Never in American history has a national leader served under a darker cloud of suspicion than Barack Hussein Obama. Was he born in Hawaii or in Kenya? Did he become an Indonesian citizen in 1967? Where did he spend the summer of 1981? Did he actually attend classes at Columbia? Did he write Dreams from My Father? These are all interesting questions, but not the most critical ones. The most critical question relates to his eligibility. Is he eligible to serve as President of the United States, or is he a usurper? Let’s analyze what we know to be true. First, we have the absolute and unequivocal requirements of Article II. Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution, which states that, “No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.” We know that Obama was not a citizen of the United States at the time the Constitution was adopted, we know that he was at least thirty-five years of age when he took office in January 2009, and we know that he has been a U.S. resident for at least fourteen years. But is he a “natural born” citizen? What is a “natural born” citizen, and how do we prevent an individual who is not a natural born citizen from ever becoming president or vice president? To answer these questions we must examine how our political leaders, from the Founding Fathers through the present day, have defined the term “natural born;” we must understand U.S. government policy on dual citizenship; we must examine the circumstances of Obama’s birth and citizenship; and finally, we must examine the vetting process that was designed to prevent an ineligible person from ascending to the presidency or the vice presidency. What is a “Natural Born” Citizen? In drafting the U.S. Constitution, the Founders relied on the work of Swiss philosopher Emerich de Vattel. In his 1758 legal treatise, The Law of Nations, Book One, Chapter 19, in a section titled “Of the citizens and natives,” Vattel defines the term “natural born Citizen” as follows: “… The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens… The country of the fathers is therefore that of the children; and these become true citizens merely by their tacit consent. 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...........
Posted on: Tue, 07 Oct 2014 02:26:20 +0000
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