Presidential Eligibility - Resident

                    The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday concerns the eligibility to hold the office of President of the United States.  In order to be eligible for this office, a person must satisfy three eligibility requirements based on age, residency, and citizenship.  Age and residency have been discussed in previous weeks.

                    Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the United States Constitution states, "No Person … shall be eligible to the Office of President … [shall] have been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.  This provision of the Constitution guaranteed to the American public that their President was chosen from among them and had the same American moral values.

                    "There was no member of the Constitutional Convention who was held in higher regard than Benjamin Franklin.  Nevertheless, he had been out of the country for twenty-five of the past thirty years.  The members of the Convention noted on a number of occasions that the 81-year-old patriot, who had served his country so well in foreign lands, had missed some of the latest developments in political philosophy which had emerged during the past several years of experimentation with freedom….

                    "Other examples of distinguished Americans who had lived abroad a number of years and who reflected some non-American influences led the Founders to include this provision in the Constitution."  (See W. Cleon Skousen in The Making of America - The Substance and Meaning of the Constitution, p. 529.)

                    "… Then as now, inhabitant meant being a legal domiciliary, but resident could mean either a domiciliary or a physical presence.  Perhaps the Framers desired a person as President who had actually been present in the United States for the required period and had developed an attachment to and understanding of the country, rather than one who was legally an inhabitant, but who may have lived abroad for most of his life.  On the other hand, the distinction may have been one of style rather than substance…."  (See James C. Ho in The Heritage Guide to the Constitution, p. 190).

Presidential Eligibility: Age

In order to be eligible to hold the office of President of the United States, a person must satisfy three eligibility requirements based on age, residency and citizenship.  The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday concerns age and comes from Article II, Section 1, Clause 5:  "… neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office [of President of the United States] who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years…."  The Framers of the Constitution wanted to be sure that anyone elected to the office of President of the United States had reached a maturity of at least thirty-five years of age.

The following words expressed by John Jay show the general feeling of those attending the Constitutional Convention:  "By excluding men under thirty-five … it confines the electors to men of whom the people have had time to form a judgment, and with respect to whom they will not be liable to be deceived by those brilliant appearances of genius and patriotism which, like transient meteors, sometimes mislead as well as dazzle" (as quoted by W. Cleon Skousen in The Making of America - The Substance and Meaning of the Constitution, p. 528).

"… The Framers established these qualifications [to be President] in order to increase the chances of electing a person of patriotism judgment, and civic virtue.

"… As Justice Joseph Story has noted, the `character and talent' of a man in the middle age of life is `fully developed,' and he has had the opportunity `for public service and for experience in the public councils."  (See James C. Ho in The Heritage guide to the Constitution, p. 189).

Barack Obama was older than thirty-five, but he still deceived the people with his "brilliant appearances of genius!"  The lame stream media continues to tell us how "brilliant" Obama is.  If he is so brilliant, why is our country in the shape it is today?

Presidential Eligibility: Natural-born Citizen

                    The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday concerns citizenship and comes from Article II, Section 1, Clause 5:  "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…."  In order to be eligible to hold the office of President of the United States, a person must satisfy three eligibility requirements based on age, residency and citizenship.  This post will discuss citizenship.

The Framers of the Constitution wanted to guarantee that Americans would always have a President who was one of their own native-born fellow citizens.  The Framers wanted to guarantee as much as possible that every President of our nation would have undivided loyalty to the United States.  They must be tossing in their graves at the damage Barack Obama is doing to our nation!

While George Washington was at the Constitutional Convention, he received a letter from John Jay, "urging `a strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government; and to declare expressly that the Commander in Chief of the American army shall not be given to nor devolve on, any but a natural born Citizen.'  Justice Story later noted that the natural-born-citizenship requirement `cuts off all chances for ambitious foreigners, who might otherwise be intriguing for the office.'

"… But the question remains whether the term `natural born Citizen' used in Article II includes the parliamentary rule of jus sanguinis [citizenship passed from parent to child regardless of place of birth] in addition to the common law of jus soli [persons born within the territory are citizens from birth except children of enemy aliens or foreign diplomats].  In United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), the Supreme Court relied on English common law regarding jus soli to inform the meaning of `citizen' in the Fourteenth Amendment as well as the natural-born-citizenship requirement of Article II, and noted that any right to citizenship through jus sanguinis was available only by statute, and not through the Constitution.  Notwithstanding the Supreme Court's discussion in Wong Kim Ark, a majority of commentators today argue that the Presidential Eligibility Clause incorporates both the common-law and English statutory principles, and that therefore, Michigan Governor George Romney, who was born to American parents outside of the United States, was eligible to seek the Presidency in 1968."  (See James C. Ho in The Heritage Guide to the Constitution, p. 190).

With all the questions about where Barack Obama was born and the identity of his real father, how can we know if he really is a natural born citizen.  The question remains:  why did he feel the need to seal all his records - birth, school, passport, etc. - and then present a false birth certificate to the nation?