Classes of Citizen

Classes of Citizens:
I would like to point out that the Constitution specifically addresses in Article l and Article ll the very qualifications that show there were anticipated differences in the two classes of citizens at the time of the signing of the Constitution.

Prior to the signing, there were NO citizens. The signers were plain simple citizens that had been created by the manufacture of this Nation and the signing of the Constitution, there were no native born citizens or natural born citizens prior to the signing.

"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 4th of July, 1776."....David Ramsay, 1789.

After the founding and ratification of the Constitution in 1790, which gave Congress the ability to make Naturalization laws, a second type of citizen came about and that is the naturalized citizen.

After the signing, for a few short years, there were only the simple citizens and any naturalized citizens though that list is very short. Then, when those new citizens gave birth to their children, those newborn children then became the new "Natural Born Citizens" spoke about in the articles. So there were three classes of citizens at this time. Simple citizens, naturalized citizens and Natural Born Citizens.

Prior to the 14th Amendment and the misinterpretation of the 14th in Wong Kim Ark in 1898, any child born in America to foreign parents were considered foreigners themselves.

The Supreme Court in Inglis v. Trustees (1830) and Elk v. Wilkins (1884) ruled that a child born on U.S. soil, of a father who owes allegiance to a sovereignty other than the United States, is not a U.S. citizen at birth; and that the citizenship of such a child is that of its father, not its place of birth.

Then with the misinterpretation of the 14th in Wong Kim Ark decision in 1898, there were now three classes of citizens and two kinds of native born citizens. Let`s explain this.

There were then and still are three (3) types of citizens in the US.
1. Naturalized citizens and 2. native born 14th citizens and 3. natural born citizens.

Start with number 1. Naturalized citizens are foreigners that came here legally and wanted to become US citizens and went through the process set out by Congress in the Immigration and Naturalization laws allowed by the Constitution to achieve that citizenship. They have to swear their allegiance to America. It took an act of Congress for them to become citizens.

Next will be number 2. There are two kinds of Native Born Citizens. One type of native born citizen is those that are born on US soil to one foreign parent and one a US citizen parent or to both foreign parents. These are the 14th Amendment citizens. The allegiance of the parents is to the country they are from, not the US, but their child gets a pass on the allegiance requirement because of the 14th Amendment. They acquire their citizenship also by an act of Congress.

If it takes an act of Congress as in #1 and the first part of #2 to give you citizenship then you are a Naturalized citizen. Below the Supreme Court in 1913 uses Vattel, word for word, as a basis for their decision on this citizenship case.

And in Luria v. United States, 231 U.S. 9 (1913), the Supreme Court said: “Citizenship is membership in a political society, and implies a duty of allegiance on the part of the member and a duty of protection on the part of the society. These are reciprocal obligations, one being a compensation for the other. Under our Constitution, a naturalized citizen stands on an equal footing with the native citizen in all respects save that of eligibility to the Presidency. Minor v. Happersett, 21 Wall. 162, 88 U. S. 165; Elk v. Wilkins, 112 U. S. 94, 112 U. S. 101; Osborn v. Bank of United States, 9 Wheat. 738, 22 U. S. 827.”

From a legal perspective, the Court has said that ‘naturalized’ citizens are not eligible to be president. Here’s how Justice William O. Douglas said it in Schneider V. Rusk (1964):

“We start from the premise that the rights of citizenship of the native born and of the naturalized person are of the same dignity, and are coextensive. The only difference drawn by the Constitution is that only the “natural born” citizen is eligible to be President. Art. II, § 1.”

Finally number 3. This is the second type of native born citizen. The natural born citizen term is not defined in the Constitution. Over time the meaning has been conveniently lost and needs to be restored. As the frauds being perpetrated on this nation are many and extreme.

To be a Natural Born citizen simply means to be 100% full blooded American. Not half American and half Kenyan or half American and half British Subject or half American and half Cuban or 100% Cuban or half Indian and half Jamaican. It means full blooded 100% American citizen.

Emer (Emmerich) de Vattel (25 April 1714 – 28 December 1767) was quoted in the Constitutional Convention and in various political tracts and judicial opinions in the early Republic. The positive legal reception of The Law of Nations in the United States is demonstrated by the numerous quotations by the U.S. Supreme Court and the founders in the framing of the Constitution.

First, as has been very eloquently presented by the founders and they maintained a record of maintaining at least three copies of Vattel’s The Law of Nations or The Principles of the Laws of Nature in their possession during the first Constitutional Convention and they made use of it many times. Literally hundreds maybe thousands of times it has been referenced and quoted in the writings of most all of the framers of the Constitution and was even quoted on the floor of the various Constitutional Conventions. It was used later on the treaties and various agreements made with foreign nations, That book, is the first place that we read about a natural born citizen and its true meaning at the times of the writing of the Constitution.

Vattel writes concerning citizens and natives:
"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."

This definition is cited in several Supreme Court rulings.
Clearly, Vattel, in defining a natural born citizen, would have deemed Cruz, Jindal, Gabbard, Haley, Harris, Obama and Rubio as those who are not natural born citizens. I really don’t think there is any argument against Vattel on that. However, the question is, does the Constitution follow that thinking? Yes,it does.

Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the US Constitution reads:
"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."

Tulsi Gabbard, Kamala Harris, Nikki Haley, Bobby Jindal, Barack Obama, and Marco Rubio all meet the criteria of being at least 35 years old and have been residents in the States. There is also no question that these people are US citizens.

The question is, are they natural born citizens?
As cited above, there is a clear distinction between a natural born citizen and the citizens in the grandfather clause (Article ll.). While many of those in America would be considered citizens at the time of the founding or the acceptance of the Declaration of independence, they would never be natural born citizens and so this was the need for the grandfather clause.

But consider in addition to Article II, Section 1 that deals with the requirement to be a natural born citizen for the President, that there are other requirements for representatives and senators and notice the language:

Article I, Section 2 states:
“No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.”

Article I, Section 3 states:
“No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.”

Do you notice something that is obviously missing from a requirement of these offices that is in the requirement for President? That’s right, there is no requirement for representatives and senators to be natural born citizens. Rather, the framers simply used the term citizen, as they did in Article II, Section 1. We can also see that they emphasized a length of time one had to be a citizen to hold that office (7 years for a representative and 9 years for a senator).

Clearly, the framers saw, for lack of a better term, “different classes of citizens.” This has nothing to do with diminishing the rights of any citizen, but distinguished who would have the privilege of serving in these offices and who could not.