further from constitution.com: ’Sheriff on Obama: “I Don’t Care Where He’s From, We Are Looking At A Forged Document, Period!” - Tim Brown - September 24
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Which is why we need to amend the Constitution. NOBODY running for an elected office should be able to seal their records. They should have to provide IRREFUTABLE, HARD COPY proof of eligibility, no scanned virtual documents. They need to provide prints that match their birth certificate, DNA, and if they don't adhere to these rules, their name doesn't go on the ballot. And we need to determine once and for all what constitutes a NATURAL BORN CITIZEN.
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- "And we need to determine once and for all what constitutes a NATURAL BORN CITIZEN." We already know the answer to that, Patricia. See my comment above, in response to FreedomFray.
You are right, of course. We need to acknowledge the truth of the matter, that we don't ever make this mistake again.
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- kibitzer,
- I agree with all your comment to FreedomFray except for the part about knowing what the framers meant by Natural Born Citizen. We do not know absolutely because it is not defined in the Constitution & since the Constitution is the law, we can't just "assume" what they meant because "The Law of Nations" (written by a Frenchman of all things - joking) recites the definition of Natural Born Citizen that was used at that time. Maybe they didn't deem it necessary or maybe they left it undefined intentionally.
I wish they HAD specifically defined it in the Constitution because I think the president should be the child of two natural born citizen parents (even if the child happens to be born on foreign soil for some reason), but they didn't & if it isn't IN the Constitution, it doesn't mean squat! BUT, as Patricia suggested to "amend the Constitution" to clarify all the issues, in this day & age, that could be opening a big hairy can of poison worms!
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- kibitzer3 usmadgirl • a few seconds ago (September 25)
With all due respect, usmadgirl: They didn't have to define the term in the Constitution because a) the Constitution is not a dictionary, and b) they all KNEW what the term meant. And if any of them didn't know what the term meant - after all, it was taught in the universities of the day - Benjamin Franklin, sitting right there amongst them as a delegate to those self-same proceedings himself, who was known to have had 3 copies of the de Vattel tome, which he prized (and having donated one of them to the first Continental Congress, such was his admiration of the work for these nation-creators), and was their respected elder mentor, COULD HAVE TOLD THEM.
The issue is beyond clear: John Jay, another respected statesman of the day - and who, not so incidentally, became the first Chief Justice of the new U.S. Supreme Court, such was his opinions on such matters prized - wrote a letter (July 25, 1787) to G. Washington in his role as Chair of the Constitutional Convention proceedings in which he urged those men to require the occupant of the office of the president to be a "natural born citizen" ON THE VERY ISSUE of making sure that he did not have ANY DUAL OR OTHERWISE CONFLICTING LOYALTIES OR ALLEGIANCES OR INFLUENCES. Had SOLE ALLEGIANCE to the U.S.
And to drive the point home, this little bit of historical fact: Alexander Hamilton, in his role as a delegate to those self-same proceedings, made a proposal there that the president need only be, quote, "born a Citizen" - and his proposal was SPECIFICALLY TURNED DOWN, in favor of the more stringent nbc requirement, i.e., that the person needed to be born in the country of parents who were citizens thereof.
A case can be made that the citizen can be born in the country OR ITS EQUIVALENT - like an overseas military base or diplomatic mission. But the essentials of the term are clear, clear, CLEAR. And anybody who tries to tell you differently is a sophist - with ulterior motives.
As we have seen, and in spades, in our day.
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