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WHAT IS THE TRUE MEANING OF “NATURAL BORN CITIZEN?”
(Feb. 8, 2012) — For some time now, I have been trying to explain the facts of life to the world regarding the true meaning and interpretation of Article II “natural born Citizen” requirements for the Office of President, and that Mr. Obama cannot possibly meet these requirements, as he was born to a foreign father who was never a U.S. citizen. I believe I have been viciously and unjustly attacked by the public at large and by some of the attorneys who have filed cases against Mr. Obama.
I contend and maintain that not one case filing so far has properly identified and argued the true and correct meaning and interpretation of Article II “natural born Citizen.” They have all missed the obvious, which I will once again state in light of the recent finding by Judge Malihi in the Georgia cases.
I am finding that I am forced to agree with Judge Malihi on one point: that Minor v Happersett is not a controlling case with regard to defining Article II “natural born Citizen.” It is, however, very useful in determining what is defining. One could even say it is controlling, but not for the reasons stated by the plaintiffs.
The judge is quite correct in his reading of the Minor case that the justices in Minor simply applied a general rule to Mrs. Minor: that those born within the U.S. to citizen parents are themselves “natives” or “natural born citizens” with a lower case “c” which, according to the Minor v Happersett judges, are synonymous terms. Such offspring are therefore members of the general class of “citizens” of the U.S. However, this does not mean that Mrs. Minor had the recognized and protected natural political right to be President that is implied in Article II by the term “natural born Citizen” with a capital “C”. The Minor case was not even about Mrs. Minor’s right to be President; thus for this reason and others, it is not a controlling case.
In fact, the court in Minor went on to find that even though Mrs. Minor was already a citizen, and even a “natural born citizen” as a general category or type of “citizen” prior to the 14th Amendment, she still did not have any natural political rights recognized or protected by the Constitution. Nor did she possess any rights protected by the definition used by the court of what constitutes a “natural born citizen,” because the court found that she could not even vote, nor that she had any political rights secured by the Constitution at all. It required an Amendment to the Constitution to secure her natural political rights, her right to vote, regardless of the fact that she was determined to be a “natural born citizen.”
Obviously if she could not even vote, she could hardly be expected to be a candidate for the Office of President and qualify as a “natural born Citizen” by Article II. In fact, the court, using the findings in Minor v Happersett, actually proves that the definition of “one born in the country to parents who are citizens” IS NOT what is meant by “natural born Citizen” in Article II. In this sense, Minor might actually be a controlling case.
The Minor court determined that there were no political rights at all provided for or protected by the Constitution for Mrs. Minor, despite the fact that they determined that Mrs. Minor was a natural born citizen due to being born in the U.S.to parents who were citizens. If they could not see or find any political rights in the Constitution for Mrs. Minor, obviously the term in Article II, “natural born Citizen,” does not mean one who is born in the U.S. to parents who are citizens.
Likewise, if Article II “natural born Citizen” applied to Mrs. Minor and was what was meant by the court when they said that she was a natural born citizen, then the court would have found that she had the political right to be President secured, and so would have found that natural political rights were provided for her and thus could not then find that she could not vote. How might the Constitution provide for her a political right to be President but not a political right to vote? Obviously, the general term “natural born citizen,” with a lower case “c,” is a class of citizen that is synonymous in U.S. case law with native-born or even naturalized for most purposes, but it has nothing at all to do with the term in Article II spelled with an upper case “C” as in “natural born Citizen,” and the Minor v Happersett case proves this. It proves that these two terms, “natural born citizen” from U.S. case law that is removed from the context of Article II, and “natural born Citizen” within the context of Article II, are legal homonyms (they sound the same and are spelled the same but mean something different) and legal antonyms (two words or phrases that are opposite in meaning).
I will state again the obvious which everyone is ignoring or overlooking, now proved to be correct by Minor v Happersett. The term in Article II, “natural born Citizen,” is not a legal term that is undefined in the Constitution. It is not even a legal term, and it is perfectly defined within the context of Article II by the subject of natural political rights, history, Natural Law, International Law, and by the Declaration of Independence. It is an adjective phrase, “natural born,” which simply means created by natural birth inheritance as opposed to being created by statutory authority, modifying a specifically-restricted noun, “Citizen,” that is not a general use of the noun “citizen” but pointedly means a specific member out of the general class of citizens.
Specifically, the use of “Citizen” in Article II is meant to preclude natural born citizens of the federal territories or possessions, as they are not State citizens and not a party to the Constitution, so they cannot run for the Office of President. It is meant to include those from a State of the Union of States only, and did not mean a female; otherwise, the Minor court would have found a political right provided for females in the Constitution (the right to be President). Nor did it even at that time mean a Negro or Indian.
Minor v Happersett shows us and proves that the term “natural born Citizen” in Article II is being used in the most restrictive sense and means something other than someone born in the country to parents who are citizens. One need only examine convention according to International Law and Natural Law to see what it means. From Vattel’s The Law of Nations, Book I, Chapter 19, Section 212:
§212. Citizens and natives. The citizens are the members of the civil society: bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. As the society cannot exist and perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights. The society is supposed to desire this, in consequence of what it owes to its own preservation; and it is presumed, as matter of course, that each citizen, on entering into society, reserves to his children the right of becoming members of it. The country of the fathers is therefore that of the children; and these become true citizens merely by their tacit consent. We shall soon see, whether, on their coming to the years of discretion, they may renounce their right, and what they owe to the society in which they were born. I say, that, in order to be of the country, it is necessary that a person be born of a father who is a citizen; for if he is born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country. [Emphasis added]
In the Supreme Court Case Tuan Anh Nguyen v. INS, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg made the following statements affirming that the world recognizes “birthrights” of the father (not the mother), and bloodline rather than birthplace as the foundation for inherited citizenship by birthright, aka “natural-born citizenship.”
“Mr. Kneedler, I have a problem with it [Kneedler’s argument]. You would surely have a huge statelessness problem if you didn’t recognize that the child born abroad to U.S.citizens is a U.S.citizen because, as you point out, in most countries in the world, they go by blood, not by land of birth.”—“You call the child born abroad an alien, but in most places in the world that child would NOT be a citizen of the place in which that person is born; isn’t that so?”
“Well, I thought you said in your brief that in most places, and I think it’s right, they do not go on jus soli, they go on parentage.”
“Mr. Kneedler, if Congress went back to the way it was when everything was determined by the father’s citizenship, go back to before 1934, suppose congress accepts your argument or we accept your argument and say plenary power, they can do whatever they damn please, so they say children born abroad of fathers who are U.S. citizens can become U.S. citizens, but not children who are born abroad of U.S. mothers where the father in an alien. That’s the way it used to be in the bad old days.”
“Suppose Congress wants to restore the way it was, the way it was for most of our nation’s history, that the father’s citizenship gets transferred to the child, not the mother’s?”
“You are talking to children not born to a marriage…”
One need only realize that the general rule is that if you are born in a country to citizen parents, then you are a natural born citizen of your parents’ country and of course you would qualify for the Office of the President –if you were a white male from a State prior to the 15th Amendment and 19th Amendment. This is the general rule used in Minor v Happersett but was shown in Minor to not specifically apply to Article II “natural born Citizen” in the case of females.
However, if you are not born in the country, or you do not have parents who are both citizens of that same country, then the rule and convention under both International Law and Natural Law and U.S. law prior to the 1930s to which Justice Ginsburg is referring is that the offspring “naturally follow the condition of their fathers.” In other words, you are born a natural citizen of your father’s country and that is also a natural born citizen, regardless of where you are born or who your mother is, and no one can deny you your natural inherited political birth rights to membership in your father’s clan and society and allegiance to your birth father and his country: not the soil territory of a foreign country; not even a foreign mother. So to be consistent with Minor v Happersett and all other controlling Supreme Court cases, we see that in Article II, the term “natural born Citizen” just means those who are born to citizen fathers. It did not originally mean females or Blacks, but in light of the 15th Amendment and the 19th Amendment, one must expand Article II nbC to include females and Black people so that these parts of the Constitution do not clash with Article II. Without including these Amendments to expand the scope of Article II, it would otherwise require a constitutional Amendment for females or Blacks to be President, especially since most Blacks were not even State citizens in many of the States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution and Article II.
So there you have it. Article II is using the most restrictive case of one born to a citizen father, and that is all that is required or necessary. That is what is meant by “natural born Citizen” in Article II. This is actually proven by Minor v Happersett. So Minor is controlling, but not for the reasons espoused in the Georgia filings because nbC has nothing at all to do with the place of birth or the citizenship of the mother, and the Minor court case proves this.
Judge Malihi is wrong because Obama does not qualify via his mother or place of birth. In fact, Mr. Obama is disqualified by his birth to a foreign father who was never a U.S. citizen, which, by International Law and Natural Law, makes him at birth to be a natural born member of his father’s country of Kenya despite his mother’s citizenship or place of birth. You cannot be born owing a natural allegiance to two countries simultaneously at birth. Which master would you serve? The convention recognized worldwide for thousands of years, and even under U.S. law, is to follow the father when you don’t have a unity of soil and parents.
Finally, in light of Minor v Happersett, Judge Malihi’s finding that Mr. Obama is Article II qualified because he is a natural born citizen via soil birth regardless of his foreign father takes on a surreal and ridiculous condition that is beyond absurd and can be easily seen via the following line of reasoning. Just apply some common sense and consider this:
The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States were written and signed entirely by males from State and Federal legislatures populated entirely by males who were citizens of the States and from the Confederation of States or federal government. The Declaration of Independence even states that governments are created according to natural laws by males, not females.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,[75] that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,”
[Notice the use of upper case “Men” and lower case “men” in the same sentence indicating that in the upper case instance the writer specifically means males.]
The purpose, of course, was to secure the natural political rights of males of this country. The Minor court found that the natural political rights that exist in the Constitution, such as the right to be President or to vote, for example, are only for U.S. males, proving that the entire purpose of the Constitution is to secure male citizens’ political rights. So Judge Malihi’s ruling implies that the political rights of the males are not provided for or secured by Article II nbC because the father’s citizenship does not matter when it comes to the Office of President, and any foreign father can sire a child with the political right to be President of the United States. In one fell swoop, Judge Malihi has eviscerated the political rights of U.S. males meant to be secured and protected by Article II nbC and the Constitution as a whole, and he has found that Article II and the Constitution were not created by the males of this American society to secure and protect their American political rights in order to pass on their American birthright heritage to their offspring, but instead was created to provide political rights for foreign males for their offspring! Can anyone now accept with a straight face that nbC in Article II just means born on the soil regardless of your father’s citizenship and that Obama qualifies? Does judge Malihi really expect us to accept that those who wrote nbC qualifications into Article II intended to not secure their own political rights as males who were citizens of this country, but rather intended to secure political rights for foreign non-citizen males and the offspring of those foreign males?
The judges must think that we are a Nation of Fools.
The capitalization means something specific in each instance. They did not capitalize every noun; just the ones that have a limited and specific meaning within the context of the Constitution. Yes, there are many of them, but not all. They left other nouns un-capitalized because they are just being used in a general sense and are non-specific. One need only examine the Declaration of Independence to see that the use of capitalization to relate specific usage was a common occurrence. Observe:
From the Declaration of Independence:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
Notice the use of upper case “Men” and lower case “men” in the two sentences. The first sentence uses “men” as a general noun meaning all of mankind, but the second sentence uses “Men” as a specific noun indicating that in the upper case instance the writers specifically means males. This pattern is repeated in the Constitution in order to make a distinction between when a noun is being used in a general sense and when a noun in the Constitution means something limited and specific within the context of the Constitution.
As far as the meaning of Article II nbC is concerned. From the beginning of our country up until 1934, the U.S. only recognized inherited U.S. citizenship from U.S. citizen fathers. If Article II meant “born in the country to parents who are citizens”, then that would include blacks who where not slaves (and yes there were some and their parents were State citizens of the northern States), women (Minor v Happersett found that women did not have political rights secured by the Constitution so they could not be President or vote), citizens of the federal territories and possessions who are U.S. citizens but not born as State citizens. However, the territories and possessions are subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S., so being born to a U.S. citizen from one of the territories or possessions would meet “born in the country to parents who are citizens”. However, the federal territories and possessions are not even a party to the contract called the Constitution, and as everyone knows, citizens who are from the federal territories or possessions cannot run for President and they do not even have any electoral votes. The definition of “born in the country to parents who are citizens” would eliminate any U.S. citizen male fathers and their wives who are stationed abroad in the military and give birth to U.S. citizen offspring. The Supreme Court in the Nguyen case says this is not so. Also, it would eliminate Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg’s own grandson since he was born in Paris to U.S. citizen parents. Justice Ginsburg says in the Nguyen case that she believes that her son is a natural born citizen and can be President. So the Supreme court does not accept your theory of definition that is shared by most of the attorneys our there.
From the decision of Minor v Happersett where it can be seen that BOTH male and female had no right to vote per US Constitution.
“Being unanimously of the opinion that the Constitution of the United States does not confer the right of suffrage upon ANYONE, and that the constitutions and laws of the several states which commit that important trust to men alone are not necessarily void, we
Affirm the judgment.”
With regard to your comment ………
i.e. “women (Minor v Happersett found that women did not have political rights secured by the Constitution so they could not be President or vote),”
This is your invention and with particular regard to the notion that women “could not be President” then read from Minor v Happersett where what you say is simply not true.
There is absolutely no sexual discrimination whatsoever.
Minor v Happersett –
“There are a multitude of cases to be found in which the question has been presented whether a woman was or was not an alien, and as such capable or incapable of inheritance, but in no one has it been insisted that she was not a citizen because she was a woman.
On the contrary, her right to citizenship has been in all cases assumed.
The only question has been whether, in the particular case under consideration, she had availed herself of the right.
In the legislative department of the government, similar proof will be found.
Thus, in the preemption laws, a widow, “being a citizen of the United States,” is allowed to make settlement on the public lands and purchase upon the terms specified, and women, “being citizens of the United States,” are permitted to avail themselves of the benefit of the homestead law.
Other proof of like character might be found, but certainly more cannot be necessary to establish THE FACT THAT SEX HAS NEVER BEEN MADE ONE OF THE ELEMENTS OF CITIZENSHIP in the United States.
In this respect, men have never had an advantage over women.
The same laws precisely apply to both.” – end of quote.
The supreme court doesn’t even know of my “theory” to reject it.
It is an established fact that both the founding fathers and framers of the USC in and around 1787, along with the US Congress and US Senate, only three years after the adoption of the US Constitution in the First Naturalization Act of1790, held that natural descent was the paramount element in recognizing “natural born”, even though they saw the error in the terminology used in the 1790, most likely because the terminology in the 1790 act conflicted with the Article II intended meaning (i.e. absolute, and unquestionable allegiance to the US by BOTH nature and birth-right).
The error was corrected in the subsequent act of 1795 with removal of the words “natural born”, but STILL the citizenship was due by DESCENT.
The very fact that the term “natural born” was used in the first instance, then dropped in the second instance, PROVES that DESCENT was and remained paramount and that native birth was also required, because they would only have removed “natural born” from the child born off-shore, because they were not native born as well as natural born.
Basically, “natural born Citizen” in the context of USC Article II, means BOTH by descent and by native birth.
It is impossible for the word “natural”, as it is used in Article II, to mean solely native born, due to the fact that only three years after the adoption of the USC, “natural born” was used in the first Naturalization Act of 1790 to describe a child born NON-NATIVE, such a child who was born outside the limits of the US was termed “natural born” solely based on DESCENT.
You might be right that Minor implies no discrimination based on sex, however, when it came to inheriting a citizenship at birth, there was definite discrimination. Our country only recognized inherited citizenship from males, or in other words, U.S. citizen fathers. The law at the time of the adoption up until 1934 was that if a female U.S. citizen gave birth outside of the U.S. to an alien father, the U.S. did not recognize that child to be a U.S. citizen at birth. If a child was born to a U.S. citizen father outside of the U.S. to an alien mother, the U.S. considered that child to be a “natural born” citizen of the U.S. at birth. One can verify this by listening to Justice Ginsburg in the transcript of the Nguyen v INS case. It starts around the 39 min mark of the transcript.
It cannot possibly mean both because then you would eliminate anyone born abroad to citizen parents like justice Ginsburg’s grandson, or any U.S. citizen fathers who are in the military when their wives give birth overseas. Justice Ginsburg makes it clear in the transcript of Nguyen v INS that she always considered her grandson to be a “natural born citizen” and eligible for President. Her grandson was born in Paris to U.S. citizen parents.
The term “natural born” as in “natural born citizen” is not a legal ‘definition’. That is the mistake that everyone is making. It is there to indicate that we are talking about what NATURE creates via birth inheritance, and not what statutory authority creates with legal definitions. Just read Vattel and further examine our Nation’s history regarding citizenship laws and you will see that it requires only a citizen father to be a “natural born” member of U.S. society.
Jedi – I think you’ve got something here! PLEASE find an attorney who will pursue your analises in court. Talk to Orly Taitz. With your perception and her bulldog determination, THIS IS A WINNER!
I have an idea. Why don’t you forward this article to Orly and ask her to read it?
Hi Jedi,
Thank you for your comments on Minor.
Yesterday, I did not understand your comments on my letter to Kemp.
I understand where you are coming from today.
I was too invested in Minor and “parents” and not invested in “father”. I believe you are correct about Minor. However, I believe the “Venus” in 1814 used your definition but is not known as the correct SCOTUS case.
We both can agree the Judge Mahili believes that the son of King George [ obama,jr] born in Washington, D.C. is a ‘natural born Citizen[ cap C] and my comment still stands, one would have to be a fool to believe that that is the legal factor in deciding nbC. Kemp has violated Article II like many others in the USA.
Thanks again for your words.
Thank you, and I am glad you now see that we are basically on the same page.
I don’t think the upper-case “C” in “Citizen” means much, the whole document is proliferated with upper-case letters at the beginning of words.
Regarding the father thingy, the wife took the same citizenship status as her husband, as did the child; as far as the child is concerned this was by the “law of nature” that the child inherited citizenship.
But I think the meaning of “natural born Citizen” in the context of USC Article II, is for one to be born to citizen parents and in the place of the parents’ citizenship.
In the naturalization Act of 1795, the US Congress and Senate dropped the wording “natural born” that was used in the First Naturalization Act of 1790 to describe a child born outside the limits of the US to US citizen parents, and instead in the superseding act of 1795, they called such a child a “citizen”.
There must have been a very good reason for this to happen.
I suggest it was because the term “natural” as used in the 1790 act was actually descriptive of what the legislators intended to mean as “native”, where they said in the first act of 1790, “shall be considered as a natural born citizens” i.e. they were to be considered as if they were born native in the US.
Because it was a naturalization act, it could not in any way make a person an Article II “natural born Citizen”, even the Constitution could not make a “natural born”.
So it appears that the framers saw the error and corrected in the 1795 act.
Most important to note is that citizenship for the children born out of US limits was STILL maintained to be by DESCENT from the father, of course it takes a woman to beget a child and the women in those days took the citizenship of their husbands, hence it was only natural that both parents were to be citizens.
The citizenship status of the parents is THE PARAMOUNT ESSENTIAL quality in recognizing a “natural born”.
The founding fathers and framers of the USC chose BOTH “nature” AND “birth-right” as essential qualities, to ensure that those who would be eligible for the office of POTUS, would be the least likely to have any foreign influence, allegiance and claim by virtue of BOTH qualities.
Although the framers recognized the law of nature/descent as the primary influence, they also recognized that place of birth was also an influence that could corrupt or taint allegiance, and so they opted (without any precedent for eligibility of a president of a constitutional republic) for “natural” to mean BOTH, by natural birth descent AND native birth-right.
Although Vattel may have been the source of this two-fold principle, it was the framers who applied this principle to the unprecedented constitution.
Talk about opening the door to a sexist attack, this interpretation does it by flinging it open. Why is it that the reason the presidency was given so much power to act is not the same reason it was to be removed from the hands of those it was to act against? Was it not explained in the federalist papers the need for an “energetic” president? Was it not clear that that kind of power ever falling into the hands of a person of secret ambitions would be chaos especially if factions already existed in the other branches of government? One can argue capital letters and lower case letters, fathers, mothers and places of birth and none of it gets to the INTENT of placing a restriction on the holding of any office. The intent is to bar treasonous actors. I do believe the law is quite clear on what treason IS.
I did not do that. I am not “interpreting” anything. I am just reporting the facts. The Supreme court in Minor v Happersett found that women had no political rights secured by the Constitution, not me. Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence not me, and there it is stated that governments are instituted among “Men” meaning males. I did not invent or “interpret” this. It is just a fact of life that I am reporting. Please don’t shoot the messenger. Please get over your fear and political correctness so that we can learn the truth about our nations history and the truth about our Constitution.
THERE IS NO 14th Amendment~NEVER signed by Jackson–ONLY the Secretary of State~NEVER FULLY RATIFIED, therefore “NULL and VOID!!”
The Progressive, Liberal Congress’s “MOST VALUABLE TOY of Deceit!!”