Barack Obama is an illegal president, period

By Lawrence Sellin

Barack Obama is an illegal president, period. 47404.jpeg

American politicians and the media are lying to the American people. They do so because they hope that their complicity in the greatest fraud in U.S. history will be overtaken by events, that is, the 2012 election. It is the Big Stall to cover up the Big Lie.

In the Russian language there is a term called "vranyo." It is loosely defined as telling a white lie or a semi-truth. It may contain fantasy or involve the suppression of unpleasant parts of the truth.

In regard to Obama's ineligibility and his alleged felonies, politicians and the media expect the American people to respond in this way:

"You know that you are lying, I know that you are lying, and you know that I know that you are lying, but we both smile and nod in agreement."

Barack Obama, according to Article II, Section I, Clause 5 of the U. S. Constitution, is an illegal President. The law requires a candidate for the Presidency to be a "natural born citizen," that is, a second generation American, a U.S. citizen, whose parents were also U.S. citizens at the time of the candidate's birth.

Obama's father was a citizen of Kenya and a British subject at the time of his birth, which made him forever ineligible for the Presidency. For the same reason, Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio is ineligible for the Presidency and Vice Presidency because his parents were Cuban citizens, not U.S. citizens at the time of his birth.

There is no ambiguity, although those who wish to undermine the Constitution would like the American people to think otherwise.

The difference between "citizen," that is, born in the U.S. and "natural born citizen" has been clear since the adoption of the U.S. Constitution on September 17, 1787.

Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 states:

"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."

A first draft of what would become Article II, Section 1, Clause 5, submitted by Alexander Hamilton to the Constitutional Convention on June 18, 1787 stated:

"No person shall be eligible to the office of President of the United States unless he be now a Citizen of one of the States, or hereafter be born a Citizen of the United States."

Fearing foreign influence on a future President and Commander in Chief of the American military, the future first U.S. Supreme Court Justice, John Jay, on July 25, 1787, asked the convention presiding officer George Washington to strengthen the requirements for the Presidency:

"Permit me to hint, whether it would be wise and seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government; and to declare expressly that the Command in Chief of the American army shall not be given to nor devolve on, any but a natural born Citizen."

The term "or a Citizen of the United States at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution" referred to loyal Americans who lived in the thirteen colonies at the time of the Revolutionary War, thus establishing the first generation of United States "citizens," upon which future "natural born" citizens would be created. The Founders, under Article II, allowed these original U.S. citizens to be eligible for the Presidency.

As understood by the Founders and as applied to the U.S. Constitution, the term "natural born citizen" derived its meaning less from English common law, than from the codification of natural law described by Emerich de Vattel in his 1758 book "The Law of Nations."

They knew from reading Vattel that a "natural born citizen" had a different standard from just "citizen," for he or she was a child born in the country to two citizen parents (Vattel, Section 212 in original French and English translation).

That is the definition of a "natural born citizen," as recognized by numerous U.S. Supreme Court and lower court decisions (The Venus, 12U.S. 253(1814), Shanks v. Dupont, 28 U.S. 242 (1830), Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1856), Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1875) , Ex parte Reynolds, 20 F. Cas. 582 (C.C.W.D. Ark 1879), United States v. Ward, 42 F. 320 (1890); Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898), Ludlam, Excutrix, & c., v. Ludlam, 26 N.Y. 356 (1863) and more) and the framers of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the 14th Amendment, the Naturalization Act of 1795, 1798, 1802, 1885, and our modern 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1401.

There are historical arguments too numerous to include in a short article, which explain why the definition of "natural born subject," as found in the English common law, was not used as the basis of "natural born citizen" in the U.S. Constitution because Great Britain was a monarchy and the new nation was a constitutional republic.

Legal precedent and interpretation leave no doubt regarding the meaning of "natural born citizen."

The Venus, 12 U.S. 8 Cranch 253 253 (1814)

"The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives or indigenes are those born in the country of parents who are citizens."

Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857)

"The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens."

John Bingham, father of the 14th Amendment, which gave citizenship to American slaves after the Civil War, stated on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives in 1862:

"All from other lands, who by the terms of [congressional] laws and a compliance with their provisions become naturalized, are adopted citizens of the United States; all other persons born within the Republic, of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty, are natural born citizens."

In 1866, Bingham also stated on the House floor:

"Every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen."

Minor v. Happersett , 88 U.S. 162 (1875)

"The Constitution does not in words say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first."

United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898)

"At common law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children, born in a country of parents who were its citizens, became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners."

In the first of many recent efforts to amend the Constitutional requirement of "natural born" citizenship, Democrat House Rep. Jonathon B. Bingham introduced House Joint Resolution 33 (1975), which clearly recognized the distinction between "citizen" and "natural born citizen."

"Provides that a citizen of the United States otherwise eligible to hold the Office of President shall not be ineligible because such citizen is not a natural born citizen."

In a September 2008 Michigan Law Review article entitled "Originalism and the Natural Born Citizen Clause," Lawrence B. Solum, then John E. Cribbet Professor of Law at the University of Illinois College of Law, wrote:

"What was the original public meaning of the phrase that establishes the eligibility for the office of President of the United States? There is general agreement on the core of its meaning. Anyone born on American soil whose parents are citizens of the United States is a natural born citizen."

If you are unwilling to accept the exhaustive legal documentation regarding the true meaning of "natural born" citizenship, you may also try the common sense question:

Why has every President since Martin van Buren been a second generation American except Obama and Chester A. Arthur, who also lied about his personal history?

According to his own autobiography "Dreams from My Father," Barack Obama is not a "natural born citizen" and, therefore, is an illegal President. Every law that he has signed and every appointment that he has made is invalid.

Lawrence Sellin, Ph.D. is a retired colonel with 29 years of service in the US Army Reserve and a veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq. Colonel Sellin is the author of "Afghanistan and the Culture of Military Leadership". He receives email at [email protected]