Tuesday, July 07, 2009

The Missing Pieces Of Obama's Life Story

Normally, the question of a president's place of birth is established long before he assumes the office of the Presidency, unless you're Barack Hussein Obama. Prior to taking office, the Obama meme was that he was born at Queen's Medical Center in Honolulu, Hawaii on August 4, 1961; however, as WND reports, Obama shifted his birth place account to name Kapi' olani Medical Center in Honolulu as his birth place. The Library of Congress' genealogist, William Adams Reitwiesner, originally listed Queen's Medical Center as Obama's place of birth. He has now changed it to Kapi' olani. WND has tried to confirm with Kapi' olani hospital officials' the validity of the claim Obama was born at the hospital, but hospital officials declined to answer, citing health privacy concerns. WND notes that Snopes.com identifies Queen's Medical Center as his place of birth. A UPI story on his presidential campaign announcement said, "Obama described his birth at Queen's Medical Center in Hawaii Aug. 4, 1961, to a young white woman and a father of Luo ethnicity from Nyanza Province in Kenya . . . " It appears Obama switched the account of his place of birth after taking office as President.

That such simple matters of Obama's life story remain a mystery even after he's been in office for eight months is troubling. Unlike his presidential predecessors, Obama has gone to great lengths to block reporters and the public from obtaining his school records, particularly his records at Occidental College, Columbia University and Harvard Law School. His records from his tenure as a state senator simply disappeared. Medical records have been limited to a simple one-page letter from a doctor who hadn't examined Obama in over a year. He has refused to furnish his original birth certificate, the one he described holding in his hand when he wrote his second books, Dreams From My Father, which would have stated the hospital at which he was born and cleared up the confusion over his actual birth place. On his first day as President, Obama signed an executive order restricting the release of presidential records.

WND has devoted considerable time and resources trying to prove Obama really wasn't born in Hawaii. Instead, WND has attempted to prove he was born in Kenya based on the claims of some Obama relatives in Kenya, including his step-grandmother, Sarah Obama. WND's efforts have been misplaced and based on a false assumption that Obama's birth abroad alone would disqualify him as a natural born citizen, a constitutional requirement for serving as president. Other constitutional scholars disagree. Obama's Hawaiian birth certificate identifies a Kenyan citizen, Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., as his father. By the Obama campaign's own admission, Obama had dual citizenship at birth. Constitutional research of the meaning of "natural born citizen" suggests the founders intended that a candidate must be born of U.S. citizen parents to be considered a "natural born citizen." His father's Kenyan citizenship alone disqualified Obama as a natural born citizen. More importantly, his mother later divorced and remarried an Indonesian citizen, Lolo Soetoro, who adopted the younger Obama and had his legal name changed to "Barry Soetoro" according to his Indonesian school records. Those same school records identified Barry Soetoro as an Indonesian citizen.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, the U.S.Senate actually conducted hearings on Sen. John McCain's "natural born citizenship" status and declared him such by resolution based on his birth to U.S. citizen parents, who were stationed in Panama at the time of his birth while his father served in the U.S. Navy. That resolution read:

Whereas John Sidney McCain, III, was born to American citizens on an American military base in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That John Sidney McCain, III, is a ‘‘natural born Citizen’’ under Article II, Section 1, of the Constitution of the United States
Former DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff was questioned by senators about the meaning of the term, "natural born citizen." "My assumption and my understanding is that if you are born of American parents, you are naturally a natural-born American citizen," he said. Oddly, though not surprising, the U.S. Senate never conducted hearings to determine Obama's eligibility.

According to a State Department manual, the issue of whether the term included persons like McCain had never been officially determined. “It has never been determined definitively by a court whether a person who acquired U.S. citizenship by birth abroad to U.S. citizens is a natural born citizen within the meaning of Article II of the Constitution and, therefore, eligible for the Presidency,” the manual states. Implicit in the State Department's statement, however, is the requirement that both parents be U.S. citizens. Perhaps the best explanation of what the term means can be found in the Law of Nations, a constitutional treatise sometimes cited in U.S. Supreme Court opinions:

“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."
This definition clearly excluded Obama as a natural born citizen and arguably would exclude McCain as well, which explains why many Republicans were reluctant to push the issue during last year's presidential campaign. The State Department manual notes that the original Immigration and Naturalization Act defined the term in a way that was helpful to McCain. "The 'Act to establish an Uniform Rule of Naturalization', enacted March 26, 1790, (1 Stat. 103,104) provided that, “...the children of citizens of the United States, that may be born ... 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." Again, Members of Congress who wrote this law immediately after the adoption of the Constitution would have deemed Barack Hussein Obama ineligible to be president based upon this Act. Many people confuse subsequent immigration laws deeming persons born on American soil as U.S. citizens, forgetting that "natural born citizen" is a unique term used only once in the Constitution to determine the qualifications for the president. Being a statutory citizen at birth does not equate to being a natural born citizen as mistakenly believed by many persons.

During the debate over the adoption of the 14th Amendment nearly a hundred years after the adoption of the Constitution, Rep. John Bingham stated what a natural born citizen is: “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 . . ." Can it be said that Obama's father did not owe allegiance to the British Commonwealth of which Kenya was a part at the time of his birth? I think not. U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Waite touched on the conflict in what the term means in an 1875 opinion in Minor v. Happersett:

“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.”
In the final analysis, it must be conceded that this constitutional issue has never been decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. Numerous citizen attempts to challenge Obama's qualifications in U.S. courts, both federal and state, were thwarted on standing grounds and not the merits of the challengers' claim. People on the Left can knock the people who raise the issue as "birthers" and "nuts" all they want, but there is considerable constitutional authority that would suggest Barack Hussein Obama is not a natural born citizenship by reason of his dual citizenship at birth because of his father's Kenyan citizenship.

25 comments:

Gary R. Welsh said...

Editorial note: I will not post any comments from Obamanauts who cannot leave a comment without defaming me. If you want to engage in a constructive discussion of the issue, your comments will be posted; otherwise, buzz off.

Gary R. Welsh said...

Apparently Obama is not just confused about his place of birth. The Huffington Post has a post today discussing Obama's confusion about how he met wife:

Barack Obama has proven himself to in many ways be the ideal husband, but today in Moscow he showed that he was not immune to the occasional slip-up, as evidenced by the following statement: "I don't know if anybody else will meet their future wife or husband in class like I did, but I'm sure that you're all going to have wonderful careers." Why was this bad you wonder? Politico explains:

Obama seemed to be playing off an introduction that referred to him meeting his future wife, Michelle Robinson, while he was a student. But the truth is that the couple met not "in class" but at a law firm in Chicago, Sidley Austin, in 1989. Obama was a summer associate (essentially a legal intern) there and Robinson was an attorney completing her first year at the firm. Both attended Harvard Law School, but Michelle graduated in the spring of 1988, while Barack Obama did not arrive at the Cambridge, Mass., campus until that fall.

Anonymous said...

Great article.

Thanks for posting it...I'll spread it in other blogs that I go to.

The hospital not releasing info is a BUNCH of BS they are worried for their HEALTH not "health privacy". They are afraid they may contract Donald Youngf Bullet Disease.
There should be no Privacy issues with a birth that is a Public Event and publicized in the local newspaper. Also the patient, Stanley Ann is dead so privacy is not an issue. I could see privacy, if it was a disease or abortion, but a birth? Also if his mom was NOT a patient there for the birth the Hospital has NO OBLIGATION to someone that is not a Patient. If you call a hospital and say you are looking for Peter Francisco and they don;t have a patient there named Peter Francisco they will tell you we don't have anyone here by that name. They say this because they have NO OBLICATION to Peter Francisco. Now if they have that patient there and there is a Privacy issue they are Obligated to respect the privacy according to the patients instructions of hospital policy.

There is a game being played here and Americans are being FOOLED with this PONZI PREZ.

By his own ADMISSION Obanana is a FRAUD and an USURPER and the more we spread the word the more we will be heard.

BO Got BC? NBC? Soon we will see.

Seth M. Ward said...

Though I don't agree with you on your choice to not post peoples comments whether they agree with you or not, that is your choice. You are the author of this blog and I respect that. And though I don't agree with your post about Obama, I feel that most peoples direction is misguided. Yes, if there are rules that have been broken, laws that have been subverted, then someone should answer for that, but really when it comes down to it, it's not about John McCain this or Barrack OBama that. It's really about the Senators and Congressmen/women and even the HOR's that have rode the back of the working man/woman's back living off of the sweat of others. Our country, and for that matter all countries with the ability to control it's population and project it's power throughout society has taken what it wants, when it wants all in the name of Democracy, national security or any other gist. It has always been about the have's vs. the have not's. We have freedom of speech as long as they say it's okay. We have the right to own land, until they decide to build an interstate through it. We have the right to drive on roads that our tax money pays for, and then have them sell off the road to a toll company that makes us pay to use it. We are all whores and the Government is our pimp.

Gary R. Welsh said...

Hospital birth announcements used to be regularly posted in the newspaper. I'm a little confused about when this information became protected by HIPAA.

ruby said...

it is a little ironic that he is so concerned about his privacy when he had Jack Ryan's divorce records unsealed during his US Senate run.

there is also the matter of how he went to Pakistan. on what passport? Indonesian?

Bradley Spahn said...

I want to do a little fact-checking on some of the items that have been thrown around here.

The original post makes reference to a number of pre-Civil War sources and uses those to divine the founders' intended meaning of "natural born citizen." The trouble with this approach is that the 14th amendment revises and clarifies the definition of citizen as used in Article two, and as such, the text of the amendment must be seen as decisive in defining the meaning of citizen. Setting aside suggestions he was born elsewhere, so long as Obama was born in the United States, regardless of the citizenship of his parents, he must be found to be a citizen upon birth. I think this condition meets the standard of "natural born citizen" on its face.

Of course, the post anticipated this line or argument, including a passage of dictum from Minor v. Happersett(1874) that casts doubt on my argument. However, because the argument is essentially historical and the question isn't decided, this case shouldn't be treated as precedent.

Since the 14th amendment, ratified in 1868, refines the meaning of citizenship, Justice Waite's alusion to past doubts should be taken with a grain of salt, since the history of jurisprudence on the issue could, at its maximum, extend back 6 years, whatever controversy the justice was referring to extended back before the 14th amendement, when citizenship wasn't constitutionally defined. More importantly, the reference included in the original decision was to Minor itself, and as such suggests that the passage was purely speculative dictum, and should not be treated as holding precedential value.

Further, the very next line of the case sets aside the question the post looks to the case to answer, because that legal question is outside the scope of the case. That is, the case only decided the question of citizenship for citizen parents, and as such, doesn't apply here, and is not of precedential value.

Normally I have some sympathy to original intent arguments, but since the framers' language was amended later, such arguments don't hold water in this case.

Gary R. Welsh said...

Bradley, I respectfully disagree that the adoption of the 14th Amendment altered the meaning of natural born citizen. Again, you are confusing the definition of a citizen with a natural born citizen. Yes, the Amendment altered who is a citizen but it did not change the definition of a natural born citizen for purposes of determining eligibility for the presidency. Bingham's point during the debate of the Amendment should make that point clear.

Concerned Taxpayer said...

You don't really expect that the American people will ever find out the TRUTH, do you!?
Remember, you're talking about LIBERAL DEMOCRATS. To them, the END fully justifies the MEANS, no matter our country.

Baloo said...

Words are powerful tools and thus you have to look at the meanings of the words "Natural Born Citizen" v. "Citizen."

I have to agree that the argument that President Obama is not a "Natural Born Citizen" but only a "Citizen."

I would love to see the High Court put a end to the argument.

Jon E. Easter said...

I doubt you'll actually post this, and I hope that you don't think this is "defaming you," but I don't understand why a seemingly bright individual continues to beat a horse that has been dead for months. Obama is President. No amount of blogging is going to change that.

Gary R. Welsh said...

Jon, There are only two requirements for being president: a person must be at least 35 years of age; and the person must be a natural born citizen. The fact is that after all of these years, we have no system in place to ensure that a candidate meets those two requirements. State election officials have bounced third party candidates from the ballot for failing to meet one of these qualifications to limit their access to the ballot. The major party candidates are given a complete pass. The Constitution is meaningless if its basic terms are not enforced. I will not sit by as an attorney and an American citizen and watch the document be walked all over by Barack Obama simply because people who think they know better than the rest of us thought he should be the first African-American president whether he was qualified or not. You are a school teacher. I'm betting you would not discuss both sides of this issue with your students. No, you would tell them the same things you blog, castigating those who have taken the time to research the Constitution and offering legitimate interpretations of what it means because it doesn't fit within your own political views.

Baloo said...

Where is the ACLU at since this is a Constitutional problem?

Why is President Obama keeping all this covered up, unless he would be damaged by the information?

Perhaps President Obama is not the President and Joe Biden is the President because Obama is not a "Natural Born Citizen."

Words mean things or perhaps the Democrats have forgot that.

Perhaps the Democrats do not want Joe to be President which I think is smart on their part.

What I love is how the Democrats always say they are for the Constitution when they are showing they are not. The truth has been out showing this since the debate of President Obama's citizenship began.

Of course the Democrats could be the "not in my backyard" people that only want to use the Constitution when it benefits them.

The Constitution is the most important legal item the United States has ever had.

The same people who want to say the Constitution does not apply should remember that when there is an issue that concerns them in the Constitution.

Unknown said...

Awesome, another militant Conservative from Indiana. You rock. I will read you regularly. I too would be happy to see his Birth Certificate. But then again, as an attorney, do you think that the current SCOTUS, has the scrotum to take it up? I don't. They value their lives too much, literally.

Anonymous said...

BY his OWN ADMISSION Obama/Soetoro is not a NATURAL BORN CITIZEN period end of story.

By His Own Admission he admits that he was Born a British Subject. We are talking 1961 before the feminization of America and the world. At that time men ruled and Citizenship was dominated thru the male. Therefore Obama II was a British Subject just like his daddy no matter where he was born. When Kenya became independent from UK he became a Kenyan just like his daddy. By his own admission he says he was a Kenyan til his Citizen expired at age 21 because he didn't renew it.

NOW HERE IS WHERE IT GETS INTERESTING:
He was a British before becoming Kenyan when he doesn't renew his Kenyan Citizenship at 21 his Citizenship REVERTS back to British by British LAW. He is a British Citizen, NOT EVEN an AMERICAN CITIZEN never mind NATURAL BORN CITIZEN which would require TWO (2) QUALIFIED AMERICAN CITIZEN PARENTS. He had NEITHER. His mom was a minor and NOT a qualified Citizen required to pass down citizenship and his daddy was a FOREIGN NATIONAL. Even if he was born in the White House he could never be a Natural Born Citizen.

There are some misconceptions, confusion and intentional misdirections. Up until 1986 in USA there was no anchor baby statute. If a child was born in America it would have the citizenship of the parents. Now with the SABOTAGED and BASTARDIZED "anchor baby" rule babies are allowed to be citizens BUT THEY ARE NOT NATURAL BORN CITIZENS.

OBAMA II is a British Citizen even if he was born in Kenya or Hawaii.

This makes him a FRAUD and an USURPER that needs to be detained promptly.

Jon E. Easter said...

AI,
I do not discuss such matters in my class because I'm not a civics or government teacher. The matter has been addressed in court, and it was thrown out.

I don't believe I've dedicated one full blog post on the issue because there isn't one. I admire your passion, but I wish you would direct it towards other things that actually might make a difference.

Anonymous said...

TO: Jon E. Easter,

Please tell me when it come to America what is more important than Protecting the Constitution?

Kelly said...

The birth mother must consent to a birth announcement being published in the newspaper. I don't know if that has always been so, but it is now.

The Munz said...

If they only put Obama through the same carnival that they put McCain through, we wouldn't have this problem now. But they were afraid to for what ever reason.

I am cross posting this on my blog, linking directly back here.
I have already stated the same, but another blog's take on it doesn't hurt
the cause either.

All I want is for Obama to be treated the same as McCain, no better no worse.

Thank you

smrstrauss said...

Dual nationality has no effect on Natural Born Citizen status.

If it did, countries could simply declare that one of the candidates was also a citizen of that country and by doing so make that candidate no longer eligible.

Say that Mexico declared that all the children born in Texas were from that moment also citizens of Mexico. Would that make them less US citizens? Would it make them less loyal to the USA? Would it make them less Natural Born? If you say yes to the latter, then you agree that a foreign country’s laws have profound effect on our elections and can take away something from our children.

In Obama’s case, his father WAS a British subject, but our laws allow the children of foreigners to be eligible to be president so long as the children are born in the USA.

The fact that the father was a British subject AND that a British law made Obama a dual national still has no effect on our law. Our law is what counts. A foreign country cannot take away a right or a privilege from a US-born child.

Natural Born Citizen refers to the law in the colonies at the time of the Revolution that all children born in a colony except for the children of foreign diplomats was considered a Natural Born Subject. Although Vattel, said that all citizens require two parents of the country, there is no evidence that the writers of the Constitution used this definition.

The far more common definition was that of the law at the time and the meaning of Natural Born Subject.

And that is why such prominent conservative Senators who are also lawyers as Orren Hatch and Lindsay Graham say that a Natural Born Citizen is simply one who was born in the USA:

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), said:

“Every child born in the United States is a natural-born United States citizen except for the children of diplomats.” (December 11, 2008 letter to constituent)

Senator Orrin G. Hatch (R-UT), said:

“What is a natural born citizen? Clearly, someone born within the United States or one of its territories is a natural born citizen.” (Senate Judiciary Committee hearing hearing on OCTOBER 5, 2004)

Gary R. Welsh said...

Strauss, Back up your claim with facts. You cite to absolutely no legal authority to support that legal conclusion. I had a client who was born in San Diego, CA to Saudi citizens. Within weeks of her birth, she returned with her parents to her parents' country of citizenship where she spent the next 20-some years. When she decided to come to the U.S., she applied for a visa but was told she needed a U.S. passport because of her birth on U.S. soil. Yes, she is technically a citizen by birth, but she certainly is not a natural born citizen. Under your definition, she could move to the U.S. after all of these years and run for president. It's a preposterous interpretation of the presidential constitutional qualification. I notice you completely ignore the additional Indonesian citizenship Barry Soetoro obtained along the way. His election is a complete constitutional abomination. The man has no respect for the constitution. Your embarrassing defense is meaningless.

smrstrauss said...

Re: Let us talk about facts before interpretation.

Obama was never an Indonesian citizen. Both the Indonesian embassy in Washington and the US State Department say that he was never an Indonesian citizen.

Yes, there is an application to a school on line in which Obama's parents CLAIM that he was an Indonesia citizen, but it was a LIE. It is easy to lie and hard to change citizenship. And there is no evidence that Obama's parents even tried to make him an Indonesian citizen. If they did try (highly unlikely), they failed. Both Indonesia and the US State Department say that he was never an Indonesian citizen.

If you ask what passport did he use to travel to Pakistan. The answer is a US passport. Pakistan was never on the no-travel list and it never kept US citizens out. In fact, in 1981, it was eager to have tourists visit and gave US citizens 30-day visas at the airports.

So Obama--or any US citizen--could travel to Pakistan on a US passport. And Obama did.

Now regarding: "Under your definition, she could move to the U.S. after all of these years and run for president."

The answer is a simple yes. So long as she can prove 14 years residence in the USA and be 35 years old. I wish her luck in the election.

Natural Born stems from the Natural Born in Natural Born subject, which was the law in the colonies before the Revolution. And a Natural Born Subject was simply someone who was born in a colony other than the child of a foreign diplomat.

And, of course, the 14th Amendment confirms this. There are only two categories of citizens under the 14th, native born and naturalized, but if Natural Born were something other than native-born there would have to be three categories, Natural Born, native-born and naturalized, and there is nothing in the Constitution or the laws that indicates three categories.

It would be strange for a country that believes that all men are created equal to believe that Natural Born Citizens are better than native-born citizens. And, the two justices on the Supreme Court whose fathers were born in Italy (Scalia and Alito) are likely to agree.

Gary R. Welsh said...

Strauss, You are obviously a pathetic paid liar for the Obama political machine. Once again, you cite no legal authority to back up your definition of natural born citizen. I would like to know how you know what is in Obama's passport file since he has declined to make any information like that available to reporters. If you claim to know for a fact that he travelled on a U.S. passport, then you are basing that on information that has never been released to the public. You don't know whether he became an Indonesian citizen. You can't explain his name change. You can't explain how he could attend school there as a foreigner, something that was nearly impossible at the time he lived there. There is evidence to suggest he didn't get registered for the draft until a short time before he ran for president. Interesting that if he had registered as a foreign student, he wouldn't have been required to prove his selective service registration. This may explain why he is the first president in modern history to block access to his college records. Never before has anyone who held the presidence gone to such lengths to block information to such basic information about himself. It is the most sickening and disgusting episode in the history of the American presidency. A total fraud has been committed on the American people and we're sitting here incapable of doing anything to stop it despite the overwhelming evidence that you and other blind Obama supporters cannot rebut.

Unknown said...

We desperately need to understand this issue completely transcends partisan politics. It is 100% about honoring the very document that speaks life to our liberties! Either we cherish that...or we do NOT. It's that simple.

The questions over Obama's "natural born citizenship" eligibility for the Presidency just won't go away and they continue to nag restlessly at my conscience. The framers of the Constitution had purpose in everything they put in that document. Sadly, I believe this man has taken the office of the President of the United States under false and fraudulent pretenses and that he lacks the proper credentials as outlined by the framers to BE our legitimate President. That may seem like a nit-picky thing to some, but obviously the men and women who DIED to create, preserve, and protect that document did not consider it so... If THEY thought it was important enough to include such requirements, then by golly WE should honor their foresight and UPHOLD our Constitution 100%!

smrstrauss said...

Re: “Once again, you cite no legal authority to back up your definition of natural born citizen. “

Here are two:

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), said:

“Every child born in the United States is a natural-born United States citizen except for the children of diplomats.” (December 11, 2008 letter to constituent)

Senator Orrin G. Hatch (R-UT), said:

“What is a natural born citizen? Clearly, someone born within the United States or one of its territories is a natural born citizen.” (Senate Judiciary Committee hearing hearing on OCTOBER 5, 2004)

And here is what Blackstone said:

“The children of aliens, born here in England, are, generally speaking, natural-born subjects and entitled to all the privileges of such. In which the constitution of France differs from ours; for there, by their jus albinatus, if a child be born of foreign parents, it is alien.” http://www.lonang.com/exlibris/blackstone/”

(And the rare exceptions for which the term "generally speaking" is used refers to the children of foreign diplomats.)

Yale Law review wrote:

“It is well settled that “native-born” citizens, those born in the United States, qualify as natural born. It is also clear that persons born abroad of alien parents, who later become citizens by naturalization, do not.“ (Jill A. Pryor, Yale Law Review, 1988)

Here is the use of the term “Natural Born Citizen” as a synonym to “Natural Born Subject” by three of the most prominent men at the time of the writing of the Constitution, Ben Franklin, John Adams, and John Jay, who were all in Paris as diplomats at the time. (Also signed by H. Livingstone, but I do not know who he was.)

Draft Articles to Supplement the Preliminary Anglo-American Peace Treaty [ca 27 April 1787 [in Paris]

Articles agreed on by David Hartley Esq., Minister Plenipotentiary of His Brittanic Majesty for &c in behalf of said Majesty on the one part, and J.A. [John Adams], B.F. [Benjamin Franklin], J.J. [John Jay] and H.L, ministers plenipotentiary of the Unites States of America for treating of peace….in addition to the articles agreed on the 30th day of November 1782…The subjects of the Crown of Great Britain shall enjoy in all and every of Said United States, all Rights, Liberties, Privileges and Immunities and be Subject to the Duties and Allegiance of natural born Citizens of the Said States---and, on the other hand, all the citizens of the Said United States shall enjoy in all and every of the Dominions of the Crown of Great Britain all Rights, Liberties, Privileges and Immunities and be Subject to the Duties and Allegiance of natural born Subjects of that Crown, excepting Such Individuals of either Nation as the legislature of the other shall judge fit to exempt."

http://books.google.com/books?id=vemc7Vuqk1YC&pg=PA448&lpg=PA448&dq=%22draft+articles+to+supplement%22&source=bl&ots=Aojo7Iux2Z&sig=r8tN3gtsaDaRYWKBox5fOWNPo4M&hl=en&ei=K4pBSvW6ComJtge3iN2dCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3

End quotation

Another way of wording the same thing, in another draft, was that “the subjects of his Brittanic Majesty and the citizens of the United States shall mutually be considered as Natural born Subjects & enjoy all rights and privileges as such in the Respective Dominions and Territories in the manner heretofore accustomed.”

http://books.google.com/books?id=vemc7Vuqk1YC&pg=PA214&dq=franklin+subject:%22History+/+United+States+/+Revolutionary+Period+(1775-1800)%22&lr=

What does this mean? It means that as far as the writers of this document were concerned (Adams, Franklin, Jay and Livingston on the US side), the term natural born citizen is equivalent to natural born subject.

The term “natural born citizen” meant to these US writers just what “natural born subject” meant to the British. It could not be that in the arrangement for equal treatment between the USA and Britain, that someone had to have two US parents to be treated just the same as a natural born subject in Britain who simply had to be born in the British realm.