Corsi Quotes on Vattel's Definition & Concept of "Natural Born"

In the 18th century, the term natural-born citizen derived from an understanding of natural law—the universal, self-evident law America’s Founding Fathers presumed came from God. Natural law was seen as God’s law that ruled human affairs, distinct from positive law, which specified statutes written by human beings to govern human behavior. The Founders would have understood that positive law, to the extent it was correct and bore authority, had to derive from and be consistent with natural law. Writers in the natural law tradition, including Swiss philosopher and diplomat Emerich de Vattel, profoundly influenced the thinking of the Founding Fathers. The term natural-born citizen appears first in a treatise Vattel wrote in 1758 titled Law of Nations: or, Principles of the Natural Law Applicable to the Conduct and Affairs of Nations and Sovereigns. In Chapter 19, Section 212, Vattel specified: 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.

Jerome, Corsi (2011-05-17). Where's the Birth Certificate?: The Case that Barack Obama is not Eligible to be President (pp. 33-34). Midpoint Trade Books. Kindle Edition.

He continued: 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. Vattel again emphasizes the concept that natural-born citizens are those born in the nation to parents who are citizens of the nation: 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.

Jerome, Corsi (2011-05-17). Where's the Birth Certificate?: The Case that Barack Obama is not Eligible to be President (p. 34). Midpoint Trade Books. Kindle Edition.

Vattel concluded: 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 only be the place of his birth, and not his country. Thus, the point of requiring that presidents be natural-born citizens was to prevent foreigners, or those whose allegiance could be attributed to the jurisdiction of foreign sovereigns, from ever being chief executive with the awesome powers of commander in chief. Using Vattel’s definition, natural-born citizen is not a vague concept. Rather, applied to the U.S. Constitution, a natural-born citizen is someone born in the United States to parents who are United States citizens.

Given this definition, a person born in the United States to one U.S. citizen parent and a second who is a citizen of another country would not qualify. Obama’s situation is precisely this: He says he was born in Hawaii to a Kenyan father and a U.S. citizen mother. The assertion that a presidential candidate should be disqualified for being born on foreign soil was arguably weaker if both parents were U.S. citizens when the child was born. Under Vattel’s definition, if the child’s birth location were under U.S. jurisdiction at the time and both parents were U.S. citizens, the child was arguably a natural-born citizen. So, according to Vattel, Charles Curtis and Barry Goldwater would be considered natural-born citizens, provided we consider the territories of Kansas and Arizona to have been part of the United States before they were granted statehood.

Jerome, Corsi (2011-05-17). Where's the Birth Certificate?: The Case that Barack Obama is not Eligible to be President (pp. 34-35). Midpoint Trade Books. Kindle Edition.

Had George Romney or Lowell Weicker advanced as presidential candidates, their birthplaces would have become an issue under Article 2, Section 1. With regard to John McCain, whose Democratic critics in 2008 investigated whether he was born at a civilian hospital in the Canal Zone or in a U.S. Navy hospital, some believed birth outside the Navy base would have disqualified him from running for president. There can be no doubt the Founding Fathers were familiar with Vattel’s Law of Nations. On December 9, 1775, Benjamin Franklin wrote to Vattel’s editor, C.G.F. Dumas, in France: “I am much

Jerome, Corsi (2011-05-17). Where's the Birth Certificate?: The Case that Barack Obama is not Eligible to be President (p. 35). Midpoint Trade Books. Kindle Edition.

obliged by the kind present you have made us of your edition of Vattel. It came to us in good season, when circumstances of a rising state make it necessary frequently to consult the law of nations. [I]t has been continually in the hands of the members of our Congress, now sitting, who are much pleased with your notes and preface, and have entertained a high and just esteem for their author.”73

The First Congress in 1790—whose members included twenty delegates to the Constitutional Convention, eight of them members of the Committee of Eleven that drafted the natural-born citizen clause—passed the Naturalization Act of 1790 (1 Stat. 103, 104), which provided: “And the children of citizens of the United States that may be born beyond the sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural-born citizens.”74

If we incorporate this into the meaning of Article 2, Section 1, it becomes less important for natural-born citizenship that the person is born in the United States, as long as his parents are both U.S. citizens. This interpretation might have allowed Romney and Weicker to be eligible for president despite being born on foreign soil. Still, it is questionable whether being born in Vermont would make Chester Arthur qualified or whether being born in Hawaii would qualify Barack Obama, because of the foreign nationality and presumed allegiance of their fathers.

Critics who object to interpreting the meaning of natural-born citizen in Article 2, Section 1, as a term of natural law have argued that there is “no source to which an appeal can be made to determine what natural law is.”75

 This argument, however, would not make sense to the Founding Fathers, who were familiar with philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and David Hume, all of whom wrote extensively of natural law as derived from classical Greek and Roman philosophy.

While Hobbes, Locke, and Hume all differed in their exact definitions and applications of natural law, the concept that natural law derived from God and was imbued in human nature was held in common. Moreover, Vattel is careful not to leave the term natural-born citizen vague, but to define it carefully as applying to those born in the nation to parents who are citizens of the nation.

Critics also object that it “makes no sense for a nation of immigrants to consider ‘natural allegiance’ to be determined by where their fathers came from.”

Yet, consider that in Article 2, Section 1, the Founders stipulated as eligible for the presidency not only “natural-born Citizens,” but also “Citizens of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution.”

Foreigners, including persons born to one or more foreign parents who were not citizens at the time the Constitution was adopted, were not eligible to be president.

This was the entire point.

The Founding Fathers wanted to exclude foreigners from the presidency because they were distrustful of elevating to chief executive of the nation or commander in chief anyone who by birth might bear allegiance to a foreign nation. That someone was born to a foreign parent reflects no fault of their own, of course, but the Founding Fathers were distrustful that a dual citizen at birth would owe his undivided loyalty to the United States of America.

One final point is grammatical in nature.

 In writing the natural-born citizen clause of Article 2, Section 1, observe that the Founding Fathers capitalized “Citizen,” such that the phrase read “natural-born Citizen.”

In 18th-century English grammatical tradition, the principle was that the noun “Citizen” was being modified by the phrase “natural-born,” which served to further qualify the understanding of “Citizen.”

That is, to be eligible for president, it was not sufficient that a person be a citizen; he also had to be natural-born.

The point is that not all citizens are natural-born, but only natural-born citizens are eligible to be president.

The phrase “natural-born Citizen” was intended to specify that “natural-born” constituted a sub-class within the larger class of “Citizens.” To modern thinkers, the idea of restricting the presidency to natural-born citizens can seem archaic or xenophobic, especially when the United States is itself a nation of immigrants. Still, the clause remains in Article 2, Section 1, and has never been modified or removed by constitutional amendment, even if some today think it would be wise to do so. As long as the natural-born citizen eligibility requirement remains in the Constitution, Americans have an obligation to take the entire phrase seriously and to apply its standard rigorously, without exception. Barack Obama—a Dual Citizen at Birth

Jerome, Corsi (2011-05-17). Where's the Birth Certificate?: The Case that Barack Obama is not Eligible to be President (pp. 35-37). Midpoint Trade Books. Kindle Edition.