Citizen Zero & the Presidency That Was Meant to Never Be
Congress is not the determiner of who is eligible to be the President. Neither is the Supreme Court, nor are the States. Though Congress has no authority in determining who is eligible to be President, it does have the authority and responsibility to determine if the winner of the presidential election qualifies to be sworn-in as President based on the criteria laid-down “in stone” in the Constitution.
The Constitution requires that the President be a native-born citizen of the United States. Everyone knows that, right? If you believe that statement to be correct then you are woefully ignorant of the truth. The Constitution requires no such thing. For the adults living when the Constitution was adopted, the requirement was that they be citizens of the United States when the Constitution was adopted. Very simple and clear.
It could have required less, -if could have allowed foreign non-citizens to be the American President, but it could not have required more of them because that which it required of Presidents of future generations was a quality which none of them in that day possessed. It was natural born citizenship.
The founding fathers decided that for the generation being born, the power of the Commander-in-Chief should not devolve on any person who was not born with natural United States citizenship. That meant that the father must be an American. The citizenship of the mother wasn’t relevant because by marrying an American man a foreign woman automatically acquired his U.S. citizenship, -so consequently both parents were Americans.
For their own generation they could not require that of a President because no adult in America was “a natural born citizen” of the United States since they were all born as American subjects of Great Britain. But they weren’t citizens of Great Britain nor viewed by the British as rightful holders of the protections of its laws and court rulings. They weren’t part of the nation. They were distant foreign step-children. They were viewed as a form of subject that was akin to a serf that was the property of the land owner due to their indebtedness to him for allowing them to live on his personal land. America was viewed as the personal property of the Crown and its inhabitants were a form of property to the King. He could treat his property anyway that he wished and his loyal British subjects would back him up in his abuse.
It was only after the final colony ratified the Declaration of Independence that children born in America, from then on, would be no longer “natural born subjects” of the King, nor solely natural born citizens of their home Colony, but natural citizens of the United States of America.
But the United States didn’t yet exist, so how could they be its natural citizens? Because of the meaning of the word “State”. The term “The United States” didn’t refer to a nation but to a union of quasi-nations. A State is a Nation and the 13 Colonies became the 13 Countries, or Nations, or States of America, and they were United in a Covenant of war, liberation, and mutual survival through it all. They were united in their cause, in their philosophical and religious principles, and in defense. Every child born in America to citizens after July 4, 1776 was a natural born citizen of the Nation-State of his birth or residence and that State was united with the others in a self-defense Union.
Such citizens could also have been labeled citizens of The United Nations of America because even though they lacked the full structure of established nations, they possessed the sovereignty of sovereign nations. But every child born to foreigners was a foreigner also, including British immigrants, until the father became a naturalized citizen of the State in which he resided. If a certain Barack Obama had been born at that time, his citizenship would have been purely British because his father was British and not American.
The first boy born in America to American parents after the Declaration of Independence was signed that July 4th was what could be labeled “Citizen Zero”. That child was the first natural born citizen who could fulfill the constitutional requirement for the presidency for the period of future American history that began that day and continues to this. All of those who would become President before his generation were allowed to do so by the exception made on their behalf by the language of the presidential eligibility clause.
They were “citizens of the United States at the time of the adoption of this Constitution” because they became citizens via the union established with the Declaration of Independence, -or they were immigrant citizens naturalized by the naturalization law of the State in which they lived. Those naturalized citizens could not become President until they had lived in the United States for 14 years. Coincidentally, or not, from 1776 to 1790 was 14 years. So any naturalized immigrant who joined the American forces in the war against Great Britain during the year it began, was by then qualified to be the first President.
But the founding fathers had no such persons in mind as being the first President since they weren’t American by birth, up-bringing, or education. And, in fact, about the only person they could see filling that position was George Washington. He was the indispensable American. No one else could fill his shoes. He, like all of his fellows, was not a natural born citizen of the United States but he, they, and naturalized immigrants qualified under the exception written for their generation.
No other type of citizen could be President except for those included in the other exception; -which was of course “natural born citizens”. And since almost everyone born on July 4, 1776 and thereafter were natural born citizens, (born to American parents) the only ones left out, deliberately, were those who were born as foreigners or born to foreigners. But they could serve in every other high office in the land, even Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, -but they could not serve as the Commander-in-Chief of the United States military forces.
Foreigners and their children who were naturalized in their State before the Constitution was ratified by the final State on May 1,790 qualified to be President after meeting the 14 year residency and the 35-years-old age requirements. But after that date, foreigners who became naturalized and those born to immigrants who were not naturalized could never be qualified. Only citizens born to citizens could then qualify. That was the cut-off date. Following it, only Americans born to Americans could command the United States Army, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard, and State Militias in time of war, peace, or national emergency.
The man who is President as of this writing is included in the group that was excluded because he was born to a foreign citizen, -and not just any foreign citizen, but a citizen who was not even an immigrant. He was merely a temporary visitor and not a member of American society, -and thus not subject to the responsibilities required by the U.S. government of such immigrant members. As such, he is not a part of that group of Americans which began with citizen zero, -the only group which is eligible to be the President of the United States from the founding of the nation through to today’s world. He is a part of another group and that group is barred from the American presidency.
Who knows about this fact and what can be done about it? The answer to the first question goes from bad to worse because if most of those in positions of authority and media prominence knew it in advance and yet remained silent, that is worse than if they were merely ignorant (which is bad enough in itself).
What can be done about it? What can be done about a beached blue whale? A whole lot of shovels and a whole lot of shovelers are needed to get it back where it belongs. But the potential shovelers don’t know that there’s a chore for which they are needed, and those who know aren’t sure where to gather. And those who’ve gathered are few in number.
Without some “big guns” to sound an alarm and draw attention to the situation, silence will keep the nation in a state of violation of the foundation on which our nation is built. Unfortunately, that violation is just one more straw of a zillion piled on the poor camel’s back. When it will finally break is anyone’s guess.
The situation only gets worse with time because those in the media, and those in the government are either ignorantly sleeping, or they know the truth but it is unspeakable. As a result they have a very bad case of lockjaw due to the fear of being ostracized for being an eccentric non-conformist outsider kook, and everyone knows that such people are always wrong, -are always ridiculed and humiliated. Just like those quacks with the weird Italian names, -what were they? Oh yeah, Galileo and Columbus. And who wants to risk the scorn and infamy of those loose-cannon conspiracy-theory schlocks named Woodward & Bernstein? What did they ever get right? Right?
Citizen Zero would have wondered what all the fuss was about. After all, to him and his generation, the only Constitution in history wasn’t a big deal. It was just a kind of guideline. It wasn’t as if anything depended on following it. Flexibility was a preferable option. Like the President being flexible enough to dissolve the Congress and Supreme Court and nullify the Bill of Rights. Everything is relative and what’s best is in the eye of the beholder so why not just have Eric Holder declare to the Supreme Court that Barack Obama may not be a natural born United States citizen but so what? It doesn’t matter anymore because the Constitution is too old fashioned and no longer need be adhered to. And for that matter, the same goes for them.
