This is something that I have been thinking about recently. I have been reading a lot about the Constitution, and natural law, and I have come to the conclusion that Barack Obama is not a natural-born citizen according to the Constitution and does not meet the requirements for being President.
I do not believe in wacko birther theories. I am not questioning whether Obama was born in the US, and I do not believe in any kooky birth certificate conspiracy theories. The folks who are into those things need to get off the Internet and get a real life. (Sorry, but I have to call it like I see it.)
Rather, this is an issue of the wise law in the Constitution requiring that the President be a “natural-born citizen,” and Barack Obama clearly is not.
The confusion has been between the civil law understanding of what a “natural-born citizen” is and the Constitutional law understanding of “natural-born citizen.”
I read Vattel’s The Law of Nations about a week ago and considered it in light of the US Constitution. The theories of law Vattel wrote about were a primary influence on the Declaration of Independence. ”The Law of Nations” in 1776 meant basically the same thing as “the Laws of Nature.” Today we use the phrase “natural law” to mean the same thing.
To any reasonable person reading The Law of Nations it is obvious that the Constitution is based on principles of the Laws of Nations, or at least the principles that the Laws of Nations derives from. The US Constitution was new and unique at the time it was written. It created a new form of government. It did not borrow heavily from any other government that I am aware of. If the US Constitution was based on the English form of government, we would have a Monarchy instead of a Democratic Republic. The Founders intended to create a new form of government based on new enlightened ideals of the day. They used ideals such as natural law to build the new Constitution upon.
The US Constitution was not based on English common law, rather, it was based on principles of natural law. Our civil law derives primarily from English common law. We are concerned with two different kinds of law in this discussion, Constitutional law, and civil law. (And there are other groupings of laws such as statutory, administrative law, etc., but those don’t concern us here.)
According to civil law a person is a natural-born citizen of the nation they are born in. When considering whether someone is a natural-born citizen, civil law is concerned with borders and which nation controls the land within the border. Obama was born in Hawaii, USA. By civil law, he is a US citizen. In civil legal matters he is a natural-born citizen of the Unites States.
According to natural law a person is a natural-born citizen of the nation of their parents. The child inherits their citizenship from their parents. Our parentage determines where our culture and loyalties come from. If one parent is not a citizen, the person is not a natural-born citizen of either parent’s nation because the person’s loyalties are divided. The person is a half citizen of the nations of each parent. By natural law, Obama is not a natural-born citizen of the United States. One of his parents, his father, was a British subject.
The natural law-based US Constitution requires that the President be a “natural-born citizen.” Obama’s election was based on the mistaken opinion that he met the requirement of being a natural-born citizen. The mistake was caused by the confusion between the civil law and the Constitutional law understandings of what a natural-born citizen is.
Unfortunately for all of us, Obama is not a natural-born citizen because the Constitution is based on natural law, not on English common law.
The Constitution requires that the President be a natural-born citizen because of concerns of national loyalty. The Founders in their wisdom knew that the President must of necessity be as free of political intrigues and be as loyal to the nation as possible. As a natural principle, human loyalties come from human relationships, not from the piece of dirt we happened to be born over. When we consider where someone’s loyalties lie, we look at their human relationships, not the lines in the dirt surrounding the spot where they were born.
The Founders were not fools. To the contrary they were geniuses and well read. They were familiar with both English common law and natural law. They understood those things well when they wrote the Constitution.
The Founders understood the effect that having a parent who is a citizen of a foreign nation can have on one’s loyalties to one’s own nation. They understood how people tend to adopt foreign ideas from foreign parents and then bring those ideas into government, and they intended to prevent that from happening by requiring that the President be a natural-born citizen. We see their fears coming to light today in Barack Obama.
The Fourteenth Amendment defines citizenship. It states that all persons born in the jurisdiction of the United States are citizens. This does not invalidate the intent of the Founders to require the President be a natural-born citizen according to natural law. Reason and common sense must be applied. Did the writers of the Fourteenth Amendment intend to relax the the requirements of loyalty of the President? Obviously they did not. They intended to give the rights of citizenship to the newly freed slaves after the Civil War. Since the intent of the authors of law is a primary consideration of law, the Fourteenth Amendment does not change the requirement that the President be a natural-born citizen.
Obama’s father was not a US citizen, so Obama cannot be a natural-born citizen of the United States by Constitutional law. As a citizen of the United States, I cannot in good conscience recognize Barack Obama as President of the United States of America.
All citizens, especially those who are sworn to defend the Constitution, are bound by duty to remove Barack Obama from his office.
Stumble it!
5 users commented in " Why Obama is not a “natural-born citizen” (and it isn’t because of another weird birther theory) "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackBecause Mr. Obama continues to thwart citizen efforts to validate his citizenship status through access to his vital, academic and passport records, we have the makings of a constitutional crisis.
Alledgedly dedicated to “transparency”, Obama also signed an executive order on his first day in office, protecting his personal and professional records from public view. What kind of game are he and the Democrat National Committee playing with the voting public in our country?
Alleged birth information placed online by his campaign committee and the DNC is now suspect because FactCheck.org pulled back from its finding because of Obama’s “dual Citizenship” -not yet clarified because Obama will not release his records. An unverified Kenyan COLB (long form original copy) has surfaced. Obama is holding the truth hostage – and his country as well.
Ambiguous and contradictory certification letters to the Secretaries of the fifty states prior to the election both affirming and not affirming his Constitutional qualifications as a “natural born citizen” is another reason for him to release all records.
It is somewhat unusual that a Professor of Constitutinal Law would not be aware of possible contradictions in sworn statements to the National Convention by the candidate, and then again by Nancy Pelosi, Chair of the National Convention. The double entendre implicit in these Certification Letters, and the failure to provide certifications in Democratic Primary Elections, goes beyond dissembling, and has the appearance of deliberate equivocation.
It is past time for Governor Lingle, of Hawaii, to place a person on trust and competence as administrator of the DOH Public Information Division.
Jaxfax
Re: “Unfortunately for all of us, Obama is not a natural-born citizen because the Constitution is based on natural law, not on English common law.”
All they had to say was “Two parents who are citizens,” but they didn’t. Or they could have said: “Natural Born as defined by Vattel,” but they didn’t.
Or, they could have said “we don’t mean the common law, we mean Natural Law,” but they didn’t.
The writers of the Constitution were not fools. They knew that if they used a term that was used in Common Law, lawyers and courts would interpret it the way it was defined in Common Law, which as you say has been the case.
But, not problem, they really did mean to follow the Common Law, or they would have said they didn’t. And, by the way, the only Natural Law philosopher (and there were many) to have said that a Natural citizen (“Natural Born” was not used in a Vattel translation until ten years after the Constitution was adopted) required two citizen parents was Vattel.
Ohe problem with making Natural Law theory really the law is that the natural law philosophers disagree. Another is that some of the things they recommend are not necessarily good. For example, Vattel recommended that countries establish their own state religions, and if people did not want to worship that way, they they could leave the country.
The Constitution bars foreigners from being president, and it bars naturalized citizens from being president, but it does not bar the children of foreigners from being president.
Natural law as I understand it is basically the product of an earlier form of social science. Philosophers tried to derive rules about human conduct between free individuals. Those rules would form what came to be know as the Laws of Nature. A derivative of that was the Law of Nations which concerned the rules of conduct between free states.
What were the Founders concerned with, the piece of dirt the candidate was born over, or the loyalty of the candidate?
The Founders created the Electoral College to ensure that the President was as free as possible from political intrigues. In Federalist 68 Hamilton writes:
“It was desirable that the sense of the people should operate in the choice of the person to whom so important a trust was to be confided. This end will be answered by committing the right of making it, not to any preestablished body, but to men chosen by the people for the special purpose, and at the particular conjuncture.
“It was equally desirable, that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice.”
And he continues:
“It was also peculiarly desirable to afford as little opportunity as possible to tumult and disorder. This evil was not least to be dreaded in the election of a magistrate, who was to have so important an agency in the administration of the government as the President of the United States. But the precautions which have been so happily concerted in the system under consideration, promise an effectual security against this mischief.”
And more:
“Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption. These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one querter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils. How could they better gratify this, than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union?”
These comments from Hamilton, who was quite familiar with Vattel, show beyond any reasonable doubt that the greatest concern of the Founders was to have a President as loyal and as free of political intrigues as possible, especially that the President be as free as possible from foreign “cabal, intrigue, and corruption.”
The only Presidential qualification that directly addresses these concerns of loyalty and is the qualification that the President be a natural-born citizen. The qualification must be understood and interpreted in light of the concerns voiced by Hamilton. What else in the Constitution makes loyalty a prerequisite of being President? The oath of office can be said falsely, but one cannot change the fact of one’s cultural heritage.
Re: “What were the Founders concerned with, the piece of dirt the candidate was born over, or the loyalty of the candidate?”
So, why didn’t they say it? When they wrote Natural Born, the law at the time held that Natural Born meant born in the country, and the law at the time said that if you were born in the country you legally had to be loyal to the country. (We still have that because if a person who is born in the USA fights against the USA, we consider her or him a traitor even if they have dual nationality.)
To be sure, being born in the USA does not really may you loyal. It only makes you required to be loyal legally. But that applies to citizens who have three generations of Americans as it does to those who have no parents who were Americans.
That being the case, who decides whether a person is loyal or not? Well, it cannot be the framers of the Constitution, they are not with us anymore. It has to be us, the voters in each election.
If the writers of the Constitution did not specifically forbid a child whose parents were foreigners from being president, that does not mean that we have to vote for that person. If we think she or he would be disloyal, we can vote against, but since the Constitution does not say, at least we have a choice.
Re: “The qualification must be understood and interpreted in light of the concerns voiced by Hamilton.”
Yes, he was talking about foreign governments. He certainly did not mention American-born children of foreigners.
Like the others who were leaders of the time, Hamilton used the words Natural Born to mean born in the country. Here is how Hamilton used Natural Born: “The position is founded on that clause of the British act of navigation, which forbids any but a natural-born or naturalized subject to exercise the occupation of a merchant or factor, in any of the British dominions in Asia, Africa, and America.” (
http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php&title=1382&search=%22natural+born%22&layout=html#a_1602437)
As you can see, there are two kinds of subject, natural born and naturalized. Natural born means citizenship at birth. Naturalized means a foreigner getting citizenship after birth. Natural Born does not mean two citizen parents.
In 1803, shortly after the Constitution was adopted, St. George Tucker wrote the first extended commentary on the Constitution after its adoption, and he said:
“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 the birth-right, became entitled to all the privileges of citizens; the second, were entitled to none, but such as were held out and given by the laws of the respective states prior to their emigration.”
He is using the term Natural Born to mean born in a state. There were only to categories, natural born, which he said meant born within the state, and aliens, who were born out of it. The meaning of Natural Born is clearly that of the common law, meaning born in a state.
Re the legal obligation to be loyal if you are born in the USA. Here is what Madison said in a speech before the House of Representatives in May of 1789, James Madison said:
It is an established maxim, that birth is a criterion of allegiance. Birth, however, derives its force sometimes from place, and sometimes from parentage; but, in general, place is the most certain criterion; it is what applies in the United States.”
In other words, the writers of the Constitution believed that the place of birth is the most certain criterion of allegiance.
This fits nicely with the fact that they did not say that the children of foreigners were not eligible. They did not say that the children of foreigners were not eligible because they did not believe that the children of foreigners, if born in the USA, would necessarily be any more disloyal than the children of citizens born in the USA.
Of course, if we, the voters, think that the children of foreigners are more likely to be disloyal than the children of citizens, we can vote that way, but the framers of the Constitution did not want to make that choice for us.
As a general rule, in this blog, I don’t get into long argumentations. It gets boring and frustrating after a while.
The strength of your arguments is that the Founders before and after the writing of the Constitution frequently used the the phrase “natural-born citizen” as intended by common law and that they left no paper trail indicating they intended otherwise. There are some other weaknesses in your arguments, but I won’t go into those because it will create too much long, boring, and frustrating argumentation.
My concern is that this needs to be argued by two knowledgeable people. If you only hear one knowledgeable person arguing a case, it would often appear that the one person is correct. When a second knowledgeable person arguing against, suddenly more information and more applied principles come into play.
If I only read the “pro” arguments on global warming given by knowledgeable persons I would believe that global warming is really happening. I read both the “pro” and “con” arguments given by knowledgeable persons on both sides, so I know global warming is a fraud. But it takes argumentation by knowledgeable people on both sides to understand the issue. There is always some truth on both sides.
If two unknowledgeable people arguing a case it turns into a blog commentary argument. I don’t want to go there. If there is a practical legal and historical case it will be argued by persons having a vested interest.
Being practical, I cannot believe that Barack Obama is loyal to the America I live in. He has been acting as a usurper since day one. The only country Barack Obama is loyal to is the America he wants to create.
To see what the country that he wants to create looks like, we need look no further than his czars. They are a bunch of leftist fringe kooks. No question there. They represent his style of government, and they represent his ideal of America.
I ask myself: Is Obama the person the Founders wanted this country to have as President, or is Obama the person they wanted keep from being President. Since he is obviously working so actively to destroy their great work, I can only conclude that wanted to keep him from being President. The Constitution must be interpreted in that light. To not do so is to accept its demise.
Obama needed to release his personal documentation; his birth certificate, passports, school records, etc. He needed to do so for the public to vet him.
The public, not civil servants, need to vet the President and test his loyalty to prevent political intrigues. That was certainly the intent of the Founders as Hamilton’s commentaries in the Federalist papers show.
He not only did not release his documentation, he went out of his way to hide it from us, and that fact alone damns Obama.
We cannot have a President who goes out of his way to intentionally hide the documentation that may show disloyalty. The production of the documentation is a customary expectation of Presidents. For this cause alone, he should be impeached immediately.
Vattel discussed what a natural-born citizen is as a matter of Natural Law, which is to say, as a matter of natural principles. As a matter of principle, the highest degree of loyalty is required of the President by necessity, not legalisms. Barack Obama, the Half-Blood Prince, is the proof of this. The President needs to be an American by birth, and by culture. Obama is living proof that the President must be born on US soil, and be the child of two American citizens.
Better still, he or she should be raised in the United States of America. Like Sarah Palin was.
[Update October 19, 2009:
I looked up the quote from Madison. The full text in context can be found here. The full quote is:
"It is an established maxim, that birth is a criterion of allegiance. Birth, however, derives its force sometimes from place, and sometimes from parentage; but, in general, place is the most certain criterion; it is what applies in the United States."
The word "allegiance" in this case means what country a person is a legal citizen of. It is not about loyalty to the nation. Loyalty to the country was the primary concern of the Founders when considering the eligibility of the President because of the high sensitivity of the office. So Madison's writing is not relevant.
However, note that Madison acknowledged that citizenship sometimes derives from place and sometimes from parentage. This is another example that makes it clear that the Founders were well aware of the Natural Law aspects citizenship.
Common law citizenship is about allegiance. Natural law citizenship is about loyalty. (Natural law citizenship is about the inheritance of culture. Being part of a culture naturally induces loyalty.) The Founders were primarily concerned with the loyalty of the President, so Natural Law citizenship must be the test of eligibility of the President. That is just common sense.
Based on the criteria of loyalty, Obama is not eligible to be President. His disloyalty is reflected in his refusal to reveal his public documents such as his birth certificate, passports, etc., and his various un-American acts since taking office.
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[This discussion is closed from further comment.]
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