Naturalization, and Barack Obama's Eligibility To Be President

Barack Obama's eligibility has been debated for several years now, with Donald Trump taking the lead, mandating the President release his long form birth certificate. It appears Obama defeated Donald Trump and the birthers, knowing the issue would be marginalized once he released it. From the Constitution, the Naturalization Acts of 1790 and 1795, the 14th Amendment, and Vattel's Law of Nations--quoted heavily by the framers--it looks like Barack Obama is ineligible to be President.

That Obama was born in the USA is not the issue. Obama is not eligible to be President because he was never naturalized by taking the oath of allegiance as the Constitution and Naturalization Acts of 1790 and 1795 demand. Because Obama's dad was a British subject, the founders mandated an oath to the Constitution against any "foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty whereof such alien may at that time be a citizen or subject" by Naturalization, which Obama never did. Obama is still a dual citizen with--due to his dad--partial allegiance to the Crown. Only a person with both parents that are "Naturalized" can be President. If being born here was legit, Al Zawairi could cross the border, impregnate a woman, and that son could be President.

The Oath of Allegiance was very important to the Founding Fathers, given political exiles from France and Europe arriving here after the French Revolution. The Naturalization Acts of 1790 and 1795, emphasized the importance of the Oath:

Article II of the Constitution says a non-citizen cannot legally enter the United StatesFirst, he shall have declared, on oath or affirmation, before the Supreme, Superior, District, or Circuit Court of some one of the states, or of the territories northwest or south of the Ohio River, or a Circuit or District Court of the United States, three years at least before his admission, that it was, bona fide, his intention to become a citizen of the United States, and to renounce forever all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty whereof such alien may at that time be a citizen or subject.. And be it further enacted, that the children of persons duly naturalized, dwelling within the United States, and being under the age of twenty-one years at the time of such naturalization, and the children of citizens of the United States born out of the limits and jurisdiction of the United States, shall be considered as citizens of the United States. Provided, that the right of citizenship shall not descend on persons whose fathers have never been resident of the United States. [bold face mine]

--The Naturalization Act of 1795, FREDERICK AUGUSTUS MUHLENBERG, Speaker of the House of Representatives. JOHN ADAMS, Vice-President of the United States, And President of the Senate. APPROVED, January the 29th, 1795: GEORGE WASHINGTON, President of the United States.

The framers echoed Vattel, who lays out "Natural Born Citizen" is born here and from two Naturalized citizens:

E. de Vattel, The Law of Nations, or, Principles of the Law of Nature 144 (1792) Law of Nations (1758)

§ 212. Citizens and natives.

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. As the society cannot exist and perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights. The society is supposed to desire this, in consequence of what it owes to its own preservation; and it is presumed, as matter of course, that each citizen, on entering into society, reserves to his children the right of becoming members of it. The country of the fathers is therefore that of the children; and these become true citizens merely by their tacit consent. We shall soon see whether, on their coming to the years of discretion, they may renounce their right, and what they owe to the society in which they were born. I say, that, in order to be of the country, it is necessary that a person be born of a father who is a citizen; for, if he is born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country. Vatt. Law Nat. bk. 1, c. 19, § 212. ‘The true bond which connects the child with the body politic is not the matter of an inanimate piece of land, but the moral relations of his parentage. * * * The place of birth produces no change in the rule that children follow the condition of their fathers, for it is not naturally the place of birth that gives rights, but extraction.’

Mario Apuzzo Esq shows the difference between Natural born and "Natural Born Citizen."

The Framers of the Constitution, at the time of their birth, were also British Citizens and that is why the Framers declared that, while they and so many others were technically (by law) Citizens of the United States, they themselves were not “natural born Citizens.” Hence, they included a grandfather clause in Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5 of the Constitution: 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.” In other words, even if you were not a “natural born Citizen,” if you were a citizen at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, you were eligible to be President. The inclusion of the grandfather clause proves that the Framers saw a clear distinction between “natural born Citizen” and “Citizen.” If there were no distinction, there would not have been a need to include the clause, for the term “Citizen” would have sufficed when spelling out the qualifications to be President. The Framers recognized that a person who was just a “Citizen” could still have divided loyalties and allegiance between the United States and some other country. It is also important to note that many of the then living population were subjects of England or some other country, either having been born in that foreign country or born to foreign parents or both. The Framers did not exclude these individuals from being President, provided that they were citizens at the time that the Constitution was adopted. The laws of the individual States would have determined citizenship at this time. This group would eventually die out and then the “natural born Citizen” requirement would prevail and provide further security for the new nation, for the question of divided loyalties would be over.

I am neither a democrat or republican. I am as Benjamin Rush--a Christocrat. However, what a tragic state of affairs this nation is in. Our people have elected a man ineligible to be President. The question to the founding fathers would be "what about Joe Biden?" Would the framers allow him eligible to assume the Presidency?