Section 1 of Article Two of the United States Constitution sets forth the eligibility requirements for serving as President of the United States:
" 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. " The grandfather provision of the "natural born Citizen" clause provided an exception to the "natural born" requirement for those persons who were citizens at the time of the adoption of the Constitution. (The first several Presidents prior to Martin van Buren as well as potential Presidential candidates such as Alexander Hamilton were born as British subjects in British America before the American Revolution and this grandfather clause would cover them.)[1] -----Original Message----- From: Ben Scott [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, March 17, 2011 7:17 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: [OT] Obama birth certificate On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 9:52 PM, Ray <[email protected]> wrote: > But the term "natural born" has been up to interpretation. ... > ... under the strictest of interpretations, the child of a serviceman, > diplomat, or even Peace Corp worker, born out of the US, [is not > natural born]. The definition of "natural born" is not specified in the US Constitution. It is, however, specified to ridiculous lengths by the US Code (Federal law). Broadly speaking, the child of a US citizen is a US citizen by birth. There are exceptions. Service in the duty of the country is considered to meet requirements for residence of parentage. You can read the gory details if you want: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/8/usc_sup_01_8_10_12_20_III_30_I.html One can argue that that's not what "natural born" *should* mean, but for purposes of interpreting US law, that's what it *does* mean. -- Ben ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected] with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected] with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin
