Qualifications for President and the “Natural
Born” Citizenship Eligibility Requirement
Jack Maskell
Legislative Attorney
November 14, 2011
Congressional Research Service
7-5700
www.crs.gov
R42097
CRS Report for Congress
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epared for Members and Committees of Congress
Qualifications for President and the “Natural Born” Citizenship Eligibility Requirement
Summary
The Constitution sets out three eligibility requirements to be President: one must be 35 years of
age, a resident “within the United States” for 14 years, and a “natural born Citizen.” There is no
Supreme Court case which has ruled specifically on the presidential eligibility requirements
(although several cases have addressed the term “natural born” citizen), and this clause has been
the subject of several legal and historical treatises over the years, as well as more recent litigation.
The term “natural born” citizen is not defined in the Constitution, and there is no discussion of the
term evident in the notes of the Federal Convention of 1787. The use of the phrase in the
Constitution may have derived from a suggestion in a letter from John Jay to George Washington
during the Convention expressing concern about having the office of Commander-in-Chief
“devolve on, any but a natural born Citizen,” as there were fears at that time about wealthy
European aristocracy or royalty coming to America, gaining citizenship, and then buying and
scheming their way to the presidency without long-standing loyalty to the nation. At the time of
independence, and at the time of the framing of the Constitution, the term “natural born” with
respect to citizenship was in use for many years in the American colonies, and then in the states,
from British common law and legal usage. Under the common law principle of jus soli (law of the
soil), persons born on English soil, even of two alien parents, were “natural born” subjects and, as
noted by the Supreme Court, this “same rule” was applicable in the American colonies and “in the
United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the Constitution ...” with respect to
citizens. In textual constitutional analysis, it is understood that terms used but not defined in the
document must, as explained by the Supreme Court, “be read in light of British common law”
since the Constitution is “framed in the language of the English common law.”
In addition to historical and textual analysis, numerous holdings and references in federal (and
state) cases for more than a century have clearly indicated that those born in the United States and
subject to its jurisdiction (i.e., not born to foreign diplomats or occupying military forces), even to
alien parents, are citizens “at birth” or “by birth,” and are “natural born,” as opposed to
“naturalized,” U.S. citizens. There is no provision in the Constitution and no controlling
American case law to support a contention that the citizenship of one’s parents governs the
eligibility of a native born U.S. citizen to be President.
Although the eligibility of native born U.S. citizens has been settled law for more than a century,
there have been legitimate legal issues raised concerning those born outside of the country to U.S.
citizens. From historical material and case law, it appears that the common understanding of the
term “natural born” in England and in the American colonies in the 1700s may have included
both the strict common law meaning as born in the territory (jus soli), as well as the statutory
laws adopted in England since at least 1350, which included children born abroad to British
fathers (jus sanguinis, the law of descent).
The weight of legal and historical authority indicates that the term “natural born” citizen would
mean a person who is entitled to U.S. citizenship “by birth” or “at birth,” either by being born
“in” the United States and under its jurisdiction, even those born to alien parents; by being born
abroad to U.S. citizen-parents; or by being born in other situations meeting legal requirements for
U.S. citizenship “at birth.” Such term, however, would not include a person who was not a U.S.
citizen by birth or at birth, and who was thus born an “alien” required to go through the legal
process of “naturalization” to become a U.S. citizen.
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Qualifications for President and the “Natural Born” Citizenship Eligibility Requirement
Contents
History of the Qualifications Clause in the Federal Convention of 1787........................................ 4
Procedural History..................................................................................................................... 4
Apparent Purpose and Intent ..................................................................................................... 5
Common Law Meaning of the Term “Natural Born” Citizen or Subject......................................... 9
Common Law and the Constitution........................................................................................... 9
Common Law and Persons Born “In” the Country ................................................................. 11
Common Law and Persons Born Abroad to Citizen-Parents................................................... 14
Common Understanding in 18th Century of the Term “Natural Born” Citizen.............................. 16
Citizenship at Birth: Case Law and Interpretations ....................................................................... 25
Legal Cases and Senator McCain............................................................................................ 34
Legal Cases and President Obama........................................................................................... 38
Allegations of Loss of Citizenship .................................................................................... 43
Assertion of Two Citizen-Parent Requirement.................................................................. 44
Contacts
Author Contact Information........................................................................................................... 50
Congressional Research Service
Qualifications for President and the “Natural Born” Citizenship Eligibility Requirement
he standing qualifications to be President of the United States are set out in the
Constitution, at Article II, Section 1, clause 5, and state three specific requirements: one
T must be at least 35 years old, a resident “within the United States” for 14 years, and a
“natural born Citizen.” The constitutional provision states as follows:
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.
Questions from time-to-time have arisen concerning whether one who is a U.S. citizen “at birth”
because of the operation of federal law, is also a “natural born” citizen for purposes of the
presidential eligibility clause. Such questions often concern persons born abroad to parents who
are U.S. citizens, or persons born abroad when only one parent is a U.S. citizen who had resided
in the United States.1 Although such individuals born abroad may clearly be U.S. citizens “at
birth” by statute, would such persons also be “natural born Citizens,” or is eligibility to the
Presidency limited only to “native born” citizens?2 Additionally, questions have been recently
raised by some as to whether one born “in” the United States of one or more alien parents, and
who is thus clearly a U.S. citizen “at birth” by the Fourteenth Amendment, as well as by federal
law and common law, was intended to be considered a “natural born” citizen for purposes of the
presidential eligibility clause.
The Constitution does not define the term “natural born Citizen,” nor are the notes from the
debates at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 instructive as to any specific collective intent of
the framers concerning the meaning of the term. Furthermore, the Supreme Court has never
needed to address this particular issue within the specific context of a challenge to the eligibility
of a candidate under Article II, Section 1, clause 5, the only place in the entire Constitution that
the phrase appears, although federal courts have discussed the concept extensively with respect to
other issues of citizenship. Consequently, although there are numerous Supreme Court cases, as
well as other federal and state case law, discussing the phrase and its meaning from which
conclusions may be drawn, there has still been certain speculation on the scope of the language.
According to the Supreme Court, words and phrases used, but not defined, within the
Constitution, should “be read in light of British common law,” since the U.S. Constitution is
“framed in the language of the English common law.”3 Although the English common law is not
“binding” on federal courts in interpreting the meaning of words or phrases within the
Constitution, nor is it necessarily to be considered the “law” of the United States (as it is for the
individual states specifically incorporating it), it can be employed to shed light on the concepts
and precepts within the document that are not defined there, but which are reflected in the corpus
of British law and jurisprudence of the time. As noted by Chief Justice (and former President)
Taft, writing for a unanimous Supreme Court, the framers of the U.S. Constitution “were born
1 See 8 U.S.C. §1401, for categories of persons who are deemed to be U.S. citizens “at birth.”
2 See, e.g., Means, Is Presidency Barred to Americans Born Abroad? U.S. NEWS AND WORLD REPORT, Vol. 39, No. 26,
December 23, 1955, at 26-30; Is Gov. George Romney Eligible to be President ? THE NEW YORK LAW JOURNAL,
October 16 and 17, 1967, p. 1; McCain’s Canal Zone Birth Prompts Queries About Whether That Rules Him Out, N.Y.
TIMES, February 28, 2008.
3 Smith v. Alabama, 124 U.S. 465, 478 (1888). See also, more recently, Carmel v. Texas, 529 U.S. 513, 521 (2000),
where the Supreme Court noted that the meaning of an undefined term in the Constitution “necessarily requires some
explanation,” and that “the necessary explanation is derived from English common law well known to the Framers.”
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Qualifications for President and the “Natural Born” Citizenship Eligibility Requirement
and brought up in” the English common law, they “thought and spoke in its vocabulary,” and that
English common law was thus what the “statesmen and lawyers of the Convention” employed for
the meaning of the terms in the Constitution “confident that they could be shortly and easily
understood.”4
The term “natural born” in the context of citizenship appears to derive from the British concept
that those born with a “natural liege” (allegiance, tie, or connection) to the nation or to the
sovereign, were (under English terminology) “natural born” subjects under the law in England
and in the American colonies at the time of independence. There appears to be little scholarly
debate that the English common law at the time of independence included at least all persons born
on the soil of England (jus soli, that is, “law of the soil”), even to alien parents, as “natural born”
subjects (unless the alien parents were diplomatic personnel of a foreign nation, or foreign troops
in hostile occupation). As noted by the Supreme Court of the United States, this “same rule” was
applicable in the colonies and “in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the
Constitution” with respect to “natural born” U.S. citizenship.5
Although the British common law at the time of independence with regard to jus soli was
apparently clear, there were varying opinions as whether those born abroad of English subjects
were “natural born” subjects under the common law, or were considered “natural born” subjects
merely by long-standing statutory law. Some commentators have claimed that the statutory
provisions of English law, first appearing during the reign of Edward III in 1350, were
“incorporated” into, or in the alternative, “reflected” the already established English common
law.6 Regardless of the technical state of the common law in England with respect to children
born abroad, however, there appear to be significant arguments that the corpus of English law
applicable within the American colonies, known to the framers and adopted in the states, was
broader than merely the “law of the soil.” Legal commentators have contended that the body of
English law carried forward in the United States relating to citizenship included both the strict
common law notion of jus soli, as well as that part of the law of descent (jus sanguinis) included
in long-standing British law7 (including as “natural born” subjects those born abroad of an
English father), and that this was part of the “common understanding” of the term “natural born”
to the framers at the time of the drafting of the Constitution.8
4 Ex parte Grossman, 267 U.S. 87, 108-109 (1925).
5 United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649, 658 (1898). See also Inglis v. Sailor’s Snug Harbour, 3 Pet. (28 U.S.)
99, 120 (1830), see specifically Story, J., dissenting on other grounds, 28 U.S. at 164.
6 See discussion of controversy of whether the English common law included only those born on the soil, regardless of
the nationality of the parents (jus soli), or whether the common law also included those born abroad of an English
father (jus sanguinis), in Flourny, Richard W. (Assistant Solicitor, Department of State), Dual Nationality and Election,
30 YALE LAW JOURNAL 545, 548 (1921).
7 See Blackstone, COMMENTARIES ON THE LAWS OF ENGLAND, Volume I, “Of the Rights of Persons,” 354-358, 361
(1765): “ ... by several more modern statutes ... all children, born out of the king’s ligeance, whose fathers were natural-
born subjects, are now natural born subjects themselves, to all intents and purposes, without any exception; unless their
said fathers were attainted, or banished beyond sea, for high treason; or were then in the service of a prince at enmity
with Great Britain.” As noted by the Supreme Court in Weedin v. Chin Bow, 274 U.S. 657, 660 (1926): “These statutes
applied to the colonies before the War of Independence.” For early references to the term natural liege subjects in the
American colonies, see Sydney George Fisher, THE EVOLUTION OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES,
(Lippincott 1897) at 189, citing the Virginia Charter of 1611-1612, and the Concessions of East Jersey, 1665.
8 See, for example, Charles Gordon, Who Can Be President of the United States: The Unresolved Enigma, 28 MD. L.
REV. 1, 12, 18 (1968). Charles Gordon was formerly General Counsel of the United States Immigration and
Naturalization Service.
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Considering the history of the constitutional provision, the clause’s apparent intent, the English
common law expressly applicable in the American colonies and in all of the original states, the
common use and meaning of the phrase “natural born” subject in England and the American
colonies in the 1700s, and the subsequent action of the first Congress in enacting the
Naturalization Act of 1790 (expressly defining the term “natural born citizen” to include those
born abroad to U.S. citizens),9 it appears that the most logical inferences would indicate that the
phrase “natural born Citizen” would mean a person who is entitled to U.S. citizenship “by birth”
or “at birth.” Such interpretation, as evidenced by over a century of American case law, would
include as natural born citizens those born in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction
regardless of the citizenship status of one’s parents,10 or those born abroad of one or more parents
who are U.S. citizens (as recognized by statute),11 as opposed to a person who is not a citizen by
birth and is thus an “alien” required to go through the legal process of naturalization to become a
U.S. citizen.12
The weight of scholarly legal and historical opinion, as well as the consistent case law in the
United States, also supports the notion that “natural born Citizen” means one who is a U.S.
citizen “at birth” or “by birth.”13 The Constitution of the United States of America, Analysis and
Interpretation, notes that “[w]hatever the term ‘natural born’ means, it no doubt does not include
a person who is ‘naturalized,’” and, after discussing historical and legal precedents and
arguments, concludes that “[t]here is reason to believe ... that the phrase includes persons who
9 Act of March 26, 1790, 1 Stat. 103, 104.
10 U.S CONST. amend. XIV; 8 U.S.C. §1401(a); see Lynch v. Clarke, 3 N.Y. Leg. Obs. 236, 242, 244 (1 Sand. ch. 583)
(1844); United States v. Rhodes, 27 F. Cas. 785 (1 Abb. 28) (Cir.Ct.Ky 1866); In re Look Tin Sing, 21 F. 905 (Cal. Cir.
1884); United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649, 658, 661-662, 693 (1898); Kwok Jan Fat v. White, 253 U.S.
454, 457 (1920); Yamauchi v. Rogers, 181 F. Supp. 934, 935-936 (D.D.C. 1960); Diaz-Salazar v. INS, 700 F.2d 1156,
1160 (7th Cir. 1982), cert. denied, 462 U.S. 1132 (1983); Mustata v. U.S. Department of Justice, 179 F.3d 1017, 1019
(6th Cir. 1999); Hollander v. McCain, 566 F.Supp.2d 63, 66 (D.N.H. 2008); Ankeny v. Governor of the State of
Indiana, 916 NE2d 678 (2009), petition to transfer jurisdiction denied (Ind. Supreme Court, April 5, 2010); United
States v. Carlos Jesus Marguet-Pillado, 648 F.3d 1001, 1006 (9th Cir. 2011).
11 See, e.g.,, 8 U.S.C. §1401(c),(d),(e) and (g); Robinson v. Bowen, 567 F.Supp.2d 1144 , 145-146 (N.D. Cal. 2008);
United States v. Carlos Jesus Marguet-Pillado, 648 F.3d 1001, 1006 (9th Cir. 2011).
12 Schneider v. Rusk, 377 U.S. 163, 165 (1964).
13 Edward S. Corwin, THE PRESIDENT, OFFICE AND POWERS, 1787-1984, at 38-39 (5th Revised ed. by Bland, Hindson,
and Peltason, 1984); James H. Kettner, THE DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP, 1608-1870 (U.N.C. Press 1978);
Gordon, Mailman, & Yale-Loehr, IMMIGRATION LAW AND PROCEDURE, §§91 and 92 (rev. ed. 2010); Jill Pryor, The
Natural Born Citizen Clause and Presidential Eligibility: An Approach to Resolving Two Hundred Years of
Uncertainty, 97 YALE L.J. 881 (1988); Charles Gordon, Who Can Be President of the United States: The Unresolved
Enigma, 28 MD. L. REV. 1 (1968); Richard W. Flourny, (Assistant Solicitor, Department of State), Dual Nationality
and Election, 30 YALE LAW JOURNAL 545, 550 (1921); Michael Nelson, Constitutional Qualifications for President,
PRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Vol. XVII, Number 2, at 384-391 (Spring 1987); Warren Freedman, Comment,
Presidential Timber: Foreign Born Children of American Parents, 35 CORNELL L.Q. 357 (1950); Frederick Van Dyne
(Assistant Solicitor of the Department of State), CITIZENSHIP OF THE UNITED STATES (New York 1904); J. Michael
Medina, The Presidential Qualification Clause in the Bicentennial Year: The Need to Eliminate the Natural Born
Citizen Requirement, XII OKLA. CITY UNIV. L. R. 253, 268 (1987); Akil Amar, Natural Born Killjoy, Why the
Constitution Won’t Let Immigrants Run for President, and Why That Should Change, LEGAL AFFAIRS, 16, 17 (March-
April 2004): “... the presidency and vice presidency were reserved for citizens by birth.” For the opposing view, see
Isidor Blum, Is Gov. George Romney Eligible to Be President?, N.Y.L.J., October 16 & 17, 1967, at 1, which contends
that only those born “in” the United States are “natural born” citizens under common law principles. In another
analyses, one author would include the children of U.S. citizens who are born abroad when one or both of the parents
are abroad under the direction of and officially representing, or on duty for, the United States Government, either in the
military or in a civilian governmental role. Christina Lohman, Presidential Eligibility: The Meaning of the Natural-
Born Citizen Clause, 36 GONZAGA LAW REVIEW 349, 369 (2000/2001).
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become citizens at birth by statute because of their status in being born abroad of American
citizens.”14
History of the Qualifications Clause in the Federal
Convention of 1787
Procedural History
The particular clause concerning presidential eligibility and citizenship was placed in the
Constitution and approved at the Convention of 1787 with no debate, objection, or comment. The
five-person Committee of Detail, appointed by the Convention delegates to report a draft
Constitution containing issues and items agreed upon by the Convention up to that point,15 was
instructed by the Convention, on July 26, 1787, to consider provisions requiring certain
qualifications for Congress and the Presidency.16 Although the subsequent report on August 6
from the Committee of Detail contained qualifications for Senator and Representative, it did not
offer qualifications for President.17 On August 20, the Convention adopted a motion by Mr. Gerry
of Massachusetts that the “Committee be instructed to report proper qualifications for the
President ...,”18 and on August 22, the Committee of Detail reported its recommendation that
several additions be made to the report it had made, including the following concerning the
qualifications of the President: “[H]e shall be of the age of thirty five years, and a Citizen of the
United States, and shall have been an Inhabitant thereof for Twenty one years.”19 The report of
the Committee of Detail was then “considered” and “postponed” on August 22, so “that each
member might furnish himself with a copy.”20
In the subsequent days, the provisions for the qualifications of President were not taken up and
thus not agreed upon by the whole Convention, and on August 31, 1787, the delegates agreed to
“refer such part of the Constitution as have been proposed, and such parts of reports as have not
been acted upon to a Committee of a Member from each State,”21 which has been referred to as
the (third) “Committee of Eleven,” or the “Committee on Postponed Matters.” On Tuesday,
September 4, 1787, the (third) Committee of Eleven “partially” reported to the Convention
14 Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION, S. Doc. 108-17, at 456-457 (2004). [CONSTITUTION ANNOTATED]. The United States
Senate has also stated its opinion by way of unanimous consent, in S.Res. 511, 110th Congress, that natural born
citizens includes those persons born abroad of U.S. citizens.
15 Max Farrand, THE RECORDS OF THE FEDERAL CONVENTION OF 1787, Vol. II, at 85, 97 (Yale University Press 1911)
[hereinafter Farrand]. On Monday July 23, 1787, the Convention delegates unanimously agreed to appoint the
committee “for the purpose of reporting a Constitution conformably to the Proceedings aforesaid ....”
16 II Farrand, at 116-117, 121-125. The instruction was to draft provisions “requiring certain qualifications of landed
property and citizenship in the United States for the Executive, the Judiciary, and the Members of both branches of the
Legislature of the United States ....,” although the word “landed” was removed upon agreement of a motion by Mr.
Madison of Virginia to strike out that word (and thus that qualification). Id. at 123-124.
17 Id. at 177-179, 185.
18 Id. at 337, 344.
19 Id. at 366-367.
20 Id. at 376.
21 Id. at 473.
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Qualifications for President and the “Natural Born” Citizenship Eligibility Requirement
several “additions and alterations,” including the specific reference for the first time to a
presidential qualification to be a “natural born” citizen:
No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the U.S. at the time of the adoption
of this Constitution shall be eligible to the office of President: nor shall any Person be elected
to that office, who shall be under the age of 35 years, and who has not been in the whole, at
least 14 years a resident within the U.S.22
The language proposed on presidential eligibility on September 4 was agreed to without objection
and without debate on Friday, September 7, 1787.23 Stylistic and grammatical changes were made
through the Committee of Style to the clause on presidential qualifications to conform to the other
phrasing and usage in the document, which resulted in the final language adopted by the delegates
and sent to the states for ratification.24
Apparent Purpose and Intent
Tracing the development of this clause through the Constitutional Convention of 1787 clearly
indicates that there were no specific discussions or other explications within the Convention on
the meaning of the specific term “natural born” citizen. This does not mean, however, that there
were no discussions at all of the concept of a citizenship qualification for federal officers. In fact,
the issue of citizenship for Members of Congress was one that garnered much consideration and
debate in the Convention of 1787 and, it has been contended, it is within the framework of this
discussion that the eventual citizenship eligibility requirement was adopted for President and may
be analyzed.25
In stating concerns regarding the citizenship of congressional officeholders, and the required
length of such citizenship, George Mason argued that although he “was for opening a wide door
for immigrants; ... [h]e did not chuse to let foreigners and adventurers make laws for us”; nor
would he want “a rich foreign Nation, for example Great Britain, [to] send over her tools who
might bribe their way” into federal office for “invidious purposes.”26 These arguments were
echoed later by delegates at the Convention who were concerned with “admitting strangers into
our public Councils,”27 and feared that “foreigners without a long residency in the Country ...
bring with them, not only attachments to other Countries; but ideas of Govt. so distinct from ours
that in every point of view they are dangerous.”28 Thus, citizenship requirements of seven years
for Representatives and nine years for Senators were eventually adopted, although the
Convention did not act upon the wishes of Mr. Gerry “that in the future the eligibility might be
confined to Natives.”29 When the citizenship eligibility requirements for President were
22 Id. at 493-494, 498.
23 According to Madison’s notes: “The (section 2.) ... requiring that the President should be a natural-born Citizen, &c
& have been resident for fourteen years, & be thirty five years of age, was agreed to nem: con:” II Farrand, at 536.
24 II Farrand, at 574, 598.
25 See discussion in Michael Nelson, Constitutional Qualifications for President, PRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY,
Vol. XVII, Number 2, at 384-391 (Spring 1987).
26 II Farrand, at 216.
27 Id. at 235 (Mr. Morris).
28 Id. at 236 (Mr. Butler).
29 Id. at 268. Mr. Gerry stated his fear that “Persons having foreign attachments will be sent among us & insinuated into
our councils, in order to be made instruments for their purpose.”
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eventually reported and recommended after the debates and discussion of congressional eligibility
requirements, there were no further discussions of the issue in Convention.30
Although there was no discussion concerning the precise meaning or derivation of the term
“natural born,” there is in the Documentary History of the Convention a possible clue from where
the qualification for President to be a “natural born” citizen may have derived. The history of the
Convention indicates that George Washington, the presiding officer, received a letter dated July
25, 1787, from John Jay, which appears to raise for the first time the issue of a requirement to be
a “natural born” citizen of the United States as a requisite qualification to be President:
Permit me to hint, whether it would not be wise & seasonable to provide a strong check to
the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government; and to
declare expressly that the Command in chief of the american army shall not be given to, nor
devolve on, any but a natural born Citizen.31
There is no specific indication as to the precise role this letter and its “hint” actually played in the
adoption by the Convention of the particular qualification of being a “natural born” citizen.
However, no other expressions of this particular term are evident in Convention deliberations
prior to the receipt of Jay’s letter, and the September 4 draft of the Constitution reported from the
Committee of Eleven to the delegates, at a time shortly after John Jay’s letter had been
acknowledged by Washington, contained for the first time such a qualification.32 The timing of
Jay’s letter, the acknowledgment of its receipt by Washington on September 2, and the first use of
the term in the subsequent report of the Committee of Eleven, on September 4, 1787, may thus
indicate more than a mere coincidence. If this were the case, then the concern over “foreigners,”
without sufficient allegiance to the United States, serving as President and Commander-in-Chief,
would appear to be the initial and principal motivating concern of the framers, in a somewhat
similar vein as their concerns over congressional citizenship qualifications.33
Such purpose of the “natural born” citizen qualification was expressed by Justice Joseph Story in
his historic treatise on the Constitution in 1833:
It is indispensable, too, that the president should be a natural born citizen of the United States
... [T]he general propriety of the exclusion of foreigners, in common cases, will scarcely be
doubted by any sound statesman. It cuts off all chances for ambitious foreigners, who might
otherwise be intriguing for the office; and interposes a barrier against those corrupt
30 Presidential scholar Michael Nelson explains that when the qualifications of electors were not to be regulated or
prescribed by the Constitution, then the qualifications of the elected needed to be so prescribed. In the case of the
President, however, the Convention at first had intended under the Virginia Plan that the President be chosen by the
legislature, and thus it did not focus on the need for express qualifications of the President until later in the Convention.
Nelson, PRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, at 392-393.
31 III Farrand, Appendix A, LXVIII, at 61; Documentary History of the Constitution, IV, at 237.
32 A letter from Washington to John Jay on September 2, 1787, references Jay’s “hint” and suggestion to Washington.
III Farrand, Appendix A, XCIX, at 76; Documentary History Of the Constitution, IV, 269.
33 The provision was not directed at foreign-born statesmen or politicians in the country at the time of the drafting of
the Constitution, such as Alexander Hamilton who was born in the Caribbean, since the eligibility clause expressly
“grand-fathered” in those who were citizens at the time of the adoption of the Constitution. Hamilton, in any event,
supported the idea of limiting the eligibility to be President to a current citizen, or thereafter one who is “born a Citizen
of the United States.” III Farrand, at App. F, p. 629.
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interferences of foreign governments in executive elections, which have inflicted the most
serious evils upon the elective monarchies of Europe.34
“Ambitious foreigners” who may be “intriguing for the office” of head of state, which had been
the unfortunate experience in Europe, appeared to be a generalized and widespread concern at the
time of the drafting of the Constitution, as was the concern over the possibility of allowing
foreign royalty, monarchs, and their wealthy progeny, or other relatives to control the government
of the new nation. Max Farrand, in his treatise on the adoption of the Constitution, discussed
these concerns and rumors during the Convention of 1787:
During the sessions of the convention, but it would seem especially during the latter part of
August, while the subject of the presidency was causing so much disquiet, persistent rumors
were current outside that the establishment of a monarchy was under consideration. The
common form of the rumor was that the Bishop of Osnaburgh, the second son of George III,
was to be invited to become King of the United States.35
Others have noted that rumors were extant concerning colonial statesmen approaching or making
inquiries of other foreign royalty about seeking the chief executive’s position of the United States,
including rumors involving Price Henry of Prussia, and the ascension of King George’s second
son, Frederick, Duke of York. Presidential scholar Michael Nelson has commented:
The presidency they were creating was, the framers realized, the closest analog in the new
constitution to a king, just by being a separate, unitary executive. Even before the convention
assembled, von Steuben had disseminated a rumor that Nathaniel Gorham, president of
Congress under the Articles of Confederation and a convention delegate from New
Hampshire, had approached Price Henry of Prussia about serving as America’s King. Similar
stories involved the ascendancy of King George’s second son, Frederick, Duke of York.
During the summer, these rumors gained new currency. The story spread that the convention,
whose deliberations were secret, was advancing the plot behind closed doors.36
The question of not only “foreign influence” of wealthy persons immigrating to the United States
to become President, but also the issue of an American monarchy, were thus very real concerns of
the populace, as well as the framers, and appeared to establish the context in which the role,
qualifications, duties, and powers of an American chief executive were developed.37 As noted by
constitutional scholar Akhil Amar, the concerns and anxieties over ambitious and duplicitous
foreigners, and the “possibility that a foreign earl or duke might cross the Atlantic with immense
wealth and a vast retinue, and then use his European riches to buy friends on a scale that no
home-grown citizen could match,” led the framers to incorporate Article II’s “most questionable
34 Joseph Story, COMMENTARIES ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES, Vol. 3, §1473, pp. 332-33 (1833). Story
distinguished “natural born” citizens eligible to be President from “foreigners” who are generally excluded, noting the
exception only for a “naturalized citizen to become president” when such person was a citizen at the time of the
adoption of the Constitution “out of respect for those distinguished revolutionary patriots, who were born in a foreign
land, and yet had entitled themselves to high honors in their adopted country.” Story, at §1473, pp. 332-333.
35 Max Farrand, THE FRAMING OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES, 173 (Yale University Press 1913).
36 Nelson, PRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, at 395.
37 “The Framers had no antecedent to draw upon when creating the presidency and determining the qualifications for
the office. There was no executive officer under the Articles of Confederation. The Framers’ only model was a negative
one: they wanted an executive officer who would not have the attributes of a hereditary monarch.” Lawrence Freidman,
An Idea Whose Time Has Come – The Curious History, Uncertain Effect, and Need for Amendment of the ‘Natural
Born Citizen’ Requirement For the Presidency, 52 ST. LOUIS L.J. 137, 141 (Fall 2007).
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eligibility rule.”38 Amar also agrees that the framers’ aversion to hereditary monarchies appeared
to play an additional role in erecting a barrier to immigrants being President within the
Constitution—a document that was otherwise, for its time, enlightened as permitting immigrants
to weave their way into the fabric of American political and social life:
These anxieties had been fed by England’s 1701 Act, which inclined early Americans to
associate the very idea of a foreign-born head of state with the larger issue of monarchial
government. Though England banned foreigners from all other posts, it imposed no natural-
born requirement on the head of state himself. In fact, the 1701 Act explicitly contemplated
foreign born future monarchs—the German House of Hanover, in particular. By 1787 this
continental royal family had produced three English kings named George, only the third of
whom had been born in England itself. Article II’s natural-born language squarely rejected
the 1701 idea of future foreign-born heads of state, in no small part because many
republicans had come to link the idea (perhaps more sociologically than logically) with
hereditary succession and foreign intrigue. Foreign-born princes might be good enough to
rule in the Old World but should be kept out of the New World order—or at least the New
World presidency.39
The apparent purposes of this citizenship clause were thus to assure the requisite fealty and
allegiance to the nation from the person to be the chief executive of the United States, and to
prevent wealthy foreign citizens, and particularly wealthy foreign royalty and their relatives, from
coming to the United States, becoming naturalized citizens, and then scheming and buying their
way into the Presidency or creating an American monarchy. The possibility of satisfying these
purposes would appear to be as likely from an interpretation of the term “natural born” citizen
which would include one who is a citizen “at birth” by either common law principles of jus soli,
that is, being born on the soil (in the general usage of the term, one who is “native born”), or by
the operation of statutory law of the principles of jus sanguinis, that is, through the law of descent
by being born to U.S. citizens abroad. That is, one who is a citizen of the United States “at birth”
by descent under federal law could develop the requisite allegiances and reverences for the
United States passed down, inculcated, and taught by one’s parent-citizens, and would have a
lifetime of allegiance to the United States at least as strong, in a theoretical sense, as one of a
“native born” citizen.40 Native born citizens, that is, those born “in” the country, who are subject
to its jurisdiction, regardless of the nationality or citizenship of their parents, have always under
British common law, as well as under the laws of the original states, and then the United States
since its founding, been considered to have the “natural” allegiance and ties to the nation.41
38 Akhil Reed Amar, AMERICA’S CONSTITUTION, A BIOGRAPHY, at 164 (Random House 2005).
39 Id. at 165.
40 See Tuan Anh Nguyen v. INS, 533 U.S. 53, 64-65 (2001): Citizenship statutes requiring certain relationships of
children born abroad to U.S. citizen parent or parents are adopted “… to ensure that the child and the citizen parent
have some demonstrated opportunity or potential to develop not just a relationship that is recognized, as a formal
matter, by the law, but one that consists of the real, everyday ties that provide a connection between child and citizen
parent and, in turn, the United States.” See also Miller v. United States, 523 U.S. 420, 438-440 (1998) noting the
interest of “fostering ties with this country ….”
41 See Kettner, THE DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP, 1608-1870, at 287 (UNC Press 1978): “No one appeared
to re-examine and justify Coke’s idea of the ‘natural-born citizen.’ Americans merely continued to assume that ‘birth
within the allegiance’ conferred the status and its accompanied rights. Natives were presumably educated from infancy
in the values and habits necessary for self-government, and there was no need to worry about their qualifications for
membership.” See also discussion in Blackstone, COMMENTARIES ON THE LAWS OF ENGLAND, Volume I, “Of the Rights
of Persons,” 354, 357-358 (1765).
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Common Law Meaning of the Term “Natural Born”
Citizen or Subject
Common Law and the Constitution
If the term “natural born” with respect to citizenship conveyed a concept clearly within the
English common law, there would then be a strong implication that such term and its legal
meaning would either have been incorporated into, or at least would strongly influence the
framers in using such phrase, as well as subsequent interpretive construction by the courts of the
relevant provision of the U.S. Constitution.42 As noted by the Supreme Court,
There is, however, one clear exception to the statement that there is no national common law.
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.43
Many of the terms used in the U.S. Constitution were not specifically defined in that document
(such as “natural born” citizen, the privilege of the writ of “habeas corpus,” and the prohibitions
against “bills of attainder” and “ex post facto” laws, for example), and thus referral to the English
common law, “well known” to the framers and applicable in the American colonies, must be
made for a definitional reference for such terms. The Supreme Court has explained with reference
to the constitutional prohibition on “ex post facto” laws, for example, that the meaning of such
term, not defined in the Constitution, requires some explanation, and that “the necessary
explanation is derived from English common law well known to the Framers”:
The proscription against ex post facto laws “necessarily requires some explanation; for,
naked and without explanation, it is unintelligible, and means nothing.” Calder v. Bull, 3
Dallas 386, 390 (1798) (Chase, J.). In Calder v. Bull, Justice Chase stated that the necessary
explanation is derived from English common law well known to the Framers: “The
expressions ‘ex post facto laws,’ are technical, they had been in use long before the
Revolution, and had acquired an appropriate meaning, by Legislators, Lawyers, and
Authors.” Id. at 391; see also id. at 389.44
Similarly, Chief Justice (and former President) Taft explained (in a Supreme Court decision
dealing with the parameters of the offenses to which the “pardon” authority of the President
extends) that the meaning of the language and phrases in the Constitution, when they are not
specifically defined in that document, can only be discerned and interpreted by reference to the
British common law in place at the time of the drafting of the Constitution. The Chief Justice,
writing for a unanimous Court, found that the British common law was what the framers “were
born and brought up in,” that the framers “thought and spoke in its vocabulary,” and was thus
what the “statesmen and lawyers of the Convention” employed for the meaning of the terms in
the Constitution “confident that they could be shortly and easily understood”:
42 Ex parte William Wells, 18 Howard (59 U.S.) 307, 311 (1855); Moore v. United States, 91 U.S. 270, 274 (1875);
Smith v. Alabama, 124 U.S. 465, 478 (1888); United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649, 654-655 (1898); Ex parte
Grossman, 267 U.S. 87, 108-109 (1925); Carmel v. Texas, 529 U.S. 513, 521 (2000).
43 Smith v. Alabama, 124 U.S. at 478.
44 Carmel v. Texas, 529 U.S. at 521 (Emphasis added).
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The language of the Constitution cannot be interpreted safely except by reference to the
common law and to the British institutions as they were when the instrument was framed and
adopted. The statesmen and lawyers of the Convention who submitted it to the ratification of
the Conventions of the thirteen States, were born and brought up in the atmosphere of the
common law, and thought and spoke in its vocabulary. They were familiar with other forms
of government, recent and ancient, and indicated in their discussions earnest study and
consideration of many of them, but when they came to put their conclusions into the form of
fundamental law in a compact draft, they expressed them in terms of the common law,
confident that they could be shortly and easily understood.45
Justice Joseph Story explained in his celebrated work on the United States Constitution,
Commentaries on the Constitution, that the British common law formed the “foundation” upon
which American jurisprudence stands:
The universal principle (and the practice has conformed to it) has been that the common law
is our birthright and inheritance, and that our ancestors brought hither with them upon their
emigration all of it, which was applicable to their situation. The whole structure of our
present jurisprudence stands upon the original foundations of the common law.46
The British common law was, in fact, regularly adopted or recognized as in force expressly in the
constitutions, or in the early acts of the legislatures, of the original thirteen states after
independence had been declared in July of 1776. The original Constitution of Delaware, for
example, stated,
The common law of England, as-well as so much of the statute law as has been heretofore
adopted in practice in this State, shall remain in force, unless they shall be altered by a future
law of the legislature; such parts only excepted as are repugnant to the rights and privileges
contained in this constitution, and the declaration of rights, &c., agreed to by this
convention.47
The experience and the wording of the constitutions, or original statutes, adopted in most of the
other original states were similar to that of Delaware quoted above.48 Those immediately involved
in framing constitutions for the states in the 1770s, many of whom were also prominent in
framing the Constitution for the United States in 1787, were thus not only intimately familiar
45 Ex parte Grossman, 267 U.S. 87, 108-109 (1925). See also Ex parte William Wells, 18 Howard (59 U.S.) 307, 311
(1855): “Prior to the revolution, the colonies, being in effect under the laws of England, were accustomed to the
exercise of it in the various forms, as they may be found in the English law books. They were, of course, to be applied
as occasions occurred, and they constituted a part of the jurisprudence of Anglo-America. At the time of the adoption
of the constitution, American statesmen were conversant with the laws of England …. We must then give the word the
same meaning as prevailed here and in England at the time it found a place in the constitution.”
46 Justice Joseph Story, COMMENTARIES ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES, Vol. I, §157, p. 140 (1833).
47 Constitution of Delaware, 1776, Article 25.
48 See, for example, similar language in the Constitution of New Jersey, 1776, Article XXII; Constitution of Maryland,
November 11, 1776, Declaration of Rights, paragraph III; Constitution of New York, April 20, 1777, Article XXXVl;
Laws of Virginia, July 3, 1776, Ch. 38. Interestingly, the Constitution of Massachusetts, the colony in which the armed
rebellion began, did not mention “England” or “Great Britain” in its adoption of “[a]ll the laws which have heretofore
been adopted, used and approved in … Massachusetts, … and usually practiced on in the courts of law,” but which, as
recognized in case law in Massachusetts, referred, of course, to the British common law. Constitution of Massachusetts,
1780, Pt. 2, C. 6, Art. 6; see, e.g., Com. v. Leach, 1 Mass. 59 (1804); Com. v. Knowlton, 2 Mass. 530 (1807); Pearce v.
Atwood 13 Mass. 324 (1816); Sackett v. Sackett, 25 Mass. 309 (1829); Boynton v. Rees, 26 Mass. 528 (1830); Com. v.
Churchill, 43 Mass. 123 (1840); Com. v. Rowe 257 Mass. 172 (1926); Com. v. Lopes 318 Mass. 453 (1945).
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with, but also expressly recognized the continued application of the British common law within
this country.
Similar to the concept expressed in the original constitutions and enactments of the new states,
Justice Story has also noted in a Supreme Court decision that we did not necessarily, however,
adopt all of the British common law, but rather adapted it to our own situation.49 An analysis of
the term “natural born” citizen which begins with the British common law meaning of the phrase
might thus not necessarily end there, but must also take into consideration the unique American
experience, and the application and interpretation of the underlying concepts involved by the
courts in the United States. 50
Common Law and Persons Born “In” the Country
There appears to be very little scholarly or legal dispute as to the British common law applicable
in England and in the American colonies with respect to those born “on the soil.” As to those
children born in the geographic boundaries of the country, even of alien parents, the Supreme
Court of the United States in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, citing the British decision in
Calvin’s Case reported by Lord Coke,51 found that such persons were, under British common law,
considered “natural born” subjects (with minor exceptions for children born of foreign diplomatic
personnel or of hostile military forces in occupation, that is, those not “under the jurisdiction” of
that host country). This rule of law, noted the Court, applied to the American colonies at the time
of the Declaration of Independence and, significantly, “in the United States afterwards, and
continued to prevail under the Constitution ....”52
The premiere treatise on British law at the time of the drafting of the Constitution, which was
well-known and well-used in the colonies, was Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of
England (1765). Blackstone explained that “[t]he first and most obvious division of the people is
into aliens and natural-born subjects,”53 and that the “natural” allegiance due of “natural-born”
subjects, as opposed to merely “local” allegiance of aliens and sojourners, “is such as is due from
all men born within the king’s dominions immediately upon their birth.”54 Blackstone traced the
49 Van Ness v. Pacard, 27 U.S. [2 Peters] 137, 143-144 (1829).
50 One Court of Appeals has noted, for example, that the British common law with respect to “natural born” subjects as
those born within the entire “realm” of the British Empire, was not necessarily imported wholly into American
jurisprudence, as those born in the possessions of the United States, or in unincorporated territories, such as in the
Philippines, would not be “natural born” citizens of the United States, as they had not been born “in” the geographic
area of the United States. Rabang v. INS, 35 F.3d 1449, 1454, n.9 (9th Cir. 1994), cert. denied, sub nom. Sanidad v.
INS, 515 U.S. 1130 (1995).
51 Calvin’s Case, 7 Rep. 1, 4b -6a, 18a, 18b (1608).
52 169 U.S. at 658. For a thorough history of the adoption of the English common law principles of citizenship, and the
applications of those principles in the colonies, in the states, and then on a national basis in the United States, see
Kettner, THE DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP, 1608-1870 (U.N.C. Press 1978).
53 Blackstone, COMMENTARIES ON THE LAWS OF ENGLAND, Volume I, “Of the Rights of Persons,” 354 (1765).
54 Id. at 357-358: “Natural allegiance is such as is due from all men born within the king’s dominions immediately
upon their birth. For, immediately upon their birth, they are under the king’s protection .... Natural allegiance is
therefore a debt of gratitude; which cannot be forfeited, cancelled, or altered by any change of time, place or
circumstance, nor by anything but the united concurrence of the legislature. An Englishmen who removes to France, or
to China, owes the same allegiance to the king of England there as at home, and twenty years hence as well as now. ...
Local allegiance is such as is due from an alien, or stranger born, for so long time as he continues within the king’s
dominion and protection: and it ceases the instant such stranger transfers himself from this kingdom to another. Natural
allegiance is therefore perpetual, and local temporary only ....”
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development of the concept of “natural-born” allegiance to the reciprocal duties of protection and
allegiance (fealty, or “ligamen” (tie)), that developed concerning land ownership and use under
the feudal system, eventually understood to encompass the reciprocal protection/allegiance of all
English subjects with respect to the crown.55
In 1844, in a probate case in New York State, Assistant Vice-Chancellor Lewis Sandford authored
a detailed and scholarly opinion, later cited and relied upon by numerous federal courts and legal
treatises, on the legal history of natural born citizenship status in the United States.56 The opinion
in Lynch v. Clarke found that one of the litigants, Julia Lynch, who was born in New York to alien
parents who were merely on a “temporary sojourn” in this country, was a natural born U.S.
citizen who had the legal capacity to inherit. Sandford concluded that all persons born in the
United States, even of alien parents who were only here temporarily, had “natural born”
citizenship status under English common law, carried forward in the laws in all of the original
thirteen states after independence, and then under the laws and constitutional provisions of the
United States:
My conclusion upon the facts proved is, that Julia Lynch was born in this state of alien
parents, during their temporary sojourn. That they came here as an experiment, without any
settled intention of abandoning their native country, or of making the United States their
permanent home....
It is indisputable that by the rule of the common law of England, if applied to these facts,
Julia Lynch was a natural born citizen of the United States. And this rule was established and
inflexible in the common law, long anterior to the first settlement of the United States ... By
the common law, all persons born within the ligeance of the crown of England, were natural
born subjects, without reference to the status or condition of their parents....
*
*
*
At the formation of our present national government, the common law prevailed as a system
of jurisprudence, in all the thirteen states which then constituted the nation....
I need not dwell more at large upon this unquestionable proposition....
As the common law prevailed in all the colonies, and was the basis of their laws and
jurisprudence, it follows that all persons born in the colonies while in the ligeance of the
King of England, became subjects of the Crown of England; unless it be made to appear that
the rule of the common law was incompatible with the situation with the colonists, or
unsuited to their circumstances; or that it was altered by legislation.
Instead of abridging the rule, all colonial legislation which has come under my observation,
proceeded on the assumption that it was the settled law of the land.
*
*
*
It may then be safely assumed, that at the Declaration of Independence, by the law of each
and all of the thirteen states, a child born within their territory and ligeance respectively,
became thereby a citizen of the state of which he was a native. This continued unchanged to
55 Id. at 354-357.
56 Lynch v. Clarke, 3 N.Y. Leg. Obs. 236 (1 Sand. ch. 583) (1844).
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the time when our National Constitution went into full operation. There is no evidence of any
alteration of the rule of any of the states during the period that intervened.... 57
The Supreme Court of the United States, in its landmark opinion on birthright citizenship
authored by Justice Gray in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, citing both the common law and
numerous legal precedents in the United States, explained in 1898 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),58 as that term has been used over the
centuries in England and the United States:
It thus clearly appears that by the law of England for the last three centuries, beginning
before the settlement of this country, and continuing to the present day, aliens, while residing
in the dominions possessed by the Crown of England, were within the allegiance, the
obedience, the faith or loyalty, the protection, the power, the jurisdiction, of the English
Sovereign; and therefore every child born in England of alien parents was a natural born
subject, unless the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign State, or of
an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was born.
The same rule was in force in all the English Colonies upon this continent down to the time
of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to
prevail under the Constitution as originally established.59
The Court noted several judicial precedents finding that the clear common law from England, as
well as statutory law pertaining to such things as inheritance (which prevailed in the states in this
country unless expressly repealed), was that “persons born within the realm, although children of
alien parents, were called ‘natural-born subjects.’”60 Citing an earlier precedent, the Court noted
Justice Story’s opinion that the principles of common law “treated it as unquestionable that by
that law a child born in England of alien parents was a natural born subject.”61 The Court
referenced with approval an earlier decision of a federal circuit court, written by Supreme Court
Justice Swayne sitting on circuit, explaining that “the rule of the common law” of England, and
now “of this country, as well as in England,” is that “all persons born in the allegiance of the
United States are natural born citizens.”62
57 Id. at 238, 242, 243-244. The opinion then concluded that the Constitution, in using the phrase “natural born citizen”
was a “direct recognition of the common law principle ....” Id. at 246.
58 As to the use of “subject” or “citizen” with respect to “natural born,” the Supreme Court of the United States
referenced a court decision in North Carolina, explaining that “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.” 169 U.S. at 663-664, citing State v. Manuel, (1838) 4
Dev. & Bat. 20, 24-26. See also United States v. Villato, 2 U.S. (Dall.) 370, 371 (1797); Hennessey v. Richardson Drug
Company,189 U.S. 25, 34-35 (1903). But see, however, limitations as to “subject” of the realm, and those born in
United States’ possessions, in United States. Rabang v. INS, 35 F.3d at 1454, n. 9.
59 169 U.S. at 658. Emphasis added
60 169 U.S. at 661, citing an English statute of 1700, and referencing cases including The Charming Betsey, 2 Cranch (6
U.S.) 64 (1804); and Inglis v. Sailor’s Snug Harbor 3 Pet. (28 U.S.) 99 (1830).
61 169 U.S. at 661-662, discussing McCreery v. Somerville, 9 Wheat. 354 (1824), where, the court noted, that such rule
of natural born citizenship by birth within the country “of course extended to the Colonies, and, not having been
repealed in Maryland, was in force there.”
62 169 U.S. at 662-663 (emphasis added), citing United States v. Rhodes, 27 Fed. Case 785 (No. 16151) (C.C. Ky.
1866).
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The Supreme Court in Wong Kim Ark thus concluded that the Fourteenth Amendment “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.63 The Fourteenth Amendment further requires that
the person born “in” the United States also be “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States
which, as noted, is interpreted to mean that such person is subject to the laws of this country, such
that jurisdiction may be exercised over them, and thus would exclude children of foreign
diplomats here officially, and those of foreign troops in hostile occupation.64
Being born within the geographic boundaries of the United States, however, unlike the meaning
under British common law, does not necessarily include being born in the unincorporated
“territories,” possessions, or protectorates of the United States, unless such citizenship “at birth”
is otherwise provided by statute.65 A U.S. Court of Appeals, relying on the “Insular cases,” found
that birth in an unincorporated territory or possession of the United States, such as the
Philippines, did not grant Fourteenth Amendment or common law citizenship as being born “in”
the geographic area of the “United States,” even though under the British common law one may
have been a natural born “subject” of the crown when born within the far-flung dominions ruled
by the British Empire.66
Common Law and Persons Born Abroad to Citizen-Parents
In United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the Supreme Court, in examining an immigration question not
dealing specifically with the meaning of the presidential eligibility requirement, provided a
lengthy examination of the English common law of citizenship at the time of the drafting of the
Constitution, and whether such citizenship was obtained by the place of birth (jus soli) only, or
also by descent (jus sanguinis). As noted above, the Court found that the common law of England
was that of jus soli, that is, derived from the feudal notion of the reciprocal responsibilities of
allegiance and protection of an individual that was established in England by the place of that
person’s birth; and that the latter principle of citizenship by descent (because of the citizenship or
nationality of one’s father—jus sanguinis) was, as a general matter, the law in England by statute,
and thus not necessarily as part of the “common law,” even though there existed a long-standing
63 169 U.S. at 693.
64 In re Look Tin Sing, 21 F. 905, 906 (Cal. Cir. 1884); United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. at 687, 693. See
discussion in more recent case of Plyer v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202, 211-215 (1981), finding that for due process, as well as
equal protection purposes in the Fourteenth Amendment, that one “within the jurisdiction” of a state is one “subject to
its laws”: “In appellants’ view, persons who have entered the United States illegally are not ‘within the jurisdiction’ of
a State even if they are present within a State’s boundaries and subject to its laws. Neither our cases nor the logic of the
Fourteenth Amendment supports that constricting construction of the phrase ‘within its jurisdiction’” (457 U.S. at 211).
Rather, the Court found that “the protections of the Fourteenth Amendment extends to anyone … who is subject to the
laws of a State ….” (457 U.S. 215).
65 See, for example, 8 U.S.C. §1402 (Puerto Rico, born on or after April 11, 1899), §1403 (Canal Zone or Republic of
Panama, born on or after February 26, 1904), §1404 (Alaska, born on or after March 30, 1867), §1405 (Hawaii, born on
or after April 30, 1900).
66 Rabang v. INS, 35 F.3d 1449, 1453 (9th Cir. 1994), cert. denied, sub nom. Sanidad v. INS, 515 U.S. 1130 (1995):
“[T]he Citizenship Clause has an express territorial limitation which prevents its extension to every place over which
the government exercises its sovereignty.” See also, id. at 1454, n.9, where the Court of Appeals opined that “wholesale
importation of British common law on ‘subject’ status to interpret the meaning of the Citizenship Clause [of the
Fourteenth Amendment] is inadvisable because of possible differences between ‘subjects’ and ‘citizens,’” and thus
those born in U.S. unincorporated territories or possessions should not necessarily be considered as being born “in” the
United States.
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statutory recognition (since 1350) of the rights of “natural-born subjects” who were born abroad
to British parents or a British father.67
As pointed out by the Supreme Court in Wong Kim Ark, however, there was not necessarily
unanimity in legal scholarship concerning a narrow reading of the British common law with
regard to the children of subjects/citizens born abroad.68 Some legal scholars in England and in
the United States have argued that the long-standing statutory and parliamentary recognition of
children born abroad to English subjects as “natural-born” was merely “declaratory” of the
existing common law principles and understandings in England, although this was disputed in
dicta by the Supreme Court in Wong Kim Ark:
It has sometimes been suggested that this general provision of the statute of 25 Edw. III.
[1350] was declaratory of the common law. See Bacon, arguendo, in Calvin’s Case, 2 How.
St. Tr. 585; Westlake and Pollock, arguendo, in De Geer v. Stone, 22 Ch. Div. 243, 247; 2
Kent, Comm. 50, 53; Lynch v. Clarke, 1 Sandf. Ch. 583, 659, 660; Ludlam v. Ludlam, 26 N.
Y. 536. But all suggestions to that effect seem to have been derived, immediately or
ultimately, from one or the other of these two sources: The one, the Year Book of 1 Rich. III.
(1483) fol. 4, pl. 7, reporting a saying of Hussey, C. J., “that he who is born beyond sea, and
his father and mother are English, their issue inherit by the common law, but the statute
makes clear,” etc., - which, at best, was but obiter dictum, for the chief justice appears to
have finally rested his opinion on the statute. The other, a note added to the edition of 1688
of Dyer’s Reports, 224a, stating that at Trinity term 7 Edw. III. Rot. 2 B. R., it was adjudged
that children of subjects born beyond the sea in the service of the king were inheritable, -
which has been shown, by a search of the roll in the king’s bench so referred to, to be a
mistake, inasmuch as the child there in question did not appear to have been born beyond
sea, but only to be living abroad.69
The position of the dissenting Justices in Wong Kim Ark was characterized and discussed by the
Court in the later case of Weedin v. Chin Bow: “The attitude of Chief Justice Fuller and Mr.
Justice Harlan was, that at common law the children of our citizens born abroad were always
natural-born citizens from the standpoint of this Government....”70 A detailed law review article in
1921 by the assistant solicitor of the Department of State noted that a number of legal scholars
and historians contend that the English common law specifically included jus sanguinis, as well
as jus soli, and noted that the “question has been a subject of controversy for six centuries or
more….”71
Other legal scholars have contended that long-standing and commonly accepted principles
incorporated into English law by statute over several centuries, even if they did not merely
67 169 U.S. 655- 671. See also Blackstone, at 354-361.
68 It has also been argued, even on the basis of the incorporation of only a very narrow and technical concept of the
early English common law rule of jus soli into the Constitution, that the common law understanding, meaning, and
usage of the term “natural born” subject/citizen would include, at the very least, the children of U.S. citizens born
abroad when one parent is abroad because of service in an official capacity on behalf of, and under the direction and
control of, the United States Government. This argument would include both diplomatic personnel as well as military
forces who were not in hostile occupation, but were invited into, and stationed, in the foreign country. See Lohman, 36
GONZAGA LAW REVIEW, at 351-352, 365-369; Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. at 686, citing Chief Justice Marshall, in The
Schooner Exchange v. McFaddon, 11 U.S. [7 Cranch] 116 (1812).
69 169 U.S. at 669- 670.
70 274 U.S. 657, 670 (1926).
71 Flourny, Richard W. (Assistant Solicitor, Department of State), Dual Nationality and Election, 30 YALE LAW
JOURNAL 545, 548 (1921).
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“declare” already-existing English common law, actually modified the corpus of the common law
to incorporate such principles, and that this body of law was the one known to the framers, such
that the provisions of the Constitution must be interpreted in that light. Charles Gordon, who was
then general counsel for the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service, explained in
1968 that in addition to recognizing birthright citizenship as to the place of birth (jus soli), “the
consistent practice over several centuries, in England and the United States, [was] to recognize
citizenship status by descent.”72 Gordon thus concluded that “[t]he common law, as it had
developed through the years, recognized a combination of the jus soli and the jus sanguinis,” 73
and that the English common law adopted by the United States had been expanded by the long-
standing statutory inclusions over the centuries in England:
[T]here were doubts concerning the applicability of the jus sanguinis under the early
common law. But those doubts were eliminated by statutes enacted in England before the
American Revolution, which became part of the body of law followed in England and passed
on to this country. It can be argued ... that this total corpus was the common law which this
country inherited, and that it persevered unless specifically modified.74
That the United States was not confined to only the narrow common law of England in our usages
and applications, was noted by the Supreme Court in an opinion authored by Justice Story in
1829:
The common law of England is not to be taken, in all respects, to be that of America. Our
ancestors brought with them its general principles, and claimed it as their birthright; but they
brought with them and adopted, only that portion which was applicable to their situation.75
It was, in fact, common in the states after independence, upon the adoption of their constitutions
and statutes, to incorporate both the common law of England, as well as the statutory laws
adopted by Parliament and applicable in the colonies up until a particular date.76 There is thus
some argument and indication that it was common for a “modified” English common law—
modified by long-standing provisions of English statutory law applicable in the colonies—to be
among the traditions and bodies of law incorporated into the laws, applications, usages, and
interpretations in the beginning of our nation.
Common Understanding in 18th Century of the Term
“Natural Born” Citizen
In addition to examining the common law meaning of the term “natural born” as it related to
citizenship, there are other interpretive analyses that might be employed in an attempt to
understand the “meaning to the framers” of the term “natural born” citizen when the term was
72 Gordon, Who Can Be President of the United States: The Unresolved Enigma, 28 MD. L. REV. 1, at 12, 18 (1968).
73 Id. at 18.
74 Id. at 12.
75 Van Ness v. Pacard, 27 U.S. [2 Peters] 137, 143-144 (1829).
76 Constitution of Delaware, 1776, Article 25; Constitution of New Jersey, 1776, Article XXII; Constitution of
Maryland, November 11, 1776, Declaration of Rights, paragraph III; Constitution of New York, April 20, 1777, Article
XXXVl; Laws of Virginia, July 3, 1776, Ch. 38; Constitution of Massachusetts, 1780, Pt. 2, C. 6, Art. 6.
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adopted in the Constitution in 1787.77 If, as noted by the Supreme Court in an opinion authored
by Justice Story, the “common law of England is not to be taken, in all respects, to be that of
America,” 78 there may be accorded some significance to an analysis of what the term “natural
born” citizen was commonly understood to mean in the American colonies at the time of the
revolution and framing of the Constitution.
It is, of course, always a somewhat speculative exercise to attempt to discern the “common
understanding” of a group of individuals who may be geographically, professionally, and
politically diverse, particularly during a period many years removed from the current time.79 The
fact that no discussion appears in the notes of the Federal Convention of 1787 on the presidential
eligibility clause, and the fact that the actual debates and discussions in the Convention were held
in secret with no official journal of the debates being kept (other than for recording votes)
highlight the problems in such speculation. That being said, however, one might argue that there
existed what might be called a “common” or “general understanding,” or at least common
“usage” of the term “natural born,” as it related to those who were considered “natural born”
subjects of England in the American colonies at the time of independence, and “natural born”
citizens at the time of the adoption of the Constitution. The “state of the law” in colonial America
concerning who was a “natural born” subject of England under English laws, both common law
as well as statutory laws, was certainly known to the framers since, as noted by the Supreme
Court, “These statutes applied to the colonies before the War of Independence.”80
From examination of historical documents, it appears that the term “natural born” as it related to
citizenship under English law and jurisprudence was a term widely known and used in the
American colonies in the 1700’s, and was employed in the context and understanding of British
common law as well as British statutory law. For example, more than a decade before John Jay
had employed the term in his “hint” to General Washington at the Convention of 1787, the First
Continental Congress of the American colonies, meeting in Philadelphia beginning in September
of 1774, adopted a resolution asserting that the common law of England was fully applicable to
the colonies in America, as were such statutory laws of England as would be relevant to their
circumstances, and expressly included in the resolution an assertion of the rights of their
77 One commentator has averred that whether or not the common law was modified by statute is irrelevant; the only
relevant matter is what the “common understanding” of the meaning of “natural born” was at the time of the
Convention of 1787, regardless of whether that meaning was based solely on British common law or partly on adopted
statutes from England. Seligman, A Brief for Governor Romney’s Eligibility for President, 113 CONG. REC. 35019,
35020 (1967).
78 Van Ness v. Pacard, 27 U.S. at 143-144.
79 Jack N. Rakove, ORIGINAL MEANINGS: POLITICS AND IDEAS IN THE MAKING OF THE CONSTITUTION, p. 6: “Both the
framing of the Constitution in 1787 and its ratification by the states involved processes of collective decision-making
whose outcomes necessarily reflected a bewildering array of intentions and expectations, hopes and fears, genuine
compromises and agreements to disagree. The discussions of both stages of this process consisted largely of highly
problematic predictions of the consequences of particular decisions. In this context, it is not immediately apparent how
the historian goes about divining the true intentions and understandings of the roughly two thousand actors who served
in the various conventions that framed and ratified the Constitution, much less the larger electorate that they claimed to
represent. … For all these reasons, then, the ideal of “unbiased” history remains an elusive goal, while the notion that
the Constitution had some fixed and well-known meaning at the moment of its adoption dissolves into a mirage.” See
also Leonard W. Levy, ORIGINAL INTENT AND THE FRAMERS’ CONSTITUTION, ix (1988): “For several decades after the
ratification of the Constitution the fading memories of those who had attended the Philadelphia Constitutional
Convention supplied the main evidence of the Framers’ intent. Even when those memories were fresh, the framers
disagreed vehemently about what the Convention had meant or intended ....” See also, id. at pp. 1-29.
80 Weedin v. Chin Bow, 274 U.S. at 660.
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ancestors to be considered “natural-born subjects within the realms of England.” As noted in
Elliot’s compilation and analysis of documents related to independence,
On the same day [14th of October, 1774], Congress unanimously resolved, “that the
respective colonies are entitled to the common law of England, and more especially to the
great and inestimable privilege of being tried by their peers of the vicinage according to the
course of that law.” They further resolved, “that they were entitled to the benefit of such of
the English statutes as existed at the time of their colonization, and which they have, by
experience, respectively found to be applicable to their several and local circumstances.”
They also resolved, that their ancestors, at the time of their immigration, were “entitled to all
the rights, liberties, and immunities, of free and natural-born subjects within the realms of
England.”81
It is thus clear that the delegates to the First Continental Congress in 1774, among whom were
several framers of the Constitution at the Federal Convention of 1787, as well as other notable
“founding fathers” (including John Jay),82 were already familiar with and employed the term
“natural born” in the context of and within the understanding of British common law and
statutory law concepts of the rights and privileges of citizenship.
Of relevance to any meaning and “common understanding” of the term “natural born” within the
American colonies and at the time of the drafting of the Constitution is the legal treatise on the
laws of England referred to as “Blackstone,” for its author William Blackstone. Published in
1765, this treatise was not only available, but was widely known to the framers at the time of the
drafting of the Constitution.83 As noted by the Supreme Court of the United States, “Blackstone’s
Commentaries was widely circulated in the Colonies ...,” 84 and that “undoubtedly the framers of
the Constitution were familiar with it.”85 As discussed in the earlier section of this report on the
common law, Blackstone explained that “natural born” subjects in England and the American
colonies included all those born “in” the lands under British sovereignty. Concerning specifically
the issue of children born abroad of English subjects, Blackstone explains clearly that such
children are then (in 1765) considered under the law of England as “natural born” subjects, and
have been considered as such for most purposes since at least the time of Edward III (1350),
81 Jonathan Elliot, THE DEBATES IN THE SEVERAL STATE CONVENTIONS, ON THE ADOPTION OF THE FEDERAL
CONSTITUTION [ELLIOT’S DEBATES], Vol. I, “Gradual Approaches Towards Independence,” at 44 (2d Ed. 1836).
Emphasis in original.
82 Delegates to that First Continental Congress in 1774 included such framers present at the Convention of 1787 as
Roger Sherman of Connecticut, William Livingstone of New Jersey, Thomas Mifflin of Pennsylvania, George Read of
Delaware, George Washington of Virginia, and John Rutledge of South Carolina, as well as other notable “founding
fathers,” including John Adams and Samuel Adams of Massachusetts, John Jay of New York, and Patrick Henry and
Richard Henry Lee of Virginia.
83 One noted historian of the American colonial era has commented on the “deep legalism” of society in colonial
America “where William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England was selling as well as it was in
England.” Jack Rackove, REVOLUTIONARIES, at 68 (2010). See also Schick v. United States, 195 U.S. 65, 69 (1904),
discussing Blackstone’s Commentaries: “... it has been said that more copies of the work had been sold in this country
than in England ....”
84 Powell v. McCormack, 395 U.S. 486, 538 (1969). “Sir William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England
(1765-1769) is the most important legal treatise ever written in the English language. It was the dominant lawbook in
England and America in the century after its publication and played a unique role in the development of the fledgling
American legal system.” William Blackstone, COMMENTARIES ON THE LAWS OF ENGLAND, [hereinafter Blackstone],
Volume I, Of the Rights of Persons (1765) (Introduction at iii).
85 Schick v. United States, 195 U.S. at 69.
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because of the development of statutory law in England to “encourage also foreign commerce.”
As stated by Blackstone in his 1765 treatise,
[A]ll children, born out of the king’s ligeance, whose fathers were natural-born subjects, are
now natural born subjects themselves, to all intents and purposes, without any exception;
unless their said fathers were attainted, or banished beyond sea, for high treason; or were
then in the service of a prince at enmity with Great Britain.86
The “commonly understood” meaning of the term “natural born” in the United States at the time
of the drafting of the Constitution might thus be broader than the early, strict English “common
law” meaning of that term.87 As noted by Charles Gordon, former Chief Counsel of the
Immigration and Naturalization Service, whether the body of English law in the 1770s was from
early common law, from statutory law, or from the common law modified over the years by
statutory law, these provisions “were part of the corpus of the English law in existence at the time
of the Revolution, which was substantially recognized and adopted by our forefathers.”88 This
common usage and popular understanding to the framers of the term “natural born” subject (as
employed in England), and the term’s apparent evolution and broadening of meaning through
statutory law, has thus led several other legal commentators and historians to conclude: “The
constitutional Framers had a broad view of the term ‘natural-born’ and considered all foreign-
born children of American citizen parents eligible for the Office of the Presidency”89; or, as stated
by another: “[T]he delegates meant to apply the evolved, broader common law meaning of the
term when they included it in the presidential qualifications clause.”90
Presidential historian Michael Nelson has also averred that the term appeared to have a common
meaning at the time of the drafting of the Constitution which involved within its concept both the
common law definition and mode of acquisition of citizenship (through jus soli), as well as the
common understanding of the long-standing broadening of such term by the operation of English
statutory law to include those subjects who may have traveled abroad for purposes of commerce,
or otherwise. As noted by Nelson (and pointed out by others), a more restrictive meaning to
include only those born within the boundaries of the United States would mean that John Jay, who
86 Id. at 361: “When I say that an alien is one who is born out of the king’s dominions, or allegiance, this also must be
understood with some restrictions. ... [T]he children of the king’s ambassadors born abroad were always held to be
natural subjects: for as the father, though in a foreign country, owes not even a local allegiance to the prince to whom
he is sent; so, with regard to the son also .... To encourage also foreign commerce, it was enacted by statute 25 Edw. III.
ft. 2. that all children born abroad, provided both their parents were at the time of the birth in allegiance to the king ...
might inherit as if born in England: and accordingly it hath been so adjudged in behalf of merchants. But by several
more modern statutes these restrictions are still further taken off: so that all children, born out of the king’s ligeance,
whose fathers were natural-born subjects, are now natural born subjects themselves, to all intents and purposes, without
any exception; unless their said fathers were attainted, or banished beyond sea, for high treason; or were then in the
service of a prince at enmity with Great Britain.”
87 As noted in the preceding section of this report, legal scholars in England were not completely unanimous about
English common law during this period, as some had averred that it included as “natural born” subjects not only jus
soli, but also those born abroad of English parents, and/or that the statute of 1350 in the reign of Edward III was merely
a recitation or “declaration” of the common law, which might also have lead to a common or popular perception (or
even a commonly held misunderstanding) of the meaning of the term in the U.S. as including the issue of citizens born
in foreign lands even in the narrower concept of the “common law.” See also Flourny, Richard W. (Assistant Solicitor,
Department of State), Dual Nationality and Election, 30 YALE LAW JOURNAL 545, 548 (1921).
88 Gordon, 28 MD. L. REV., at 18.
89 Lohman, 36 GONZAGA LAW REVIEW, at 369.
90 Nelson, at 396. See also 7 Charles Gordon, Stanley Mailman, & Stephen Yale-Loehr, IMMIGRATION LAW AND
PROCEDURE, §92.03[1][b] (rev. ed. 2000); Pryor, 97 YALE L.J. at 882 (1988); Gordon, 28 MD. L. REV at 5-7.
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may have recommended the precise term to the Convention, would have intended to exclude from
eligibility his own children who were born in Spain and France while Jay was representing the
United States abroad:
The provision for “natural born Citizen” probably was aimed at immigrants, although the
term is so unusual as to be vague.... [b]ut [it] had deep roots in British common law. In
medieval times it had embodied the doctrine of jus soli: a natural born citizen was one born
within the realm (on the soil, so to speak). But with increased commerce and travel,
Parliament, starting in 1350, seemed to expand the definition of natural born to incorporate
the doctrine of jus sanguinis. Now babies born of British citizens abroad or at sea were
included as well. One can presume only that Jay and the delegates meant to apply the
evolved, broader common law meaning of the term when they included it in the presidential
qualifications clause. Certainly Jay did not mean to bar his own children born in Spain and
France while he was on diplomatic assignments, from legal eligibility to the presidency.91
With respect to the common or general meaning of the term “natural born” to the framers of the
Constitution in the context of those born abroad to U.S. citizens, it may be significant to note that
the first Congress, under its express constitutional authority “to establish an uniform Rule of
Naturalization,”92 enacted the Naturalization Act of 1790.93 The first of several such acts, this
1790 statute stated that
[T]he 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: Provided, That the
right of citizenship shall not descend to persons whose fathers have never been resident in
the United States....94
This early congressional act provides some argument that the term “natural born” citizen was
seen to include more than merely the “native born,” that is, those born in the country (in
accordance with the common law principle of jus soli), but also to include the long-standing
English statutory recognition of citizenship by descent through one’s father when an individual is
born abroad, that is, all of those who are citizens “at birth” or “by birth.” The significance of such
a statute passed by the first Congress was, of course, the fact that many of the framers of the
Constitution were Members of that first Congress, as well as the fact that the first Congress’s
understanding of the meaning of the terms of the Constitution was most contemporaneous in time
with the document’s adoption. One author has noted that of the “Committee of Eleven,” which
first proposed to the Convention of 1787 the eligibility requirement of being a “natural born”
citizen, 8 of the 11 committee members were in that first Congress, and none stated objections to
or disagreement with the characterization of the term “natural born” by statute by the Congress.95
The Supreme Court has expressly noted the weight of authority of early actions of the first
Congress in explicating portions of the Constitution because of the make-up of that Congress, and
91 Michael Nelson, Constitutional Qualifications for President, PRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Vol. XVII, No. 2,
at 396 (Winter 1987), citing Gordon, Who Can Be President?
92 U.S. CONST. art. I, §8, cl. 4.
93 Act of March 26, 1790, ch. 3, 1 Stat. 103, 104.
94 The 1790 statute was repealed and superseded by a 1795 naturalization statute which omitted the phrase “natural
born.” Act of January 29, 1795, ch. 20, 1 Stat. 414, 415. There is no legislative history indicating the reason for the
deletion of that term; however, in that statute the phrase “shall be considered as citizens” referred to the status of minor
children derivatively naturalized upon the naturalization of their parents, who are not “natural born,” as well as to the
children born abroad to U.S. citizens, so it is possible that the deletion is merely a stylistic/grammatical decision.
95 Lohman, 36 GONZAGA LAW REVIEW at 371.
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its proximity in time to the Convention. As noted by the Court, an act “passed by the first
Congress assembled under the Constitution, many of whose members had taken part in framing
that instrument, ... is contemporaneous and weighty evidence of its true meaning.”96
One of the more noted political and constitutional scholars on the American presidency, Edward
S. Corwin, has explained that “natural born” citizens eligible to be President clearly include all of
those born “on the soil” of the United States and subject to its jurisdiction, under the common law
principles of jus soli applicable in the United States, but also would appear to include those born
abroad of U.S. citizens under the principle of jus sanguinis, as adopted by Congress by statute.
Corwin noted that Congress has the authority as the legislative body of a sovereign nation “to
determine who shall and shall not be admitted to the body politic”:
But who are “natural-born citizens”? By the so-called jus soli, which comes from the
common law, the term is confined to persons born on the soil of a country; and this rule is
recognized by the opening clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which declares to be
citizens of the United States “all persons born or naturalized within the United States and
subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” On the other hand, by the so-called jus sanguinis, which
underlay early Germanic law and today prevails on the continent of Europe, nationality is
based on parentage, a principle recognized by the first Congress under the Constitution in
the following words:
The children of citizens of the United States that may be born beyond the sea, or outside
of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural-born citizens of the
United States; provided that the right of citizenship shall not descend to persons whose
fathers have never been resident in the United States.
By succeeding legislation the general clause of this provision has been continued in force to
this day. The question arises, whence did Congress obtain the power to enact such a
measure? By the Constitution the Congress is authorized to pass “an uniform rule of
naturalization,” that is, a uniform rule whereby aliens may be admitted to citizenship; while
the provision under discussion purports to recognize a certain category of persons as citizens
from an because of birth. The provision must undoubtedly be referred to the proposition that,
as the legislative body of a nation sovereign at international law, Congress is entitled to
determine who shall and who shall not be admitted to the body politic.
Should, then, the American people ever choose for President a person born abroad of
American parents, it is highly improbable that any other constitutional agency would venture
to challenge their decision ....97
It may be noted that some have argued that the relevant common meaning of natural born citizen
that was prevalent in 18th century America should not be the one that was actually applicable in
the American colonies during that time from British statutory and common law, and which was
adopted specifically by the states after independence in 1776 (and which, as noted by Justice
Story, formed the “foundation” for American jurisprudence), but rather should be recognized as
96 Wisconsin v. Pelican Ins. Co., 127 U.S. 265, 297 (1888); Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 783, 788-791 (1983). See
also Michel v. Anderson, 14 F.3d 623, 631 (D.C. Cir. 1994): “Although the actions of the early congresses are not a
perfect indicator of the Framers’ intent, those actions provide some indications of the views held by the Framers, given
the propinquity of the congresses and the framing and the presence of a number of Framers in those congresses.”
97 Edward S. Corwin, THE PRESIDENT, OFFICE AND POWERS, 1787-1984, at 38-39 (5th Revised ed. by Bland, Hindson,
and Peltason, 1984). (Footnotes omitted).
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one derived from what has been described as a “philosophical treatise”98 on the law of nations by
a Swiss legal philosopher in the mid-1700s.99 This particular treatise, however, in the editions
available at the time of the drafting of the U.S. Constitution, did not actually use, either in the
original French or in English interpretations at that time, the specific term “natural born
citizens.”100 It was not until after the adoption of the Constitution in the United States did a
translator interpret the French in Emmerich de Vattel’s Law of Nations to include, in English, the
term “natural born citizens” for the first time, and thus that particular interpretation and creative
translation of the French, to which the Vattel enthusiasts cite, could not possibly have influenced
the framing of the Constitution in 1787.101
Furthermore, and on a more basic level, the influence of the work of Vattel on the framers in
employing the term “natural born” in relation to domestic citizenship within the Constitution is
highly speculative at best, is without any direct historical evidence, and is contrary to the
mainstream principles of constitutional interpretation and analysis within American
jurisprudence. Although it appears that there is one single reference by one delegate at the Federal
Convention of 1787 to Vattel (in reference to several works of different authors to support an
argument for equal voting representation of the states in the proposed Congress),102 there is no
other reference to the work in the entire notes of any of the framers published on the proceedings
of the Federal Convention of 1787,103 and specifically there is no reference or discussion of the
work at all in relation to citizenship at the Convention, in the Federalist Papers,104 or in any of the
state ratifying conventions.105
98 Craig v. United States, 340 Fed. Appx. 471, 473 (10th Cir. Okla. 2009), cert. denied, 130 S.Ct. 141 (2009).
99 Emmerich de Vattel, THE LAW OF NATIONS, OR PRINCIPLES OF THE LAW OF NATURE, APPLIED TO THE CONDUCT AND
AFFAIRS OF NATIONS AND SOVEREIGNS (London 1760)[hereinafter THE LAW OF NATIONS]. The 1760 Volume is an
English translation of the original French, E. De Vattel, DROIT DES GENS: OU, PRINCIPLES DE LA LOI NATURELLE,
APPLIQUES A LA CONDUCT & AUX AFFAIRES DES NATIONS & DES SOUVERAINS (1758)[hereinafter DROIT DES GENS].
100 In the original French, the sentence reads: “Les naturels ou indigenes font ceux qui font nés dans le pays, de Parens
Citoyens.” (DROIT DES GENS, supra at Ch. XIX, p. 111). In the English translation available at the time of the framing
of the Constitution, translated in English in 1760 and in 1787, the terms “naturels or indigenes” were simply interpreted
as “natives or indigenes”: “The natives, or indigenes, are those born in the country of parents who are citizens.” THE
LAW OF NATIONS, supra at Vol. I, Book 1, Ch. XIX, §212, at p. 92 (1760), and at p. 166 of the 1787 edition. The
English phrase “natural born citizen” in early French translations of the U.S. Constitution’s Article II, §1, cl. 5,
however, was interpreted as either “citoyen-né” ([a “born citizen”] John Stevens or Warren Livingston, EXAMEN DU
GOUVERNEMENT D’ANGLETERRE, COMPARE AUX CONSTITUTIONS DES ÉTAT-UNIS,” at 257 (Paris 1789)), or “citoyen né
dans les États-Unis,” ([a “citizen born in the United States”], L.-P. Conseil, MÉLANGES POLITIQUES ET PHILOSPHIQUES,
“Constitution Des États-Unis,” at 160 (Paris 1833), and M. Du Ponceau, EXPOSÉ SOMMAIRE DE LA CONSTITUTION DES
ÉTATS-UNIS D’AMÉRIQUE, at 45 (Paris 1837)), or in more recent French translations, “citoyen de naissance” (“citizen at
birth”). None of these French expressions for the English term “natural born citizen” were used by Vattel.
101 Compare the 1760 London edition of Vattel’s Law of Nations, to the 1797 English translation (London 1797), at
Book 1, Ch. XIX, p. 101 (Lib. of Congress No. JX2414 .E5 1797).
102 I Farrand at 437-438 (Mr. Martin, of Maryland).
103 Farrand’s work, The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, includes the personal notes of the following
framers: Robert Yates of New York, James Madison of Virginia, Rufus King of Massachusetts, James McHenry of
Maryland, William Pierce of Georgia, William Paterson of New Jersey, Alexander Hamilton of New York, and George
Mason of Virginia, as well as the Journal kept by the Secretary of the Convention, Major William Jackson. I Farrand,
supra at xi-xxii.
104 THE FEDERALIST: A COLLECTION OF ESSAYS, WRITTEN IN FAVOUR OF THE NEW CONSTITUTION, AS AGREED UPON BY
THE FEDERAL CONVENTION, SEPTEMBER 17, 1787 (New York 1788).
105 There were only two apparent references in all of the state ratifying debates to Vattel: one by a delegate in South
Carolina in relation to a nation’s duty to honor treaties (4 ELLIOT’S DEBATES at 278), and one in Pennsylvania
mentioned with other “political writers” to support the notion that not all of the rights of the people of a nation could be
(continued...)
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It would appear to be somewhat fanciful to contend that in employing terms in the U.S.
Constitution the framers would disregard the specific and express meaning of those precise terms
in British common law, the law in the American colonies, and subsequently in all of the states in
the United States after independence, in favor of secretly using, without comment or explanation,
a contrary, non-existent English translation of a phrase in a French-language treatise on
international law. In a state case cited with approval by the U.S. Supreme Court, an extensive
legal analysis of the question of natural born citizenship under the law of the United States by
Assistant Vice Chancellor Sandford, in New York in 1844, found that the laws in all of the
American colonies, and then in all of the states after independence, followed the English common
law principles of jus soli, that is, that birth in the territory governed citizenship at birth, regardless
of the nationality or citizenship of one’s parents.106 Sandford found that it would be
“inconceivable” that the framers, in drafting the Constitution, would abandon without explicit
comment or explanation in the document, the existing law in all of the colonies, and then in all of
the states, of who were natural born citizens in favor of an “international” or “natural” law theory
of citizenship by “descent” (through one’s father), an argument pressed by one of the litigants
relying, in part, on Vattel. Addressing specifically the question of the use of the term “natural
born citizen” in the federal Constitution as one of the qualifications for President, Vice Chancellor
Sandford found the following:
It is a necessary consequence, from what I have stated that the law which had prevailed on
this subject, in all the states, became the governing principle or common law of the United
States. Those states were the constituent parts of the United States, and when the union was
formed, and further state regulation on the point terminated, it follows, in the absence of a
declaration to the contrary, that the principle that prevailed and was the law on such point in
all the states, became immediately the governing principle and rule of law thereon in the
nation formed by such union.... 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 that
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,” &c. The only standard which then existed, of 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 common law, in force when the constitution
was adopted, he is a citizen.
Moreover, the absence of any avowal or expression in the constitution of a design to affect
the existing law of the country on this subject, is conclusive against the existence of such
design. It is inconceivable that the representatives of the thirteen sovereign states, assembled
in convention for the purpose of framing a confederation and union for national purposes,
should have intended to subvert the long-established rule of law governing their constituents
on a question of such great moment to them all, without solemnly providing for the change
(...continued)
“completely enumerated” in a constitution. 2 ELLIOT’S DEBATES at 453-454.
106 Lynch v. Clarke, 3 N.Y. Leg. Obs. 236, 242, 244 (1 Sand. ch. 583) (1844). This case was cited with approval by the
Supreme Court in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, at 664, 674, and also by the U.S. Court of Appeals in In re Look Tin
Sing, 21 F. 905, 909 (Cal. Cir. 1884).
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Qualifications for President and the “Natural Born” Citizenship Eligibility Requirement
in the constitution; still more that they should have come to that conclusion without even
once declaring their object.107
The treatise in question by Emmerich de Vattel was a work concerning the “law of nations,”
which we would now classify generally as “international law.” However, the concept of
citizenship within a particular country is one governed not by international law or law of nations,
but rather is governed by municipal law, that is, the internal law of each country.108 Vattel’s
writings on citizenship by “descent” reflected in many circumstances what the law or practice
may have been in certain European nations at the time—that is, that citizenship followed the
nationality or citizenship of one’s father, as opposed to the place of birth.109 This concept,
although prevalent on the European Continent was, even as expressly noted in Vattel’s work
itself, clearly not the law in England or thus the American colonies,110 and clearly was not the
concept and common understanding upon which U.S. law was based. James Madison, often
referred to as the “Father of the Constitution,” expressly explained in the House of
Representatives in the First Congress, in 1789, that with regard to citizenship the “place” of birth,
and not “parentage” was the controlling concept adopted in the United States.111 Additionally, the
Supreme Court in 1971 simply and succinctly explained, after citing historical legal precedent:
“We thus have an acknowledgment that our law in this area follows English concepts with an
acceptance of the jus soli, that is, the place of birth governs citizenship status except as modified
by statute.”112 Again in 1998, the Supreme Court expressly recognized jus soli, the place of birth,
as controlling in the United States, noting that in this country “citizenship does not pass by
descent” except as provided by Congress in statute.113
107 Lynch v. Clark at 246-247. Emphasis in original.
108 Inglis v. Sailors’ Snug Harbor, 3 Pet. 99, 162 (1830); United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649, 668 (1898);
Perkins v. Elg, 307 U.S. 325, 329, (1939); Lynch v. Clark at 249; see also Frederick Van Dyne (Assistant Solicitor,
Department of State), CITIZENSHIP OF THE UNITED STATES, at 3-4 (New York 1904).
109 See discussion of European nations following concepts of citizenship by “descent” through one’s father, in
Flournoy, Dual Nationality and Election, 30 YALE LAW JOURNAL, at 554-559. Vattel explained that the citizenship of
“children naturally follow the condition of their fathers,” and that “in order to be of the country, it is necessary that a
person be born of a father who is a citizen ....” Vattel, LAW OF NATIONS, at Ch. XIX, p. 101 (1797 ed.). It is interesting
to recognize that Vattel never expressly postulated a “two-citizen” parent requirement for what he described as natives
or indigenes. Rather, grammatically, the plural of parent or relative (parens) merely conforms to the plural subject of
“natives” or “indegenes.” That is, for example, if the rule is that the “children born in the United States of foreign
diplomats” are not to be considered natural born “citizens” of the United States under common law principles, such
statement does not necessarily require that both parents must be foreign diplomats to deny such U.S. citizenship status
to that child. See, e.g., In re Thenault, 47 F.Supp. 952 (D.D.C. 1942).
110 Vattel, LAW OF NATIONS, at Ch. XIX, p. 102 (1797 ed.). See discussion by the Connecticut Supreme Court of Errors,
in Town of New Hartford v. Town of Canaan, 5 A. 360 (Conn. 1886): “In Field’s International Code, 132, it is said: ‘A
legitimate child, wherever born, is a member of the nation of which its father at the time of its birth was a member.’
Upon this Morse, in his work on Citizenship, p. 17, thus comments: ‘This is the law in most European States
(Westlake, p. 16; Foelix, p. 54), but not in England or in the United States.’”
111 “It is an established maxim that birth is a criterion of allegiance. Birth, however, derives its force sometimes from
place, and sometimes from parentage; but, in general, place is the most certain criterion; it is what applies in the United
States ....” James Madison, explaining the citizenship eligibility of Representative-elect William Smith, in the election
contest of Ramsay v. Smith, 1st Cong., 1st Sess. (1789), in Clarke and Hall, CASES OF CONTESTED ELECTIONS IN
CONGRESS, FROM THE YEAR 1789 TO 1834, INCLUSIVE, at p. 33 (Washington 1834).
112 Rogers v. Bellei, 401 U.S. 815, 828 (1971).
113 Miller v. Albright, 523 U.S. 420, 434, n.11 (1998). The “common” understanding of the term “natural born” citizen
during the revolutionary period, the time of the drafting of the Constitution, and in the generation after, was clearly that
of one who was a citizen “at birth,” and the determining factor in the United States was the place of birth in the territory
of the United States, rather than that of ancestry, lineage, or descent, except as provided in statute. This common
understanding has continued up until this day as the term “natural born” citizen has entered the popular, “common”
(continued...)
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Citizenship at Birth: Case Law and Interpretations
The overwhelming evidence of historical intent, general understandings, and common law
principles underlying American jurisprudence thus indicate that the most reasonable interpretation
of “natural born” citizens would include those who are considered U.S. citizens “at birth” or “by
birth,” either by the operation of the strict “common law” of jus soli derived from English
common law (physically born in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction, without
reference to parentage or lineage), or under existing federal statutory law incorporating long-
standing concepts of jus sanguinis, the law of descent, including those born abroad of U.S.
citizen-parents. This general historical understanding and interpretation is supported, as well, by
specific federal case law in the United States, and in official legal opinions of U.S. officers.
Although the Supreme Court has not needed to rule specifically on the presidential eligibility
clause, as discussed in more detail below, numerous federal cases, as well as state cases, for more
than a century have used the term “natural born citizen” to describe a person born in this country
and under its jurisdiction, even to parents who were aliens in the U.S.114 Additionally, several
Supreme Court cases, as well as numerous constitutional scholars, have used the term “native
born” citizen to indicate all of those children physically born in the country (and subject to its
jurisdiction), without reference to parentage or lineage, and employed such term in reference to
those citizens eligible to be President under the “natural born” citizenship clause, as opposed to
“naturalized” citizens, who are not.115 In no currently controlling legal opinion in American
jurisprudence has the citizenship or nationality of one’s parents or forebears been considered a
determining factor in the eligibility of a native born U.S. citizen to be President, and no holding in
any case in federal court has ever established a “two citizen-parent” requirement, or other
requirement of lineage or bloodline, for a native born U.S. citizen to be eligible for the
Presidency.
(...continued)
legal lexicon as defined as: “A citizen by birth, as distinguished from a citizen who has been naturalized.”
BALLENTINE’S LAW DICTIONARY, at 831 (“natural-born citizen”) (3rd ed. 1969), and as “A person born within the
jurisdiction of a national government,” BLACK’S LAW DICTIONARY, at 278 (“natural-born citizen”) (9th ed. 2009), as
well as the common dictionary meanings of “natural-born,” as “having a specified status or character by birth” (note
specific reference to presidential eligibility), WEBSTER’S THIRD NEW INTERNATIONAL DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH
LANGUAGE, UNABRIDGED, at p. 1507 (1976). It may also be noted that the English word “natural,” according to the
OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY, is rooted in the “Middle English (in the sense ‘having a certain status by birth’) ….”
Emphasis added.
114 Lynch v. Clarke, 3 N.Y. Leg. Obs. 236 (1 Sand. ch. 583) (1844 ); United States v. Rhodes, 27 Fed. Case 785 (No.
16151) (C.C. Ky. 1866); In re Look Tin Sing, 21 F. 905, 906 (Cal. Cir. 1884); Town of New Hartford v. Town of
Canaan, 5 A. 360 (Conn. 1886); United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649, 662-63, 674-75 (1898); Kwok Jan Fat
v. White, 253 U.S. 454, 457 (1920); Dos Reis ex rel. Camara, 68 F.Supp. 773, 774 (D.Mass. 1946); Yamauchi v.
Rogers, 181 F. Supp. 934, 935-936 (D.D.C. 1960); Diaz-Salazar v. INS, 700 F.2d 1156, 1160 (7th Cir. 1982), cert.
denied, 462 U.S. 1132 (1983); Mustata v. U.S. Department of Justice, 179 F.3d 1017, 1019 (6th Cir. 1999); Hollander v.
McCain, 566 F.Supp.2d 63, 66 (D.N.H. 2008); Ankeny v. Governor of the State of Indiana, 916 NE2d 678, 688 (2009),
pet. to transfer jur. den. (Ind. Supreme Court, April 5, 2010).
115 Luria v. United States, 231 U.S. 9, 22 (1913); United States v. Schwimmer, 279 U.S. 644, 649 (1929); United States
v. MacIntosh, 283 U.S. 605 (1931); Schneider v. Rusk, 377 U.S. 163, 165 (1963); Kent, COMMENTARIES ON AMERICAN
LAW, at 273 (Vol. I, 2d ed. 1832); Story, A FAMILIAR EXPOSITION OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES, §271,
at 167 (Boston 1840); St. George Tucker, William Blackstone, BLACKSTONE’S COMMENTARIES: WITH NOTES AND
REFERENCE TO THE CONSTITUTION AND LAWS, OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND OF THE
COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA, Vol. I, App. at 323 (Philadelphia 1803); Gordon, Mailman, & Yale-Loehr,
IMMIGRATION LAW AND PROCEDURE, Vol. 7, §§91.02[4][a] and §91.02[4][c] (rev. ed. 2010).
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Qualifications for President and the “Natural Born” Citizenship Eligibility Requirement
Some of the legal arguments based on American jurisprudence forwarded by those who support
an alternate and highly exclusionary reading of the term “natural born” citizen (including reading
into the Constitution a requirement for one to have two U.S. citizen-parents) often begin with a
citation to language in the 1857 Dred Scott decision, Scott v. Sandford.116 The Dred Scott
decision, in addition to denying that even freed slaves or their progeny could be “citizens” of the
United States (and thus finding that the specific petitioner in that case did not have the capacity to
bring the original suit under consideration), attempted to provide legal justification under the
Constitution for human slavery in the United States and the resultant treatment of “negroes of the
African race” as property and chattel without rights under the Constitution. In so doing, the Court
fashioned a very exclusive understanding, eventually rejected and overturned by later Supreme
Court decisions, of who were “citizens” of the United States, even if one were born to
emancipated slaves in this country. The opinion of the Court, written by Chief Justice Taney,
noted that the status of those “whose ancestors were negroes of the African race … imported into
this country, and sold and held as slaves” was that of non-citizens.117 That is, that even
“descendants of such slaves, when they shall be emancipated, or who had been born of parents
who had become free before their birth” were “not intended to be included, under the word
‘citizens’ in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that
instrument provides….”118 The Court based such findings regarding citizenship and ancestry on
the opinion that such persons did not make up, and were not thought to be part of the community
or the “political body” of the “sovereign people” of the United States who ratified the
Constitution, and were thus not “a constituent member of this sovereignty” since “they were at
that time considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings, who had been subjugated by the
dominant race, and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained subject to their authority for, and
had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the Government might
choose to grant them.”119
In a concurring opinion in Scott v. Sandford , one Justice cited to Vattel’s discussion of citizenship
and “natural born” citizen (as later interpretations into English had expressed the French usage in
his treatise, Law of Nations), not specifically with regard or intent to define “natural born”
citizenship in reference to presidential eligibility, but rather to support his opinion that Negroes
brought to America as slaves, as well as their progeny, could not be citizens of the United
States.120 It should be noted that this particular opinion was not only a concurring opinion, not
joined by any other Justice in the Dred Scott decision, but that such concurrence by Justice Daniel
has never formed the basis or authority for any majority ruling of a federal court in the history of
American jurisprudence. 121 Similar to the opinion of the Court, Justice Daniels’ opinion has been
superseded and controverted by later Supreme Court rulings and constitutional amendments.
116 Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 Howard) 393 (1857).
117 60 U.S. at 403.
118 60 U.S. at 403-404.
119 60 U.S. at 404-405. The Court also found that the Congress had exceeded its authority in outlawing slavery in new
territories that the United States had acquired, giving a very narrow and restrictive reading of the express constitutional
authority of Congress over federal lands (Article IV, §3, cl. 2) to cover only those lands owned at the time of the
drafting of the Constitution, and not those subsequently acquired from foreign nations. 60 U.S. at 432.
120 60 U.S. at 476-477, Daniel, J., concurring.
121 A somewhat parallel, restrictive argument (and reference to de Vattel) was put forth again later in the 1800’s in the
minority opinion in Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. at 708 (Fuller, C.J., Harlan, J., dissenting) but, as noted, has never since
formed the basis of a majority opinion or any controlling precedent in American jurisprudence.
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It is general knowledge that the Dred Scott decision has widely and commonly been described as
the “worst” and most vilified Supreme Court decision in the history of the United States.122 The
ruling in that case, not only because of the enactment of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth
Amendments, but also because of its specious constitutional and legal reasoning,123 has been
reduced to an “historical curiosity.”124 As explained by historian and professor James Kettner in
his work, The Development of American Citizenship, 1608-1870:
In seeking to derive consistent exclusionist principles from an ambivalent legal tradition,
Taney could only succeed by distorting history and making “bad law.” ... In making national
citizenship exclusively the effect of naturalization or pedigree, he disregarded volumes of
judicial precedents emphasizing place of birth without regard to ancestry. Taney’s opinion
rested instead on the social fact of prejudice and discrimination.125
Within a few years of the Dred Scott decision, in 1862, the Attorney General of the United States,
Edward Bates, issued a formal legal opinion to a federal department on the question of
“citizenship” of those born within the geographic boundaries of the United States which clearly
demonstrated the weakness in the legal reasoning of the Court in Dred Scott.126 This opinion is
significant because it preceded the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, and was thus based on
the then-existing state of the law, constitutional precepts, and common law principles derived
from English law, and clearly expressed the legal and constitutional reasoning concerning
“citizenship” in the United States underlying previous federal court precedent (other than and
ignored by the majority in Dred Scott) as well as the foundational principles in subsequent
Supreme Court determinations over the next 150 years. The formal opinion of the Attorney
General concluded that those who were “natural born” citizens were those who were U.S. citizens
“by birth”:
We have natural-born citizens, (Constitution, article 2, sec. [1],) not made by law or
otherwise, but born. And this class is the large majority; in fact, the mass of our citizens, for
all others are exceptions specially provided for by law. As they became citizens in the natural
way, by birth, so they remain citizens during their natural lives, unless, by their own
122 United States, National Archives and Records Administration, http://www.ourdocuments.gov: “The decision of
Scott v. Sandford, considered by legal scholars to be the worst ever rendered by the Supreme Court …”; David Savage,
How Did They Get It So Wrong? ABA JOURNAL, January 1, 2009: “… the worst decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court?
Historians and court scholars agree on a pair of 19th century opinions: Dred Scott v. Sandford, the 1857 ruling that
upheld slavery even in the free states ….”; Paul Finkelman, DRED SCOTT V. SANDFORD: A BRIEF HISTORY WITH
DOCUMENTS, at pp. 4-5, citing, among others for the proposition that the case is the worst Supreme Court decision,
Justice Antonin Scalia, Professor Alexander Bickel of Yale Law School, Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes; Justice
Felix Frankfurter; and Justice John Marshall Harlan; Junius P. Rodriguez (editor), SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES: A
SOCIAL, POLITICAL, AND HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA, p. 265 (2007): “Universally condemned as the U.S. Supreme
Court’s worst decision …”; Corinne J. Naden and Rose Blue, DRED SCOTT: PERSON OR PROPERTY, at p. 111 (2005):
“Part of the legacy of Scott v. Sandford is that it is generally regarded as the worst decision ever handed down by the
Supreme Court and the worst failure of the U.S. judicial system”; Lawrence Baum (Ohio State University),
Perspectives on Politics, Cambridge Journal On Line, Cambridge University Press, Vol. 5, No. 2, at p. 338 (June 2007):
“Scott v. Sandford (1857), the Dred Scott decision, is the consensus choice as the worst decision in the Supreme
Court’s history.”
123 Robert Bork, THE TEMPTING OF AMERICA, p. 28 (1990): “Speaking only of the constitutional legitimacy of the
decision, and not of its morality, this case remained unchallenged as the worst in our history .…”
124 CONSTITUTION ANNOTATED, S. Doc. 108-17, at 362.
125 Kettner, THE DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP, 1608-1870, at 328 (U.N.C. Press 1978). Emphasis added.
126 The Attorney General of the United States has the express statutory authority to issue official legal opinions to the
departments and agencies of the federal government. Judiciary Act of 1789, §35, 1 Stat. 73 (September 24, 1789), see
now 28 U.S.C. §512.
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voluntary act, they expatriate themselves, and become citizens of another nation. For we
have no law, (as the French have,) to decitizenize a citizen who has become such either by
the natural process of birth, or by the legal process of adoption.... The Constitution itself does
not make the citizens; it is, in fact, made by them. It only intends and recognizes such of
them as are natural—home-born; and provides for the naturalization of such of them as were
alien—foreign born ....
As far as I know, Mr. Secretary, you and I have no better title to the citizenship which we
enjoy than the “accident at birth”—the fact that we happened to be born in the United States.
And our Constitution, in speaking of natural-born citizens, uses no affirmative language to
make them such, but only recognizes and reaffirms the universal principle ... that the people
born in a country do constitute the nation, and, as individuals, are natural members of the
body politic....[I]t follows that every person born in the country is, at the moment of birth,
prima facie a citizen; and he who would deny it must take upon himself the burden of
proving some great disfranchisement strong enough to override the “natural-born” right as
recognized by the Constitution ... That nativity furnishes the rule, both of duty and of right as
between the individual and the government, is a historical and political truth ... Nevertheless,
for the satisfaction of those who may have doubts upon the subject, I note a few books,
which, I think, cannot fail to remove all such doubts: Kent’s Com., vol. 2, part 4, section 25;
Bl. Com., book 1, chapter 10, p. 365; 7 Co. Rep., Calvin’s case; 4 Term Rep., p. 300, Doe vs.
Jones; 3 Pet.Rep., p. 246; Shanks vs. Dupont; and see a very learned treatise, attributed to
Mr. Binney, in Am. Law reporter, 193. 127
The Attorney General thus opined that those who are “born” citizens of the United States, as
opposed to those who are “aliens” and must go through the legal process of naturalization, are
“natural born” citizens of this country, without any reference to the “citizenship” or nationality of
their parents. The Attorney General’s opinion emphasized that these “natural born” citizens, those
who are citizens of the United States at birth or “by birth,” including “every person” who is
“home born,” are not within a very narrow or special category, but rather are “the mass of our
citizens.” In an earlier formal opinion from Attorney General Bates to Secretary of State Seward,
the Attorney General similarly concluded: “I am quite clear in the opinion that children born in
the United States of alien parents, who have never been naturalized, are native-born citizens of
the United States, and, of course, do not require the formality of naturalization to entitle them to
the rights and privileges of such citizenship.”128
The Supreme Court itself soon began to question, re-evaluate, and move away from the legal
reasoning underlying the Dred Scott decision. In one early Supreme Court case after Dred Scott,
the Court narrowly applied the earlier theory of citizenship in Dred Scott (as being only the
original community of people who ratified the Constitution and their progeny),129 and relied
instead on the common law to discuss the concept of citizenship in the United States after the
original generation of citizens. The Court noted that those children born on the soil of the United
States to citizen-parents would clearly be among those who are “natural born” citizens under the
common law, but did not rule or hold that such category of citizenship was exclusive to such
children.130 The Supreme Court in Minor v. Happersett, in ruling in 1875 that women did not have
the constitutional right to vote in federal or state elections (as a privilege or immunity of
citizenship), raised and discussed the question in dicta as to whether one would be a “natural
127 10 OP. ATTY. GEN. 382, 389, 394-395 (November 29, 1862). Emphasis in original.
128 10 OP. ATTY. GEN. 328 (September 1, 1862).
129 Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162, 166-167 (1875).
130 Id. at 167-168.
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born” citizen if born to only one citizen-parent or to no citizen-parents, noting specifically that
“some authorities” hold so. The Court, however, expressly declined to rule on that subject in this
particular case. In dicta, that is, in a discussion not directly relevant to or part of the holding in the
case, the Court explained:
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.131
Those issues or “doubts” raised in dicta by the Supreme Court in Happersett in 1875 were,
however, answered by the Supreme Court in a later decision in 1898, in United States v. Wong
Kim Ark, which clearly repudiated the narrow and exclusive “original-community-of-citizens”
reasoning of the Court in Dred Scott based on lineage and parentage, in favor of interpreting the
Constitution in light of the language and principles of the British common law from which the
concept was derived. The majority opinion of the Court clearly found, by any fair reading of its
reasoning, discussion, and holding, that every person born in the United States and subject to its
jurisdiction (that is, not the child of foreign diplomats or of troops in hostile occupation),
regardless of the citizenship of one’s parents, is a “natural born” citizen, and that the Fourteenth
Amendment merely affirmed the common law and fundamental rule in this country that one born
on the soil of the United States and subject to its jurisdiction is a “natural born” citizen:
The Fourteenth Amendment affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth
within the territory, in the allegiance and under the protection of the country, including all
children born here of resident aliens, with the exceptions or qualifications (as old as the rule
itself) of children of foreign sovereigns or their ministers, or born on foreign public ships, or
of enemies within and during a hostile occupation of part of our territory, and with the single
additional exception of children of members of the Indian tribes owing direct allegiance to
their several tribes. The Amendment, in clear words and manifest intent, includes the
children born, within the territory of the United States, of all other persons, of whatever race
or color, domiciled within the United States. Every citizen or subject of another country,
while domiciled here, is within the allegiance and the protection, and consequently subject to
the jurisdiction, of the United States. His allegiance to the United States is direct and
immediate, and although but local and temporary, continuing only so long as he remains
within our territory, is yet, in the words of Lord Coke, in Calvin’s Case, 7 Rep. 6a, “strong
enough to make a natural subject, for if he hath issue here, that issue is a natural born
subject”; and his child, as said by Mr. Binney in his essay before quoted, “if born in the
country, is as much a citizen as the natural-born child of a citizen, and by operation of the
same principle.”132
131 Minor v. Happersett, at 167-168. Emphasis added. Any analysis of the distinction between “holding” and dicta is
simplified in Minor v. Happersett, as the Supreme Court expressly explained that “For the purposes of this case it is not
necessary to solve” the issue of parental citizenship, thus clearly stating that its discussion was not part of, and the
resolution of the issue not necessary to, the underlying holding or ruling of that case.
132 169 U.S. at 693. The Court also found in this case that those who are “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United
States means those who come within the jurisdiction of its laws, such that jurisdiction may be exercised over them, thus
(continued...)
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The Supreme Court in Wong Kim Ark cited with approval to an earlier decision of a federal circuit
court, written by Supreme Court Justice Swayne sitting on circuit, explaining that
All persons born in the allegiance of the King are natural-born subjects, and all persons born
in the allegiance of the United States are natural born citizens. Birth and allegiance go
together. Such is the rule of the common law, and it is the common law of this country, as
well as in England.... We find no warrant for the opinion that this great principle of the
common law has ever been changed in the United States. It has always obtained here with
the same vigor, and subject to the same exceptions, since before the Revolution.133
The underlying opinions and reasoning of the Attorney General in 1862 (citing the historical
intent, understanding, and common law principles relating to citizenship), the federal appellate
court opinion written by Supreme Court Justice Swayne in 1866, and the detailed discussion of
citizenship and the holding by the Supreme Court in Wong Kim Ark in 1898, citing to judicial
precedents such as The Charming Betsey (1804); Inglis v. Sailor’s Snug Harbor (1830), McCreery
v. Somerville (1824), and Lynch v. Clarke (1844), have been regularly confirmed and supported
by later Supreme Court and other federal court decisions finding that the two general categories
of “citizens” are: (1) those who are “natural born” citizens, that is, those who are citizens “by
birth” or “at birth,” including all native born citizens, and (2) those who were born “aliens” and
must be “naturalized” to be citizens.134 As explained by the Supreme Court in 1998:
There are “two sources of citizenship, and two only: birth and naturalization.” United States
v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649, 702 (1898). Within the former category, the Fourteenth
Amendment of the Constitution guarantees that every person “born in the United States,
subject to the jurisdiction thereof, becomes at once a citizen of the United States, and needs
no naturalization.” 169 U.S. at 702. Persons not born in the United States acquire citizenship
by birth only as provided by Acts of Congress. Id. at 703.135
The interpretation that one who obtains “citizenship by birth” is a “natural born” citizen eligible
to be President, as distinguished from one who derives “citizenship by naturalization” and who is
not so eligible, was discussed by the Supreme Court as early as 1884:
The distinction between citizenship by birth and citizenship by naturalization is clearly
marked in the provisions of the Constitution, by which “no person, except a natural-born
citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall
(...continued)
clarifying some confusion that might have arisen from dicta in an earlier Supreme Court case (The Slaughterhouse
Cases, 16 Wall. (83 U.S.) 36, 73 (1874)). 169 U.S. at 687, 693.
133 169 U.S. at 662-663, citing United States v. Rhodes, 27 Fed. Case 785 (No. 16151) (C.C. Ky. 1866).
134 Elk v. Wilkins, 112 U.S. 94, 101 (1884); Luria v. United States, 231 U.S. 9, 22 (1913); Rogers v. Bellei, 401 U.S.
815, 828 (1971); Schneider v. Rusk, 377 U.S. 163, 165 (1963); MacIntosh v. United States, 42 F.2d 845, 848 (2nd Cir.
1930); Diaz-Salazar v. INS, 700 F.2d 1156, 1160 (7th Cir. 1982), cert. den. 462 U.S. 1132 (1983); Mustata v. U.S.
Department of Justice, 179 F.3d 1017,1019 (6th Cir. 1999); Robinson v. Bowen, 567 F.Supp. 1144, 1145-1146 (ND
Cal. 2008); Hollander v. McCain, 566 F.Supp. 63, 66 (D.N.H 2008); note also state court in Ankeny v. Governor of the
State of Indiana, 916 NE2d 678 (2009), petition to transfer jurisdiction denied (Ind. Supreme Court, April 5, 2010).
135 Miller v. Albright, 523 U.S. 420, 423-424 (1998). See also Scalia, J. and Thomas, J., concurring: “The Constitution
‘contemplates two sources of citizenship, and two only: birth and naturalization.’” When one is born “in” the United
States and “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States that person becomes a citizen “at birth,” that is, “becomes at
once a citizen of the United States, and needs no naturalization.” 523 U.S. at 461, citing Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. at
702.
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be eligible to the office of President;” and “the Congress shall have the power to establish an
uniform rule of naturalization.” Constitution, art. 2, sect. 1; art. 1, sect. 8.136
The federal courts have on numerous occasions examined those two categories of citizens of the
United States—“natural born” citizens (those who are citizens “by birth”), and “naturalized”
citizens (those who are born “aliens” and who must go through the process of “naturalization”)—
in the context of the various rights and duties of such citizens within these two categories. The
Court has thus explained that “eligibility to the Presidency” is one of the very few “rights and
prerogatives of citizenship obtained by birth in this country” which is not available to a
“naturalized” citizen.137 Similarly, the Court has noted: “The naturalized citizen has as much right
as the natural-born citizen to exercise the cherished freedoms of speech, press and religion....”;138
and the Court has examined the right of New York to require its “class of civil servants to be
citizens, either natural born or naturalized.”139 The United States Court of Appeals for the 9th
Circuit more recently explained that “once naturalized [appellant] is afforded precisely the same
protection of his right to associate as is a natural born citizen.”140 Referring specifically to
eligibility to the office of President, a United States Court of Appeals found:
No more is demanded of an alien who becomes a citizen than a natural-born citizen, and,
when an alien becomes a citizen, he is accorded all the rights and privileges afforded to a
natural-born citizen except eligibility to the presidency.141
It should be noted that numerous constitutional scholars and commentators have used the term
“native born” or “native citizen” in a manner which might in some contexts be considered
synonymous with “natural born,” to indicate a U.S. citizenship from birth in relation to
Presidential eligibility, and to distinguish such eligibility from one who is a “naturalized” citizen.
James Kent, for example, in his Commentaries on American Law, explained: “As the President is
required to be a native citizen of the United States, ambitious foreigners can not intrigue for the
office, and the qualification of birth cuts off all those inducements from abroad to corruption,
negotiation, and war....”142 Similarly, Justice Joseph Story used the term “native citizen” in a
treatise on the Constitution: “It is not too much to say that no one but a native citizen, ought
ordinarily to be entrusted to an office so vital to the safety and liberties of the people.”143 As noted
136 Elk v. Wilkins, 112 U.S. 94, 101 (1884). Emphasis added.
137 Knauer v. United States, 328 U.S. 654, 658 (1946) (emphasis added): “Citizenship obtained through naturalization
is not a second-class citizenship. It has been said that citizenship carries with it all the rights and prerogatives of
citizenship obtained by birth in this country ‘save that of eligibility to the Presidency.’”
138 Baumgartner v. United States, 322 U.S. 665, 680 (1944) (emphasis added). The Court also noted there: “Under our
Constitution, a naturalized citizen stands on equal footing with the native citizen in all respects save that of eligibility to
the Presidency.” Id. at 673.
139 Sugarman v. Dougall, 413 U.S. 634, 661 (1973) (Rehnquist, J., dissenting, as to whether such distinction between
citizens and aliens in New York’s civil service law violates equal protection clause).
140 Price v. United States Immigration and Naturalization Service, 941 F.2d 878, 884-885 (9th Cir. 1991). Note also
Justices Rutledge and Murphy concurring in a case concerning denaturalization, comparing the rights of a “natural-born
citizen [to] his birthright” citizenship and the rights of “naturalized” citizens. Klapprott v. United States, 335 U.S. 601,
617 (1949).
141 MacIntosh v. United States, 42 F.2d 845, 848 (2nd Cir. 1930), reversed on other grounds, United States v.
MacIntosh, 283 U.S. 605 (1931). The Supreme Court, in the appeal of this case, similarly found: “The alien, when he
becomes a naturalized citizen, acquires, with one exception, every right possessed under the Constitution by those
citizens who are native born.” 283 U.S. at 623-624.
142 Kent, COMMENTARIES ON AMERICAN LAW, at 273 (Vol. I, 2d ed. 1832).
143 Story, A FAMILIAR EXPOSITION OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES, §271, at 167 (Boston 1840).
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in the legal treatise from1803 by the noted legal scholar St. George Tucker, editing Blackstone’s
works and placing them in an American context: “That provision of the Constitution that requires
that the President be a native-born citizen (unless he were a citizen of the United States when the
Constitution was adopted) is a happy means of securing against foreign influence....”144
Although the term “native born” citizen or “native citizen” was seemingly used synonymously
with “natural born” in reference to presidential eligibility by such noted constitutional scholars, it
is most often not necessarily considered a specific term of art in a legal sense, does not appear in
the Constitution, and generally means, in common usage with respect to U.S. citizenship, anyone
born physically within the geographic boundaries of the United States, without reference to the
citizenship of one’s parents. In one of the most extensive and widely respected multi-volume
treatises on immigration and naturalization laws, Immigration Law and Procedure, the authors
discuss the meaning of the term “native-born”:
[a] Native-Born Citizens
This is by far the largest group of U.S. citizens, and their status is acquired simply through
birth in the United States, as described in Chapter 92 below. The Constitution does not refer
to native-born citizens, although it does mention natural-born citizens. Nor does this term
appear in the statute, which includes the native born among various categories who acquire
citizenship at birth. However, the designation of the native born is an accurate and
convenient one, generally used in colloquial and legal discussions.145
Under common, modern understanding and later Supreme Court explanations, “natural born”
citizens would include “native born” U.S. citizens, that is, those born physically within the
borders of the country, but might also include others whose citizenships were “obtained by birth”
in other ways. The Supreme Court of the United States has on several occasions also used the
terminology “native born” citizens or “native” citizens to distinguish such citizenship “at birth”
from those who have obtained U.S. citizenship through “naturalization.” Even considering that
the Court was using the terms in a narrow sense, and putting aside for the moment the issue of
children born abroad of U.S. citizens, it is clear that the Supreme Court in these instances
indicated that, at the least, all of those persons obtaining citizenship by birth within the
geographic area of the United States (i.e., “native born” citizens) were eligible for the presidency
(as being within the category of “natural born” citizens), as opposed to “naturalized” citizens. In
Schneider v. Rusk, the Supreme Court appeared to use the term “native born” as synonymous and
interchangeable with the term “natural born” in referencing those citizens eligible for the
presidency, as opposed to “naturalized” citizens who are not eligible:
We start with 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, §
1.146
144 St. George Tucker, William Blackstone, BLACKSTONE’S COMMENTARIES: WITH NOTES AND REFERENCE TO THE
CONSTITUTION AND LAWS, OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF
VIRGINIA, Vol. I, App. at 323 (Philadelphia 1803).
145 Gordon, Mailman, & Yale-Loehr, IMMIGRATION LAW AND PROCEDURE, Vol. 7, §91.02[4][a] (rev. ed. 2010).
Emphasis added. See also United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. at 674-675.
146 377 U.S. 163, 165 (1963).
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A similar distinction between “naturalized” citizens who are not eligible to the Presidency, and
those who are “native” citizens (that is, those who are citizens by birth in the country) who are
eligible was made in the earlier Supreme Court case of Luria v. United States:
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 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.147
The Supreme Court in 1929, in United States v. Schwimmer, had stated in a similar manner that
“Except for eligibility to the Presidency, naturalized citizens stand on the same footing as do
native born citizens,”148 and noted again in 1931 that, “The alien, when he becomes a naturalized
citizen, acquires, with one exception, every right possessed under the Constitution by those
citizens who are native born.”149
Although a small faction of advocates now apparently attempt to cast doubt as to whether every
native born U.S. citizen is a “natural born” citizen under the Constitution, all doubt in the judicial
arena has been resolved for more than a century in favor of “natural born” status of such
individuals who are citizens “by birth” or “at birth” (as having been born in and under the
jurisdiction of the United States). As discussed in more detail in the following section of this
report, there have been some legitimate legal arguments and varying opinions about the status of
foreign born children of U.S. citizens as being either “natural born” citizens under common law
principles, or citizens who are “naturalized” by statute. There appears, however, to be no
legitimate legal issue outstanding concerning the eligibility of all native born citizens of the
United States to be President. The case law in the United States, as well as the clear historical
record, does not support the argument or contention that there is some further or additional
“subcategory” of “citizen” of the United States who, although native born and subject to the
jurisdiction of the United States, is neither a “natural born” citizen nor a “naturalized” citizen.150
Rather, as the cases discussed above demonstrate, the categories uniformly recognized and
referred to in case law in the United States as “citizens” of the United States are “natural born”
citizens (including all “native born” citizens), that is, those who are citizens “at birth,” as opposed
to “naturalized” citizens, that is, those who are aliens at birth and must go through naturalization
to become citizens.
147 231 U.S. 9, 22 (1913). This case cites further to Osborn v. United States Bank, 9 Wheat. (22 U.S.) 737, 827 (1824),
in which Chief Justice Marshall noted the distinctions between a “naturalized citizen” and a “native citizen,” noting that
the “naturalized citizen … becomes a member of the society, possessing all the rights of a native citizen …. He is
distinguishable in nothing from a native citizen, except so far as the constitution makes the distinction .…”
148 United States v. Schwimmer, 279 U.S. 644, 649 (1929).
149 United States v. MacIntosh, 283 U.S. 605, 623-624 (1931).
150 As to the possibility of the rather unique argument that native born U.S. citizens, born within the United States to
non-citizen parents, could be somehow considered “naturalized” citizens, the Supreme Court cases noted immediately
above, clearly repudiate that notion by distinguishing native born citizens from naturalized citizens. As explained by
the Supreme Court in Miller v. Albright, 523 U.S. 420, 423-424 (1998), every person “born in the United States, subject
to the jurisdiction thereof, becomes at once a citizen of the United States, and needs no naturalization.”
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Legal Cases and Senator McCain
During the 2008 presidential campaign between Senators McCain and Obama, several lawsuits
were initiated challenging the “natural born” citizenship eligibility of Senator McCain who was
not born “in” the United States, but rather in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936. Because the place
of birth is the concept that principally and traditionally governs common law natural born
citizenship in the United States,151 questions have arisen as to whether those born outside of the
geographic boundaries of the United States to U.S. citizen-parents, and who thus are citizens at
birth by descent, should also be considered “natural born” citizens eligible to be President. The
legal and historical questions were summarized in the treatise Immigration Law and Procedure:
[c] Natural-Born Citizens
Under the Constitution, only “natural born” citizens are eligible to become President or Vice
President of the United States. The Constitution nowhere defines this term, and its precise
meaning is still uncertain. It is clear enough that native-born citizens are eligible and that
naturalized citizens are not. The doubts relate to those who acquire U.S. citizenship by
descent, at birth abroad to U.S. citizens.
“Natural born citizen” is an archaic term, derived from ancient British antecedents. Other
than its use in the Presidential Qualifications Clause, its only other use was in the provision
for citizens by descent in the naturalization statute enacted by the first Congress in 1790.
The uncertainty concerning the meaning of the natural-born qualification in the Constitution
has provoked discussion from time to time, particularly when the possible presidential
candidacy of citizens born abroad was under consideration. There has never been any
authoritative adjudication. It is possible that none may ever develop. However, there is
substantial basis for concluding that the constitutional reference to a natural-born citizen
includes every person who was born a citizen, including native-born citizens and citizens by
descent.152
It has been noted by certain proponents of a narrow interpretation of natural born citizen (to
include only those born in the United States) that the Fourteenth Amendment now clearly
provides that a U.S. citizen is one who is either “born or naturalized in the United States.” Under
such reasoning, it is argued that a “citizen” of the United States would be a citizen only or
exclusively by virtue of either being “born ... in” the United States (under the common law
principles of jus soli as reflected in the Fourteenth Amendment), or by virtue of being
“naturalized” in the United States, which some argue means that one is made a citizen by the
operation of statutory law. Earlier federal court cases gave credibility to this version of who
would be a native or natural born citizen, as opposed to a “naturalized” citizen. As explained by
the Supreme Court in Wong Kim Ark:
151 Rogers v. Bellei, 401 U.S. 815, 828 (1971): “We thus have an acknowledgment that our law in this area follows
English concepts with an acceptance of the jus soli, that is, the place of birth governs citizenship status except as
modified by statute”; United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. supra at 693: “The Fourteenth Amendment affirms the
ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory, in the allegiance and under the protection of
the country ....”; Miller v. Albright, 523 U.S. 420, 434, n.11 (1998): other than as provided by statute “citizenship does
not pass by descent”; Lynch v. Clarke, 3 N.Y. Leg. Obs. 236, 243-244 (1 Sand. ch. 583) (1844): “... at the Declaration
of Independence, by the law of each and all of the thirteen states, a child born within their territory and ligeance
respectively, became thereby a citizen of the state of which he was a native. This continued unchanged to the time
when our National Constitution went into full operation”; 10 OP. ATTY. GEN. 382, 394-395 (November 29, 1862).
152 7 IMMIGRATION LAW AND PROCEDURE at §91.02[4][c]. Emphasis added, footnotes omitted.
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Every person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, becomes at
once a citizen of the United States, and needs no naturalization. A person born out of the
jurisdiction of the United States can only become a citizen by being naturalized, either by
treaty, as in the case of annexation of foreign territory, or by authority of Congress, exercised
either by declaring certain classes of persons to be citizens, as in the enactments conferring
citizenship upon foreign-born children of citizens, or by enabling foreigners individually to
become citizens by proceedings in the judicial tribunals, as in the ordinary provisions of the
naturalization acts.153
Under such argument, a person who is born of American parents abroad, although clearly a
“citizen” of the United States by law, is one who is not a citizen by virtue of being “born ... in”
the United States,154 and must, therefore, be one of those citizens who has been “naturalized” by
the operation of law, even though such naturalization was “automatic” at birth. It is therefore
argued that such citizen should not be considered a “natural born” citizen, but rather a
“naturalized” citizen who is not eligible for the Presidency. Some earlier federal cases had, in
fact, specifically held that a person who was born abroad of a father who was a naturalized
American citizen, and who therefore was a citizen of the United States by virtue of a statutory
provision, was himself a “naturalized” American citizen. In Zimmer v. Acheson, the United States
Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit found that the appellant, who had been born in Germany to a
father who had been a naturalized U.S. citizen, was himself a “naturalized” citizen who could be
expatriated under the provisions and requirements of the then-existing federal law:
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.
Revised Statutes § 1993, in force at the time of the birth of Harry Ward Zimmer [appellant],
provided: “All children heretofore born or hereafter born out of the limits and jurisdiction of
the United States, whose fathers were or may be at the time of their birth citizens thereof, are
declared to be citizens of the United States; but the rights of citizenship shall not descend to
children whose fathers never resided in the United States.”
If Werner Herman Zimmer [the appellant’s father], by virtue of his naturalization on October
30, 1896, was a citizen of the United States on August 9, 1905, the date of the birth of Harry
Ward Zimmer, then the latter, at the time of his birth, became a citizen of the United States
by virtue of the foregoing statute, but his status as a citizen was that of a naturalized citizen
and not a native-born citizen.155
Those who support a broader, more inclusive reading of the Constitution to include as “natural
born” citizens those born abroad to U.S. citizen-parents, note that these earlier decisions were
153 169 U.S. at 702-703. Emphasis added.
154 See, e.g., “Insular cases” where the Supreme Court, in another context, found that the phrase “within the United
States” means within the geographical limits of the states and the District of Columbia, and in those territories under
the jurisdiction of the United States only if they have been “incorporated” into the United States. Downes v. Bidwell,
182 U.S. 244, 250-251 (1901); Balzac v. Porto Rico, 258 U.S. 298, 304-305 (1922). In Rabang et al. v. Immigration
and Naturalization Service, 35 F.3d 1449 (9th Cir. 1994), ), cert. denied, sub nom. Sanidad v. INS, 515 U.S. 1130
(1995), the Court of Appeals found that those born in the Philippines, at the time it was a United States possession,
were not citizens at birth merely because of their place of birth since they were not born “in” the geographic United
States, regardless of the exercise of American jurisdiction over the territory.
155 Zimmer v. Acheson, 191 F.2d 209 (10th Cir. 1951). See similar finding in Schaufus v. Attorney General of the
United States, 45 F. Supp. 61, 66-67 (D.Md. 1942).
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based on the more narrow language of the Fourteenth Amendment, but argue that the Fourteenth
Amendment was adopted to rectify the wrongly reasoned and decided Supreme Court decision in
the Dred Scott case,156 and was not intended to amend or necessarily even to address the issue of
“natural born” citizenship under Article II, Section 1, cl. 5, relating to the eligibility for
President.157 The term “natural born citizen” in Article II, it is argued, should be interpreted not
only in light of the later Fourteenth Amendment, and the reasons for adopting the Fourteenth
Amendment, but also in light of the common law and common understanding and usage of the
term at the time of the adoption of the Constitution.158
It has been pointed out that more recent cases have held that the seemingly exclusive language of
the Fourteenth Amendment of citizenship being limited only to those who are “born or
naturalized in the United States,” is applicable only with regard to Fourteenth Amendment first-
sentence-citizenship, and is not necessarily the exclusive means of acquiring citizenship “at
birth,” since the category of “at birth” citizenship can clearly be expanded by law adopted by
Congress. Such cases indicate that the Fourteenth Amendment establishes a “floor” for
citizenship at birth, or for naturalization, which can be expanded by federal law.159 The Supreme
Court in Rogers v. Bellei explained that under the Fourteenth Amendment’s citizenship clause the
requirement that one would have to be either born in the United States or naturalized in the
United States were designations for “Fourteenth-Amendment-first-sentence” citizenship only.160
The category or designation of citizen “at birth” or “by birth” could, however, as expressly noted
by the Court, be expanded and “modified by statute” (as it had been in England with respect to
natural born subjects for more than 600 years): “We thus have an acknowledgment that our law in
this area follows English concepts with an acceptance of the jus soli, that is, the place of birth
governs citizenship status except as modified by statute.”161
It is significant to note that in a more recent case, in 2001, the Supreme Court indicated that under
current law and jurisprudence a child born to U.S. citizens while living or traveling abroad, and a
child born in the geographic United States, had the same legal status. In Tuan Anh Nguyen v.
INS,162 the Court explained that a woman who is a U.S. citizen living abroad and expecting a
child could re-enter the United States and have the child born “in” the United States, or could stay
156 Afroyim v. Rusk, 387 U.S. 253, 263 (1967).
157 The Supreme Court has warned against interpreting later enacted provisions of the Constitution as amending, merely
by implication, separate, earlier provisions of Constitution. Freytag v. Commissioner, 501 U.S. 868, 886-887 (1991).
158 See, e.g., Corwin, THE PRESIDENT, OFFICE AND POWERS, 1787-1984, at 38-39; Gordon, Who Can Be President of the
United States: The Unresolved Enigma, 28 MD. L. REV. at 12, 18; Michael Nelson, Constitutional Qualifications for
President, PRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Vol. XVII, No. 2, at 396; Gordon, Mailman, & Yale-Loehr,
IMMIGRATION LAW AND PROCEDURE, Vol. 7, §92.03[1][b] (rev. ed. 2000).
159 Robinson v. Bowen, 567 F.Supp.2d 1144, 1145-1146 (N.D. Cal. 2008), finding Senator McCain, born in the
Panama Canal Zone to citizen-parents, eligible for President as a “natural born citizen.”
160 Rogers v. Bellei, 401 U.S. 815, 827 (1971).
161 401 U.S. at 828. It does not appear to be a significant argument against such interpretation that Congress could
indirectly change by statute (by changing “at birth” citizenship requirements) who is eligible to be President, even
though qualifications are “fixed” by the Constitution. The Supreme Court has expressly found that Congress could not
change the qualifications for congressional office which were fixed in the Constitution (Powell v. McCormack, 395
U.S. 486 (1969)), but since citizenship for seven years (House) or nine years (Senate) is a constitutional qualification,
and Congress may certainly change the various statutory requirements for naturalized citizenship, Congress could thus
clearly, in effect, change how such qualification is attached in such circumstances. See also Corwin, THE PRESIDENT,
OFFICE AND POWERS, 1787-1984, at 38-39, as to the inherent authority and apparent right of the country’s national
legislature to determine who its natural born citizens should be.
162 533 U.S. 53 (2001).
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abroad and not travel back to this country and have the child born abroad, and that the child in
either case would have the same status as far as U.S. citizenship:
[T]he statute simply ensures equivalence between two expectant mothers who are citizens
abroad if one chooses to reenter for the child’s birth and the other chooses not to return, or
does not have the means to do so.163
Concerning the contention made in earlier cases that everyone who is made a citizen only by
federal statute is a “naturalized” citizen (even those who are made citizens at birth by statute), it
may be noted that the common understanding and usage of the terms “naturalized” and
“naturalization,” as well as the precise legal meaning under current federal law, now indicate that
someone who is a citizen “at birth” is not considered to have been “naturalized.”164 Justice
Breyer, for example, dissenting on other grounds in Miller v. Albright, explained that “this kind of
citizenship,” that is, under “statutes that confer citizenship ‘at birth,’” was not intended to
“involve[ ] ‘naturalization,’” citing current federal law at 8 U.S.C. Section 1101(a)(23).165 The
Supreme Court recently recognized in Tuan Anh Nguyen v. INS, that federal law now specifically
defines “naturalization” as the “conferring of nationality of a state upon a person after birth,”166
and thus it could be argued that by current definition and understanding in federal law and
jurisprudence, one who is entitled to U.S. citizenship automatically “at birth” or “by birth” could
not be considered to be “naturalized.”
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has specifically recognized in a recent
case 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. In United States v. Carlos Jesus Marguet-Pillado, a case dealing with the
propriety of an appeal based on requested jury instructions not given, the court stated:
No one disputes that Marguet-Pillado’s requested instruction was “an accurate statement of
the law,” in that it correctly stated the two circumstances in which an individual born in 1968
is a natural born United States citizen: (1) that the person was born in the United States or (2)
born outside the United States to a biologically-related United States citizen parent who met
certain residency requirements.167
Although the legal cases specifically concerning Senator McCain’s eligibility were generally
dismissed for want of subject matter jurisdiction (that is, the lack of legal standing of the
plaintiff),168 a federal district court for the Northern District of California did note that Senator
McCain would qualify as a citizen “at birth,” and thus was a “natural born” citizen, since he was
born “out of the limits and jurisdiction of the United States” to U.S. citizen parents, as provided
for in federal nationality statutes in force at the time of his birth.169 The court found that the
meaning of the phrase in the nationality statutes in force in 1936 (R.S. §1993 (1855) and 48 Stat.
797 (1934)), that is, the phrase “born out of the limits and jurisdiction of the United States” to
163 533 U.S. at 61. Emphasis added.
164 Miller v. Albright, 523 U.S. at 480 (Breyer, J. dissenting (on other grounds)); Tuan Anh Nguyen, 533 U.S. at 72.
165 Miller v. Albright, 523 U.S. at 480. 8 U.S.C. §1101(a)(23) now provides: “The term ‘naturalization’ means the
conferring of nationality of a state upon a person after birth, by any means whatsoever.”
166 Tuan Anh Nguyen, 533 U.S. at 72 (emphasis added), citing 8 U.S.C. §1101(a)(23).
167 United States v. Carlos Jesus Marguet-Pillado, 648 F.3d 1001, 1006 (9th Cir. 2011).
168 Hollander v. McCain, 566 F. Supp.2d 63 (D.N.H. 2008); Robinson v. Bowen, 567 F.Supp.2d 1144 (N.D. Cal. 2008).
169 Robinson v. Bowen, 567 F.Supp.2d at 1146.
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citizen parents, was merely the reverse or “converse of the phrase ‘in the United States, and
subject to the jurisdiction thereof’” appearing in the citizenship provision of the Fourteenth
Amendment, and that such phrase thus would include all those born abroad of two U.S. citizen
parents, such as Senator McCain:
Article II states that “No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen at the time of the
Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of the President.” Article II left
to Congress the role of defining citizenship, including citizenship by reason of birth. Rogers
v. Bellei, 401 U.S. 815, 828, 91 S.Ct. 1060, 28 L.Ed.2d 499 (1971). Many decades later, the
Fourteenth Amendment set a floor on citizenship, overruled the Dred Scott decision, and
provided that all born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction
thereof, were citizens by reason of birth (or naturalization proceedings, for that matter). Id. at
829-30, 91 S.Ct. 1060.
At the time of Senator’s McCain’s birth, the pertinent citizenship provision prescribed that
“[a]ny child hereafter born out of the limits and jurisdiction of the United States, whose
father or mother or both at the time of the birth of such child is a citizen of the United States,
is declared to be a citizen of the United States.” Act of May 24, 1934, Pub. L. No. 73-250, 48
Stat. 797. The Supreme Court has interpreted the phrase “out of the limits and jurisdiction of
the United States” in this statute to be the converse of the phrase “in the United States, and
subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” in the Fourteenth Amendment, and therefore to
encompass all those not granted citizenship directly by the Fourteenth Amendment. [United
States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649, 687 (1898) ....] Under this view, Senator McCain was
a citizen at birth. In 1937, to remove any doubt as to persons in Senator McCain’s
circumstances in the Canal Zone, Congress enacted 8 U.S.C. 1403(a), which declared that
persons in Senator McCain’s circumstances are citizens by virtue of their birth, thereby
retroactively rendering Senator McCain a natural born citizen, if he was not one already.
This order finds it highly probable, for the purposes of this motion for provisional relief, that
Senator McCain is a natural born citizen. Plaintiff has not demonstrated the likelihood of
success on the merits necessary to warrant the drastic remedy he seeks. 170
The federal court in Robinson v. Bowen thus implicitly adopted a meaning of the term “natural
born” citizen in the presidential eligibility clause which would include not only the narrow
“common law” meaning (jus soli, being born geographically in the United States without
reference to parental citizenship, as codified in the Fourteenth Amendment), but also the statutory
designation by Congress of one entitled to U.S. citizenship “at birth” or “by birth” even if born
abroad when such citizenship is transmitted from one’s parent or parents (jus sanguinis).
Legal Cases and President Obama
In addition to the lawsuits concerning Senator McCain’s eligibility, there have been several
allegations and numerous lawsuits brought challenging the status of President Obama as a
“natural born” citizen, based on various theories, assertions, and speculations. These cases have
uniformly been summarily dismissed, either because of a lack of jurisdiction of the court—in that
the plaintiff or plaintiffs did not have legal standing, or for a failure to state a claim upon which
relief could be granted—or because the plaintiff seeking a stay or an injunction against some
future event was deemed “not likely to succeed on the merits.”171
170 Robinson v. Bowen, 567 F.Supp.2d at 1145-1146.
171 See, for example, Berg v. Obama, 574 F.Supp.2d 509 (E.D. Pa. 2008), aff’d 586 F.3rd 234 (3rd Cir. 2009), cert.
(continued...)
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Some of the cases concerning President Obama, or the candidate then-Senator Obama, had
alleged or speculated that the President was not born in the United States, but rather was born in
some foreign country or another.172 It should be noted that there is currently no requirement under
federal law, nor was there under state law in 2008, for any federal candidate, that is, candidates to
the U.S. Senate, the House of Representatives, or the office of President, to publish, produce, or
release an official “birth certificate.”173 Under the inclusive democratic tradition within the United
States, there has never been any federal officer or bureaucracy which acts as a “gatekeeper”
controlling who may be a federal candidate.174 Rather, there is in this country a general legal
presumption of eligibility of the adult citizenry to hold political office175 and, as noted as early as
1875 by former U.S. Court of Appeals Judge, and former Member of Congress (and chairman of
the Committee on Elections), George W. McCrary, in his book, A Treatise on the American Law
of Elections, discussing federal congressional elections, the legal presumption is always of
eligibility, and thus the initial burden of proof is always upon those who challenge a candidate’s
eligibility, and not on a candidate to “prove” eligibility:
(...continued)
denied, 129 S.Ct. 920, and app. for stay denied, 129 S.Ct. 1030 (2009); Wrotnowski v. Bysiewicz, Secretary of the
State of Connecticut, 958 A.2d 709 (Conn. 2008), app .for stay denied, 129 S.Ct. 775 (2008); Donofrio v. Wells
(Secretary of State of New Jersey), Motion No. AM-0153-08T2, app. for stay denied, 129 S.Ct. 752 (2008); Hollister v.
Soetoro, 601 F.Supp.2d 179 (D.D.C. 2009); aff’d No. 09-5080 (D.C. Cir. 2009), cert. denied 562 U.S. ___ (January 18,
2011), and rehearing denied, 562 U.S. ___ , No. 10-678 (March 11, 2011); Keyes v. Bowen, Case No. 34-2008-
80000096-CU-WM-GDS (Sup. Ct. Cal. March 13, 2009), appeal denied., Ct. of Appeals of Cal., 3rd App. Dist.
(C062321, October 25, 2010), review denied., CA Supreme Ct. (February 2, 2011), cert. denied., S.Ct. Docket No. 10-
1351 (October 3, 2011); Stamper v. United States, case No. 1:08 CV 2593 (N.D. Ohio 2008); Cohen v. Obama, Civil
Action No. 08 2150 (D.D.C. 2008); Barnett, Rhodes, Kerchner v. Obama, 669 F. Supp. 2d 477 (D.N.J. 2009), aff’d 612
F.3d 204 (3rd Cir. 2010), cert. denied, 131 S. Ct. 663 (2010).
172 The importance to some in arguing that President Obama was born outside of the United States is that, given that the
President’s father was not a U.S. citizen at the time of the President’s birth, the federal laws then, in 1961, would have
required for citizenship “at birth” of one born outside of the United States to only one citizen-parent, that such citizen-
parent have resided in the United States for not less than ten years, at least five of which were after the age of fourteen
(8 U.S.C. §1401(a)(7)) (1958 ed.), a requirement that the President’s mother, because of her age, would not have met.
173 Under state ballot access procedures for presidential electors, candidates or the political parties which nominate
candidates for the presidency are generally required under the laws of the various states to certify in writing that the
candidate is the nominee of the party and is eligible to the office. U.S. Senate, Committee on Rules and Administration,
Nomination and Election of the President and Vice President of the United States, 2008, S. Doc. 111-15, at 269-343
(survey of state laws regarding selecting delegates to the national nominating conventions), and 347-428 (“Summary of
State Laws Relating to Presidential Electors”) (2010).
174 See, e.g., Federal Election Commission, Advisory Opinion 2011-15, September 2, 2011. The so-called “vetting” of a
candidate for elected federal office conducted by a federal bureaucracy or official as a prerequisite to run for office is
alien to and unknown in the American democratic tradition. “Vetting” of candidates under the open democratic process
and tradition in this country is a multi-step, and often grueling public process of meeting state ballot access
requirements, facing opposition research by contestants for one’s own party nomination in primaries, by political
opponents from other parties in the general election, and examination by an independent press, media, and the public.
See Hollister v. Soetoro, 601 F.Supp. 2d 179, 180 (D.D.C. 2009), aff’d 368 Fed. Appx. 154 (D.C. Cir. 2010), cert.
denied, 131 S.Ct. 1017 (2011); Rhodes v. MacDonald, 670 F.Supp.2d 1363, 1377 (M.D.Ga. 2009), aff’d, Rhodes and
Taitz v. MacDonald, 368 Fed. Appx. 949 (11th Cir. 2010), cert. denied, Taitz v. MacDonald, 131 S.Ct. 918 (2111). The
final procedure of counting the electoral votes for President, challenging any electoral votes, and certifying the electoral
result is conducted by Congress under the Twelfth Amendment and the procedures of the Electoral Count Act of 1887,
24 Stat. 373, ch. 90, 49th Cong., February 3, 1887. See now 3 U.S.C. §§3-21. See generally CRS Report RL32717,
Counting Electoral Votes: An Overview of Procedures at the Joint Session, Including Objections by Members of
Congress, by Jack Maskell and Elizabeth Rybicki.
175 Chief Judge Posner of the United States Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit noted, in another context, in Herman v.
Local 1011, United States Steelworkers of America, 207 F.3d 924, 925 (7th Cir. 2000): “The democratic presumption is
that any adult member of the polity ... is eligible to run for office. U.S. Term Limits, Inc .v. Thornton, 514 U.S. 779,
793-95, 819-20 (1995); Powell v. McCormack, 395 U.S. 486, 547 (1969).”
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The presumption always is, that a person chosen to an office is qualified to fill it, and it is
never incumbent upon him to prove his eligibility. The certificate of election does not add to
this presumption, but simply leaves it where the law places it, and he who denies the
eligibility of a person who is certified to be elected, must take the burthen of proving that he
is not eligible.176
Despite the absence of formal administrative or legal requirements to produce a “birth certificate”
for ballot placement of federal candidates, and despite the fact that under the long-standing
principles of American jurisprudence, and U.S. democratic tradition, the clear burden of proof
must be upon those who challenge a federal candidate’s eligibility, it may be noted that the only
official documentation or record that had been publicly forwarded in the matter of President
Obama’s eligibility at the time of the 2008 election was an official, certified copy of the record of
live birth released by the Obama campaign in June of 2008, as an apparent effort by then-
candidate Obama to address rumors and innuendos concerning both his middle name as well as
the place of his birth.177 The copy of this certificate states on its face, as expressly certified by
Hawaii health and vital records personnel, that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii, in the City of
Honolulu on the Island of Oahu, at 7:24 P.M. on August 4, 1961.178 Under Hawaii law, an
officially certified copy of such health record is to be considered “for all purposes the same as the
original,”179 and is “prima facie” evidence of the facts asserted.180
Subsequent to that release in 2008, President Obama requested in writing from the State of
Hawaii an exception to the public records laws and regulations of the State of Hawaii so that the
Department of Health could release to the President a certified copy of his original, so-called
“long form” certificate of live birth. The official certified copy was shown to reporters at a press
conference in the White House, and a scanned copy of the document was posted for public
176 George W. McCrary, A TREATISE ON THE AMERICAN LAW OF ELECTIONS, at 249-250 (1875, Fourth ed. by Henry L.
McCune, 1897). The word “burthen” is a now-archaic variation of the word “burden.” See also qualifications case
regarding Member-elect Michalek in the U.S. House of Representatives, where affidavits and petitions signed by 125
citizens claimed that the Member-elect was not a citizen. When inquiry was made, complainants provided no actual
evidence or proof of non-citizenship, and the matter was dismissed by the House without even requiring the Member-
elect to respond or to provide a defense, as the complainants did not meet the required burden of proof to move
forward. 1 HINDS’ PRECEDENTS OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, §§426, 427, pp. 406-413 (1907).
177 A scanned copy of the certified COLB was “released” by the Obama campaign and made available on the
candidate’s website (http://fightthesmears.com/articles/5/birthcertificate). The campaign invited non-partisan,
independent organizations involved in public policy and the political process to examine the certificate, including
“factcheck.org,” a project of the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center. See discussion at
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/print_born_in_the_usa.html, and the St. Petersburg Times’ “Politfact.com,”
which describes itself as “a project of the St. Petersburg Times to help you find the truth in politics” (“Obama’s birth
certificate: Final chapter”: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2008/jun/27/obamas-birth-certificate-part-ii).
178 In addition to the certification that the document is a “true copy” of the birth records on file, official personnel of the
State of Hawaii have affirmed, in official statements, that such records were on file at the Department of Health, and
show President Obama’s birth in Hawaii, as certified. Hawaii Department of Health, News Release, “Statement by Dr.
Chiyome Fukino,” October 31, 2008, http://hawaii.gov/health/about/pr/2008/08-93.pdf; and statement of Dr. Fukino,
Hawaii Department of Health, at http://hawaii.gov/health/about/pr/2009/09-063.pdf. See also testimony of the Director
of Health before the Senate Committee on Judiciary and Government Operations, on SB 2937SD1, Relating to
Information Practices, March 16, 2010. Note also Honolulu Star-Bulletin, “Officials verify birth certificate of Obama,”
November 1, 2008, and see contemporaneous newspaper announcements of Obama birth in August of 1961 in
Honolulu, The Sunday Advertiser, “Health Bureau Statistics,” p. B-6, August 13, 1961 (a scanned copy of this
announcement appears at http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/dailypix/2008/Nov/09/hawaii811090361V3_b.jpg), and the
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, August 14, 1961, based on health records forwarded by the hospital to the newspapers.
179 Hawaii Revised Statutes Ann., §338-13.
180 Hawaii Revised Statutes Ann., §338-41(b).
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viewing on the White House website on April 27, 2011.181 The Department of Health of the State
of Hawaii cites on its official website to the White House posting of the President’s birth
certificate as the document that the state certified and delivered.182
It should be noted that both documents from the State of Hawaii, that is, the so-called “short-
form” Certification of Live Birth [the “COLB”], or the certified copy of the longer form
certificate of live birth, according to the official declarations of officers of the State of Hawaii,
have been officially certified by the state, and are therefore “self-authenticated documents” under
Federal Rules of Evidence,183 as well as “public records” of that state. Under the United States
Constitution, a public record of a state is required to be given “full faith and credit” by all other
states in the country.184 Even if a state were to require its election officials for the first time ever
to receive a “birth certificate” as a requirement for a federal candidate’s ballot placement, a
document certified by another state, such as a “short form” birth certificate, or the certified long
form, would be required to be accepted by all states under the “full faith and credit” clause of the
United States Constitution.185
With respect to any actual contrary evidence, it may be noted briefly that there appear to be no
legitimate, official documentary records, or copies of such records, which have been produced or
forwarded contradicting the prima facie record of President Obama’s birth in Hawaii, as provided
in the official certification (or certificate) of live birth released by the Obama campaign in 2008
and attested to by Hawaii Department of Health officials, or the certified copy of the “long form”
birth certificate publicly shown and released on April 27, 2011. No verified, official record of
birth from any other jurisdiction or country has been produced; no contradictory health record or
hospital record has been forwarded; and no official record of travel (such as a passport record)
appears to exist placing President Obama’s mother in a foreign country at the time of the
President’s birth. A federal court has found with respect to birth records that “a record of birth
contemporaneously made by governmental authority in official records would be almost
conclusive evidence of birth.”186 As expressly verified by Hawaiian officials, and as officially
181 http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/04/27/president-obamas-long-form-birth-certificate; and
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/birth-certificate-long-form.pdf. (Last visited on the date of
this report). The documents released at that time also include letters to the Hawaii Department of Health requesting a
certified copy of the original certification of live birth, and an official correspondence from the Hawaii Department of
Health to the President regarding the copying and certification of the document.
182 http://hawaii.gov/health/vital-records/obama.html (Last visited on date of this report).
183 Federal Rules of Evidence (2010), Rule 901(b)(7) and 902. 28 U.S.C. app. Rule 902, see also Notes of Advisory
Committee on Proposed Rules, Rule 902. The state certification in itself thus provides the proof of authenticity of the
document, and verifies the records on file with the state.
184 U.S. CONST., art. IV, §1; see 28 U.S.C. §1739, applying to all “nonjudicial records or books kept in any public office
of any State, Territory , or Possession of the United States, or copies thereof ....”
185 It may be noted that the Certification of Live Birth from Hawaii is a “birth certificate” under the uniform
identification standards promulgated in federal law for all federal agencies. See P.L. 108-458, “Intelligence Reform and
Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004,” title VIII, §7211(a), 118 Stat. 3825 (2004), amending P.L. 104-208, Div. C,
“Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996,” title VI, §656, 110 Stat. 3009-716 (1996),
now codified at 5 U.S.C. §301, note, setting out uniform federal standards for “identification-related documents.”
Federal law under these provisions now expressly defines a “birth certificate” as a certificate of birth for a citizen or
national of the United States whose birth is registered in this country and is issued by a “State or local government
agency or authorized custodian of record and produced from birth records maintained by such agency or custodian of
record.” A “birth certificate” thus does not need to be, and is generally not, the “original” record (which is now, more
often than not, maintained electronically), but is rather a certified copy based on and produced from such health records
“maintained” by the state or locality.
186 Liacakos v. Kennedy, 195 F. Supp. 630, 631 (D.D.C. 1961).
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certified on the documents produced by the State of Hawaii, such contemporaneous official
record of birth in Hawaii exists.187 The federal court in Liacakos v. Kennedy found that with no
official foreign contemporaneous documentation, even a “delayed birth certificate” produced by
the plaintiff, issued by the State of West Virginia 46 years after the alleged birth there, would
provide prima facie evidence of “natural born citizenship.”188 That prima facie evidence, un-
rebutted by any official foreign documentation, along with collateral evidence of self-assumed
and asserted U.S. citizenship, would thus be conclusive and establish “natural born” status by a
“fair preponderance of the evidence.”189 In the case of President Obama, rather than any actual
contrary documentary evidence, there have instead been several “theories,” allegations, rumors,
and self-generated “doubts” and “questions” concerning the place and circumstances of President
Obama’s birth which, as noted in court decisions, have been posited on the Internet and
“television news tabloid[s],” and upon which a number of the lawsuits were based.190
It may be noted that in addition to court dismissals based on lack of jurisdiction because of the
failure of the plaintiff to show “standing” or to state a claim upon which relief may be granted,
several of the cases regarding President Obama’s “eligibility” were dismissed on the basis of the
lack of subject matter jurisdiction because, as noted by the United States Court of Appeals for the
10th Circuit, for example, the plaintiff’s alleged claim was “wholly insubstantial and frivolous”
such that “federal jurisdiction is not extant.”191 Similarly, in Stamper v. United States, the United
States District Court noted in dismissing an “eligibility” challenge of President Obama, that a
federal court may dismiss a complaint “for lack of subject matter jurisdiction” when the
“allegations of a complaint are totally implausible, attenuated, unsubstantial, frivolous, devoid of
merit or no longer open to discussion,” and in dismissing the case found that the court “is not
required to accept unwarranted factual inferences.”192 The United States Court of Appeals for the
Third Circuit in Berg v. Obama, in upholding the lower court’s dismissal of plaintiff/counsel
Berg’s case, also noted “the obvious lack of any merit in Berg’s contentions ...,”193 and in
Kerchner v. Obama, ruled that “[b]ecause we have decided that this appeal is frivolous, we will
187 See footnotes 178, and 181-182 of this Report.
188 195 F.Supp. at 632-633.
189 195 F.Supp. at 634.
190 Berg v. Obama, 574 F.Supp.2d 509, 513 (E.D. Pa. 2008), aff’d 586 F.3rd 234 (3rd Cir. 2009), cert. denied, 129 S.Ct.
920 (2009), noting plaintiff’s reliance on various sources of allegations, including a “television news tabloid.” See also
dismissal of cases against the Ohio Secretary of State, Neal v. Brunner, Wayne Common Pleas case # 08CV72726; and
Greenberg v. Brunner, Wood Common Pleas case # 08CV 1024. In the Neal case, as reported in The Cincinnati
Inquirer, October 31, 2008, the judge stated: “The onus is upon one who challenges such public officer to demonstrate
an abuse of discretion by admissible evidence – not hearsay, conclusory allegations or pure speculation .... It is
abundantly clear that the allegations in Plaintiff’s complaint concerning ‘questions’ about Senator Obama’s status as a
‘natural born citizen’ are derived from Internet sources, the accuracy of which has not been demonstrated to either
defendant Brunner or this magistrate.” The basis of some of the “questions” raised in lawsuits appear to be the mere
fact of the existence of other similar lawsuits, as well as disputed third-party statements. Berg, supra at 513; Keyes v.
Bowen, Case No. 34-2008-80000096-CU-WM-GDS, slip op. at 4 (Sup. Ct. Cal. March 13, 2009).
191 “Where a complaint seeks recovery directly under the Constitution or the laws of the United States, an exception to
subject matter jurisdiction lies when ‘such claim is wholly insubstantial and frivolous.’ ... Having carefully reviewed
Mr. Craig’s amended complaint, we find it is ‘very plain,’ Baker, 369 U.S. at 199, that his ‘alleged claim under the
Constitution or federal statu[t]es’ falls within this ‘wholly insubstantial and frivolous’ category such that federal
jurisdiction is not extant.” Craig v. United States, 340 Fed. Appx. 471, 473-474 (10th Cir. 2009), cert. denied, 130 S.Ct.
141 (2009).
192 Stamper v. United States, Case No. 1:08 CV 2593 (N.D. Ohio November 4, 2008), Slip op. at 4 , 7 (citing to Apple
v. Glenn, 183 F.3d 477,479 (6th Cir. 1999) and Hagans v. Lavine, 415 U.S. 528, 536-37 (1974)).
193 Berg v. Obama, 586 F.3d at 239.
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order counsel for Appellants to show cause why just damages and costs should not be
imposed.”194
In dismissing eligibility cases some federal courts have gone so far as to find “Rule 11” violations
by plaintiff’s counsel.195 A federal district court in Georgia fined plaintiff’s counsel $20,000 for a
“Rule 11” violation, that is, for filing “frivolous” motions and for “using the federal judiciary as a
platform to espouse controversial political beliefs rather than as a legitimate forum for hearing
legal claims.”196 In the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, in dismissing
another challenge to the President’s “eligibility” by an attempt to press an “interpleader” claim,
the judge ordered plaintiff’s counsel to “show cause” why he should not be fined under Rule 11
for frivolous filings, and eventually “reprimanded” the counsel for filing a frivolous lawsuit.197
Allegations of Loss of Citizenship
In some of the cases filed, plaintiffs have argued that even if President Obama had been born in
Hawaii, the move to Indonesia by his mother with him at the time he was a minor in some way
“nullified” the citizenship “at birth” status of President Obama, even though as a minor he moved
back to and resided within the United States.198 It should be noted, however, that the Supreme
Court has clearly ruled that a citizen at birth, such as one born “in” the United States, does not
forfeit his or her citizenship-at-birth status because of removal as a minor to a foreign country,
even a country in which one or both parents are or become citizens and nationals. Rather,
citizenship may only be forfeited by a citizen of the United States by an affirmative action of
renunciation by one having the capacity to do so (that is, as an adult):
It has long been a recognized principle in this country that if a child born here is taken during
minority to the country of his parents’ origin, where his parents resume their former
allegiance, he does not thereby lose his citizenship in the United States provided that on
attaining majority he elects to retain that citizenship and to return to the United States to
assume its duties. ...
194 Kerchner v. Obama, 612 F.3d 204, 209 (3rd Cir. 2010). Damages were not assessed, but Appellants were ordered to
pay costs. Judgment, Kerchner v. Obama, No. 09-4209, Document: 003110204065 (July 2, 2010).
195 The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, at Rule 11(b)(2) require that in signing briefs and complaints to the court, an
attorney represents that “the claims, defenses, and other legal contentions therein are warranted by existing law or by a
nonfrivolous argument for the extension, modification, or reversal of existing law or the establishment of new law.”
196 Rhodes v. MacDonald, 670 F.Supp.2d 1363, 1378-1380 (D.M.Ga. 2009), aff’d, Rhodes and Taitz v. MacDonald,
368 Fed. Appx. 949 (11th Cir. 2010), cert. denied, Taitz v. MacDonald, 131 S.Ct. 918 (2111): “The absolute absence of
any legitimate legal argument, combined with the political diatribe in her motions, demonstrates that [counsel’s]
purpose is to advance a political agenda and not to pursue a legal cause of action. Rather than citing to binding legal
precedent, she calls the President names, accuses the undersigned of treason, and gratuitously slanders the President’s
father. As the Court noted in an earlier order, counsel’s wild accusations may be protected by the First Amendment
when she makes them on her blog or in her press conferences, but the federal courts are reserved for hearing genuine
legal disputes, not as a platform for political rhetoric and personal insults. ... The Court finds that counsel’s conduct
was willful and not merely negligent. ... Her response to the Court’s show cause order is breathtaking in its arrogance
and borders on delusional. ... Her initial complaint was legally frivolous. Upon being so informed, counsel followed it
with a frivolous motion for reconsideration. In response to the Court’s show cause order, she filed a frivolous motion to
recuse.”
197 Holister v. Soetoro, memorandum order, 258 F.R.D. 1 (D.D.C. March 24, 2009), aff’d 368 Fed. Appx. 154 (D.C.
Cir. 2010) (consolidated with 09-5161), cert. denied, 131 S.Ct. 1017 (2011).
198 Berg v. Obama, 574 F.Supp.2d at 513.
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Expatriation is the voluntary renunciation or abandonment of nationality and allegiance.
[footnotes omitted] It has no application to the removal from this country of a native citizen
during minority. In such a case the voluntary action which is of the essence of the right of
expatriation is lacking.199
The Supreme Court in a subsequent decision, in Mandoli v. Acheson in 1952, confirmed the
meaning of its earlier decision in Perkins v. Elg, explaining:
What it [Perkins v. Elg] held was that citizenship conferred by our Constitution upon a child
born under its protection cannot be forfeited because the citizen during nonage is a passive
beneficiary of foreign naturalization proceedings....200
The Supreme Court concluded in that case: “[W]e think the dignity of citizenship which the
Constitution confers as a birthright upon every person born within its protection is not to be
withdrawn or extinguished by the courts except pursuant to a clear statutory mandate.”201 Simply
stated, the Supreme Court noted that to expatriate and forfeit one’s U.S. citizenship “there must
be a voluntary action and such action cannot be attributed to an infant whose removal to another
country is beyond his control and who during minority is incapable of a binding choice.”202
Assertion of Two Citizen-Parent Requirement
Other lawsuits, which were also summarily dismissed, alleged that even if President Obama had
been born in Hawaii, he was not a “natural born” citizen because his father was not a U.S. citizen,
but rather was a citizen of Kenya and therefore a British subject. It was argued that President
Obama at birth would thus have been entitled to British citizenship by operation of British laws.
As one who had or was entitled to “dual citizenship,” it was argued that President Obama could
not be a “natural born citizen” of the United States.203 This argument would also entail the unique
notion that under American jurisprudence parental citizenship or lineage is the determining factor
for eligibility to the Presidency for native born U.S. citizens.
Dual Citizenship. Merely because a child born within the United States could have, under the
operation of foreign law, been a citizen also of that foreign nation because of a parent’s
nationality, citizenship, or place of birth (i.e., “dual citizenship”), would not affect the status of
that child as a U.S. citizen “at birth” under the Fourteenth Amendment, the federal nationality
laws, nor under Article II of the Constitution. The citizenship laws, rights, or recognitions of
other nations could not influence and impact the United States’ own determination of who its
citizens “at birth” would be, that is, who would be a “natural born” citizen, as the question of
199 Perkins v. Elg, 307 U.S. 325, 329, 334 (1939). See also Rogers v. Bellei, 401 U.S. 815, 835 (1971): : “... Congress
has no ‘power, express or implied, to take away an American citizen’s citizenship without his assent.’ Afroyim v. Rusk,
387 U.S., at 257.”
200 344 U.S. 133, 138-139 (1952).
201 Id. at 139.
202 Perkins v. Elg, 307 U.S. at 334.
203 See, e.g, .arguments in Donofrio v. Wells, No. 08A407, Application for Emergency Stay to the United States
Supreme Court, contending that “candidate Obama is not eligible to the Presidency as he would not be a ‘natural born
citizen’ of the United States even if it were proven he was born in Hawaii, since ... Senator Obama’s father was born in
Kenya and therefore, having been born with split and competing loyalties, candidate Obama is not a ‘natural born
citizen’ ....” See also Berg v. Obama, 574 F.Supp.2d at 513.
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citizenship and categories of citizenship are a function of “municipal law”—the internal law of
every country, as opposed to matters of international law or foreign law.204
If allowing the recognition of citizenship under the law of foreign nations were determinative of
natural born citizenship in the United States—as now argued by some advocates—then the
operation of foreign law would, in effect, impact and be determinative of who is eligible to be
President of the United States, a result wholly at odds with U.S. national sovereignty, that is, the
“inherent right of every independent nation” to determine what classes of persons are to be its
citizens.205 As explained by the Supreme Court in 1939:
On her birth in New York, the plaintiff became a citizen of the United States. ... In a
comprehensive review of the principles and authorities governing the decision in that case—
that a child born here of alien parentage becomes a citizen of the United States—the Court
adverted to the “inherent right of every independent nation to determine for itself, and
according to its own constitution and laws, what classes of persons shall be entitled to its
citizenship.” United States v. Wong Kim Ark, supra, p. 668. As municipal law determines
how citizenship may be acquired, it follows that persons may have a dual nationality.
[footnotes omitted] And the mere fact that the plaintiff may have acquired Swedish
citizenship by virtue of the operation of Swedish law, on the resumption of that citizenship
by her parents, does not compel the conclusion that she lost her own citizenship acquired
under our law.206
The fact that a foreign country might recognize or allow a claim of dual citizenship or nationality
of a child born in the United States because of the nationality or heritage of the child’s mother or
father, has never been determinative of “natural born” or other citizenship status in any case in
American jurisprudence. The Court in Perkins v. Elg explained that dual nationality of a child
does not affect the native-born status of a child born in the United States, and cited with approval
an opinion of the Attorney General finding that a “native-born American citizen,” even one with
“dual citizenship,” who returns to the United States would qualify to be President:
One Steinkauler, a Prussian subject by birth, emigrated to the United States in 1848 ... and in
the following year had a son who was born in St. Louis. Four years later Steinkauler returned
to Germany taking this child and became domiciled in Weisbaden where they continuously
resided.... On reviewing the pertinent points in the case, including the naturalization treaty of
1868 with North Germany, the Attorney General reached the following conclusion:
“Young Steinkauler is a native-born American citizen. There is no law of the United States
under which his father or any other person can deprive him of his birthright. He can return to
America at the age of twenty-one, and in due time, if the people elect, he can become
President of the United States ... [even though] the father, in accordance with the treaty and
the laws, has renounced his American citizenship and his American allegiance and has
acquired for himself and his son German citizenship and the rights which it carries....”207
Citizenship of Parents. Concerning specifically the reading into the Constitution of a two-citizen-
parent requirement for “natural born” citizenship status, it should be noted that there is,
204 United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. at 668; Perkins v. Elg, 307 U.S. at 329; see also Frederick Van Dyne,
CITIZENSHIP OF THE UNITED STATES, at 3-4 (New York 1904).
205 Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. at 668.
206 Perkins v. Elg, 307 U.S. at 329.
207 Perkins v. Elg, 307 U.S. at 330.
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significantly, no historical nor controlling legal holding in American jurisprudence to support the
argument that parental citizenship governs and controls the eligibility of a native born U.S.
citizen to be President. As indicated in the discussion of the history of the constitutional
provision, there is also no justification for this unique theory, which would exclude an entire class
of native born U.S. citizens from eligibility for the Presidency, in any of the statements or
writings of the framers of the Constitution, or in the entire record of the ratification debates of the
United States Constitution.208
In 1825, in a significant and widely recognized work on the Constitution, William Rawle
specifically noted that the term “natural born citizen” as used in the Constitution would include
“every person born within the United States ... whether the parents are citizens or aliens....”209
Similarly, in his treatise on Citizenship of the United States, Frederick Van Dyne, Assistant
Solicitor of the Department of State, explained in 1904 that the rule governing citizenship is not
one derived from “international law” or the so-called “law of nations,” but is rather municipal law
which “[e]very nation determines for itself’ and, in the United States, derives from the common
law principle of jus soli, dependant “on the place of birth,” as modified by statute incorporating
the principles of jus sanguinis to include the children of citizens “born out of the jurisdiction of
the United States.”210 In reviewing Supreme Court decisional material, the author in this treatise
noted that the Fourteenth Amendment and the 1866 civil rights act “reaffirm the fundamental
principle of citizenship by birth” which “was generally held to be regulated by the common law,
by which all persons born within the limits and allegiance of the United States were deemed to be
natural born citizens thereof.”211
Although the Supreme Court has never had to address the issue of “natural born” citizenship
directly in the context of a challenge to the eligibility of one to be President, the federal courts
have discussed the concept on numerous occasions for more than 200 years and have, other than
in the Dred Scott decision, consistently relied upon the place of birth, without regard or reference
to the status of one’s parents, as the determining factor of natural born citizenship. In a celebrated
state court ruling, in 1844, providing a detailed explanation of the legal history of the citizenship
208 As an historical matter it may be noted that Chester A. Arthur, 21st President of the United States, was apparently
born in the United States (despite rumors being spread by opponents that he was born in Canada) in 1829 to a U.S.
citizen-mother and a father who was not a U.S. citizen, but rather a citizen of Ireland and a British subject, although
there have been assertions by some that this fact was not widely known at the time. See Thomas Reeves, GENTLEMAN
BOSS: THE LIFE OF CHESTER ALAN ARTHUR, 202-203 (1975)). There was also a question raised concerning Charles
Evans Hughes, Republican candidate for President who narrowly lost to Woodrow Wilson in 1916, and who was born
in the United States to parents who were British subjects. Note Medina, The Presidential Qualifications Clause, supra
at 267, n. 72, citing to Long, Is Mr. Charles Evans Hughes a “Natural Born Citizen” Within the Meaning of the
Constitution? 49 CHIC. LEGAL NEWS 146 (1916). Although a question was raised by this individual at the time of
Hughes’ candidacy, it did not appear to be an issue of any significance for Hughes or other presidential or vice-
presidential candidates who were born in the U.S. of recent immigrants, as the “two-citizen-parent” argument with
respect to native born U.S. citizens has not garnered serious legal consideration after Wong Kim Ark in 1898. The
question did not appear to merit even a mention in the definitive, two-volume biography of Hughes. Merlo J. Pusey,
CHARLES EVANS HUGHES, 316-366 (New York 1963).
209 William Rawle, A VIEW OF THE CONSTITUTION THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, at 80 (1825).
210 Frederick Van Dyne, CITIZENSHIP OF THE UNITED STATES, at 3-4 (New York 1904).
211 Id. at 4, 12. Emphasis added. Van Dyne explained in his treatise on citizenship that children born in the United
States, even of alien parents (other than for the exceptions of diplomats and hostile troops) are natural born citizens of
the United States, and distinguished as mere obiter dictum contrary comments on “jurisdiction” by the Court in The
Slaughter House Cases, 16 Wall. (83 U.S.) 36, 73 (1872) which, even by 1904, had been shown to be no longer
controlling as to those points. Id. at 12-23.
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laws and statutes in the United States, the following conclusion was provided with respect to
natural born citizenship:
Upon principle, therefore, I can entertain no doubt, but that by the law of the United States,
every person born within the dominions and allegiance of the United States, whatever were
the situation of his parents, is a natural born citizen.212
That the place of birth was the rule governing “natural born” citizenship under American
jurisprudence, regardless of the status of one’s parents (except for children of official diplomats
or hostile armies), even before the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, was explained by the
Supreme Court in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, in 1898, which noted that the Fourteenth
Amendment “affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory,
in the allegiance and under the protection of the country, including all children born here of
resident aliens, with the exceptions or qualifications (as old as the rule itself) of children of
foreign sovereigns or their ministers, or born on foreign public ships, or of enemies within and
during a hostile occupation of part of our territory ....”213 The Supreme Court in Wong Kim Ark
cited with approval those previous judicial rulings which held that every child born on the soil of
the United States, and subject to its jurisdiction, are “natural born” citizens of this country,
without regard to the nationality or citizenship status of their parents.214 The Supreme Court, this
time using the term “native born citizen” again explained in that case:
Passing by questions once earnestly controverted, but finally put at rest by the Fourteenth
Amendment of the Constitution, it is beyond doubt that, before the enactment of the Civil
Rights Act of 1866 or the adoption of the Constitutional Amendment, all white persons, at
least, born within the sovereignty of the United States, whether children of citizens or of
foreigners, excepting only children of ambassadors or public ministers of a foreign
government, were native-born citizens of the United States. 215
As discussed previously, the Supreme Court has used the term “native born” citizens (as
expressly used in Wong Kim Ark to mean those born in the United States “whether children of
citizens or foreigners”) as synonymous with, or at least included within the term “natural born,”
in subsequent references to eligibility to the Presidency. In United States v. Schwimmer, for
example, the Court stated: “Except for eligibility to the Presidency, naturalized citizens stand on
the same footing as do native born citizens”216 Similarly, in Luria v. United States the Supreme
Court stated: “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,”217 and noted in 1931 that
other than the one instance in the Constitution which provides a difference, that is, the eligibility
to the Presidency, “[t]he alien, when he becomes a naturalized citizen, acquires, with one
exception, every right possessed under the Constitution by those citizens who are native born.”218
212 Lynch v. Clarke, 3 N.Y. Leg. Ob. 236, 250 (1844). Emphasis added.
213 169 U.S. at 693.
214 169 U.S. at 662-663, citing United States v. Rhodes, 27 Fed. Case 785 (No. 16151) (C.C. Ky. 1866), and Lynch v.
Clark.
215 169 U.S. at 674-675. Emphasis added. Note that the dissent in Wong Kim Ark stated that under the majority’s
controlling decision, a child born to alien parents in the United States “whether of the Mongolian, Malay or other race,
were eligible to the Presidency ....” 169 U.S. at 715 (Fuller, C.J. and Harlan, J. dissenting).
216 279 U.S. 644, 649 (1929).
217 231 U.S. 9, 22 (1913).
218 United States v. MacIntosh, 283 U.S. at 623-624. See also Baumgardner v. United States, 322 U.S. 665, 673 (1944),
(continued...)
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With regard to the citizenship of children born in the United States to recent immigrants, it is
significant to note that in this country in the late 1800’s, the public’s economic fears and hostility
to foreigners led Congress to—in the words of one historian—“legitimize[ ] racism as national
policy”219 by adopting legislation to prevent immigration of Chinese laborers to the United States,
and to prohibit anyone of Chinese nationality to obtain U.S. citizenship through naturalization.220
Despite this law and its extensions, commonly known as the Chinese Exclusion Acts, the federal
courts continually and consistently held that children born “in” the United States of Chinese
nationals were “natural born” citizens of the United States, even though the parents were not, and
could never be, U.S. citizens themselves under the exclusion laws. In one case concerning the
identity of a petitioner, the Supreme Court of the United States explained that “[i]t is not disputed
that if petitioner is the son” of two Chinese national citizens who were physically in the United
States when petitioner was born, then he is “a natural born American citizen ....”221 Similarly, in
1919, the United States Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled that the appellee, based solely
on the fact that he was born in San Francisco, without any reference to the nationality of his
parents, “is a natural-born citizen of the United States.”222
In a case that preceded the Supreme Court’s Wong Kim Ark decision, the United States Court of
Appeals agreed with the petitioner’s claim to be “a natural-born citizen of the United States”
because of his place of birth, that is, within the United States, even though his parents were both
“aliens” of Chinese nationality who were in the United States privately and “not here in any
diplomatic or other official capacity under the emperor of China.”223 That federal court in 1884,
relying on precedents including Assistant Vice-Chancellor Lewis Sandford’s opinion in Lynch v.
Clarke, explained the concept in American jurisprudence that one is a “natural born” citizen when
born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction of the United States,224 and that such was
the state of American law even before the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment (for other than
those brought into the United States under slavery):
(...continued)
and Schneider v. Rusk, 377 U.S. 163, 165 (1963). Furthermore, as discussed previously, noted constitutional scholars
have also used the term “native born” citizen as a short-hand device to mean those born in the United States, without
reference to lineage or ancestry, concerning those who are eligible to the presidency. Kent, COMMENTARIES ON
AMERICAN LAW, supra at 273; Story, A FAMILIAR EXPOSITION OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES, at §271, p.
167; St. George Tucker, William Blackstone, BLACKSTONE’S COMMENTARIES: WITH NOTES AND REFERENCE TO THE
CONSTITUTION AND LAWS, OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF
VIRGINIA, Vol. I, App., at 323; 7 Gordon, Mailman, & Yale-Loehr, IMMIGRATION LAW AND PROCEDURE, at
§§91.02[4][a] and §91.02[4][c].
219 Andrew Gyory, CLOSING THE GATE: RACE, POLITICS, AND THE CHINESE EXCLUSION ACT, at 1-2, 16 (UNC Press
1998).
220 22 Stat. 58, May 6, 1882. The original restrictions were to run for 10 years, but were extended another 10 years by
the so-called Geary Act in 1892 (27 Stat. 25, May 5 1892), and then made permanent in 1902. The Chinese exclusion
acts were repealed in 1943 (57 Stat. 600, December 13, 1943).
221 Kwok Jan Fat v. White, 253 U.S. 454, 457 (1920). The Supreme Court also noted there: “It is better that many
Chinese immigrants should be improperly admitted than that one natural born citizen of the United States should be
permanently excluded from his country.” 253 U.S. at 464.
222 U.S. v. Low Hong, 261 F. 73, 74 (5th Cir. 1919).
223 In re Look Tin Sing, 21 F. 905, 906 (Cal. Cir. 1884).
224 That is, when the laws and jurisdiction of the United States are applicable to such person: “They alone are subject to
the jurisdiction of the United States who are within their dominions and under the protection of their laws, and with the
consequent obligation to obey them when obedience can be rendered ….” 21 F. at 906.
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Independently of the constitutional provision, it has always been the doctrine of this country,
except as applied to Africans brought here and sold as slaves, and their descendants, that
birth within the dominions and jurisdiction of the United States of itself creates citizenship.
This subject was elaborately considered by Assistant Vice-chancellor SANDFORD in Lynch v.
Clarke, found in the first volume of his reports. [1 Sandf. 583.] In that case one Julia Lynch,
born in New York in 1819, of alien parents, during their temporary sojourn in that city,
returned with them the same year to their native country and always resided their afterwards.
It was held that she was a citizen of the United States. After an exhaustive examination of the
law the vice-chancellor said that he entertained no doubt that every person born within the
dominions and allegiance of the United States, whatever the situation of his parents, was a
natural-born citizen, and added that this was the general understanding of the legal
profession, and the universal impression of the public mind.225
More recent federal cases expressly recognize the principle explained in the nineteenth century
and early twentieth century cases that one born in the United States and under its jurisdiction,
even when one or both parents were “aliens,” is considered a citizen of the United States by birth,
and thus a “natural born” citizen of the United States. The court in Dos Reis ex rel. Camara v.
Nicolls, for example, accepted the findings of fact that “The relator was born in the City of Fall
River, Massachusetts, on December 31, 1921. His father was a native and citizen of Portugal, and
his mother was a native of Brazil,” and that, as found by the Commissioner of Immigration and
Naturalization, affirming the decision of the Board of Special Inquiry, “that the relator was a
natural-born citizen....”226 In Loo Goon Hop v. Dulles, the court found that a person “having been
born in this country,” without any reference to, finding, or identification of the citizenship of that
person’s parents, is a “natural born citizen of the United States.”227 In Yamauchi v. Rogers, the
federal court in reciting “findings of fact and conclusions of law,” found that the plaintiff, born in
California of a “Japanese national” who had married another “Japanese national,” “is a natural
born citizen of the United States....”228 In Diaz-Salazar v. INS, the court there noted that children
born in the United States, even to an “illegal” (or undocumented) alien father, “are natural-born
citizens of the United States.”229 Similarly, in Mustata v. U.S. Department of Justice, the United
States Court of Appeals, in reciting the facts of the case, noted: “Petitioners Marian and Lenuta
Mustata are citizens of Romania. At the time of their petition, they resided in Michigan with their
two minor children, who are natural born citizens of the United States.”230
In 2008, a U.S. district court discussed the concept of “natural born” citizenship specifically with
respect to the eligibility to be President as applying, since the founding of the Nation, to all who
were born in and subject to the jurisdiction of the United States:
Those born “in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” U.S. Const.,
amend. XIV, have been considered American citizens under American law in effect since the
225 21 F. at 909. Emphasis added.
226 68 F.Supp. 773, 774 (D.Mass. 1946). The court there found that even as a natural born citizen, an individual such as
relator could expatriate himself under the operation of the existing federal law by performing acts indicating the
“voluntary renunciation or abandonment of nationality and allegiance,” such as voluntarily serving in a foreign army.
227 119 F.Supp. 808 (D.D.C. 1954): “It is not denied that the person who it is claimed is the plaintiff’s father is a natural
born citizen of the United States, having been born in the country.”
228 181 F. Supp. 934, 935-936 (D.D.C. 1960).
229 700 F.2d 1156, 1160 (7th Cir. 1982), cert. denied, 462 U.S. 1132 (1983).
230 179 F.3d 1017, 1019 (6th Cir. 1999). Emphasis added. See also United States v. Carlos Jesus Marguet-Pillado, 648
F.3d 1001, 1006 (9th Cir. 2011), agreeing with the underlying legal accuracy of proposed jury instruction defining
“natural born citizen” as including one born in the United States, without reference to the citizenship of one’s parents.
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time of the founding, United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649, 674-75, 18 S.Ct. 456, 42
L.Ed. 890 (1898), and thus eligible for the presidency, see, e.g., Schneider v. Rusk, 377 U.S.
163, 165, 84 S.Ct. 1187, 12 L.Ed.2d 218 (1964)(dicta).231
Similarly, in dismissing an eligibility case concerning President Obama’s birth in Hawaii, a state
appellate court in Indiana, after a thorough review of federal case law, concluded that anyone
born in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction, regardless of the citizenship of that
person’s parents, was a “natural born” citizen eligible to be President:
Based on the language of Article II, Section 1, Clause 4 and the guidance provided by Wong
Kim Ark, we conclude that persons born within the borders of the United States are “natural
born Citizens” for Article II, Section 1 purposes, regardless of the citizenship of their
parents. Just as a person “born within the British dominions [was] a natural born-born
subject” at the time of the framing of the U.S. Constitution, so too were those “born in the
allegiance of the United States [ ] natural-born citizens.”232
The constitutional history, the nearly unanimous consensus of legal and constitutional scholars,
and the consistent, relevant case law thus indicate that every child born in and subject to the
jurisdiction of the United States (that is, not children of diplomatic personnel representing a
foreign nation or military troops in hostile occupation), is a native born U.S. citizen and thus a
“natural born Citizen” eligible to be President under the qualifications clause of the Constitution,
regardless of the nationality or citizenship of one’s parents. 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.233
Author Contact Information
Jack Maskell
Legislative Attorney
231 Hollander v. McCain, 566 F.Supp.2d 63, 66 (D.N.H. 2008).
232 Ankeny v. Governor of the State of Indiana, 916 NE2d 678, 688 (2009), petition to transfer jurisdiction denied (Ind.
Supreme Court, April 5, 2010).
233 See now 8 U.S.C. §1401(a) - (h). Under current law, at 8 U.S.C. §1401(g), a person born abroad to one U.S. citizen-
parent would be a citizen at birth if that parent had resided in the United States for at least five years, two of which
were after the time the parent was 14 years of age.
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