Have we ditched our Constitution? (part 1)

by Lee and Vista Boyland

January 1, 2013

The United States of America became a Constitutional Republic when the Constitution was

adopted by the Constitutional Convention on September 17, 1776, and then ratified by eleven

states, becoming effective on March 4, 1789. The first ten amendments, The Bill of Rights, were

ratified by three-fourths of the states in 1791.

The Constitution is the supreme law of the United States of America and the basis for all of our

other laws — at least is was.

The Constitution establishes the three branches of government and establishes the extent of each

branch’s power. It also establishes the qualification for office and the oath to be taken. Most

importantly, it provides a mechanism to amend the Constitution, and it has been amended

twenty-seven times. Amending the Constitution is a long, drawn out process, just as the

Founding Fathers intended it to be, thus preventing quick changes for political expedience.

In today’s modern, fast-paced world, the amendment process has become too time consuming

and tiresome for progressive-liberals. All those approval steps, and those stick-in-the mud

conservatives and Constitutionalist would block social justice and politically correct amendments

— so a method to bypass the out-of-date, bothersome Constitution had to be found.

Progressive-liberals found a way, make the Constitution a living document, subject to

interpretation by Congress, the president and the courts. Courts extended their authority beyond

its Constitutional bounds. Laws prohibited by the Constitution could then be, and were, passed

and upheld by the courts, including the Supreme Court. The Executive Branch did the same,

creating Czars, issuing Executive Orders, seizing private corporations, and overruling

bankruptcy laws. Effectively eroding the rights of the various states.

Would a patriot want to ditch the Constitution? Doubtful, but a Georgetown Constitutional Law

Professor thinks it is a good idea. (but wouldn’t that be a career ending position?) Professor

Louis Michael Seidman

, a Constitutional Scholar and former clerk for Supreme Court Justice

Thurgood Marshall has written that he believes the United States Constitution is over-valued

because it contains archaic, idiosyncratic and downright evil provisions.

The most cataclysmic living document interpretation occurred during the presidential primaries

2008 when all three branches of the government blatantly ignored Articles of the Constitution.

Senator John McCain was a candidate in the Republican party’s primary presidential race. His

eligibility was challenged because he was born in a U.S. territory, the Panama Canal Zone, and

thus was not a “natural born Citizen.” His father was a U.S. Naval officer and both of his parents

were U.S. citizens. The challenge was based upon Article II, Section 1, paragraph 4 which reads,

“No person except a natural born Citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of

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 the Age of thirty-five Years, and been

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fourteen years a Resident within the United States.” The

Senate passed a resolution declaring

“That John Sidney McCain, III, is a ‘natural born Citizen’ under Article II, Section 1, of the

Constitution of the United States.” However, Congress refused to address Barrack Hussein

Obama’s eligibility.

Hillary Clinton and Barrack Hussein Obama were also competing in the 2008 Democrat party’s

primary. A hard core group of Democrats opposing Obama known as

PUMA attacked Obama’s

eligibility by claiming he was born in Kenya and was not a “natural born citizen.” Thus the

originators of the term “birthers’” were left-wing Democrats.

The Constitution does not contain a definition for the term “natural born Citizen,” but the

Founding Fathers clearly understood term in 1776. Thus the reason for the phrase “at the time of

Adoption of this Constitution.” Every person living in the thirteen colonies became citizens upon

adoption of the Constitution, and thus were eligible to be president. The phrase is tied to a date

certain, upon adoption of the Constitution, September 17, 1776.

Benjamin Franklin, one of our Founding Fathers and framers of the Constitution, clearly knew

the meaning of “natural borne citizen,” because he sent a personal

note thanking Charles Dumas

in the Netherlands in 1775 for sending three more copies of Emer de Vattel’s

The Law of Nations

or Principles of Natural Law 

t--he preeminent legal treatise of the time which became the key

reference book, along with the Bible, that justified our fight freedom and liberties and for the

content of our founding documents. The treatise defined the legal term of art, “natural born

Citizen”, as a person born in the country to citizen parents. Parents plural, not parent.

Apparently Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also understands of the meaning natural-born

citizen; in that she commented on Vattel treatise in her July 29, 2011

press statement,

“America’s Founders were inspired by the ideas and values of early Swiss philosophers like

Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui and Emer de Vattel ...”

The first Congress of the United States passed

The Naturalization Act of 1790. In it they defined

both citizenship and natural born citizen: “And the children of such persons so naturalized,

dwelling within the United States, being under the age of twenty-one years at the time of such

naturalization, shall also be considered as citizens of the United States. 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:

Provided, That the right of citizenship shall

not descend to persons whose fathers have never been resident in the United States:

Provided

also

That person heretofore proscribed by any State, shall be admitted as a citizen as aforesaid,

except by an act of Legislature of the State in which such person was proscribed.” Subsequent

amendments to the legislation removed the term “natural born Citizen,” leaving the term

undefined. One reason for its removal may have been that the Congress decided it could not add

a definition to the Constitution by legislation. An amendment would be required to do so.

A more definitive and realistic definition for “natural born Citizen” was offered on the floor of

the House of Representatives in 1862 by Congressman John Bingham, the father of the 14th

Amendment: “All from other lands, who by the terms of [congressional] laws and a compliance

with their provisions become naturalized, are adopted citizens of the United States; all other

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persons born within the Republic, of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty, are

natural born citizens. Gentleman can find no exception to this statement touching natural-born

citizens except what is said in the Constitution relating to Indians.

” Cong. Globe, 37th, 2nd

Sess., 1639 (1862)

, and again in 1866, “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.

” Cong. Globe, 39th, 1st Sess., 1291 (1866)

Congressman Bingham again addressed

 

the “natural born citizens” definition in 1872 when he

made the following statement on the floor of the House, “As to the question of citizenship I am

willing to resolve all doubts in favor of a citizen of the United States. That Dr. Houard is a

natural-born citizen of the United States there is not room for the shadow of a doubt. He was

born of naturalized parents within the jurisdiction of the United States, and by the express words

of the Constitution, as amended to-day [to date], he is declared to all the world to be a citizen of

the United States by birth.”

NONE OF CONGRESSMAN BINGHAM’S STATEMENTS WERE OPPOSED ON THE

FLOOR OF THE HOUSE OR ELSEWHERE.

Chief Justice Waite of The Supreme Court said in his

opinion for the court in Minor v.

Happersett (1875)

, “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.”

Barack Obama has made no secret that his father was a citizen of Kenya and not a U.S. citizen.

In fact, when Obama was born in 1962, his father was a citizen of the British Empire.

In light of the above it is clear that Barrack Hussein Obama is an American citizen, but not a

natural born citizen, and thus not eligible to be president of the United States of America.

The Congress and Supreme Court have failed to follow their oath to uphold the Constitution of

the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; failed in their responsibility to

uphold the Constitution by allowing Barrack Hussein Obama to sit as president, and in allowing

him to violate U.S. laws and expand his power beyond Constitutional limits.

Once one Article of the Constitution is allowed to be violated, there is nothing to prevent other

articles being violated, which leads to the abandonment of the Constitution, which leads to a new

form of government. The United Socialist States of America?

American’s voted in 2008 and again in 2010 to repeal their Constitution without knowing it. If

the erosion is not stopped we will become a socialists nation or a dictatorship. Congress can

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