Can Rafael ever hope to be president?

Legion Troll

Legion Troll

A fine upstanding poster
CAtdlSHVIAA0dwz.jpg


In the Massachusetts Supreme Court case of Martin v. Commonwealth, the Court declared that the wife of a Loyalist had no civic identity whatsoever.

She had no power to own property, to choose an allegiance, to make meaningful political decisions about herself or her children.

Here’s why that precedent matters.

In the Expatriation Act of 1907, women who were U.S. citizens and married foreigners, by consequence of having done so, lost their right to citizenship!

In 1961, the Supreme Court ruled that the Naturalization Act only made a child born abroad a citizen if the father was a citizen.

So the idea that a mother had the same right as a father did to grant citizenship to her child is simply not true.

At the time of the Constitution, then, what mattered was whether the father was a citizen.

The New York jurist Chancellor James Kent was the foremost authority of his day: in his “Commentaries on American Law,” he argued that both the father and mother had to be citizens for the child to be natural born.

James Kettner, a modern expert on citizenship, is now deceased, so he can’t be charged with political bias in his statement that the Constitution spoke unequivocally: Persons naturalized before the Constitution’s ratification were eligible for office on the same terms as native Americans; but “persons adopted into the country thereafter were permanently barred from the presidency - the only explicit constitutional limitation on their potential rights.”

That the framers made this their sole exclusion indicates that it was an important provision.

American citizenship, in general, relied on two basic rules: one was jus joli, that citizenship came from being born within the territorial boundaries of the nation; the other was jus sanguinis, of blood, as passed from parent to child.

What’s more, foreign-born men who married U.S.-born women were not, on that basis, granted citizenship. Men had to be naturalized, prove their residency, and over time demonstrate eligibility for citizenship.

This is the history.

This is the dilemma the lawyer and presidential hopeful Rafael Cruz faces.

The American founders clearly intended “natural born” to mean born within the United States; and they only granted the exception to citizens naturalized at the time of the Constitution’s framing, because these men could be presumed to have proven their loyalty by consciously choosing to side with the Patriot cause in 1775-1783.

The wording of Article II on presidential qualifications explicitly divides the population into two eligible groups: those natural born and those naturalized before 1787.

Only members of the Revolutionary generation, risking all (their lives and property) were eligible for the highest executive office.

To be sure, the current debate over Cruz is at once political and constitutional. But in light of the above, the fact that it is his mother, not his father, who is American-born strikes an inescapable historical chord.

Nor should it be omitted that the “birthers” who attacked President Obama’s eligibility were keen on believing that his mother’s nationality carried less weight than his father’s African blood and Kenyan birth.



http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/ted-cruz-has-very-real-birther-problem-law-not-settled-history
 
Mary Brigid McManamon is a constitutional law professor at Widener University’s Delaware Law School.

Donald Trump is actually right about something: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) is not a natural-born citizen and therefore is not eligible to be president or vice president of the United States.

The Constitution provides that “No person except a natural born Citizen shall be eligible to the Office of President.”

The concept of “natural born” comes from common law, and it is that law the Supreme Court has said we must turn to for the concept’s definition. On this subject, common law is clear and unambiguous.

The 18th-century English jurist William Blackstone, the preeminent authority on it, declared natural-born citizens are “such as are born within the dominions of the crown of England,” while aliens are “such as are born out of it.”

The key to this division is the assumption of allegiance to one’s country of birth. The Americans who drafted the Constitution adopted this principle for the United States.

James Madison, known as the “father of the Constitution,” stated, “It is an established maxim that birth is a criterion of allegiance, place is the most certain criterion; it is what applies in the United States.”

Cruz is, of course, a U.S. citizen. As he was born in Canada, he is not natural-born.

Article II of the Constitution expressly adopts the legal status of the natural-born citizen and requires that a president possess that status.

However we feel about allowing immigrants to reach for the stars, the Constitution must be amended before one of them can attain the office of president.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ted-cruz-is-not-eligible-to-be-president/2016/01/12/1484a7d0-b7af-11e5-99f3-184bc379b12d_story.html
 
Legion Troll said:
CAtdlSHVIAA0dwz.jpg


In the Massachusetts Supreme Court case of Martin v. Commonwealth, the Court declared that the wife of a Loyalist had no civic identity whatsoever.

She had no power to own property, to choose an allegiance, to make meaningful political decisions about herself or her children.

Here’s why that precedent matters.

In the Expatriation Act of 1907, women who were U.S. citizens and married foreigners, by consequence of having done so, lost their right to citizenship!

In 1961, the Supreme Court ruled that the Naturalization Act only made a child born abroad a citizen if the father was a citizen.

So the idea that a mother had the same right as a father did to grant citizenship to her child is simply not true.

At the time of the Constitution, then, what mattered was whether the father was a citizen.

The New York jurist Chancellor James Kent was the foremost authority of his day: in his “Commentaries on American Law,” he argued that both the father and mother had to be citizens for the child to be natural born.

James Kettner, a modern expert on citizenship, is now deceased, so he can’t be charged with political bias in his statement that the Constitution spoke unequivocally: Persons naturalized before the Constitution’s ratification were eligible for office on the same terms as native Americans; but “persons adopted into the country thereafter were permanently barred from the presidency - the only explicit constitutional limitation on their potential rights.”

That the framers made this their sole exclusion indicates that it was an important provision.

American citizenship, in general, relied on two basic rules: one was jus joli, that citizenship came from being born within the territorial boundaries of the nation; the other was jus sanguinis, of blood, as passed from parent to child.

What’s more, foreign-born men who married U.S.-born women were not, on that basis, granted citizenship. Men had to be naturalized, prove their residency, and over time demonstrate eligibility for citizenship.

This is the history.

This is the dilemma the lawyer and presidential hopeful Rafael Cruz faces.

The American founders clearly intended “natural born” to mean born within the United States; and they only granted the exception to citizens naturalized at the time of the Constitution’s framing, because these men could be presumed to have proven their loyalty by consciously choosing to side with the Patriot cause in 1775-1783.

The wording of Article II on presidential qualifications explicitly divides the population into two eligible groups: those natural born and those naturalized before 1787.

Only members of the Revolutionary generation, risking all (their lives and property) were eligible for the highest executive office.

To be sure, the current debate over Cruz is at once political and constitutional. But in light of the above, the fact that it is his mother, not his father, who is American-born strikes an inescapable historical chord.

Nor should it be omitted that the “birthers” who attacked President Obama’s eligibility were keen on believing that his mother’s nationality carried less weight than his father’s African blood and Kenyan birth.



http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/ted-cruz-has-very-real-birther-problem-law-not-settled-history
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Right....wisdom from the great "Broke-Back state of Mass.". And quoting anything about the founding fathers and being a naturally born US CITIZEN is quite amusing....considering the historical fact that NO US PRESIDENT was a natural born citizen until well into the 1830s. All previous POTUS candidates were BORN SUBJECTS of GREAT BRITAIN at one time.
 
Ralph said:
Right....wisdom from the great "Broke-Back state of Mass.". And quoting anything about the founding fathers and being a naturally born US CITIZENS is quite amusing....considering the historical fact that NO US PRESIDENT was a natural born citizen until well into the 1830s. All previous POTUS candidates were SUBJECTS of GREAT BRITAIN at one time.
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This applies to Canadian Cruz...how, exactly?

I'll understand if you can't explain.
 
Legion Troll said:
This applies to Canadian Cruz...how, exactly?

I'll understand if you can't explain.
Click to expand...

I am sure you can understand PRECEDENT...or maybe not. If you had a pot to piss in.....your guild would have already PISSED besides some place other than your hip pocket. :) Its a dead horse....much like attempting to say that its "collusion" when two candidates plot together (if you are trump)...but it was not COLLUSION when trump used the fat guy from NJ...another rhino to dispatch the little Cuban. :palm: Reason and Common sense seem to be far removed from any kind of cognitive brain function when its the left "reasoning". If anyone thinks that trumpite is anything but a NY LIBERAL...then they should at least pass along the Kool Aid.
 
There has never been a uniform definition of what constitutes a natural born citizen. In June 1775, the Continental Congress passed a resolution declaring that all living within the United Colonies, under the protection of its laws, were now members of a new government.

Here, the measure of civic belonging was residence, and the purpose of the law was to force a divided population to lean to the rebellious Patriots.

Because the act was considered an insufficient test, George Washington, commander of Continental forces, and other military and state officials, demanded that Americans swear allegiance by taking a loyalty oath. By war’s end, Americans who remained loyal to Great Britain (perhaps 20 percent of the population) were prosecuted as traitors; some were executed, and many had their property confiscated. Citizenship, then, was both voluntary and coerced.

Beyond this legacy, “natural born” reflected another important feature we forget: Patriots had to construct a new identity to justify revolution, to define themselves as other than British.

In 1774, Thomas Jefferson published “Summary View of the Rights of British America,” in which he argued that Americans had fought and spilled their own blood to secure the American continent. They were people of a distinct lineage––which he repeated in his first draft of the Declaration of Independence. He insisted that repeated wrongs inflicted by the British government offered ample evidence that America’s colonists were no longer brethren of the same blood separated by an ocean. Now they owed their identity to an inbred allegiance on blood-soaked soil.

Thus, when delegates to the Constitutional Convention gathered in 1787, they did not qualify “natural born citizen” merely to protect the presidency from foreign intrigue.

Clearly, they felt that “natural born” meant being born within the boundaries of states but also possessing a deep love of soil and manners unique to the United States.

This is why the framers made an allowance for anyone naturalized at the time of the Constitution’s drafting.

A naturalized foreigner acquired full citizenship and could stand for president based on having supported the Revolution––why Caribbean-born Alexander Hamilton could have run.

He had displayed ardor and allegiance during the war. “Natural born” was added because it insured an unwavering identification, presumably ingrained from birth.


http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/ted-cruz-has-very-real-birther-problem-law-not-settled-history
 
Legion Troll said:
There has never been a uniform definition of what constitutes a natural born citizen. In June 1775, the Continental Congress passed a resolution declaring that all living within the United Colonies, under the protection of its laws, were now members of a new government.

Here, the measure of civic belonging was residence, and the purpose of the law was to force a divided population to lean to the rebellious Patriots.

Because the act was considered an insufficient test, George Washington, commander of Continental forces, and other military and state officials, demanded that Americans swear allegiance by taking a loyalty oath. By war’s end, Americans who remained loyal to Great Britain (perhaps 20 percent of the population) were prosecuted as traitors; some were executed, and many had their property confiscated. Citizenship, then, was both voluntary and coerced.

Beyond this legacy, “natural born” reflected another important feature we forget: Patriots had to construct a new identity to justify revolution, to define themselves as other than British.

In 1774, Thomas Jefferson published “Summary View of the Rights of British America,” in which he argued that Americans had fought and spilled their own blood to secure the American continent. They were people of a distinct lineage––which he repeated in his first draft of the Declaration of Independence. He insisted that repeated wrongs inflicted by the British government offered ample evidence that America’s colonists were no longer brethren of the same blood separated by an ocean. Now they owed their identity to an inbred allegiance on blood-soaked soil.

Thus, when delegates to the Constitutional Convention gathered in 1787, they did not qualify “natural born citizen” merely to protect the presidency from foreign intrigue.

Clearly, they felt that “natural born” meant being born within the boundaries of states but also possessing a deep love of soil and manners unique to the United States.

This is why the framers made an allowance for anyone naturalized at the time of the Constitution’s drafting.

A naturalized foreigner acquired full citizenship and could stand for president based on having supported the Revolution––why Caribbean-born Alexander Hamilton could have run.

He had displayed ardor and allegiance during the war. “Natural born” was added because it insured an unwavering identification, presumably ingrained from birth.


http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/ted-cruz-has-very-real-birther-problem-law-not-settled-history
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And this has what to do with CRUZ? The precedent has already been established via history actual.....regardless of what nation a person was birthed....there have been previous presidential candidates that have run and won.

You can present the circular argument ad nauseam....but it still comes around to the beating of a dead horse....whether its the 1st time around or the the 10th....truth can't be established via circular argumentation nor reasoning. Piss in the pot or move on.org:) I am sure Mr. Cruz ( a real constitutional attorney) is more than well prepared to defend against the idiocy. Why not get Barry Obamy to prosecute the case...after all he is the top dog on the executive branch. :good4u:
 
Ralph said:
And this has what to do with CRUZ? The precedent has already been established via history actual.....regardless of what nation a person was birthed....there have been previous presidential candidates that have run and won.

You can present the circular argument ad nauseam....but it still comes around to the beating of a dead horse....whether its the 1st time around or the the 10th....truth can't be established via circular argumentation nor reasoning. Piss in the pot or move on.org:) I am sure Mr. Cruz ( a real constitutional attorney) is more than well prepared to defend against the idiocy. Why not get Barry Obamy to prosecute the case...after all he is the top dog on the executive branch.
Click to expand...

Canadian Cruz was not born in the Thirteen Colonies prior to the ratification of the Constitution, was he?

There are clear precedents, already cited, that give weight to his ineligibility.

If the Canadian who watched porn with his daughters nearby can get nominated, there will be a definitive ruling.
 
Ted Cruz Is Not Eligible to Be President

At least according to the most plausible constitutional interpretation.

The words natural born citizen, and their original meaning at the time that this constitutional clause was crafted, go a long way to answering this question. In founding-era America, like today, a person could be a citizen by virtue of birth on American territory; a citizen by virtue of a statute that granted citizenship to him at birth; a “naturalized” citizen, meaning one who entered the country as an alien but later obtained citizenship via a process determined by law; and a foreigner.

A natural born citizen cannot be a foreigner. Foreigners are not citizens. A natural born citizen cannot be a person who was naturalized. Those people are not born citizens; they’re born aliens. Most important for the purposes of the Cruz question, a natural born citizen cannot be someone whose birth entitled him to citizenship because of a statute—in this case a statute that confers citizenship on a person born abroad to an American parent. In the 18th century, as now, the word natural meant “in the regular course of things.” Then, as now, almost all Americans obtained citizenship by birth in this country, not by birth to Americans abroad. The natural way to obtain citizenship, then, was (and is) by being born in this country. Because Cruz was not “natural born”—not born in the United States—he is ineligible for the presidency, under the most plausible interpretation of the Constitution.

The historical background supports this view. In the founding era, it was possible—even common—for a head of state to be foreign born, and even to be a foreigner. The then-king of England—George III—descended from the German House of Hanover. His immediate predecessors—Georges I and II—were German born. William III—who came to power in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, which initiated the constitutional monarchy headed by the Georges—was himself Dutch. In the 1600s, the crown was passed among another group of foreigners—the House of Stuart. James I, who was jointly king of England and Scotland, was Scottish born, as was his son, Charles I.

Legislators create laws, not words.
The English tolerated foreign rulers because the rules of dynastic succession were widely accepted at the time. But the English resented and distrusted their foreign monarchs. After deposing James II—who as a Catholic, and a cousin and ally of Louis XIV of France, was suspected of foreign sympathies—Parliament banned Catholics from the throne. Moreover, Parliament declared that the nation would not be obligated to fight in defense of foreign dominions of a British king who is not “a native of this Kingdom of England.”

The founders admired the British form of government and modeled the president after the king. The risk that a person with foreign connections and sympathies might seize the presidency would have been uppermost in their minds when crafting the language that determined who could hold office. Other provisions in the Constitution ensured that members of Congress had significant attachments to the United States, though they could be foreign born; in the case of the presidency, the founders used stronger language.

Cruz’s defenders point out that many of the founders were lawyers who were familiar with British law, which prevailed in the colonies before the Revolution. While in the common law “natural born subjects” of the British crown meant people born on territory controlled by the British king, Parliament passed several statutes in the 17th and 18th centuries that gave the foreign born children of British subjects the status of “natural born subjects.” The founders, when they used the term “natural born Citizen,” may well have had this broader interpretation in mind, as argued by law professor Michael Ramsey in a comprehensive and carefully reasoned academic paper.

However, the statutes typically provided that a foreign born person would be considered a natural born subject for all “intents and purposes.” As legislatures often do, Parliament preferred using a comprehensive legal fiction (a person born abroad is treated as if he were natural born even though he is technically not) to using cumbersome new language piecemeal (explaining, every time new laws are passed, that they applied to foreign born subjects as well as natural born subjects). Parliament did not change the ordinary meaning of the words natural born; it just gave other people the status of those natural born.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/view_from_chicago/2016/02/trump_is_right_ted_cruz_is_not_eligible_to_be_president.html
 
Exactly, Brother Leon.

If the porn-watching Canadian dad ever makes it to the election, there will be court challenges a-plenty.
 
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