Pretty close. Embassies are given the presumption of extraterritorial status, which exempts them from most local laws. However, the premises are still technically part of the host country, despite the fact that for all practical purposes, they are “foreign soil.”
The Constitution uses commas in ways that modern grammarians would frown on.
The passage means:
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
Since the United States were only a few years old at the time of the adoption of the constitution, any natural born citizens of the United States would be only a few years old. If we take it that the United States began existance on July 4, 1776, and the Constitution was ratified in 1787, then any natural born citizens of the United States would be no older than 11 years old.
And of course, the main purpose of the natural born citizen requirement was to prevent the common-at-the-time European practice of importing foreign aristocrats to serve as king when the previous line of kings didn’t quite work out. See the House of Hannover, William of Orange, and so on. The head of state of the United States was required to be an American, not some German princeling.
More can be read here, in a commentary given on a well-known message board.
Thanks, Cerowyn. An extra question about that, if you don’t mind. What’s the deal on someone with diplomatic status giving birth while located in the foreign country which has extended diplomatic status to said diplomat? For example, say a German diplomat gave birth in the New York while posted to the United Nations. Would the child be considered also a natural born US citizen?
The answer is no. 8 U.S.C. 1401 mirrors the language of the 14th amendment, “born in the US and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” That final clause has been interpreted to exclude the children of diplomats and the children of invading armies.
I just checked some references on the history of the Coco Solo Naval Base and the Hospital. The Coco Solo Hospital shown in that photo, although it was on a base at the time, was not built until 1942, so it was not the hospital McCain was born in.
I was somewhat mistaken about the status of the area of Coco Solo and the hospital. While these have not been “on base” since I have been working in Panama (since 1977), they were formerly parts of military bases.
However, this is a bit moot unless the simple fact of birth on a US overseas military base would confer US citizenship, and I am not aware it does.
As I mentioned, in general birth in the Canal Zone gave no special status with regard to US citizenship. If your parent(s) were citizens, then you would be; if not, you were not. There was one exception: the residence requirement mentioned by flodnak above was waived. A child of a US citizen had no requirement to live in the US at any time in order to be able to pass on his US citizenship to his offspring. However, this provision ended after the Canal Zone ceased to exist.
There was a challenge to the vice presidency in 2000.
The result of those lawsuits:
Jones v. Bush, 122 F. Supp. 2d 713, 715 (D. Tex. 2000).
The judge also commented that the case would lose on the merits anyway. The standing issue probably could have been overcome if the DNC or Gore had filed the suit, but it probably still would have lost on political question, if not the merits.
The following from C.I.S. may be relevant:
On the presumption that being a U.S. citizen at birth is a “natural-born citizen” McCain would be covered – if not by jus soli then by just sanguinis.
The key word in the C.I.S. description is “almost.” We are discussing just one such gray area. It rightly points out that the 14th has been interpreted as Constitutionally implementing the principle of jus soli. The question is what *jus soli *would tell us about McCain. Jus soli has its origins in feudal sovereignty. If you were born under the power of the king, you were his subject, and he was your king. As **Colibri **has mentioned above, one did not automatically become a US citizen by being born in the Canal Zone. The nature of US sovereignty there may be materially different from the sort of sovereignty inherent in jus soli.
Jus sanguins comes from the Roman tradition; the rule in England was jus soli. That is why jus sanguins had to be added by statute. And, of course, the statute doesn’t settle anything. Congress is not free to define a constitutional term however it chooses. It cannot define “natural-born” to mean born in a farmhouse, for example.
So a court would have to examine one or both questions: 1) Does the principle of *jus soli *imbedded in the 14th Amendment include McCain? And 2) Is the INA’s jus sanguins-based definition of natural-born citizen Constitutional?
Neither question has an open-and-shut answer, as the article points out. The answer to the second question depends on how the court defines “natural-born.” Originalism largely fails us here. The framers did not believe that, say, American Indians were citizens. Indeed even the 14th amendment didn’t change that according to the Supreme Court in* Elk v. Wilkins*. So we are left with the less predictable methods of Constitutional interpretation. We’ve no doctrine at all to rely on. So this would largely be a prudential question. Which brings us back to reality, of course, since prudential concerns will prevent this case from ever seeing the inside of a courtroom anyway.
The Yale Law Review article I cited earlier is well worth a read if you have access to such things. It discusses all of this much more intelligently than I have done.
New York Times weighs in:
McCain’s Canal Zone Birth Prompts Queries About Whether That Rules Him Out
Pssst. Post 69.
Whoops. You’re quick!
I’d probably never vote for McCain, but I have no doubt that he’s eligible to serve as President. You want to tell U.S. servicemen and -women living abroad, serving their country across the globe, that their kids at the moment of birth become ineligible to serve as President? Yeah, good luck. Let me know how that works out for you.
Even aside from the contemporary political calculation, consider original intent. As near as we can determine, the Framers were concerned about shifty furriners trying to subvert the U.S. They weren’t concerned about the kids of military personnel born abroad, or indeed the kids of U.S. citizens living abroad for whatever reason, stealthily becoming President.
Is the Constitution kinda ambiguous on this point? Unfortunately, yes. Is it at all likely to keep McCain or anyone similarly-situated from becoming President? Nope.
I don’t know if this was directed at me, but I just want to make clear (again) that I’m not advocating that anyone challenge McCain. Like the Times, I’m just interested in it as an academic question. There is no doubt in my mind that as a policy matter McCain should be eligible for President. Indeed, even as a legal matter, I think it’s pretty clear. But not totally frivolous. That’s all.
True, to an extent. Their main purpose does appear to have been to prevent the importation of foreign aristocracy. Nonetheless, we can come up with reasons why they would have limited the principle in a way that is more limited than the current statute. Perhaps they believed you needed to be raised in the U.S. cultural environment, for example.
Just to say again, for anyone coming into this thread late, everyone agrees that this will never make it into a court for half a dozen reasons.
No, it wasn’t. No worries.
McCain insists it’s no problem but doesn’t know why his campaign asked for a legal opinion on the subject, and Obama is cosponsoring a bill to make it clear that McCain and anyone else born to U.S. troops while serving abroad is eligible to serve as President:
So, if it’s a Political Question and the courts won’t hear it, then why not Gov Arnie?
Has anyone ever proposed that Arnold is a natural-born citizen?