Amend Constitution to allow foreign born presidents?

If this scenario came about the child wouldn't be disqualified. The Constitution doesn't say they have to be born in the US. It says that they have to be born "A US Citizen" ("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") and a child born overseas to parents that are US Citizens qualifies as a US Citizen.

My daughter was born overseas and her birth certificate issued by the US State Dept reads "Registration of a United States Citizen Born Abroad".

Craven
I would add that my son who lives in Europe and is married to a foreign national just became the father. All he had to do was to get her an American passport [the baby]. She is an American citizen by birth.

Constitution Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5
Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5
[Volume 3, Page 563]
Document 1
Records of the Federal Convention
[2:116; Journal, 26 July]

Resolved That it be an instruction to the Committee to whom were referred the proceedings of the Convention for the establishment of a national government, to receive a clause or clauses, requiring certain qualifications of landed property and citizenship in the United States for the Executive, the Judiciary, and the Members of both branches of the Legislature of the United States;

[2:367; Journal, 22 Aug.]

at the end of the 1st section 10 article add

"he shall be of the age of thirty five years, and a Citizen of the United States, and shall have been an Inhabitant thereof for Twenty one years"

[2:494; Journal, 4 Sept.]

Sect. 2. No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the U. S. at the time of the adoption of this Constitution shall be eligible to the office of President: nor shall any Person be elected to that office, who shall be under the age of 35 years, and who has not been in the whole, at least 14 years a resident within the U. S.

[2:574, 598; Committee of Style]

Sect. 2. No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the U. S. at the time of the adoption of this Constitution shall be eligible to the office of President: nor shall any Person be elected to that office, who shall be under the age of 35 years, and who has not been in the whole, at least 14 years a resident within the U. S.

. . . . .
(d) 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.

The Founders' Constitution
Volume 3, Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5, Document 1
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a2_1_5s1.html
The University of Chicago Press

Farrand, Max, ed. The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787. Rev. ed. 4 vols. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1937.

GRAY, J., Opinion of the Court
GRAY, J., Opinion of the Court

MR. JUSTICE GRAY, after stating the case, delivered the opinion of the court.

The facts of this case, as agreed by the parties, are as follows: Wong Kim Ark was born in 1873 in the city of San Francisco, in the State of California and United States of America, and was and is a laborer. His father and mother were persons of Chinese descent, and subjects of the Emperor of China; they were at the time of his birth domiciled residents of the United States, having previously established and still enjoying a permanent domicil and residence therein at San Francisco; they continued to reside and remain in the United States until 1890, when they departed for China, and during all the time of their residence in the United States, they were engaged in business, and were never employed in any diplomatic or official capacity under the Emperor of China. Wong Kim Ark, ever since his birth, has had but one residence, to-wit, in California, within the United States, and has there resided, claiming to be a citizen of the United States, and has never lost or changed that residence, or gained or acquired another residence, and neither he nor his parents acting for him ever renounced his allegiance to the United States, or did or committed any act or thing to exclude him [p*653] therefrom. In 1890 (when he must have been about seventeen years of age), he departed for China on a temporary visit and with the intention of returning to the United States, and did return thereto by sea in the same year, and was permitted by the collector of customs to enter the United States upon the sole ground that he was a native-born citizen of the United States. After such return, he remained in the United States, claiming to be a citizen thereof, until 1894, when he (being about twenty-one years of age, but whether a little above or a little under that age does not appear) again departed for China on a temporary visit and with the intention of returning to the United States, and he did return thereto by sea in August, 1895, and applied to the collector of customs for permission to land, and was denied such permission upon the sole ground that he was not a citizen of the United States.

It is conceded that, if he is a citizen of the United States, the acts of Congress, known as the Chinese Exclusion Acts, prohibiting persons of the Chinese race, and especially Chinese laborers, from coming into the United States, do not and cannot apply to him.

The question presented by the record is whether a child born in the United States, of parents of Chinese descent, who, at the time of his birth, are subjects of the Emperor of China, but have a permanent domicil and residence in the United States, and are there carrying on business, and are not employed in any diplomatic or official capacity under the Emperor of China, becomes at the time of his birth a citizen of the United States by virtue of the first clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution,

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

I. In construing any act of legislation, whether a statute enacted by the legislature or a constitution established by the people as the supreme law of the land, regard is to be had not only to all parts of the act itself, and of any former act of the same lawmaking power of which the act in question is an amendment, but also to the condition and to the history [p*654] of the law as previously existing, and in the light of which the new act must be read and interpreted.

The Constitution of the United States, as originally adopted, uses the words "citizen of the United States," and "natural-born citizen of the United States." By the original Constitution, every representative in Congress is required to have been "seven years a citizen of the United States," and every Senator to have been "nine years a citizen of the United States." and "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." The Fourteenth Article of Amendment, besides declaring that

all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside,

also declares that

no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

And the Fifteenth Article of Amendment declares that

the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any State, on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude.

The Constitution nowhere defines the meaning of these words, either by way of inclusion or of exclusion, except insofar as this is done by the affirmative declaration that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States." In this as in other respects, it must be interpreted in the light of the common law, the principles and history of which were familiarly known to the framers of the Constitution. Minor v. Happersett, 21 Wall. 162; Ex parte Wilson, 114 U.S. 417, 422; Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616, 624, 625; Smith v. Alabama, 124 U.S. 465. The language of the Constitution, as has been well said, could not be understood without reference to the common law. Kent Com. 336; Bradley, J., in Moore v. United States, 91 U.S. 270, 274. [p*655]

In Minor v. Happersett, Chief Justice Waite, when construing, in behalf of the court, the very provision of the Fourteenth Amendment now in question, said: "The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that." And he proceeded to resort to the common law as an aid in the construction of this provision. 21 Wall. 167.

In Smith v. Alabama, Mr. Justice Matthews, delivering the judgment of the court, said:

There is no common law of the United States, in the sense of a national customary law, distinct from the common law of England as adopted by the several States each for itself, applied as its local law, and subject to such alteration as may be provided by its own statutes. . . . There is, however, one clear exception to the statement that there is no national common law. The interpretation of the Constitution of the United States is necessarily influenced by the fact that its provisions are framed in the language of the English common law, and are to be read in the light of its history.

124 U.S. 478.

II. The fundamental principle of the common law with regard to English nationality was birth within the allegiance, also called "ligealty," "obedience," "faith," or "power" of the King. The principle embraced all persons born within the King's allegiance and subject to his protection. Such allegiance and protection were mutual -- as expressed in the maxim protectio trahit subjectionem, et subjectio protectionem -- and were not restricted to natural-born subjects and naturalized subjects, or to those who had taken an oath of allegiance, but were predicable of aliens in amity so long as they were within the kingdom. Children, born in England, of such aliens were therefore natural-born subjects. But the children, born within the realm, of foreign ambassadors, or the children of alien enemies, born during and within their hostile occupation of part of the King's dominions, were not natural-born subjects because not born within the allegiance, the obedience, or the power, or, as would be said at this day, within the jurisdiction, of the King.

This fundamental principle, with these qualifications or [p*656] explanations of it, was clearly, though quaintly, stated in the leading case, known as Calvin's Case, or the Case of the Postnati, decided in 1608, after a hearing in the Exchequer Chamber before the Lord Chancellor and all the Judges of England, and reported by Lord Coke and by Lord Ellesmere. Calvin's Case, 7 Rep. 1, 4b-6a, 18a, 18b; Ellesmere on Postnati, 62-64; S.C., 2 Howell's State Trials, 559, 607, 613-617, 639, 640, 659, 679.

I'm still a 'no' on this.

I retch at the very thought of:

"President Schwarzeneggar"

Cool! I can be president! I am so gonna get the teacher who has stifled my political career all this time. I thought being born stateside was a requirement.

Now I just gotta work on being partisan and wait till I'm old enough. When I'm president that teacher will be fired. That's my platform.

Yeah I knew that, I be one of those. I just thought I couldn't be president.

Blackston'es 1803 Commentaries re Natural Born Presidents
St. George Tucker, Blackstone's Commentaries 1:App. 316--25, 328--29
1803

Blackstone's Commentaries contains an interesting paragraph re the limitation of presidents to natural born citizens:

The heir of a king of England may be born with all the vices of a Richard; with the tyrannical disposition, and cruelty of the eighth Henry; with the empty pride and folly of a James; with the cowardice and imbecility of a John; or with the stupid obstinacy, bigotry, or other depravity of temper, of any of his successors; he must nevertheless succeed to the throne of his fathers; his person is sacred and inviolable as if he were an Alfred; and unless his misdeeds are so rank as to bring him to the block, or force him to an abdication, he continues the lord's anointed all his days. A president of the United States must have attained the middle age of life, before he is eligible to that office: if not a native, he must have been fourteen years a resident in the United States: his talents and character must consequently be known. The faculties of his mind must have attained their full vigour: the character must be formed, and formed of active, not of passive materials, to attract, and secure the attention, and approbation of a people dispersed through such a variety of climate and situation, as the American people are. This activity of mind and of talent must have manifested itself on the side of virtue, before it can engage the favour of those who acknowledge no superiority of rights among individuals, and who are conscious that in promoting to office, they should choose a faithful agent, not a ruler, without responsibility. And should it happen, that they are after all deceived in their estimate of his character and worth, the lapse of four years enables them to correct their error, and dismiss him from their service. What nation governed by an hereditary monarch has an equal chance of happiness!

Full Comments:

http://216.239.37.104/search?q=cache:dBWMs9aH9sQJ:press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a2_1_1s18.html+US+Constitution+Article+2,+Section+1,+Clause+5+

It galls me to even think of an Arnold S. presidency, but I do believe a free people should be able to elect whomever they wish to.

Add "Free Cheetoes for all!" to your platform and you soooo have my vote!

I was gonna add nekkid people but seeing as I already have attempted to start an all-female all-nude (for spiritual reasons) religion people might think I've fixated so that's for the second term.

BTW, I see tax cuts as politic's version of "Free Cheetoes for all".

And yes I know some would change that statement to read "for some".

I would suggest Cravin' for Craven as your campaign's slogan.

I'm ravin' (getit? - Raven: ravin')
about Craven

AAAGGGHHH!
AAAGGGHHH! stop it right now!

BBB

since a vice-president can be an immigrant, would the order of succession skip him?

if immigrants can die for the US in war then i think they should be given the right to the highest office.
i'm taking a guess here, but i tihnk the founders had the british in mind when they made that requirement. perhaps they were afraid that british sympathizers would elect a subject of the king. that's clearly not a threat today.

Er - I don't really, in an immigrant culture, understand why someone foreign-born should not be president. I think a residency for a goodly time rule makes sense - but I am frankly puzzled by all the "no's".

Now I am going to have to run off and try to see if there is any such rule here about Prime Minister and such...

dlowan<

The word ethnocentric applies to all the "no's."

I don't understand that, either, WH - there isn't "an" ethnic group in the USA, is there? Though WASP males DO seem to predominate in the Presidency - as in the Prime Ministership here.

dlowan
dlowan, I don't think Bill Clinton fits the category of a "wasp male", which is why so many in the Washington Establishment detested him. Of course, now that he's become rich and famous, he seems to wander in and out of that Establishment. I hope that meandering among the hoi poli doesn't change him too much while, at the same time, learning to better control his Willie.

BBB

Craven for Pres. I love Cheetos!

A residency rule is a good idea. Anyone who wants to be president should have lived here long enough to understand this country, say 15 years.

Since we are all immigrants in one way or another, why shouldn't the presidency be open to more recent immigrants?