reply to post by TheImmaculateD1
Is not about having a foreign born parent, it is about about having citizen parents. A parent that is a foreign citizen can not have a "Natural Born
Citizen" as the framers of the constitution intended and which has never been changed or interpreted different by any process or any Supreme Court
Ruling or Congress, on the contrary, the records of the House of Representatives, and other Supreme Court cases agree that Natural Born Citizen means
having both Parents as Citizens.
naturalborncitizen.wordpress.com...<
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From Free Republic:
There has been much debate over what constitutes a natural born citizen. Much of the debate has been misinformed calling the concept of natural born
an obscure technicality or an overight by the writers of the Constitution. Neither of these characterizations are true.
Many times the true meaning of consitutional wording must be determined by looking at the era and the circumstances, and, in some cases, terminology
in other sections of the constitution, the inclusion or exclusion of supporting verbage, and even writings other than the Constitution.
Article 2, section 1 of the Constitution states, "No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the
adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of president; neither shall any person be eligible who shall not attained to the age of
thirty-five years, and been fourteen years a resident within the United Satates."
The addition of a grandfather clause in this paragraph says a lot as to the meaning of natural born. The first thing it says is that being born in the
US is not enough to be natural born, otherwise the grandfather clause would not be necessary. The writers and delegates, having been born in the US,
wanted to be eligible for the presidency, but most were the children of British subjects. Knowing that that eliminated them from being natural born
and, thus, from eligibility, they included the grandfather clause which expired when the last person alive at the time of the ratification of the
Constitution died. So, being a native born citizen is not the same as being natural born. If it were the framers would not have included the
clause.
When asked to define natural born citizen, John Bingham, the author of the 14th ammendment which extended the bill of rights to former slaves, stated,
"Any human born to parents who are US citizens and are under no other jurisdiction or authority." The Naturalization Act of 1790, also passed by this
congress, declared "And the children of citizens of the US shall be considered as natural born, provided that the right of citizenship shall not
descend to persons whose fathers have never been a resident of the US." Neither of these definitions, one from US law, mentions birthplace, only the
parents' citizenship.
This concept of citizenship by blood as opposed to citizenship by geography is a concept with a long history in British common law. A law passed in
1677 says that natural born citizens are those persons born to British citizens, including those born overseas. Alexander Porter wrote an article over
100 years ago in which he declares that the framers drew upon this difference in the law of heredity and territorial allegiance to define a third
class of citizen applicable only to the eligibility to hold the office of president. According to Morse, "the framers thought it wise to provide that
the president should at least be the child of citizens owing allegiance only to the US at the time of birth."
www.freerepublic.com...
edit on 8-10-2011 by dpage because: spelling error