Obama Conspiracy Theories

Tag Archives: Edward Bates

Searching for “natural born citizen”

by Dr. Conspiracy on 28. Aug, 2009 in Citizenship

US Constitution

Not many folks have spent more time than I searching the Internet and WestLaw for keywords including “natural born citizen”. You can see the results of such activity on pages like my The Great Mother of All Natural Born Citizen Quotation Pages and Tes’s SCOTUS & “Natural Born Citizen” – A Compendium. While that’s useful, finding short paragraphs with keywords is not the way to understand the subject in depth. Even those who disagree with me fall into the same pattern, for example, citing E. de Vattel without reading the chapters that follow.

To really understand what’s going on one must read those works where the subject is developed: this happens in some scholarly works, and in some imp0rtant court decisions. Here are some useful texts, by far not all.

The United States Constitution
The Congressional Debates on the 14th Amendment
Lynch v Clarke (Supreme Court of New York)
US v Wong Kim Ark (Supreme Court of the US)
Afroyim v. Rusk, 387 U.S. 253
Rogers v Bellei (Supreme Court of the US)
The Development of American Citizenship, 1608-1870
The Natural-Born Citizen Clause and Presidential Eligibility: An Approach for Resolving Two Hundred Years of Uncertainty – Yale Law Journal 1988
The Origins and Interpretation of the Presidential Eligibility Clause in the U.S. Constitution: Why Did the Founding Fathers Want the President To Be a “Natural Born Citizen” and What Does this Clause Mean for Foreign-Born Adoptees?
Defining “American” Birthright Citizenship and the Original Understanding of the 14th Amendment, James C. Ho.
Rawle’s View of the Constitution
Citizenship in the United States, Frederick Van Dyne (1904)
The Justiciability of Eligibility: May Courts Decide Who Can Be President? [HTML] [PDF] Daniel P. Tokaji, The Ohio State University, Moritz College of Law
Originalism and the Natural Born Citizen Clause [HTML] [PDF] Lawrence B. Solum, University of Illinois Law School
Attorney General Edward Bates, Opinion of Attorney General Bates on Citizenship (1852).

Commenters here may suggest additions to the list.

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Bates on Citizenship

by Dr. Conspiracy on 11. Mar, 2009 in Citizenship

AG Opinion

Many say, and perhaps rightly, that the US Supreme Court has never stated what the definition of natural born citizen is and so they conclude that it is necessary for a court to make this decision before the legitimacy of Barack Obama as president can be known.

But, the legitimacy of Barack Obama’s presidency and the definition of natural born citizen has been thoroughly studied by the Abraham Lincoln’s Attorney General way back in 1862, and he rendered his opinion quite clearly and plainly.

United States Attorney General opinions are carefully reasoned statements based on law, and form the basis for practice in the Executive Branch. Unless there is a change in the law or a court ruling to the contrary, these opinions are reliable statements of the law. No court having ruled otherwise, the following opinion is still as valid today as it was in 1862. This means that Barack Obama is the legitimate president of the United States right now. You can all stand down, relax, and get on with your lives. You don’t have to thank me. (more…)

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The Great Mother of All Natural Born Citizen Quotation Pages

by Dr. Conspiracy on 18. Jan, 2009 in Citizenship, Featured Articles, Research Notes

Partial lists don’t carry the full impact of citations scattered here and there. This project is to collect everything accessible and to the point into one place If it takes much context or argument, a brief reference and a link is included. I promise you that the quotations will mean the same thing when you read them here than they mean if you read the larger context, and the larger context will be linked to the text. No tricks, no deception.

For additional citations, see The “Natural Born Citizenship” Clause (Updated) to whom this article is indebted for some of these citations. And for EVEN MORE citations see SCOTUS & “Natural Born Citizen” – A Compendium and History of US citizenship laws. (more…)

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Dead Attorney General declares “Obama native born”

by Dr. Conspiracy on 07. Jan, 2009 in Citizenship

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Citation: 10 U.S. Op. Atty. Gen. 328, 1862 WL 1393 (U.S.A.G.)
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United States Attorney General
CITIZENSHIP OF CHILDREN BORN IN THE UNITED STATES OF ALIEN PARENTS.
September 1, 1862.

*328 A child born in the United States of alien parents, who have never been naturalized, is, by the fact of birth a native-born citizen of the United States, entitled to all the rights and privileges of citizenship.
Hon. WM. H. SEWARD
Secretary of State. (more…)

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