The “Natural Born Citizen” Term is Neither Confusing, Ambiguous, Sexist, Racist, or Overly Restrictive if One’s Mind is Open to the Truth and Not Pettifogging on the Term

by CDR Charles F. Kerchner, Jr. (Ret), blogging at CDRKerchner, ©2023

(May 6, 2023) — The Vattel “Law of Nations or Principles of Natural Law” in various editions (1758/1775/1797) has a plainly clear and succinct key sentence definition of “natural born Citizen” in Volume 1, Chapter 19, Section 212, 2nd sentence of Vattel’s legal treatise that was written in French, the diplomatic language of that time of the revolution, and translated into English. That sentence states: “The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens”. Those facts and circumstances at one’s birth gives one internationally recognized and U.S. law recognized sole allegiance status and loyalty duties at birth to one nation and only one nation. And only such a person can now be constitutionally the President and Commander in Chief of our military per the founders and framers original intent when they put that national security term into the presidential eligibility clause for future generations.

That legal treatise by Vattel was used by the Founders and Framers to justify the revolution and to write our founding documents. And they got that term “natural born Citizen” from Vattel’s treatise. John Jay who was one of the authors of the Federalist Papers and also became the first Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and a fervent user of Vattel’s legal treatise in various negotiations and legal activities for our new nation during the founding period, suggested that term for the presidential eligibility clause to George Washington and the Constitutional Convention agreed to it in 1787 because it guaranteed persons who would become the Commander in Chief of our military forces in the future after the founding generation was gone would be persons born with sole allegiance at birth. And that definition about who is a “natural born Citizen” to constitutional standards is neither confusing, ambiguous, sexist, racist, nor overly restrictive for our nation to comply with. The laws of nature have been the truth since nature’s creation. The definition stated by Vattel for who is a “natural born Citizen” was true in the 18^th century. It was true in the 19^th and 20^th centuries. And it is true today in the 21^st century. And it will be true as long as man and nature survive. The laws of nature relating to the “without any doubt” membership in a tribe, country, or nation have not changed. Natural Law still defines the birth circumstances for a “natural born Citizen” (nbC) of a country, i.e., a person born with sole allegiance at birth to the United States of America without regard to race, color, creed, national origin, religion, or sex. One only has to open one’s mind to the truth.

All the sundry political problems created by the modern Progressive Movement as to nbC’s true meaning would dissipate if we just simply stay true to the laws of nature and Natural Law for that key term in the presidential eligibility clause of our U.S. Constitution. It is only men of dubious reasoning and political objectives who attempt to redefine a Natural Law term in ways to suit their current agenda that cause the ambiguity that leads to these divisive sexism and racism charges.

One of the many ongoing issues and problems in various legal court case decisions and writings of statutory naturalization laws and acts during the history of the United States has been the Common Law and Statutory Law by these bodies of men designating who is a Citizen of the United States and who is not at this time or that time. But the laws of nature do not change. Only man’s egotistical nature thinks he can change them to suit his current objectives.

The Constitution of the United States gave Congress the power to create and adopt laws to naturalize new citizens into our new nation, whether at birth or later in life after their birth. And Congress has repeatedly done so starting with the egregiously erroneous first attempt with the 1790 Naturalization Act which was shortly repealed as it was determined to have violated the U.S. Constitution by trying to create a “natural born Citizen” out of persons born outside the United States, who per the laws of nature they were not. Also, the U.S. Supreme Court has on several occasions had to rule in various cases and controversies as to who was and was not a Citizen of the United States.

At various times in this country’s history the rulings by Common Law such as the Dred Scott v Sanford (1857) decision, the high court has made decisions that were racist. And at other times Congress has passed laws that declared persons a Citizen of the United States based on the sex of a parent such as naturalization laws that only recognized a child being a U.S. Citizen if the father was a U.S. Citizen, or removed the citizenship of the United States for women who married a foreign national. See the Expatriation Act of 1907 and MacKenzie v Hare (1915) U.S. Supreme Court decision.

Thus at various times in dealing with political parties and people’s miss-informed opinions as to who is a “natural born Citizen” of the United States and eligible to be President and Commander in Chief of our military forces, various charges of racism and sexism have been bantered about in the political debates over the many decades.

If a person was not born in the USA an obvious question arose many times. Is that person a Citizen of the United States? And in some such cases, various derogatory charges were made and thrown out against those arguing the person certainly was not a U.S. Citizen by those saying the person definitely was a U.S. Citizen. And at various times it was argued they were a citizen only if their father was a citizen and that father had lived in the United States for some period of time before their child was born overseas. And given this rule or law only applied if the child’s father was a citizen, the charge of sexism was made. And likewise, if a child was born in the USA but both parents were not U.S. Citizens, especially if the father was not, the sexism charge was also made and thrown out by those arguing the person certainly was a U.S. Citizen against those saying the person was not.

And of course, the issues of citizenship and racism in the 19^th century are well known. The country had to go through a Civil War. Also, a Civil Rights Act (1866) was passed and the 14^th Amendment (1868) was made to the U.S. Constitution to make it clear once and for all and eliminate any doubts and opposition to citizenship for those who were at the time freed slaves.

We of course should note that over the years there have been many attempts by the Democratic Party of the deep south using the KKK and Jim Crow laws to deny non-white people their full rights as U.S. Citizens. In those examples, we see real racism being injected into politics by a major political party for many generations, i.e., the Democratic Party well into the 20^th century.

All these racism and sexism charges were being thrown about and debated as to simply being basic Citizenship of the United States. But that type of emotionally and highly charged rhetoric gets even dicier when it comes to who is a “natural born Citizen”  and a national political campaign as to who is eligible to be the President and Commander in Chief of our military forces (and also subsequently per the 12^th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution who can be the Vice-President).

We then see over the decades many a politically motivated, progressive movement, academic “scholarly paper” was written ignoring any type of enforcement of the true and original-intent meaning of the natural law term “natural born Citizen”. Instead, they are usually attacking non-natural law false arguments being made as to who is a “natural born Citizen” and throwing out charges of one side or the other being sexist, racist, or just too restrictive and unfair. And these progressive academic “scholars” working with one major political party or the other, write their lengthy papers as to why a certain person not born in the USA, but born overseas to a U.S. Citizen father, or a certain person who was born in the USA, but whose father was not a U.S. Citizen father, surely must be considered to be a “natural born Citizen” because to do otherwise is sexist.

They write these papers to assuage the American electorate who are rightly very concerned about the innate divided allegiance of such a person born with dual or triple citizenship, i.e., divided loyalty requirements and allegiance at birth, being selected as a candidate of a major political party for election to the office of President and Commander in Chief of our military.

These “scholarly” papers, which are just cloaked politically agenda-driven pieces to give a constitutional pass to one candidate or another, are then used by the political parties, the candidate themselves, the major mainstream media, and elected government officials and other officials to sell this politically attractive candidate to the public, even though many people are very concerned about the person’s non sole allegiance at birth due to their being under current U.S. laws, a dual citizen at birth (Barack Obama) or even in some cases a triple citizen at birth (Ted Cruz). And thus because of not sticking to the laws of nature for a term with the word “natural” in it as an adjective,  all the political angst, debate, and turmoil occurs.

Read the rest here.