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Obama's Achilles heel - Natural Born Citizenship
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What is a Natural Born Citizen?
For well over a year now, we have been hearing this question in regards to Barack Obama. It’s a good question, and one that is relevant only when discussing the President, Vice President, and anyone else who may assume the Presidency in the line of succession. This the only time that such a distinction matters.
It will help in this very important discussion to understand the differing types of Citizenship that the United States recognizes and what defines them.
A Naturalized Citizen is one who has applied for and has qualified for American Citizenship. Someone applying for and being granted US Citizenship must meet the following qualifications according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services website.
To be eligible for Naturalization one must:
• Be at least 18 years old at the time of filing the Application for Naturalization, Form N-400
• Have been lawfully admitted to the United States
• Have resided as a permanent resident in the United States for at least 5 years or 3 years if you meet all eligibility requirements to file as a spouse of a U.S. citizen
• Have demonstrated continuous permanent residence
• Have demonstrated physical presence
• Have lived for 3 months in the USCIS district or state where the Application for Naturalization, Form N-400 is filed
• Demonstrate good moral character
• Show an attachment to the U.S. Constitution
• Be able to read, write, speak, and understand basic English
• Demonstrate a knowledge of U.S. civics (history and government)
• Take the oath of allegiance to the United States
The next type of citizen is that of a standard citizen. The USICS website describes a citizen thusly:
“A citizen of the United States is a native-born, foreign-born, or naturalized person who owes allegiance to the United States and who is entitled to its protection. In addition to the naturalization process, the United States recognizes the U.S. citizenship of individuals according to two fundamental principles: jus soli, or right of birthplace, and jus sanguinis, or right of blood (deriving citizenship through parent’s citizenship).
Whether someone born outside the U.S. to a U.S. citizen parent is a U.S. citizen depends on the law in effect when the person was born. These laws have changed over the years, but usually require a combination of at least one parent being a U.S. citizen when the child was born and having lived in the U.S. or its possessions for a period of time”
This passage from the USICS is important for two reasons. First, it makes the distinction clear that the United States uses two different means by which it derives citizenship; one by blood, and the other by place of birth. Second, it makes clear that citizenship is completely dependent on that laws that were in effect at the time a person was born. Today’s laws do not in any way effect or change the citizenship standing of a person who was born in 1961. This statement tells us that it is a person’s standing at the time of his or her birth that is the determining instant which dictates that person’s citizenship status. It is only at birth or upon naturalization that a person can become an American Citizen. Barack Obama’s citizenship status was determined at his birth just as with all American citizens who were born inside the territory of the United States.
This brings us to the third type of citizenship, the one most hotly debated, and the one least understood. Because of the infrequency of its relevance, few people will ever be in the position to become President, it simply doesn’t come up very often.
What is a Natural Born Citizen?
The following quotes are the research work of Ken Dunbar. He deserves credit for doing the legwork and hours of research that made it possible to print the quotations that follow.
Ҥ 212. Citizens and natives.
The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. As the society cannot exist and perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights. The society is supposed to desire this, in consequence of what it owes to its own preservation; and it is presumed, as matter of course, that each citizen, on entering into society, reserves to his children the right of becoming members of it. The country of the fathers is therefore that of the children; and these become true citizens merely by their tacit consent. We shall soon see whether, on their coming to the years of discretion, they may renounce their right, and what they owe to the society in which they were born. I say, that, in order to be of the country, it is necessary that a person be born of a father who is a citizen; for, if he is born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country.
-Emer Vattel (English language version, “Law of Nations” (1797) Book I, c.19, § 212
http://www.constitution.org/vattel/vattel.htm
http://home.earthlink.net/~dybel/Documents/LawOfNations,Vattel.htm#I-%C2%A7212
Who is Emer Vattel? He wrote the book "Law of Nations" which was originally published in France in 1758. Vattels work would be distributed by none other than Benjamin Franklin who received it from Charles William Frederic Dumas. History gives us this information in a letter dated 9 December, 1775
“ I am much obliged by the kind present you have made us of your edition of Vattel. It came to us in good season, when the circumstances of a rising state make it necessary frequently to consult the law of nations. Accordingly that copy, which I kept, (after depositing one in our own public library here, and sending the other to the College of Massachusetts Bay, as you directed,) has been continually in the hands of the members of our Congress, now sitting, who are much pleased with your notes and preface, and have entertained a high and just esteem for their author. Your manuscript "Idee sur le Gouvernement et la Royaute" is also well relished, and may, in time, have its effect. I thank you, likewise, for the other smaller pieces, which accompanied Vattel. "Le court Expose de ce qui s'est passe entre la Cour Britannique et les Colonies," bc. being a very concise and clear statement of facts, will be reprinted here for the use of our new friends in Canada. The translations of the proceedings of our Congress are very acceptable. I send you herewith what of them has been farther published here, together with a few newspapers, containing accounts of some of the successes Providence has favored us with. We are threatened from England with a very powerful force, to come next year against us.(2) We are making all the provision in our power here to oppose that force, and we hope we shall be able to defend ourselves. But, as the events of war are always uncertain, possibly, after another campaign, we may find it necessary to ask the aid of some foreign power.
…With sincere and great esteem and respect, I am, Sir, &c. B. Franklin.”
Benjamin Franklin himself read the works of Vattel, and there are numerous areas of our own constitution and founding documents that bear striking similarity to that work.
The constitution did not evolve from darkness. It was deliberately created, using the best knowledge and works of not only the day, but of history. The “Law of Nations” was one of those works, and it is not the only one. The definition given us in this work is the one that was used by the framers when they made the distinction between a citizen and a Natural Born Citizen. Furthermore, Vattel’s work has been cited numerous times in American History.
From the research of Ken Dunbar:
"The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives or indigenes are those born in the country of parents who are citizens. Society not being able to subsist and to perpetuate itself but by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights." -US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall in The Venus (1812)
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"By this same writer it is also said: 'The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority; they equally participate in its advantages. The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. As society [60 U.S. 393, 477] cannot perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their parents, and succeed to all their rights.' Again: 'I say, to be of the country, it is necessary to be born of a person who is a citizen; for if he be born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country.” – Associate Justice Peter Daniel in Scott v Sanford ( 1857 )
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I find no fault with the introductory clause [S 61 Bill], which is simply declaratory of what is written in the Constitution, that every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen - ---Rep. John Bingham, framer of the 14th Amendment, before The US House of Representatives ((Cong. Globe, 39th, 1st Sess., 1291, March 9, 1866 )********
The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first.
-Chief Justice Morrison Remick Waite in Minor v. Happersett (1875)
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In Minor v. Happersett, Chief Justice Waite, when construing, in behalf of the court, the very provision of the fourteenth amendment now in question, said: 'The constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that.' And he proceeded to resort to the common law as an aid in the construction of this provision.”
[…]“At common law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country, of [169 U.S. 649, 680] parents who were its citizens, became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners.” .-Associate Justice Horace Grey, in US v Wong Kim Ark (1898)
In all these quotes, two things are of importance: the use of the word Parents – plural meaning more than one, and the concept that the citizenship conditions of children follow from that of their parents. These historical references are clear in their meaning. In order to be a Natural Born Citizen, one must have parents - two parents, that are citizens of the Nation, and must be born on the soil of the Nation. It does not get any simpler than this.
Barack Hussein Obama Jr. is the son of a British subject. Barack Hussein Obama Sr. was never an American, never applied to be, and never intended to be. His son’s condition at the moment of his birth cannot be changed, altered, redacted, retroactive or in any way changed.
Barack Hussein Obama Jr. is not a Natural Born Citizen because he does not have two parents who were citizens of the United States of America.
-This article would not be possible without the internet research of Ken Dunbar. Ken does a Radio program once a week at Texasbroadcasting.net “The Liberty Pole” http://thelibertypole.ning.com/forum His program is Thursday Nights from 6 to 8pm Central.
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