Please read these thoughtful and reasoned articles regarding the definition of a “Natural Born Citizen”. Truth is truth, take it or take it.
Note: This is NOT to be confused with the birth cert. issue.
The Constitution, Vattel, and “Natural Born Citizen”: What Our Framers Knew By Publius Huldah, 07.19.12, and an article he links to:
ROMNEY, RUBIO, McCAIN AND NATURAL BORN CITIZEN By J.B. Williams, 06.11.12
Among the references cited: the lexicon in the days of our founding (Vattel’s Law of Nations), the language of the First Congress in the Naturalization Act of 1790, and even the current-day resolution in the U.S. Senate which cleared John McCain to run for President.
Conclusion:
“Natural Born Citizen”: Child born of a father who is a citizen.
Barack Hussein Obama: At birth, his father was NOT a U.S. citizen, but a subject of the British Crown.
Marco Rubio: At birth, his father was not a U.S. citizen, but a citizen of Cuba.
This is not to imply that these men are not U.S. citizens, but rather points out that they were not naturally born so, thereby making them ineligible for the office of President of the United States, as set forth in Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the Constitution.
These articles also debunk the whole “Anchor Baby” lie that foreigners giving birth in the U.S. somehow bestow U.S. citizenship upon these children.
I recommend you read both of these articles with an open and sober mind. ~tdv
SubConch 
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Vattel is not even mentioned ONCE in the Federalist Papers, while the common law is mentioned about twenty times. Vattel recommended that every country should have a state religion and force people to join it or force them to leave the country. And we certainly did not adopt that, so what makes you think that we adopted the Vattel definition of Natural Born and not that of the common law.
The US Supreme Court in the Wong Kim Ark case said that the meaning of Natural Born comes from the common law and that the meaning in the common law refers to the PLACE of birth, not to the parents of a US-born citizen.
And that is what Edwin Meese, Ronald Reagan’s attorney general, has in his book:
“Under the longstanding English common-law principle of jus soli, persons born within the territory of the sovereign (other than children of enemy aliens or foreign diplomats) are citizens from birth. Thus, those persons born within the United States are “natural born citizens” and eligible to be President. Much less certain, however, is whether children born abroad of United States citizens are “natural born citizens” eligible to serve as President …”—- Edwin Meese, et al, THE HERITAGE GUIDE TO THE CONSTITUTION (2005) [Edwin Meese was Ronald Reagan’s attorney general, and the Heritage Foundation is a well-known Conservative organization.]
And that ix what five state courts—Indiana, Georgia, New Jersey, Florida and Arizona—have ruled. They all said that the meaning of Natural Born was defined by the Wong Kim Ark case (and some even said that it was NOT defined by the Minor vs Happersett case). In any case, the Wong Kim Ark case was after the Minor vs Happersett case and so it is the decisive ruling. And all five courts and one federal court all ruled that the meaning of Natural Born comes from the common law and refers to the place of birth, not to the parents of a US-born citizen.
Birthers are appealing some of these rulings to the US Supreme Court, but the chances of the US Supreme Court ruling differently than it did in the Wong Kim Ark decision are laughably low. The Declaration of Independence said: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” Under the common law definition of Natural Born, all children born in the USA are equal in presidential eligibility—those who were born of US parents and those who were born of foreign parents. Under the Vattel definition those born of US parents alone would be eligible. It is highly unlikely that the Supreme Court would rule that the meaning came from Vattel since that would mean that the US-born children of foreigners would not be equal to the US-born children of US citizens. Sure, IF the writers of the US Constitution had said that they followed Vattel or that they wanted to require two citizen parents, that would be the law. BUT THEY NEVER DID.
OH, and the meaning of Natural Born Citizen referring to the place of birth, and not to the parents, was the ORIGINAL meaning of the term, the one that was used when the US Constitution was written. There is no article or letter written by the writers of the US Constitution or any other American leader at the time who used Natural Born the way that Vattel did, or to refer to parents in any way. But there are plenty of examples of its use referring to the PLACE of birth.
For example, this from 1803, shortly after the Constitution went into effect:
“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 their 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. …St. George Tucker, BLACKSTONE’S COMMENTARIES: WITH NOTES OF REFERENCE TO THE CONSTITUTION AND LAWS OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND THE COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA. (1803)
As you can see, that refers to the PLACE of birth. There is no mention of parents. Natural Born Citizens were “those born within the state.”
And this from 1829:
“Therefore every person born within the United States, its territories or districts, whether the parents are citizens or aliens, is a natural born citizen in the sense of the Constitution, and entitled to all the rights and privileges appertaining to that capacity.”—William Rawle, A VIEW OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 2d ed. (1829)
I did a quick search on the web and easily found countless examples your cut-and-paste comments on other weblogs regarding this issue.
For now, I’ll leave them here simply for reference.
As for the argument you make here, which is the verbatim argument you make on countless other weblogs (lest we forget), I will defer to the response to the selfsame by the learned Publius Huldah and direct you and my readers there (ehancock comment 07.20.12, P.H. response 07.21.12) for further clarification.
I just posted this on the “learned” Publius Huldah’s site:
Re: “The evidence that a “natural born citizen” is one who is born of parents who are citizens, is in the ORIGINAL SOURCE DOCUMENTS I quote in my paper! ”
Your paper is not visible here.
But if you are saying that Vattel said it, then there is no proof that it is a source document at all. After all, Vattel recommended that every country should have a state religion and force people to join it or make them leave the country, and we did not follow that. More shocking to you will be that Vattel DID NOT recommend that the leaders of a country even be citizens, much less two-citizen parent citizens. There are no words in Vattel saying that sovereigns should be citizens, or even speak the same language as the country does. And Vattel gives several cases where countries selected as their sovereigns the nobles of other countries, and he never said that that was a bad thing. More directly to the point of the AMERICAN experience is that Vattel was not mentioned in the Federalist Papers, while the common law is mentioned about twenty times. And NO example can be found of any of the writers of the Constitution or any American leader at the time using the term Natural Born in the way that Vattel used it or to refer to parents at all—not two parents, not even one parent.
So your claim on “original source documents” is baloney.
As for “cut and paste” being somehow a bad thing–how else to quote the words of the experts?
The examples given were cut and pasted, sure, but they are real examples of how the term Natural Born Citizen were used in 1803 and 1829, examples that show that the source of the term Natural Born Citizen was the common law, not Vattel.
Here, for further research, is a recent article on this subject:
http://cityonahillpolitics.blogspot.com/2012/07/fred-thompson-on-natural-born-citizen.html
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