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.
Throughout his years in Philadelphia, Rawle was involved in a number of civic and cultural activities. As early as 1786, he was both elected to the American Philosophical Society and made Secretary of the Library Company [that’s where they kept the copy of de Vattel]. An ardent abolitionist, Rawle became a member of the Maryland Society promoting abolition in 1792 and then its president in 1818; he also argued against the constitutionality of slavery before the state supreme court in 1805.
But why is he an Obot? Rawle is perhaps best known in this era as the author of a major work of history and political science: A View of the Constitution of the United States that is frequently cited by courts in the United States.1
…he who was subsequently born a citizen of a state became at the moment of his birth a citizen of the United States Therefore every person born within the United States its territories or districts whether the parents are citizens or aliens is a natural born citizen in the sense of the Constitution and entitled to all the rights and privileges appertaining to that capacity
1For example Justice Scalia’s opinion in District of Columbia v Heller (2008) and the Supreme Court of New York in Lynch v. Clarke (1844).
Nobot meeting to discuss this article:
H/T to Obot1 for the link to the biography.
You notice in the main article that I mention District of Columbia v. Heller as a modern case that cites Rawle’s View of the Constitution favorably.
Now here is the irony. Yesterday Orly Taitz filed her Surreply in the Barnett v. Obama lawsuit, a filing that contained these words:
You can’t make this stuff up.
Funny how the birthers will claim that the writings of de Vattel are somehow relevant to how Americans obtain citizenship at birth, but they have dismissed Rawle stating that his contemporary view of the Constitution at the nation’s founding is irrelevant!
The Leotards have already trashed Rawle!
jvn: The Leotards have already trashed Rawle!
No surprise there, after they trashed Chester A. Arthur and the entire US Supreme court (both the current one and the on in 1898).
For obvious reasons, the title of your post is misbegotten, as is the answer you provide to your own query: But why is [William Rawle] an Obot?
An Obot is not determined by his or her interpretation of the Natural Born Citizen clause. An Obot is determined by his or her allegiance to Barack Obama’s psuedo-socio-political ideology, which of course includes adherence to his economic illiteracy.
To be an Obot, therefore, William Rawle, about whom I’ve written a great deal, would for example have to countenance some of the following:
“[My grandmother] was a typical white person” (Barack Obama, 2008).
“Just because you have an individual right does not mean that state or local government can’t constrain the exercise of that right” (Barack Obama, 2008).
“We’ve actually been operating in a way entirely consistent with free-market principles” (Barack Obama, 2009).
“I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer healthcare system” (Barack Obama, 2003).
“[Under my proposal] if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted” (Barack Obama, 2008).
The Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society…. To that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution … that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can’t do to you. Says what the Federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf, and that hasn’t shifted, and one of the, I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was, um, because the civil rights movement became so court-focused I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change…. I’m not optimistic about bringing about major redistributive change through courts… The Constitution reflected an enormous blind spot in this culture that carries on until this day … The Framers had that same blind spot … the fundamental flaw of this country (Barack Obama, 2001).
“I ceased to advertise my mother’s race at the age of twelve or thirteen when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites” (Barack Obama, Dreams From My Father, A Story of Race and Inheritance, pg xiv).
“That’s just how white folks will do you. It wasn’t merely the cruelty involved; I was learning that black people could be mean and then some. It was a particular brand of arrogance, an obtuseness in otherwise sane people that brought forth our bitter laughter. It was as if whites didn’t know that they were being cruel in the first place.” (Ibid, pg. 80).
“To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist Professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets” (Ibid, pg. 100).
“We smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets. At night, in the dorms, we discussed neocolonialism, Franz Fanon, Eurocentrism and patriarchy. When we ground out our cigarettes in the hallway carpet or set our stereos so loud that the walls began to shake, we were resisting bourgeois society’s stifling constraints. We weren’t indifferent or careless or insecure. We were alienated” (Ibid, pg 101).
“To that white world, I had been willing to cede the values of my childhood, as if those values were irreversibly soiled by the endless falsehoods that white spoke about black” (Ibid, pg 110).
“Questions of competition, decisions forced by a market economy and majoritarian rule; issues of power. It was this unyielding reality — that whites were not only phantoms to be expunged from our dreams but were an active and varied fact of our everyday lives — that finally explained how black nationalism could thrive as an emotion and flounder as a program” (Ibid, Pg 202).
Nationalism provided that history, an unambiguous morality tale that was easily communicated and easily grasped. A steady attack on the white race, the constant recitation of black people’s brutal experience in this country, served as the ballast that could prevent the ideas of personal and communal responsibility from tipping into an ocean of despair. Yes, the nationalist would say, whites are responsible for your sorry state, not any inherent flaws in you. In fact, whites are so heartless and devious that we can no longer expect anything from them. The self-loathing you feel, what keeps you drinking or thieving, is planted by them. Rid them from your mind and find your true power liberated. Rise up, ye mighty race! … In a sense, then, Rafiq was right when he insisted that, deep down, all blacks were potential nationalists. The anger was there, bottled up and often turned inward. And as I thought about Ruby and her blue eyes, the teenagers calling each other nigger’ and worse, I wondered whether, for now at least, Rafiq wasn’t also right in preferring that that anger be redirected; whether a black politics that suppressed rage toward whites generally, or one that failed to elevate race loyalty above all else, was a politics inadequate to the the task.
It was a painful thought to consider, as painful now as it had been years ago. It contradicted the morality my mother had taught me, a morality of subtle distinctions — between individuals of goodwill and those wished me ill, between active malice and ignorance or indifference. I had a personal stake in that moral framework; I’d discovered that I couldn’t escape it if I tried…. And yet perhaps it was a framework that blacks in this country could no longer afford; perhaps it weakened black resolve, encouraged confusion within the ranks. Desperate time called for desperate measures, and for many blacks, time were chronically desperate. If nationalism could create a strong and effective insularity, deliver on its promise of self-respect, then the hurt it might cause well-meaning whites, or the inner turmoil it caused people like me, would be of little consequence…. If nationalism could deliver. As it turned out, questions of effectiveness, and not sentiment, caused most of my quarrels with Rafiq (Ibid, Pg. 198-201).
“I cannot honestly say, however, that the voice in this book is not mine – that I would tell the story much differently today than I did ten years ago, even if certain passages have proven to be inconvenient politically” (Ibid, pg ix).
Sir, it is concord with these sorts asinine remarks — and so many others like them — that provide the makings of an Obot, as you of all people would certainly know. It is not one’s interpretation of the Natural Born Citizen clause. Unlike your hero, William Rawle wasn’t a racist. This one reason alone — and there are thousands others — precludes William Rawle from your coveted Obot designation.
Whew!
And what makes you an authority on the definition of “obot”?
what a waste of electrons. here’s a somewhat more concise, more accurate definition of an obot:
no need to say more than that.
Dr. Conspiracy,
Rawle, who writes in 1829, provides no authority for his definition of what is a “natural born Citizen.” He also recognizes that his is not the only definition of the term, acknowledging that there were other authorities (he mentions Locke) who think differently. He simply states that his definition is correct and that of others is incorrect. It should be noted that when Rawle rejected the notion that a child could wait until the years of discretion to elect his or her citizenship, he was actually rejecting Vattel’s view espressed on the subject in Section 212 of The Law of Nations.
Why should we accept Rawle’s view as the standard for what the Framers believed about what a “natural born Citizen” was? What evidence does Rawle cite to support his conclusion on what is a “natural born Citizen?”
Mario [fake travel ban] Apuzzo: Why should we accept Rawle’s view as the standard for what the Framers believed about what a “natural born Citizen” was?
I believe Rawle’s credentials as an expert witness are well documented in the main article. Did anybody contemporary with the writing of the Constitution ever write a book supporting your crank views? I think not. Perhaps one might note that Rawle was a correspondent with one of the principle framers of the Constitution, Alexander Hamilton, whose proposal on presidential eligibility was worded “born a Citizen.”
Did you know that Rawle’s book was used as a textbook at the U. S. Military Academy? In 1999 Joe [then Senator] Biden called Rawle’s work, “the first distinguished commentary on the Constitution.”
Rewriting history is something the Soviets did. You’re not very good at it.
Mario, John Locke, who died 71 years before the revolution, wasn’t writing about the United States, now was he? And, Rawle was rejecting Locke’s view that a child is born stateless and may elect at majority his citizenship. Are you sure that Vattel said that a child was born stateless?
The question isn’t why should we accept Rawle in a vacuum, the question is why do all of the contemporary legal authorities agree that the Constitution is not concerned with the parents’ citizenship? Tucker, Rawle, Kent, Story, Hurd, Paschal, etc.
Mario,
Are you making stuff up again. Where does Rawle say there are different definitions of natural born? We should not accept Rawle’s view, however it is simply a fact that the court views the great early scholars as authoritative on the original meaning of the constitution as it is pretty hard to imagine the leading legal scholars in the post-ratification did not know what these terms meant. Unfortunately, none of the early scholars give any support to your definition. Nor are there any cases or other legal authorities you can look to.
Again, please point out anyone in america in the founding period or early republic defining natural born citizen or native in accordance with your definition.
Here is some help with your research:
“As the President is required to be a native citizen of the United States…. Natives are all persons born within the jurisdiction of the United States.” James Kent, COMMENTARIES ON AMERICAN LAW (1826)
“That provision in the constitution which requires that the president shall be a native-born citizen (unless he were a citizen of the United States when the constitution was adopted,) is a happy means of security against foreign influence,… “Prior to the adoption of the constitution, the people inhabiting the different states might be divided into two classes: natural born citizens, or those born within the state, and aliens, or such as were born out of it. The first, by their birth-right, became entitled to all the privileges of citizens…” St. George Tucker, BLACKSTONE’S COMMENTARIES (1803)
“It is not too much to say, that no one, but a native citizen, ought ordinarily to be intrusted with an office so vital [the presidency] to the safety and liberties of the people.” Joseph Story, A Familiar Exposition of the Constitution of the United States, pg. 167 (1842 ed.) (Story elsewhere made clear that native born citizens did not need citizen parents and Story generally rejected Vattel definition even for purposes of international law).
“Citizenship” ….Citizens are either native born or naturalized. Native citizens may fill any office; naturalized citizens may be elected or appointed to any office under the constitution of the United States, except the office of president and vice-president.” “NATIVES. All persons born within the jurisdiction of the United States, are considered as natives.” Bouvier Law Dictionary (1843)
“The country where one is born, how accidental soever his birth in that place may have been, and although his parents belong to another country, is that to which he owes allegiance. Hence the expression natural born subject or citizen, & all the relations thereout growing. To this there are but few exceptions, and they are mostly introduced by statutes and treaty regulations, such as the children of seamen and ambassadors born abroad, and the like.” Leake v. Gilchrist, 13 N.C. 73 (N.C. 1829)
“From the close of the revolutionary war to the time of the adoption of the constitution of the United States, all persons born in this country became citizens of the respective States within whose jurisdiction they were born, by the rule of the common law, unless where they were prevented from becoming citizens by the constitution or statutes of the place of their birth….The word citizen expresses precisely the same relation to the State which subject does to the king. Indeed for a considerable period after the revolution, the word subject was used as synonymous with citizen. Thus in the declaration of rights in the constitution of Massachusetts, the word subject is several times introduced, where we should now use citizen. So in Mass. St. 1784, c. 72, s. 10, a punishment is enacted for kidnapping “any subject of this Commonwealth, or other person lawfully residing and inhabiting therein.” In this passage the word subject can have no other meaning than that ot citizen. Therefore every person born within the United States, its territories, or districts, whether the parents are citizens or aliens, is a natural born citizen in the sense of the constitution, and entitled to all the rights and privileges appertaining to that capacity.” American Jurust and Law Magizene, January, 1834
“The term citizen, was used in the constitution as a word, the meaning of which was already established and well understood. And the constitution itself contains a direct recognition of the subsisting common law principle, in the section which defines the qualification of the President… The only standard which then existed, of a natural born citizen, was the rule of the common law, and no different standard has been adopted since. Suppose a person should be elected President who was native born, but of alien parents, could there be any reasonable doubt that he was eligible under the constitution? I think not. ” Lynch vs. Clarke (NY 1844)
“The first section of the second article of the Constitution uses the language, ‘a natural-born citizen.’ It thus assumes that citizenship may be acquired by birth. Undoubtedly, this language of the Constitution was used in reference to that principle of public law, well understood in this country at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, which referred citizenship to the place of birth.” Justice Curtis, dissenting, Dredd Scott v. Sandford,, 60 U.S. 393 (1857).
“The Constitution itself does not make the citizens, (it is. in fact,made by them.) It only intends and recognizes such of them as are natural—home-born—and provides for the naturalization of such of them as were alien—foreign-born—making the latter, as far as nature will allow, like the former. …” Attorney General Bates, Opinion of Citizenship, (1862)
“All persons born in the allegiance of the king are natural-born subjects, and all persons born in the allegiance of the United States are natural-born citizens. Birth and allegiance go together. Such is the rule of the common law, and it is the common law of this country, as well as of England. There are two exceptions, and only two, to the universality of its application. The children of ambassadors are in theory born in the allegiance of the powers the ambassadors represent, and slaves, in legal contemplation, are property, and not persons.” Justice Swayne, United States v. Rhodes, 1 Abbott, US 28 (Cir. Ct. Ky 1866)
“The king of England, according to the rule of modern civilization, claimed as his subjects all persons born within his dominions : in like manner every one who first saw the light on the American soil was a natural-born citizen.” George Bancroft, History of the United States, from the Discovery of the American Continent: The American Revolution., pg. 439 (1866)
“Every person born within the United States, its Territories, or districts, whether the parents are citizens or aliens, is a natural-born citizen of the United States in the sense of the Constitution…” Rep. Wilson, 1866 Civil Rights Act debates. 10 Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., lst Sess. 1115, 1117 (1866)
“A Natural Born Citizen.” — Not made by law or otherwise, but born… “Natural Born Citizen” recognizes and reaffirms the universal principle common to all nations, and as old as political society, that the people born to a country do constitute the nation, and, as individual, are natural members of the body politic…Every person born in the country is, at the moment of birth, prima facie a citizen.” George Washington Paschal, THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES DEFINED AND CAREFULLY ANNOTATED, (1868)
“So, also, any person born of a foreign father in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, may be a natural- born American citizen, if he choose. In these doubtful cases the person may choose the country of his father or the country of his birth. So that a person may be a natural-born citizen of the United States, without being a native of the United States.” Albert Orville Wright, AN EXPOSITION ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES (31st Ed.) (1888).
“There is no uniform rule among nations by which the nationality of effect of birth a person may be determined from the place of his birth. England and America claim all who are born within their dominions as natural-born subjects or citizens, whatever may have been the parents’ nationality.” Henry Wheaton, Elements of International Law, 1889 edition.
Dr. Conspiracy,
Your answer and that of Greg is exactly what I expected. You cannot cite any authority on which Rawle relied for his personal opinion as to what a “natural born Citizen” is. And by the way, Rawle was just one of those “authorities” to whom Minor referred when it said “some authorities” (the Court did not even feel it merited mentioning their names) go further and consider as “citizens” those born in the country without reference to their parents. Note that our Supreme Court did not cite any case that so held but just referred to “some authorities” that took what the Court described as a doubtful position.
Rawle was an ardent abolitionist. He became a member of the Maryland Society promoting abolition in 1792 and then its president in 1818. He also argued against the constitutionality of slavery before the state supreme court in 1805. We have to consider whether his postition on slavery colored his view of who was a “natural born Citizen.” By the way, and despite your feable attempt at trying to make the issue a racial one, today Vattel’s definition of “natural born Citizen” has no race, color, religion, sex, etc. implications.
We also have to consider that Rawle’s family were Loyalists, not American patriots. That could explain his leanings toward the English common law rather than the public law or the law of nations.
Additionally, Rawle’s claim to fame in our Supreme Court decisions is on the 2nd Amendment (the right to bear arms), not citizenship. On citizenship, Rawle is an unknown when compared to Vattel.
Also, I am not the one re-writing history. Rather that is you and anyone who would want to deny Vattel’s place is American history. I wonder why someone would deny what Vattel did for our country. Is it because he was Swiss and not English? Who are the real racists?
By the way, I like how you address me, “fake travel ban.” You are really getting desperate. Do you not see that yours is a losing case in the real court of justice? And do not tell me about the “birther” batting average. How can you and your ilk keep such a ridiculous score if the “birthers” have yet to get up to bat.
You can keep praying to the altar of the English common law. But that law, apart from its application on local state matters such as contract, torts, property, inheritance, criminal law, etc., only applies to define who were the original citizens (pre 1789) and who later deserved to be part of that class (as per Wong Kim Ark and the 14th Amendment). But clearly, history and several United States Supreme Court cases show you are wrong when you attempt to use the English common law to prove what an Article II “natural born Citizen” is. It was natural law and the law of nations which became federal common law that provides the definition of what an Article II “natural born Citizen” is-a child born in the country to parents who are its citizens.
You can play “whack-a-source” all you want, Mario. Rawle is a loyalist, Tucker didn’t know anything, Kent loves British food, Story…well, what’s his story? Hurd – who ever “heard” of him, Paschal…a tired imitation of Pascal.
You are damaging the irony meter again, when you point out that Rawle is known for his 2nd amendment scholarship and not citizenship, when Vattel is known for international law and not citizenship.
By the way, you’re wrong, Rawle is quoted not just in Heller, but also in Abington v. Schempp (1st Amendment), Near v. Minnesota (national security), Ex Parte Grossman (pardon power), Pollack v. Farmers Loan (taxation), McPherson v. Blacker (standing), and Boyd v. Nebraska (citizenship).
Just curious, Mario, do you ever get tired of being wrong? You must really enjoy it, since you go out of your way to be wrong in such obvious ways! It took me all of 30 seconds to Lexis “Rawle /s Constitution” to find a few dozen such citations.
Basically, Rawle has been quoted as influential authority across the Constitutional spectrum. By contrast, Vattel has never been cited in a majority opinion about citizenship. How nations interact with each other – cite Vattel. How the Constitution defines things – cite Rawle.
Vattel was very influential about international law. We know this, Mario, because the Founders talk about his theories of international law, and how nations should interact. They didn’t talk about his views of citizenship.
Newton was influential about the theory of gravity. He was also an alchemist. You’re arguing that we should accept alchemy despite a complete lack of support for it because Newton was influential…in some other area.
And you’re refighting lost battles, Mario. The Court was explicitly presented with the “natural law” and rejected it in Wong Kim Ark. Now you’ve got some new, cockamamie story about how the Founders used a phrase from British Common Law, left it intact for 99.9% of its uses, but for the 44 men who would become President, applied Vattel’s law of nations.
And, didn’t write any of this down!
Not a single founder said, “We like Vattel’s definition of citizen – we’ll use it to define the requirements of the Presidency. We’ll use the same language, but it will mean the exact opposite when it is applied to the Presidency as when it is applied to everything else.”
Now move forward a decade or so and we see in Wong Kim Ark how SCOTUS fills in the gaps…
No evidence supports this position. Sorry Mario.
Dear Mario,
You wrote to Dr. C : “You cannot cite any authority on which Rawle relied for his personal opinion as to what a “natural born Citizen” is. And by the way, Rawle was just one of those “authorities” to whom Minor referred when it said “some authorities”
As my sainted Mother used to scold, “None feel they write more persuasively than those who refuse to proofread.” You have blundered from a double negative into a self-referential contradiction. You yourself cite Rawle as a court designated “authority” in a pathetic attempt to have the court’s fractional phrasing of that designation somehow besmirch the life’s work of one of the handful of competent recording observers who historians almost universally acclaim as significant authorities on the form and substance of events during and following the Framing.
Rawle’s historical stature as his own “authority” on the Constitution was accumulated from a lifetime of public service including professional friendships with Franklin, Jefferson, and George Washington, who, knowing Rawle’s complete personal history, indicated his endorsement of Rawle’s legal expertise when he offered to make Rawle our country’s first Attorney General to enforce, initially of course, the Constitution.
Rawle doesn’t need to cite any authority besides his own authentic understanding and observation of many of the Founding events that took place during his time, which he set down in writing without objection from any of the Framer’s, and which was used as a Constitutional Law text at West Point (View of The Constitution). Other than dismissing George Washington’s judgment of Rawle’s competence and character, on your own assumed authority, can you cite any pre-Obama Constitutional authority who espouses the pre-eminence of your Obama excluding interpretation of “Natural Born Citizen”, cobbled together from self-servingly parsed inferences drawn from ambiguous historical statements, over the clearly stated Rawle explanation that native birth satisfies the Article Two Natural Born Citizen requirement?
Why does your validating requirement for point-by-point authority cites not disqualify Vattel himself when he defines “citizens”? Do you worship ALL of HIS personal opinions? (He endorses states kidnapping women and sovereigns enforcing state religions too.) Why don’t you need to cite a consensus of linguistic scholars supporting your prima facie adoption of a post-framing LON translation of “Natural Born Citizen” which Lupin has already expertly called into question?
Black Lion has I fear, by mentioning literary fellatio, brought up the one way in which your cause could prevail in court. In you, the Birthers have, a Blowhard approaching the bench with a case that really sucks.
Regardfully,
Benji Franklin
Mario [fake travel ban] Apuzz: We also have to consider that Rawle’s family were Loyalists, not American patriots.
Character assassination is the of the most despicable acts in debate. It is beneath contempt. Did your father teach you to insult people’s families as a way to get at them? You insult your own father, and your precious Italian-American heritage.
As punishment, I take away your “o” and I’m going to stop correcting your spelling mistakes.
Do you know that some monkeys urinate in their own mouths so they can spit it on others? Is that where you got the technique?
Dr. Congas,
Who do you think you are trying to impress? Yea, I got you ticket to heaven.
Benji,
I’ll take Minor v. Happersett over Rawle any day.
Minor: We don’t need to decide the issue of whether those born to foreigners are citizens.
WKA: Those born to foreigners are citizens.
Minor doesn’t get you very far. But, you keep beating that horse, it’s not going to get deader, and it keeps you from beating the live horses.
You think I could appeal to the court and get a protective order for the horse?
Minor:
We know that WKA answered this question. Children born to foreigners are citizens. Even you acknowledge this. You claim not to want to overturn WKA, but carve out a different class of citizen – natural born.
This, of course, was not a distinction that Minor recognized:
There were no suggestions that the children born to foreigners were “citizens-but-not-natural-born-citizens,” they were either citizens or aliens.
Vattel doesn’t make them citizens – he makes them denizens.
Minor doesn’t get you nearly as far along this road as you think it does, Mario. The problem is that you’re trying to create, out of whole cloth, a new class of citizen.
All evidence shows that the Founders thought of citizens as being broken into two types: natural born and naturalized.
Apparently, however, in Mario-world, there are some people, born here, who have no greater rights than those naturalized citizens. And, they’ll never know they lack that special naturalness unless they run for the Presidency.
As for Minor’s unhelpful dicta as compared to Rawle – how often has the court repeated these doubts about citizenship for those born to foreigners? Once, Wong Kim Ark answered those doubts.
There, Minor’s done. They distinguished between natural born citizens and foreigners. Most people would reason that since Minor distinguished between natural born and foreigners and Wong wasn’t a foreigner, he must be natural born. Not Mario. He creates a new class not imagined by Minor.
Takes a certain amount of chutzpah to try to engraft onto the Constitution whole new classifications never before seen or imagined.
It borders on insanity to keep insisting that Minor imagines this category of citizen.
No standing, unless you can argue that Mario’s beating of the dead horse is on your property (or that the carcass is your property) or that it disturbs the quiet enjoyment of your property.
Greg,
The Framers were not in a vacuum. But clearly Rawle was.
Just saying something doesn’t make it so.
Federal District Judge Land.
Is this Internet domain my property? [Did that legal question ever get answered?] If so, then he clearly disturbs my quiet enjoyment of this property, and the carcass is clearly still here.
Dr. Conspiracy,
There is poetic beauty in the word “carcass.”
Dear Mario,
You wrote
There is poetic beauty in the word “carcass.”
That’s a reassuringly evasive response; a grotesque fascination with decaying flesh celebrated as beautiful poetry, coming from one whose own scribing epitomizes ugliness in legal pro’s. (sic)Sick!(sic)
Benji Franklin
Mario ApuzzO: There is poetic beauty in the word “carcass.”
Perhaps you are a fan of Andrei Codrescu?
If you will play nice, I will let you have your “O” back.
And you clearly haven’t read Rawle, or Tucker, or Kent, or Story.
Can’t let the truth cloud your opinion, can you?
Knowledge can be dangerous…