Natural Born Citizen Clause In The United States

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INTRODUCTION

Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the United States Constitution says: “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.” Throughout the twenty-first century, several presidential candidates faced questions about their eligibility surrounding this Natural Born Citizen clause. For example, detractors accused President Barack Obama and Vice President Kamala Harris of not being natural born; their conspiracy theories ultimately revealed themselves as being rooted in a racialized ideology about what characteristics define someone as an American. Senator John McCain was accused of not being natural born because …show more content…
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was not eligible to run because he immigrated from Austria and was naturalized in 1983. These case studies reveal the two core problems with the Natural Born Citizen clause: inequality and ambiguity. The first problem is that the clause creates a division in the American population, as in that there are two types of citizens: “natural born” and not-“natural born.” Given the idea in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal,” this unequal positing is against the core principles on which the nation was built. United States Citizenship and Immigration Services outlines two rights specific to American citizens: the right to vote and the right to run for federal office. By insisting that all presidential candidates be “natural born,” the Constitution denies some citizens the right to run for the highest federal office, thereby limiting the rights people should have as American citizens, and entrenches political inequality. The second issue is there is no definition of the term “natural born” in American legal text. Therefore, it can be unclear which American citizens fall under the “natural born” category and …show more content…
Examples of both Democrats and Republicans who have faced issues relating to the Natural Born Citizen clause continue. Though there is no record of debate between the Framers about the definition of the term “natural born,” writings on adjacent topics reveal framers’ fear of foreign influence. For example, in 1786, it was rumored that Nathaniel Gorham (6th President of the Confederation Congress) invited Prince Henry of Prussia to move to the United States to be its first king. Wealth was highly concentrated in European nobility, so rumors like this stoked fear among the Framers that a wealthy foreign noble could entice American citizens despite having a stronger allegiance to a foreign nation. In his famous Farewell Address, in 1796, President George Washington expressed concern about the ability of the new nation to defend itself against a foreign power, using language such as “tamper,” “seduce,” and “mislead” to describe potential interactions between foreign nobles and the American public. He shows very little faith in American voters to perceive manipulation by foreign forces that do not have American best interests at heart. At the time, fears about a foreign noble buying power in the American government
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