Thomas Jefferson on “Natural Born”
Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson in December, 1783, wrote these notes to Congress [emphasis in the original]:
Qu. 1. Can an American citizen, adult, now inherit lands in England?
Natural subjects can inherit–Aliens cannot.
There is no middle character–every man must be the one or the other of these.
A Natural subject is one born within the king’s allegiance & still owing allegiance. No instance can be produced in the English law, nor can it admit the idea of a person’s being a natural subject and yet not owing allegiance.
An alien is the subject or citizen of a foreign power.
The treaty of peace acknowleges we are no longer to owe allegiance to the king of G.B. It acknowleges us no longer as Natural subjects then.
It makes us citizens of independent states; it makes us aliens then.
A treaty with a foreign nation where the king’s powers are competent to it as in this which is a case of peace & war, supersedes all law.
If the king’s powers were not competent before, the act of parliament of 1782 has made them so. An American citizen adult cannot inherit then.Qu.2. The father a British subject; the son in America, adult, and within the description of an American citizen, according to their laws. Can the son inherit?
He owes no allegiance to Great B. The treaty acknowleges he does not. But allegiance is the test of a natural subject. Were he to do an act here which would be treason in a British subject he could not be punished should he happen to go there. (more…)
Obama Occidental Blast!
President Soetoro?
This little gem (first circulated as an April Fools joke) is being recycled. Of course the case obliquely referenced here was dismissed, and the subpoena was quashed. This article represents what the “hope” of the denialists looks like:
transcript indicates that Obama, under the name Barry Soetoro, received financial aid as a foreign student from Indonesia as an undergraduate at the school
In a move certain to fuel the debate over Obama’s qualifications for the presidency, the group “Americans for Freedom of Information” has released copies of President Obama’s college transcripts from Occidental College. Released today, the transcript indicates that Obama, under the name Barry Soetoro, received financial aid as a foreign student from Indonesia as an undergraduate at the school. The transcript was released by Occidental College in compliance with a court order in a suit brought by the group in the Superior Court of California. The transcript shows that Obama (Soetoro) applied for financial aid and was awarded a fellowship for foreign students from the Fulbright Foundation Scholarship program. To qualify for the scholarship, a student must claim foreign citizenship.”
This is the man now sitting in the oval office that we’re talking about above. He is also a lawyer; that is a sworn officer of the courts system, and a member of the Bar that actually taught Constitutional Law in Illinois, before running for the office he now occupies.
This immediately brings up a number of direct conflicts of interest that in themselves create several indefensible positions for the fraud that Barack Hussein Obama, formerly Barry Soetoro, truly appears to be. How could Obama the lawyer not know that he took grant money for financial aid, from the Fulbright Foundation that was intended only for foreign citizens? How then to square this with his supposed Naturalized American-citizen status that he claimed in order to run for president? He cannot be both things in the same person; especially not at the same time. (more…)
De Vattel: revisited
Emer de Vattel
Citizenship denialist hoax exposed!
Those advocating that we should change our traditional view of “natural born citizen” in favor of a view advocated by a 18th century Swiss philosopher, Emer de Vattel, argue that the framers of the Constitution relied on a work by that philosopher for their definition of “natural born citizen”. They cite this passage from his work, the short English title of which is The Law of Nations:
The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens
Those words, however, are quoted from a translation of de Vattel that first appeared in 1797, 10 years after the Constitution’s ratification. Did the framers know Vattel’s work in the French? If so, there is a problem because the literal phrase “natural-born citizen” is not present in the original French which says:
Les Naturels ou indigènes font ceux qui font nés dans le pays de Parens Citoyens.
For those who don’t speak French, the word “citizen” (Citoyen) appears only ONCE in the sentence. (more…)
Chester A. Arthur: Rest In Peace
Chester Arthur
Out of necessity, a fiction was created, one which says Chester A. Arthur hid the naturalization status of his father, because he knew he was ineligible. It is true that Arthur lied about his age (making himself a year younger than what was in the Family Bible) and he got some other dates wrong from the history of his family before he was born (Arthur was estranged from his father). But he never gave any lie that hid his father’s naturalization status.
A 19th century political operative, bent on bringing down Arthur went about trying to prove Arthur was really born in Canada. Indeed, the operative, a lawyer named A. P. Hinman began before the election and continued his investigation until he published a book, four years later, titled How a British Subject became President of the United States. Today the claims of a Canadian birth for Arthur are dismissed by Arthur biographers. However, in a remarkable irony, A. P. Hinman’s little book leaves us proof that Arthur’s birth to an Irish citizen was well known at the time! (more…)
Natural Born in South Carolina
John Rutledge of South Carolina
Much is made about a letter from John Jay of New York to George Washington during the Convention that drew up the Constitution of the United States, and exactly what Jay meant by “natural born citizen”. It may well be that his letter arrived in time for the convention’s deliberation (although it was never mentioned in the debate) and it may well be that the words “natural born citizen” in the Constitution were taken from it, but when it comes to original intent, it doesn’t matter what John Jay meant, because John Jay was not a delegate to the Constitutional Convention, he had no vote nor did he have any part in the debate. All the input he had to the process was the words themselves in his letter, not even an explanation of what he meant beyond someone who was not a “foreigner”.
Let’s focus on someone, who was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention, John Rutledge of South Carolina. Rutledge served as the Chief Judge of South Carolina (as well as its governor and as a justice of the US Supreme Court). Having received his legal education in London, he was a formidable presence in the court room (reportedly having lost only one case). John Rutledge was the Chairman of the Committee of Detail, the committee charged with drafting the Constitution draft that the delegates debated. What did the laws of his own state of South Carolina, of which he was certainly familiar, say about citizenship?
In 1712 the [General Assembly of the colony of South Carolina] reenacted certain English laws and among them the one of William III providing that a natural born subject might inherit estates even though his father or mother or the person he inherited from was an alien. This merely strengthened the rights of the natural born but did not change naturalization Its main interest lies in the fact that the assembly was in the habit of accepting English laws bodily.
From this we see that natural born subjects in South Carolina could have an alien parent.
