Obots in HISTORY! William Rawle (1759 – 1836)
William Rawle
Today I announce a new series of articles here at Obama Conspiracy Theories: Obots in HISTORY! The opening honors go to Dr. William Rawle, Lawyer, District Attorney, Judge, Legislator, Abolitionist, Historian, Federalist and Obot!
Rawle was a personal acquaintance and correspondent of George Washington, Alexander Hamilton and other framers of our country. He was a founder and first president of the Pennsylvania Historical Society. This is from his biography from the University of Pennsylvania where he served as a trustee:
…He was admitted to the Philadelphia Bar soon after his arrival in 1783, and that same year married Sarah Coates Burge….
Young Rawle quickly gained a reputation as an able attorney, eventually serving as chancellor of the Philadelphia Bar from 1822 until his death. As a Federalist he served a term in the Assembly, but found that politics were not to his liking. After his 1791 appointment by George Washington as U.S. District Attorney for Pennsylvania, Rawle handled the prosecutions stemming from the whiskey riots in the western part of Pennsylvania. He stepped down from this office in 1799. (more…)
Drafting a definition for Natural Born Citizen (update)
I’m working on a definition for Natural Born Citizen to be submitted to the Urban Dictionary. The current definitions there are highly unsatisfactory and have net negative response from those who rate them.
This blog has published definitions before including:
- Defining Natural Born Citizen
- Natural Born Citizen: Defined! (from a legal dictionary)
Unfortunately my original article is far too long to fit the 1500 character limit of the Urban Dictionary, and in any case, I want something short and easy to read. So here is a draft for comment. Keep in mind that the following is just 38 characters under the limit, so I can’t add anything substantial without removing something else.
A US Circuit Court said “all persons born in the allegiance of the United States are natural-born citizens. Birth and allegiance go together.” US v. Rhodes (1866). This principle has been cited approvingly by subsequent courts including the US Supreme Court in US v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) that said:
“The 14th Amendment affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory, in the allegiance and under the protection of the country, including children here born of resident aliens, … The Amendment, in clear words and in manifest intent, includes the children born within the territory of the United States, of all other persons, of whatever race or color, domiciled within the United States.” (more…)
De Vattel appears in 1884 law review article
In ARE PERSONS BORN WITHIN THE UNITED STATES IPSO FACTO CITIZENS THEROF? The American Law Review (Sep/Oct 1884) George D. Collins argues that only those born in the United States whose fathers are citizens, are themselves citizens.
This find by Leo C. Donofrio should provide some some discomfit to Mario Apuzzo who has been doggedly pursuing the two-citizen-parent rule.
Mr. Collins jumps right into the topic by attacking Lynch v. Clarke (New York 1844) denying that there is a common law of the United States (although he is quite ready to adopt the Swiss philosopher Vattel in lieu of a common law). Collins seems to think de Vattel’s “The Law of Nations” represents international law rather than de Vattel’s philosophy of international law, but the facts are that de Vattel’s view of citizenship did not represent a consensus of national laws on citizenship; quite the contrary.
Finally Collins launches into racist screed against the Chinese:
Now it is evident that such persons [the Chinese] are utterly unfit, wholly incompetent, to exercise the privileges of an American citizen….
…yet under the common law rule the children of all persons, irrespective of race, who were born within the United States would be citizens. (more…)
God Bless Orly Taitz
Orly of Arc
Orly’s web site has taken on a decidedly evangelical tone of late with two feature articles:
Dear Orly: May the Good Lord Bless and Keep you safe and of sound mind for the task you are undertaking. Just like our First Real President George Washington knelt before his battle with the English Crown at our country’s beginning,
and
PRAY led by the HOLY SPIRIT TO:
1) Set an impenetrable angelic hedge of protection around District Judge David O. Carter, and attorney Orly Taitz.
2) Confound, and bind the enemy with the light of God through Christ Jesus in us, that the darkness in their false case will be completely exposed to the nation!
3) Deal swiftly when the enemy steps out of these bounds, bind their tongues.
… This is a link to George Washington’s Prayer Journal (more…)
Searching for “natural born citizen”
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.
Reply to Cort Wrotnowski
Mr. Wrotnowski send me an email, and this is my reply.
We agree that de Vattel writes eloquently espousing his view of natural law. And we agree that de Vattel was known to and likely influential in the minds of the framers of the Constitution.
That said, it would not be at all reasonable that to conclude that de Vattel’s views based on the stable Swiss society would closely fit in every respect the ideas from a fledgling frontier immigrant-driven democracy like the United States. Switzerland and the United States in the late 18th century were not the same kind of place. One had a stable population. The other needed immigrants just to keep the population from declining because of disease (at least this was the case in the southern colonies).
It would be an error to jump from the statement that de Vattel was influential to the statement that de Vattel was influential on issues of citizenship. One needs some additional evidence to make that connection and I do know where you would find that evidence. (more…)
