Stirring the Pot: “Natural Born Citizen”

I have listened to presentations on the Internet and read various news sources, which inform me that there is an ongoing controversy regarding the meaning of “Natural Born Citizen” as that expression is used in the Constitution.

So far, all I have heard and read is so much nonsense.

Even a Constitutional Law professor from Harvard Law School gets it wrong, if what I read in The New York Times article yesterday reported his statements accurately. That, of course, is something today’s agenda-driven news sources often fail to do.

Here is a snippet from that New York Times article:

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, a Republican presidential candidate, is the latest White House contender to have his natural born credentials challenged. Born in 1970 in Calgary, Alberta, to an American mother and a Cuban father, Mr. Cruz has seen his legitimacy disputed both by an opponent, Donald J. Trump, and in a new lawsuit filed in Texas — possibly the first of several.

Mr. Cruz says his legal standing is not in doubt, but it is not so simple.

The overarching problem is that the Supreme Court has never been forced to interpret the clunky clause, leaving persuasive legal interpretations that range from arguing that the entire debate is nonsensical to asserting that only those born to certified American parents on verifiable American soil can aspire to the White House.

New York Times article link

After some years of study on my part of this issue, I assert:

1. Contrary to the assertion of the cited Harvard professor, these words in the American Constitution are not superfluous.

2. The words must be taken in their original sense–the meaning the words had when the American Constitution was written.

I saw quite a discussion on Facebook yesterday mocking the idea that the Constitution ought to be interpreted in its original sense. Objections to this idea are on their face logically fallacious. Writers of legal documents write to be understood. You cannot legitimately bend and stretch the meaning of words in legal documents, particularly legal national founding documents, to suit your convenience. The Facebook commenters were committing the ad hominem fallacy at the time of that discussion, for they were very much against Hillsdale College and its provision of a free online course on the American Constitution.

The same issue arises when it comes to interpreting the Bible. There is such a thing as the science of Biblical hermeneutics. While many modern authors, supposed “scholars,” have taken unjustified liberties with the subject of Biblical hermeneutics, its proper principles still stand. I have presented 24 or so of these principles on this site, readily accessible in the October, 2010, archives immediately to the right.

3. The expression “natural born citizen” as used and understood at the time of the writing of the American Constitution requires that a candidate for the office of President must be born to two persons, father and mother, who at the time of that birth were both citizens of the United States of America.

This understanding does not require that the candidate have been born in the United States itself. A child of a diplomat of the United States serving in another country, say India or France, if born to two United States citizens, would qualify.

Therefore, where the child was born does not enter into the issue.

The issue of where the child’s own parents were born does not enter into the issue if both parents were citizens of the United States at the time of the child’s birth.

Using the above-stated standards and definition of the meaning of “natural born citizen,” both our current President and the current Republican seeking that office, Mr. Ted Cruz, fail to meet the requirement. Our current President’s father was not a United States citizen when the President was born, though his mother was. I understand that Mr. Cruz was born to a mother who was at the time a United States citizen, though living in Canada, but his father was not a United States citizen until some time after his birth. Thus, neither the current President of the United States, nor Mr. Ted Cruz, qualify under the “natural born citizen” requirement specified in the American Constitution.

Why was such a provision inserted into the American Constitution in the first place? Our founding fathers wisely considered that the President of the United States should not be a person with any potential, hidden, lurking allegiance to another country, especially since the President is the Commander and Chief of the American military.

The founding fathers placed this provision where they did, in a place that would be very hard to remove or change. I suspect that they felt it a most wise and important requirement for any President to meet.

Perhaps the caution stated in the Bible is relevant here: “Remove not the old landmark” (Proverbs 23:10).

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