April 10, 2023
To the Editor:
I read your article and need to provide some information on the Wong Kim Ark case you refer to.
As I was reading it, I felt your apprehension about the case. Ark is a very strong case FOR NBC. But you, as I read it, left some ambiguity as to whether a person born of two permanent resident aliens was a natural born citizen. Let me suggest this:
1) The only time Ark mentions what a natural born citizen is is when Justice Gray stated, “The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country of parents who are citizens.” Nowhere in the case can you find a statement that says, “Anyone born in the United States is a natural born citizen” (para. 134). In fact you can’t find that statement anywhere.
2) In the U.S. District Court Ark v U.S. the Court declared Ark to be a “citizen,” not a natural born citizen. The Supreme Court ruled the same thing. So, Ark’s birth circumstances or anyone with birth circumstances like his are NOT natural born citizens.
3) In the same case Justice Gray restated what Chief Justice Waite had said that puts to rest any claim that the 14th Amendment grants “NBC” to anyone born in the U.S. In invoking the 14th Amendment, he specifically said, “The Constitution does not in words say who shall be natural-born citizens” (paragraphs 3-7 here.) That makes sense, too, because nowhere in the 14th Amendment do you find NBC.
4) In the Elk v Wilkins case, Justice Gray tightens the screws on the 14th Amendment in addressing “under the jurisdiction” and “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” The evident meaning of these last words is not merely “subject” in some respect or degree to the “jurisdiction” of the United States, but completely subject to its political jurisdiction and owing it direct and immediate allegiance. The words relate to the time of birth in the one case, as they do to the time of naturalization in the other. Persons not thus subject to the jurisdiction of the United States at the time of birth cannot become so afterwards except by being naturalized.
5) The 14th Amendment may also be moot when it comes to the citizenship clause. The “under the jurisdiction” as Justice Gray states may limit that to being U.S. citizens only. If that is the case, we get citizen parents (those “under the jurisdiction”) giving birth to someone born in the U.S. That is the definition of NBC.
Food for thought and a possible update to your article.
P.S.: I just love it when a person advocates against what a true NBC is and brings up Wong Kim Ark. They have no idea what the case actually declared Ark to be (“citizen”). They have no idea that only the Supreme Court’s standard which must be met to be a natural born citizen is, “The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country of parents who are citizens” as quoted in the United States v. Wong Kim Ark case. Then I challenge them to find their claim, “Anyone born in the U.S. is a NBC.” Look in the Constitution, the Supreme Court, Immigration laws or Naturalization laws to find that. I have been asking that for over ten years. Of course no one has ever found it because it doesn’t exist.
Yours truly,
Roger L. Sharp
And that argument LOST didn’t it? In fact the appellant misstated the ruling. The ruling in the U.S. District Court never said “district court that respondent is a natural-born citizen” So the error that the appellant brief stated never existed to begin with. …””Now do you even know why the Court ruled that Wong Kim Ark was “a citizen” not a natural born citizen as well as the Court could have? Let me help you. It was because The Court had NO VEHICLE to declare Wong Kim Ark was a natural born citizen.
But the appellant brief goes further telling the Supreme Court that a ruling in Wong Kim Ark’s favor would make him eligible to be president.
“For the most pervasive reasons we have refused citizenship to Chinese subjects; and yet as to their offspring, who are just as obnoxious, and to whom the same reasons for exclusion apply with equal force, we are told that we must accept them as fellow-citizens, and that to because of the mere accident of birth. There certainly should be some honor and dignity in American that would be sacred from a foul and corrupting taint of a debasing alienage. Are Chinese children born in this country to share with the descendants of the patriots of the American Revolution the exalted qualification of being eligible to the Presidency of the nation, conferred by the Constitution in recognition of the importance and dignity of citizenship by birth?”
Chief Justice Fuller in his dissenting opinion made a similar remark.
They understood that a decision in Wong Kim Ark’s favor made him eligible to be President.
William Dameron Guthrie said exactly that in 1898, “..therefore, a male child born here of alien Chinese subjects is now eligible to the office of President, altho his parents could not be naturalized under are laws.”
US Courts interpret the Wong Kim Ark decision in the same way (just without all the bigotry).
Whatever technically wrong U.S. Supreme Court verdicts on U.S. citizenship that have been rendered through their own human failures, those verdicts seem to be the favorite ones that evil people use to their own advantage to fool the public and also use to usurp government offices.
Despite what non-Vattel commenters try to justify in writing, these commenters still have no leg to stand on because there is no current U.S. immigration/citizenship law or Constitutional Amendment that unequivocally states that ANYONE is a natural born Citizen. The reason for that is that the triad of U.S. government offices has ZERO authority to deem or make ANYONE a natural born Citizen. If they did, the phrase “natural born Citizen” would be included in statutory documents.
A natural born Citizen is a citizen by the simple act of nature – being born IN the country to two citizen parents of THAT country. That’s as natural as it gets.
In Wong Kim Ark, the U.S. Supreme Court said the courts have the authority to interpret terms in the U.S. Constitution, such as natural born citizen.
So!?
“The reason for that is that the triad of U.S. government offices has ZERO authority to deem or make ANYONE a natural born Citizen” is inaccurate because the U.S. Supreme Court has the authority to interpret terms in the U.S. Constitution.
So the courts can and have ruled whether a particular person is a natural born citizen.
Anyone can rule whether an apple is an apple or a banana is a banana and we must accept those rulings, but no human can make one. They are made naturally. Same with a natural born Citizen. I am still searching, but so far there are zero natural born Citizens cited in positive citizenship law, those citizenship/immigration laws enacted after 1790.
Humans make rules all the time. And certain humans, called judges, make rulings that carry the force of law.
Legislators understand that they cannot legislate the meaning of natural born citizen, as that is a term that appears in the U.S. Constitution. So it is unsurprising there’s no legislation about its meaning.
Please cite the courts that interpreted the U.S. Constitution term “natural born citizen” to mean something other than “born in the U.S. to U.S. citizen parents” and their basis for doing so.
Ankeny v. Governor of State of Indiana did that. There are others.
Anyone interested in the court’s reasoning would be best served to read the decision for themselves. But the court made clear it was guided by Wong Kim Ark.
https://caselaw.findlaw.com/in-court-of-appeals/1501011.html
Footnote 14 in Ankeny v Daniels is instructive:
“14. We note the fact that the Court in Wong Kim Ark did not actually pronounce the plaintiff a “natural born Citizen” using the Constitution’s Article II language is immaterial.”
Here are several of the cases:
Allen v Obama in Arizona Superior Court
Findings:
1) Arizona Courts are bound by Supreme Court precedent of US v. Wong Kim Ark,
2) Obama is a natural born citizen,
3) Minor v Happersett does contradict this.
https://www.scribd.com/document/84531299/AZ-2012-03-07-Allen-v-Obama-C20121317-ORDER-Dismissing-Complaint#
Paige v Obama in Vermont Superior Court
Findings:
1) The phrase in Vattel’s Law of Nations (“The natives, or natural born citizens …parents who are citizens”) has no constitutional significance or the use of the plural “parents” is significant,
2) plaintiff’s arguments fail on the merits.
https://www.scribd.com/document/113533939/VT-Paige-v-Obama-Et-Al-DeCISION-Vt-Super-Ct-Nov-2012
Farrar et al v Obama Georgia Administrative Law Court
Finding:
“For the purposes of this analysis, this Court considered that President Barack Obama was born in the United States. Therefore, as discussed in Arkeny, he became a citizen at birth and is a natural born citizen.”
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_KEK8-LWmzhNWQ4MmI2ZGUtZDMwYi00ZGU4LTkxZTUtZjNkNjNhOGY2YWQ4/view?resourcekey=0-kzHpTo6jXFU_PdY1NzXBLQ
Purpura v Obama in New Jersey Administrative Law Court
Finding:
“The petitioners’ legal position on this issue, however well intentioned, has no merit in law.”
https://www.scribd.com/doc/88936737/2012-04-10-NJ-Purpura-Moran-v-Obama-Initial-Decision-of-ALJ-Masin-Apuzzo
For a complete list see:
https://tesibria.typepad.com/whats_your_evidence/BIRTHER%20STRING%20CITE.pdf
Mac J. Askill replied:
“Ankeny v. Governor of State of Indiana did that. There are others.
Anyone interested in the court’s reasoning would be best served to read the decision for themselves. But the court made clear it was guided by Wong Kim Ark.”
Since neither Wong Kim Ark court ruled him a “natural born citizen” but, rather, a “citizen”, any court guided by either of those courts misguided itself. PERIOD!
No court has disagreed with Ankeny’s being guided by Wong Kim Ark.
No court has disagreed with any court that was guided by Ankeny.
Your argument decrying that there is no definition of a natural born Citizen is the only thing supporting your stance. No one wants to overturn the rotten applecart with Soetoro’s record, because all in government who wish to preserve their paychecks and their lives are cowards. I am educated enough to realize that.
Yet, you continue to obfuscate and avoid answering why the phrase “natural born Citizen” is no where to be found in the U.S. Constitution, its Amendments, and citizenship/immigration law – except that found in the U.S. Constitution, Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 and the citizenship/immigration law of 1790, to which the early American legislators and the Executive had the sense to RESCIND the 1790 law in its entirety in 1795, because I am sure they knew that their limited governmental authority forbad them to declare that anyone is a natural born Citizen through positive law.
Like flies on roadkill, Vattel deniers always show up here at this website when the phrase “natural born Citizen” flashes its neon intensity.
No one disputes that the U.S. Constitution does not define the meaning of natural born citizen. But the Framers did not define a number of terms used in the U.S. Constitution. And they provided no explanation for their lack of definitions.
The U.S. Supreme Court in Wong Kim Ark, however, explained how it came to understand the Framers’ definitions relevant to that case.
Because the U.S. Supreme Court already has ruled on its interpretation of the U.S. Constitution, it is unsurprising that no legislature has attempted to pass further legislation in this regard.
And lower courts, when ruling on eligibility challenges against those born in the United States, referred to Wong Kim Ark as the definitive authority in this matter.
And the Courts did just that! Justice Gray – “The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country of parents who are citizens.” Justice Gray wrote the opinion of the Court in Wong Kim Ark.
Justice Gray actually was just quoting from Minor, to note what it had said. There no agreement.
No court has read Wong Kim Ark to be saying a natural born citizen is only someone born in the United States to two citizen parents. And several courts have referred to Wong Kim Ark to come to a different conclusion.
Yes, it is amazing that so many people claim Wong Kim Ark proves what it actually does not. As you point out, when the term “natural born citizen” is used in the ruling it clearly mentions the citizenship of the parents as being a factor.
“Citizen,” “born citizen,” and “natural born citizen” do not mean the same thing. If they did there would not be three terms. A first-year law student would get a failing grade for arguing, for example, that a statute that mentions “automobile” also applies to “truck” or “motorcycle” or “bicycle.” All automobiles are vehicles, but not all vehicles are automobiles. Similarly, all natural born citizens are citizens, but not all citizens are natural born citizens.
Note that Ted Cruz and Winston Churchill had the SAME birth circumstances: born in a country other than the U.S., born to a non-American father, and born to an American mother. If Ted Cruz is a natural born citizen, then so was Winston Churchill! But Churchill was not, and neither is Cruz.
Yet the judges who ruled on eligibility challenges against those born in the United States referred to Wong Kim Ark when concluding those born in the United States are natural born citizens.
That they did. And, since neither the District Court for California or subsequently the SCOTUS ruled Wong Kim Ark a “natural born citizen” but, rather, merely a “citizen”, those eligibility challenge judges concluded wrongly.
No court has disagreed with the eligibility-challenge rulings that those born in the United States are natural born citizens.
Those rulings still carry the force of law. More generally, people are not free to ignore any court ruling they personally disagree with.
Hey Please post your glaring claim in the Wong Kim Ark case you so dearly love. “Anyone born in America is a natural born citizen.” Post it. And besides not being able to find that I bet you don’t even know what the Court ruled in Wong Kim Ark. But lets see it.
Other comments in this article (above this one) cite some of the cases that have referred to Wong Kim Ark when concluding those born in the United States are natural born citizens.
Scroll up.
Much like most legislation, there was no need to define “natural-born citizen” in the Constitution because its meaning was common knowledge amongst the learned men at the Constitutional Convention. Unless someone can cite other contemporaneous legal wisdom, it is not unreasonable to assume that Vattel expressed in his writings the common definition of the phrase.
Apart from historical reference, it should be common sense that no one should be admitted to the halls of executive power, especially military power, who isn’t fully vetted as loyal to his or her country of birth and the country of his or her parents.
Wong Kim Ark DOES NOT rule Ark to be a natural born citizen. The ruling said that Ark was “a citizen”. The rant after the Court dismissed the case in Ankeny also said Wong Kim Ark ruled Ark to be a natural born citizen. That was and is totally false. I challenge anyone to find anywhere in Wong Kim Ark where Justice Gray stated “Anyone born in the U.S. is a natural born citizen.” or where the Court ruled Ark was a natural born citizen. Neither of those two issues exist.
No court has said that Ankeny was wrongly decided.
Other courts have cited Ankeny when arriving at the same conclusion as it about who is a natural born citizen.
In various eligibility challenges to a candidate born in the United States, courts have ruled those born in the United States are natural born citizens. And those eligibility rulings directly or indirectly referred to Wong Kim Ark.
None of those cases include the US State Department rules for dual citizens, which explicitly states dual citizens owe allegiance to both nations and are subject to the jurisdiction of both nations to which they hold citizenship. Does anyone really believe the founders would have been good with someone who owed allegiance to another country being the President? The Natural Born Citizen clause is about allegiance, when the USA was formed the founders were very afraid of foreign intervention and they wanted to ensure the President had 100% allegiance to the USA. They knew it would take a generation to create Natural Born Citizens that’s why they exempted themselves and others at the founding of the constitution.
Dual citizens, even those born in the United States, aren’t Natural Born Citizens. It’s why Barry Soetoro isn’t, Mittens isn’t, Ted Cruz isn’t or Kamala.
The U.S. State Department cannot interpret terms in the U.S. Constitution, nor can it impose eligibility requirements on the president or vice president.
So it is unsurprising that the courts did not apply inapplicable rules to these eligibility challenges.
More basically, these rulings show how the courts apply Wong Kim Ark.
There’s nothing in the Constitution that says the State Department can’t interpret the Constitution also there’s nothing in the constitution that expressly says that the federal courts including the Supreme Court have the power to interpret and apply the constitution. A dual citizen is required to comply with those rules as they aren’t optional. The founders would not have allowed individuals owing allegiance and subject to the jurisdiction of another nation to be President. Yes The US State Department can impose those rules on a US dual citizen and again they aren’t optional.
The U.S. Supreme Court in Wong Kim Ark said the courts can interpret terms in the United States.
Because of this, it is unsurprising that the State Department (which is part of the executive branch) has concluded that it cannot interpret terms in the U.S. Constitution. Which would explain why the State Department has not issued any rules about presidential eligibility, or attempted to enforce any of its rules against a president or vice president.
It would also explain why no government official believes the State Department’s rules are binding on the president or vice president. This is doubly so because the president is the head of the executive branch.
Yes and pray tell how the Wong Kim Ark ruled. That is the source of your basis. So how did the Court rule?
The court ruled Wong Kim Ark was a U.S. citizen because he was born in the United States.
The court had no reason to speak to whether Wong Kim Ark also was a natural born citizen, so did not make a ruling either way as to that.
The dissent understood the implications of the majority’s rationale as it applied to who was a natural born citizen.
There have been no rulings other than dismissed due to standing. There have been no oral arguments. There was a rant by a Judge AFTER the case was dismissed that is full of false information. I will point out the most egregious in Ankeny. Judge Brown stated that the Wong Kim Ark case ruled Ark to be a natural born citizen. No such ruling was made. It does not exist. The Court ruled Ark to be “a citizen”. The
Wong Kim Ark Court did say this about United States natural born citizens birth circumstances as being, “The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country of parents who are citizens.”
There have been various rulings, including Ankeny, that said those born in United States are natural born citizens.
Ankeny’s three-judge panel in a footnote acknowledged and rejected this point: “We note the fact that the Court in Wong Kim Ark did not actually pronounce the plaintiff a ‘natural born Citizen’ using the Constitution’s Article II language is immaterial.”
Addendum to my previous 2 comments (assuming they made it through moderation).
In the previous comments, I pointed out how the US Government in their appellant brief wrote that Judge Morrow erred in ruling Wong Kim Ark a natural born citizen even though Judge Morrow did not use that term. And that both Justice Gray and Chief Justice Fuller described the Minor v Happersett decision as holding that Minor was a citizen of the United States not a natural born citizen.
The explanation for the use of both terms is simple. A natural born citizen is a citizen of the United States and a citizen of the United States depending upon the circumstances of their birth might be a natural born citizen.
That’s why the Government assumed that Wong because of the circumstances of his birth was ruled a natural born citizen eligible to be president even though Judge Morrow didn’t use that term. And why Chief Justice Fuller (in his dissent) assumed that the majority decision in Wong Kim Ark made someone like Wong eligible to be president.
But it wasn’t just them.
Several months after the Wong Kim Ark decision, a prominent attorney wrote,
“The common law rule has been finally affirmed by the Supreme Court in the recent case of United States v Wong Kim Ark. The Supreme Court held that a child born in this country of Chinese parents domiciled here is a citizen of the United States by virtue of the locality of his birth. …therefore, a male child born here of alien Chinese subjects is now eligible to the office of President, altho his parents could not be naturalized under are laws.” William D. Guthrie, Lectures on the Fourteenth Article of Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, page 57
https://books.google.com/books?id=4sUlAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Too bad your source doesn’t have the Constitutional authority to decide who is and who is not a natural born citizen. The Supreme Court has decided that the standard birth circumstances that must be met to be a natural born citizen are and I quote WORD for WORD “The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country of parents who are citizens.” And that has been the Supreme Court standard since 1814. But maybe you can find a Supreme Court opinion that states your claim, “Anyone born in the U.S. is a natural born citizen.” Please copy and paste the WORD for WORD quote and state what Supreme Court case I can find it.
Courts do have that constitutional authority.
And courts have ruled those born in the United States are natural born citizens.
Your selective quoting of Minor’s dicta notwithstanding.
2 of 2
“Roger L Sharp”: “3) In the same case Justice Gray restated what Chief Justice Waite”
This is a misreading of the citation by Justice Gray. He uses it only to point out that the Court did not decide the case of children born in the US to non-citizen parents. Gray’s citation from Minor comes only after a long description of the dicta in the decision by Justice Miller in the Slaughter House Cases. He then remarks,
“That neither Mr. Justice Miller, nor any of the justices who took part in the decision of the Slaughter House Cases, understood the court to be committed to the view that all children born in the United States of citizens or subjects of foreign states were excluded from the operation of the first sentence of the fourteenth amendment, is manifest from a unanimous judgment of the court, delivered but two years later, while all those judges but Chief Justice Chase were still on the bench, in which Chief Justice Waite said …”
He then cites from Minor v Hapeprsett
“Roger L Sharp”: “4) In the Elk v Wilkins case, Justice Gray tightens the screws on the 14th Amendment”
That is not Justice Gray characterize his statement. Immediately after the his Minor citation he says,
“The only adjudication that has been made by this court upon the meaning of the clause ‘and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,’ in the leading provision of the fourteenth amendment, is Elk v. Wilkins, 112 U. S. 94, 5 Sup. Ct. 41, in which it was decided that an Indian born a member of one of the Indian tribes within the United States, which still existed and was recognized as an Indian tribe by the United States, who had voluntarily separated himself from his tribe, and taken up his residence among the white citizens of a state, but who did not appear to have been naturalized or taxed or in any way recognized or treated as a citizen, either by the United States or by the state, was not a citizen of the United States, as a person born in the United States, ‘and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,’ within the meaning of the clause in question.”
And
“The decision in Elk v. Wilkins concerned only members of the Indian tribes within the United States, and had no tendency to deny citizenship to children born in the United States of foreign parents of Caucasian, African, or Mongolian descent, not in the diplomatic service of a foreign country.”
And just what case and when did Justice Gray write, “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” The evident meaning of these last words is not merely subject in some respect or degree to the jurisdiction of the United States, but completely subject to their political jurisdiction and owing them direct and immediate allegiance. And the words relate to the time of birth in the one case, as they do to the time of naturalization in the other. Persons not thus subject to the jurisdiction of the United States at the time of birth cannot become so afterwards except by being naturalized” So either you got it wrong or Justice Gray got it wrong. Since Justice Gray has the Constitutional authority to decided I say you got it wrong. As for the rhetorical question let me help. It was the Wong Kim Ark case that took place long after the Minor case and the Elk case. Bottom line still is post your claim from a Supreme Court case “Anyone born in the U.S. is a natural born citizen.” I know what you can find in Wong Kim Ark and Minor and Venus. “The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country of parents who are citizens.” You can talk all you want but you can’t find “Anyone born in the U.S. is a natural born citizen.”
As Justice Gray points out in Wong Kim Ark, his statements in Elk v Wilkins applies only to Native American indians.
“60
The only adjudication that has been made by this court upon the meaning of the clause ‘and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,’ in the leading provision of the fourteenth amendment, is Elk v. Wilkins, 112 U. S. 94, 5 Sup. Ct. 41, in which it was decided that an Indian born a member of one of the Indian tribes within the United States, which still existed and was recognized as an Indian tribe by the United States, who had voluntarily separated himself from his tribe, and taken up his residence among the white citizens of a state, but who did not appear to have been naturalized or taxed or in any way recognized or treated as a citizen, either by the United States or by the state, was not a citizen of the United States, as a person born in the United States, ‘and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,’ within the meaning of the clause in question.
61
That decision was placed upon the grounds that the meaning of those words was ‘not merely subject in some respect or degree to the jurisdiction of the United States”
1 of 2
“Roger L Sharp”: “2) In the U.S. District Court Ark v U.S. the Court declared Ark to be a “citizen,” not a natural born citizen.”
And yet the US Government in their appellant brief wrote, “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 respondent is a natural-born citizen …”
http://libraryweb.uchastings.edu/library/research/special-collections/wong-kim-ark/AppellantsBrief.pdf
In reading the Government’s appellant brief pay attention to page 34 where the they argue against citizenship for Chinese children born in the US and whether they should be “fellow-citizens” because of a “mere accident of birth” and share in the “exalted qualification of being eligible to the Presidency of the nation.”
“Roger L Sharp”: “3) In the same case Justice Gray restated what Chief Justice Waite had said that puts to rest any claim that the 14th Amendment grants “NBC” to anyone born in the U.S.”
No it does not put it to rest. Here is how Justice Gray describes the Minor decision,
“The decision in that case was that a woman born of citizen parents within the United States was a citizen of the United States, although not entitled to vote, the right to the elective franchise not being essential to citizenship.”
He does not use the term “natural born citizen”.
And here is how Chief Justice Fuller (in his dissent in Wong Kim Ark, he specifically cites Vattel’s Law of Nation) described the Minor decision,
“In Minor v. Happersett, 21 Wall. 162, this Court held that the word “citizen” is often used to convey the idea of membership in a nation, and, in that sense, women, if born of citizen parents within the jurisdiction of the United States, have always been considered citizens of the United States, as much so before the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution as since …” In re Lockwood (1894).
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/154/116/
He also does not use the term natural born citizen.
And that argument LOST didn’t it? In fact the appellant misstated the ruling. The ruling in the U.S. District Court never said “district court that respondent is a natural-born citizen” So the error that the appellant brief stated never existed to begin with. …””Now do you even know why the Court ruled that Wong Kim Ark was “a citizen” not a natural born citizen as well as the Court could have? Let me help you. It was because The Court had NO VEHICLE to declare Wong Kim Ark was a natural born citizen.
We’ll Put Roger, And Filled With Wisdom And Fact!
My Only Lingering Disappointment To The NBC Requirement As It Is Intended, Is The Constant Challenge Of The Ineligible Candidates And Usurpers That Have Violated The Law And The Weaklings That Refuse To Enforce That Which Is/Was Concise And Common Sense.
Great clarity herein, Roger.
Also, where did John Jay, the inventor of “natural born Citizen”, ever “hint” or state outright that, (1) “a natural born Citizen can have foreign-citizen parents at time of birth and still be a Constitutionally- eligible presidential candidate/president/ex-president just so long as he was born in the USA” [Obama, et al] ? or (2) a natural born Citizen can be born in a foreign country and still be a Constitutionally-eligible presidential candidate/president/ex-president just so long as one parent is a U.S. citizen at time of birth” [“Canada Cruz”]?
I believe as a natural born Citizen of U.S. citizen-parents who were born in USA, and never divorced, that all legal U.S. citizens today remain living complicit Constitutional-criminals after 08-28-08* until Obama and Kamala are de-certified and punished, possibly by hanging for election-treason.
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXFwqUi3zR0&feature=youtu.be
Finally, I believe anyone who insists that born-from-foreign-citizen-allegiance-parents, Obama, Kamala, and Cruz, are each a John Jay “natural born Citizen” 1787- TODAY, and, yet, have never read this book about John Jay, https://walterstahr.com/ , then, those voiced-opinion souls likely have no natural awareness of what the hell they are talking about and likely should be ignored.
I have a small correction to your post. John Jay is not the inventor of “natural born citizen”. You will find that distinction belongs to Vattel and his work “The Law of Nations” >>> Also a little more background on natural born citizen. This is what Congress’ view was understood to be <<< Rep. John Bingham, Principal Framer of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. During a debate (see pg. 2791) regarding a certain Dr. Houard, who had been incarcerated in Spain, the issue was raised on the floor of the House of Representatives as to whether the man was a US citizen. Representative Bingham (of Ohio), stated on the floor:As to the question of citizenship I am willing to resolve all doubts in favor of a citizen of the United States. That Dr. Houard is a natural-born citizen of the United States there is not room for the shadow of a doubt. He was born of naturalized parents within the jurisdiction of the United States, and by the express words of the Constitution,=================All from other lands, who by the terms of [congressional] laws and a compliance with their provisions become naturalized, are adopted citizens of the United States; all other persons born within the Republic, of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty, are natural born citizens. Gentleman can find no exception to this statement touching natural-born citizens except what is said in the Constitution relating to Indians. – (Cong. Globe, 37th, 2nd Sess., 1639 (1862))=============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…. – (Cong. Globe, 39th, 1st Sess., 1291 (1866))———————————-According to Justice Black, Bingham’s words uttered on the floor of the House are the most reliable source. Bingham made three statements, none of them challenged on the Floor, which indicate that a natural born citizen is a person born on US soil to parents who were US citizens.
Vattel never wrote the words “natural born citizen.”
Bigham was a not a Framer of the U.S. Constitution.
Why do you act the fool here with your childish misinformation tactics like the one you just made?
As you well know, Vattel wrote his treatise and the defining sentence for natural born citizen in French (the diplomatic language of that time).
In his legal treatise on Natural law, i.e., The Law of Nations or Principles of Natural Law in Volume 1 Chapter 19 Section 212 which is titled, “Des citoyens et naturels” in which section he wrote in his defining sentence for being a natural born citizen, i.e., “Les naturels, ou indigénes, sont ceux qui sont nés dans le pays, de parents citoyens.” So there it is in French what when correctly translated into English defines who a natural born citizen of a country is. Of course Vattel did not write “natural born citizen” in English. What a clown you act like here Mx. Mac J. Askill. It clearly shows you are not a serious person but merely a detractor on a mission here to troll the comment thread and spread disinformation and to confuse any newbies reading here.
And you likely know or should know the Founder and Framers knew the French language well as it was the diplomatic language of the time and France was our ally in the Revolutionary War. The Founders and Framers understood the French word “naturels” to mean “natural born”. That is proven in correspondence to the Continental Congress in French and translated to English by the Continental Congress for its records. See this 1781 example of that linked here for a citation of that: https://www.calameo.com/books/0057551429c4e7c34dac2 And the French sentence was correctly translated to English in the widely accepted 1797 edition of Vattel’s treatise: https://lonang.com/library/reference/vattel-law-of-nations/vatt-119/
Mx. Mac J. Askill, you should stop playing the fool and silly word play deceiver here with statements like you just made. It shows the world how childish you are with your debating style. You are just a troll here to scroll the comment thread full of disinformation.
All: For the what, when, where, who, why and how the “natural born Citizen” term got put into the presidential eligibility clause of Article II Section 1 of our U.S. Constitution by the Founders and Framers, see this white paper I wrote on the subject: http://www.kerchner.com/protectourliberty/naturalborncitizen/TheWhoWhatWhenWhereWhyandHowofNBC-WhitePaper.pdf
CDR Charles Kerchner (Ret)
http://www.ProtectOurLiberty.org
Glad we agree Vattel never wrote the words “natural born citizen.”
As for translations, you’ve shown that “indigénes” was translated as “natural-born citizen” by an anonymous translator in 1797.
Which doesn’t show how the Framers might have translated “indigénes” in 1787.
Other contemporaneous translations preferred “indigenous” or similar cognates.
Jonathan David Mooers is correct the first appearance of “natural born citizen” was in Jay’s letter.
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