The Lesson

‘Now, I know that the younger generations are being taught, via such techniques as the so-called New Math, that one plus one can equal three if you make a really good case for your conclusion.  But to come back to the realm of objective reality for a moment, let me make the case for the original intent of a contract’s terms, without the application of the shyster-lawyer technique - the relativist-thinking tactic - of calling it, and thinking of it as, ’a living document’.

‘I refer in the instance to the definition of the term - as codified in law, the law of the Constitution - of a, quote, ‘natural born’ citizen, as one of the eligibility requirements for the office of the presidency.  Now, what could the constitutional Framers - of this contract, between the States and the new federal government that they were creating - have meant by that term?  Well, that should be easy enough to discover: It would be in the historical record.  And in that record, we find the term defined in the definitive tome of the day regarding such matters: a highly detailed treatise, by one Emerich de Vattel, entitled ‘The Law of Nations, Or Principles of Natural Law’ - as taught in the universities of the day, and as known to be part of the understanding of said constitutional Framers, from various historical sources of information to that logical conclusion.1  That definition, and I quote verbatim, from the English translation, from its original in French:

“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.”  [emphases mine]2

‘There now.  That wasn’t so hard; was it?  From a plain reading of the text??  Without any  shenanigans involved???  No ‘penumbras,’ and such????…

‘In sum.

‘I don’t know where a lot of you got your notion of 'Truth' from, to live your lives by, that says 'there is no right nor wrong but thinking makes it so'.  But I live my life by simple capital-t Truth.  That keeps me from getting stuck in the thickets, the byways, of life.  And to use another analogy:

‘You made your bed; and you needed to lie in it, at least for awhile, for you to get - really get - that actions have consequences.  

‘And now, we can move on.  Because

‘it’s time to.

‘And thus endeth

‘The Lesson.’

—

footnotes:

1 One such: The letter from Founding Father Benjamin Franklin back to Swiss editor Charles W.F. Dumas, who had sent him three original-French copies of the book.  The letter, dated December 9, 1775, said in part:

     “It came to us in good season, when the circumstances of a rising State make it necessary to frequently consult the Law of Nations…(it) has been continually in the hands of the members of our Congress now sitting…” 

    

2 An excellent commentary on all this is at birthers.org/USC/Vattel - ‘Vattel’s Influence on the term a Natural Born Citizen’.  It goes into various confusions on the issue, regarding the difference between a ‘native’ and a ‘natural’ and between a ‘subject’ and a ‘citizen’, and English common law vs. American common law, aka Natural Law.*  But the bottom line is the same: A ‘natural born’ citizen, by its original definition, is a person born in the country (or its equivalent) of citizen parents thereof at the time the person was born.  (That’s what makes it ‘natural’.)  And any change in this constitutional eligibility requirement itself would have to be made by a constitutional amendment to the requirement.  It doesn’t matter how many permutations the term may go through, in later days, from the original intent of the term.  What matters is the eligibility requirement itself. 

     Some people need to stop playing games with the old shell-game trick.  It is unseemly.  So to speak.

     * "The common law of England is not the common law of these States." - George Mason, one of Virginia's delegates to the Constitutional Convention.