Interestingly, there was a Constitutional Amendment proposed a few years ago addressing this very topic. You can read the text of the hearing here.
And here is a site from a Professor at Syracuse who discusses some of the possible reasoning behind the original clause. He is clearly in favor of the Amendment, and even testified at the hearings.
Enjoy!
I understand feeling protective of your thread, Muad’Dib, but you could invest some thought in a post before dismissing it. If you still don’t understand you might ask rather than jump to conclusions. Optihut is insinuating that because Hitler did it it must be bad. The standard example for pointing out the error of the Guilt by Association Fallacy is “Hitler said the sky was blue so it can’t be blue.” My post was merely a sarcastic variation of that explanation. A humorous one I thought but jokes really aren’t funny if you have to explain them. I have no animosity toward Opithut. I am not even familiar her/him.
Since someone asked, “What if a foreign-born person became part of the chain of succession,” I should point out that several foreign-born people HAVE! The Secretary of State is part of the chain of succession to the Presidency (next after the President pro tempore of the Senate), and we’ve had at least two Secretaries of State in recent memory who were born overseas: Henry Kissinger and Madeleine Albright.
In case of a disaster or emergency, neither would have been eligible for the Presidency, so the next person in line would probably have been the Defense Secretary at the time.
Is the prohibition necessary? Probably not, but until such time as an EXTREMELY attractive potential candidate comes along who’s disqualified by his place of birth, I don’t see any likelihood that many people will call for a change. And so far, I can’t think of any outstanding contenders we’ve lost because of the rule.
What, you think he would have been a great humanitarian leader if he’d been elected in Austria?
US State Department actively discourages but tolerates dual citizenship. It’s been a struggle and very inconvenient keeping my daughter’s dual nationality.
[If anyone cares, last week the same charge d’affairs consular head that’s been giving me grief for 3 years, actually agreed to disagree and made it easy to get a proforma visa this time around.]
I must admit as someone from the UK i find it quite strange that there seems to be such prominence in your place of birth, mainly due to the fact that people describe themselves in the US as Irish Americans, African Americans etc, etc never just Americans.
Ah, good point. To answer the rhetorical question anyway: No, I don’t think that (although he’d have been less dangerous, but that’s beside the point here).
And 2sense is right that one negative example doesn’t prove anything, especially since a lot of people gave positive examples as well.
That aside, I still have the impression that “natives” of a country have a closer emotional tie to the country and are more interested in its well being than a foreigner, who acquired citizenship. Certainly there are exceptions to this, but as ElJeffe pointed out, the gains of removing that requisite are minor anyway.
I have to say that I didn’t understand your post either and would have preferred a pit thread and a link to it as well 
To clarify my post in question a bit: My intention was not to say “Hitler did it, it must be bad” - we are not talking about finding a bottle of coca cola in a serial killers fridge and me shouting “See? Hitler liked to drink Coke too, no wonder the guy is a serial killer!”. The reference to Hitler was done to give a negative example, which could have been “prevented” (This is in quotation marks, because Priceguy already illustrated that Hitler could still have run for presidency in Austria) by that rule. I regarded it as directly relevant to the OP and didn’t throw it in as the usual and generic “Hitler said the sky was blue so it can’t be blue.” reasoning you mentioned.
Hopefully that clears it up.
Its a hot topic in the international adoption community. Our kids are naturalized citizens (however, at least they are now automatically naturalized upon adoption - four years ago we had to submit the paperwork to have them naturalized). So you could get a child who has been in the US since they were six months old, raised by US citizens, who would have the qualifications and interest to be president and be disqualified.
I can see a time requirement - you have to be X years old and have been a US citizen for X years. Just to keep us from naturalizing someone for the purpose running them for office.
obo, this may sound like boilerplate from a Fourth of July speech, but there really is a difference here (and in some other countries). The US is a land of immigrants. We, or our parents or some other recent generation, all came here from somewhere else, and that somewhere else does partly define our identities. It really is of interest to each other, as well as to ourselves, what our backgrounds are; that helps us establish common ground for communication and community. The other part of our identities is our Americanness - not defined ethnically, but by ideology, by devotion to democracy and freedom etc. It not only makes sense, but is almost imperative, to define ourselves as both (nationality of origin) - American to show that we are both.
Optihut, I think you have it backwards. In my experience talking with naturalized Americans, and I do know more than a few, it has always impressed me how much more dedicated to the ideals that define Americanism they often are than are those who were fortunate enough to be born here. The immigrants all thought hard about what they were and wanted to be, and most of all why, and have made the conscious decision and commitment to America that the native-born never have to face. You see that effect in religion, too, where the converts are often the most devout. The effect isn’t just an American one, either; the same can be said of nearly any democratic republic, I suppose, but it’s perhaps closer to the surface here.
It follows that I agree the clause is outdated and should be eliminated.
autz, if you’ve been a US citizen since birth, wherever that happened to occur, you’re eligible.
ElJeffe, the minimum age is 35, not 40.
ElvisL1ves : Thanks for the thoughtful reply, I can appreciate the reasoning for this. My main concern is that perhaps the emphasising of origin somehow increases the possible divisivness
of a society built mainly on immigration, just a thought to ponder on.
To repeat an earlier point… while I don’t think there’s any real NEED for the rule against foreign-born American citizens becoming President, I don’t think there’s ever going to be a major public outcry to change the law until there’s a specific candidate who’s affected by it. And not just ANY old candidate, but one who’s widely perceived as an ideal candidate for President.
Thus far, there haven’t been any such candidates. Whatever their qualifications, I just don’t see Henry Kissinger or Madeleine Albright as successful campaigners.
So, who IS there that would make a great Presidential candidate EXCEPT for the fact that he/she was born outside the U.S.?
One of the few names that comes to mind is Jennifer Granholm, the governor of Michigan. I’ve heard a few Democrats say she’d be a very positive addition to a Presidential ticket if she hadn’t been born in Canada. But is Governor Granholm such an attractive potential candidate that people would get psyched up t change the law just on HER behalf? It seems doubtful.
And others too numerous to quote…
Actually, George I could speak English. The myth that he couldn’t was debunked quarter of a century ago by his leading biographer, Ragnhild Hatton. George had known since at least 1700 that he would probably inherit the British throne and so had made an effort to learn the language. This meant that he had a passable knowledge of it when he arrived in 1714. He then steadily improved as the reign progressed. It was just that he was never comfortable about speaking it in public and, in any case, it placed him at an advantage if everyone had to speak to him in German or French (which he also knew). He is also known to have been able to speak Italian and Dutch.
George II was more or less fluent, although with a heavy German accent, while George III never once left England.
Accusing George III of being German was a cheap shot, but a very effective one, on the part of the American Revolutionaries. Indeed, present-day republicans in Britain still use it against the current Royal Family. The clause in the Constitution was little more than populist zenophobia dressed up as high political principle.
Madeline Albright has come up a couple of times now. Oddly, although she can’t be President of the United States, she was on the verge of being offered the Presidency of her native Czech Republic before graciously declining. Seems they don’t even require citizenship, although it’s a ceremonial post.
One other reason to eliminate the clause, btw, is that it sends the message that Americans by thought and choice are somehow necessarily inferior to Americans by accident of birth. That ain’t right.
No, that’s too harsh a characterization. The framers as a group were neither populist nor xenophobic. You have to put yourself in their world. They didn’t know that the United States would one day be a superpower, and that other countries would be worried about us meddling in their politics rather than the reverse. The United States of 1787 was hemmed in by Spain on two sides and Great Britain on a third, and had been utterly dependent on French help to win the Revolutionary War. Within the 70 prior years, European countries had fought continent-wide wars over the succession to the thrones of Spain, Austria, and Poland, as various countries sought to place favored candidates on their respective thrones. It was hard for the framers to imagine that European countries wouldn’t be groping for ways to manipulate the Presidency. The prohibition against foreign-born presidents was an attempt to close off one such avenue of influence.
Of course it’s anachronistic today and should be changed, and probably would be changed if only it weren’t so difficult.
Regarding the foreign-born in the line of succession: this is why the Law on Succession to the Presidency allows for “failure to qualify”. You could also fail to qualify by not being 35 years old. Ah, you are saying, but what are the chances that a person under 35 would ever be a member of the line of succession? It has happened–Henry Clay was elected Speaker of the House in 1811 at the tender age of 34!