Give Us Liberty

Natural Born in the Constitution needs to fall into an Originalism that grasps the times in which it was used, says Jefferson - Thanks Charles

May 4th, 2010

In addressing the Natural Born issue in originalism, there have been those who question whether the Founding Fathers were literate in French, read or were aware of various laws of nations, or what have you. These have either never read the original writings of the Founders at any appreciable length, or they have a specific agenda to lie and deny America’s Greatness and common heritage (regardless of skin color).

The times between the winning of the War to the Ratification of the Constitution was a hard time in our nation’s history. People forget, that before there was a Constitution, there was no Federal Congress or truly Federal Governance. We were a collection of states, and the pull for independent states, and even a Southern Confederacy almost split this nation to such an ideal 74 years BEFORE there was an official Civil War in 1861. The main gripe was then often about commerce, independence, and taxes. The Constitution in part, sought to rectify the most common of these in a lawful and orderly consistency in every State. For some it was a “do”, for others a “don’t do”…not unlike the 10 Commandments in the Book of Deuteronomy, the most quoted work of the Founding Fathers, who perceived themselves in a New State like Israel born into a nation at once under the leadership of Moses, and guided and protected by G-D Himself.

Like Israel, the vast majority Christian nation of the United States realized that even they had allowed abuses, and inconsistencies in the rights and liberties of State’s Citizens for which they fought a war; examples and happenings, both within their own States, or when they left their State and traveled into another (say to trade, hunt, or to visit family). It was for these reasons also, that the Constitution was eventually written after years of debates of individual State and inter-State meetings.

Thomas Jefferson, apparently still held fresh in his mind the image of rotting battlefield corpses left unburied, and doubted that even the best Governments would last 150 years without fighting a Civil War to kep free or to enslave, no matter how well intentioned the foundings.

Thomas Jefferson (in Paris) to William S. Smith, Nov. 13, 1787
“…I do not know whether it is to yourself or Mr. Adams I am to give my thanks for the copy of the new constitution. I beg leave through you to place them where due. It will be yet three weeks before I shall receive them from America.
…What country before ever existed a century & half without a rebellion? & what country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.”

Thomas Jefferson served as a US Ambassador (i.e., US Minister to France) in Paris, France when he penned this letter, in the interim period of our Country when there was no Congress.

“We have no Congress yet.” writes James Madison To Edmund Randolph, NY Jan. 10 1788
http://www.constitution.org/jm/17880110_randolph.htm .

Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin had French language copies of Vattel’s “Law of Nations” from circa 1775 in their possession. To them, French or Latin or Greek was something that was to be read and understood in its original tongue. It is a concept that Liberal Scholarship needs to put their joint out for, and clear their head and thinking, and truly grasp…if they are at all interested in finding the aleitheia of things that Pontius Pilate asked about: “What is that truth of reality as it really is, and what is the truth of things as they really are”?

But getting back: Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin and many others WERE fluent in French, one of the languages of sea merchant trade, and one of the nations to which the US depended heavily on exporting to. Jefferson would have had to deal vigorously in speaking, reading, reasoning in French in those precarious times as November 1787 in Paris was. The revolt of the aristocratic bodies of France had been in play for months by this time, and the fuse of the 1789 French Revolution had already been lit. So, not only was Jefferson fluent, he had to be a linguistic master and fast talker of French by necessity in those times.

Later in life, Jefferson advised in those that would seek to interpret the Constitution:

“On every question of construction [of the Constitution] let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or intended against it, [and] conform to the probable one in which it was passed.”
— Thomas Jefferson to Judge William Johnson, (from Monticello, June 12, 1823)

Jefferson argued an originalist view was the only view, three years before his death.

James Madison argued on June 6, 1788 before the VA ratifying Convention that he viewed interpretation as extending from 1776-1787/1788 as the crucible (melting pot or severe testing) years of originalism:

“We not only see violations of the constitution, but of national principles in repeated instances. How is the fact? The history of the violations of the constitution extends from the year 1776 to this present time — violations made by formal acts of the legislature: every thing has been drawn within the legislative vortex.”

Focus then, should be especially 1776-1787ish time period to present before the US Supreme Court regarding NBC, nationally and internationally, it seems to me.

Preceding Vattel was the Dutch Scholar and Jurist Hugo Grotius. In his French written “De jure belli ac pacis Libris Tres”,

http://www.constitution.org/gro/djbp.htm

he wrote about the “Law of Nations” regarding times of war and peace in the 17th century, and how Greek and Roman and Biblical thought entered into the considerations of International Law in those times.

In Book 3, Chapter 4, Section 8, he defines: “the persons of NATURAL-BORN SUBJECTS, WHO OWE PERMANENT ALLEGIANCE to a hostile power may, according to the law of nations, be attacked, or seized, wherever they are found.”

In the context of which he writes, the persons are the children of FATHERS (cf. Book 1, Chapter 1, Sections 3 and 5).

Book 3, Chapter 11, Section 12, refers to a sovereign’s “NATURAL-BORN AND REGULAR SUBJECTS” (even his traveling Merchants).

The emphasis here, as used by Grotius, is on the transmission of the FATHER’s national status to the child (in the Law of Nations in the century preceding Vattel and the US Constitution), whether it be times of WAR OR PEACE, and the use of the word “regular” upon the status of the citizen or “subject”.

The Father’s transmission of citizenship status upon the child, in the Law of Nations, under intent as carried forth by Vattel, was the decision factor…even as this formula applied to merchants
in Book 3, Chapter 11, Section 12.

James Madison, in his Speech in Congress on the Jay Treaty, on March 10, 1796, said:

“The Constitution of the U. States is a Constitution of limitations and checks. The powers given up by the people for the purposes of Government, had been divided into two great classes. One of these, formed the State Governments, the other the Federal Government.”

George Washington in his letter to CHARLES CARTER, from Mount Vernon, December 14, 1787, wrote of that time in which we had no Congress, and only a presentation of the Constitution (i.e., it was as yet unratified by the States) wrote:
“General Government is now suspended by a thread I might go farther and say it is really at an end…”

In THAT frame of mind, the “natural-born” clause was added to the US Constitution, in order that no one of foreign influence or dual-allegiance might cut that thread, and (as Jefferson put it) turn patriots into the manure of (rotting) corpses littered about, and unburied: a sight that they who lived through the Revolutionary War must have been accustomed to seeing from time to time.

By any account of US Constitutional Originalism, one that is demanded by Thomas Jefferson…Barack Obama is a usurper of the US Presidency becuase he is NOT a United States “Natural Born Citizen” via his Father, because Obama’s Father NEVER became a US Citizen at any time in his life.