Natural Born Citizen

Where could that term have come from and what could it mean?

Let’s look at some of the evidence.

§ 212. Citizens and natives.
The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. As the society cannot exist and perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights. The society is supposed to desire this, in consequence of what it owes to its own preservation; and it is presumed, as matter of course, that each citizen, on entering into society, reserves to his children the right of becoming members of it. The country of the fathers is therefore that of the children; and these become true citizens merely by their tacit consent. We shall soon see whether, on their coming to the years of discretion, they may renounce their right, and what they owe to the society in which they were born. I say, that, in order to be of the country, it is necessary that a person be born of a father who is a citizen; for, if he is born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country.
-Emer Vatell (English language version, 1797) (original version 1758)

I am much obliged by the kind present you have made us of your edition of Vattel. It came to us in good season, when the circumstances of a rising state make it necessary frequently to consult the law of nations. Accordingly that copy, which I kept, (after depositing one in our own public library here, and sending the other to the College of Massachusetts Bay, as you directed,) has been continually in the hands of the members of our Congress, now sitting, who are much pleased with your notes and preface, and have entertained a high and just esteem for their author. Your manuscript "Idee sur le Gouvernement et la Royaute" is also well relished, and may, in time, have its effect. I thank you, likewise, for the other smaller pieces, which accompanied Vattel.
-Ben Franklin (December 9, 1775), \
Letter 459: Benjamin Franklin to Charles William Frederic Dumas


My dear Friend,
Philada. Mar. 24. 1776 Inclos'd is an Answer to the Request from the Inhabitants of Dartmouth. I have comply'd with it upon your Recommendation, and ordered a Post accordingly. (1) I have put into Mr Adam's Hands directed for you, the new Edition of Vattel When you have perus'd it, please to place it in your College Library. (2) I am just setting out for Canada, and have only time to add my best Wishes of Health & Happiness to you & all yours. Permit me to say my Love to Mrs Bowdoin, & believe me ever, with sincere & great Esteem, Yours most affectionately B Franklin
-Ben Franklin (March 24, 1776),
Letter 454: Benjamin Franklin to James Bowdoin



Qu:1. Can an American citizen, adult, now inherit lands in England?

Natural subjects can inherit – Aliens cannot. There is no middle character -- every man must be the one or the other of these.
A Natural subject is one born within the king's allegiance & still owing allegiance. No instance can be produced in the English law, nor can it admit the idea of a person's being a natural subject and yet not owing allegiance.
An alien is the subject or citizen of a foreign power.
- Thomas Jefferson (1783), Letter 151: Jefferson Notes,


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.
-John Jay (July 25, 1787 ) to George Washington

The common sense of this was immediately and unanimously incorporated into our Constitution. It cannot be said that this was without debate, there were a few who initially thought that excluding naturalized citizens might limit the number of affluent people with money to come to and invest in the new country. This small minority was afraid that the rich would not immigrate if their opportunities were limited. The fact that there was debate is significant because it signifies that this provision was not slipped into the Constitution, in the late hours of the night.

If they choose as a requirement for President for themselves, proven loyalty, and what they would choose for the next generation of Presidents would be “natural loyalty.” A persons place in life comes from ones parents. This concept is found in nature, it is self-evident. Nature claims kinship, our most primitive and natural form of citizenship, from blood, while nations claim citizens from the soil, or their place of birth. They decided that the best way to protect the integrity of the office of President of the United States was a combination of the two.

Article. II.
Section. 1.
No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
-US Constitution (adopted September 17, 1787) Article II, Section 1, Clause 5

There are some interesting phrases here that all have significance to the mindset of the Founding Fathers. The key phrase here is, “a natural born citizen,” as opposed to “a native born citizen,” “naturalized” or even “a citizen.” Before we look at what “a natural born citizen” is, let’s look at the other phrases, so the clear meaning of a Natural Born Citizen becomes clear.

Looking at the text of the Constitution there was a small window of opportunity for a class of citizens, who were just simply “a citizen” to become the President. This Grandfather clause expired with the death of the last citizen born before June 22, 1788.

or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution,

Considering that all of the Founding Fathers were at least on July 4, 1776, British subjects, they needed to include themselves as possible Presidential candidates. These “original citizen” Presidents included, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson and the last “original citizen” President was William Henry Harrison.

If they had not included themselves, then the age requirement included in the qualifications for President would mean that America would have to wait until July 4, 1811 for the first “natural born citizen” to come of age.

neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty five years,

Yet, they were not so liberal in just allowing any former British subjects to be President. Note that also the qualifications for President is included a duration of residency.

and been fourteen Years a resident within the United States.

To understand why they choose 14 years, is to start to understand why they also penned the phrase “a natural born citizen.” Our Constitution was adopted on September 17, 1787 and if we subtract 14 years we come to September 17, 1773. Nothing significant happened on this date, but it creates a state where our first “original citizen Presidents” needed to be physically present at the start of and during the War of Independence, unless like Franklin they were overseas engaged in the business of the United States. This is born out in the Journal of the Senate of the United States of America (July 7, 1798), and this is also in many of the debates on ratification.

Because as stated there were no “natural born citizens” ready to be President, the age and duration of residency also created another significant point. Thirty-five minus 14 is also 21, the “age of majority.” This means that these “original citizen” Presidents would have needed to make a conscience adult decision to be an American and would have earned the right to be President, by willingly risking their lives simply by being present in the thirteen States, while this Nation fought for its independence.

Yes, there is a small window of opportunity, when someone could have come to America and became President, without having risked their live in a War of Independence. This short period was from February 4, 1783 when Britain formally declared an end to the War of Independence until September 17, 1787. Our Founding Fathers were men of the highest principles and integrity, they said what they meant and meant what they said. In the same Constitution, that holds the qualifications for President, is written Article 1, Section 9, these same men wrote,

No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.

They were not going to treat this 1783 to 1789 class of “immigrant citizens” guilty of being unfaithful to America by passing a law saying so. A Bill of Attainder is a law that makes a group of citizens guilty of a crime without the benefit of a trial. Ex post facto law is a law passed after the fact to make something illegal or legal, at the time it happened. They chose instead to set a date, September 17, 1787 that allowed anyone who was an original citizen on that date regardless of place of birth to be President. If you became a citizen on September 18, 1787, it would have been too late for you to qualify to be President of the United States of America without being a natural born citizen.

Returning to the phrase “a natural born citizen,” you can now see that the Founding Fathers made a conscience effort to insure that the office of the President of the United States of America would have been held by only those men who were loyal to the cause of the United States of America. They selected as criteria for themselves loyalty above all else. The President of the United States must be above all else loyal to this Nation, and the principles that it was established upon.

As they pondered the Constitutional office of the President, they knew that one day their generation would pass away. Those men who proved their loyalty on the field of battle would eventually sleep under the field. This pool of men with proven loyalty to the Nation would literally die out one day. Sensing this, they knew that they could only trust the power of the office of President to a group of citizens who would have the best chance of being loyal to the country, those who only know America and only knew what it was like to be American.

The Federalist Papers (Oct 1787-May 1788) are 85 essays written by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison. The main focus of essays 2-5, written by Jay, and titled “Concerning Dangers from Foreign Force and Influence" is on the need for a strong central government (as apposed to the Confederacy) to protect a nation from foreign military action, they also suggest that a strong central government can help protect a nation from "foreign influence." Concern about foreign influence also appears in essay number 20, written by Hamilton and Madison; essay number 43 by Madison; and essays number 66 and 75 by Hamilton. Moreover, the role of the presidential selection mechanism in limiting foreign influence is explicitly discussed by Hamilton in essay number 68.

Hamilton said:

“Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption. These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one quarter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils. How could they better gratify this, than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union? But the convention have guarded against all danger of this sort, with the most provident and judicious attention.”
- The Federalist Papers (Oct 1787-May 1788)


“The common law of England is not the common law of these states... The indiscriminate admission of all foreigners to the first rights of citizenship, without any permanent security for their attachment to the country, is repugnant to every principle of prudence and good policy.”
George Mason 1788.


And the children of citizens of the United States that may be born beyond Sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born Citizens
- Congress’ Rule of Naturalization (March 26,1790)

They used the plural, and not singular. The majority membership of the first Congress was made up of both members from the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention. It is obvious that these men, who wrote the both the Constitution and first naturalization law seen that it was the parents who instilled a sense of belonging to their children. This sense of belonging would be deemed loyalty.

The fact that they wanted parents, in the plural, to be citizens is because they wanted to limit as much as possible any political and emotional attachment to the “old world.” They wanted neither the mother nor the father to influence “a natural born” candidate for President, with a sense of foreign allegiance. They made the requirements for “a natural born citizen” to be from parents who were either born in the United States or made a conscience decision to become “naturalized citizens” of the United States. They observed in the law of nature that a child follows the condition of their parents, and if the parents were split in their loyalties, the child would be split in loyalty to America.

And be it further enacted, that the children of persons duly naturalized, dwelling within the United States, and being under the age of twenty-one years, at the time of such naturalization, ... shall be considered as citizens of the United States.
-United States Congress, “An act to establish an uniform rule of Naturalization; and to repeal the act heretofore passed on that subject” (January 29, 1795)

It was the intent of our Founding Fathers to “naturalize at birth” these children, but not give them the status “natural born citizens.” Also in this act of 1795, we see the importance of complete allegiance to the United States for all people naturalized, as this is the first appearance of the oath of allegiance “to renounce forever all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty whereof such alien may at that time be a citizen or subject.” This oath is still in effect today.

No one can deny that it was the intention of the Framers of the Constitution to protect the sanctity of the office of the President of the United States from foreign influence, either natural or legislated. They believed that the parents American citizenship, either natural or by choice would guard against the influence of foreign cultures. That birth within the United States of America by American citizens, made sure no other world power could ever make a claim for the allegiance of our President.

They well knew, that to give to the members of Congress a right to give votes in this election, or to decide upon them when given, was to destroy the independence of the Executive, and make him the creature of the Legislature. This therefore they have guarded against, and to insure experience and attachment to the country, they have determined that no man who is not a natural born citizen, or citizen at the adoption of the Constitution, of fourteen years residence, and thirty-five years of age, shall be eligible.
-Senator Charles Pinckney, (March 28, 1800). Records Federal Convention 1787 CCLXXXVIII p 385, 387


The delegates at the Constitutional Convention were deeply concerned about foreign influence on the national government, and in particular on the President. .. they wanted the Legislature to select the President, and they tried to limit foreign influence on the President by devising time-of-citizenship requirements for members of the Legislature. Ultimately, however, the Convention decided that a President elected by the Legislature could not be insulated from foreign influence and it turned, instead, to the Electoral College.

In one sense, the switch to the Electoral College lowered the need for explicit presidential qualifications because it minimized the line of potential foreign influence running through the Legislature. In another sense, however, this switch broke the clear connection between the citizenship requirements of legislators and the selection of the President, and therefore boosted the symbolic importance of a citizenship requirement for the President. This change in context, along with the Convention's decision to make the President the commander-in-chief of the army, gave new weight to the arguments in Jay's letter, and in particular to the suggestion in that letter that the presidency be restricted to "natural born" citizens.

That provision in the constitution which requires that the president shall be a native-born citizen (unless he were a citizen of the United States when the constitution was adopted,) is a happy means of security against foreign influence, which, wherever it is capable of being exerted, is to be dreaded more than the plague. The admission of foreigners into our councils, consequently, cannot be too much guarded against; their total exclusion from a station to which foreign nations have been accustomed to, attach ideas of sovereign power, sacredness of character, and hereditary right, is a measure of the most consummate policy and wisdom. It was by means of foreign connections that the stadtholder of Holland, whose powers at first were probably not equal to those of a president of the United States, became a sovereign hereditary prince before the late revolution in that country. Nor is it with levity that I remark, that the very title of our first magistrate, in some measure exempts us from the danger of those calamities by which European nations are almost perpetually visited. The title of king, prince, emperor, or czar, without the smallest addition to his powers, would have rendered him a member of the fraternity of crowned heads: their common cause has more than once threatened the desolation of Europe. To have added a member to this sacred family in America, would have invited and perpetuated among us all the evils of Pandora's Box.
-George Tucker's “Treatise on the Constitution” (1803). George Tucker was a law professor in the University of William and Mary, a judge of The General Court in Virginia, St. and he also served as a major in the Revolutionary War and was present at the Battle of Yorktown.

Article II, Section 1 is not about simply being born in the USA, it is about having only a complete and total loyalty to the United States of America, and no other. Any President who puts the interests of the United States of America second, has demonstrated that he is not “a natural born citizen” of this Nation, but is merely a puppet of worldly powers. Imperfect as some may believe, it is our legacy. A heritage paid for by the blood of patriots that is ours to either, guard and protect or to abandon for the always-changing temporary passions of the multitudes.

Even in the debates on the 14th Amendment we find "owing no allegiance" to other countries as citizens do "now".

[T]he provision is, that 'all persons born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens.' That means 'subject to the complete jurisdiction thereof.' What do we mean by 'complete jurisdiction thereof?' Not owing allegiance to anybody else. That is what it means.
-Sen. Lyman Trumbull, speaking on the 14th amendment, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, author of the Thirteenth Amendment, and the one who inserted the jurisdiction phrase. (Cong. Globe, 39th, 1st Sess., 1866)


“I concur entirely with the honorable Senator from Illinois [Trumbull], in holding that the word "jurisdiction," as here employed, ought to be construed so as to imply a full and complete jurisdiction on the part of the United States, whether exercised by Congress, by the executive, or by the judicial department; that is to say, the same jurisdiction in extent and quality as applies to every citizen of the United States now."
- Sen Jacob M. Howard (MI) speaking on the 14th amendment (Cong. Globe, 39th, 1st Sess., 1866)


[Now], all this amendment [citizenship clause] provides is, that all persons born in the United States and not subject to some foreign Power--for that, no doubt, is the meaning of the committee who have brought the matter before us--shall be considered as citizens of the United States. That would seem to be not only a wise but a necessary provision. If there are to be citizens of the United States there should be some certain definition of what citizenship is, what has created the character of citizen as between himself and the United States, and the amendment says that citizenship may depend upon birth, and I know of no better way to give rise to citizenship than the fact of birth within the territory of the United States, born to parents who at the time were subject to the authority of the United States
- Sen. Johnson, speaking on the 14th amendment (Cong. Globe, 39th, 1st Sess., 1866)

In other words, only children born to American citizens can be considered citizens of the United States since only a American citizen could enjoy the "extent and quality" of jurisdiction of an American citizen now.

"I understand the words here, 'subject to the jurisdiction of the United States,' to mean fully and completely subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.
-Sen. W. Williams, speaking on the 14th amendment (Cong. Globe, 39th, 1st Sess., 1866)


”I find no fault with the introductory clause [S 61 Bill], which is simply declaratory of what is written in the Constitution, that every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen.”
-Rep. John Bingham, framer of the 14th Amendment, before The US House of Representatives (Cong. Globe, 39th, 1st Sess., March 9, 1866 )

The 14th Amendment didn't change the definition of "natural born citizen" as understood by the founders. It focused on injustices to African Americans, the rights of native-born Black Americans, whose rights were being denied as recently-freed slaves under the doctrine of "separate but equal"

"Naturalization Oath of Allegiance to the United States of America,"

I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen...

Of course, this very oath, which is still in force today, leaves no room for dual-citizenship, but that is another troubling disregard for our National principles by modern government.

If a "naturalized citizen" cannot be subject to a foreign power, how can a "natural born citizen" be subject to a foreign power?