Does Patrick Leahy Believe That Obama Is Constitutionally Qualified To Be President?

A COMMENT SHOW BLOG SPECIAL REPORT

“Because he was born to American citizens, there is no doubt in my mind that Senator McCain is a natural born citizen,” said Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy in an April 10, 2008 Senate Hearing debating Senate Resolution SR511 which claimed that John McCain was a Natural Born Citizen of the United States and thereby qualified to be president. (The full text of his statement can be found on his Senate website here.)

His stated requirement, being born to American Citizen parents, has been part of the accepted definition of Natural Born Citizen since the founding of our country.

Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the Constitution states:

“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.”

With the exception of Chester A. Arthur, who hid from the public the fact that his father was a British citizen when he was born, every single President and every single Vice President born after the ratification of the Constitution have been born in this country to American Citizen parents.

Until Barack Obama.

The 2008 election is the first time in American history that America knowingly elected a post-1787-born President whose parents were not both U.S. citizens.

When Barack Obama was born, his father was a citizen of Kenya, at that time a British colony. His father was not then, nor at any time, an American citizen.

Obama posted an image of a Hawaiian “Certification Of Live Birth” on his website to prove that he was born in Hawaii and therefore a citizen of this country. However, further down on the same page, he makes this eye-opening statement:

“When Barack Obama Jr. was born on Aug. 4,1961, in Honolulu, Kenya was a British colony, still part of the United Kingdom’s dwindling empire. As a Kenyan native, Barack Obama Sr. was a British subject whose citizenship status was governed by The British Nationality Act of 1948. That same act governed the status of Obama Sr.‘s children.” (emphasis added)

We must ask ourselves: How can someone whose citizenship status at birth was governed by a foreign country be considered a “Natural Born Citizen?”

And there you have the true crux of the issue now before the nation. For, in truth, all of the hoopla surrounding the Birth Certificate is a smokescreen; because in the end, it doesn’t matter. The place of his birth is a moot point. He is already ineligible because of his father’s foreign citizenship and because Obama therefore held dual citizenship at birth. The very concept of dual citizenship is at odds with the intent of natural born citizen. Consider the following, from The Obama Administration’s own State Department policy with regard to dual citizenship:

“The U.S. Government recognizes that dual nationality exists but does not encourage it as a matter of policy because of the problems it may cause. Claims of other countries on dual national U.S. citizens may conflict with U.S. law, and dual nationality may limit U.S. Government efforts to assist citizens abroad. The country where a dual national is located generally has a stronger claim to that person’s allegiance.  However, dual nationals owe allegiance to both the United States and the foreign country. They are required to obey the laws of both countries. Either country has the right to enforce its laws, particularly if the person later travels there.“  (Emphasis added.)

As we shall see, the natural born citizen requirement was expressly inserted into the Constitution to preclude any foreign allegiance from birth.

What is a Natural Born Citizen?

It may be helpful to review the difference between a citizen and a natural born citizen and why the framers of the constitution used the wording they did for the presidential requirement.

The presidential natural born citizenship requirement originated with John Jay, who recommended it in a letter to George Washington: “Permit me to hint whether it would not be wise and seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of foreigners into the administration of our national government; and to declare expressly that the command in chief of the American army shall not be given to, nor devolve on any but a natural born citizen.” (John Jay letter to George Washington, 25 July 1787)

This letter was written on July 25, 1787.  It is in direct response to Alexander Hamilton’s suggested Presidential requirement appearing in the first draft of the Constitution wherein Hamilton – five weeks earlier – on June 18, 1787 submitted the following:

No person shall be eligible to the office of President of the United States unless he be now a Citizen of one of the States, or hereafter be born a Citizen of the United States.

Hamilton’s original drafted presidential requirement was rejected by the framers.  Instead of allowing any person born a citizen to be President, the framers chose to adopt the more stringent requirement from John Jay, that the President be a natural born citizen.

John Jay believed, and the Founding Fathers agreed, that anyone who is subject to foreign influence should be barred from the presidency. There was a tradition in Europe, which lasted through the middle of the 19th Century, for monarchs to install their relatives on the throne of weaker countries. The natural-born citizen requirement arose, in part, from the fear that such a usurper would become president. The constitution allows citizens to become Senators and Congressmen, however for the office of the Presidency, it rightly places a more stringent requirement, the natural born citizen clause. Through this clause, the Founders sought to guarantee that the ideals for which they fought would be faithfully preserved for future generations of Americans. The Founders wanted to assure that the Office of President and Commander in Chief of the Military was free of all foreign influence and that its holder has sole and absolute allegiance, loyalty, and attachment to the U.S. The “natural born Citizen” clause was the best way for them to assure this.

The phrasing and meaning of natural born citizen can be found in Emmerich de Vattel’s 1758 book The Law of Nations or the Principles of Natural Law :

“The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. As the society cannot exist and perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights. The society is supposed to desire this, in consequence of what it owes to its own preservation; and it is presumed, as matter of course, that each citizen, on entering into society, reserves to his children the right of becoming members of it. The country of the fathers is therefore that of the children; and these become true citizens merely by their tacit consent. We shall soon see whether, on their coming to the years of discretion, they may renounce their right, and what they owe to the society in which they were born. 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.” (Vattel, Law of Nations, Book 1, Chapter 19) (emphasis added)

So, a “citizen” is simply a member of the civil society. To become a “citizen” is to enter into society as a member thereof. On the other hand, a “natural born Citizen” is a child born in the country of two citizen parents who have already entered into and become members of the society. Vattel also tells us that it is the “natural born Citizen” who will best preserve and perpetuate the society.

Vattel’s book was an important reference for the founding fathers as evidenced in this letter by Benjamin Franklin: “I am much obliged by the kind present you have made us of your edition of Vattel. It came to us in good season, when the circumstances of a rising state make it necessary frequently to consult the law of nations” (Letter 459: Benjamin Franklin to Charles William Frederic Dumas)

Many defenders of Obama’s eligibility erroneously point to the 14th Amendment of the constitution as proof that he is a natural born citizen. However, The 14^th Amendment only provides that persons born in the United States and all naturalized citizens under naturalization legislation are citizens of the United States, provided they are  “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” of the United States.  Nowhere within the 14^th Amendment is the term natural born citizen used or implied.

In fact, on March 9, 1866, Representative John Bingham of Ohio, considered the father of the 14th Amendment, said the following in a speech before House of Representatives: “[I] find no fault with the introductory clause [S 61 Bill], which is simply declaratory of what is written in the Constitution, that every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen.”

In 1874, six years after the adoption of the 14th Amendment, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed Vattel’s definition of “natural born citizen”, while confirming (in the first sentence of the following excerpt) that the 14th Amendment did not define natural born citizen:

“The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their [88 U.S. 162, 168] parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first. For the purposes of this case it is not necessary to solve these doubts.” (Minor v. Happersett, 1874)

In 1898, in the United States v. Wong Kim Ark case, the Supreme Court reexamined the “citizenship-by-birthplace-alone” theory, but did not decide whether it applied to natural born citizenship. The Court ruled that Mr. Ark was a citizen, but did not rule that he was a natural born citizen. Chief Justice Melville Fuller states the following:

“The true bond which connects the child with the body politic is not the matter of an inanimate piece of land, but the moral relations of his parentage. . . . The place of birth produces no change in the rule that children follow the condition of their fathers, for it is not naturally the place of birth that gives rights, but extraction.

“To what nation a person belongs is by the laws of all nations closely dependent on descent; it is almost an universal rule that the citizenship of the parents determines it — that of the father where children are lawful, and, where they are bastards, that of their mother, without regard to the place of their birth, and that must necessarily be recognized as the correct canon, since nationality is, in its essence, dependent on descent.”

In the same case, Justice Horace Gray said the following:

“The foregoing considerations and authorities irresistibly lead us to these conclusions: The fourteenth amendment affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory, in the allegiance and under the protection of the country, including all children here born of resident aliens…Every citizen or subject of another country, while domiciled here, is within the allegiance and the protection, and consequently subject to the jurisdiction, of the United States.  His allegiance to the United States is direct and immediate…and his child, as said by Mr. Binney in his essay before quoted, ‘If born in the country, is as much a citizen as the natural-born child of a citizen…’”

In the last line of this passage Justice Gray states that a person born in this country is as much a citizen as a child of a citizen, which he refers to as a “natural born citizen.” Both children – the alien born and the natural born – are entitled to the same rights and protections as citizens. But only one satisfies the requirements to be President: the natural born child, because natural born citizen status is only required for one purpose: to be President. There’s no other legal attachment to natural born citizen status.

The distinction between “citizen” and “natural born Citizen” is based on the law of nations which became part of our national common law. As we have seen, this definition of the two distinct terms has been adopted by United States Supreme Court decisions. Neither the 14th Amendment, nor Congressional Acts, nor any case law has ever changed the original common law definition of a “natural born Citizen.” Congressional Acts and case law, like the 14th Amendment, have all only dealt with the sole question of whether a particular person was going to be allowed to enter into and be a member of American society and thereby be declared a “citizen.” Never having been changed, the original constitutional meaning of a “natural born Citizen” prevails today. It is this definition of “natural born Citizen” which gives the Constitutional Republic the best chance of having a President and Commander in Chief of the Military who has sole and absolute allegiance, loyalty, and attachment to the United States.

So, back to Senator Leahy…

Patrick Leahy of course knows all of this. He was a lawyer and has been a United States Senator since 1974. He is well versed in the meaning of natural born citizen, as evidenced by the statement which began this report, and also by the following exchange, which took place at a judiciary committee hearing on April 3, 2008, in which Senator Leahy asked then Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who was a former Federal Judge, the following:

Chairman Leahy: You are the head of the agency that executes Federal immigration law.  Do you have any doubt in your mind–I mean, I have none in mine.  Do you have any doubt in your mind that he [John S. McCain] is constitutionally eligible to become President?

Secretary Chertoff: My assumption and my understanding is that if you are born of American parents, you are naturally a natural-born American citizen.

Chairman Leahy: That is mine, too.  Thank you.

Here again Leahy states his belief that the citizenship of the parents is the deciding factor in determining natural born citizenship, not the place of birth. In fact, the bulk of testimony for SR511 relied on the premise that Senator McCain’s parents were both United States citizens, and the central question of the resolution was to whether the place of his birth – The Panama Canal Zone – precluded his eligibility.  It appears on the face of it, that the resolution in part defines natural born citizenship as one who is born to United States citizen parents, and it may therefore seem a bit curious that while the Senate considered it worth their while to pass a resolution addressing the doubts surrounding Senator McCain’s eligibility, no such resolution was  proposed concerning the doubts surrounding Senator Obama’s eligibility.

More curious still, one of the co-sponsors of the resolution was none other than our Senator Leahy, who we have seen defines natural born citizen as being born to citizen parents. One wonders, why did he ask the senate to consider an issue about which he had “no doubt,” but completely ignore an issue about which he almost certainly has doubts. For, how can he not have doubts about Obama’s eligibility based on the father’s foreign citizenship, when he states over and over that a natural born citizen is born to citizen parents? In other words, if the citizenship of the parents trumps the location of the birth in Senator McCain’s case, how can the location of the birth trump the citizenship of the parents in President Obama’s case?

So why has he never expressed doubts about Obama’s eligibility?

The only argument that that he could possibly rely upon is that ONE  citizen parent is enough to establish natural born citizenship. But even a cursory review of the framers’ stated intent, and of the supreme court cases through the years, shows this argument to be deeply flawed. For how can one know with any degree of certainty that someone would feel a greater allegiance to the country of one parent over the country of another. Senator Leahy might believe that Obama’s sole allegiance lies with the country of his mother because that is the country he grew up in, but don’t forget, Obama lived for much of his childhood in Indonesia. At best Senator Leahy has to guess and make conjectures. That is not the way the natural born citizen clause should work, and he knows it. A natural born citizen should be self evident: a person born in America to American citizen parents is a natural born American citizen and is most likely of all people to owe his full allegiance to America.

So perhaps the real question isn’t, does he believe he is qualified, but why he doesn’t speak out concerning his doubts? What holds him back? What is more important to Senator Leahy than the United States Constitution? The very first words of the oath that he swore to become a Senator state that he “will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic”. How does he reconcile that oath with his silence on the eligibility of the man who holds the office of President?

Unlike Senator Leahy, the vast majority of the people in this country are blissfully unaware of the crisis that currently surrounds the Presidency. At most they are aware of “conspiracy theorists” and “birthers” railing about a birth certificate. But the truth has nothing to do with conspiracy theories, but with a straightforward matter of law.

The presidency is in crisis. Our very constitution is in crisis. The constitution that was created to protect the people from the government MUST be defended! Senator Leahy and the other members of congress must honor their oaths to defend the constitution. The issue of Obama’s eligibility cannot be ignored any longer. We cannot allow a precedent to be set by allowing an ineligible citizen to hold the office of the President, because, frankly, we don’t know who the next one will be. If we give up our protections today, we will not have them tomorrow.

At his Farewell Address, George Washington spoke of the very situation our country now finds itself in:

If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit, which the use can at any time yield…

George Washington’s fears have come true.

It is time for Senator Leahy to stand up for the constitution.

It is time for us all to stand up.