Was there a president or presidential candidate who may have been inelligible?

Thank you NBC for answering my questions. I appreciate it.

Now from the viewpoint of a military brat, allow me to respectfully disagree.

I believe in the Constitution. I also believe it was intended to be a document that was allowed to grow with the future.

When the Constitution was written, or even with the 14th Amendment was adopted, the thought of US Military personnel being stationed in foreign countries in a non-combatant role would not have been considered. I think there have been "official" military installations that have not been part of annexation since the early part of the 20th century (military historians please correct me if I am wrong). A majority of which sprang up after World War II and the Europeon Reconstruction.

Do we, as Americans, hold such a restrictive view of those three little words that we are going to penalize these children of service members because their parents happened to have been stationed overseas when they were born? Is this something the Framers of our Constitution could ever have envisioned? At the time, there were Ambassadors overseas serving their country. Other than the 1790 Act, is there any other literature or writings on how the children of these Ambassadors were seen in regards to their citizenship?

Is being a Natural Born Citizen restricted to only being born on US Soil, or "subject to the Jurisdiction of the United States"? Or do we need to take a more expansive, common-sense approach and understand the meaning to be "obtaining citizenship at birth".

Jez - It's galling to believe that the "natural born Citizen" clause would deprive the offspring of the most patriotic in our country (those who are sacrificing by serving overseas) to be POTUS. But apparently under an "originalist" view that is the case. If so, while difficult to believe that is the law.,

Thank you NBC for answering my questions. I appreciate it.

Now from the viewpoint of a military brat, allow me to respectfully disagree. ...

I see serving overseas as nothing particularly patriotic unless they serve as combattants, in which case, the status of children born to such military would likely be different.

The ability to see the world on Uncle Sam's dime hardly makes one necessarily a patriot...

I strongly recommend that NBC's position on the ineligibility to become President of children born to the military who are stationed on foreign soil be made part of the final consensus definition of "natural born citizen" among Birfers (and other kinds of deniers of President Obama's eligibility to serve as POTUS). Certainly there are Americans who will be gobsmacked by this definition, but with proper Originalist direction, they will come to see why the children of those who have fought and died for our country are not eligible to its highest office. A large promotional campaign would be very helpful in getting this point across. This could do for Birfistan what 70+ lost law suits have failed to do: it will let them feenish.

In 2012 unless Jindal runs (for VPOTUS maybe?) the birfer nutcases will howl about President Obama's eligibility but not [chose one] Sarah Palin's = Mittens Romney's = Mike Huckabee's = Newt Gingrich's. Of course, we all know that Palin was born in Canada when her parents got themselves some good Canadian health care. (Irony and hypocrisy alerts!)

Is being a Natural Born Citizen restricted to only being born on US Soil, or "subject to the Jurisdiction of the United States"? Or do we need to take a more expansive, common-sense approach and understand the meaning to be "obtaining citizenship at birth".

Finally, as NBC and I have argued about in the past, in 1787 in England, children of subjects born oversees were generally referred to as "natural born subjects." We do not have evidence that the framers intended to limit the definition of the term to the common law meaning.

But that may be irrelevant when following the reasoning of Wong Kim Ark, where it was argued that absent a definition, the meaning of the term is to be found in Common Law and Common Law did not include the provision of children born abroad. As such, WKA would be significant precedent to such an interpretation.

But Wong Kim Ark looked to the common law not becuase we adopted common law in the Constitution (we did not) but because of the assumption that the common law represented what the framers would have understood such term to mean in 1787. The test is what such term was understood to mean at the time, not what if meant under the common law.

The Constitution nowhere defines the meaning of these words, either by way of inclusion or of exclusion, except insofar as this is done by the affirmative declaration that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States." In this as in other respects, it must be interpreted in the light of the common law, the principles and history of which were familiarly known to the framers of the Constitution. 88 U. S. 422; Boyd v. United States, 116 U. S. 616, 116 U. S. 624, 116 U. S. 625; Smith v. Alabama, 124 U. S. 465. The language of the Constitution, as has been well said, could not be understood without reference to the common law. Kent Com. 336; Bradley, J., in Moore v. United States,@ 91 U. S. 270, 91 U. S. 274.

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. The code of constitutional and statutory construction which therefore is gradually formed by the judgments of this Court, in the application of the Constitution and the laws and treaties made in pursuance thereof, has for its basis so much of the common law as may be implied in the subject, and constitutes a common law resting on national authority. Moore v. United States, 91 U. S. 270.

For example, what if a term was only defined in an English statute? Would you still cite Wong Kim Ark for the proposition that we need to look only to the common law?

No one argued to the Wong Kim Ark court that such term had a broader meaning under English law and hence it did not address such issue, such issue being irrelevant to the case.

It thus clearly appears that, during the half century intervening between 1802 and 1855, there was no legislation whatever for the citizenship of children born abroad, during that period, of American parents who had not become citizens of the United States before the act of 1802, and that the act of 1855, like every other act of Congress upon the subject, has, by express proviso, restricted the right of citizenship, thereby conferred upon foreign-born children of American citizens, to those children themselves, unless they became residents of the United States. Here is nothing to countenance the theory that a general rule of citizenship by blood or descent has displaced in this country the fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within its sovereignty.

That's not what the Court stated based on references to other examples of how terms not defined in the Constitution should be interpreted.

But you are missing that point in why the court has looked to the common law. It looks to the common law to define common law terms that are defined no where else as such is best guess understanding of what such terms meant at the time. Again, the test is what the term was understood in 1787, not what the common law defined such term to mean. For most English terms in the Constitution, the common law provides the only definition the framers would have looked to and hence the common law is left to define the term. Clearly, the evidence was overwelming that "natural born" was understood to include the common law meaning. However, Wong Kim Ark did not address the argument that it was understood to have a broader meaning to the framers. The court addressed in dicta the issue of whether the common law included children of subjects born oversees and indicated it did not and hence such children needed to be naturalized

You still do not answer my question. What if a term was in the constitutiom was only defined in statute and not the common law? Would you still cite Wong Kim Ark for the proposition that we must define it by the common law. Obviously not. What if a common law term of art was altered by statute and expressly understood by the framers and everyone else in 1787 to be defined by its amended meanings? Would you still look solely to the common law. Again, no court would. You are taking the court's statements about the common law too literally.

When I say, that an alien is one who is born out of the king's dominions, or allegiance, this almost must be understood with some restrictions. The common law indeed stood absolutely so; with only a very few exceptions: so that a particular act of parliment became necessary after the restoration, for the naturalization of children of his majesty's English subject, born in foreign countries during the late troubles. And this maxim of the law proceeded upon a general pinciple, that every mna ownes natural allegiance where he is born, and connot owe two such allegiances, or serve two masters, at once. Yet the children of the king's ambassadors born 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, he was held (by a kind of postliminium [a restoration of rights upon return to one's country]) to be born under the king of England's allegiance, represented by his father, the ambassador. To encourage also foreign commerce, it was enacted by statute 25 Edw. III. St. 2. that all children born abroad, provided both of their parents wer at the time of the birth in allegiance to the king, and the mother had passed the seas by her husband's consent, might inherit as if born in England; and accordingly it has been so adjudged in behalf of merchants. But by several more modern statutes these restrictions are still farther taken off; so that all children, born out of the king's ligeance, whose fathers were natural-born subject, 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.

The statutes in question above were all before 1700. So, by my reading (and again IANAL), wouldn't this mean that being a "natural-born subject" by blood would have become part of the commonly known meaning at the time of the writing of the Constitution?

Note how Blackstone describes how the Common Law was 'absolute' and that explicit statutes were needed?

Indeed, it has the power to provide for uniform rules of naturalization but not the power to extend a Constitutional term to people naturalized. Let's not confuse the right to grant citizenship with the right to declare them to be natural born.

While there are some legal scholars who have attempted to argue that children born abroad to US citizens should be natural born, contemporaneous resources, including the ruling by the dissenting Judge in US v Wong Kim Ark, show that such children, under the findings of WKA would be ineligible to run for president.

Let's not confuse expert opinion with novice opinion.

I think it's because NBC is making the same underlying mistake as the birthers. Birthers stand on their own naive readings and refuse to take correction from the experts in the field. They see that the 14'th Amendment says "citizen" and not "natural born citizen" and that the majority opinion in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark said Wong was a citizen and did not say he was a "natural born citizen". They read the primary sources as affirming their side, and in their minds that trumps anything they hear from scholars who specialize in the subject.