More on who is eligible to be an American president

By Sylvia Thompson

In my recent post regarding the unresolved issue of who is eligible to be President, I stated that natural born citizens must be born of American-born parents. A reader who is among those hoping to resolve this issue in the interest of preserving the Constitution corrected my assumption. His explanation also clears up, at least for me, why Donald Trump is not in the same position as Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Bobby Jindal, or Barack Obama as presidential candidates.

It seems that a "natural born citizen" need only be born to "citizens" not necessarily to two parents both born in America (which is what I assumed made one "natural born"). Both parents, however, must be citizens either born in America or naturalized to that status. Trump's mother was apparently naturalized before he was born, thus establishing her citizenship, and his father was American born. That situation does not apply to the other four men. Either one or both parents were not citizens at the time of their births.

Given that the Founders were concerned about loyalty to the new nation, I would have assumed they would require both parents of potential presidential candidates to be American born, as well. No foreign connection would seem to diminish the chances of mixed-loyalty in my view.

After reading this responder's comments, however, and re-reading Publius Huldah's interpretation[1] of the Founders' stipulation regarding natural born citizenship, I have a clearer understanding of what in my mind is still a somewhat muddled issue. But simply stated, the Founders expected President and Vice President to be born of citizens. And that meant one's parents must be citizens, either by birth or by naturalization, at the time of the candidate's birth.

I can easily understand the Founders' concerns about loyalty to the young nation. We need only consider what we have in Barack Obama, who holds no loyalty to America. He is the poster child for what the Founders intended to avoid – a person with a foreign-born father who himself despised the West and all that it stands for, and a mother and maternal grandparents (who reared him) seemingly sympathetic to Communist influence.

Obama's grandfather introduced him to a friend, Frank Marshall Davis, who became something of a mentor to the youth. Davis, however, according to some commentary was closely associated with the American Communist Party.[2]

As I stated in my earlier article, I am at the point where I want only to see a President in place who is willing to do all that is humanly possible to reverse the harm that Obama and his administration have done to this nation, whoever that person may be. I also fervently hope that this issue can be resolved one way or the other as to who is lawfully eligible (according to the Constitution) to run for President and Vice President of the United States. Who knows, we just might be able to avoid another Barack Obama.

A resolution cannot be achieved by relying on conflicting positions from legal professionals, regardless of how many are on either side of the issue. It's a matter of constitutional interpretation of the law, and the Founders provided for such interpretation through the legal system.

Admittedly, I have very little faith in that legal system (including the courts) given how the Obama administration has corrupted it, but the interpretive branch of government is the means through which this issue must be resolved. We can only hope that fact, sooner or later, filters out to the people who are supposed to know what they're doing. And sooner would be preferable.

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© Sylvia Thompson