Congressional power to withhold citizenship from children of U.S. citizens
is not hypothetical; for decades, it was law, and to some extent still is.
The Tribe-Olson Opinion proposes that “[i]t goes without saying that the
Framers did not intend to exclude a person from the office of the President
simply because he or she was born to U.S. citizens serving in the U.S. military
outside of the continental United States . . . .” However, the Seventh
Congress, which included Framers Gouverneur Morris and Abraham Baldwin
among others, did precisely that. In 1961 in Montana v. Kennedy, the
Supreme Court construed an 1802 statute to mean that “[f]oreign-born children
of persons who became American citizens between April 14, 1802 and
1854, were aliens . . . .” Thus, children of members of the armed forces serving
overseas, and diplomats and civil servants in foreign posts, were not
only not natural born citizens eligible to be president, they were not citizens
at all.
liveinfreedom . on 24 Jan 09HONOLULU - Even though Hawaii officials now claim to have verified the authenticity of Sen. Barack Obama's birth certificate - in hopes of ending widespread speculation and even multiple lawsuits challenging the Democrat candidate's constitutional qualification to be president - it turns out there is still reason for serious questioning.
