Constitution
Eligibility and American common law, part 2
What the media refuses to discuss, I will. I don’t care whether you are Republican, Democrat, white, black, brown or yellow (in skin pigment, not in spirit!). The eligibility issue strikes at the heart and soul of the United States. The truth must be told!
First, Where Do We Go From Here?
Logic, reason, and law need honest men and women of integrity and intelligence. So what is the law and where does one go for proper “due process”? Oh did I say honest and proper ‘due process”? How stupid of me. I forgot for a moment that I live in New Jersey. This is one of, if not the, most corrupt State in the Union, no matter what political party controls the government. That is, for now.
We have one alternative: the Supreme Court of the United States. We assume that they defend the Constitution. And rest assured: we will go there after the charade we expect here in New Jersey.
But will the US Supreme Court evade the issue yet more?
Just how long will they keep avoiding this Constitutional challenge: whether Mr. Obama is constitutionally eligible to hold the office of the President? This issue will not go away even if Mr. Obama loses his bid for the Presidency. The future of the United States and the Constitution hangs on their answer.
Every act, law, regulation, Executive Order, and appointment that this administration has made, signed, or otherwise set in force, has damaged this country. Mr. Obama’s unqualified appointments of two judicial activists to the Supreme Court are especially damaging to this Republic. The Supreme Court must answer the question of eligibility. Otherwise, what this Administration has set in motion will have devastating effects for coming generations. We may never recover our glorious heritage.
What if I told you that Obama’s eligibility is a “racist” issue?
Americans should not marvel at the behavior of our Supreme Court until now. Their treacherous actions have thus far let the United States become a quasi-totalitarian state. The media, academia, and this Marxist administration itself have spewed out propaganda to help this along. The mantra:
Only a “racist” would question Mr. Obama’s eligibility credentials.
This is nothing but a ploy and a disgusting lie. Obama puts it out for one reason: to divide and ‘balkanize” this country. Why? So that he can create a one world socialist/Marxist government. Divide and conquer! Obama’s newest communist campaign slogan is one word: “Forward.” In 2008 it was “Change”. Now we have regressed to a semi-monarchy. Every two-bit dictator throughout history has repeated the slogans that this administration uses.
So where am I going with this? The simple truth: a bunch of Neville Chamberlains have long overrun our legislature and courts. These people kowtow to blatant racism and intimidation. And they tolerate, and promulgate, politically correct bull$#%t to appease outright anarchists. They do not care that those anarchists would transform the nation without firing a shot.
Reasoning to evade the eligibility issue: riots?
Allow me to digress for a moment. One can clearly understand why the liberal progressive establishment went into attack mode when Clarence Thomas appeared before the Judiciary Committee before the Senate confirmed him. A true man of principle and courage was their worst nightmare. A poor American black who came out of the (then arguably) racist South, without affirmative action, and stood tall: that was Clarence Thomas. This sterling jurist showed his mettle publicly, and without rancor. And he now says that his colleagues were/are avoiding the issue of Mr. Obama’s eligibility.
No one has the gonadal fortitude to tell you why. My sources in Washington, DC told me flatly why none dare adjudicate this issue. If the Court found Obama ineligible to hold the Office of President, the “blacks” will burn down the inner cities, and we will have chaos. Better to wait for him to leave office.
Excuse me? What are these morons saying? Do they really depict black Americans as wild savages that they must placate because they have no regard for law and justice? As Patrick Henry famously said,
Forbid it, Almighty God!
The Americans I know (and I hate using the word black, or African) are respectful and law-abiding citizens. D__n the race baiters and hustlers who would have you believe we are a country of racists! Let us see who the real racists are: Al (the instigator) Sharpton, Jessie (the extortionist) Jackson, and Obama’s ex-czar Van Jones (the communist distribution Czar). The most despicable is Obama’s Attorney General, Eric (we only prosecute whites) Holder. Remember him? it’s okay for the New Black Panthers to intimate whites at the polls. This racist clown tells black Ministers how to preach that blacks should vote only for Obama. The cliché, “the inmates are running the asylum” is now fact.
This is your wake-up call. “We the People” of the United States have proved we are a color blind society. Yet, from the moment Mr. Obama occupied the White House, race relations have gotten worse. Ask yourself why? Maybe this Administration, the media, and academia saw their opportunity to build a socialist country.
Our black brothers and sisters make up about 12-14 percent of the people. That doesn’t make a President. Americans, of all races, religions and nationalities, let Obama dupe them. They voted for Mr. Obama, believing he was sincere about “change” but not a Marxist change.
Make no mistake about it. This Administration wants to divide us as a people to stay in power. They will start race riots if they have to, to declare martial law and suspend our inalienable rights. (Does anyone remember an old ABC-TV pilot program titled Shadow on the Land? A blow-up in the ghetto one month, and the next thing you know, we have the Internal Security Forces—that’s English for Schutzstaffel—on every street corner!) And that’s exactly what our legislators and judges fear.
Where law ends, tyranny begins.
If any race, nationality or religion would burn and destroy our cities because a court upheld the Constitution, let the fire begin. Freedom is color blind, as should be the law.
We want a trial! And, the sooner the better for all Americans. Are you cowards listening? I’ll say it again: we want a judge, any judge, to adjudicate the issue of Constitutional eligibility. Every American must stand together arm in arm in support of our Constitution against any threats. The American people of all our races and nationalities are good. That is what makes us exceptional. In no other nation in the world could a “minority,” become President of the United States. None! Yet, those that want a fair and open hearing on the eligibility question are racist? I remember the words of a Firemen after the attack on the Twin Towers. Permit me to plagiarize to a degree:
Instead of kiss my Irish ***, I say kiss this American’s ***!
To the United States Supreme Court
Have all our judges succumbed to fear? Have they all forgotten their oath of office, to
support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic…
If the Supreme Court may ignore the Constitution, then we no longer live in a free Republic. We must never let the Constitution mean what any group of men says it means any time they say it. The Constitution means what it says! Americans will never surrender our system of government to tyrants. For too long, we have let depraved men destroy our value system, education, religious freedoms and our laws! No more!
Shall we live in fear that a bunch of anarchists will set fires, if we address this Constitutional question? As an American I say: light the fire! I think better of the American people. That includes every race, nationality and religion. Our ancestors fought the Revolutionary War because Americans knew no fear, and would never bow to threats! If you do, you are anything but an American.
A Parthian shot—and an immodest proposal
(With apologies to Jonathan Swift.)
My friend Paul made an astute observation worth repeating. I ask the Court and the people of the United States to think about this scenario about this ballot challenge, and a court ruling that equates an English Common Law natural born subject as an Article II “natural born Citizen.” We have an opportunity.
We should form a company and extend Presidential Birthing Services to Chinese communists of foreign citizenship. We can tell the leaders of Communist China that their leadership in the Communist party, who are Chinese nationals, can just come to the US and give birth to their children on US soil. The courts have decreed that those offspring wold be natural born “subjects” of the U.S. and therefore meet Article II natural born citizen qualifications to be President.
This will excite great demand among the leaders of Communist China, to come to America with their pregnant wives to give birth on US soil so that the Communist party of China can create a future U.S. President. (Laurence Harvey, call your agent!)
We could clean up providing a pay service complete with certification of live birth that says the child has the right to be President of the US by birth, per jus soli. We could advertise this all over the Internet. Maybe then the people will wake up to what the courts are doing. And they will begin to realize that natural born citizen does not mean natural born subject. I’m sure the Islamic butchers from Iran, Saudi Arabia etc. are already chartering planes. (Wait a minute! The Turks really are chartering planes! They call it “birth tourism”!)
What can you do?
Call your Senators and Representatives! Now! Today! Demand that a court, any court, rule on what a natural born citizen really is! (In fact, a Florida court has set a hearing to do just that.)
The Eagle (See you in Court)
Related:
- Suspending American common law, part 1
- NJ appeal rejected
- Judicial embarrassment
- Posse on warpath
- Arpaio wants proof
- Public appeal hearing
- Kenyan born Obama narrative
- Arpaio won’t quit
- Birth settled?
- Arpaio posse in Hawaii
- New Jersey appeal
- Reliability
- Kenya question
- $2 million
- Media pressure
- Natural-born citizen
- Obama eligibility: NJ ALJ makes new law
- Obama eligibility: NJ ALJ ducks issues
- Obama eligibility witnesses: Clinton campaign
- Obama eligibility challenge in New Jersey
- Obama: who is he?
- Obama birth certificate details
- Obama birth certificate petition
- Obama eligibility battle in Arizona legislature
- Obama birth certificate still suspect
- Obama born in Kenya?
- Presidential succession crisis
- Does anybody really know what time it is?
- Obama birth certificate investigation
- Obama birth certificate fraud analysis
- Obama birth certificate fraud
- Natural born citizen: what that means
- Obama eligibility: reactions to ruling
- Obama eligibility: flawed ruling
- Obama eligibility challenges multiply
- Obama eligibility challenges explode
- Obama eligibility challenges go forward
- Obama birth certificate does not satisfy
- Obama releases official-looking birth certificate
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“We want a trial! And, the sooner the better for all Americans. Are you cowards listening? I’ll say it again: we want a judge, any judge, to adjudicate the issue of Constitutional eligibility.”
There have been several trials and several judges who have “adjudicated the issue”. MOst recently Tisdale v. Obama in the fedeal court system. You just didn’t like their answers.
The Supreme Corut will not take your case. And not because they are avoiding the issue or are afraid or are corrupt, they just don’t agree with you.
They haven’t adjudicated a thing! Instead they have said, “No standing,” or some such dodge.
They had a full blown trial in Georgia (Farrar v. Obama) with witnesses and evidence presented.
Results: President Obama is a natural born Citizen.
They had a full blown trial in New Jersey (Purpura v. Obama) with oral arguments presented at both the trial level and the Appeal level.
Results: President Obama is a natural born Citizen.
In addition to those, there have been a number of court rulings based on the legal briefs submitted by the parties:
Arizona Superior Court (Allen v. Obama): President Obama is a natural born Citizen.
Illinois Election Commission: President Obama is a natural born Citizen.
Indiana Election Commission: President Obama is a natural born Citizen.
US District Court for Virginia: President Obama is a natural born Citizen.
4th Circuit Court of Appeals: Upholds the US District Court of Virginia’s ruling (even after reading Mario Apuzzo’s amicus brief).
Most of these decisions were based on the Supreme Court ruling in Wong Kim Ark.
And we repeat: they misapplied Wong Kim Ark and failed to apply Minor v. Happersett.
Now maybe you don’t care that the Constitution means “whatever the Supreme Court says it means, any time it says it.” To you, it’s just a matter of stacking the Court with “the right guys and gals” from your point of view.
Some of us don’t see it that way.
Minor does not apply.
As Judge Morrow said in 1898 in the Wong Kim Ark case that led to the Supreme Court decision,
“But the supreme court has never squarely determined, either prior to or subsequent to the adoption of the fourteenth amendment in 1868, the political status of children born here of foreign parents. In the case of Minor v. Happersett, 21 Wall. 168, the court expressly declined to pass upon that question.” Judge Morrow, Wong Kim Ark, District Court Northern District of California, January 3, 1896 No. 11, 198.
Todays courts are reaching the same conclusion about the Minor case.
“Most of these decisions were based on the Supreme Court ruling in Wong Kim Ark.”
Exactly, that is the error. Wong Kim Ark has nothing at all to do with defining Article II “natural born citizen”. Wong Kim Ark defines what is meant by “naturalized” citizen by showing that anyone who is born “subject” to the U.S. at birth, regardless of parents, is entitled to the “legal right” privilege of citizenship as a function of governments plenary authority to “adopt” those who are born on the soil and make them citizens. The proper Supreme Court case to be applied is Minor v Happersett which shows that there are citizens by plenary authority and there are citizens by natural inheritance that are not a function of plenary authority. Article II nbC is talking about those citizens who arrive as a function of Natural Law inheritance, not man made Positive Law plenary authority, otherwise we are no different from the monarchy in England in 1776 because the government would then have absolute power to determine the political rights in the society for anyone who is born “subject” to Congresses jurisdiction. They would “bestow” political rights like a king instead of political rights being ENDOWED by the Creator as natural sovereign political rights within the society that are inherited at birth by being born to a father or parents who are already members of the society.
An Article II nbC is not a citizen that is created by government’s plenary authority who is “adopted” by society. An Article II nbC is created by birth inheritance to a citizen father and is a natural member of society that is created by nature (Natural Law) not plenary authority.
As far as your statement regarding “evidence”. What a laugh. These courts have either made their rulings without any evidence at all, like in the New Jersey ballot challenge, or they have ignored the fact that the bogus BC lists Obama’s father as a foreigner which disqualifies him from ever being a “natural born citizen”. That is why they must rely on Wong Kim Ark instead of Minor v Happersett, and insist he was born in Hawaii when he was born in Kenya, and twist the law to mean English common law natural born “subject” instead of Natural Law inheritance, because they have no choice if they are to cover for treason and fraud because they have no evidence in law or fact to show that Obama qualifies. In other words, they just invent and make up the “evidence” and “law” themselves.
The Founders used the terms natural born citizen and natural born subject interchangeably. Read the Naturalization Acts of Massachusetts between 1785 and 1791.
“he was born in Kenya”
Not according to two different verifications from the Hawaii DOH. In both cases, the DOH certifies that President Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii.
BTW, under your theory both Senator Rubio and Governor Jindal and possibly Senator Santorum are ineligible to be either Presdient or Vice President.
And Governor Romney’s BC shows his father is a foreigner.
George Romney at least got naturalized before Mitt was born.
Marco Rubio has the problem: his folks didn’t get naturalized until he was five years old.
No one has shown that Bobby Jindal would have the same or similar problem. To be a natural born citizen, your parents have to be citizens of the United States at the time you were born, and you have to be born in-country. But: your parents do not have to be natural born citizens themselves.
Both of Governor Jindal’s parents were here on student visas. He was born six months after they arrived.
How do you know that George Romney got naturalized before his son’s birth?
Do you mean he didn’t? He returned to the USA during WWI. Now if you can show that he didn’t get naturalized before his son was born, please share.
oh, Terry, it is just so hard to prove a negative. Governor Romney could make this all go away if he would just release his father’s naturalization papers.
Do not assume, by the way, that I hold any brief for Mitt Romney. If you genuinely have probable cause to suspect that the elder Romney did not straighten out that naturalization matter, I might try to get it to the Cold Case Posse myself.
Terry, our host wrote: “George Romney at least got naturalized before Mitt was born.”
No. George W. Romney, Mitt Romney’s father, was a serious candidate for president in 1968. Nixon considered Romney his strongest competitor for the Republican nomination.
George Romney was a citizen from birth because his parents were citizens. Though there were doubts at the time he ran, the current consensus among recognized scholars in the field is that a citizen from birth is an Article II natural-born citizen, losing plaintiffs and pretend Jedi Knights notwithstanding.
George W. Romney skated on the natural-born citizen issue. His birthplace citizenship was in Mexico, though his parentage was American. No one bothered to check the elder Romney’s citizenship. Then he lost, had the bad sense to try to get the delegates to nominate him for Vice-President, and lost again. Result: his citizenship became moot.
Another effect George Romney’s run for the presidency was that it motivated a study published in the legal literature: Charles Gordon, “Who Can be President of the United States: The Unresolved Enigma,” 28 Md. L. Rev. 1, 7-22 (1968). The paper begins:
“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?
“In the early stages of the 1968 presidential campaign this question became increasingly urgent, because Governor George Romney of Michigan was a leading contender for the Republican nomination. […]”
Today the “recurring doubts” are pretty well settled and most experts in the field agree that a citizen from birth is a natural-born citizen. More importantly for the Obama issue, note that by 1968 it was already clear that the native-born qualify.
Gordon’s paper is particularly relevant because The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California cited it in the Court’s opinion on Barnett v. Obama.
Even a Supreme Court Justice (Clarence Thomas) has publicly announced that the Supreme Court is avoiding this question. What rock have you been hiding under? Of course they are avoiding this question because they know darn well that Article II nbC means inherited and has absolutely nothing at all to do with your place of birth. Even supreme court justice Ginsberg said that her grandson is a “natural born citizen” and can be President and he was born in Paris France to U.S. citizen parents (see Nguyen v INS starting at the 39 min mark). Every court so far has not upheld the Law. Instead, they have invented novel interpretations of long understood meanings, and committed gross violations of due process aimed at making new law and definitions in order to deny citizens justice so that they can prevent the exposure of fraud and treason for the sake of keeping a “black” man in the office or on a ballot in order to avoid the appearance of racism.
Any layman knows the difference between a natural born child and an adopted child. The natural born child is the one who is physically born to a mother and a father who are the child’s natural biological parents, whereas the adopted child is a function of man made laws, not natural laws (birth inheritance). The same is true of “natural born citizen”. An Article II “natural born Citizen” is not a citizen that is “adopted” by society and granted citizenship with plenary authority. The “natural born citizen” is a citizen or member of society that nature creates that arrives as a function of the laws of nature, by natural inalienable right, that is INHERITED from a citizen father. Nature creates these natural members of society called “natural born citizen”. This is why the U.S., up until 1934 only recognized inherited citizenships from male U.S. citizen fathers (Nguyen v INS). Those born on the soil to foreign fathers or foreign parents, or those that immigrate, have no natural inherited claim to membership in the society. By definition, these are the “naturalized” citizens that the society must “adopt” and grant their citizenship as a “legal right” privilege. This is accomplished via “subject” status due to voluntarily subjecting ones self to the jurisdiction of the U.S. laws. A “natural born citizen” is not a “subject” of U.S. laws at birth who is adopted and or “granted” citizenship by the government. The government just recognizes and protects this natural form of citizenship, it does not create it or “grant” it because government is not the Creator, the source of Natural Law. This is easily verified by examining the Supreme Court case of Minor v Happersett. This simple logic and observation above and an examination of Supreme Court cases (Minor v Happersett) shows one that Article II nbC precludes those who must rely on U.S. plenary authority for their citizenship, like Obama, and demands that only those who inherit their citizenship from a citizen father or parents can qualify for the office of President. Obama does not meet these qualifications, end of story.
It’s not that “we” disagree with the courts rulings, but rather it is that the court rulings disagree with Minor v Happersett, and with the Constitution, and Declaration of Independence, and with Natural Law inheritance of naturally created sovereign members of the society who are called natural born citizens (All men are CREATED equal, REMEMBER? TRANSLATION: All citizens are CREATED political equal in the U.S. [via birth inheritance], not artificially made “equal” by plenary authority when it comes to the office of President). For example, the Supreme Court has ruled that there is no English Common Law at the federal level yet these New Jersey courts want to disregard that and redefine federal constitutional terms like “natural born citizen” to be defined by English Common Law to mean a natural born “subject”. Are we a Monarchy? Is the U.S. just a king? Did we just have a war in 1776 to throw off unlawful “subject” status of the monarchy to just create another privileged elite to “subject” us to their dominion (soil) for them to determine what our political rights are? I think not. These judges so far in every court case are fools who are lacking in common sense and judgment. They are grossly incompetent, or worse, guilty of treason. History will judge them and you harshly.
In the Appellant brief in the Wong Kim Ark case, the Government said:
“The question presented by this appeal may be thus stated: Is a person born within the United States of alien parents domiciled therein a citizen thereof by the fact of his birth? The appellant maintains the negative, and in that behalf assigns as error the ruling of the district court that the respondent is a natural-born citizen.”
Two things:
First, Judge Morrow never said that Wong Kim Ark was a natural born citizen. He never uses the term. The Government assumed that if Judge Morrow’s ruling makes Wong Kim Ark a citzen by simple birth in the US than he is a natural born citizen.
Second, they don’t cite the Minor decision as binding precedent.
In the dissenting opinion to the Wong Kim Ark opinion, Chief Justice Fuller says,
“Considering the circumstances surrounding the framing of the Constitution, 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.”
Two things:
First: He understands that the majority opinion makes Wong Kim Ark eligible to be President.
Second: He never cites Minor as binding precedent.
“Two things:
First: He understands that the majority opinion makes Wong Kim Ark eligible to be President.
Second: He never cites Minor as binding precedent.”
You miss the point. The very fact that he is showing you that the majority opinion makes Wong Kim Ark eligible to be President proves that the majority opinion is wrong because it is not under the authority of Congress or the courts to grant the political right to be President to the offspring of foreign citizen parents. That would require a Constitutional Amendment to grant such authority to government. Judges nor Congress are authorized by the Constitution to extend such privileges to non-citizen fathers for the benefit of their offspring. That is the entire point of having a Constitutional qualification of natural born citizen (inherited citizenship) in the first place, to take that authority away from Congress and the courts.
Natural born means the opposite of adopted. It means the opposite of a granted legal right of citizenship. Those born on the soil as “subjects” who are born to foreign fathers, or foreign citizen parents, are adopted by society and granted citizenship as a legal right privilege. An Article II nbC is not adopted by society and “granted ” citizenship. They are not even born privileged “subjects” to the jurisdiction of the U.S. for citizenship purposes. They simply are created to be citizens by natural right of inheritance according to a pre-existing body of law called Natural Law. Government’s plenary authority simply recognizes and protects this form of naturally occurring citizenship in Article II, it does not create it or “grant” it.
Article II EXCLUDES naturalized adopted citizens like Wong Kim Ark and only includes INHERITED citizens to be President. Under U.S. law, we only recognize inherited citizenships from citizen fathers.
As far as Minor being a Binding Precedent, it is not Minor that is binding, it is the Laws of Nature that define INHERITED citizenship and NATURAL POLITICAL RIGHTS OF SOVEREIGNTY that are described in Minor case that are binding. They used the same argument in Minor to defeat Mrs. Minor in her reliance on plenary authority. The same rule applies to Article II nbC. It is not even about government’s plenary authority, or the authority of a court. It is already defined by, and falls under Natural Law, not man made law.
You can attempt to use plenary authority (man made law) to redefine natural reality so that an apple is declared to be an orange, or to declare that the earth is the center of the solar system instead of the sun, but the Laws of Nature will determine reality to be different than what you decree it to be without proof or authority. Such is your position William Rawle. You and the courts expect people to believe that there is no such thing as inherited citizenships and that “natural born” means adopted. It isn’t so, and neither you or the courts can make it so with your opinions. Your position is ludicrous and indefensible. You are either just to ignorant to know it or you are a communist provocateur.
[…] Part 2: link to cnav.news […]
[…] Part 2: https://cnav.news/2012/06/06/constitution/eligibility-american-common-law-2/ […]
William, you guessed it right in your assumption. Up there in one of your posts you inquired about Romney, Jindel and Rubio. Rest assured none of them are eligible. I hope it’s not hard for you to understand. But when people rely on others 100%, begin to look at them as if they are all knowing and might even be a God, then that’s when we all get in trouble. Obama is the latest example of people who become bewitched.
Below is something I’m sure you have already read and should be familiar with. It would appear you have some knowledge of the subject. But I place it in here as a reminder to those who might have forgot and for those that have never seen it.
John Bingham was one of the co-authors of the 14th amendment to our constitution and this is just a small portion of is speech on the floor as they were about to ratify the 14th amendment. This with many other instances of evidence defining the clause is indisputable.
John Bingham confirms that understanding and the construction the framers used in regards to birthright and jurisdiction while speaking on civil rights of citizens in the House on March 9, 1866:”[4] [5] [6]
[I] find no fault with the introductory clause [S 61 Bill], 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….~John Bingham
And I’m sure you are familiar with the words of William Rawle
“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. “ 1826, A View of the Constitution of the United States.
You may also be familar with the words of Zephaniah Swift
“The children of aliens born in this state are considered as natural born subjects and have the same rights with the rest of the citizens.” 1795, A System of the Laws of the State of Connecticut: in Six Books.
This was the understanding of the term natural born by people alive at the time the Constitution was written and ratified. Months before the Convention started William Rawle was attending meetings of the Society for Polical Inquiries at Benjamin Franklin’s house. He even presented a paper on immigration to the Society in April, 1787. Later, President Washington named him the US District Attorney for Pennsylanvia.
Zephaniah Swift was in the Connecticut legislature and the US Congress and became the Chief Justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court.
And then there are the Naturalization Acts of Massachusetts. Between 1785 and 1791 they interchangeably used the terms natural born citizen and natural born subject. In the exact same context, in legislation with virtually identical language.
Of course, we could always ask Alexander Hamilton where to find the definition of terms in the Constitution.
In a 1795 legal brief on direct and indirect taxes, Hamilton laments that the term is not defined in the Constitution and he tells us,
“where so important a distinction in the Constitution is to be realized, it is fair to seek the meaning of terms in the statutory language of that country from which our jurisprudence is derived.”
[…] Eligibility and American common law, part 2 […]
[…] Eligibility and American common law, part 2 […]
[…] Eligibility and American common law, part 2 […]