Natural Born Citizen Explained! | SettingBrushFires

➡ SettingBrushFires channel talks about how Before July 4, 1776, everyone born in America was considered a subject of the King of England, including our first presidents. After the Declaration of Independence, they became citizens. The Constitution states that only a “natural born citizen” or a citizen at the time of the Constitution’s adoption can be president. A “natural born citizen” is defined as someone born to parents who are citizens, not just someone born on American soil.

Thank you. Thank you so much. I’ll talk first about natural born citizen. Before July 4, 776, everybody born here was born a subject of the king of England. So our first presidents, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, and William Henry Harrison, who were all born before July 4, 1776, were all born as subjects of the king of England. These presidents, along with other free Americans, were transformed into citizens on July 4, 1776, by means of our Declaration of independence.

So our first presidents were naturalized citizens, and the Declaration of Independence is the act which naturalized them. Now, let’s look at our constitution. It was ratified June 21, 1788. Article two, section one, clause five says, and I’ll read just the first phrase, 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.

So our first presidents were eligible because they were citizens at the time the constitution was ratified. The framers knew what a natural born citizen was, and they knew they weren’t natural born citizens, so they had to exempt them, their generation, from the requirement of being a natural born citizen. But after that first generation of presidents was gone, all subsequent presidents were required to be natural born citizens. So what is a natural born citizen? In order to understand the genuine meaning of a text, we must use the definition the framers use.

Otherwise, texts become like play doh. They mean whatever you want them to mean to get the outcome you want. And Congress could change the definition of terms in the Constitution from time to time by passing a law. Well, that’s ridiculous. When our constitution was drafted and ratified, everybody knew what a natural born citizen was. Vitel defined it in his book law of nations. And we know from correspondence from Benjamin Franklin and other sources that the delegates to the convention of 1787 where this was drafted, relied on Vitel’s book.

It was a classic studied in the universities, and everybody knew it. Vitel said that natural born citizens are those born of parents who are citizens. It is necessary that they be born of a father who was a citizen. He goes on to say that the place of birth is not significant because it is our extraction, who our parents were, which gives us our rights as natural born citizens.

I printed out what Vitel said. It’s two pages. Contact me and I’ll send you the link to this. Our framers were very concerned about foreign influence. They did not want foreigners with shared loyalty to be president. They wanted only natural born citizens to be president, people who inherited their citizenship from american parents. Another document, from the time of our framing is David Ramsay’s 1789 dissertation on citizenship. Ramsay was an historian, a founding father, and a member of the Continental Congress.

His dissertation on the manner of acquiring the character and privileges of a citizen of the United States was published in 1789. At the bottom of page six, Ramsay says, quote, the citizenship of no man could be previous to the Declaration of Independence, and as a natural right, belongs to none but those who have been born of citizens since the 4 July 1776. So Ramsay sets forth the understanding of the time that a natural born citizen is one who is born of citizens.

So a natural born citizen inherits his citizenship from his parents, just as he inherits his eye color. He inherits his citizenship. No provision in the Constitution makes him a citizen, and no act of Congress makes him a citizen. Just as no provision in the Constitution or act of Congress determines his eye color. It’s inherited from his parents. It’s in his blood, not an act of Congress. Now, let’s look at section one of the 14th amendment.

There is a difference between a natural born citizen who inherits his citizenship from his parents by the laws of nature alone, like eye color, and someone who becomes a citizen by operation of a man made proclamation or law, such as the Declaration of Independence, a clause in the Constitution, or an act of Congress. One of the purposes of section one of the 14th Amendment was to extend citizenship to freed slaves.

That first generation of freed slaves became citizens by operation of a man made law, the 14th Amendment. So they became citizens, but they weren’t natural born citizens because they weren’t born of parents who were citizens. However, after that first generation of former slaves became citizens, their children were natural born citizens. So the 14th Amendment has nothing to do with natural born citizens. The 14th Amendment has to do with the creation of new citizens.

Under some people’s misreadings of the 14th Amendment, anyone born here is eligible president, including babies born to islamic terrorists. Our framers didn’t want that. They wanted only people who were born of parents who were already american citizens to be eligible to be president. And supposedly, we would have standards for determining who qualified to be a citizen. And now a few words about Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz. Marco Rubio was born in the United States of parents who were cuban nationals.

They were lawful residents who were subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, but they weren’t U. S. Citizens when Marco was born. So Marco is not a natural born citizen. Marco is a naturalized citizen because his citizenship is by operation of a man made law. Section one of the 14th Amendment, if it weren’t for section one of the 14th Amendment or some other man made act of Congress.

Marco would have been born a resident alien. He would have been born with the same status of his parents. Ted Cruz was born in Canada of a father who was a cuban national or a canadian citizen, and an american born mother whose status at the time Ted was born is not clear. But her status doesn’t matter. The father is the one who counts. Now, at the time of the framing of our constitution, the doctrine of covature was in effect.

Under that common law doctrine, husband and wife are one, and the man is the one. The woman’s legal identity was subsumed into that of her husband’s as a holdover from this, married women still sometimes refer to themselves as Mrs. John Smith. Furthermore. So Ted is not a natural born citizen. Furthermore, Ted held canadian citizenship most of his life. He didn’t even renounce his canadian citizenship until less than two years ago.

I have not seen the original document, obviously, but this certificate is presented on the Internet and is presented there as genuine. This certificate acknowledges that Ted formally renounced his canadian citizenship and stopped being a canadian citizen on May 14, 2014. Contact me and I’ll get you copies of these three documents. .

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