The term “natural born citizen” is a term of art. The term is a “whole” and has a meaning all its own. This term is separate, and apart, and more than, the term “citizen”.
There is only one place in our founding documents where the term “natural born citizen” occurs. It is a REQUIREMENT and QUALIFICATION that must be met by any candidate for the President of the United States.
Any candidate for the office of the President, is either BORN as a “natural born citizen”, or not.
There is no action any person can do to meet this REQUIREMENT if they are NOT BORN a “natural born citizen”. NOTHING. If they are not born a “natural born citizen”, then the only way to satisfy our Constitution legally, is to amend the Constitution PRIOR to the candidate running for President and delete the requirement of “natural born citizen”.
One can be born a “citizen” and not be born a “natural born citizen”. However if one is born a “natural born citizen” then they are also a “citizen”.
Additionally, you will “hear” arguments that the 14th amendment changed the definition of “natural born citizen”. That is a lie. The 14th amendment changed the definition of “citizen”, not “natural born citizen”. Don’t believe me? Read the 14th amendment for yourself. Nowhere is the term “natural born citizen” mentioned in the 14th amendment.
Next up:
Article. II. Section. 1.
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.
I wrote a “Constitution” post explaining and comparing and contrasting the various qualifications America’s “office holders” are required to have in order to be Constitutionally eligible, or LEGAL, in “Constitution: Qualifications for office“. (update: notice a person only has to be a mere citizen, if they were alive in 1789. If born after adoption of the Constitution, then one must be a “natural born citizen”. This is how you definitely know a mere citizen is much lesser than a “natural born citizen.)
I copied and pasted in its entirety, the following “blog post” from federalistblog.us. This is the LINK. This is only “a beginning”, cursory overview of this question. I urge you to click on it and go directly to the source. I am not re-creating all the links in the following essay. I wish any and all of you good luck in this endeavor, if, you seek understanding and truth. texas
Defining Natural-Born Citizen
by P.A. MADISON on November 18th, 2008
“The common law of England is not the common law of these States.” –George Mason
What might the phrase “natural-born citizen” of the United States imply under the U.S. Constitution? The phrase has always been obscure due to the lack of any single authoritative source to confer in order to understand the condition of citizenship the phrase recognizes. Learning what the phrase might have meant following the Declaration of Independence, and the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, requires detective work. As with all detective work, eliminating the usual suspects from the beginning goes a long way in quickly solving a case.
What Natural-Born Citizen Could Not Mean
Could a natural-born citizen simply mean citizenship due to place of birth?
Unlikely in the strict sense because we know one can be native born and yet not a native born citizen of this country. There were even disputes whether anyone born within the District of Columbia or in the territories were born citizens of the United States (they were generally referred to as “inhabitants” instead.) National Government could make no “territorial allegiance” demands within the several States because as Madison explained it, the “powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the Federal Government, are few and defined,” and those “which are to remain in the State Governments are numerous and indefinite.”
Jurisdiction over citizenship via birth within the several States was simply an exercise of a States “numerous and indefinite” powers. Early acts of Naturalization recognized the individual State Legislatures as the only authority who could make anyone a citizen of a State. Framer James Wilson said, “a citizen of the United States is he, who is a citizen of at least some one state in the Union.” These citizens of each State were united together through Article IV, Sec. II of the U.S. Constitution, and thus, no act of Congress was required to make citizens of the individual States citizens of the United States.
Prior to the Revolutionary War place of birth within the dominions of the crown was the principle criterion for establishing perpetual allegiance and citizenship. After independence perpetual allegiance was abandoned for expatriation and, as Madison stated, laws over defining citizen and alien “have obtained in some of the States,” and “if such a law existed in South Carolina, it might have prevented this question from ever coming before us” (question of Rep. William Smith being a citizen or not).
Furthermore, all of the States required everyone including aliens to take an oath of allegiance to the State as a condition of residency. Children born to these residents were considered born into the allegiance of the State. In addition to this, States also had specific laws that banned citizenship to alien born who were not resident aliens. New York for example, responded through enactment of law to the ruling in Lynch v. Clarke (1844) that had used common law rules of citizenship by birth to specifically exclude children born to “transient aliens, and of alien public ministers and consuls, etc.”
In other words, unlike under the common law, birth by itself did not create allegiance to the State to non-resident aliens due merely to locality.
Could a natural-born citizen perhaps be synonymous with the British term “natural-born subject”?
It is very doubtful the framers adopted the doctrine found under the old English doctrine of “natural-born subject.” The British doctrine allowed for double allegiances, something the founders considered improper and dangerous. The American naturalization process required all males to twice renounce all allegiances with other governments and pledge their allegiance to this one before finally becoming a citizen.
House Report No. 784, dated June 22, 1874, stated, “The United States have not recognized a ‘double allegiance.’ By our law a citizen is bound to be ‘true and faithful’ alone to our government.” It wouldn’t be practical for the United States to claim a child as a citizen when the child’s natural country of origin equally claims him/her because doing so could leave the child with two competing legal obligations, e.g., military duty.
Under the old English common law doctrine of natural-born subject, birth itself was an act of naturalization that required no prior consent or demand of expressed allegiance to the nation in advance. Furthermore, birth was viewed as enjoining a “perpetual allegiance” upon all that could never be severed or altered by any change of time or act of anyone. England’s “perpetual allegiance” due from birth was extremely unpopular in this country; often referred to as absurd barbarism, or simply perpetual nonsense. America went to war with England over the doctrine behind “natural-born subject” in June of 1812.
Because Britain considered all who were born within the dominions of the crown to be its natural-born subjects even after becoming naturalized citizens of the United States, led to British vessels blockading American ports. Under the British blockade, every American ship entering or leaving was boarded by soldiers in search of British born subjects. At least 6,000 American citizens who were found to be British natural-born subjects were pressed into military service on behalf of the British Empire, and thus, the reason we went to war.
Fourteenth Amendment
Whatever might had been the correct understanding of “natural-born citizen” prior to 1866, the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment certainly changes the view because for the first time we have a written national rule declaring who are citizens through birth or naturalization. Who may be born citizens is conditional upon being born “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States – a condition not required under the common law. The legislative definition of “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” was defined as “Not owing allegiance to anybody else,” which is vastly different from local jurisdiction due to physical location alone.
This national rule prevents us from interpreting natural-born citizen under common law rules because it eliminates the possibility of a child being born with more than one claim of allegiance.
The primary author of the citizenship clause, Sen. Jacob M. Howard, said the “word jurisdiction, as here employed, ought to be construed so as to imply a full and complete jurisdiction on the part of the United States, coextensive in all respects with the constitutional power of the United States, whether exercised by Congress, by the executive, or by the judicial department; that is to say, the same jurisdiction in extent and quality as applies to every citizen of the United States now.”
This remark by Howard puts his earlier citizenship clause remark into proper context: “This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons.”
United States Attorney General, George Williams, whom was a U.S. Senator aligned with Radical Republicans during the drafting of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1866, ruled in 1873 the word “jurisdiction” under the Fourteenth Amendment “must be understood to mean absolute and complete jurisdiction, such as the United States had over its citizens before the adoption of this amendment.” He added, “Political and military rights and duties do not pertain to anyone else.”
Essentially then, “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” means the same jurisdiction the United States exercises over its own citizens, i.e., only citizens of the United States come within its operation since citizens of the United States do not owe allegiance to some other nation at the same time they do the United States. This makes arguing the physical presence of being subject to laws silly because being subject to another countries laws while visiting makes no change to an aliens allegiance to their native country.
Natural-Born Citizen Defined
One universal point most all early publicists agreed on was natural-born citizen must mean one who is a citizen by no act of law. If a person owes their citizenship to some act of law (naturalization for example), they cannot be considered a natural-born citizen. This leads us to defining natural-born citizen under the laws of nature – laws the founders recognized and embraced.
Under the laws of nature, every child born requires no act of law to establish the fact the child inherits through nature his/her father’s citizenship as well as his name (or even his property) through birth. This law of nature is also recognized by law of nations. Sen. Howard said the citizenship clause under the Fourteenth Amendment was by virtue of “natural law and national law.”
The advantages of Natural Law is competing allegiances between nations are not claimed, or at least with those nations whose custom is to not make citizens of other countries citizens without their consent. Under Sec. 1992 of U.S. Revised Statutes (1866) made clear other nation’s citizens would not be claimed: “All persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are declared to be citizens of the United States.”
Rep. John A. Bingham commenting on Section 1992 said it means “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.” (Cong. Globe, 39th, 1st Sess., 1291 (1866))
Bingham had asserted the same thing in 1862 as well:
Does the gentleman mean that any person, born within the limits of the Republic, and who has offended against no law, can rightfully be exiled from any State or from any rood of the Republic? Does the gentleman undertake to say that here, in the face of the provision in the Constitution, that persons born within the limits of the Republic, of parents who are not the subjects of any other sovereignty, are native-born citizens, whether they be black or white? There is not a textbook referred to in any court which does not recognise the principle that I assert. (Cong. Globe, 37th, 2nd Sess., 407 (1862))
Bingham of course was paraphrasing Vattel whom often used the plural word “parents” but made it clear it was the father alone for whom the child inherits his/her citizenship from (suggesting a child could be born out of wedlock wasn’t politically correct). Bingham subscribed to the same view as most everyone in Congress at the time that in order to be born a citizen of the United States one must be born within the allegiance of the Nation. As the court has consistently ruled without controversy, change of location never changes or alters a persons allegiance to their country of origin except by acting in accordance to written law in throwing off their previous allegiance and consenting to a new one.
This of course, explains why emphasis of not owing allegiance to anyone else was the effect of being subject to the jurisdiction of the United States under the Fourteenth Amendment.
It should be noted this allegiance due under England’s common law and American law are of two different species. Under the common law one owed a personal allegiance to the King as an individual upon birth for which could never be thrown off. Under the American system there was no individual ruler to owe a perpetual personal allegiance to.
The constitutional requirement for the President of the United States to be a natural-born citizen had one purpose according to St. George Tucker:
That provision in the constitution which requires that the president shall be a native-born citizen (unless he were a citizen of the United States when the constitution was adopted,) is a happy means of security against foreign influence, which, wherever it is capable of being exerted, is to he dreaded more than the plague. The admission of foreigners into our councils, consequently, cannot be too much guarded against; their total exclusion from a station to which foreign nations have been accustomed to, attach ideas of sovereign power, sacredness of character, and hereditary right, is a measure of the most consummate policy and wisdom. …The title of king, prince, emperor, or czar, without the smallest addition to his powers, would have rendered him a member of the fraternity of crowned heads: their common cause has more than once threatened the desolation of Europe. To have added a member to this sacred family in America, would have invited and perpetuated among us all the evils of Pandora’s Box.
Charles Pinckney in 1800 said the presidential eligibility clause was designed “to insure … attachment to the country.” President Washington warned a “passionate attachment of one nation for another, produces a variety of evils,” and goes on to say:
Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest, in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter, without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation, of privileges denied to others, which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained; and by exciting jealousy, ill- will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld.
And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens, (who devote themselves to the favorite nation,) facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearance of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.
What better way to insure attachment to the country then to require the President to have inherited his American citizenship through his American father and not through a foreign father. Any child can be born anywhere in the country and removed by their father to be raised in his native country. The risks would be for the child to return in later life to reside in this country bringing with him foreign influences and intrigues, and thus, making such a citizen indistinguishable from a naturalized citizen.
Conclusion
Extending citizenship to non-citizens through birth based solely upon locality is nothing more than mere municipal law that has no extra-territorial effect as proven from the English practice of it. On the other hand, citizenship by descent through the father is natural law and is recognized by all nations (what nation doesn’t recognize citizenship of children born wherever to their own citizens?). Thus, a natural-born citizen is one whose citizenship is recognized by law of nations rather than mere local recognition.
Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, James F. Wilson of Iowa, confirmed this in 1866:“We must depend on the general law relating to subjects and citizens recognized by all nationsfor a definition, and that must lead us to the conclusion that every person born in the United States is a natural-born citizen of such States, except that of children born on our soil to temporary sojourners or representatives of foreign Governments.”*
When a child inherits the citizenship of their father, they become a natural-born citizen of the nation their father belongs regardless of where they might be born. It should be pointed out that citizenship through descent of the father was recognized by U.S. Naturalization law whereby children became citizens themselves as soon as their father had become a naturalized citizen, or were born in another country to a citizen father.
Yes, birth is prima facie evidence of citizenship, but only the citizenship of the nation the father is a member.
* Temporary sojourners like transient aliens were a description applied to aliens other than resident aliens. The difference being temporary aliens were here for temporary purposes, such as work, travel, visitation or school, who had no desire to become citizens or was prevented from becoming citizens by law. Resident aliens were those who desired to become citizens and had renounced their prior allegiances and had taken the legal steps to become citizens or reside within some state per state law.
UPDATE: In regards to questions about the citizenship of the mother: Mothers citizenship rarely ever influenced the citizenship of their children except in certain situations such as the father dying before the child was born or when the identity of the father was unknown.
Related: What “Subject to the Jurisdiction Thereof” Really Means
Related: Nothing Unusual about States Denying Citizenship to Alien Born Children
This post is merely the “beginning” or a cursory examination of this question. So it is a good place for those of you who are truly curious and haven’t jumped on the bandwagon of “he’s a citizen”.
The Rio Norte Line 
Whooze the He you refer to ……. Our god-on-Earth, the Fraud-in-Chief ??
Seriously though, an outstanding Post Texas … Thanks !
“The constitutional requirement for the President of the United States to be a natural-born citizen had one purpose according to St. George Tucker:
That provision in the constitution which requires that the president shall be a native-born citizen (unless he were a citizen of the United States when the constitution was adopted,) is a happy means of security against foreign influence, which, wherever it is capable of being exerted, is to he dreaded more than the plague. The admission of foreigners into our councils, consequently, cannot be too much guarded against; their total exclusion from a station to which foreign nations have been accustomed to, attach ideas of sovereign power, sacredness of character, and hereditary right, is a measure of the most consummate policy and wisdom. …The title of king, prince, emperor, or czar, without the smallest addition to his powers, would have rendered him a member of the fraternity of crowned heads: their common cause has more than once threatened the desolation of Europe. To have added a member to this sacred family in America, would have invited and perpetuated among us all the evils of Pandora’s Box.”
If he only knew……
“native-born” does NOT equal “natural-born” either . . .
I think “what we have now” is a great example of why we have the 14th Amendment. We have the laws and rules we need, all we need now is politicians that obey them.
It was Blackstone’s influence and not Vattel’s influence that was the source of the natural born citizen term in the Constitution.
Blackstone wrote in his Commentaries the following:
The first and most obvious division of the people is into aliens and natural-born subjects. Natural-born subjects are such as are born within the dominions of the crown of England, that is, within the ligeance, or as it is generally called, the allegiance of the king; and aliens, such as are born out of it. (Commentaries of the Laws of England (1765)
Blackstone further noted the difference between Civil Law and Common Law regarding children born of aliens in England:
The children of aliens, born here in England, are, generally speaking, natural-born subjects, and entitled to all the privileges of such. In which the constitution of France differs from ours; for there, by their jus albinatus, if a child be born of foreign parents, it is an alien. Id.
As such, Blackstone recognized and affirmed Chief Justice Lord Coke’s opinion in Calvin’s Case in 1608 that children born of aliens within the dominions of England were natural born subjects.
The natural born citizen language in the Constitution is derived from its English Common Law counterpart natural born subject. This idea is based on courts understanding that the term citizen is analogous with term subject. “The term `citizen,’ as understood in our law, is precisely analogous to the term `subject’ in the common law, and the change of phrase has entirely resulted from the change of government.”). Rather, the terms are meant to encompass persons living under distinct forms of government: “A monarchy has subjects; a republic has citizens.” Matimak Trading Co. v. Khalily, 118 F. 3d 76 , 85 (2nd Cir. 1997)
The court in Smith v. Alabama, 124 U. S. 465, 478 (1888) stated in clear and concise language the common law’s influence in the Constitution:
“The interpretation of the Constitution of the United States is necessarily influenced by the fact that its provisions are framed in the language of the English common law, and are to be read in the light of its history.”
Vattel’s “Law of Nations” in which Vattel described the Civil Law’s concept of citizenship that only natural born citizens are born to citizens of a country; nevertheless, Vattel himself acknowledged the difference between CIVIL LAW and English COMMON LAW regarding natural born citizenship when he wrote in Law of Nations: “Finally, there are countries, such as England, in which the mere fact of birth within the country naturalizes the children of an alien.”
The Constitution does not defined Natural Born Citizen. As such, when language in a statute does not define a common law term, courts are “guided by the principle that where words are employed in a statute which had at the time a well-known meaning at common law or in the law of this country they are presumed to have been used in that sense unless the context compels to the contrary.” Standard Oil Co. of NJ v. United Sates, 221 US 1, 59 (1911)
That at the time of the drafting of the Constitution Blackstone’s Commentaries including his definition of natural born subjects was available to the founding fathers. Justice Stone observed: “It is noteworthy that Blackstone’s Commentaries, more read in America before the Revolution than any other law book.” CJ Hendry Co. v. Moore, 318 US 133 , 151-152 (1943) . Similarly, the court in United States v. Green, 140 F. Supp. 117, 120 (SD NY 1956) noted: “ Blackstone, whose Commentaries probably did much to influence the thinking of American lawyers at and before the time of the framing of the Federal Constitution.”
In addition the court in Reid v. Covert 354 U.S. 1 (1957) stated “that two of the greatest English jurists, Lord Chief Justice Hale and Sir William Blackstone—men who exerted considerable influence on the Founders” id at 26.
Moreover, “As with many other elements of the common law, it was carried into the jurisprudence of this Country through the medium of Blackstone, who codified the doctrine in his Commentaries. Benton v. Maryland, 395 US 784 795 (1969)
Finally, the court in Briehl v. Dulles, 248 F.2d 561 (DC Cir. 1957) noted that: “Professor Crosskey refers to the [Blackstone’s] Commentaries as “that great `best-seller’ of the eighteenth century” and points out that some of the members of the Constitutional Convention were on the subscription list of the original American edition in 1772. Politics and the Constitution, Vol. 1, p. 411, and Vol. 2, p. 1326, n. 3 (1953). Id. at fn 88
As such, it is inconceivable for the framers of the Constitution to “import” a foreign idea of citizenship based on the bloodline of fathers and not based on the Jus Soli doctrine as enunciated by Lord Coke in Calvin’s Case and reaffirmed by Blackstone in his Commentaries whose books were required readings by lawyers in colonial America.
The 14th Amendment codified the common law principle of Jus Soli in recognizing that all persons born in the United States are natural born citizens except those born to foreign ambassadors.
Courts do not recognized “partial ” citizenship nor do they acknowledged “defective ” 14th amendment citizenship. Either Obama is a natural born citizen or is an alien.
There is no “hybrid citizen” in that the person who is born in the United States is a “citizen ” but not a “natural born citizen.” In other words, stating that Obama is a United States citizen but not a natural born citizen is similar to being “partially pregnant” either he is a natural born citizen or not.
If he is not a natural born citizen because of misguided notion that he was not born under the 14th Amendment’s “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States phraseology due to the status of his alien father then he must be an alien. However, numerous courts have held that native born children of alien parents come within the 14th Amendment citizenship clause.
Podea v. Marshall, 83 F. Supp. 216, 219-220(ED NY 1949) (“It is a long recognized and well established principle that plaintiff acquired American citizenship upon his birth on September 21, 1912, at Youngstown, Ohio, even though his parents were immigrant aliens. Fourteenth Amendment, Section 1” ;Benny v. O’Brien 32 Atl 696, 697(New Jersey 1895)(“Two facts must concur: the person must be born here, and he must be subject to the Jurisdiction of the United States according to the fourteenth amendment, which means, according to the civil rights act, that the person born here is not subject to any foreign power. Allan Benny, whose parents were ‘domiciled here at the time of his birth, is subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, and is not subject to any foreign power.”
“It was a fundamental rule of the common law of England, that persons born in England and under the allegiance and protection of that government, were English subjects regardless of the nationality of the parents. Those born in England of ambassadors and of enemies having hostile occupancy of a portion of English soil, were not subjects; because not born within the allegiance. An alien domiciled in England owes temporary allegiance in return for protection afforded him and, hence, his child born in England is born in the allegiance of the crown which allegiance, in the child’s case, is permanent. Such was the law of the colonies and the law of the United States down to the 14th amendment; and such is still the law here and in England. . . ..The 14th amendment affirms the common-law rule that citizenship follows birth. An alien owes allegiance to the United States while domiciled here, and his children born here are born in the United States and under its jurisdiction. Such allegiance is but local and temporary; still it is strong enough to confer citizenship on his children born here. Samuel Fox Mordecai, Dean of the Law School, Trinity College. “Law Notes –Brief Summaries of the Law (1911) page 167
Courts have never recognized “14th Amendment citizen” as a distinct third type of citizenship. On the contrary, the courts have always recognized two types of citizenships, native/natural born citizens and naturalized citizens. “There are only two types of citizens: those who are native born and those who are naturalized.” Schaufus v. Attorney General of United States 45 F.Supp. 61,66 (D. MD 1942); “There are only two classes of citizens of the United States, native-born citizens and naturalized citizens; and a citizen who did not acquire that status by birth in the United States is a naturalized citizen.” Zimmer v. Acheson, 191 F. 2d 209, 211 (10th Cir. 1951)
Moreover, courts prior to the ratification of the 14th Amendment in 1868 had recognized that there is no legal distinction between those persons born in the United States to those born to citizen parents and non-citizen parents.
In 1844, a judge in New York noted that a child born in New York of aliens parents during their temporary sojourn in that city, returned with them the same year to their native country, and always resided there afterwards. He held that she was a citizen of the United States by noting:
“The term citizen, was used in the Constitution as a word, the meaning of which was already established and well understood. And the Constitution itself contains a direct recognition of the subsisting common law principle, in the section which defines the qualification of the President. ” 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,” The only standard which then existed, of a natural born citizen, was the rule of the common law, and no different standard has been adopted since. SUPPOSE A PERSON SHOULD BE ELECTED PRESIDENT WHO WAS NATIVE BORN, BUT OF ALIEN PARENTS, COULD THERE BE ANY REASONABLE DOUBT THAT HE WAS ELIGIBLE UNDER THE CONSTITUTION? I THINK NOT. The position would be decisive in his favor, that by the rule of the common law, in force when the Constitution was adopted, he is a citizen. Court of Chancery, State of New York, Lynch v. Clarke, 1 Sand. Ch. 583, 656 (1844) (emphasis added)
Justice Curtis in his dissent in the Dred Scott decision observed: “The first section of the second article of the Constitution uses the language, “a natural-born citizen.” It thus assumes that citizenship may be acquired by birth. Undoubtedly, this language of the Constitution was used in reference to that principle of public law, well understood in this country at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, which referred citizenship to the place of birth.” Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 US 393 576 (1857) (Curtis, J., dissenting)
In 1858, a court in New York reaffirmed the citizenship status of those born of non-citizen parents “It is further contended, on the part of the defendant, that the plaintiff himself is an alien. He was born in Ballston Spa, in this state, while his father was a resident of Canada, and returned to his father’s domicil, with his mother, within a year after his birth. . . . In Lynch v. Clarke, (1 Sand. Ch. R. 583,) the question was precisely as here, whether a child born in the city of New York of alien parents, during their temporary sojourn there, was a native born citizen or an alien; and the conclusion was, that being born within the dominion and allegiance of the United States, he was a NATIVE BORN CITIZEN, whatever was the situation of the parents at the time of the birth. That case, if law, would seem to be decisive of the present question.” Munro v. Merchant, 26 Barb. (N.Y.) 383. 400-401, (1858)
In the debates to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1866, Senators noted that children born in the United States to non-naturalized parents (i.e. foreign nationals) were citizens of the United States.
Senator Trumbull observed: “I understand that under naturalization laws children who are born here of parents who have not been naturalized are citizens. That is the law, as I understand it at the present time.” Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess. 498 (January 30, 1866)
Senator Trumbull further added “There has been no time since the foundation of the government when an American Congress could by possibly have enacted such a law, or with propriety have made such a declaration. What is this declaration? All persons born in this country are citizens.” Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess. 570 (February 1, 1866)
Noted legal scholar, William Rawle, wrote in 1829:
“The citizens of each state constituted the citizens of the United States when the Constitution was adopted. The rights which appertained to them as citizens of those respective commonwealths, accompanied them in the formation of the great, compound commonwealth which ensued. They became citizens of the latter, without ceasing to be citizens of the former, and he who was subsequently born a citizen of a state, became at the moment of his birth a citizen of the United States. Therefore every person born within the United States, its territories or districts, whether the parents are citizens or aliens, is a natural born citizen in the sense of the Constitution, and entitled to all the rights and privileges appertaining to that capacity. William Rawle, A view of the Constitution of the United States (2nd ed. 1829) page 86
As such, the 14th Amendment did not create a new type of citizenship that but rather codified the existing common law principle of Jus Soli that a person born in the United States regardless as to the status of his or her parents is natural born citizen.
In other words, there is no “14th Amendment” citizen who is not either a naturalized citizen or natural born citizen.
“Could a natural-born citizen perhaps be synonymous with the British term “natural-born subject”?
Answer:
The term “natural born citizen” in the Constitution was derived from the English common law term “natural born subject” since the term citizen is analogous to the common law term subject.
Courts have long recognized that the term “citizen” and “subject” were interchangeable to reflect the change of government.
“Subject and citizen are, in a degree, convertible terms as applied to natives, and though the term citizen seems to be appropriate to republican freemen, yet we are, equally with the inhabitants of all other countries, subjects, for we are equally bound by allegiance and subjection to the government and law of the land.” 2 Kent Com. 258. Medvedieff v. Cities Service Oil Co., 35 F. Supp. 999, 1002 (SD NY 1940)
The Supreme Court of North Carolina in State v. Manuel, 4 Dev. & Bat. 20, 26, (quoted in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649,) said: “The term `citizen,’ as understood in our law, is precisely analogous to the term `subject’ in the common law, and the change of phrase has entirely resulted from the change of government. The sovereignty has been transferred from one man to the collective body of the people; and he who before was a `subject of the King’ is now `a citizen of the State.'” Hennessy v. Richardson Drug Co., 189 US 25, 34 (1903)
“The term `citizen,’ as understood in our law, is precisely analogous to the term `subject’ in the common law, and the change of phrase has entirely resulted from the change of government.”). Rather, the terms are meant to encompass persons living under distinct forms of government: “A monarchy has subjects; a republic has citizens.” Matimak Trading Co. v. Khalily, 118 F. 3d 76 , 85 (2nd Cir. 1997)