What is a natural-born citizen and does Obama qualify? by Don Goins
(libertarian)
Friday, January 28, 2011
Is President Obama a citizen? Just when you thought the nation had moved beyond this issue, events over the past few weeks have energized the so-called Birther movement. For those readers who have just arrived to our small, blue planet, the Birthers is a section of citizens that, despite overwhelming evidence, believe that President Obama is not a citizen of the United States and therefore not eligible to hold that office.
In the past few weeks the pot has been stirred again. First, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a case that challenged Obama's eligibility. Then GOP leaders John Boehner and Eric Cantor have both publicly declared this month that the President meets the qualifications. Finally, newly elected governor of Hawaii Neil Abercrombie's first task was to pull up the Obama's original birth certificate and end the debate once and for all. Unfortunately, state law barred him from doing so and a new wave of controversy ignited.
Within the Birther movement, there seems to be two factions. One side claims Obama was born in Keyna, therefore not a citizen. The other side believes he was born in Hawaii, but because his father was not a citizen (born in Keyna under British rule) that disqualifies Obama because he is not a natural-born citizen. Since I don't care to tackle the "born in Kenya" issue, let's examine the natural-born side.
The main root of the Birther's claim on this comes from Article II, Section 1, Clause V of the Constitution. It states:
No Person except a natural-born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
The phase "natural-born Citizen" is the part that is tripping everyone up. There is no definition of natural-born given and the term does not appear anywhere else in the document. To explore this, one must travel down a winding road of history and legal precedent.
The Founding Fathers intent for including this eligibility requirement is fairly clear. They did not want to have a president, who is also the Commander-in-Chief of the military, to have conflicting loyalties. The records of the Constitutional Convention offer no clue why the phase natural-born was included. The Committee on Detail of the Convention, which had been assigned to define the eligibility requirements for the president, originally stated that the president must be a citizen. Yet in the final draft natural-born was added without comment or debate.
This lack of discussion seems to indicate that the Founders understood what it meant, but it leaves us here 200 plus years later scratching our heads.
Since the majority of our Constitution was based on English law, it might be possible to infer a meaning there. English law regarding citizenship varied through the centuries. At the time of the Constitutional Convention, English law permitted natural-born citizens to hold public office but also offers no definition of the term.
To compound this issue, there was no citizenship clause in the Articles of Confederation. Each state determined its own requirements.
Prior to the Constitutional Convention, Alexander Hamilton proposed that "No person shall be eligible to the office of President of the United States unless he be now a Citizen of one of the States, or hereafter be born a Citizen of the United States." This was echoed a month later in a letter to George Washington from John Jay in which he said "and to declare expressly that the Command in chief of the American army shall not be given to, nor devolve on, any but a natural-born Citizen."
Jay amplified Hamilton's remarks by adding the modifier natural, but there is no explanation of why he did that.
So this leaves us with a dilemma. To be considered natural-born, is it enough to have been born on U.S. soil? Or do both your parents have to be citizens? How about just one parent? Can you be president if you were born aboard to U.S. citizens?
The case against Mr. Obama is not the first time in history this issue has come up. When Barry Goldwater ran for president in 1964, his eligibility was questioned. Goldwater was born in Arizona when it was still a territory. John McCain also faced scrutiny in 2008 because he was born in Panama to U.S. parents. In each case the issue of natural-born went unresolved.
The closest the Constitution comes to settling this dispute is in the 14th Amendment which states:
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside"
The defining moment for this clause in the Constitution came in the case of United States v Wong Kim Ark. In Ark, the Supreme Court upheld the 14th Amendment by ruling that Ark was a citizen because he was born here, regardless of the citizenship of his parents. As I stated above, the 14th Amendment comes close, but not all the way. While it defines an ordinary citizen, it fails to clarify the qualification to be president. So for now, the debate will go on
While this may not answer the question of what a natural-born citizen is, there is something very important to consider. When it came time to define the chief executive of the Republic, the Founders were breaking new ground. They could draw upon the legislatures and courts of Europe as a model for those branches, but a president? This was a radical concept. Instead of having a King or Queen, whose authority was handed down from God, these men were attempting to create a leader that was selected by the people. Despite this small glitch, I think they did a pretty good job.
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"4. The plaintiff in error being of legeance to the crown of England, his child, though born in the United States during its father's temporary residence therein,-twenty-two months and twenty days,-notwithstanding its mother be an American citizen, is not a citizen of the United States. It is incapacitated by its infancy from making any present election, follows the legeance of its father, partus sequitur patrem, and is a British subject. The father being domiciled and resident within the dominions of her Britannic Majesty, such is also the proper and rightful domicil of his wife and child, and he has a legal right to remove them thither. The child being detained from the father, its natural guardian and protector, without authority of law, the writ of habeas corpus ad subjiciendum is his appropriate legal remedy for its restoration to him from its present illegal detention and restraint; Constitution United States, art. 3, 2; Judiciary Act, 1789, 11; Inglis v. Trustees Sail. Snug Harb., 3 Pet., 99; 7 Anne, cap. 5; 4 Geo. 3, cap. 21; Warrender v. Warrender, 2 Cl. & F., 523; Story Confl. L., 30, 36, 43, 74, 160; Shelf. Marriage, Ferg., 397, 398."
Posted By: borderraven
Date: February 8, 2011 09:36:34 AM
37th Congress 2nd Session House of Representatives 1862
JOHN BINGHAM
Who are natural born citizens?
All persons born within the Republic, OF PARENTS OWING ALLEGIANCE TO NO OTHER SOVEREIGNTY, ARE NATURAL BORN CITIZENS. Gentlemen can find no exception to this statement touching natural born citizens except what is said in the Constitution in relation to Indians The reason that exception was made in the Constitution is apparent to everybody ...
Posted By: borderraven
Date: February 8, 2011 09:43:36 AM
LURIA v. U S, 231 U.S. 9 (1913)
It has been said that citizenship carries with it all of the rights and prerogatives of citizenship obtained by birth in this country 'save that of eligibility to the Presidency.' Luria v. United States, 231 U.S. 9, 22 , 34 S.Ct. 10, 13. http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=231&invol=9#22
