# Qualifications for President and the “Natural Born” Citizenship Eligibility Requirement

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## Record

- **Collection:** Congressional research report
- **Document type:** CRS Report
- **Published:** January 11, 2016
- **Citation:** R42097

## Text

Qualifications for President and the “Natural
Born” Citizenship Eligibility Requirement
name redacted
Legislative Attorney
January 11, 2016

Congressional Research Service
7-....
www.crs.gov
R42097

Qualifications for President and the “Natural Born” Citizenship Eligibility Requirement

Summary
The Constitution sets out three eligibility requirements to be President: one must be 35 years of
age, a resident “within the United States” for 14 years, and a “natural born Citizen.” There is no
Supreme Court case which has ruled specifically on a challenge to one’s eligibility to be President
(although several cases have addressed the term “natural born” citizen), and this clause has been
the subject of several legal and historical treatises over the years, as well as more recent litigation.
The term “natural born” citizen is not defined in the Constitution, and there is no discussion of the
term evident in the notes of the Federal Convention of 1787. At the time of independence, and at
the time of the framing of the Constitution, however, the term “natural born” with respect to
citizenship was in use for many years in the American colonies, and then in the states, from
British common law and legal usage. Under the common law principle of jus soli (law of the
soil), persons born on English soil, even of two alien parents, were “natural born” subjects and, as
noted by the Supreme Court, this “same rule” was applicable in the American colonies and “in the
United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the Constitution ...” with respect to
citizens. In textual constitutional analysis, it is understood that terms used but not defined in the
document must, as explained by the Supreme Court, “be read in light of British common law”
since the Constitution is “framed in the language of the English common law.”
In addition to historical and textual analysis, numerous holdings and references in federal (and
state) cases for more than a century have clearly indicated that those born in the United States and
subject to its jurisdiction (i.e., not born to foreign diplomats or occupying military forces), even to
alien parents, are citizens “at birth” or “by birth,” and are therefore “natural born”—as opposed to
“naturalized”—U.S. citizens. There is no provision in the Constitution and no controlling
American case law to support a contention that the citizenship of one’s parents governs the
eligibility of U.S. citizens born within the United States to be President.
Although the eligibility of U.S. born citizens has been settled law for more than a century, there
have been legitimate legal issues raised concerning those born outside of the country to U.S.
citizens. From historical material and case law, it appears that the common understanding of the
term “natural born” in England and in the American colonies in the 1700s included both the strict
common law meaning as born in the territory (jus soli), as well as the statutory laws adopted in
England since at least 1350, which included children born abroad to British fathers (jus sanguinis,
the law of descent). Legal scholars in the field of citizenship have asserted that this common
understanding and legal meaning in England and in the American colonies was incorporated into
the usage and intent of the term in the U.S. Constitution to include those who are citizens at birth.
Challenges in 2008 to the eligibility of both Senators John McCain and Barack Obama to be
President, and “ballot access” challenges to President Obama in 2012, have prompted numerous
court decisions which appear to have validated the traditional, historical, and legal meaning of the
term “natural born” citizen as one who is entitled to U.S. citizenship “by birth” or “at birth.” This
would include those born “in” the United States and under its jurisdiction (i.e. “native” born),
even those born to alien parents; those born abroad to U.S. citizen-parents; or those born in other
situations meeting legal requirements for U.S. citizenship “at birth.” Such term, however, would
not include a person who was not a U.S. citizen by birth or at birth, and who was thus born an
“alien” required to go through the legal process of “naturalization” to become a U.S. citizen.
This report has been updated from a previous version to include recent relevant judicial and
administrative decisions, and will be updated as new decisional material may warrant.

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Qualifications for President and the “Natural Born” Citizenship Eligibility Requirement

Contents
History of the Qualifications Clause in the Federal Convention of 1787........................................ 4
Procedural History .................................................................................................................... 4
Apparent Purpose and Intent ..................................................................................................... 5
Common Law Meaning of the Term “Natural Born” Citizen or Subject ........................................ 9
Common Law and the Constitution .......................................................................................... 9
Common Law and Persons Born “In” the Country .................................................................. 11
Common Law and Persons Born Abroad to Citizen-Parents .................................................. 14
Common Understanding in 18th Century of the Term “Natural Born” Citizen ............................. 16
Citizenship at Birth: Case Law and Interpretations ....................................................................... 25
Legal Background and Historical Cases ................................................................................. 25
Legal Cases and Birth Outside of the United States ............................................................... 33
Legal Cases and Birth Within the United States ..................................................................... 39
Allegations of Loss of Citizenship .................................................................................... 41
Dual Citizenship and Assertion of Two Citizen-Parent Requirement ............................... 42
Recent Eligibility and “Ballot Access” Cases ................................................................... 48
Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................... 50

Contacts
Author Contact Information .......................................................................................................... 51

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Qualifications for President and the “Natural Born” Citizenship Eligibility Requirement

T

he standing qualifications to be President of the United States are set out in the
Constitution, at Article II, Section 1, clause 5, and state three specific requirements: one
must be at least 35 years old, a resident “within the United States” for 14 years, and a
“natural born Citizen.” The constitutional provision states as follows:
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.

Questions from time-to-time have arisen concerning whether one who is a U.S. citizen “at birth”
because of the operation of federal law, is also a “natural born” citizen for purposes of the
presidential eligibility clause. Such questions often concern persons born abroad to parents who
are U.S. citizens, or persons born abroad when only one parent is a U.S. citizen who had resided
in the United States.1 Although such individuals born abroad may clearly be U.S. citizens “at
birth” by statute, would such persons also be “natural born Citizens,” or is eligibility to the
Presidency limited only to “native born” citizens?2 Additionally, questions have been recently
raised by some as to whether one born “in” the United States of one or more alien parents—and
who is thus clearly a U.S. citizen “at birth” by the Fourteenth Amendment, as well as by federal
law and common law—was intended to be considered a “natural born” citizen for purposes of the
presidential eligibility clause.
The Constitution does not define the term “natural born Citizen,” nor are the notes from the
debates at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 instructive as to any specific collective intent of
the framers concerning the meaning of the term. Furthermore, the Supreme Court has never
needed to address this particular issue within the specific context of a challenge to the eligibility
of a candidate under Article II, Section 1, clause 5, the only place in the entire Constitution that
the phrase appears, although federal courts have discussed the concept extensively with respect to
other issues of citizenship. Consequently, although there are numerous Supreme Court cases, as
well as other federal and state case law, discussing the phrase and its meaning from which
conclusions may be drawn, there has still been certain speculation on the scope of the language.
According to the Supreme Court, words and phrases used, but not defined, within the
Constitution, should generally “be read in light of British common law,” since the U.S.
Constitution is “framed in the language of the English common law.”3 Although the English
common law is not “binding” on federal courts in interpreting the meaning of words or phrases
within the Constitution, nor is it necessarily to be considered the “law” of the United States (as it
is for the individual states specifically incorporating it), it can be employed to shed light on the
concepts and precepts within the document that are not defined there, but which are reflected in
the corpus of British law and jurisprudence of the time. As noted by Chief Justice (and former
President) Taft, writing for a unanimous Supreme Court, the framers of the U.S. Constitution
1

See 8 U.S.C. §1401, for categories of persons who are deemed to be U.S. citizens “at birth.”
See, e.g., Means, Is Presidency Barred to Americans Born Abroad? U.S. NEWS AND WORLD REPORT, Vol. 39, No. 26,
December 23, 1955, at 26-30; Is Gov. George Romney Eligible to be President ? THE NEW YORK LAW JOURNAL,
October 16 and 17, 1967, p. 1; McCain’s Canal Zone Birth Prompts Queries About Whether That Rules Him Out, N.Y.
TIMES, February 28, 2008; Duggin and Collins, ‘Natural Born’ in the USA: The Striking Unfairness and Dangerous
Ambiguity of the Constitution’s Presidential Qualifications Clause and Why We Need to Fix It, 85 BOSTON U. LAW
REV. 53 (2005).
3
Smith v. Alabama, 124 U.S. 465, 478 (1888). See also, more recently, Carmel v. Texas, 529 U.S. 513, 521 (2000),
where the Supreme Court noted that the meaning of an undefined term in the Constitution “necessarily requires some
explanation,” and that “the necessary explanation is derived from English common law well known to the Framers.”
2

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“were born and brought up in” the English common law, they “thought and spoke in its
vocabulary,” and that English common law was thus what the “statesmen and lawyers of the
Convention” employed for the meaning of the terms in the Constitution “confident that they could
be shortly and easily understood.”4
The term “natural born” in the context of citizenship appears to derive from the British concept
that those born with a “natural liege” (allegiance, tie, or connection) to the nation or to the
sovereign, were (under English terminology) “natural born” subjects under the law in England
and in the American colonies at the time of independence. There appears to be little scholarly
debate that the English common law at the time of independence included at least all persons born
on the soil of England (jus soli, that is, “law of the soil”), even to alien parents, as “natural born”
subjects (unless the alien parents were diplomatic personnel of a foreign nation, or foreign troops
in hostile occupation). As noted by the Supreme Court of the United States, this “same rule” was
applicable in the colonies and “in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the
Constitution” with respect to “natural born” U.S. citizenship.5
Although the British common law at the time of independence with regard to jus soli was
apparently clear, there were varying opinions as whether those born abroad of English subjects
were “natural born” subjects under the common law, or were considered “natural born” subjects
merely by long-standing statutory law. Some commentators have claimed that the statutory
provisions of English law, first appearing during the reign of Edward III in 1350, were
“incorporated” into, or in the alternative, “reflected” the already established English common
law.6 Regardless of the technical state of the common law in England with respect to children
born abroad, however, there appear to be significant arguments that the corpus of English law
applicable within the American colonies, known to the framers and adopted in the states, was
broader than merely the “law of the soil.” Legal commentators have contended that the body of
English law carried forward in the United States relating to citizenship included both the strict
common law notion of jus soli, as well as that part of the law of descent (jus sanguinis) included
in long-standing British law7 (including as “natural born” subjects those born abroad of an
English father), and that this was part of the “common understanding” of the term “natural born”
to the framers at the time of the drafting of the Constitution.8
Considering the history of the constitutional provision, the clause’s apparent intent, the English
common law expressly applicable in the American colonies and in all of the original states, the
4

Ex parte Grossman, 267 U.S. 87, 108-109 (1925).
United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649, 658 (1898). See also Inglis v. Sailor’s Snug Harbour, 3 Pet. (28 U.S.)
99, 120 (1830), see specifically Story, J., dissenting on other grounds, 28 U.S. at 164.
6
See discussion of controversy of whether the English common law included only those born on the soil, regardless of
the nationality of the parents (jus soli), or whether the common law also included those born abroad of an English
father (jus sanguinis), in Flourny, Richard W. (Assistant Solicitor, Department of State), Dual Nationality and Election,
30 YALE LAW JOURNAL 545, 548 (1921).
7
See Blackstone, COMMENTARIES ON THE LAWS OF ENGLAND, Volume I, “Of the Rights of Persons,” 354-358, 361
(1765): “ ... by several more modern statutes ... all children, born out of the king’s ligeance, whose fathers were naturalborn subjects, are now natural born subjects themselves, to all intents and purposes, without any exception; unless their
said fathers were attainted, or banished beyond sea, for high treason; or were then in the service of a prince at enmity
with Great Britain.” As noted by the Supreme Court in Weedin v. Chin Bow, 274 U.S. 657, 660 (1926): “These statutes
applied to the colonies before the War of Independence.” For early references to the term natural liege subjects in the
American colonies, see Sydney George Fisher, THE EVOLUTION OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES,
(Lippincott 1897) at 189, citing the Virginia Charter of 1611-1612, and the Concessions of East Jersey, 1665.
8
See, for example, Charles Gordon, Who Can Be President of the United States: The Unresolved Enigma, 28 MD. L.
REV. 1, 12, 18 (1968). Charles Gordon was formerly General Counsel of the United States Immigration and
Naturalization Service.
5

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common use and meaning of the phrase “natural born” subject in England and the American
colonies in the 1700s, and the subsequent action of the first Congress in enacting the
Naturalization Act of 1790 (expressly defining the term “natural born citizen” to include those
born abroad to U.S. citizens),9 it appears that the most logical inferences would indicate that the
phrase “natural born Citizen” would mean a person who is entitled to U.S. citizenship “by birth”
or “at birth.” Such interpretation, as evidenced by over a century of American case law, would
include as natural born citizens those born in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction
regardless of the citizenship status of one’s parents,10 and would also appear to include those born
abroad of one or more parents who are U.S. citizens (as recognized by statute),11 as opposed to a
person who is not a citizen by birth and is thus an “alien” required to go through the legal process
of naturalization to become a U.S. citizen.12
The weight of scholarly legal and historical opinion, as well as the consistent case law in the
United States, also supports the notion that “natural born Citizen” means one who is a U.S.
citizen “at birth” or “by birth.”13 The Constitution of the United States of America, Analysis and
9

Act of March 26, 1790, 1 Stat. 103, 104.
U.S CONST. amend. XIV; 8 U.S.C. §1401(a); see Lynch v. Clarke, 3 N.Y. Leg. Obs. 236, 242, 244 (1 Sand. ch. 583)
(1844); United States v. Rhodes, 27 F. Cas. 785 (1 Abb. 28) (Cir.Ct.Ky 1866); In re Look Tin Sing, 21 F. 905 (Cal. Cir.
1884); United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649, 658, 661-662, 693 (1898); Kwock Jan Fat v. White, 253 U.S.
454, 457 (1920); Dos Reis ex rel. Camara v. Nicholls, 68 F. Supp. 773,774 (D.Mass. 1946); Yamauchi v. Rogers, 181
F. Supp. 934, 935-936 (D.D.C. 1960); Diaz-Salazar v. INS, 700 F.2d 1156, 1160 (7th Cir. 1982), cert. denied, 462 U.S.
1132 (1983); Mustata v. U.S. Department of Justice, 179 F.3d 1017, 1019 (6th Cir. 1999); Hollander v. McCain, 566
F.Supp.2d 63, 66 (D.N.H. 2008); Ankeny v. Governor of the State of Indiana, 916 NE2d 678 (2009), petition to
transfer jurisdiction denied (Ind. Supreme Court, April 5, 2010); United States v. Carlos Jesus Marguet-Pillado, 648
F.3d 1001, 1006 (9th Cir. 2011); Allen v. Arizona Democratic Party, Case No. C-20121317 (Arizona Superior Court,
Pima County, March 7, 2012); Voeltz v. Obama, No. 2012-CA-00467 (Circuit Ct. for Leon County, June 29, 2012);
Fair v. Obama, No. 06C12060692 (Md. Carroll Cty. Cir. Ct., Aug. 27, 2012); Paige v. Obama, No. 611-8-12 WNCV
(Vt. Superior Ct., Sept. 21, 2012); Purpura v Obama, No. STE 04588-12, 2012 WL 1369003 (N.J. Adm. Apr. 10,
2012), decision adopted as final (N.J. Sec’y of State Apr. 12, 2012) aff’d, No. A-004478-11-T03, 2012 WL 1949041
(N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. May 31, 2012) (per curiam), cert. denied, No. 071052 (N.J. Sept. 7, 2012); Tisdale v.
Obama, No. 3: 12-cv-00036 (E.D. Va. Jan. 23, 2012), aff’d, No. 12-1124 (4th Cir. June 5, 2012) (per curiam).
11
See, e.g.,, 8 U.S.C. §1401(c),(d),(e) and (g); Robinson v. Bowen, 567 F.Supp.2d 1144, 145-146 (N.D. Cal. 2008);
United States v. Carlos Jesus Marguet-Pillado, 648 F.3d 1001, 1006 (9th Cir. 2011).
12
Schneider v. Rusk, 377 U.S. 163, 165 (1964); Elk v. Wilkins, 112 U.S. 94, 101 (1884); Knauer v. United States, 328
U.S. 654, 658 (1946).
13
Edward S. Corwin, THE PRESIDENT, OFFICE AND POWERS, 1787-1984, at 38-39 (5th Revised ed. by Bland, Hindson,
and Peltason, 1984); James H. Kettner, THE DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP, 1608-1870 (U.N.C. Press 1978);
Gordon, Mailman, & Yale-Loehr, IMMIGRATION LAW AND PROCEDURE, §§91 and 92 (rev. ed. 2010); Jill Pryor, The
Natural Born Citizen Clause and Presidential Eligibility: An Approach to Resolving Two Hundred Years of
Uncertainty, 97 YALE L.J. 881 (1988); Charles Gordon, Who Can Be President of the United States: The Unresolved
Enigma, 28 MD. L. REV. 1 (1968); Richard W. Flourny, (Assistant Solicitor, Department of State), Dual Nationality
and Election, 30 YALE LAW JOURNAL 545, 550 (1921); Michael Nelson, Constitutional Qualifications for President,
PRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Vol. XVII, Number 2, at 384-391 (Spring 1987); Warren Freedman, Comment,
Presidential Timber: Foreign Born Children of American Parents, 35 CORNELL L.Q. 357 (1950); Frederick Van Dyne
(Assistant Solicitor of the Department of State), CITIZENSHIP OF THE UNITED STATES (New York 1904); J. Michael
Medina, The Presidential Qualification Clause in the Bicentennial Year: The Need to Eliminate the Natural Born
Citizen Requirement, XII OKLA. CITY UNIV. L. R. 253, 268 (1987); Paul Clement and Neal Katyal, On the Meaning of
“Natural Born Citizen,” 128 HARVARD LAW REV. FORUM 161 (2015); Akil Amar, Natural Born Killjoy, Why the
Constitution Won’t Let Immigrants Run for President, and Why That Should Change, LEGAL AFFAIRS, 16, 17 (MarchApril 2004): “... the presidency and vice presidency were reserved for citizens by birth.” For the opposing view, see
Isidor Blum, Is Gov. George Romney Eligible to Be President?, N.Y.L.J., October 16 & 17, 1967, at 1, which contends
that only those born “in” the United States are “natural born” citizens under common law principles. In another
analyses, one author would include the children of U.S. citizens who are born abroad when one or both of the parents
are abroad under the direction of and officially representing, or on duty for, the United States Government, either in the
military or in a civilian governmental role. Christina Lohman, Presidential Eligibility: The Meaning of the Natural(continued...)
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Interpretation, notes that “[w]hatever the term ‘natural born’ means, it no doubt does not include
a person who is ‘naturalized,’” and, after discussing historical and legal precedents and
arguments, concludes that “[t]here is reason to believe ... that the phrase includes persons who
become citizens at birth by statute because of their status in being born abroad of American
citizens.”14

History of the Qualifications Clause in the Federal
Convention of 1787
Procedural History
The particular clause concerning presidential eligibility and citizenship was placed in the
Constitution and approved at the Convention of 1787 with no debate, objection, or comment. The
five-person Committee of Detail, appointed by the Convention delegates to report a draft
Constitution containing issues and items agreed upon by the Convention up to that point,15 was
instructed by the Convention, on July 26, 1787, to consider provisions requiring certain
qualifications for Congress and the Presidency.16 Although the subsequent report on August 6
from the Committee of Detail contained qualifications for Senator and Representative, it did not
offer qualifications for President.17 On August 20, the Convention adopted a motion by Mr. Gerry
of Massachusetts that the “Committee be instructed to report proper qualifications for the
President ...,”18 and on August 22, the Committee of Detail reported its recommendation that
several additions be made to the report it had made, including the following concerning the
qualifications of the President: “[H]e 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.”19 The report of
the Committee of Detail was then “considered” and “postponed” on August 22, so “that each
member might furnish himself with a copy.”20
In the subsequent days, the provisions for the qualifications of President were not taken up and
thus not agreed upon by the whole Convention, and on August 31, 1787, the delegates agreed to
“refer such part of the Constitution as have been proposed, and such parts of reports as have not

(...continued)
Born Citizen Clause, 36 GONZAGA LAW REVIEW 349, 369 (2000/2001).
14
Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION, S. Doc. 108-17, at 456-457 (2004). [CONSTITUTION ANNOTATED]. The United States
Senate has also stated its opinion by way of unanimous consent, in S.Res. 511, 110th Congress, that natural born
citizens includes those persons born abroad of U.S. citizens.
15
Max Farrand, THE RECORDS OF THE FEDERAL CONVENTION OF 1787, Vol. II, at 85, 97 (Yale University Press 1911)
[hereinafter Farrand]. On Monday July 23, 1787, the Convention delegates unanimously agreed to appoint the
committee “for the purpose of reporting a Constitution conformably to the Proceedings aforesaid ....”
16
II Farrand, at 116-117, 121-125. The instruction was to draft provisions “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 ....,” although the word “landed” was removed upon agreement of a motion by Mr.
Madison of Virginia to strike out that word (and thus that qualification). Id. at 123-124.
17
Id. at 177-179, 185.
18
Id. at 337, 344.
19
Id. at 366-367.
20
Id. at 376.

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been acted upon to a Committee of a Member from each State,”21 which has been referred to as
the (third) “Committee of Eleven,” or the “Committee on Postponed Matters.” On Tuesday,
September 4, 1787, the (third) Committee of Eleven “partially” reported to the Convention
several “additions and alterations,” including the specific reference for the first time to a
presidential qualification to be a “natural born” citizen:
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. 22

The language proposed on presidential eligibility on September 4 was agreed to without objection
and without debate on Friday, September 7, 1787.23 Stylistic and grammatical changes were made
through the Committee of Style to the clause on presidential qualifications to conform to the other
phrasing and usage in the document, which resulted in the final language adopted by the delegates
and sent to the states for ratification.24

Apparent Purpose and Intent
Tracing the development of this clause through the Federal Convention of 1787 clearly indicates
that there were no specific discussions or other explications within the Convention on the
meaning of the specific term “natural born” citizen. This does not mean, however, that there were
no discussions at all of the concept of a citizenship qualification for federal officers. In fact, the
issue of citizenship for Members of Congress was one that garnered much consideration and
debate in the Convention of 1787 and, it has been contended, it is within the framework of this
discussion that the eventual citizenship eligibility requirement was adopted for President and may
be analyzed.25
In stating concerns regarding the citizenship of congressional officeholders, and the required
length of such citizenship, George Mason argued that although he “was for opening a wide door
for immigrants; ... [h]e did not chuse to let foreigners and adventurers make laws for us”; nor
would he want “a rich foreign Nation, for example Great Britain, [to] send over her tools who
might bribe their way” into federal office for “invidious purposes.”26 These arguments were
echoed later by delegates at the Convention who were concerned with “admitting strangers into
our public Councils,”27 and feared that “foreigners without a long residency in the Country ...
bring with them, not only attachments to other Countries; but ideas of Govt. so distinct from ours
that in every point of view they are dangerous.”28 Thus, citizenship requirements of seven years
for Representatives and nine years for Senators were eventually adopted, although the
Convention did not act upon the wishes of Mr. Gerry “that in the future the eligibility might be

21

Id. at 473.
Id. at 493-494, 498.
23
According to Madison’s notes: “The (section 2.) ... requiring that the President should be a natural-born Citizen, &c
& have been resident for fourteen years, & be thirty five years of age, was agreed to nem: con:” II Farrand, at 536.
24
II Farrand, at 574, 598.
25
See discussion in Michael Nelson, Constitutional Qualifications for President, PRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY,
Vol. XVII, Number 2, at 384-391 (Spring 1987).
26
II Farrand, at 216.
27
Id. at 235 (Mr. Morris).
28
Id. at 236 (Mr. Butler).
22

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confined to Natives.”29 When the citizenship eligibility requirements for President were
eventually reported and recommended after the debates and discussion of congressional eligibility
requirements, there were no further discussions of the issue in Convention.30
Although there was no discussion concerning the precise meaning or derivation of the term
“natural born,” there is in the Documentary History of the Convention a possible clue from where
the qualification for President to be a “natural born” citizen may have derived. The history of the
Convention indicates that George Washington, the presiding officer, received a letter dated July
25, 1787, from John Jay, which appears to raise for the first time the issue of a requirement to be
a “natural born” citizen of the United States as a requisite qualification to be President:
Permit me to hint, whether it would not be wise & 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.31

There is no specific indication as to the precise role this letter and its “hint” actually played in the
adoption by the Convention of the particular qualification of being a “natural born” citizen.
However, no other expressions of this particular term are evident in Convention deliberations
prior to the receipt of Jay’s letter, and the September 4 draft of the Constitution reported from the
Committee of Eleven to the delegates, at a time shortly after John Jay’s letter had been
acknowledged by Washington, contained for the first time such a qualification.32 The timing of
Jay’s letter, the acknowledgment of its receipt by Washington on September 2, and the first use of
the term in the subsequent report of the Committee of Eleven, on September 4, 1787, may thus
indicate more than a mere coincidence. If this were the case, then the concern over “foreigners,”
without sufficient allegiance to the United States, serving as President and Commander-in-Chief,
would appear to be the initial and principal motivating concern of the framers, in a somewhat
similar vein as their concerns over congressional citizenship qualifications.33
Such purpose of the “natural born” citizen qualification was expressed by Justice Joseph Story in
his historic treatise on the Constitution in 1833:
It is indispensable, too, that the president should be a natural born citizen of the United
States ... [T]he general propriety of the exclusion of foreigners, in common cases, will
scarcely be doubted by any sound statesman. It cuts off all chances for ambitious
foreigners, who might otherwise be intriguing for the office; and interposes a barrier

29

Id. at 268. Mr. Gerry stated his fear that “Persons having foreign attachments will be sent among us & insinuated into
our councils, in order to be made instruments for their purpose.”
30
Presidential scholar Michael Nelson explains that when the qualifications of electors were not to be regulated or
prescribed by the Constitution, then the qualifications of the elected needed to be so prescribed. In the case of the
President, however, the Convention at first had intended under the Virginia Plan that the President be chosen by the
legislature, and thus it did not focus on the need for express qualifications of the President until later in the Convention.
Nelson, PRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, at 392-393.
31
III Farrand, Appendix A, LXVIII, at 61 (emphasis in original); Documentary History of the Constitution, IV, at 237.
32
A letter from Washington to John Jay on September 2, 1787, references Jay’s “hint” and suggestion to Washington.
III Farrand, Appendix A, XCIX, at 76; Documentary History Of the Constitution, IV, 269.
33
The provision was not directed at foreign-born statesmen or politicians in the country at the time of the drafting of
the Constitution, such as Alexander Hamilton who was born in the Caribbean, since the eligibility clause expressly
“grand-fathered” in those who were citizens at the time of the adoption of the Constitution. Hamilton, in any event,
supported the idea of limiting the eligibility to be President to a current citizen, or thereafter one who is “born a Citizen
of the United States.” III Farrand, at App. F, p. 629.

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against those corrupt interferences of foreign governments in executive elections, which
have inflicted the most serious evils upon the elective monarchies of Europe. 34

“Ambitious foreigners” who may be “intriguing for the office” of head of state, which had been
the unfortunate experience in Europe, appeared to be a generalized and widespread concern at the
time of the drafting of the Constitution, as was the concern over the possibility of allowing
foreign royalty, monarchs, and their wealthy progeny, or other relatives to control the government
of the new nation. Max Farrand, in his treatise on the adoption of the Constitution, discussed
these concerns and rumors during the Convention of 1787:
During the sessions of the convention, but it would seem especially during the latter part
of August, while the subject of the presidency was causing so much disquiet, persistent
rumors were current outside that the establishment of a monarchy was under
consideration. The common form of the rumor was that the Bishop of Osnaburgh, the
second son of George III, was to be invited to become King of the United States. 35

Others have noted that rumors were extant concerning colonial statesmen approaching or making
inquiries of other foreign royalty about seeking the chief executive’s position of the United States,
including rumors involving Price Henry of Prussia, and the ascension of King George’s second
son, Frederick, Duke of York. Presidential scholar Michael Nelson has commented:
The presidency they were creating was, the framers realized, the closest analog in the
new constitution to a king, just by being a separate, unitary executive. Even before the
convention assembled, von Steuben had disseminated a rumor that Nathaniel Gorham,
president of Congress under the Articles of Confederation and a convention delegate
from New Hampshire, had approached Prince Henry of Prussia about serving as
America’s King. Similar stories involved the ascendancy of King George’s second son,
Frederick, Duke of York. During the summer, these rumors gained new currency. The
story spread that the convention, whose deliberations were secret, was advancing the plot
behind closed doors.36

The question of not only “foreign influence” of wealthy persons immigrating to the United States
to become President, but also the issue of an American monarchy, were thus very real concerns of
the populace, as well as the framers, and appeared to establish the context in which the role,
qualifications, duties, and powers of an American chief executive were developed.37 As noted by
constitutional scholar Akhil Amar, the concerns and anxieties over ambitious and duplicitous
foreigners, and the “possibility that a foreign earl or duke might cross the Atlantic with immense
wealth and a vast retinue, and then use his European riches to buy friends on a scale that no
home-grown citizen could match,” led the framers to incorporate Article II’s “most questionable
eligibility rule.”38 Amar also agrees that the framers’ aversion to hereditary monarchies appeared
34

Joseph Story, COMMENTARIES ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES, Vol. 3, §1473, pp. 332-333 (1833).
Story distinguished “natural born” citizens eligible to be President from “foreigners” who are generally excluded,
noting the exception only for a “naturalized citizen to become president” when such person was a citizen at the time of
the adoption of the Constitution “out of respect for those distinguished revolutionary patriots, who were born in a
foreign land, and yet had entitled themselves to high honors in their adopted country.” Story, at §1473, pp. 332-333.
35
Max Farrand, THE FRAMING OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES, 173 (Yale University Press 1913).
36
Nelson, PRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, at 395.
37
“The Framers had no antecedent to draw upon when creating the presidency and determining the qualifications for
the office. There was no executive officer under the Articles of Confederation. The Framers’ only model was a negative
one: they wanted an executive officer who would not have the attributes of a hereditary monarch.” Lawrence Freidman,
An Idea Whose Time Has Come – The Curious History, Uncertain Effect, and Need for Amendment of the ‘Natural
Born Citizen’ Requirement For the Presidency, 52 ST. LOUIS L.J. 137, 141 (Fall 2007).
38
Akhil Reed Amar, AMERICA’S CONSTITUTION, A BIOGRAPHY, at 164 (Random House 2005).

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to play an additional role in erecting a barrier to immigrants being President within the
Constitution—a document that was otherwise, for its time, enlightened as permitting immigrants
to weave their way into the fabric of American political and social life:
These anxieties had been fed by England’s 1701 Act, which inclined early Americans to
associate the very idea of a foreign-born head of state with the larger issue of monarchial
government. Though England banned foreigners from all other posts, it imposed no
natural-born requirement on the head of state himself. In fact, the 1701 Act explicitly
contemplated foreign born future monarchs—the German House of Hanover, in
particular. By 1787 this continental royal family had produced three English kings named
George, only the third of whom had been born in England itself. Article II’s natural-born
language squarely rejected the 1701 idea of future foreign-born heads of state, in no small
part because many republicans had come to link the idea (perhaps more sociologically
than logically) with hereditary succession and foreign intrigue. Foreign-born princes
might be good enough to rule in the Old World but should be kept out of the New World
order—or at least the New World presidency.39

The apparent purposes of this citizenship clause were thus to assure the requisite fealty and
allegiance to the nation from the person to be the chief executive of the United States, and to
prevent wealthy foreign citizens, and particularly wealthy foreign royalty and their relatives, from
coming to the United States, becoming naturalized citizens, and then scheming and buying their
way into the Presidency or creating an American monarchy. The possibility of satisfying these
purposes would appear to be as likely from an interpretation of the term “natural born” citizen
which would include one who is a citizen “at birth” by either common law principles of jus soli,
that is, being born on the soil, or by the operation of statutory law of the principles of jus
sanguinis, that is, through the law of descent by being born to U.S. citizens abroad. That is, one
who is a citizen of the United States “at birth” by descent under federal law could develop the
requisite allegiances and reverences for the United States passed down, inculcated, and taught by
one’s parent-citizens, and would have a lifetime of allegiance to the United States at least as
strong, in a theoretical sense, as one who was born a citizen within the geographic boundaries of
the country.40 Those who are born “in” the country, and who are subject to its jurisdiction,
regardless of the nationality or citizenship of their parents, have always under British common
law, as well as under the laws of the original states, and then the United States since its founding,
been considered to have the “natural” allegiance and ties to the nation.41

39

Id. at 165.
See Tuan Anh Nguyen v. INS, 533 U.S. 53, 64-65 (2001): Citizenship statutes requiring certain relationships of
children born abroad to U.S. citizen parent or parents are adopted “… to ensure that the child and the citizen parent
have some demonstrated opportunity or potential to develop not just a relationship that is recognized, as a formal
matter, by the law, but one that consists of the real, everyday ties that provide a connection between child and citizen
parent and, in turn, the United States.” See also Miller v. United States, 523 U.S. 420, 438-440 (1998) noting the
interest of “fostering ties with this country ….”
41
See Kettner, THE DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP, 1608-1870, at 287 (UNC Press 1978): “No one appeared
to re-examine and justify Coke’s idea of the ‘natural-born citizen.’ Americans merely continued to assume that ‘birth
within the allegiance’ conferred the status and its accompanied rights. Natives were presumably educated from infancy
in the values and habits necessary for self-government, and there was no need to worry about their qualifications for
membership.” See also discussion in Blackstone, COMMENTARIES ON THE LAWS OF ENGLAND, Volume I, “Of the Rights
of Persons,” 354, 357-358 (1765).
40

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Common Law Meaning of the Term “Natural Born”
Citizen or Subject
Common Law and the Constitution
If the term “natural born” with respect to citizenship conveyed a concept clearly within the
English common law, there would then be a strong implication that such term and its legal
meaning would either have been incorporated into, or at least would strongly influence the
framers in using such phrase, as well as subsequent interpretive construction by the courts of the
relevant provision of the U.S. Constitution.42 As noted by the Supreme Court,
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. 43

Many of the terms used in the U.S. Constitution were not specifically defined in that document
(such as “natural born” citizen, the privilege of the writ of “habeas corpus,” and the prohibitions
against “bills of attainder” and “ex post facto” laws, for example), and thus referral to the English
common law, “well known” to the framers and applicable in the American colonies, must be
made for a definitional reference for such terms. The Supreme Court has explained with reference
to the constitutional prohibition on “ex post facto” laws, for example, that the meaning of such
term, not defined in the Constitution, requires some explanation, and that “the necessary
explanation is derived from English common law well known to the Framers”:
The proscription against ex post facto laws “necessarily requires some explanation; for,
naked and without explanation, it is unintelligible, and means nothing.” Calder v. Bull, 3
Dallas 386, 390 (1798) (Chase, J.). In Calder v. Bull, Justice Chase stated that the
necessary explanation is derived from English common law well known to the Framers:
“The expressions ‘ex post facto laws,’ are technical, they had been in use long before the
Revolution, and had acquired an appropriate meaning, by Legislators, Lawyers, and
Authors.” Id. at 391; see also id. at 389.44

Similarly, Chief Justice (and former President) Taft explained (in a Supreme Court decision
dealing with the parameters of the offenses to which the “pardon” authority of the President
extends) that the meaning of the language and phrases in the Constitution, when they are not
specifically defined in that document, can only be discerned and interpreted by reference to the
British common law in place at the time of the drafting of the Constitution. The Chief Justice,
writing for a unanimous Court, found that the British common law was what the framers “were
born and brought up in,” that the framers “thought and spoke in its vocabulary,” and was thus
what the “statesmen and lawyers of the Convention” employed for the meaning of the terms in
the Constitution “confident that they could be shortly and easily understood”:
The language of the Constitution cannot be interpreted safely except by reference to the
common law and to the British institutions as they were when the instrument was framed
42

Ex parte William Wells, 18 Howard (59 U.S.) 307, 311 (1855); Moore v. United States, 91 U.S. 270, 274 (1875);
Smith v. Alabama, 124 U.S. 465, 478 (1888); United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649, 654-655 (1898); Ex parte
Grossman, 267 U.S. 87, 108-109 (1925); Carmel v. Texas, 529 U.S. 513, 521 (2000).
43
Smith v. Alabama, 124 U.S. at 478.
44
Carmel v. Texas, 529 U.S. at 521 (Emphasis added).

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and adopted. The statesmen and lawyers of the Convention who submitted it to the
ratification of the Conventions of the thirteen States, were born and brought up in the
atmosphere of the common law, and thought and spoke in its vocabulary. They were
familiar with other forms of government, recent and ancient, and indicated in their
discussions earnest study and consideration of many of them, but when they came to put
their conclusions into the form of fundamental law in a compact draft, they expressed
them in terms of the common law, confident that they could be shortly and easily
understood.45

Justice Joseph Story explained in his celebrated work on the United States Constitution,
Commentaries on the Constitution, that the British common law formed the “foundation” upon
which American jurisprudence stands:
The universal principle (and the practice has conformed to it) has been that the common
law is our birthright and inheritance, and that our ancestors brought hither with them
upon their emigration all of it, which was applicable to their situation. The whole
structure of our present jurisprudence stands upon the original foundations of the
common law.46

The British common law was, in fact, regularly adopted or recognized as in force expressly in the
constitutions, or in the early acts of the legislatures, of the original thirteen states after
independence had been declared in July of 1776. The original Constitution of Delaware, for
example, stated,
The common law of England, as-well as so much of the statute law as has been
heretofore adopted in practice in this State, shall remain in force, unless they shall be
altered by a future law of the legislature; such parts only excepted as are repugnant to the
rights and privileges contained in this constitution, and the declaration of rights, &c.,
agreed to by this convention. 47

The experience and the wording of the constitutions, or original statutes, adopted in most of the
other original states were similar to that of Delaware quoted above.48 Those immediately involved
in framing constitutions for the states in the 1770s, many of whom were also prominent in
framing the Constitution for the United States in 1787, were thus not only intimately familiar
with, but also expressly recognized the continued application of the British common law within
this country.

45

Ex parte Grossman, 267 U.S. 87, 108-109 (1925). See also Ex parte William Wells, 18 Howard (59 U.S.) 307, 311
(1855): “Prior to the revolution, the colonies, being in effect under the laws of England, were accustomed to the
exercise of it in the various forms, as they may be found in the English law books. They were, of course, to be applied
as occasions occurred, and they constituted a part of the jurisprudence of Anglo-America. At the time of the adoption
of the constitution, American statesmen were conversant with the laws of England …. We must then give the word the
same meaning as prevailed here and in England at the time it found a place in the constitution.”
46
Justice Joseph Story, COMMENTARIES ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES, Vol. I, §157, p. 140 (1833).
47
Constitution of Delaware, 1776, Article 25.
48
See, for example, similar language in the Constitution of New Jersey, 1776, Article XXII; Constitution of Maryland,
November 11, 1776, Declaration of Rights, paragraph III; Constitution of New York, April 20, 1777, Article XXXVl;
Laws of Virginia, July 3, 1776, Ch. 38. Interestingly, the Constitution of Massachusetts, the colony in which the armed
rebellion began, did not mention “England” or “Great Britain” in its adoption of “[a]ll the laws which have heretofore
been adopted, used and approved in … Massachusetts, … and usually practiced on in the courts of law,” but which, as
recognized in case law in Massachusetts, referred, of course, to the British common law. Constitution of Massachusetts,
1780, Pt. 2, C. 6, Art. 6; see, e.g., Com. v. Leach, 1 Mass. 59 (1804); Com. v. Knowlton, 2 Mass. 530 (1807); Pearce v.
Atwood 13 Mass. 324 (1816); Sackett v. Sackett, 25 Mass. 309 (1829); Boynton v. Rees, 26 Mass. 528 (1830); Com. v.
Churchill, 43 Mass. 123 (1840); Com. v. Rowe 257 Mass. 172 (1926); Com. v. Lopes 318 Mass. 453 (1945).

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Similar to the concept expressed in the original constitutions and enactments of the new states,
Justice Story has also noted in a Supreme Court decision that we did not necessarily, however,
adopt all of the British common law, but rather adapted it to our own situation.49 An analysis of
the term “natural born” citizen which begins with the British common law meaning of the phrase
might thus not necessarily end there, but must also take into consideration the unique American
experience, and the application and interpretation of the underlying concepts involved by the
courts in the United States. 50

Common Law and Persons Born “In” the Country
There appears to be very little scholarly or legal dispute as to the British common law applicable
in England and in the American colonies with respect to those born “on the soil.” As to those
children born in the geographic boundaries of the country, even of alien parents, the Supreme
Court of the United States in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, citing the British decision in
Calvin’s Case reported by Lord Coke,51 found that such persons were, under British common law,
considered “natural born” subjects (with minor exceptions for children born of foreign diplomatic
personnel or of hostile military forces in occupation, that is, those not “under the jurisdiction” of
that host country). This rule of law, noted the Court, applied to the American colonies at the time
of the Declaration of Independence and, significantly, “in the United States afterwards, and
continued to prevail under the Constitution ....”52
The premiere treatise on British law at the time of the drafting of the Constitution, which was
well-known and well-used in the colonies, was Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of
England (1765). Blackstone explained that “[t]he first and most obvious division of the people is
into aliens and natural-born subjects,”53 and that the “natural” allegiance due of “natural-born”
subjects, as opposed to merely “local” allegiance of aliens and sojourners, “is such as is due from
all men born within the king’s dominions immediately upon their birth.”54 Blackstone traced the
development of the concept of “natural-born” allegiance to the reciprocal duties of protection and
allegiance (fealty, or “ligamen” (tie)), that developed concerning land ownership and use under

49

Van Ness v. Pacard, 27 U.S. [2 Peters] 137, 143-144 (1829).
One Court of Appeals has noted, for example, that the British common law with respect to “natural born” subjects as
those born within the entire “realm” of the British Empire, was not necessarily imported wholly into American
jurisprudence, as those born in the possessions of the United States, or in unincorporated territories, such as in the
Philippines, would not be “natural born” citizens of the United States, as they had not been born “in” the geographic
area of the United States. Rabang v. INS, 35 F.3d 1449, 1454, n.9 (9th Cir. 1994), cert. denied, sub nom. Sanidad v.
INS, 515 U.S. 1130 (1995).
51
Calvin’s Case, 7 Rep. 1, 4b -6a, 18a, 18b (1608).
52
169 U.S. at 658. For a thorough history of the adoption of the English common law principles of citizenship, and the
applications of those principles in the colonies, in the states, and then on a national basis in the United States, see
Kettner, THE DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP, 1608-1870 (U.N.C. Press 1978).
53
Blackstone, COMMENTARIES ON THE LAWS OF ENGLAND, Volume I, “Of the Rights of Persons,” 354 (1765).
54
Id. at 357-358: “Natural allegiance is such as is due from all men born within the king’s dominions immediately
upon their birth. For, immediately upon their birth, they are under the king’s protection .... Natural allegiance is
therefore a debt of gratitude; which cannot be forfeited, cancelled, or altered by any change of time, place or
circumstance, nor by anything but the united concurrence of the legislature. An Englishmen who removes to France, or
to China, owes the same allegiance to the king of England there as at home, and twenty years hence as well as now. ...
Local allegiance is such as is due from an alien, or stranger born, for so long time as he continues within the king’s
dominion and protection: and it ceases the instant such stranger transfers himself from this kingdom to another. Natural
allegiance is therefore perpetual, and local temporary only ....”
50

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the feudal system, eventually understood to encompass the reciprocal protection/allegiance of all
English subjects with respect to the crown.55
In 1844, in a probate case in New York State, Assistant Vice-Chancellor Lewis Sandford authored
a detailed and scholarly opinion, later cited and relied upon by numerous federal courts and legal
treatises, on the legal history of natural born citizenship status in the United States.56 The opinion
in Lynch v. Clarke found that one of the litigants, Julia Lynch, who was born in New York to alien
parents who were merely on a “temporary sojourn” in this country, was a natural born U.S.
citizen who had the legal capacity to inherit. Sandford concluded that all persons born in the
United States, even of alien parents who were only here temporarily, had “natural born”
citizenship status under English common law, carried forward in the laws in all of the original
thirteen states after independence, and then under the laws and constitutional provisions of the
United States:
My conclusion upon the facts proved is, that Julia Lynch was born in this state of alien
parents, during their temporary sojourn. That they came here as an experiment, without
any settled intention of abandoning their native country, or of making the United States
their permanent home....
It is indisputable that by the rule of the common law of England, if applied to these facts,
Julia Lynch was a natural born citizen of the United States. And this rule was established
and inflexible in the common law, long anterior to the first settlement of the United States
... By the common law, all persons born within the ligeance of the crown of England,
were natural born subjects, without reference to the status or condition of their parents....
*

*

*

At the formation of our present national government, the common law prevailed as a
system of jurisprudence, in all the thirteen states which then constituted the nation....
I need not dwell more at large upon this unquestionable proposition....
As the common law prevailed in all the colonies, and was the basis of their laws and
jurisprudence, it follows that all persons born in the colonies while in the ligeance of the
King of England, became subjects of the Crown of England; unless it be made to appear
that the rule of the common law was incompatible with the situation with the colonists, or
unsuited to their circumstances; or that it was altered by legislation.
Instead of abridging the rule, all colonial legislation which has come under my
observation, proceeded on the assumption that it was the settled law of the land.
*

*

*

It may then be safely assumed, that at the Declaration of Independence, by the law of
each and all of the thirteen states, a child born within their territory and ligeance
respectively, became thereby a citizen of the state of which he was a native. This
continued unchanged to the time when our National Constitution went into full operation.
There is no evidence of any alteration of the rule of any of the states during the period
that intervened.... 57

The Supreme Court of the United States, in its landmark opinion on birthright citizenship
authored by Justice Gray in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, citing both the common law and
55

Id. at 354-357.
Lynch v. Clarke, 3 N.Y. Leg. Obs. 236 (1 Sand. ch. 583) (1844).
57
Id. at 238, 242, 243-244. The opinion then concluded that the Constitution, in using the phrase “natural born citizen”
was a “direct recognition of the common law principle ....” Id. at 246.
56

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numerous legal precedents in the United States, explained in 1898 that a child born of alien
parents within the country and subject to its jurisdiction (that is, whose parents are not diplomatic
personnel representing a foreign nation or troops in hostile occupation) is considered a “natural
born” citizen (in the United States) or subject (in England),58 as that term has been used over the
centuries in England and the United States:
It thus clearly appears that by the law of England for the last three centuries, beginning
before the settlement of this country, and continuing to the present day, aliens, while
residing in the dominions possessed by the Crown of England, were within the
allegiance, the obedience, the faith or loyalty, the protection, the power, the jurisdiction,
of the English Sovereign; and therefore every child born in England of alien parents was
a natural born subject, unless the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a
foreign State, or of an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was
born.
The same rule was in force in all the English Colonies upon this continent down to the
time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and
continued to prevail under the Constitution as originally established.59

The Court noted several judicial precedents finding that the clear common law from England, as
well as statutory law pertaining to such things as inheritance (which prevailed in the states in this
country unless expressly repealed), was that “persons born within the realm, although children of
alien parents, were called ‘natural-born subjects.’”60 Citing an earlier precedent, the Court noted
Justice Story’s opinion that the principles of common law “treated it as unquestionable that by
that law a child born in England of alien parents was a natural born subject.”61 The Court
referenced with approval an earlier decision of a federal circuit court, written by Supreme Court
Justice Swayne sitting on circuit, explaining that “the rule of the common law” of England, and
now “of this country, as well as in England,” is that “all persons born in the allegiance of the
United States are natural born citizens.”62
The Supreme Court in Wong Kim Ark thus concluded that the Fourteenth Amendment “affirms”
the common law rule of “citizenship by birth within the territory,” even if one is born of alien
parents in this country, and approved of the characterization of the children of such resident aliens
as “natural born” citizens of the United States.63 The Fourteenth Amendment further requires that
the person born “in” the United States also be “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States
which, as noted, is interpreted to mean that such person is subject to the laws of this country, such
58

As to the use of “subject” or “citizen” with respect to “natural born,” the Supreme Court of the United States
referenced a court decision in North Carolina, explaining that “The term ‘citizen,’ as understood in our law, is precisely
analogous to the term ‘subject’ in the common law, and the change of phrase has entirely resulted from the change of
government. The sovereignty has been transferred from one man to the collective body of the people; and he who
before was a ‘subject of the king’ is now ‘a citizen of the State.” 169 U.S. at 663-664, citing State v. Manuel, (1838) 4
Dev. & Bat. 20, 24-26. See also United States v. Villato, 2 U.S. (Dall.) 370, 371 (1797); Hennessey v. Richardson Drug
Company,189 U.S. 25, 34-35 (1903). But see, however, limitations as to “subject” of the realm, and those born in
United States’ possessions, in United States. Rabang v. INS, 35 F.3d at 1454, n. 9.
59
169 U.S. at 658. Emphasis added
60
169 U.S. at 661, citing an English statute of 1700, and referencing cases including The Charming Betsey, 2 Cranch (6
U.S.) 64 (1804); and Inglis v. Sailor’s Snug Harbor 3 Pet. (28 U.S.) 99 (1830).
61
169 U.S. at 661-662, discussing McCreery v. Somerville, 9 Wheat. 354 (1824), where, the court noted, that such rule
of natural born citizenship by birth within the country “of course extended to the Colonies, and, not having been
repealed in Maryland, was in force there.”
62
169 U.S. at 662-663 (emphasis added), citing United States v. Rhodes, 27 Fed. Case 785 (No. 16151) (C.C. Ky.
1866).
63
169 U.S. at 693.

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that jurisdiction may be exercised over them, and thus would exclude children of foreign
diplomats here officially, and those of foreign troops in hostile occupation.64
Being born within the geographic boundaries of the United States, however, unlike the meaning
under British common law, does not necessarily include being born in the unincorporated
“territories,” possessions, or protectorates of the United States, unless such citizenship “at birth”
is otherwise provided by statute.65 A U.S. Court of Appeals, relying on the “Insular cases,” found
that birth in an unincorporated territory or possession of the United States, such as the
Philippines, did not grant Fourteenth Amendment or common law citizenship as being born “in”
the geographic area of the “United States,” even though under the British common law one may
have been a natural born “subject” of the crown when born within the far-flung dominions ruled
by the British Empire.66

Common Law and Persons Born Abroad to Citizen-Parents
In United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the Supreme Court, in examining an immigration question not
dealing specifically with the meaning of the presidential eligibility requirement, provided a
lengthy examination of the English common law of citizenship at the time of the drafting of the
Constitution, and whether such citizenship was obtained by the place of birth (jus soli) only, or
also by descent (jus sanguinis). As noted above, the Court found that the common law of England
was that of jus soli, that is, derived from the feudal notion of the reciprocal responsibilities of
allegiance and protection of an individual that was established in England by the place of that
person’s birth; and that the latter principle of citizenship by descent (because of the citizenship or
nationality of one’s father—jus sanguinis) was, as a general matter, the law in England by statute,
and thus not necessarily as part of the “common law,” even though there existed a long-standing
statutory recognition (since 1350) of the rights of “natural-born subjects” who were born abroad
to British parents or a British father.67
As pointed out by the Supreme Court in Wong Kim Ark, however, there was not necessarily
unanimity in legal scholarship concerning a narrow reading of the British common law with
regard to the children of subjects/citizens born abroad.68 Some legal scholars in England and in
64

In re Look Tin Sing, 21 F. 905, 906 (Cal. Cir. 1884); United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. at 687, 693. See
discussion in more recent case of Plyer v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202, 211-215 (1981), finding that for due process, as well as
equal protection purposes in the Fourteenth Amendment, that one “within the jurisdiction” of a state is one “subject to
its laws”: “In appellants’ view, persons who have entered the United States illegally are not ‘within the jurisdiction’ of
a State even if they are present within a State’s boundaries and subject to its laws. Neither our cases nor the logic of the
Fourteenth Amendment supports that constricting construction of the phrase ‘within its jurisdiction’” (457 U.S. at 211).
Rather, the Court found that “the protections of the Fourteenth Amendment extends to anyone … who is subject to the
laws of a State ….” (457 U.S. 215).
65
See, for example, 8 U.S.C. §1402 (Puerto Rico, born on or after April 11, 1899), §1403 (Canal Zone or Republic of
Panama, born on or after February 26, 1904), §1404 (Alaska, born on or after March 30, 1867), §1405 (Hawaii, born on
or after April 30, 1900).
66
Rabang v. INS, 35 F.3d 1449, 1453 (9th Cir. 1994), cert. denied, sub nom. Sanidad v. INS, 515 U.S. 1130 (1995):
“[T]he Citizenship Clause has an express territorial limitation which prevents its extension to every place over which
the government exercises its sovereignty.” See also, id. at 1454, n.9, where the Court of Appeals opined that “wholesale
importation of British common law on ‘subject’ status to interpret the meaning of the Citizenship Clause [of the
Fourteenth Amendment] is inadvisable because of possible differences between ‘subjects’ and ‘citizens,’” and thus
those born in U.S. unincorporated territories or possessions should not necessarily be considered as being born “in” the
United States.
67
169 U.S. 655- 671. See also Blackstone, at 354-361.
68
It has also been argued, even on the basis of the incorporation of only a very narrow and technical concept of the
early English common law rule of jus soli into the Constitution, that the common law understanding, meaning, and
(continued...)

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the United States have argued that the long-standing statutory and parliamentary recognition of
children born abroad to English subjects as “natural-born” was merely “declaratory” of the
existing common law principles and understandings in England, although this was disputed in
dicta by the Supreme Court in Wong Kim Ark:
It has sometimes been suggested that this general provision of the statute of 25 Edw. III.
[1350] was declaratory of the common law. See Bacon, arguendo, in Calvin’s Case, 2
How. St. Tr. 585; Westlake and Pollock, arguendo, in De Geer v. Stone, 22 Ch. Div. 243,
247; 2 Kent, Comm. 50, 53; Lynch v. Clarke, 1 Sandf. Ch. 583, 659, 660; Ludlam v.
Ludlam, 26 N. Y. 536. But all suggestions to that effect seem to have been derived,
immediately or ultimately, from one or the other of these two sources: The one, the Year
Book of 1 Rich. III. (1483) fol. 4, pl. 7, reporting a saying of Hussey, C. J., “that he who
is born beyond sea, and his father and mother are English, their issue inherit by the
common law, but the statute makes clear,” etc., - which, at best, was but obiter dictum,
for the chief justice appears to have finally rested his opinion on the statute. The other, a
note added to the edition of 1688 of Dyer’s Reports, 224a, stating that at Trinity term 7
Edw. III. Rot. 2 B. R., it was adjudged that children of subjects born beyond the sea in the
service of the king were inheritable, - which has been shown, by a search of the roll in the
king’s bench so referred to, to be a mistake, inasmuch as the child there in question did
not appear to have been born beyond sea, but only to be living abroad. 69

The position of the dissenting Justices in Wong Kim Ark was characterized and discussed by the
Court in the later case of Weedin v. Chin Bow: “The attitude of Chief Justice Fuller and Mr.
Justice Harlan was, that at common law the children of our citizens born abroad were always
natural-born citizens from the standpoint of this Government....”70 A detailed law review article in
1921 by the assistant solicitor of the Department of State noted that a number of legal scholars
and historians contend that the English common law specifically included jus sanguinis, as well
as jus soli, and noted that the “question has been a subject of controversy for six centuries or
more….”71
Other legal scholars have contended that long-standing and commonly accepted principles
incorporated into English law by statute over several centuries, even if they did not merely
“declare” already-existing English common law, actually modified the corpus of the common law
to incorporate such principles, and that this body of law was the one known to the framers, such
that the provisions of the Constitution must be interpreted in that light. Charles Gordon, who was
then general counsel for the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service, explained in
1968 that in addition to recognizing birthright citizenship as to the place of birth (jus soli), “the
consistent practice over several centuries, in England and the United States, [was] to recognize
citizenship status by descent.”72 Gordon thus concluded that “[t]he common law, as it had

(...continued)
usage of the term “natural born” subject/citizen would include, at the very least, the children of U.S. citizens born
abroad when one parent is abroad because of service in an official capacity on behalf of, and under the direction and
control of, the United States Government. This argument would include both diplomatic personnel as well as military
forces who were not in hostile occupation, but were invited into, and stationed, in the foreign country. See Lohman, 36
GONZAGA LAW REVIEW, at 351-352, 365-369; Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. at 686, citing Chief Justice Marshall, in The
Schooner Exchange v. McFaddon, 11 U.S. [7 Cranch] 116 (1812).
69
169 U.S. at 669- 670.
70
274 U.S. 657, 670 (1926).
71
Flourny, Richard W. (Assistant Solicitor, Department of State), Dual Nationality and Election, 30 YALE LAW
JOURNAL 545, 548 (1921).
72
Gordon, Who Can Be President of the United States: The Unresolved Enigma, 28 MD. L. REV. 1, at 12, 18 (1968).

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developed through the years, recognized a combination of the jus soli and the jus sanguinis,” 73
and that the English common law adopted by the United States had been expanded by the longstanding statutory inclusions over the centuries in England:
[T]here were doubts concerning the applicability of the jus sanguinis under the early
common law. But those doubts were eliminated by statutes enacted in England before the
American Revolution, which became part of the body of law followed in England and
passed on to this country. It can be argued ... that this total corpus was the common law
which this country inherited, and that it persevered unless specifically modified. 74

This position was further implicated in an 1896 Digest of the Law of England with reference to
the Conflict of Laws, by Albert Venn Dicey, as cited by the Supreme Court in Wong Kim Ark.75
Mr. Dicey states in that treatise that “’Natural-born British subject’ means a British subject who
has become a British subject at the moment of his birth,” which expressly includes those born
abroad whose British nationality passes to the child by descent.76
That the United States was not confined to only the narrowest interpretation of the common law
of England in our usages and applications of concepts and terms in this country, was noted by the
Supreme Court in an opinion authored by Justice Story in 1829:
The common law of England is not to be taken, in all respects, to be that of America. Our
ancestors brought with them its general principles, and claimed it as their birthright; but
they brought with them and adopted, only that portion which was applicable to their
situation.77

It was, in fact, common in the states after independence, upon the adoption of their constitutions
and statutes, to incorporate both the common law of England, as well as the statutory laws
adopted by Parliament and applicable in the colonies up until a particular date.78 There is thus
some argument and indication that it was common for a “modified” English common law—
modified by long-standing provisions of English statutory law applicable in the colonies—to be
among the traditions and bodies of law incorporated into the laws, applications, usages, and
interpretations in the beginning of our nation.

Common Understanding in 18th Century of the Term
“Natural Born” Citizen
In addition to examining the common law meaning of the term “natural born” as it related to
citizenship, there are other interpretive analyses that might be employed in an attempt to
understand the “meaning to the framers” of the term “natural born” citizen when the term was
adopted in the Constitution in 1787.79 If, as noted by the Supreme Court in an opinion authored
73

Id. at 18.
Id. at 12.
75
169 U.S. at 657-658.
76
Albert Venn Dicey, A DIGEST OF THE LAW OF ENGLAND WITH REFERENCE TO THE CONFLICT OF LAWS, at 164, 168-169
(Dicey’s Rule 23) (1896).
77
Van Ness v. Pacard, 27 U.S. [2 Peters] 137, 143-144 (1829).
78
Constitution of Delaware, 1776, Article 25; Constitution of New Jersey, 1776, Article XXII; Constitution of
Maryland, November 11, 1776, Declaration of Rights, paragraph III; Constitution of New York, April 20, 1777, Article
XXXVl; Laws of Virginia, July 3, 1776, Ch. 38; Constitution of Massachusetts, 1780, Pt. 2, C. 6, Art. 6.
79
One commentator has averred that whether or not the common law was modified by statute is irrelevant; the only
relevant matter is what the “common understanding” of the meaning of “natural born” was at the time of the
(continued...)
74

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by Justice Story, the “common law of England is not to be taken, in all respects, to be that of
America,” 80 there may be accorded some significance to an analysis of what the term “natural
born” citizen was commonly understood to mean in the American colonies at the time of the
revolution and framing of the Constitution.
It is, of course, always a somewhat speculative exercise to attempt to discern the “common
understanding” of a group of individuals who may be geographically, professionally, and
politically diverse, particularly during a period many years removed from the current time.81 The
fact that no discussion appears in the notes of the Federal Convention of 1787 on the presidential
eligibility clause, and the fact that the actual debates and discussions in the Convention were held
in secret with no official journal of the debates being kept (other than for recording votes)
highlight the problems in such speculation. That being said, however, one might argue that there
existed what might be called a “common” or “general understanding,” or at least common
“usage” of the term “natural born,” as it related to those who were considered “natural born”
subjects of England in the American colonies at the time of independence, and “natural born”
citizens at the time of the adoption of the Constitution. The “state of the law” in colonial America
concerning who was a “natural born” subject of England under English laws, both common law
as well as statutory laws, was certainly known to the framers since, as noted by the Supreme
Court, “These statutes applied to the colonies before the War of Independence.”82
From examination of historical documents, it appears that the term “natural born” as it related to
citizenship under English law and jurisprudence was a term widely known and used in the
American colonies in the 1700’s, and was employed in the context and understanding of British
common law as well as British statutory law. For example, more than a decade before John Jay
had employed the term in his “hint” to General Washington at the Convention of 1787, the First
Continental Congress of the American colonies, meeting in Philadelphia beginning in September
of 1774, adopted a resolution asserting that the common law of England was fully applicable to
the colonies in America, as were such statutory laws of England as would be relevant to their
circumstances, and expressly included in the resolution an assertion of the rights of their
ancestors to be considered “natural-born subjects within the realms of England.” As noted in
Elliot’s compilation and analysis of documents related to independence,

(...continued)
Convention of 1787, regardless of whether that meaning was based solely on British common law or partly on adopted
statutes from England. Seligman, A Brief for Governor Romney’s Eligibility for President, 113 CONG. REC. 35019,
35020 (1967).
80
Van Ness v. Pacard, 27 U.S. at 143-144.
81
Jack N. Rakove, ORIGINAL MEANINGS: POLITICS AND IDEAS IN THE MAKING OF THE CONSTITUTION, p. 6: “Both the
framing of the Constitution in 1787 and its ratification by the states involved processes of collective decision-making
whose outcomes necessarily reflected a bewildering array of intentions and expectations, hopes and fears, genuine
compromises and agreements to disagree. The discussions of both stages of this process consisted largely of highly
problematic predictions of the consequences of particular decisions. In this context, it is not immediately apparent how
the historian goes about divining the true intentions and understandings of the roughly two thousand actors who served
in the various conventions that framed and ratified the Constitution, much less the larger electorate that they claimed to
represent. … For all these reasons, then, the ideal of “unbiased” history remains an elusive goal, while the notion that
the Constitution had some fixed and well-known meaning at the moment of its adoption dissolves into a mirage.” See
also Leonard W. Levy, ORIGINAL INTENT AND THE FRAMERS’ CONSTITUTION, ix (1988): “For several decades after the
ratification of the Constitution the fading memories of those who had attended the Philadelphia Constitutional
Convention supplied the main evidence of the Framers’ intent. Even when those memories were fresh, the framers
disagreed vehemently about what the Convention had meant or intended ....” See also, id. at pp. 1-29.
82
Weedin v. Chin Bow, 274 U.S. at 660.

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On the same day [14th of October, 1774], Congress unanimously resolved, “that the
respective colonies are entitled to the common law of England, and more especially to the
great and inestimable privilege of being tried by their peers of the vicinage according to
the course of that law.” They further resolved, “that they were entitled to the benefit of
such of the English statutes as existed at the time of their colonization, and which they
have, by experience, respectively found to be applicable to their several and local
circumstances.” They also resolved, that their ancestors, at the time of their immigration,
were “entitled to all the rights, liberties, and immunities, of free and natural-born subjects
within the realms of England.”83

It is thus clear that the delegates to the First Continental Congress in 1774, among whom were
several framers of the Constitution at the Federal Convention of 1787, as well as other notable
“founding fathers” (including John Jay),84 were already familiar with and employed the term
“natural born” in the context of and within the understanding of British common law and
statutory law concepts of the rights and privileges of citizenship.
Of relevance to any meaning and “common understanding” of the term “natural born” within the
American colonies and at the time of the drafting of the Constitution is the legal treatise on the
laws of England referred to as “Blackstone,” for its author William Blackstone. Published in
1765, this treatise was not only available, but was widely known to the framers at the time of the
drafting of the Constitution.85 As noted by the Supreme Court of the United States, “Blackstone’s
Commentaries was widely circulated in the Colonies ...,” 86 and that “undoubtedly the framers of
the Constitution were familiar with it.”87 As discussed in the earlier section of this report on the
common law, Blackstone explained that “natural born” subjects in England and the American
colonies included all those born “in” the lands under British sovereignty. Concerning specifically
the issue of children born abroad of English subjects, Blackstone explains clearly that such
children are then (in 1765) considered under the law of England as “natural born” subjects, and
have been considered as such for most purposes since at least the time of Edward III (1350),
because of the development of statutory law in England to “encourage also foreign commerce.”
As stated by Blackstone in his 1765 treatise,
[A]ll children, born out of the king’s ligeance, whose fathers were natural-born subjects,
are now natural born subjects themselves, to all intents and purposes, without any

83

Jonathan Elliot, THE DEBATES IN THE SEVERAL STATE CONVENTIONS, ON THE ADOPTION OF THE FEDERAL
CONSTITUTION [ELLIOT’S DEBATES], Vol. I, “Gradual Approaches Towards Independence,” at 44 (2d Ed. 1836).
Emphasis in original.
84
Delegates to that First Continental Congress in 1774 included such framers present at the Convention of 1787 as
Roger Sherman of Connecticut, William Livingstone of New Jersey, Thomas Mifflin of Pennsylvania, George Read of
Delaware, George Washington of Virginia, and John Rutledge of South Carolina, as well as other notable “founding
fathers,” including John Adams and Samuel Adams of Massachusetts, John Jay of New York, and Patrick Henry and
Richard Henry Lee of Virginia.
85
One noted historian of the American colonial era has commented on the “deep legalism” of society in colonial
America “where William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England was selling as well as it was in
England.” Jack Rackove, REVOLUTIONARIES, at 68 (2010). See also Schick v. United States, 195 U.S. 65, 69 (1904),
discussing Blackstone’s Commentaries: “... it has been said that more copies of the work had been sold in this country
than in England ....”
86
Powell v. McCormack, 395 U.S. 486, 538 (1969). “Sir William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England
(1765-1769) is the most important legal treatise ever written in the English language. It was the dominant lawbook in
England and America in the century after its publication and played a unique role in the development of the fledgling
American legal system.” William Blackstone, COMMENTARIES ON THE LAWS OF ENGLAND, [hereinafter Blackstone],
Volume I, Of the Rights of Persons (1765) (Introduction at iii).
87
Schick v. United States, 195 U.S. at 69.

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exception; unless their said fathers were attainted, or banished beyond sea, for high
treason; or were then in the service of a prince at enmity with Great Britain. 88

The “commonly understood” meaning of the term “natural born” in the United States at the time
of the drafting of the Constitution might thus be broader than the early, strict English “common
law” meaning of that term.89 As noted by Charles Gordon, former Chief Counsel of the
Immigration and Naturalization Service, whether the body of English law in the 1770s was from
early common law, from statutory law, or from the common law modified over the years by
statutory law, these provisions “were part of the corpus of the English law in existence at the time
of the Revolution, which was substantially recognized and adopted by our forefathers.”90 This
common usage and popular understanding to the framers of the term “natural born” subject (as
employed in England), and the term’s apparent evolution and broadening of meaning through
statutory law, has thus led several other legal commentators and historians to conclude: “The
constitutional Framers had a broad view of the term ‘natural-born’ and considered all foreignborn children of American citizen parents eligible for the Office of the Presidency”;91 or, as stated
by another: “[T]he delegates meant to apply the evolved, broader common law meaning of the
term when they included it in the presidential qualifications clause.”92
Presidential historian Michael Nelson has also averred that the term appeared to have a common
meaning at the time of the drafting of the Constitution which involved within its concept both the
common law definition and mode of acquisition of citizenship (through jus soli), as well as the
common understanding of the long-standing broadening of such term by the operation of English
statutory law to include those subjects who may have traveled abroad for purposes of commerce,
or otherwise. As noted by Nelson (and pointed out by others), a more restrictive meaning to
include only those born within the boundaries of the United States would mean that John Jay,
who may have recommended the precise term to the Convention, would have intended to exclude
from eligibility his own children who were born in Spain and France while Jay was representing
the United States abroad:
The provision for “natural born Citizen” probably was aimed at immigrants, although the
term is so unusual as to be vague.... [b]ut [it] had deep roots in British common law. In
medieval times it had embodied the doctrine of jus soli: a natural born citizen was one
88

Id. at 361: “When I say that an alien is one who is born out of the king’s dominions, or allegiance, this also must be
understood with some restrictions. ... [T]he children of the king’s ambassadors born abroad were always held to be
natural subjects: for as the father, though in a foreign country, owes not even a local allegiance to the prince to whom
he is sent; so, with regard to the son also .... To encourage also foreign commerce, it was enacted by statute 25 Edw. III.
ft. 2. that all children born abroad, provided both their parents were at the time of the birth in allegiance to the king ...
might inherit as if born in England: and accordingly it hath been so adjudged in behalf of merchants. But by several
more modern statutes these restrictions are still further taken off: so that all children, born out of the king’s ligeance,
whose fathers were natural-born subjects, are now natural born subjects themselves, to all intents and purposes, without
any exception; unless their said fathers were attainted, or banished beyond sea, for high treason; or were then in the
service of a prince at enmity with Great Britain.”
89
As noted in the preceding section of this report, legal scholars in England were not completely unanimous about
English common law during this period, as some had averred that it included as “natural born” subjects not only jus
soli, but also those born abroad of English parents, and/or that the statute of 1350 in the reign of Edward III was merely
a recitation or “declaration” of the common law, which might also have lead to a common or popular perception (or
even a commonly held misunderstanding) of the meaning of the term in the U.S. as including the issue of citizens born
in foreign lands even in the narrower concept of the “common law.” See also Flourny, Richard W. (Assistant Solicitor,
Department of State), Dual Nationality and Election, 30 YALE LAW JOURNAL 545, 548 (1921).
90
Gordon, 28 MD. L. REV., at 18.
91
Lohman, 36 GONZAGA LAW REVIEW, at 369.
92
Nelson, at 396. See also 7 Charles Gordon, Stanley Mailman, & Stephen Yale-Loehr, IMMIGRATION LAW AND
PROCEDURE, §92.03[1][b] (rev. ed. 2000); Pryor, 97 YALE L.J. at 882 (1988); Gordon, 28 MD. L. REV at 5-7.

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born within the realm (on the soil, so to speak). But with increased commerce and travel,
Parliament, starting in 1350, seemed to expand the definition of natural born to
incorporate the doctrine of jus sanguinis. Now babies born of British citizens abroad or at
sea were included as well. One can presume only that Jay and the delegates meant to
apply the evolved, broader common law meaning of the term when they included it in the
presidential qualifications clause. Certainly Jay did not mean to bar his own children born
in Spain and France while he was on diplomatic assignments, from legal eligibility to the
presidency.93

With respect to the common or general meaning of the term “natural born” to the framers of the
Constitution in the context of those born abroad to U.S. citizens, it may be significant to note that
the first Congress, under its express constitutional authority “to establish an uniform Rule of
Naturalization,”94 enacted the Naturalization Act of 1790.95 The first of several such acts, this
1790 statute stated that
[T]he children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond the sea, or out of
the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens: Provided,
That the right of citizenship shall not descend to persons whose fathers have never been
resident in the United States....96

This early congressional act provides some argument that the term “natural born” citizen was
seen to include more than merely the “native born,” that is, those born in the country (in
accordance with the common law principle of jus soli), but also to include the long-standing
English statutory recognition of citizenship by descent through one’s father when an individual is
born abroad, that is, all of those who are citizens “at birth” or “by birth.” The significance of such
a statute passed by the first Congress was, of course, the fact that many of the framers of the
Constitution were Members of that first Congress, as well as the fact that the first Congress’s
understanding of the meaning of the terms of the Constitution was most contemporaneous in time
with the document’s adoption. One author has noted that of the “Committee of Eleven,” which
first proposed to the Convention of 1787 the eligibility requirement of being a “natural born”
citizen, 8 of the 11 committee members were in that first Congress, and none stated objections to
or disagreement with the characterization of the term “natural born” by statute by the Congress.97
The Supreme Court has expressly noted the weight of authority of early actions of the first
Congress in explicating portions of the Constitution because of the make-up of that Congress, and
its proximity in time to the Convention. As noted by the Court, an act “passed by the first
Congress assembled under the Constitution, many of whose members had taken part in framing
that instrument, ... is contemporaneous and weighty evidence of its true meaning.”98

93

Michael Nelson, Constitutional Qualifications for President, PRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Vol. XVII, No. 2,
at 396 (Winter 1987), citing Gordon, Who Can Be President?
94
U.S. CONST. art. I, §8, cl. 4.
95
Act of March 26, 1790, ch. 3, 1 Stat. 103, 104.
96
The 1790 statute was repealed and superseded by a 1795 naturalization statute which omitted the phrase “natural
born.” Act of January 29, 1795, ch. 20, 1 Stat. 414, 415. There is no legislative history indicating the reason for the
deletion of that term; however, in that statute the phrase “shall be considered as citizens” referred to the status of minor
children derivatively naturalized upon the naturalization of their parents, who are not “natural born,” as well as to the
children born abroad to U.S. citizens, so it is possible that the deletion is merely a stylistic/grammatical decision.
97
Lohman, 36 GONZAGA LAW REVIEW at 371.
98
Wisconsin v. Pelican Ins. Co., 127 U.S. 265, 297 (1888); Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 783, 788-791 (1983). See
also Michel v. Anderson, 14 F.3d 623, 631 (D.C. Cir. 1994): “Although the actions of the early congresses are not a
perfect indicator of the Framers’ intent, those actions provide some indications of the views held by the Framers, given
the propinquity of the congresses and the framing and the presence of a number of Framers in those congresses.”

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One of the more noted political and constitutional scholars on the American presidency, Edward
S. Corwin, has explained that “natural born” citizens eligible to be President clearly include all of
those born “on the soil” of the United States and subject to its jurisdiction, under the common law
principles of jus soli applicable in the United States, but also would appear to include those born
abroad of U.S. citizens under the principle of jus sanguinis, as adopted by Congress by statute.
Corwin noted that Congress has the authority as the legislative body of a sovereign nation “to
determine who shall and shall not be admitted to the body politic”:
But who are “natural-born citizens”? By the so-called jus soli, which comes from the
common law, the term is confined to persons born on the soil of a country; and this rule is
recognized by the opening clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which declares to be
citizens of the United States “all persons born or naturalized within the United States and
subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” On the other hand, by the so-called jus sanguinis,
which underlay early Germanic law and today prevails on the continent of Europe,
nationality is based on parentage, a principle recognized by the first Congress under the
Constitution in the following words:
The children of citizens of the United States that may be born beyond the sea, or
outside of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural-born citizens
of the United States; provided that the right of citizenship shall not descend to
persons whose fathers have never been resident in the United States.
By succeeding legislation the general clause of this provision has been continued in force
to this day. The question arises, whence did Congress obtain the power to enact such a
measure? By the Constitution the Congress is authorized to pass “an uniform rule of
naturalization,” that is, a uniform rule whereby aliens may be admitted to citizenship;
while the provision under discussion purports to recognize a certain category of persons
as citizens from and because of birth. The provision must undoubtedly be referred to the
proposition that, as the legislative body of a nation sovereign at international law,
Congress is entitled to determine who shall and who shall not be admitted to the body
politic.
Should, then, the American people ever choose for President a person born abroad of
American parents, it is highly improbable that any other constitutional agency would
venture to challenge their decision ....99

It may be noted that some have argued that the relevant common meaning of natural born citizen
that was prevalent in 18th century America should not be the one that was actually applicable in
the American colonies during that time from British statutory and common law, and which was
adopted specifically by the states after independence in 1776 (and which, as noted by Justice
Story, formed the “foundation” for American jurisprudence), but rather should be recognized as
one derived from what has been described as a “philosophical treatise”100 on the law of nations by
a Swiss legal philosopher in the mid-1700s.101 This particular treatise, however, in the editions
available at the time of the drafting of the U.S. Constitution, did not actually use, either in the
original French or in English interpretations at that time, the specific term “natural born

99

Edward S. Corwin, THE PRESIDENT, OFFICE AND POWERS, 1787-1984, at 38-39 (5th Revised ed. by Bland, Hindson,
and Peltason, 1984). (Footnotes omitted).
100
Craig v. United States, 340 Fed. Appx. 471, 473 (10th Cir. Okla. 2009), cert. denied, 130 S.Ct. 141 (2009).
101
Emmerich de Vattel, THE LAW OF NATIONS, OR PRINCIPLES OF THE LAW OF NATURE, APPLIED TO THE CONDUCT AND
AFFAIRS OF NATIONS AND SOVEREIGNS (London 1760)[hereinafter THE LAW OF NATIONS]. The 1760 Volume is an
English translation of the original French, E. De Vattel, DROIT DES GENS: OU, PRINCIPLES DE LA LOI NATURELLE,
APPLIQUES A LA CONDUCT & AUX AFFAIRES DES NATIONS & DES SOUVERAINS (1758)[hereinafter DROIT DES GENS].

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Qualifications for President and the “Natural Born” Citizenship Eligibility Requirement

citizens.”102 It was not until after the adoption of the Constitution in the United States did a
translator interpret the French in Emmerich de Vattel’s Law of Nations to include, in English, the
term “natural born citizens” for the first time, and thus that particular interpretation and creative
translation of the French, to which the Vattel enthusiasts cite, could not possibly have influenced
the framing of the Constitution in 1787.103
Furthermore, and on a more basic level, the influence of the work of Vattel on the framers in
employing the term “natural born” in relation to domestic citizenship within the Constitution is
highly speculative at best, is without any direct historical evidence, and is contrary to the
mainstream principles of constitutional interpretation and analysis within American
jurisprudence. Although it appears that there is one single reference by one delegate at the Federal
Convention of 1787 to Vattel (in reference to several works of different authors to support an
argument for equal voting representation of the states in the proposed Congress),104 there is no
other reference to the work in the entire notes of any of the framers published on the proceedings
of the Federal Convention of 1787,105 and specifically there is no reference or discussion of the
work at all in relation to citizenship at the Convention, in the Federalist Papers,106 or in any of the
state ratifying conventions.107
It would appear to be somewhat fanciful to contend that in employing terms in the U.S.
Constitution the framers would disregard the specific and express meaning of those precise terms
in British common law, the law in the American colonies, and subsequently in all of the states in
the United States after independence, in favor of secretly using, without comment or explanation,
a contrary, non-existent English translation of a phrase in a French-language treatise on
international law. In a state case cited with approval by the U.S. Supreme Court, an extensive
legal analysis of the question of natural born citizenship under the law of the United States by
Assistant Vice Chancellor Sandford, in New York in 1844, found that the laws in all of the
102

In the original French, the sentence reads: “Les naturels ou indigenes font ceux qui font nés dans le pays, de Parens
Citoyens.” (DROIT DES GENS, supra at Ch. XIX, p. 111). In the English translation available at the time of the framing
of the Constitution, translated in English in 1760 and in 1787, the terms “naturels or indigenes” were simply interpreted
as “natives or indigenes”: “The natives, or indigenes, are those born in the country of parents who are citizens.” THE
LAW OF NATIONS, supra at Vol. I, Book 1, Ch. XIX, §212, at p. 92 (1760), and at p. 166 of the 1787 edition. The
English phrase “natural born citizen” in early French translations of the U.S. Constitution’s Article II, §1, cl. 5,
however, was interpreted as either “citoyen-né” ([a “born citizen”] John Stevens or Warren Livingston, EXAMEN DU
GOUVERNEMENT D’ANGLETERRE, COMPARE AUX CONSTITUTIONS DES ÉTAT-UNIS,” at 257 (Paris 1789)), or “citoyen né
dans les États-Unis,” ([a “citizen born in the United States”], L.-P. Conseil, MÉLANGES POLITIQUES ET PHILOSPHIQUES,
“Constitution Des États-Unis,” at 160 (Paris 1833), and M. Du Ponceau, EXPOSÉ SOMMAIRE DE LA CONSTITUTION DES
ÉTATS-UNIS D’AMÉRIQUE, at 45 (Paris 1837)), or in more recent French translations, “citoyen de naissance” (“citizen at
birth”). None of these French expressions for the English term “natural born citizen” were used by Vattel.
103
Compare the 1760 London edition of Vattel’s Law of Nations, to the 1797 English translation (London 1797), at
Book 1, Ch. XIX, p. 101 (Lib. of Congress No. JX2414 .E5 1797).
104
I Farrand at 437-438 (Mr. Martin, of Maryland).
105
Farrand’s work, The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, includes the personal notes of the following
framers: Robert Yates of New York, James Madison of Virginia, Rufus King of Massachusetts, James McHenry of
Maryland, William Pierce of Georgia, William Paterson of New Jersey, Alexander Hamilton of New York, and George
Mason of Virginia, as well as the Journal kept by the Secretary of the Convention, Major William Jackson. I Farrand,
supra at xi-xxii.
106
THE FEDERALIST: A COLLECTION OF ESSAYS, WRITTEN IN FAVOUR OF THE NEW CONSTITUTION, AS AGREED UPON BY
THE FEDERAL CONVENTION, SEPTEMBER 17, 1787 (New York 1788).
107
There were only two apparent references in all of the state ratifying debates to Vattel: one by a delegate in South
Carolina in relation to a nation’s duty to honor treaties (4 ELLIOT’S DEBATES at 278), and one in Pennsylvania
mentioned with other “political writers” to support the notion that not all of the rights of the people of a nation could be
“completely enumerated” in a constitution. 2 ELLIOT’S DEBATES at 453-454.

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American colonies, and then in all of the states after independence, followed the English common
law principles of jus soli, that is, that birth in the territory governed citizenship at birth, regardless
of the nationality or citizenship of one’s parents.108 Sandford found that it would be
“inconceivable” that the framers, in drafting the Constitution, would abandon without explicit
comment or explanation in the document, the existing law in all of the colonies, and then in all of
the states, of who were natural born citizens in favor of an “international” or “natural” law theory
of citizenship by “descent” (through one’s father), an argument pressed by one of the litigants
relying, in part, on Vattel. Addressing specifically the question of the use of the term “natural
born citizen” in the federal Constitution as one of the qualifications for President, Vice Chancellor
Sandford found the following:
It is a necessary consequence, from what I have stated that the law which had prevailed
on this subject, in all the states, became the governing principle or common law of the
United States. Those states were the constituent parts of the United States, and when the
union was formed, and further state regulation on the point terminated, it follows, in the
absence of a declaration to the contrary, that the principle that prevailed and was the law
on such point in all the states, became immediately the governing principle and rule of
law thereon in the nation formed by such union.... The term citizen, was used in the
constitution as a word, the meaning of which was already established and well
understood. And the constitution itself contains a direct recognition of the subsisting
common law principle, in the section that defines the qualification of the President. “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,” &c. The only
standard which then existed, of natural born citizen, was the rule of the common law, and
no different standard has been adopted since. Suppose a person should be elected
President who was native born, but of alien parents, could there be any reasonable doubt
that he was eligible under the Constitution? I think not. The position would be decisive in
his favor that by the rule of common law, in force when the constitution was adopted, he
is a citizen.
Moreover, the absence of any avowal or expression in the constitution of a design to
affect the existing law of the country on this subject, is conclusive against the existence
of such design. It is inconceivable that the representatives of the thirteen sovereign states,
assembled in convention for the purpose of framing a confederation and union for
national purposes, should have intended to subvert the long-established rule of law
governing their constituents on a question of such great moment to them all, without
solemnly providing for the change in the constitution; still more that they should have
come to that conclusion without even once declaring their object.109

The treatise in question by Emmerich de Vattel was a work concerning the “law of nations,”
which we would now classify generally as “international law.” However, the concept of
citizenship within a particular country is one governed not by international law or law of nations,
but rather is governed by municipal law, that is, the internal law of each country.110 Vattel’s
writings on citizenship by “descent” reflected in many circumstances what the law or practice
may have been in certain European nations at the time—that is, that citizenship followed the
108

Lynch v. Clarke, 3 N.Y. Leg. Obs. 236, 242, 244 (1 Sand. ch. 583) (1844). This case was cited with approval by the
Supreme Court in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, at 664, 674, and also by the U.S. Court of Appeals in In re Look Tin
Sing, 21 F. 905, 909 (Cal. Cir. 1884).
109
Lynch v. Clark at 246-247. Emphasis in original.
110
Inglis v. Sailors’ Snug Harbor, 3 Pet. 99, 162 (1830); United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649, 668 (1898);
Perkins v. Elg, 307 U.S. 325, 329, (1939); Lynch v. Clark at 249; see also Frederick Van Dyne (Assistant Solicitor,
Department of State), CITIZENSHIP OF THE UNITED STATES, at 3-4 (New York 1904).

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nationality or citizenship of one’s father, as opposed to the place of birth.111 This concept,
although prevalent on the European Continent was, even as expressly noted in Vattel’s work
itself, clearly not the law in England or thus the American colonies,112 and clearly was not the
concept and common understanding upon which U.S. law was based. James Madison, often
referred to as the “Father of the Constitution,” expressly explained in the House of
Representatives in the First Congress, in 1789, that with regard to citizenship the “place” of birth,
and not “parentage” was the controlling concept adopted in the United States.113 Additionally, the
Supreme Court in 1971 simply and succinctly explained, after citing historical legal precedent:
“We thus have an acknowledgment that our law in this area follows English concepts with an
acceptance of the jus soli, that is, the place of birth governs citizenship status except as modified
by statute.”114 Again in 1998, the Supreme Court expressly recognized jus soli, the place of birth,
as controlling in the United States, noting that in this country “citizenship does not pass by
descent” except as provided by Congress in statute.115
The “common” understanding of the term “natural born” citizen during the revolutionary period,
the time of the drafting of the Constitution, and in the generation after, was that of one who was a
citizen “at birth” (and the principal factor in the United States, as in England, was the place of
birth within the country, rather than that of ancestry, lineage, or descent, except as provided in
statute). This common understanding and usage has continued up until this day as the term
“natural born” citizen has entered the popular, legal lexicon as defined as: “A citizen by birth, as
distinguished from a citizen who has been naturalized,”116 and the meaning of “natural born” in
common, general usage as “having a specified status or character by birth.”117

111

See discussion of European nations following concepts of citizenship by “descent” through one’s father, in
Flournoy, Dual Nationality and Election, 30 YALE LAW JOURNAL, at 554-559. Vattel explained that the citizenship of
“children naturally follow the condition of their fathers,” and that “in order to be of the country, it is necessary that a
person be born of a father who is a citizen ....” Vattel, LAW OF NATIONS, at Ch. XIX, p. 101 (1797 ed.). It is interesting
to recognize that Vattel never expressly postulated a “two-citizen” parent requirement for what he described as natives
or indigenes. Rather, grammatically, the plural of parent or relative (parens) merely conforms to the plural subject of
“natives” or “indegenes.” That is, for example, if the rule is that the “children born in the United States of foreign
diplomats” are not to be considered natural born “citizens” of the United States under common law principles, such
statement does not necessarily require that both parents must be foreign diplomats to deny such U.S. citizenship status
to that child. See, e.g., In re Thenault, 47 F.Supp. 952 (D.D.C. 1942).
112
Vattel, LAW OF NATIONS, at Ch. XIX, p. 102 (1797 ed.). See discussion by the Connecticut Supreme Court of Errors,
in Town of New Hartford v. Town of Canaan, 5 A. 360 (Conn. 1886): “In Field’s International Code, 132, it is said: ‘A
legitimate child, wherever born, is a member of the nation of which its father at the time of its birth was a member.’
Upon this Morse, in his work on Citizenship, p. 17, thus comments: ‘This is the law in most European States
(Westlake, p. 16; Foelix, p. 54), but not in England or in the United States.’”
113
“It is an established maxim that birth is a criterion of allegiance. Birth, however, derives its force sometimes from
place, and sometimes from parentage; but, in general, place is the most certain criterion; it is what applies in the United
States ....” James Madison, explaining the citizenship eligibility of Representative-elect William Smith, in the election
contest of Ramsay v. Smith, 1st Cong., 1st Sess. (1789), in Clarke and Hall, CASES OF CONTESTED ELECTIONS IN
CONGRESS, FROM THE YEAR 1789 TO 1834, INCLUSIVE, at p. 33 (Washington 1834).
114
Rogers v. Bellei, 401 U.S. 815, 828 (1971).
115
Miller v. Albright, 523 U.S. 420, 434, n.11 (1998).
116
BALLENTINE’S LAW DICTIONARY, at 831 (“natural-born citizen”) (3rd ed. 1969). See also BLACK’S LAW DICTIONARY,
at 278 (“natural-born citizen”) (9th ed. 2009) “A person born within the jurisdiction of a national government.”
117
WEBSTER’S THIRD NEW INTERNATIONAL DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, UNABRIDGED, at p. 1507 (1976)
(note specific reference to presidential eligibility). It may also be noted that the English word “natural,” according to
the OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY, is rooted in the “Middle English (in the sense ‘having a certain status by birth’) ….”

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Citizenship at Birth: Case Law and Interpretations
The evidence of historical intent, general understandings, and common law principles underlying
American jurisprudence thus indicate that the most reasonable interpretation of “natural born”
citizens would include those who are considered U.S. citizens “at birth” or “by birth,” either by
the operation of the strict “common law” of jus soli derived from English common law
(physically born in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction, without reference to parentage
or lineage), or under existing federal statutory law incorporating long-standing concepts of jus
sanguinis, the law of descent, including those born abroad of U.S. citizen-parents. This general
historical understanding and interpretation is supported, as well, by specific federal case law in
the United States, and in official legal opinions of U.S. officers.

Legal Background and Historical Cases
Although the Supreme Court has not needed to rule specifically on the presidential eligibility
clause, as discussed in more detail below, numerous federal cases, as well as state cases, for more
than a century have used the term “natural born citizen” to describe a person born in this country
and under its jurisdiction, even to parents who were aliens in the U.S.118 Additionally, several
Supreme Court cases, as well as numerous constitutional scholars, have used the term “native
born” citizen to indicate all of those children physically born in the country (and subject to its
jurisdiction), without reference to parentage or lineage, and employed such term in reference to
those citizens eligible to be President under the “natural born” citizenship clause, as opposed to
“naturalized” citizens, who are not.119 In no currently controlling legal opinion in American
jurisprudence has the citizenship or nationality of one’s parents or forebears been considered a
determining factor in the eligibility of a citizen born within the United States to be President, and
no holding in any case in federal court has ever established a “two citizen-parent” requirement, or
other requirement of lineage or bloodline, for such a “native born” U.S. citizen to be eligible for
the Presidency.
Some of the legal arguments based on American jurisprudence forwarded by those who support
an alternate and highly exclusionary reading of the term “natural born” citizen (including reading
into the Constitution a requirement for one to have two U.S. citizen-parents) often begin with a
citation to language in the 1857 Dred Scott decision, Scott v. Sandford.120 The Dred Scott
118

Lynch v. Clarke, 3 N.Y. Leg. Obs. 236 (1 Sand. ch. 583) (1844); United States v. Rhodes, 27 Fed. Case 785 (No.
16151) (C.C. Ky. 1866); In re Look Tin Sing, 21 F. 905, 906 (Cal. Cir. 1884); Town of New Hartford v. Town of
Canaan, 5 A. 360 (Conn. 1886); United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649, 662-63, 674-75 (1898); Kwock Jan Fat
v. White, 253 U.S. 454, 457 (1920); Dos Reis ex rel. Camara, 68 F.Supp. 773, 774 (D.Mass. 1946); Yamauchi v.
Rogers, 181 F. Supp. 934, 935-936 (D.D.C. 1960); Nwankpa v. Kissinger, 376 F. Supp. 122, 123 (E.D. Ala. 1974);
Diaz-Salazar v. INS, 700 F.2d 1156, 1160 (7th Cir. 1982), cert. denied, 462 U.S. 1132 (1983); Mustata v. U.S.
Department of Justice, 179 F.3d 1017, 1019 (6th Cir. 1999); Hollander v. McCain, 566 F.Supp.2d 63, 66 (D.N.H.
2008); Ankeny v. Governor of the State of Indiana, 916 NE2d 678, 688 (2009), pet. to transfer jur. den. (Ind. Supreme
Court, April 5, 2010).
119
Luria v. United States, 231 U.S. 9, 22 (1913); United States v. Schwimmer, 279 U.S. 644, 649 (1929); United States
v. MacIntosh, 283 U.S. 605 (1931); Schneider v. Rusk, 377 U.S. 163, 165 (1963); Kent, COMMENTARIES ON AMERICAN
LAW, at 273 (Vol. I, 2d ed. 1832); Story, A FAMILIAR EXPOSITION OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES, §271,
at 167 (Boston 1840); St. George Tucker, William Blackstone, BLACKSTONE’S COMMENTARIES: WITH NOTES AND
REFERENCE TO THE CONSTITUTION AND LAWS, OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND OF THE
COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA, Vol. I, App. at 323 (Philadelphia 1803); Gordon, Mailman, & Yale-Loehr,
IMMIGRATION LAW AND PROCEDURE, Vol. 7, §§91.02[4][a] and §91.02[4][c] (rev. ed. 2010).
120
Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 Howard) 393 (1857).

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decision, in addition to denying that even freed slaves or their progeny could be “citizens” of the
United States (and thus finding that the specific petitioner in that case did not have the capacity to
bring the original suit under consideration), attempted to provide legal justification under the
Constitution for human slavery in the United States and the resultant treatment of “negroes of the
African race” as property and chattel without rights under the Constitution. In so doing, the Court
fashioned a very exclusive understanding, eventually rejected and overturned by later Supreme
Court decisions, of who were “citizens” of the United States, even if one were born to
emancipated slaves in this country. The opinion of the Court, written by Chief Justice Taney,
noted that the status of those “whose ancestors were negroes of the African race … imported into
this country, and sold and held as slaves” was that of non-citizens.121 That is, that even
“descendants of such slaves, when they shall be emancipated, or who had been born of parents
who had become free before their birth” were “not intended to be included, under the word
‘citizens’ in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that
instrument provides….”122 The Court based such findings regarding citizenship and ancestry on
the opinion that such persons did not make up, and were not thought to be part of the community
or the “political body” of the “sovereign people” of the United States who ratified the
Constitution, and were thus not “a constituent member of this sovereignty” since “they were at
that time considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings, who had been subjugated by the
dominant race, and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained subject to their authority for, and
had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the Government might
choose to grant them.”123
In a concurring opinion in Scott v. Sandford, one Justice cited to Vattel’s discussion of citizenship
and “natural born” citizen (as later interpretations into English had expressed the French usage in
his treatise, Law of Nations), not specifically with regard or intent to define “natural born”
citizenship in reference to presidential eligibility, but rather to support his opinion that Negroes
brought to America as slaves, as well as their progeny, could not be citizens of the United
States.124 It should be noted that this particular opinion was not only a concurring opinion, not
joined by any other Justice in the Dred Scott decision, but that such concurrence by Justice Daniel
has never formed the basis or authority for any majority ruling of a federal court in the history of
American jurisprudence. 125 Similar to the opinion of the Court, Justice Daniels’ opinion has been
superseded and con

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/documents/crs%3AR42097. Public record. Not legal advice.