What is your concept of the US Constitution's requirement that the President be a "natural born" citizen?

"Natural born citizen" to me means born as a citizen. Meaning, upon birth, you are a citizen.
It seems fairly straight forward to me.

When born they were a Citizen.

Now, here is where it gets more complex.

Art 1, Sec 8, Clause 4 - Naturalization Clause (Congressional Power):

"The Congress shall have Power To...establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization"

Congress Legislates how that works for anyone NOT born on US Soil (14a):

"All PERSONS BORN or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, ARE CITIZENS of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." (Emphasis Added)

So if you are born on US Soil, you ARE a US Citizen. Period.

However, if you are born OUTSIDE US Soil, it becomes HIGHLY DEBATABLE.

This is where "jus sanguinis" or "Citizenship through Bloodline" comes into play.

Back when the Constitution was written, you inherited your Citizenship from your FATHER (not Mother). A woman from her father or her husband.

Now in modern times, Women have their own Citizenship so a child can inherit it from either parent, and this is codified in US Law:

https://www.uscis.gov/us-citizenship/citizenship-through-parents

But in recent years this has become increasingly complex, as is noted in the cases of:

Senator McCain (Born in Panama, BEFORE it became the Panama Canal Zone)
President Obama (Born to US Citizen Mother, Non Citizen Father, On US Soil)
Senator Cruz (Born in Canada [another jus soli nation], to US Citizen Mother [non-resident], Non Citizen Father)

"Natural born" refers to someone born that does not "have to go through the naturalization process" as defined by the Supreme Court. There is a very good article from the Harvard Law Review specifically about this.

Granted at birth. The Naturalization Act of 1790 was pretty clear on that. The Act of 1795 didn't contain that language, yes, but neither did it define it in a contradictory manner.

The person is granted his/her citizenship by birth.

We elected Barrack Obama who was not a natural born citizen because his father was a foreigner. This election cycle we suddenly have three Republicans who are not qualified.

Marco Rubio. Born in Florida to two Cuban parents.
Ted Cruz. Born in Alberta, Canada to a Canadian father. He has a Canadian birth certificate. Both of Ted's parents emigrated to Canada before Ted was born there.
Bobby Jindal. He has dropped out, but his parents were both Indian citizens when he was born.

If you noticed my previous list of Supreme Court finding that say what constitutes a natural born citizen you must wonder what is going on. Add to that the fact that there were eight attempts to pass legislation to change the meaning of NBC by Congress between 2003 - 2008; just before Obama showed ou on the radar.

A common misunderstanding of “natural born” citizenship comes from the Fourteenth Amendment, but a strict reading of the fourteenth amendment is quite clear that this only conveys an at birth naturalized citizenship. Those born in the United States at the time of adoption and afterwards were only citizens. Those who wrote the amendment knew exactly what they were doing. Because of the distinctive use of “natural born citizen” and “citizen,” in Article II, Section 1 the simple fact that being born in the United States does not make one a “natural born citizen,” it only makes one “a citizen.”

The Fourteenth amendment states in Section 1,
Section 1 - “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
Obviously missing is the conveyance of “natural born” status to these citizens. In fact what is obviously included in the text is the term “naturalized.” This section has several clauses, the first deals with citizenship. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. The second deals with prohibiting the states from passing laws denying the protection of citizenship from any citizen, “natural born” or naturalized. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

The fifth section details something very important, it reads
Section 5 – “The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.”

Article 1, Section 8 enumerated the powers Congress has. The only power Congress has over citizenship is found here. It reads,“To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;” To make the freed slaves citizens, naturalization was the only power the 14th Amendment granted Congress to use. Look it up in the Constitution. Congress had no intention and no authority to making everyone born under the 14th Amendment “a natural born citizen.” This is born out by Congressional records regarding the debate of the Fourteenth Amendment. By the chief architect of Section 1 of this amendment.

“I find no fault with the introductory clause, which is simply declaratory of what is written in the Constitution, that every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen; but, sir, I may be allowed to say further, that I deny that the Congress of the United States ever had the power or color of power to say that any man born within the jurisdiction of the United States, and not owing a foreign allegiance, is not and shall not be a citizen of the United States.” John A. Bingham, (R-Ohio) US Congressman, Architect of Section 1 of the 14th Amendment, March 9, 1866 Cong. Globe, 39th, 1st Sess., 1291 (1866), Sec. 1992 of U.S. Revised Statutes (1866), Cf. U.S. Const. XIVth Amend.

There is no doubt that anyone born under the 14th Amendment who is not subject is a “naturalized citizen,” or just “a citizen,” as the Amendment states. They are not natural born citizens.
To further understand why this is so, is to look at the first clause carefully.

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.

The words “born or naturalized” are joined with the conjunction “or,” and logically an or implies either of the two are equal. What they are equal in is being a citizen. Not “a natural born citizen.” This expressly negates the idea that simple birth of a person who is “subject to the jurisdiction” confers the coveted “natural born” status. If the term “citizen” did in fact convey a “natural born” status, then who were naturalized would be considered “natural born.”

Obviously, this is not the case, as it would mean that people like Kissinger, Albright and Schwarzenegger could run for office. Clearly, the Fourteenth Amendment is not conferring “natural born” status on anyone, it only confers simple citizenship and the universal rights given to all citizens, “native born” and naturalized. In fact, several Supreme Court Cases since the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment restrict citizenship claims based on being born geographically within the United States, and bestows the coveted “natural born citizen” title to the children of citizens, while affirming simple citizenship to the children born to aliens.



1. The Slaughterhouse Cases 83 U.S. 36 (1873) The Fourteenth Amendment excludes the children of aliens. “The phrase, "subject to its jurisdiction" was intended to exclude from its operation children of ministers, consuls, and citizens or subjects of foreign States born within the United States.”

2. Minor v. Happersett 88 U.S. 162 (1874) The Fourteenth Amendment draws a distinction between the children of aliens and children of citizens. “The Constitution does not in words say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also.”

3. Elk v. Wilkins 112 U.S. 94 (1884) The phrase "subject to the jurisdiction" requires "direct and immediate allegiance" to the United States, not just physical presence. “This section contemplates two sources of citizenship, and two sources only: birth and naturalization. The persons declared to be citizens are "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof." The evident meaning of these last words is not merely subject in some respect or degree to the jurisdiction of the United States, but completely subject to their political jurisdiction and owing them direct and immediate allegiance. And the words relate to the time of birth in the one case, as they do to the time of naturalization in the other. Persons not thus subject to the jurisdiction of the United States at the time of birth cannot become so afterwards except by being naturalized, either individually, as by proceedings under the naturalization acts, or collectively, as by the force of a treaty by which foreign territory is acquired.”

4. Wong Kim Ark Case, 169 U.S. 649 (1898) Affirms that “natural born citizen,” is the child of an existing citizen. “The right of citizenship never descends in the legal sense, either by the common law or under the common naturalization acts. It is incident to birth in the country, or it is given personally by statute. The child of an alien, if born in the country, is as much a citizen as the natural born child of a citizen, and by operation of the same principle.”

5. Perkins v. Elg, 307 U. S. 325 (1939) In citing a long series of cases, involving minors removed from their US domicile by their foreign born parents, the Supreme Court distinguishes the difference of “a native born person” of two naturalized citizens can become President. This distinction of citizenship is not made to the others, only that their Jus soli citizenship is intact if at the age of majority they reclaim it.

As you can see from the intent of the Founding Fathers to the Supreme Court decision that “a natural born” is the child of citizens. A natural born citizen is not the child of an alien. In this there is no doubt. While many patriots will argue with clear conviction “natural born” should be narrowly interpreted as to mean both parents must be citizens, giving birth to that child under the jurisdiction of the United States of America, they do accept that Jus sanguinis citizenship can be passed from one parent in accordance to the law of the land at the time of birth. So what was the law of the land at the time for giving a person Jus sanguinis citizenship?

There three ways for a person claim citizenship, what most of us think of first is called Jus soli, “the right of the soil,” which is the physical location your place of birth. The second is what is called Jus sanguinis, “the right of blood,” which you inherit from your parents. The third is a combination of Jus soli and Jus sanguinis, and it is this combination that determines if one is a natural born citizen. Since any citizenship under Jus solis is codified by the Fourteenth Amendment, we only find laws for passing citizenship via Jus sanguinis on August 4th, 1961 in the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (McCarran-Walter Act).
Common sense tells us that both Jus soli and Jus sanguinis are what the Founding Fathers intended when they penned the phrase “a natural born citizen.” For imagine foreigners owing allegiance to a foreign power, arriving in America, giving birth to a child and immediately returning home to their country with their child. This child is reared for 21 years in a culture that hates America and that wants to see America destroyed. On the child’s 21st birthday this child returns to the United States of America, claiming their citizenship based Jus soli. For fourteen years they live in the United States, supported covertly by these foreign powers, growing in wealth and stature until they reach the age of 35 years. This scenario cumulates with this child of the soil, not having one drop of American blood in their veins, becoming President and destroying this country. Considering that countries are a creation of mankind, and non-existent in nature, natural loyalties are too blood. “To disregard such a deliberate choice of words and their natural meaning would be a departure from the first principle of constitutional interpretation. 'In expounding the Constitution of the United States, every word must have its due force, and appropriate meaning; for it is evident from the whole instrument, that no word was unnecessarily used, or needlessly added. The many discussions which have taken place upon the construction of the constitution, have proved the correctness of this proposition; and shown the high talent, the caution, and the foresight of the illustrious men who framed it. Every word appears to have been weighed with the utmost deliberation, and its force and effect to have been fully understood.” Chief Justice Roger B. Taney

The Constitution directly specified 3 types of citizens, at the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment as those who are “citizens,” those who were citizens at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, and natural born citizens. The architects of the Fourteenth Amendment had two to choose from in granting citizenship under this amendment, they choose just a citizen, and rejected “a natural born citizen.”

It means not a naturalized citizen.
For most, that means born in the United States or it's territories.
For a few (like my little brother), born of a citizen parent.
Where it gets froggy is where you are born in a country where if your born there, you garner citizenship of that country as well. Technically, you are a dual citizen unless you renounce one or the other.

Natural Born in Old English meant born on the soil. Any new interpretation requires and amendment to the US Constitution and not decisions by the courts. But perhaps and old dictionary.

To me it means "Born on US soil." I believe that was the context in that it was written at the time.

It seems fairly straight forward. But looking as other comments, its obviously not that simple.