PART 1 of 2
By J.B. Williams
December 11, 2014
NewsWithViews.com
Despite numerous efforts by our illustrious legal and academic professionals to use precedence and 1946 Rules of Procedure to alter or abolish the Natural Born Citizen requirement for the Oval Office found in Article II of the U.S. Constitution, using false history and tortured legal interpretations of 14th Amendment laws and cases pertaining to naturalized citizens, to avoid the need to amend in order to actually alter, the true meaning of the term Natural Born Citizen remains exactly as it was when our Founders chose the status as a requirement for high office in 1787.
In short, the term Natural Born Citizen is synonymous with the term “True Citizen.” Its point of origin is very well documented, as is the true meaning of the term and even the purpose should be obvious to every thinking individual with at least third grade reading and comprehension skills.
HOW IT CAME TO BE IN OUR CONSTITUTION
• Our early settlers had left England and other parts of Europe because those countries had already experienced a shift away from Natural Law concepts to Common Law concepts, wherein men were making laws that infringed upon the Natural Rights of the people, not the least of which was religious persecution.
• Our very first “founding document” by our earliest settlers was the Mayflower Compact. An effort to establish the New World on Natural Law concepts and the Natural Rights of a free people.
• By 1774, there was a growing division between members of the original 13 colonies and England due to Common Law statutes which again, were infringing upon the Natural Rights of settlers in the New World. It was about much more than a tax on Tea. This was the reason for our Founders split from British Common Law rule that resulted in the Revolutionary War to declare our independence from British rule and establish a new independent sovereign nation. The First Continental Congress was convened by the colonies to begin the separation with Britain and form a sovereign nation of our own, one that would be based upon Natural Law and Natural Rights.
• In April of 1775, the Revolutionary War had begun, as Britain attempted to force its Common Law statutes on the 13 colonies by sending troops to the New World, infringing upon the Natural Rights of our early citizens.
• The Second Continental Congress convened in 1775, to begin the work that would result in the writing of our Declaration of Independence, which Jefferson wrote in just 17 days, once commissioned with the task.
• In October of 1775, Benjamin Franklin received three (3) copies of The Law of Nations from Charles W.F. Dumas. Dumas was a "person of letters" aka a well-read man, he was a Swiss publisher. He was also a Swiss diplomat to America at the time, on behalf of the Swiss government.
• Franklin placed one of the three copies of The Law of Nations in the New York Library, kept a copy for himself and gave the third copy to Thomas Jefferson, as Jefferson was writing the Declaration of Independence.
• On December 9, 1775, Franklin wrote a letter of thanks to Dumas, stating as follows: “It came to us in good season, when the circumstances of a rising State make it necessary to frequently consult the Law of Nations.”
• On July 4, 1776, the 13 colonies ratified the Declaration of Independence, in which the preamble states as follows:
• “When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.” - You can easily see that the Founders were entirely focused on creating a new sovereign independent nation governed by The Laws of Nature, not British Common Law. Their understanding of Natural Law and Natural Rights came from The Law of Nations, which Dumas had sent to Franklin during the founding period of the nation.
• On July 25, 1787, Founder John Jay recommended in a letter to members of the Constitutional Convention that the term “Natural Born Citizen” (synonymous with True Citizen) be placed in Article II as a requirement for the Office of President and Commander-in-Chief, stating that only a Natural Born Citizen of the United States would be eligible for high office. Members of the Constitutional Convention agreed, adding the condition to the document that would be ratified less than two months later.
• In September of 1787, the ratified U.S. Constitution included a Natural Law term Natural Born Citizen, synonymous with the term “True Citizen,” as a condition for access to the Oval Office, in Article II. You can also find in Article I, the enumerated power of Congress to enforce The Law of Nations, which means enforce all Rights under Natural Law as defined in The Law of Nations.
• Since then, there has been no amendment altering the original definition of Natural Law or Natural Born Citizen, nor has there been any amendment removing the Natural Born Citizen requirement for the Oval Office in Article II.
• On eight separate occasions, between 2004 and 2008, members of Congress proposed altering or eliminating the Natural Born Citizen requirement in Article II, failing in each of those attempts.
• To legally alter anything in the Constitution, there must be an amendment to the Constitution and that amendment must be very specific in wording, as to what is being changed, altered or removed. The amendment itself must also be in perpetuation of the original context and intent of the Constitution, and cannot violate the original text or intent, or the measure itself becomes “unconstitutional.”
• As a result, the term Natural Born Citizen means exactly the same thing it meant when the Founders made it a condition for access to the Oval Office in September of 1787.
• Upon being elected the First President of the new United States in 1789 under the new constitution, on October 5, 1789, George Washington withdrew the one copy of The Law of Nations from the library where Franklin had placed it in 1775, as Washington explained in his notes, in order to learn the foundations upon which the new system of government had been formed and in order to properly govern under those concepts in accordance with the Founders intent under the constitution.
• Washington never returned that copy of the book to the library. 221 years later, the staff of Washington's Mount Vernon Estate learned of this situation and replaced the book at the New York Library. No effort to collect the estimated $300,000 in late fees was made.
• On June 15, 1804, the 12th Amendment clarified that the same Natural Born Citizen and all other Article II requirements for the Presidency applies to the Vice Presidency, as the Vice President may succeed the President to the Oval Office.
WHY IT WAS PLACED IN OUR FOUNDING DOCUMENTS
The Founders reasoning for the Natural Born Citizen requirement in Article II is self-evident in the history of how it came to exist in our founding documents. In his letter to the Constitutional Convention, requesting the Natural Born Citizen be added as a requirement for high office under Article II, Jay explained his reasoning…
“Permit me to hint, whether it would be wise and seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government; and to declare expressly that the Commander in Chief of the American Army shall not be given to nor devolve on, any but a natural born Citizen.” – John Jay letter dated July 25, 1787
The reasoning of our Founders or the “original intent” of our Founders was a matter of National Security. In this case, it pertained to the highest and most powerful political office in our new nation, the office of Commander-in-Chief, or President of the United States.
The Founders reasoning and intent was clearly to prevent anyone with natural foreign loyalties or entanglements due to dual, divided or foreign citizenship, from ever holding the office of Commander-in-Chief. Therefore, as stated in Article II of the U.S. Constitution, “No person except a natural born citizen, - shall be eligible to the office of President;” (or Vice President as of Amendment XII)
The section which states “or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution,” pertains only to the Founders themselves, as they were all “citizens” of the United States at the adoption of the Constitution, but none of them were “natural born Citizens” at the adoption of the Constitution.
HOW THE LAW OF NATIONS DEFINES NATURAL BORN CITIZEN
Many have argued that the U.S. Constitution does not define the term natural born Citizen. Of course, the U.S. Constitution, unlike most legal documents, does not have a definitions section at all. None of the words that appear in the Constitution have a definition attached to them.
This is due to the fact that the U.S. Constitution was not written in legal-ease, but rather in basic simple common English, that any person able to read could easily comprehend, avoiding any need for citizens to rely upon the legal interpretations of men to understand their basic Natural Rights protected by the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
The ethical research of any subject requires an honest effort to seek truth, a complete study of all available information, when possible, a reliance on first source evidence, as opposed to second hand information or third party opinions which might be socially or politically motivated, and a recognition of and respect for the point of origin.
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As the term was borrowed from Natural Law as defined by Emmerich De Vattel in the Law of Nations, we must refer to Chapter XIX Sections 212-220 of Book I to glean the true meaning of the term natural born Citizen, as it was used and intended by the Founders in 1787.
Contrary to the popular belief of many today who have not yet completed their research on the subject, Vattel did not define natural born Citizen in one sentence, or even one paragraph. Vattel spent nine sections of Chapter XIX defining natural born Citizen, and he makes it very clear that the term is synonymous with the term “True Citizen.” For part two click below.
Click here for part -----> 2,
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JB Williams is a writer on matters of history and American politics with more than 3000 pieces published over a twenty-year span. He has a decidedly conservative reverence for the Charters of Freedom, the men and women who have paid the price of freedom and liberty for all, and action oriented real-time solutions for modern challenges. He is a Christian, a husband, a father, a researcher, writer and a business owner. He is co-founder of action organizations The United States Patriots Union, a civilian parent organization for The Veteran Defenders of America. He is also co-founder of The North American Law Center, a citizen run investigative legal research and activism organization preparing to take on American's greatest legal battles. Williams receives mail at: jb.uspu@gmail.com
Web site 1: www.PatriotsUnion.org
Web site 2: www.VeteranDefenders.org
E-Mail: JB.USPU@gmail.com
