As we move into the 2024 Presidential Pageant season, why do we have Republican, supposedly “Conservative” potential candidates hinting at a run, who don’t understand a major part of their Oath? The fact is we now have a Democrat Vice President who is NOT Constitutionally-eligible to serve in her office. I’m struck by how far we have devolved as a Nation in our collective reason, understanding and education. As the New-Age Post-Constitutional Revisionist lawyers, and “Constitutional Scholars”, contort themselves like pretzels to explain why and/or how people, like Kamala Harris, Nikki Haley, Ted Cruz or others, meets the Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 requirement-
“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.”
Requirement of eligibility to serve as President and Commander-In-Chief of the United States of America, I’m probably more saddened than anything else. I’m saddened that We The People have become so malleable to the “experts” of the day and ignorant of our history and the Founders.
Understand that these same “Constitutional Scholars” and “experts” have written whole books on what a particular clause or phrase in the Constitution “really” means and EXACTLY what the Founders meant and why the Founders used that exact word or phrase. But they will now just flippantly disregard and say that the use of the unique and specific term “natural born Citizen” really means nothing different than any other Citizen except those that are naturalized? Excuse me, but this is absolute idiocy. How is it that it seems that EVERY other word or phrase the Founders used in writing the Constitution can be the basis for them to write their Doctoral Thesis, but this unique requirement to serve in the highest office in the land is to just be disregarded as having no special meaning? And then they expect US to just accept and parrot their “expert” opinions because it’s our preferred candidates that their “expert” opinion allows to disregard the Constitution?
I refuse to be treated as an ignorant sheople who can’t actually read and study the Founders and the meaning of the language they used in drafting our Constitution. I refuse to be told that the documented history of how the unique phrase “natural born Citizen” came to be the specified requirement for anyone who would hold the highest office in the Land doesn’t really matter. And why the phrase that immediately follows “natural born Citizen”, “or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution,”, is critical to understanding why “natural born Citizen” was specified in the final wording of the Constitution.
Wait, I think I’ve got it. Washington, Franklin, Madison and the rest of the boys are sitting around the Pub with a couple of beers after a long hard day of Constitution drafting and Franklin (who was known to have a twisted sense of humor) says, “Hey guys, I’ve got an idea! Right there in Article II where we’re talking about the requirements to serve as Commander in Chief, let’s put an undefined term in there that just means nothing, as a gag for the future generations. I’ve got it, we’ll use the term “natural born Citizen” as the first requirement to serve in the highest office in the land! And then we won’t put any kind of definition of the term anywhere in the Constitution. And then they looked at each other, and they just laughed out loud!! And George ordered another round. I’m sure that’s how it happened.
Why do all of these “Constitutional Scholars” and “experts” immediately go to Blackstone and English Common Law and his references to “natural born Subjects” as the basis for the term “natural born Citizen”? Do they not take US History as part of their path to and through Law School? Did they miss the part about how the Founders had just fought a war to escape from being English Subjects and to remove the bondage that English Common Law had become? Is there a reason why they never seem to ever mention Emmerich de Vattel and his great treatise, “The Law of Nations” and the fact that it references the actual term and defines “natural born Citizen”? Despite the fact that there are many direct references by the Founders who actually drafted the Constitution to this treatise as a “constant companion” to them in their journey to draft a governing document for their newly founded Nation?
But evidently these facts have no validity or influence to the New-Age Post-Constitutional Revisionists who work to continue to move US away from the Constitutional Republic the Founders were Divinely Inspired to give US. I hear radio host Mark Levin regularly refer to the fact we are now living in a “post Constitutional” time in our Country. This makes the famous words of Dr. Benjamin Franklin in reply to the question asked by a lady as he was leaving the Constitutional Convention ring so much louder. The lady’s question was, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a Republic or a Monarchy?” His reply was, “A Republic, if you can keep it.” I guess with the decision to allow Citizens, with the possibility of foreign influence, to now run for the office of Commander-In-Chief, we’re now working harder to lose it!
God Bless America! And America, Bless America Again!
