Forty-one: Birth of a President

The birther controversy seems to be absolutely bogus. If one is born outside the United States and not of American parentage one can be President of the United States, so long as he or she is elected to the office, of course. Examine Section 1, Article 2.  It says, “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 the President.” So the statement of being a natural born citizen is qualified by the timing of when the Constitution was being adopted. All those people, by my reckoning, must be dead, though in Ron Paul’s world of Constitutionality, this may in fact be open to question.  How do we know that this is not meant to rule out foreign-born people altogether? We know this because of the statement that follows immediately after this: “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.” Why would it be necessary to say anything about fourteen years of residence if everyone needed to be a natural born citizen? The fact that this is in there means that for the time after that period when the Constitution is adopted this is the rule that should be applied.

And this makes sense in relation to the requirements for the House of Representatives and the Senate. The former required, the following: “No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.”

Meanwhile, the Senate required this: “No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.”

Is it not obvious that there is a natural progression from the House to the Senate to the Presidency? Is it really credible that the founders who created the Constitution on the grounds of reason, would suddenly throw this all out with regard to the President? That they would suddenly make the presidency a position that is fundamentally different from the other positions is not credible. They were clearly concerned about foreign aristocrats coming in and trying to establish a monarchy, but the fourteen years residency was sufficient guarantee against this. Come now. These people were not simpletons. They were intellectuals. They could think their way out of a paper bag. They were not birthers, and they did not establish natural-born citizenship as a basic criterion for the position of President.

This issue has never been taken up by the Supreme Court. If it were, however, there is no question how they would rule. Unless, of course, they were birthers and simpletons themselves. Well, I suppose it is open to question then.