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The Republic of Panama grants to the United States in perpetuity the use, occupation and control of a zone of land and land under water for the construction maintenance, operation, sanitation and protection of said Canal of the width of ten miles extending to the distance of five miles on each side of the center line of the route of the Canal to be constructed; the said zone beginning in the Caribbean Sea three marine miles from mean low water mark and extending to and across the Isthmus of Panama into the Pacific ocean to a distance of three marine miles from mean low water mark with the proviso that the cities of Panama and Colon and the harbors adjacent to said cities, which are included within the boundaries of the zone above described, shall not be included within this grant. The Republic of Panama further grants to the United States in perpetuity the use, occupation and control of any other lands and waters outside of the zone above described which may be necessary and convenient for the construction, maintenance, operation, sanitation and protection of the said Canal or of any auxiliary canals or other works necessary and convenient for the construction, maintenance, operation, sanitation and protection of the said enterprise.
Since Senator John McCain was not born "in the United States" he is not a natural born Citizen of the United States and therefore is not eligible to the Office of President. It's really quite simple, and only needs further explanation because the general consensus of politicians and the media has been to duck the issue. All evidence supports the conclusion seen in the topic sentence. Sources that support this conclusion include the U.S. Constitution which is the supreme law of the land, The Naturalization Act of 1790 (http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/immigration/outsidelink.html/http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HLS.LIBR:981715 - broken link), The Naturalization Act of 1795, and the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty ratified for the construction and operation of the Panama Canal Zone.
John McCain was born on the sovereign territory of the Republic of Panama to U.S. citizen parents. McCain is a United States citizen due to parentage, not naturally by reason of birth on U.S. soil which is a basic constitutional requirement.
The ineligibility of John McCain to serve as president may not prevent his run for the office. However, he cannot hold the office. If he were elected president, legal challenges would be inevitable.
Without an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, it is unlikely the Supreme Court of the United States could rule in McCain's favor except by legislating from the bench. The more conservative side of the Republican party has typically represented the case for separation of powers with a louder voice than the more liberal side of the Democrat party. Have conservatives been gagged?
The sidestepping of this critical issue in the media, by the politicians, and the political parties is alarming and may lead to a national crisis in the event of a McCain win in the general election.
The Naturalization Act of 1790 that changed the definition for natural born citizen to include parentage was repealed by the Naturalization Act of 1795. Since then the constitutional requirement has not again been broadened to "contemplates two sources of citizenship, and two sources only: birth and naturalization. . . . Persons [401 U.S. 815, 842] not . . . 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." 112 U.S., at 101 -102.include parentage in the definition of natural born Citizen.
In presenting this constitutional dilemma, the purpose is to bring attention to the need for a remedy. This may also mean that the remedy would not be in place in time for Senator John McCain to be eligible to hold the office of President.
Although it's a moot issue, given the Congressional resolution declaring McCain a natural born citizen, this is an interesting article arguing why, technically, he's not. A person must be a citizen at birth to be a natural-born citizen, and the law in effect in 1936 did not grant him citizenship at birth.
In 1936, the Canal Zone fell into a gap in the law, covered neither by the citizenship clause nor Revised Statutes section 1993 (passed as the Act of May 24, 1934), the only statute applicable to births to U.S. citizens outside the United States. As then-Representative John Sparkman explained in 1937: “the Canal Zone is not such foreign territory as to come under the law of 1855 [Revised Statutes section 1993] and, on the other hand, it is not part of the United States which would bring it within the fourteenth amendment.†The problem was well known; Richard W. Flournoy’s 1934 American Bar Association Journal article, Proposed Codification of Our Chaotic Nationality Laws, explained “we have no statutory provisions defining the nationality status of persons born in the Canal Zone . . . .â€
Because the Canal Zone was a “no man’s land,†in the words of Representative Sparkman, in 1937 Congress passed a statute, the Act of Aug. 4, 1937 (now codified at 8 U.S.C. § 1403(a)) granting citizenship to “[a]ny person born in the Canal Zone on or after February 26, 1904†who had at least one U.S. citizen parent. This Act made Senator McCain a U.S. citizen before his first birthday. But again, to be a natural born citizen, one must be a citizen at the moment of birth. Since Senator McCain became a citizen in his eleventh month of life, he does not satisfy this criterion, is not a natural born citizen, and thus is not “eligible to the Office of President.â€
it was a non binding congressional resolution, so basically he isnt one, right?
Thanks for your post but it still all goes back to that he wasnt even born in the zone.
A non-binding resolution is a written motion adopted by a deliberative body that cannot progress into a law. The substance of the resolution can be anything that can normally be proposed as a motion.
This type of resolution is often used to express the body's approval or disapproval of something which they cannot otherwise vote on,[1] due to the matter being handled by another jurisdiction, or being protected by a constitution. An example would be a resolution of support for a nation's troops in battle, which carries no legal weight, but is adopted for moral support.
Uh, yeah, thanks for your post too.... we didn't have Wikipedia back when I was in law school.
Anyway.... my point was, while the argument could be made that he's technically not a natural born citizen, it's moot because Congress is unlikely to turn around and challenge his citizenship after they made the resolution and gave him all that moral support, don'tyathink?
Uh, yeah, thanks for your post too.... we didn't have Wikipedia back when I was in law school.
Anyway.... my point was, while the argument could be made that he's technically not a natural born citizen, it's moot because Congress is unlikely to turn around and challenge his citizenship after they made the resolution and gave him all that moral support, don'tyathink?
Well if he loses he can show his birth certificate proving he was born in Colon, Panama (outside the Canal Zone) and retire legally in Panama!
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