The Founders DID indeed know what common law said natural born subject or citizen meant… and it wasn’t birth on English soil to two citizen parents.

More from Wong Kim Ark: “It thus clearly appears that, by the law of England for the last three centuries, beginning before the settlement of this country and continuing to the present day, aliens, while residing in the dominions possessed by the Crown of England, were within the allegiance, the obedience, the faith or loyalty, the protection, the power, the jurisdiction of the English Sovereign, and therefore every child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject unless the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign State or of an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was born.”

“The same rule was in force in all the English Colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the Constitution as originally established.”

“The English statute of 11 & 12 Will. III (1700). c. 6, entitled An act to enable His Majesty’s natural-born subjects to inherit the estate of their ancestors, either lineal or collateral, notwithstanding their father or mother were aliens…”

“…this court, speaking by Mr. Justice Story, held that the case must rest for its decision exclusively upon the principles of the common law, and treated it as unquestionable that, by that law, a child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject, quoting the statement of Lord Coke in Co.Lit. 8a, that,
‘if an alien cometh into England and hath issue two sons, these two sons are indigenae, subjects born, because they are born within the realm,’ and saying that such a child “was a native-born subject, according to the principles of the common law stated by this court in McCreery v. Somervlle, 9 Wheat. 354.”

From Wong Kim Ark v US: The [Fourteenth] 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. Every citizen or subject of another country, while domiciled here, is within the allegiance and the protection, and consequently subject to the jurisdiction, of the United States. His allegiance to the United States is direct and immediate, and, although but local and temporary, continuing only so long as he remains within our territory, is yet, in the words of Lord Coke in Calvin’s Case, 7 Rep. 6a, “strong enough to make a natural subject, for if he hath issue here, that issue is a natural-born subject;” and his child, as said by Mr. Binney in his essay before quoted, “if born in the country, is as much a citizen as the natural-born child of a citizen, and by operation of the same principle.” It can hardly be denied that an alien is completely subject to the political jurisdiction of the country in which he resides — seeing that, as said by Mr. Webster, when Secretary of State, in his Report to the President on Thrasher’s Case in 1851, and since repeated by this court, “independently of a residence with intention to continue such residence; independently of any domiciliation; independently of the taking of any oath of allegiance or of renouncing any former allegiance, it is well known that, by the public law, an alien, or a stranger [p694] born, for so long a time as he continues within the dominions of a foreign government, owes obedience to the laws of that government, and may be punished for treason, or other crimes, as a native-born subject might be, unless his case is varied by some treaty stipulations.”

Jurisdiction means that if an alien commits a crime here, he can be charged, tried, and imprisioned under our laws. Diplomats can’t, so aren’t under our jurisdiction. Visitors can, thus are under our jurisdiction. Allegience is the obligation that aliens follow our laws while they are here. Diplomats don’t have to, they do not owe our government allegiance. Visitors do.

Born in this country, regardless of parentage — natural born citizen. Unless you are born to diplomats, on a ship at sea, or in an invading army — the traditional set of people who don’t owe allegiance to this country as they are not under our jurisdiction.

Because they were only talking about the case of John McCain, who clearly was born outside the USA to parents who were citizens. That is ONE way to be a naturally born citizen. The other is to be born on US Soil regardless of parentage. If 2 parents were the only way to be a citizen, than birth place wouldn’t matter at all, and that is how natural born would have been described for centuries. But it isn’t.

First, when separating from England, the colonists agreed to be bound by one supreme law – the Constitution. That document is binding upon ALL American citizens and NO AMOUNT of change in public opinion can alter that – EXCEPT by amendment. And if the public wants the Constitution changed, then change it – but unless that happens, live with the document as CURRENTLY written.

Second, although NOT EXPRESSLY stated in the Constitution, it has become the province of the Supreme Court to state what the law is (Marbury v. Madison). When the Founding Fathers’ intent is UNCLEAR – the Supreme Court must look to English Common Law to determine their intent (Wong Kim Ark v. United States, with imbedded citations). To declare otherwise is to invalidate such landmark decisions as Gideon v. Wainwright and Miranda v. Arizona (where the Supreme Court “interpreted” the Constitution in these cases).

Third, when CAREFULLY reading the Common Law (Blackstone) and the English cases cited by the Wong Kim Ark decision, it is clear that a child born in England of an alien is a natural born subject – EXCEPT in rare circumstances. One of those circumstances is when the child is also considered a subject of another sovreign. In this case, the child is considered a “Denizen” – having MOST of the rights of a natural born subject, EXCEPT that of holding high office.

Fourth, in the Wong Kim Ark decision, Justice Gray “liberally” mis-stated what Common Law actually said about natural born citizenship – stating that ALL children born to aliens in England were natural born subjects. He conveniently left out the caveats in Common Law that applied when the child’s alien father owed an additional allegiance to another sovreign. Perhaps he was giving his own political opinion – but it had NO bearing on the outcome of the Ark decision, since it was decided on the basis of the 14th Amendment and the 14th Amendment ONLY. The 14th Amendment ONLY declares that ALL children born within the jurisdiction of the United States are citizens – NO MENTION of natural born citizenship.

Fifth, the Founding Fathers did not elucidate the term “natural born citizen” in specific terms since it was universally accepted at the time as to what it meant. The Founding Fathers had their legal training in Common Law and IF they had wanted to stray from historical definitions in the Constitution – they WOULD have EXPRESSLY stated so. To them, a natural born citizen was born under the jurisdiction of the sovreign AND owed a single, distinct loyalty to that sovreign and that sovreign ONLY. In the most general terms, it meant a child born on English soil to two English subjects. In the case of a child born to aliens, it meant being born on English soil to aliens who owed NO allegiance to a different sovreign and that sovreign DID NOT confer citizenship (subjectship?) to the child.

***

What needs to happen now is that the Supreme Court should emphatically state what a natural born citizen is (or is not). Absent that, a constitutional amendment EXPRESSLY defining the term would be in order, so that this mess NEVER happens again …

You are the one that brought up the McCain “hearing” on April 2, 2008. So why didn’t you mention the fact that Chertoff and Leahy both agreed that it takes citizen parentS to be considered a natural born citizen?

Chairman LEAHY. We will come back to that. I would mention
one other thing, if I might, Senator Specter. Let me just ask this:
I believe—and we have had some question in this Committee to
have a special law passed declaring that Senator McCain, who was
born in the Panama Canal Zone, that he meets the constitutional
requirement to be President. I fully believe he does. I have never
had any question in my mind that he meets our constitutional requirement.
You are a former Federal judge. You are the head of the
agency that executes Federal immigration law. Do you have any
doubt in your mind—I mean, I have none in mine. Do you have any
doubt in your mind that he is constitutionally eligible to become
President?
Secretary CHERTOFF. My assumption and my understanding is
that if you are born of American parents, you are naturally a natural-
born American citizen.
Chairman LEAHY. That is mine, too. Thank you.

Total Baloney. The document that is on line is the same one that Obama showed to FactCheck AND Polifact, and the facts on the posted document were confirmed twice by the authorities in Hawaii. Moreover, there are birth notices in the newspapers on the weekend after Obama was born. These notices were NOT advertisements but were instead official notices of births sent out by the government of Hawaii. The Hawaii government sent out the notices for births IN Hawaii, and not for births outside of Hawaii. And. by the way, it was not possible to register a foreign birth in Hawaii when Obama was born in 1961. That was not allowed until 1982.

So, there is an official birth certificate, whose facts were confirmed by two officials in Hawaii, that he was born in Hawaii.

He provided his birth certificate, the official birth certificate of Hawaii. (http://www.starbulletin.com/columnists/kokualine/20090606_kokua_line.html)

Obama put it on his web site, and showed the physical document to both Polifact and Factcheck. So, he has shown the physical document.

The document that he has shown is the OFFICIAL birth certificate of Hawaii. It is accepted by ALL the departments in Hawaii as proof of birth in Hawaii (Yes, including DHHL. I checked, they prefer the original, which some people have, but they accept the Certification as proof of birth in Hawaii) The US State Department and US Military also accept the Certification as proof of birth in Hawaii.

The facts on the Obama birth certificate, that he was born in Hawaii in 1961, were confirmed by the two officials of the Hawaii government who looked into his file. (http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/11/obama_hawaaianborn_citizen_for.html)

The Wall Street Journal also notes that it is the official document. It said: “Further, if Congress were to pass the so-called birther bill, Obama would be able to comply easily. The bill would require presidential campaigns to submit “a copy of the candidate’s birth certificate” to the Federal Election Commission. The certificate Obama has released publicly would meet this requirement.”

Many states now issue only short-form birth certificates. They are legal documents, and when they have the raised seal and signature as required by the US State Department, they are accepted by the State Department. (Obama’s physical document has the seal and signature, as shown in FactCheck’s detailed photograph).

This is what the Wall Street Journal concludes: “Obama has already provided a legal birth certificate demonstrating that he was born in Hawaii. No one has produced any serious evidence to the contrary. Absent such evidence, it is unreasonable to deny that Obama has met the burden of proof. We know that he was born in Honolulu as surely as we know that Bill Clinton was born in Hope, Ark., or George W. Bush in New Haven, Conn.”

Moreover, There is no proof that Obama was born in Kenya. There is excellent proof, in the official legal documents, confirmed by authorities, that he was born in Hawaii.

Neither his Kenyan grandmother, nor anyone else, ever said that he was born in Kenya. His Kenyan grandmother actually said that he was born in Hawaii. This can be clearly heard if you listen to the complete recording of the tape, which is on Berg’s site. The complete recording includes a question asking “Whereabouts was he born?” And her answer was: “America, Hawaii.”

Here is the complete recording on Berg’s site. Be sure to listen for at least five minutes until the question is asked. (http://obamacrimes.com/Telephone_Interview_with_Sarah_Hussein_Obama_10-16-08.mp3)

If it is too difficult to listen to the complete tape, here is a transcript (http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/obamatranscriptlulu109.pdf).

There have been NO official documents from Kenya (numerous forgeries, however) that say that Obama was born in Kenya, and the only organization to have claimed that there are documents “sealed” in Kenya is WND. Its reports have not been confirmed by anyone. (And it would be easy to confirm because all you have to do is to find out if there are files which area sealed). There are hundreds of journalists in Kenya, and the fact that there were sealed files would be news.

Moreover, IF a child had been born in Kenya and subsequently came to the USA, there would be US documents showing that the trip took place. That is because if a child were born in Kenya, she or he would have to have either a US visa on a British passport or be issued its own US passport while in Kenya. IF either of those took place, there would still be US records in the US embassy in Kenya and in the US State Department in Washington, and they would have been found by now, and they have NOT been found.

All the allegations of Obama’s birth abroad were checked out by the McCain campaign, and they found that there were no facts. No facts at all. (http://washingtonindependent.com/52474/mccain-campaign-investigated-dismissed-obama-citizenship-rumors)

So, that narrows it down to being born in the U.S. That’s the only shot he has, if that confers natural born citizenship. Unfortunately, that means that Osama Bin Laden’s child (if the mother of that child snuck through the Mexico border and she had the child here)could theroetically be president some day. Maybe that’s okay. I don’t know, but we will assume for the time being that being born on U.S. soil is the only requirement for natural born.

Unfortunately, we may never know if Obama was really born in the US, because Obama doesn’t want anyone seeing the documentation. In Hawai’i, they will not confirm if the document available on line is real. They just tell us that O is a natural born citizen, but they won’t tell us what documents they have (besides Pelosi’s cerification) that shows that. O won’t share kindergarten records (probably a BC in there) or college records (foreign student aid, etc.) O won’t even let me request my own copy of the short form of the BC that is already published on-line. This is a major problem since Hawaii had at least THREE different ways at the time to get a Hawaii birth certificate for a foreign born child.

So the “transparent” president won’t share the long form version of the BC. Yes, I know that maybe that’s more extreme than what we usually require, but maybe there was no reason to doubt any other sitting president (besides Chester Arthur). Hawai’i has seemed to hint that they have birth records (plural) which means that there was probably an adoption in there, which may change your birth place by court order. So why is it so hard to come up with the document? Can someone tell me? I don’t think that there is any proof in either case because no one is granted access to the documents, so I don’t know. I would say that O was PROBABLY born in Hawaii, and I thought that was the case, until he started fighting all the court cases rather than just produce the document. Just sounds fishy to me…

I think your second point and all of this citizens debate only underlines the need for constitutional solution for the matter. Intuitively, I too am uncomfortable with idea of a dual citizen being President. We can imagine all sorts of life or death scenarios where this could be a problem. It is not impossible that the founder’s might have seen things this way as well. I don’t like the idea of the courts or the congress deciding the matter exclusively. The states should have a say.

Personally, I think there should be an amendment to the constitution to end the matter. If substantive debate such as we are having now was going on more publicly, I think the citizenry could come to a consensus on the matter rather quickly. It is a rather simple question when you subtract out all of the historical interpretation. Then we use the amendment process to enact our solution as law. As regards Obama the amendment could reflect that he gets a pass or not. If not then he should step down.

I’m always happy to provide help.

As for your first question, I’d first like to point out that I didn’t claim that the definition of “natural born citizen” has been settled by the courts. The courts haven’t settled it because they haven’t been faced with a legitimate, justiciable dispute that needed a definition. And I even admitted above that there may be some circumstances where natural-born citizenship can be legitimately disputed; such a dispute might one day lead to a court case.

However, the judgment of two centuries of American political practice, and the consensus opinion of the overwhelming majority of the American legal community, is that birth on U.S. soil makes you a natural-born citizen. That much is accepted, and we can be assured that no court would contravene it. As such, Obama is a natural born citizen.

As for your second concern, apart from the fact that the legislative intent of one vote-caster is not at all binding, to suggest that a child born on U.S. soil, to a U.S. citizen, might not be a “natural born” U.S. citizen is to put foreign countries in control of who can and cannot become President. Not all countries grant citizenship to the children of citizens living abroad. What if Obama’s father had been from, say, Zamunda, and did not inherit a foreign citizenship. He would have been a U.S. citizen, and only a U.S. citizen. No foreign “allegiance.” A natural-born citizen. And yet the only difference between the scenarios is the nature of a foreign country’s citizenship law. The foreign country might grant automatic citizenship to the children of its natives even if the expatriate has changed his own citizenship; what of his child?

What if Britain, tomorrow, decided to declare that all persons born in America were also British citizens? Every American has dual citizenship and dual allegiance from birth. Is no one then a natural-born citizen?

Re: ““Not owing allegiance to anybody else.” or in the words of the primary author Sen. Jacob Howard “must be understood to mean absolute and complete jurisdiction, such as the United States had over its citizens before the adoption of this amendment.”

That is because by US law when anyone (except a foreign diplomat) is born in the USA she or he is under the absolute and complete jurisdiction of the USA. The only exceptions are foreign diplomats and the comment was made to show that the children of diplomats are excluded. (Some also held at the time that Indians born on reservations were not considered Natural Born because the tribes still had a measure of sovereignty. However, there was disagreement over whether Indians born on reservations were not Natural Born or whether they were simply not citizens.)

The common definition of Natural Born at the time that the Constitution was written was simply citizenship at birth. It stemmed from the British term “Natural Born Subject” which meant born in the British realm regardless of the number of parents who were British (even travelers passing through could give birth in England and the child would be considered British). The only exceptions were the children of diplomats. In the American colonies the same applied (with perhaps the exception of Indians). Blacks were considered Native Born, but they were not considered citizens in most states.

Over the years there have been some changes in the legal meaning of Natural Born. There have been statutes extending the meaning to include the children of two children when they are born abroad. There is some debate as to whether these statutes apply to the Presidential definition. But the extensions to the original definition do not, and Constitutionally cannot, change the original definition, which was simply birth in the country.

Where is the proof that the original meaning of Natural Born is simply birth in the country? Well, we all know that there are two kinds of citizens, citizens at birth and naturalized citizens. But what is the source of the word Naturalize? It comes from Natural Born. A naturalized citizen is made like a Natural Born citizen.

The first example I’ll give is from the first Constitution of the State of New York, in 1777, which was written mainly by John Jay. It reads: “Every foreigner of good character, who comes to settle in the State, having first taken an oath of affirmation or allegiance to the same, may purchase or by other means acquire, hold and transfer land or other real estate, and after one year’s residence, shall be deemed a free denizen thereof, and entitled to all the rights of a natural born subject of this state, except that he shall not be capable of being elected a representative until after two years residence.”

This is a kind of naturalization provision. It says that if a foreigner takes an oath and resides in the state the specified time she or he is entitled to all the rights of a Natural Born Subject. There are some who hold that the word “subject” changes the meaning of Natural Born in some way. But it doesn’t. The clear meaning of Natural Born is the same for Natural Born Citizen and Natural Born subject, and it simply means someone who is a citizen at birth.

In 1776 or 1777 a committee of the Continental Congress, with Thomas Jefferson as a member, wrote to the US Ambassadors abroad, including John Adams and Benjamin Franklin that the congress had: “Resolved, that it is inconsistent with the interests of the United States to appoint anyone, not a natural born citizen thereof, to the office of minister, charge d-affairs…..”http://books.google.com/books?id=l1gpkmF4YPgC&pg=PA105&dq=%22good+character+who+comes+to+settle+in+this+state,+having+first+taken+an+oath+or+affirmation+of+allegiance+to+the+same,+may+purchase,+or+by+other+just+means+acquire,+hold,+and+transfer+land+or+other+real+estate%22#v=onepage&q=%22natural%20born%22&f=false

In this resolution and the letter Congress was simply telling the ambassadors that they could not appoint ministers who were not born in the USA. There is nothing in the context of the words that indicates that it means anything other than a citizen who was born in the USA. If the Congress had wanted to say that a Natural Born citizen required two US parents or could not be a dual national, it would have been easy to insert those terms. But the letter assumes that the diplomats who read it were familiar with the meaning of Natural Born. Where was the common meaning of Natural Born found? In the common law and the citizenship laws of the colonies at the time, and it meant a person who was a citizen at birth.