governments. Indian tribes. The United States and state governments didn’t mess with their internal affairs. They had their own laws. They were really foreign nations within our national boundaries. I don’t know that that’s true any more. It might be in a few places, but I would think those would now be really rare.
That’s the dividing line.
It might also be held that as soon as such an Indian or Eskimo separates from his tribal government and assumes a role in our society, he or she also assumes the role of a “natural born citizen,” as he or she was born on our soil and the ancient rule therefore applies. Such a case has never come before the Supreme Court, so we don’t know how they would rule on that.
There if a child of Todd Palin were to be born outside the United States. His child would not be a United States Citizen.
Since Todd Palin is a citizen of the United States, and has lived in the United States for at least 5 years, at least 2 of which were after the age of 14, if he were to have a child born outside of the United States, even if the other parent were an alien, that child, according to law (8 USC § 1401), would be a US citizen at birth. Most authorities tend to believe that such a child would also be a “natural born citizen.” There are a few possible difference of interpretation and kinks along the way, but generally, the children of subjects/ citizens, who were born in other countries, were also considered “natural born,” both in our English heritage and in the United States after independence.
I am not sure what the law was in the 1950s regarding Eskimos and children born outside of the country. But “natural born citizen” is not quite so restrictive as some would like to make it.
It looks like Debra Bowen rejected these two Eskimo’s because the Act of 1940, did not make Eskimos “Natural-Born” Citizens. so they can not run for POTUS.
You would have to ask Debra Bowen what her reason was for rejecting the candidates. Even if her reason for rejecting those candidates was because they were Eskimos, that doesn’t necessarily mean that her actions were either correct or legal. Our Supreme Court is considering this week whether it was legal for our federal government to pass “Obamacare.”
Several native Alaskan were captured by the Japanese
during World War II, they were keeped in a building
prison camp near Otanu on the Island Hokkaido. The
child born in that prison camp were declared to be
not United States Citizens, because they were not
born in the United States. Even though their parents were United States Citizens,by the Act of Congress
dated 1940. The United States Government told the
Japanese Government that these children were not
Citizens of the United States, but were just wards
of the United States Government.
You have there one heck of a complicated situation.
First of all, they may or may not have been considered to be part of separate “nations” residing within the United States.
Secondly, I don’t know what the law was in 1940.
Third, they were born in a war prison camp in Japan.
Offhand, that sounds like one of those extra-strength Excedrin kind of deals to me.
Incidentally, do you have a reference for the claim that the children were declared not to be United States citizens? That doesn’t sound quite right to me, as all 4 children born during the internment died.
The parents of these children were United States were citizens of the United States, because of the 1940 Act,
effective Jaqnuary 1941. However, since their children
were not born in the United States, they had a second
class of citizenship, that only applied if they were
born in the United States. The Act of 1940 was the first time Congress defined what was consider the United
States within the Act itself.
In the case of the mother of Walter Nayakik (who I submit on my list for POTUS in the Califonia June 5, 2012 Presidential Primary), Secretary of State Charles
Evans Hughes on May 13, 1924, declared that his mother
and grandparents were only Wards of the United States
Government and not citizens. Mabel Walker Willibrant
at DOJ disagreed with Secretary of State Hughes at the
time. The Department of the Interior followed the
views of Secretary of State Hughes.
I do not now have the references for it. But I have
read them in the past. Please give me a few weeks,
because I will have to write for them. My suggestion
in you want to see this sooner is go to the Mabel
Walker Willibrant papers at the University of Southern
California. Her biographer, I recall was a Dr. Brown,
(or Browne) might help you with the location of the
correspondence on point in the form of a letter from
the DOI to Mrs. Willibrant.
I hope this will be helpful.
I also recall when I was at the former home of U.S.
Grant’s grandson a few years ago the issue of his mother’s naturalization came up, because of her loss
of her natural born status, when congress passed an
act naturalizing here again.
Sincerely, Mark Seidenberg, Chairman, American Independent Party of California.
John Woodman,
You were the first person I have come across in over ten
years that knew that the children born in the interment
prison during WW II had died. What is your interest
in WWII history as it related to Alaska. My source on
this subject was Dr. L. Black at the University of Alaska, College. She is the person that told me of
the ward status and not being citizen status. My other
suggestion is writing Father Vladimar Derugin at his
Russian Orthdox Church he might be also helpful on
your interests.
Sincerely, Mark Seidenberg, Chairman, American Independent Party of Californa
It sounds like we’re getting into some of the few remaining grey areas, that may at this time be resolved, or may not be. Government agencies also may or not always interpret the law correctly, or act properly.
When our daughter was born 11 years ago, the State of Maryland basically stole her family name and refused to give it back.
What I mean by that is this: We hadn’t quite decided what her given names were to be when she was born, so she went home from the hospital with a birth certificate that just said (female child) Woodman, born on such and such date. (The system provides for this, you’re just supposed to name the baby within a few weeks.)
So legally for a week or two she was [no given names] Woodman. She had no name except for her last, family, surname. Woodman. Female child, born such and such a date.
After a week or two we decided on her given names, and we submitted the proper form, which was titled something like “Form to Add Given Names to a Child’s Birth Certificate.”
Note what the form was not: It was not a form to change the child’s surname.
And I think, as I recall, that the procedure was also to return with the “form to add given names to a child’s birth certificate” the original birth certificate, that clearly showed the child’s surname. At the very least, the form required putting in plenty of identifying information.
And the instructions were clear and unambiguous: “Write here the given names that you want to add to this child’s birth certificate.”
Note what the instructions did not say. The instructions did not say, “Write the child’s full name as you want it to appear on the amended birth certificate.” It very specifically said, “write here the given names that you want to add to the birth certificate.” So that’s what we did. We followed the instructions to the letter.
The problem was that our situation did have one deviation from the typical situation, and the state functionary processing the form was an idiot.
We have given all of our children except one three given names instead of two. We had lived in Europe and Britain for 8 years, it’s something we’d seen done elsewhere, and while it’s not the typical American custom, it’s our custom.
So we named our daughter C____ L_____ Destiny Woodman; and the given names we were adding were “C_____ L_____ Destiny.”
Now picture this: You have the vital information of the parents who are named: John M______ Woodman, and J___ K____ [C_____] Woodman. The form asks for the given names that the parents want to ADD to the little girls’ birth certificate. And they write: “C____ L____ Destiny.” Aside from the fact that it’s in the right place, “Destiny” is clearly a GIVEN name for a little girl, not a surname. And it doesn’t match the child’s existing surname, which is perfectly identical t the parents’ surname.
So what does the idiot state worker do? You guessed it. She strips off the existing surname, “Woodman,” and replaces it with “Destiny,” making “Destiny” our daughter’s last name.
That wasn’t so bad. The bad part was that when we contacted them, they said, “We’re not changing it back. It’s your fault. You’ll have to go to court and get a court order if you want her last name changed back to your family’s name.”
Excuse me? Our fault? We followed the instructions exactly. That being the case, how can it possibly be our fault?
Well, it clearly wasn’t. It was clearly their fault. But we had to appeal all the way up the line to the office of the Director of Vital Statistics for the State of Maryland in order to get our child’s hijacked family name restored to her. Fortunately, we didn’t have to sue them, but we did have to appeal all the way up to the Director of Vital Statistics for the entire state.
So I don’t find it at all a mischaracterization to say that the State of Maryland stole our daughter’s family name and refused, for some time at least, to give it back.
The moral of the story is this: Just because a particular government official issues a ruling, doesn’t mean it’s right or legal.
Don’t even get me started on the time the State of Maryland assumed we were guilty until proven innocent, literally followed us halfway across the country, threatened to have us arrested, and forced us to prove that we had held auto insurance for the entire time that we had (previously) lived in the State of Maryland.
John Woodman
Of the four children born in the Japanese Prison Camp
that were wards and not citizens of the United States
two were born in wedlock and two were born out of wedlock.
The four childrens names were Mike Golodoff, Anicia Hodikoff, Gilbert Lokanim, Arty Goldoff,
Have you checked what there status was on Japanese
law. Since they were not citizens of the United States
were thay citizens of Japan at birth or were they stateless?
Sincerely, Mark Seidenberg, Chairman, American Independent Party of California
ehancock,
We’ve already seen the failure of a great many of Mr. Apuzzo’s claims. As I say, at least the guy’s consistent.
You have asked Mario repeatedly (I’m sure it’s been at least 5 times now) for an actual quote backing up his claim regarding St. George Tucker. He has provided no such quote. While he seems to have heard some of the other points of this conversation, he seems to be quite thoroughly deaf on that one.
I would like to highlight what Mr. Apuzzo already produced in regard to St. George Tucker — supposedly to back up his claim.
Earlier, Mr. Apuzzo stated, “Also, and on the contrary, Tucker believed that the ‘civil right’ to be elected President belonged only to the children of citizens. See http://puzo1.blogspot.com/2012/03/putative-president-barack-obamas.html.”
He therefore claimed to have backed up his statement. And if you go to the article referenced, Apuzzo there claims:
“Founders/judge/lawyer St. George Tucker [Endnote 2] and Founder/doctor/historian David Ramsay [Endnote 3] also made this critical distinction and both told us that birthright citizenship after July 4, 1776 belonged only to the children of citizens. Tucker even told us that the “civil right” to be elected President belonged only to the children of citizens which informs us that he too defined a ‘natural born Citizen’ as a child born to citizen parents.”
So in Apuzzo’s actual article, he claims that St. George Tucker made two very specific statements:
1) That “birthright citizenship after July 4, 1776 belonged only to the children of citizens,”
and
2) That “the ‘civil right’ to be elected President belonged only to the children of citizens which informs us that [Tucker] too defined a ‘natural born Citizen’ as a child born to citizen parents.”
He then claims (in that article) to back up these alleged statements from St. George Tucker by information contained in “Endnote 2.”
And yet his Endnote 2 contains absolutely no quote whatsoever from Tucker supporting EITHER of those statements.
It’s a long and complicated footnote, to be sure. There’s discussion of how very important St. George Tucker was. There are links to biographical sketches of St. George Tucker. There are references to the writings of St. George Tucker, including his anti-slavery dissertation.
But there is not one single quote actually from St. George Tucker to support what Apuzzo claims he said. In either instance.
Now I even went and looked at every single link referenced in Apuzzo’s long Endnote. And I even further tracked down a copy of Tucker’s anti-slavery dissertation, which is mentioned in the Endnote, and consulted that.
But somehow, I am still unable to find any quote whatsoever establishing that Mr. Tucker actually said what Mr. Apuzzo claims he said.
Now that is a very odd thing. Isn’t it?
Drat. I’ve gotten better about closing all italics tags, but still not quite perfect. Let’s try that again, for sake of readability:
————————
ehancock,
We’ve already seen the failure of a great many of Mr. Apuzzo’s claims. As I say, at least the guy’s consistent.
You have asked Mario repeatedly (I’m sure it’s been at least 5 times now) for an actual quote backing up his claim regarding St. George Tucker. He has provided no such quote. While he seems to have heard some of the other points of this conversation, he seems to be quite thoroughly deaf on that one.
I would like to highlight what Mr. Apuzzo already produced in regard to St. George Tucker — supposedly to back up his claim.
Earlier, Mr. Apuzzo stated, “Also, and on the contrary, Tucker believed that the ‘civil right’ to be elected President belonged only to the children of citizens. See http://puzo1.blogspot.com/2012/03/putative-president-barack-obamas.html.”
He therefore claimed to have backed up his statement. And if you go to the article referenced, Apuzzo there claims:
“Founders/judge/lawyer St. George Tucker [Endnote 2] and Founder/doctor/historian David Ramsay [Endnote 3] also made this critical distinction and both told us that birthright citizenship after July 4, 1776 belonged only to the children of citizens. Tucker even told us that the “civil right” to be elected President belonged only to the children of citizens which informs us that he too defined a ‘natural born Citizen’ as a child born to citizen parents.”
So in Apuzzo’s actual article, he claims that St. George Tucker made two very specific statements:
1) That “birthright citizenship after July 4, 1776 belonged only to the children of citizens,”
and
2) That “the ‘civil right’ to be elected President belonged only to the children of citizens which informs us that [Tucker] too defined a ‘natural born Citizen’ as a child born to citizen parents.”
He then claims (in that article) to back up these alleged statements from St. George Tucker by information contained in “Endnote 2.”
And yet his Endnote 2 contains absolutely no quote whatsoever from Tucker supporting EITHER of those statements.
It’s a long and complicated footnote, to be sure. There’s discussion of how very important St. George Tucker was. There are links to biographical sketches of St. George Tucker. There are references to the writings of St. George Tucker, including his anti-slavery dissertation.
But there is not one single quote actually from St. George Tucker to support what Apuzzo claims he said. In either instance.
Now I even went and looked at every single link referenced in Apuzzo’s long Endnote. And I even further tracked down a copy of Tucker’s anti-slavery dissertation, which is mentioned in the Endnote, and consulted that.
But somehow, I am still unable to find any quote whatsoever establishing that Mr. Tucker actually said what Mr. Apuzzo claims he said.
Now that is a very odd thing. Isn’t it?
Mark,
I don’t believe we’ve established that the four children were not citizens of the United States. If you can produce some authentic declaration on the part of the government that they were not citizens, then we would at least have a declaration as to that effect. However, the government also declared that Wong Kim Ark was not a citizen of the United States. The US Supreme Court found that he was, and that beyond that, he was natural born and therefore qualified on reaching the other qualifications to be elected President.
John Woodman
My notes may not me correct. It could be that the fourth child’s surname was Golodoff and not Goldoff (sic.), some one could have wrote Goldoff for Golodoff.
I would check the spelling both ways, namely Goldoff and
Golodoff.
I recall when Walter Nayakik mom was an international hot topic in circa 1924 – 1225, her name was misspelled
as given name Tulla, when the name was Della.
Sincerely, Mark Seidenberg, Chairman, American Independent Party of California
I have also searched through pretty much all of the available writings I could find by St. George Tucker.
This includes his View of the Constitution of the United States. It includes his Commentaries on Blackstone. It includes other writings such as his 10 law lecture notebooks. I even consulted some of the original notebooks in Tucker’s own handwriting, before finding that the same text is available in a searchable text format.
A lot of St. George Tucker’s writing on citizenship can be found here.
To this point, I have found no statement saying what Apuzzo claims he said.
In fact, what I’ve found largely contradicts Apuzzo.
We have, for example, the statement earlier mentioned by ehancock. That’s pretty much contradictory to Apuzzo’s claim.
The above link also includes two relevant things. First, it includes Tucker’s views on how permanent a person’s allegiance to his country was. Tucker maintained that people ought to be free to leave one country and join another. That’s not very good for Apuzzo’s claims, because if aliens are freely able to leave their original lands and become members of our country, it says that Tucker strongly recognized their status as members of our society and no longer really regarded them as members of the society they came from.
A quote or two:
From the whole that we have seen, it appears, that the right of emigration is a right strictly natural; and that the restraints which may be imposed upon the exercise of it, are merely creatures of the juris positivi, or municipal laws of a state. And consequently that wherever the laws of any country do not prohibit, they permit emigration, or, as I rather chuse to call it, expatriation…
And, although Virginia has adopted the common law of England, under certain restrictions, yet Virginia by a positive act of her legislature, so long since as the year 1783, declared it to be a natural right which all men have, to relinquish that society in which birth or accident may have thrown them, and seek subsistence and happiness elsewhere, and accordingly pointed out the mode in which any citizen might exercise it. The constitution of Vermont, and the first constitution of Pennsylvania contain similar declarations. Can it then be doubted that the citizens of those states, respectively, possess the right of exercising this natural privilege, whatever may be the laws of the other states in the union? If a doubt exists upon what principle it is founded?
Secondly, Tucker wrote on who aliens were (see above link). He divided aliens into aliens by birth, and aliens by election.
Aliens by election were those who had a potential right of citizenship by birth, but who voluntarily relinquished that. So what is relevant to our discussion is what he had to say about aliens by birth.
And with certain exceptions (all in the favor of being citizens and not aliens), he defined aliens by birth as follows:
“Aliens by birth, are all persons born out of the dominions of the United States, since the fourth day of July, 1776, on which day they declared themselves an independent and sovereign nation, with some few exceptions…
If aliens by birth were those persons born out of the dominions of the United States, since the fourth day of July, 1776…, then it follows that all those who were born “IN the dominions of the United States” were NOT aliens.
So once again: Apuzzo is not only a “FAIL” on all of the other aforementioned areas, at this point I believe we can mark him down as a great big “FAIL” on St. George Tucker as well.
As with so many of the other authorities that Mario Apuzzo cites, St. George Tucker, from all I can tell, refutes him.
John Woodman
I suggest you read the article by Marion L. Smith, The
INS and the Singular Status of North American Indians,
21 AMERICAN INDIAN CULURAL & REASEARCH JOURNAL 131.
You are just incorrect on the status of Native Alaskan
born outside the United States.
Prior to the effective date January 13, 1941, of the Act
of 1940, Eskimos were removed from Big Diomede Island
and taken to Siberia against there will. In fact the
Eskimos on both Big and Little Diomede was one big group
being less than three miles apart.
Or in the words of Tina “Sarah Palin” Fey, “I can see
Russia from my window”. That is the same issue on St.
Laurence Island. The United States Government did not
care who was born where, because prior to January 13, 1941, Eskimos were not citizens of the United States if
they were born in the United States.
I have been on both Big and Little Diomede Islands. I
have been one of the very few people in the world that
has. Going back to the Grand Parents of the current
population of Little Diomede they have no documentation as to where there Grand Parent were born.
The idea of a international border to an Alaskan Native
was foreign to them. The Alaska natives that some cases claim to be United States Citizens, are not because they were realy born in Siberia or the Yukon
Territory.
The bottom line not all persons who claim to be citizen
are in fact citizens of the United States. Obama is a
case in point. His mother was just to young to pass
United States citizenship on to Barack H. Obama II. She
was just 18 years of age at the time of his birth on
Mombasa Island. Therefore, Stanley Ann D. Obama was
never a resident of the United States for the required
five years after the age of fourteen years of age, before giving birth to Barack H. Obama II.
Sincerely, Mark Seidenberg, Chairman, American Independent Party of California
grand parents were born
You are just incorrect on the status of Native Alaskan
born outside the United States.
How can I be incorrect when I’ve basically said I don’t know for certain what their status was at that time?
As for the current law, that’s plain, and I’ve quoted the law. If they’re a child of a US citizen, born abroad, that meets the other qualifications set down in the law, then they are citizens from birth.
That’s the law, it’s written down, and it’s unambiguous.
Secondly, you keep asserting, with no proof whatsoever and against all real evidence of which I’m aware, that Barack Obama was born on Mombasa Island.
This is typical birther. It doesn’t matter that you have no real evidence. It doesn’t matter that the evidence that does exist (including:
* repeated affirmations from some half dozen officials of the State of Hawaii — of both parties,
* plus their official affirmation that they sent two certified and stamped copies of Obama’s birth certificate to the White House,
* plus a link on the State of Hawaii web site to the image provided by the White House, thus approving it as an actual image of what they sent,
* plus actual PHOTOGRAPHS of the birth certificate,
* plus the testimony of Savannah Guthrie that she held the birth certificate and felt its raised seal,
* plus the testimony of Mr. Obama’s high school English teacher that she recalls hearing of the birth in 1961, in Hawaii
* plus birth announcements in not one but two Hawaii newspapers that are freely accessible on microfilm in various libraries in various places in the United States,
* plus INS records on Obama’s dad in 1967 or 1968 that quite specifically mention his son Barack Obama II as being a natural-born US citizen,
* plus the fact that we KNOW that Obama Sr was enrolled as a student in Hawaii at the time of Obama’s birth and therefore was NOT in Kenya,
* plus the utterly extreme implausibility of a birth in Kenya, which is only made worse, not better, by your claim that Mrs. Obama got on a ship instead of a plane.
Against all of the actual evidence, what do you have? As far as I can tell, you’ve got an obviously faked “Kenyan birth certificate” from a multiple-offense convicted forger — well, that’s worth absolutely nothing — plus a claim that some unnamed German woman remembers seeing a white woman denied boarding onto an airplane in Kenya on… wait for it… August 4, 1961.
Mark, can you tell me precisely where you were on the afternoon of July 16th, 1968, exactly what you were doing, who you were with, and what the conversations of the people with you were? No? How about the morning of March 12, 1989? I’m not talking what city. I’m talking exactly where in that city, who precisely you were with, and what precisely you were talking about.
Can you recount to me the conversation you had with a stranger sitting next to you on an airplane on any flight between 1992 and 1994? That’s a bit more than 30 years later than the claimed date.
Aside from all of this — apart from having zero real evidence whatsoever to support your wild claim, and ignoring completely all of the real evidence that we actually do have — you further make the completely stupid claim that I must be saying that Mombasa, Kenya was a part of the United States in 1961.
I claim no such thing. I merely note that you have no more evidence of your extremely unlikely (to put it really, really mildly) claims, than I have that 4.2 metrics tons of 99.4% pure blue-silver unobtainium was shipped from Zanzibar to New Jersey in April of 2003, and is now fueling the massive devices that keep mankind blind to the reptilian alien invasion from Alpha Draconis.
Do you even have any idea what a crank you are?
You know, Mark, I don’t wish to be condescending. But we’ve got just almost tons of evidence that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii. You’re putting forth some truly outlandish claims that go against all of the available evidence — at least all of it that’s of any quality whatsoever — and in spite of the fact that I’ve asked you to back your claims up with some good, hard evidence, you’ve produced nothing.
And yet you still keep making the claims.
I mean, it’s fine for you to believe that Barack Obama was born on Mombasa Island, if that’s what floats your boat. But I hope you’ll forgive the rest of us if we’re slightly more than skeptical of those claims.
John Woodward
You stated in your post #120 that “testimony of Mr. Obama’s High School English Teacher that she recall
hearing of his birth in 1961, in Hawaii”
I recall that navity story also fron a New York newspaper. I recall she claim to here it from Dr.
West at a dinner at the Outrigger Canoe Club in Waikiki.
Yet this navity story is off the wall.
First, the Outrigger Canoe Club is not in Waikiki. It is in Diamond Head district, next door to the Elk’s Club. Dr. West could not get from the purported hospital to the Outrigger Canoe Club after birth in time
for the last seating.
These are just of the problem with that nativity story.
Sincerely, Mark Seidenberg, Chairman, American Independent Party.
First, Mark, it’s been 50 years. It would be quite understandable if Mrs. Nelson remembered “today” and Dr. West had in fact said “yesterday.” Or simply, “Well, Stanley gave birth to a baby,” and Barbara Nelson simply assumed he meant that day.
There’s nothing even remotely abnormal about that.
If you don’t understand that people’s “eyewitness accounts” of an event aren’t always 100% accurate, then you don’t know even the first thing about eyewitness accounts.
Nor is there nothing abnormal about her description of the location of the Outrigger Canoe Club, assuming it’s in the same location as it was 50 years ago. The Outrigger’s own web site describes it as “located in Honolulu, Hawaii, near Waikiki Beach.” That’s the official description of its location.
Mark says: Dr. West could not get from the purported hospital to the Outrigger Canoe Club after birth in time for the last seating.
It’s 9.4 miles from the Hospital to the Outrigger. Today it takes 19 minutes. In 1961 it would probably take 14 or 15, or maybe even less, since it’s all grown up and overpopulated now.
West wasn’t even the official delivering doctor, although who knows? He could’ve been in the room. Maybe he simply poked his head in the door. In any event, doctors tend to disappear after a birth and leave it to the nurses.
Let’s assume he was actually at the delivery, and it took him an entire half hour to leave the hospital. That puts the time at 7:55 pm. Even at today’s level of traffic congestion, he could’ve been at the Outrigger by 8:15 pm. The Outrigger (assuming they had the same hours in 1961) is open for dinner until 9 pm. But for all we know, they might’ve been open until 930 or 10.
So if we assume pretty much of an absolute worst case scenario — half an hour before leaving the hospital, plus slow traffic — West would’ve been at the Outrigger 45 minutes before closing time.
This is about birther “impossibility” #437 or so. And they’re all the same. When you track down the actual facts, they’re not impossible at all.
Conversing with birthers is a lot like playing whack-a-mole, except you never get any points for whacking all the moles they throw up there. The mole just disappears into its hole, they pop another two up, and you never get any credit at all for all of the lies that you already debunked.
Dear John Woodman.
Many thanks for your research on this: “But there is not one single quote actually from St. George Tucker to support what Apuzzo claims he said.”
That is what I suspected. St. George Tucker use a quotation from some other writer thus confirming that at least two writers at the time used Natural Born Citizen the way that it was used in the common law.
And so far no writer at the time can be found that uses Natural Born the way that Vattel did. (Ramsay may have believed that citizenship requires two citizen parents, but he did not say that “Natural Born refers to the parents.”
Thus we have at least two confirmations. The historical evidence indicates that the term Natural Born Citizen refers to citizenship at birth, including all the children born in the country (except for the children of foreign diplomats, etc).
And the legal evidence from the Wong Kim Ark case and subsequent cases also shows that Natural Born Citizen refers to citizenship at birth, including all the children born in the country (except for the children of foreign diplomats, etc).
We know this independently of all the dozens, if not hundreds, of legal scholars, law cases and the votes of the members of Congress and the members of the Electoral College. It is logical to seek proof independent of all the scholars, no matter how many of them exist.
Still, it is worth pointing out that they are not fools. They have all recognizes what we did, that the historical evidence and the Supreme Court rulings do not require “two citizen parents.”
Re: The time from the hospital to the club. The basis of this speculation seems to be based on Mark Seidenberg’s desire to show that the witness was lying. Yet she clearly remembered writing home about what she was told, and that she had written home because her father’s name was Stanley (was she lying about that?) and that the first name of the woman who gave birth was also Stanley. Dr West may not have been the actual doctor who delivered Obama, but he knew about the birth of a child to a woman named Stanley, and according to the witness, he told her.
Birthers would like to be able to prove that she lied and then prove that the officials in Hawaii who confirmed the facts on the birth certificate are lying too and then prove that the birth notices in the Hawaii newspapers are not additional confirmation that Obama received a birth certificate in 1961. And they would like to claim that it is irrelevant that no evidence has turned out showing that Obama’s mother even traveled outside of the USA in 1961 or Obama was checked into the USA by the INS in that year.
Nevertheless these facts are all true, and taken together they are overwhelming proof that Obama was born where his birth certificate says, in Honolulu, Hawaii.
ehancock,
Ramsay may have believed that citizenship requires two citizen parents, but he did not say that “Natural Born refers to the parents.”
Ramsay’s entire essay was all to do with the division of American colonialists (who at the time of the Revolution divided themselves into Revolutionaries and British Loyalists) into American citizens and British subjects, and the point was to exclude his rival William Loughton Smith from his seat in the US House of Representatives, as Smith’s parents had died before the Revolution, and Smith himself had been abroad studying when the Revolution took place and for some time after. It didn’t fly. Ramsay was voted down 36 to 1.
Anyway, that was the entire context, and that was the entire point. Ramsay had nothing to say about the status of children born on US soil of non-citizen parents after the Revolution. He might well have claimed that they weren’t citizens, but as we’ve seen, Ramsay’s teaching on citizenship was rejected by Father of the Constitution James Madison and virtually everyone around him.
Apuzzo’s writing is full of “the Founding Fathers would have believed blah…,” backed up by projections from quotes that are only very faintly related. And he makes a similar statement to the effect that Ramsay “would have” represented the views of the Founding Fathers. It’s all woulda, coulda, shoulda, as he has no real quotes to make his points with. And the real quotes we do have, that are more directly relevant, quite often refute him. Even from the authorities that he himself cites — just as we’ve seen in this thread with both St. George Tucker and Charles Gordon.
By the way, there’s more of his reasoning on St. George Tucker in his 42-page brief in Tisdale v Obama. But guess what there still isn’t? Right. There still isn’t a reference to exactly where he’s supposed to be quoting Tucker from.
In any fairly complex issue, there is at least some evidence that can be used to support either side of an argument. Apuzzo attempts to pull a curtain in front of the 4 tons of evidence that refutes him, then holds the 12 pounds of evidence that might be in his favor up high, and proclaims it as authoritative.
I have updated the page at my site listing bottom-line conclusions regarding the issues. This debate with Apuzzo has been very instructive.
By the way, I attempted at one point to email you; your gmail bounced.
Pingback: The Bottom Line Regarding Barack Obama’s Eligibility to Be President, the Meaning of “Natural Born Citizen,” and the Birther Movement | Investigating the Obama Birth Certificate Mystery
DNA
A dna test might prove that President Obama does not have the same Y chromosome ancestral dna as the people in Kenya whom he claims are his immediate family members.
Brothers who have different mothers, still have the same Y chromosome dna because it is passed from father to sons.
Many “birthers” don’t believe that President Obama has informed us of WHO his REAL father is, and that his birth certificate merely states who his mother was married to at the time of his birth.
If Malcolm X is Barack Obama’s “real father,” then I guess that makes him eligible to be President, doesn’t it?
Problem solved.
@ehancock “But Ramsay never said that “you have to have two citizen parents to be natural born.” He said that you have to have two citizen parents to be a citizen. As far as we know Ramsay used Natural Born the way that Tucker did and the way that it was used in the common law.”
One should keep in mind that Ramsay lost his run for Congress and wrote what he wrote to unseat his opponent whom he argued was ineligible. He uses motivated reasoning. He lost that challenge in the House when he was opposed by James Madison who said a couple of important things in the debate:
First Madison explains the theory under which he and Washington were natural born citizens. It is the doctrine of the successor state. Madison said:
“I conceive that every person who owed this primary allegiance to the particular community in which he was born, retained his right of birth, as a member of a new community; that he was absolved from a secondary allegiance that he had owed to a British sovereign.”
The second thing he said was: “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.”
It may be, however, that Dr. Ramsay was the pseudonymous writer to the Charleston paper, Epaminondas. If that be true then it was he who wrote:
“For that he [Smith] is a citizen now we may well admit, altho it may be denied by that principle of the British constitution, which says, “that the natural born subject of one prince cannot by swearing allegiance to another prince put off or discharge him from that natural allegiance, and that it cannot be deserted without the concurrent act of that prince to whom it was first due.” But now being an independent nation we make no appeals to the British constitution, but to the general law of nations [lower case] which should decide this point, should his allegiance ever be claimed by the Crown of Great Britain”
It looks to me that winning Congressman William Smith rejected Vattel’s formula in the following:
“The Doctor [Ramsay] says the circumstances of birth do not make a citizen–This I also deny. Vattel says: “The country of the father is that of the children and these become citizens by their tacit consent.” I was born a Carolinian [before the Declaration], and I defy the Doctor to say at what moment I was disenfranchised. The revolution which took place in America made me a citizen, though then resident at Geneva…. There was never a moment when I was a citizen of any other country.”
Ramsay was shot at Charleston, SC, on May 6, 1815 by a lunatic and died 2 days later. Smith served one term in Congress.
@ehancock “…Nor is there a 1961 record of Obama’s mother having left the USA or returned to the USA by the INS. Nor is there any document in Kenya showing that she was there.”
Not only is there no document showing Ann Obama returned to the US from Kenya by air, there is a statistical report that proves she didn’t. The 1962 statistical report of the Immigration and Naturalization service lists a count all persons entering the United States by country of embarkation. A total of ZERO persons entered the US starting in Kenya for the entire year ending June 30, 1962. Details and links to the report at: http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/2012/03/born-in-africa-myth-crushed-under-weight-of-complexity/
One more citation for the pile. George Bancroft’s 5-volume History of the United States includes a section on citizenship under the Articles of Confederation. He wrote:
“During the sixteen months that followed the introduction of the plan for confederation prepared by Dickinson, the spirit of separation, fostered by uncontrolled indulgence, and by opposing interests and institutions, visibly increased in congress; and every change in his draft, which of itself proposed only a league of states, diminished the energetic authority which is the first guarantee of liberty.
“The United States of America included within their jurisdiction all the territory that had belonged to the old thirteen colonies; and, if Canada would so choose, they were ready to annex Canada.
“In the republics of Greece, citizenship had in theory been confined to a body of kindred families, which formed an hereditary caste, a multitudinous aristocracy. Such a system could have no permanent vitality; and the Greek republics, as the Italian republics in after-ages, died out for want of citizens. America adopted the principle of the all-embracing unity of society. As the American territory was that of the old thirteen colonies, so the free people residing upon it formed the free people of the United States. Subject and citizen were correlative terms; subjects of the monarchy became citizens of the republic. He that had owed primary allegiance to the king of England now owed primary allegiance to united America; yet, as the republic was the sudden birth of a revolution, the moderation of congress did not name it treason for the former subjects of the king to adhere to his government only; it was held that whoever chose to remain on the soil, by residence accepted protection and owed allegiance. This is the reason why, for twelve years, free inhabitants and citizens were in American state papers convertible terms, sometimes used one for the other, and sometimes for the sake of perspicuity redundantly joined together.
“The king of England claimed as his subjects all persons born within his dominions: in like manner every one who first saw the light on the American soil was a natural born American citizen; but the power of naturalization, which, under the king, each colony had claimed to regulate by its own laws, remained under the confederacy with the separate states.
“The king had extended protection to every one of his lieges in every one of the thirteen colonies; now that congress was the successor of the king in America, the right to equal protection was continued to every free inhabitant in whatever state he might sojourn or dwell.”
Dr. Conspiracy,
Thanks for your good contributions to the discussion.
One should keep in mind that Ramsay lost his run for Congress and wrote what he wrote to unseat his opponent whom he argued was ineligible. He uses motivated reasoning. He lost that challenge in the House when he was opposed by James Madison who said a couple of important things in the debate:
In fact, while it appears that David Ramsay was a good historian, he also seems to have been the original Birther.
Ramsay challenged Smith’s eligibility on the grounds that his birth did not make him a citizen.
He had an ulterior motive for his doctrine.
He claimed that citizen parents were necessary.
He wrote and disseminated propaganda in support of his ulterior motive.
And he lost his legal challenge, having his dubious claims voted down 36 to 1.
@Chris Ericson “Many “birthers” don’t believe that President Obama has informed us of WHO his REAL father is, and that his birth certificate merely states who his mother was married to at the time of his birth.”
In most if not all jurisdictions, there is a presumption that if there is a husband, then he is the father. However, the Obama birth certificate states that Obama Sr. is the father, and Ann Obama signed her name saying that he is. There’s no reason to think otherwise.
George Bancroft was born only 24 years after the Declaration of Independence. He was a historian and as Secretary of the Navy established the United States Naval Academy.
“The king of England claimed as his subjects all persons born within his dominions: in like manner every one who first saw the light on the American soil was a natural born American citizen; but the power of naturalization, which, under the king, each colony had claimed to regulate by its own laws, remained under the confederacy with the separate states.”
This Secretary of the Navy and founder of the United States Naval Academy refutes Apuzzo. I’d say that’s significant enough to count as Mario’s Fail #13.
I have seen this thorough a dismantling of someones arguments since the last time Mario Apuzzo ventured away from his blog to debate at CAAFLOG.
I noticed in Mr. Apuzzo’s Amicus Curiae brief that he filed in the Tisdale v Obama case in the 4th Circuit that he cites an unpublished paper on the 14th amendment and citizenship by Professor Patrick Charles. I was curious if Mr. Apuzzo had contacted Professor Charles and asked him if he agrees with the theory that someone who is citizen at birth is not a natural born citizen. His paper certainly does not seem to support that conclusion in any way.
What I’ve gathered from reading this thread is Woodman does not have conclusive tangible proof, and he is only arguing that Obama is a citizen based on a belief that Director Fuddy & State Registar Onaka are telling the truth.
We all should beable to recall from past incidents how easily one can be fooled into believing something that we later found out were boldfaced lies. Remember Monicagate & Rathergate. Will we at some point in the future be calling this Birthgate?
Additionally, his partner Dr. Conspiracy is on record, regarding Woodman’s potentially gullible position, stating, if they are right about their research, it is at best only a theory.
Futhermore, if I’m understanding their position correctly, they are claiming anyone from anywhere born on American soil is automatically a natural-born citizen?
Ikey,
What others might gather from reading your posts here is that you’re not the disinterested evaluator of facts and arguments that you pretend to be in your last post.
How is it that you transformed from being a completely partisan cheerleader in Mr. Apuzzo’s corner (post #81) to being this disinterested evaluator of truth?
What others certainly WOULD gather from your posts elsewhere on the web is that you’re a diehard birther for whom no facts or evidence can possibly be sufficient to shake you from your delusions.
Futhermore, if I’m understanding their position correctly, they are claiming anyone from anywhere born on American soil is automatically a natural-born citizen?
I honestly think that’s a lot of your problem, Ike. I don’t think you do understand the arguments.
You know what you want to believe — that Barack Obama is ineligible to be President. Because he’s evil. Therefore, he must also be ineligible. It doesn’t follow logically — one can profoundly disagree with the man’s politics (as I do personally) and yet state that there’s no decent evidence at all that he’s legally ineligible. But in your little world, if he’s not the person you want in the White House, or if he’s not doing the job you want him to do, then he’s ineligible as well.
And so you look for authorities that will enable you to maintain your belief. Ah. Here’s Mario Apuzzo. He’s a lawyer. That’s good. “Lawyer” implies smart. “Lawyer” implies authority.
Never mind that there are plenty enough bent, lying lawyers who are willing to make false arguments for the sake of their own gain, that authority isn’t the first thing most people think of when someone says the word “lawyer.” Mr. Apuzzo makes the arguments that you want to hear. Therefore he must be all right.
And what arguments! He makes impressive, complicated arguments. Who can understand them? Not Ike. And it all sounds so good. Therefore what he’s saying has to be true.
Except it isn’t.
Apuzzo’s claims have now been debunked again and again. Twelve separate claims factually shot down in this one thread alone.
Virtually every significant legal authority in the entire history of the United States who has really spoken on the matter has said, in essence, that Mr. Apuzzo is full of you-know-what. And I’m not talking about ice cream.
And you pop up with this touching (albeit very naive) show of support for Mr. Apuzzo in post #81, in an apparently sincere belief that he’s doing well in the debate. But you don’t even understand that he’s fighting for his birther life, and is losing that fight so badly that in just 20 more posts Mr. Apuzzo will flee to the comfort and safety of his own, fully-moderated blog — all in order to try and avoid the embarrassment of further humiliation.
From the factual point of view, the two-citizen-parent theory is over. Not that it ever stood the slightest chance of prevailing in law in the first place. It didn’t. But now even people in the general public are coming to the realization that when you research the claims and go to the sources that are used to justify them, those sources justify no such thing. In fact, a great many of the sources quoted — most of them, probably — directly refute the two-citizen-parent claim.
Today I did some research on Representative John Bingham, quoted at Article II Super PAC as being in support of the two-citizen-parent claim. Read his stuff in context, and you discover what he really said: That pretty much anyone born on US soil, except for Indians who were living in autonomous Indian nations and therefore outside of the jurisdiction of the United States — is a natural born citizen. The same can be said for Senator Lyman Trumbull, who sponsored the 1860s civil rights legislation in the Senate.
And when it comes to that specific point, I have yet to find a single person in any of the debates who clearly disputes them.
You, of course, don’t read the debates. You read Mario Apuzzo. Because he’s right. Why is he right? He’s right because he says what Ikey wants to hear.
You asked about natural born citizens. The law is actually clear and well settled, at least as regards all those born of resident parents on US soil. It’s not 100% clear on the status of children born abroad to US citizens, although the general consensus is that they are natural-born citizens as well (Mr. Bingham, by the way, would agree to that, as he stated “citizen at birth” and “natural born citizen” to be the same thing.) And it seems possible, to me at least, that there could be at least a bit of debate about children of people like illegal aliens and tourists. Although I don’t think there’s really much debate on that, either.
But on those born here of resident parents, the law is absolutely well settled and clear.
All persons born in the US to resident parents, whether those parents are US citizens or not, are natural born citizens in the sense of the Constitution. Such persons are therefore eligible, upon meeting the other qualifications, to run for and serve as President of the United States.
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Hey John,
You’ve pegged me wrong. I’m very interested in understanding how NBC was defined for the purpose of presidential eligibility.
What you don’t understand is I’m not an elitist with an advanced degree like you. I only have a lower level diploma from the School of Common Sense.
Ok, now I get it. Having resident parents = NBC. Is that both parents, or is only 1 parent necessary? Dual alligiance ok? John Jay’s ‘foreign influence’ now goes to the ash heap of history?
I’m not a Birther, but keep believing I am. I’ve dismissed alot of their nonsense and called them lame in their forums and also with a few I’ve conversed with for a long time now on email. But the problem I’m having, which is completely from my perspective only, is seeing what side in this has been trying to get answers to the many questions/controversies surrounding 0bama, and what side seems to be working to block that or cover it up. It’s on that that I see the Birthers with the higher calling.
The citizenship/NBC controversary has never been my #1 problem with Obama, but if the birthers can get Mr Evil out of our Whitehouse they have my blessing.
Here’s a hypothetical that you can answer that might help you understand where I’m coming from: 0bama releases every possible record/document that was ever attached to him throughout his life. Not even 1 discrepancy was found, everything was copesetic, but you knew about his lifelong associations. Would you still want him as the President & Commander-in-Chief for America?
Re: “John Jay’s ‘foreign influence’ now goes to the ash heap of history? ”
John Jay was a lawyer and a justice who actually wrote the common law into the first Constitution of the state of New York. When he used the term Natural Born, he was using it the way that the common law used it.
However, he WAS–I agree with you–concerned about foreign influence. Because of that concern the US Constitution bars two kinds of people from being president. (1) Foreign citizens cannot be president because the president must be a natural born Citizen; and (2) naturalized citizens cannot be president because the president must be a Natural Born citizen.
But that is all that are barred. There is no evidence that John Jay or any of the writers of the US Constitution regarded the US-born children of foreigners as foreigners or that they regarded the US-born children of foreigners as less reliable citizens than the US-born children of US citizens.
Re: “if the birthers can get Mr Evil out of our Whitehouse they have my blessing.”
Answer: There are plenty of legitimate issues that can affect the election. It is not necessary to lie about Obama’s birth certificate being forged or to repeat the crazy story that he was born in Kenya or to claim, when the evidence and the experts are all against it, that two citizen parents are required to be a Natural Born Citizen.
Not only is it unnecessary to make such claims, but if you do it without really believing it, you are lying–and there is a commandment against doing that.
ehancock,
I can put my hand on that commandment in the Bible and say I’ve had & have honest questions about 0bama’s right to be President/CiC.
What is left out in your reply are answers to 2 questions I asked. (1) Does it require 1 parent only or both parents to be a resident to make the offspring a NBC? (2) Expanding now on the 2nd: Is dual citizenship and foreign allegiance allowed?
It’s my personal belief that the intentions of John Jay and the other founder involved in placing the Article II eligibilty clause for the presidency in the Constitution was to eliminate foreign influence in our national government, and more precisely to make sure that the Commamder-in-Chief had sole allegiance to our country & the American people, as it was so rightly stated years later by president Teddy Roosevelt.
Theodore Roosevelt on Sole Allegiance:
“In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man’s becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American…There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile…We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language…and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”
Wasn’t Obama a dual citizen for the 1st 20 years of his life? Didn’t he also have foreign allegiance through his church with Reverand Wright for almost 20 years?
If I’m reading Woodman right [open for correction] he is stating that a marxist loving couple from a pinko-commie country can come to America, set up residency, have a baby, spend the following years until that offspring meets the other requirements, indoctrinating that offspring with their totalitarian beliefs.
Re: “1) Does it require 1 parent only or both parents to be a resident to make the offspring a NBC? (2) Expanding now on the 2nd: Is dual citizenship and foreign allegiance allowed?”
Answer (1) The meaning of Natural Born comes from the common law and has no reference to parents at all. It refers to the PLACE of birth. Here is an actual example of how the term was used in America (not Switzerland) in 1803, shortly after the Constitution went into effect. Mario Apuzzo has pointed out that the same quotation was used by two Americans at the time. So it is a good example:
“Prior to the adoption of the constitution, the people inhabiting the different states might be divided into two classes: natural born citizens, or those born within the state, and aliens, or such as were born out of it. The first, by their birth-right, became entitled to all the privileges of citizens; the second, were entitled to none, but such as were held out and given by the laws of the respective states prior to their emigration. …St. George Tucker, BLACKSTONE’S COMMENTARIES: WITH NOTES OF REFERENCE TO THE CONSTITUTION AND LAWS OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND THE COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA. (1803)
As you can see, it mentions the place of birth, and it does not mention parents. And here is an example from 1829:
“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.”—William Rawle, A VIEW OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 2d ed. (1829)
Re: ” Is dual citizenship and foreign allegiance allowed?”
A question for you first. Do you believe in strict construction? Should justices apply the law as written and not deduce something from the “penumbra” ?
If so, the answer is obvious to you already. The Constitution does not say that dual citizens are barred and therefore dual citizen are NOT barred.
More importantly, we have actually had THREE presidents who were dual citizens before Obama, two when they were president, one–like Obama–who was a dual citizen at birth. The three are Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, who were made full voting citizens of France by the French Assembly during the French Revolution, and Woodrow Wilson, who was a dual citizen at birth because his mother never renounced her British citizenship.
ehancock.
I appreciate your help in understanding what I’ve come to call the Woodman Plan {his book]: A guide to obfuscate the American founders intentions for the Article II natural born Citizen.
So it really is as I stated earlier: anyone from anywhere can come to America at anytime, set up residence, pop out a baby, and that baby becomes a nbC.
What bothers me most about the Woodman Plan is his overlooking of 0bama’s fairly recent dedication of almost 20 years to his church literature/tenets: We are an African people, and remain “true to our native land,” a non-negotiable commitment to Africa.
You’d think that would fly in the face of our founders intention of putting a check on having an allegiance to a foreign land.