By Craig Andresen Right Side Patriots http://www.americanpbn.com/

Well, we knew this was going to become the latest attack mode to be employed by Donald Trump and we knew as well, that his substance-free appraisal would be echoed, far and wide, by the blind sheep who follow and support him.

Now that Marco Rubio has emerged as a serious contender to Trump’s coronation as Dictator in Chief…Trump is calling into question Rubio’s eligibility, and social media is abuzz with Trumpers sharing his latest blather.

Oh, you can scream “CONSTITUTION” and “NATURAL BORN” together in the same sentence all you care to but it doesn’t change one simple fact…that nowhere in the Constitution exists a definition OF Natural Born Citizen. It doesn’t. That’s a fact. Like it or not.

And you can scream that everybody back then knew what it meant and it meant that to be a Natural Born Citizen, one had to have TWO parents who were BOTH citizens but there is yet another nagging fact regarding that misguided assessment…

It isn’t true. More on that shortly.

Holler and scream all you want about Vattel’s ‘Laws of Nations’ too but that doesn’t matter a whip because ‘Laws of Nations’ was nothing more than a how-to book on maintaining a European monarchy and his definition of Natural born also fails to appear anywhere in any of our founding documents.

Vattel was concerned with substantiating ancestral bloodlines and lineage necessary to extend European monarchies while common law, even in his day, was clear that for the purpose of garden variety citizenry, to be considered a citizen of a country at birth, such lineage and ancestral bloodlines were of little consequence.

And here’s a FACT of historical perspective regarding Vattel’s “Laws of Nations” that will grind on those intent on using Vattel as their argument…”Laws of Nations” was written in French and he wrote NOT of “Natural Born Citizens but of “les naturels, ou indigenes,” which means “the naturals, or citizens.” Vattel’s book was translated into English before our revolution, but the first translation to use the term “Natural Born Citizens” did not appear until…1797…a full decade AFTER the ratification of our Constitution which means…not a single one of our Founders and Framers got the term…”Natural Born Citizen,” from Vattel’s “Laws of Nations.” While it won’t prevent birthers and Trumpers from continuing to use that argument…facts are facts and history proves that to be a false argument.

Pesky fact isn’t it?

Jump up and down while tossing about Supreme Court cases if that’s your thing but…another fact…the Supreme Court has never, ever, heard or rendered a decision on Natural Born. Not once. Not ever.

However, if you insist on using a Supreme Court case, and one that many have attempted to use wrongly in failed attempts to make their case against both Rubio and Cruz…the case of United States vs Wong Kim Ark…there is a little something you need to know about the written opinions issued as a result of that particular case.

Those majority opinions cite both common law AND a good many legal precedents IN the United States that, “a child born of alien parents within the country and subject to its jurisdiction (that is, whose parents are not diplomatic personnel representing a foreign nation or troops in hostile occupation) is considered a “natural born” citizen (in the United States) or subject (in England), as that term has been used over the centuries in England and the United States…”

Wong Kim Ark also offers, in its conclusion of majority opinions that it…”affirms” the common law rule of “citizenship by birth within the territory,” even if one is born of ALIEN parents in this country, and approved of the characterization of the children of such RESIDENT aliens as “natural born” citizens of the United States.

While the Wong Kim Ark case was not about Natural Born Citizenship, the High Court did affirm that English common law was the driving factor behind Constitutional citizenship and only in the MINORITY, or dissenting opinions written in that case, is Vattel mentioned.

Oh my, birthers…the blind sheep followers of Donald Trump…there seems to be barrels of judicial precedent to define Natural Born as any child, born upon our soil, even to resident aliens…as Natural Born and guess what? Rubio’s parents, at the time of his birth…IN MIAMI…were legal RESIDENTS of the United States. Oh yes, Rubio’s parents did indeed come to our country by legal means and both were indeed legal residents AND they WERE in the process of becoming citizens at the time of Marco’s birth.

Others, of course, attempt to use Minor v Happersett as their argument but, that case was not about Natural Born either, it was about a woman’s right to vote and only in the written opinion, not the decision itself, is Natural Born mentioned as follows: “Additions might always be made to the citizenship of the United States in two ways: first, by birth, and second, by naturalization. This is apparent from the Constitution itself, for it provides that ‘no person except a natural-born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President,‘ and that Congress shall have power ‘to establish a uniform rule of naturalization.’ Thus new citizens may be born or they may be created by naturalization.”

“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 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. It is sufficient for everything we have now to consider that all children born of citizen parents within the jurisdiction are themselves citizens.”

Nowhere in that written opinion, and written opinions are not decisions nor do they stand as law, does the High Court use the word “only” in reference to who is a Natural Born Citizen and in fact, in that opinion, the High Court admits that the Constitution fails to define Natural Born but they do mention common law. In Minor v Happersett, the Supreme Court gives but one example of who would be considered a Natural Born Citizen but they never indicate that is the ONLY way one would be considered such.

Ever hear of Sir William Blackstone?

Blackstone was a jurist, a judge and a politician in 18th century England who wrote a good deal about English laws of his day which, by the way, were also the days of our Founding and Framing as Blackstone was born in 1723 and died in 1780. To say that Blackstone was an expert in the field of law would be as much an understatement as saying that a diamond is…hard.

Blackstone wrote of Natural Born both as it pertained to England and to the American colonies and in his writings, Blackstone is quite clear, in that “natural born,” whether they be from England or the American colonies included all those born “in” the lands under British sovereignty. Of those children born abroad, or outside the direct soil of England and on the soil of the American colonies, Blackstone made a clear point of assuring that they TOO were under the law of England as…”Natural Born,” should they be born to parents subject to the laws of England, as that had been the common rule of law of England since the time of King Edward III in the 12th century.

So, why bring up English law, Blackstone and King Edward III? To counter the ridiculous claims made by Trumpers and birthers that “everybody in the days of our Founders and Framers knew exactly what Natural Born meant and it meant exactly what Vattel said it meant and because they all knew it, they didn’t feel it was necessary to include a definition OF Natural Born in our founding documents.”

Obviously, when you take the time to do a little research, rather than just follow along like a blind sheep, you come to the realization that our Founders and Framers DID know the meaning of Natural Born and it wasn’t at ALL what Vattel claimed it to be. In fact…to any and all of our Founders and Framers who knew anything about law…Natural Born had been established for nearly 400 years to mean any child born of citizenry either on the soil of a country or abroad.

By the way…Ted Cruz’s mother was indeed a United States citizen and by the definition familiar to our founders and framers, Ted Cruz, regardless of the geographic location of his birth, would have been considered a Natural Born Citizen of the United States.

Oh…you now want to get your panties in a wad over TWO parents? Parents…plural?
Okay…

Here’s yet another one of those inconvenient facts for Trumpers and birthers that’ll blow their hair back…

There has never been a case decision, in any federal court, that has defined, stipulated or established any requirement that both parents be citizens for their child to be a Natural Born Citizen. Not one case. Not ever.

However, that said, federal courts HAVE rendered decisions which fly in the face of the two parent claim. In fact, in 2009…Ankeny v. Governor, the Indiana Court of Appeals reaffirmed that persons born within the borders of the United States are “natural born Citizens”, regardless of the citizenship of their parents and in a 2012 New York case, Strunk v. N.Y. State Board of Elections, when the pro se plaintiff challenged Obama’s presence on the presidential ballot, based on his own interpretation that “natural born citizen” required the president “to have been born on United States soil and have TWO United States born parents,” the court ruled as follows:

“Article II, section 1, clause 5 does not state this. No legal authority has ever stated that the Natural Born Citizen clause means what plaintiff Strunk claims it says.”

In fact, The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has specifically recognized that one may be a “natural born” citizen of the United Sates in two ways: “either by being born in the United States, or by being born abroad of at least one citizen-parent who has met the residency requirement.”

By that recent precedent, both Rubio AND Cruz are Natural Born Citizens.

Have you ever heard of Jack Maskell? Perhaps you have and perhaps you don’t like him very much as he researched and wrote a paper on why Obama was eligible to run for and hold the office both Rubio and Cruz seek today. You can impugn him all you want, but you cannot impugn his research as it is quite valid.

Maskell writes: “The legal issues regarding “natural born” citizenship and birth within the United States, without regard to lineage or ancestral bloodline, have been well settled in this country for more than a century, and such concepts date back to, and even pre-date, the founding of the nation.”

“The weight of more recent federal cases, as well as the majority of scholarship on the subject, also indicates that the term “natural born citizen” would most likely include, as well as native born citizens, those born abroad to U.S. citizen-parents, at least one of whom had previously resided in the United States, or those born abroad to one U.S. citizen parent who, prior to the birth, had met the requirements of federal law for physical presence in the country.”

Jack Maskell has been a legislative attorney in the American Law Division of the Congressional Research Service since 1973 and his research on the topic of Natural Born includes some 233 legal references and precedents to support the concept of Natural Born as shown above.

By existing laws and U.S. codes, both Rubio and Cruz are Natural Born Citizens and that is backed by precedent going back at least a century.

Trump can threaten as many lawsuits as he wants, others can too, but none of that will alter the facts so…if the birthers and Trumpers want to gnash their collective teeth, so be it, but in order for them to establish their misguided definition of Natural Born, they must convince the Supreme Court ignore and throw out a mountain of legal evidence, a mountain of legal precedent, laws and codes that exist on the books today and common law that spans our country and England for over 600 years to do so.

But they, like Trump himself, would much rather deflect attention away from his lack of substance on the issues by diverting attention to their unfounded, unsubstantiated, transparent and false claims regarding the eligibility of his rivals during the primaries.

It’s a liberal tactic…being employed by a liberal candidate who is being followed by blind sheep and touted by liberal trolls.

Let the wadding of panties begin.