The issue of what is or is not a Natural Born Citizen has been avoided by the U.S. Supreme Court. Would that they would heed
Cohens v. Virginia 19 US 264 (1821) which states: "It is most true that this Court will not take jurisdiction if it should not: but it is equally true, that it must take jurisdiction if it should. The judiciary cannot, as the legislature may, avoid a measure because it approaches the confines of the constitution. We cannot pass it by because it is doubtful. With whatever doubts, with whatever difficulties, a case may be attended, we must decide it, if it be brought before us. We have no more right to decline the exercise of jurisdiction which is given, than to usurp that which is not given. The one or the other would be treason to the constitution. Questions may occur which we would gladly avoid; but we cannot avoid them. All we can do is, to exercise our best judgment, and conscientiously to perform our duty. In doing this, on the present occasion, we find this tribunal invested with appellate jurisdiction in all cases arising under the constitution and laws of the United States. We find no exception to this grant, and we cannot insert one."Let me start briefly with what Thomas Jefferson wrote in May 1779, in
A Bill Declaring Who Shall Be Deemed Citizens Of This Commonwealth [of Virginia]
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/images/1ptrans.gif Virginia Papers 2:476–78
“…all infants wheresoever born, whose father, if living, or otherwise, whose mother was, a citizen at the time of their birth…shall be deemed citizens of this commonwealth… all others not being citizens of any the United States of America, shall be deemed aliens.” In 1779, as far as the Commonwealth of Virginia was concerned, Thomas Jefferson argues paternal jus sanguinis determined the child's citizenship, not jus soli. Jus soli (to the soil) birth in a 1779 Virginia was irrelevant in the Commonwealth of Virginia as it pertained to a Commonwealth of Virginia citizenship by birth during the time the United States was a Confederacy of States united.
In 1787, the United States Constitution was formulated, and stated:
"No Person except a Natural Born Citizen,
or a Citizen of the United States,
at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President;
neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office
who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years,
and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States."Constitution of the United States of America, Article 2, section 1, Clause 5The Natural Born Citizen Clause came about as a means to exclude children of foreign citizen fathers. Its introduction into the United States Constitution began with John Jay’s letter to George Washington, July 25, 1787 states:
“Permit me to hint whether it would not be wise and seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of foreigners into the administration of our national government; and to declare expressly that the commander in chief of the American army shall not be given to, nor devolve on any but a natural born citizen.”http://wwwapp.cc.columbia.edu/ldpd/jay/image?key=columbia.jay.10627&p=1&level=1A little over 6 weeks later, this specific rewording and new defense against foreign intrusion into the highest office of the proposed Executive Branch made its way into the Madison Debates, on September 7, 1787, when it was entered that
"the President should be a natural- born Citizen," of which he bore no allegiance or citizenship to any other nation than that of the United States of America.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/debates_907.asp“In expounding the Constitution of the United States, every word must have its due force and appropriate meaning, for it is evident from the whole instrument that no word was unnecessarily used or needlessly added. The many discussions which have taken place upon the construction of the Constitution have proved the correctness of this proposition and shown the high talent, the caution, and the foresight of the illustrious men who framed it. Every word appears to have been weighed with the utmost deliberation, and its force and effect to have been fully understood. No word in the instrument, therefore, can be rejected as superfluous or unmeaning, and this principle of construction applies …”Holmes v. Jennison, 39 U.S. (14 Peters) 540 (1840) @ 570-71
http://supreme.justia.com/us/39/540/case.htmlIn this Article 2.1.5 clause of the US Constitution, the person eligible to be President was to be either a US Citizen at the time of the ratification of the US Constitution or a natural born citizen -- one who was reared from his US Birth within the United States into a US citizen by his US Citizen Father (and presumably US Citizen mother by virtue of marriage and union with the US Citizen Father) -- and his 14 year residency requirements in the clause was officially recognized as required to be that starting at the age of 21 years old.
Since at the age of 35 he was required to dwell WITHIN the United States for 14 years since his 21st birthday, this a a Constitutional Obligatory presumption that has been extremely often entirely missed in discussing this clause, and deals with the concept of affirmation of sole allegiance to the United States alone.
While the prospective Presidential hopeful and actual office holder was given a mandatory residency requirement of living WITHIN the United States the entire 14 years he was alive IF he aspired to the Presidency at age 35, he only needed a combined total residency within the United States of 14 years if he was older. For example, if he aspired to the Presidency at age 45, he could have wandered outside the nation another 10 years as a merchant, but was still needing a mandatory residency/dwelling WITHIN the United States...not just being based there, but actually dwelling within the US...for at least 14 years since his 21st birthday. You will see this residency aspect return in the discussion of the parameters of the Constitution later on. So please keep it in mind.
15 years prior to 1787, the United States was at that time "British America". It was composed of 13 colonies which were transmuted into the designation and nomenclature of "States" on July 4, 1776. Therefore, if a person were a natural born citizen of one of the 13 Colonies that became a State of the United States, by accepting and declaring allegiance to State and Country after the War as a Citizen of the United States, the Natural Born Citizenship for only that time in our nation's history, was transmuted or carried over into the Confederacy and then the Republic of the United States of America.
Again, the TRANSMUTATION of natural-born citizenship to the United States was relegated to those who were born in any one of the 13 United American Colonies before July 4, 1776, as well as those born before the ratification of the US Constitution in 1789. It applies only to those in that period of history that were citizens by jus soli and jus sanguinis before the Revolution, who also made the transitional allegiance to the New Government that would be the United States AFTER the war was over.
The US Congress specified in its use of Plenary Powers who they meant to call a "natural born citizen". In the United States Naturalization Law of March 26, 1790 (1 Stat. 103), they specified it was to be "a free white person" who was repeatedly a "he", who was "of the age of twenty one years", and specified that it was the father that passed the ability to be called a natural born citizen onto the child by jus sanguinis (by blood) rather than the simplistic jus soli (by the soil) only requirement found in English Common Law. But still adapting some of the English Legal ruling of
Lord Coke in 1609, the United States adopted the concept of
"Nemo potest exuere Patriam" :
"No one has the power / ability / authority
to leave / reject / disown himself
from the Father's Land." [Expanded and reiterated translation, mine.]
From those times until the 26th Amendment, effective June 30, 1971, Constitutionally speaking on the academic plane, for a citizen of the United States able to pass on a natural born citizenship status, he had to be 21 years old. If he was not at least 21, technically (under constitutionally set parameters) his child was to be disqualified from being able to run for President or be Vice-President. As of June 30, 1971, the age of 18 became the Constitutional age when 18 year old acquired the right to vote. The amendment process is not retroactive, so that someone born on June 29, 1971, needed a 21 year old parent...that is, if we follow strict Constitutionalism. For exceptions to this, we have to look to codified laws in the US Code to say differently, and any codification not measuring up to the Constitution is subject to a legal challenge in the US Supreme Court by any party having legal standing to sue.
To this day, the majority of the nations of the world recognize their own
"natural born citizens" as those who are descended directly from their own national citizen fathers, regardless where in the world the child is born. This legal concept goes back many centuries, and pre-dates not only 1609 and the founding of America in 1620, but even pre-dates even the official discovery of America in 1492 under the leadership of Christopher Columbus.
Five years after
the Naturalization Act of 1790, Congress repealed the ACT of 1790, because it failed to specify its intent clear enough.
The Act of January 29, 1795 sought to "complete" the intent of what lay in the term
"natural born citizen" as it was used in what we now call the US Constitution's Article 2.1.5 clause.
That
"natural born citizens of the United States" were:
1) Only born to a US Citizen Father at the time of their birth that had only one nationality and allegiance at the time of the child's birth;
2) that the clear and obvious intent of the language of the statute was that the child also never have a dual nationality or any other allegiance than that of the United States for their entire existence from birth to the grave.
But is that really just a presumption regarding the intent of defining natural born citizen in the Act of January 29, 1795? My answer is: No. Let's review why.
In
Section 1, any citizen that naturalized to the United States and who was to have any natural born son was required to
"forever [be free of] all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty whatever." This was so important it was repeated that he be someone who
"absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty whatever". He was also to be
"a man of a good moral character, attached to the principles of the constitution of the United States, and well-disposed to the good order and happiness of the same."In
Section 2, any citizen that naturalized to the United States and who was to have any natural born son was required to
"support the constitution of the United States; and that he does absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty whatever".In other words, the father
"of a US Natural Born Citizen defined son" was never to be a foreign national, as Obama's father was. Obama's father was an alien national Citizen of Kenya, under the Colonial Commonwealth Protectorate of Great Britain. He was NEVER a US Citizen, nor even had any expressed desire to be (not that such would have helped...it wouldn't have).
And never in the child's life was that child to be a de facto or de jure citizen of a foreign nation as Obama was in Indonesia so adopted and legally made a citizen minor under guardianship in that foreign society out of Jakarta, and attending Menteng 1 as a naturalized Indonesian Citizen, forsaking his U.S. Nationality by adoption and being denounced as a Foreign National by his own mother as of August 13, 1968.
Stanley Ann Dunham Obama Soetoro-Passport Application File-Strunk v Dept of State-FOIA Release-FINAL-7-29-10
Just one year after the above-cited Act of 1795, in
Ware v. Hylton, 3 U.S. 3 Dall. 199 (1796)we find how that we are supposed to read the US Constitution, in its literal context.
@240
"When we collect the intention from the words only, as they lie in the writing before us, it is a literal interpretation, and indeed if the words and the construction of a writing are clear and precise, we can scarce call it interpretation to collect the intention of the writer from thence. The principal rule to be observed in literal interpretation is to follow that sense, in respect both of the words and the construction which is agreeable to common use."@245
"…This principle is recognized by the Constitution...."In
Article 6 of the US Constitution, we are told that:
"This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance therof...shall be made the supreme Law of the Land...."In
Marbury v.Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137 (1803) @ 179-180,both elected officials and judges are to maintain and adhere to the US Constitution as the supreme law that guides and governs their actions, and states:
"...it is apparent that the framers of the Constitution contemplated that instrument as a rule for the government of courts, as well as of the Legislature. Why otherwise does it direct the judges to take an oath to support it?"The
Act of April 14, 1802 (2 Stat.155) stated that:
"children of persons who now are, or have been, citizens of the United States, shall, though born out of the limits and jurisdiction of the United States, be considered as citizens thereof . . . ."From 1802 to 1855, through certain vagaries in the Law, there were those who wondered what the definitive law of Natural Born Citizenship in this time period was. But while we may debate the issue, sole allegiance and sole citizenship to the United States was a definite requirement in order to be a Natural Born Citizen.
"...the term ‘natural born citizen’ is used and excludes all persons owing allegiance by birth to foreign states.”The New Englander and Yale Law Review, Volume 3 (1845), p. 414http://books.google.com/books?id=gGNJAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA414&dq=Vattel+%2B%22natural+born+citizen%22&as_brr=4&cd=5#v=onepage&q=Vattel%20%20%22natural%20born%20citizen%22&f=falseFurther, that the Father be a United States Citizen at the time of the child's birth was viewed then by the Court to be an absolute in
The Venus, 12 U.S. (8 Cranch) 253 (1814) @ 289-290- Chief Justice John Marshall stated:
The whole system of decisions applicable to this subject rests on the law of nations as its base. It is therefore of some importance to inquire how far the writers on that law consider the subjects of one power residing within the territory of another, as retaining their original character or partaking of the character of the nation in which they reside.
Vattel, who, though not very full to this point, is more explicit and more satisfactory on it than any other whose work has fallen into my hands, says
"The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages.
The natives or indigenes
are those born in the country
of parents who are citizens.
Society not being able to subsist and to perpetuate itself but by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights."So while we see that the term “parents” is used, the “rights” and “condition” of Citizenship is passed on through the Citizen Father (or the presumption of one, in case of bastardization when he is presumed a US Citizen in absentia from the Citizen Mother).
And with the
Act of February 10, 1855 (10 Stat. 604), the operation of Law still required the Father alone to confirm a child's citizenship. This in turn was clarified again as Revised Statute 1993 which stated:
"All children heretofore born or hereafter born out of the limits and jurisdiction of the United States, whose FATHERS were or may be at the time of their birth citizens thereof, are declared to be citizens of the United States; but the rights of citizenship shall not descend to children whose fathers never resided in the United States."When in 1881, Senator Bayard was petitioned about a father naturalizing and giving his child Natural Born Citizen status during the period covered by the Act of 1802 to 1855 (regarding President Chester A. Arthur), Senator Bayard of the Judiciary Committee stated that as long as the Father became a United States Citizen before the child's 21st birthday, he would concur with its operation as a foreigner to a U.S. Citizen as giving his child a United States Natural Born Status (as opposed to what we might label as just a "born citizen", which include anchor babies in our day, not eligible to run for President). [Note:
Keep in mind that Obama's Father was NEVER a citizen of the United States at any time.]
Constitutional Amendment ARTICLE XII., SUB-DIVISION 3.
" But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of
President, shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the
United States."New York, January 7th, 1881.
Hon. THOS. F. BAYARD, U. S. Senator.
DEAR SIR: - What is the construction of Article II., ~ I,
Clause 5, of the Constitution of the United States-that
.. No person, except a natural-born citizen, etc., shall be
eligible, etc." * * *
Yours respectfully,
A. P. HINMAN.
--------------
Senate of the United States.
City of Washington, January 10th, 1881.
A. P. HINMAN, Esq., New York.
DEAR SIR:-In response to your letter of the 7th instant-
the term" natural-born citizen," as used in the Constitution
and Statutes of the U. S., is held to be a native of the U. S.
The naturalization by law of a father before his child
attains the age of twenty-one, would be naturalization of
such minor. Yours respectfully,
T. F. BAYARDhttp://www.scribd.com/doc/18450082/Arthur-Hinman-How-a-British-Subject-Became-President-of-the-United-StatesIn other words:
1) Children born to a US Citizen father outside the US = US Citizen
2) Children born to a US Citizen Father inside the limits of the US = US Natural Born Citizen
3) The presumption of the US Citizen Father is that he is age 21 or older at the time of the child's birth.
In 1802 and until 1855, while it was still a requirement that a child have a US Citizen Father, and under the specific language of the statute, the employing of the plural "persons" in the natural and literal sense of a child's birth, is inclusive of the necessity of a US citizen Mother as well as that of the Father at the time of birth in order that the child born outside the jurisdiction of the United States also be considered a US citizen as well, and not be stateless. The naturalization of the father automatically naturalized the mother as well at the moment the oath of naturalization was officially taken in a legal proceeding. With the codification of the Revised Statute 1993, the necessity of a US Citizen mother was either removed or left obscure, and the US Citizen Father once again became all that was required for a child born outside the limits of the United States to become a US Citizen for the next 13 years. But that was rectified by an Amendment to the US Constitution.
On July 28, 1868, with the ratification of the 14th Amendment, the natural born citizen requirement of a US Citizen became clarified and founded upon the inclusion of that birth which was in a State of the United States, and that the 14th Amendment minimum was that the person also be a citizen in the State where they reside, and be subject to the laws of both the national jurisdiction of the United States and that of the local State wherein they reside. The action implies a continuous present tense formulation in its legal phrase: a lifetime US residency and citizenship, not subject to withdrawal by the participant citizen without risk to a withdrawal of 14th Amendment Citizen standing.
In other words, in the strict literal sense, the 14th Amendment disowns those who cease to be citizens of any jurisdiction of the United States. The dis-ownership of the United States by its former citizens who choose to go overseas and not maintain a home state address and State Citizenship, but do not swear allegiance to another, thereby rendering them Stateless, is prevented in language elsewhere and outside the US Constitution in the codifications of the US Code.
But as it regards Natural Born Citizenship, and the requirements of that Status in order to legally and Constitutionally be a President or Vice-President of the United States, the academic argument over the intent of the 14th Amendment and the ability to rescind a citizenship of a non-resident citizen who chooses to neither live in the United States nor be subject to its laws, is a discussion for another day.
Prior to the 14th Amendment we know that
"Birth and allegiance go together. Such is the rule of the common law…” stated
United States v. Rhodes (1866). (Notice that Barack II was born with a British Citizenship of the Colony of Kenya via his father, hence a British allegiance which encompassed both a separate Kenyan and British Citizenship with Kenya's Independence in 1963 , and clearly Barack Jr. is forever unqualified to be called a United States "natural born citizen" under the US Constitution etc.).
And even after the 14th Amendment, we read in
Elk v. Wilkins, 112 US 94 (1884) @ 101-102where the Court said,
"The main object of the opening sentence of the fourteenth amendment was...to put it beyond doubt that all persons, white or black, and whether formerly slaves or not, born or naturalized in the United States, and OWING NO ALLEGIANCE TO ANY ALIEN POWER, should be citizens of the United States and of the state in which they reside." With the 14th Amendment, in order to be a US Natural Born Citizen:
1) Children must be born to a US Citizen Father
2) Be born in the United States.
3) Reside perpetually in the United States to age 21.
4) Never at any time owe any allegiance to any alien power.If one aspired to be President at age 35, the perpetual residency requirement is to age 35. If they aspire to be President of the United States at age 45, they need a perpetual residency to age 21, a combined de facto and de jure dwelling within the United States for at least 14 years since the age of 21. In effect, those who join the US Military and serve outside the United States under the age of 21 were not perceived in the intent of the 14th Amendment, but with the 1971 26th Amendment, the age requirement reduces to age 18 perpetual residency, and still a formula of perpetual residency to age 35 if they run at age 35, as the intent of the clause was a perpetual residency for 35 years in the United States if one were to run at age 35, even with a drop in the age of when a person becomes a voting citizen is Amended into the US Constitution without redressing Article 2.1.5.
Further, as of
June 22, 1874, six years after the 14th Amendment was passed:
"The United States have not recognized a double allegiance. By our law a citizen is bound to be 'true and faithful' alone to our government."US House of Representatives Report No.784, June 22, 1874
Dual Citizenship at birth denies one the claim of being a 14th Amendment Citizen AND that of being a United States Natural Born Citizen.
Concerning the 14th Amendment by the authority of the author of the first clause insertion of having no allegiance to any foreign power at birth, Rep –Ohio, John Bingham in the United States House on March 9, 1866 (Cong. Globe, 39th, 1st Sess., 1291 (1866)), states:
“ (I) find no fault with the introductory clause [Bill S-61], which is simply declaratory of what is written in the Constitution, that every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen[/u]…”In a letter dated July 9, 2009, California Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein stated to me that the 14th Amendment qualifies Barack Obama to the Office. In it, Mrs. Feinstein writes:
“Article II, Section 1 of the US Constitution specifies the qualifications for this executive office. It states that no person except for a natural born American citizen is eligible to run for President of the United States. Also, the candidate must be at least thirty-five years of age and have resided in the United States for at least fourteen years.
President Obama meets these constitutional requirements. He was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on August 4, 1961. According to the Fourteenth Amendment, all persons born in the United States are considered citizens of the United States. Under these criteria, President Obama, a 47-year old US citizen, who has resided in the United States for longer than fourteen years, is eligible for President.”But as we have seen, Senator Feinstein is clearly inept on this subject, and likely relies on a misinformed representation given her of and/or an egregious reading of
United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898) without even the necessary clarification of Weedin v. Chin Bow, 274 U.S. 657 (1927)@ 660-666, and the various material or references I am herewith supplying you.
As it regards the Constitution and the obligatory intent of the Natural Born Citizen clause, there evolved one more requirement, that of a US Citizen Mother (as well as that of a US Citizen Father) at the time of birth.
With the ratification of the
19th Amendment to the US Constitution on August 26, 1920, stating,
"the right of the citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex." increased the obligatory Constitutional Requirements on those aspiring to be President of the United States, as defined by the parameters set forth by the United States Constitution.
With the 1920 ratified
19th Amendment, in order to be qualify as a "natural born citizen" in order to be President, a person within the defining parameters of the US Constitution (Article 2.1.5, the 14th and 19th Amendments) needs to:
1) Be born to a 21 year old or older US Citizen Father
2) Be born to a 21 year old or older US Citizen Mother
3) Be born on United States soil within a US State
4) Maintain a permanent sole legience to the United States absent of any dual or multi-citizen nationalities and /or allegiances.
5) Maintain a lifetime residency to a State or States within the United States to age 35;
or to age 21 plus a minimum total of 14 additional years physical presence residency within the States if older than 35. Again, in 1971, with
the 26th Amendment, the age of the citizen parent, in the Constitutional requirement, was dropped to 18. Thus, a child born to a 17 year old on US soil to those who would otherwise be identified as US Citizen Minors, would not be eligible to one day run for President under the obligatory Constitutional Requirements found in the natural and literal sense of that document.
In 1961:
1) Barack Hussein Obama II was born to an alien national father of foreign citizenship and himself having foreign allegiances.
2) Barack Hussein Obama II was born to a minor mother age 18, not yet legal under either codified lesser standards to grant U.S. citizenship to any child born outside of U.S. jurisdiction -- Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, ch. 477, Title III, ch. 1, §§ 301(a)(7), 309(a), 66 Stat. 163, 235-38 (1952) --nor the Constitutionally required age of voting (age 21).
3) There is no hospital or location birth record with witnesses to the birth for Barack (per 333 US 640 (1948) @ 653 that he prove his alleged US birth with witnesses to the birth per 533 US 53 2001) @ 54,62) to prove any 1961 US birth origin to even confirm a birth citizenship was acquired by him.
All Barack Obama can offer is hearsay and speculation...NO EVIDENCE of birth citizenship, let alone a Natural Born Citizenship, especially in a Court of Law under penalty of perjury. It is quite obvious that he is illegally occupying the Presidency of the United States under the rule of Law, the Supreme Law of this nation, the Constitution of the United States of America. 'Nuff said this time round.
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