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Yep, and given all that, the State Department STILL stated that La Fayette was never a U.S. citizen.
And as we have seen... they were wrong.
Nathan Dane is by far the superior authority in this issue, and the actual Maryland naturalization along with the actual Constitution are primary documents while a State Department "letter" written more than a century later is not.
Yes, like I said, you're depositing a US citizen's right to seek office with the British Crown.
Me? No. The U.S. State Department? Yes.
And what reason can you give for expecting that Obama would NOT inherit his non-U.S. citizen father's citizenship?
In this particular case, Obama's citizenship status is impacted by the automatic operation of the British Nationality Act of 1948, which the U.S. State Department recognizes (among others, as alluded to in their statement).
I can't believe some of you still don't understand why the Framers of the Constitution purposefully included the natural born citizen requirement clause, and why the intent is tospecificallyexclude those born with split allegiances and obligations to obey foreign laws from ascending to the highest office of our federal government and military.
Really? You don't get that, really?
I've already posted the only SCOTUS definition of Constitutional natural born citizen. I've posted John Jay's letter to George Washington. I've even posted the U.S. State Department's statement that dual citizenship is problematic TO THIS DAY due to split allegiancesand the obligation to obey another country's laws.
I'm quite frankly stunned that so many know so little about our country's historical facts, and so few can understand why owing allegiance to a foreign country and having to obey a foreign country's laws would be problematic for the President of the United States and our military's Commander in Chief.
Failing to understand that completely defies logic.
In response to your recent inquiry citing the article by Patricia Molen van Ee, Specialist in Cartographic History, Geography and Map Division, published in the Library of Congress Information Bulletin, Vol. 60, No. 4, we have determined that the source and timing of Lafayette's becoming an honorary citizen of the United States is incorrect. The one piece of information that we know for certain is that Congress did not proclaim Lafayette an honorary citizen in 1824. We regret this mistake.
The matter is complicated beyond this point. Contemporary sources call into question the accuracy of the Joint Resolution (PL-107-209) and the House Report (107-595) supporting the Joint Resolution dated August 6, 2002, which supposedly made Lafayette an honorary U.S. citizen.
What can be stated clearly is that Lafayette became an honorary citizen of the state of Maryland on December 23, 1784. This made him an American citizen under the Articles of Confederation. Citizenship was not nationalized until passage of Fourteenth Amendment after the Civil War. See Stanley Izerda, Lafayette in the Age of the American Revolution: Selected Letters and Papers. Vol. 5, pp 289-290. Izerda, p. 269, n. 1, also states that Connecticut had made him a citizen of that state in October 1784.
There is additional evidence indicating that Lafayette was the first person receiving an honorary citizenship in the United States, and that it was conferred before 2002 .The Library of Congress Exhibition Website for "Churchill and the Great Republic" directly mentions Lafayette's honorary status as a citizen of the United States.
President Kennedy alluded to the Lafayette citizenship in his speech dated April 1963, in announcing the Congressional resolution instructing the President to make Winston Churchill an honorary US citizen; see Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1963, (Washington DC, 1964), item 126, p. 315.
See also The Library of Congress's Interactive Winston Churchill exhibit" <Churchill and the Great Republic (A Library of Congress Exhibition) > which has a portion of the film clip in which Kennedy refers to this issue. After launching the exhibit, click on "Objects" and then "Moving Images." It's the last of three. There President Kennedy specifically states that Churchill is only the second person to receive this honor and that Lafayette was the first.
I cannot explain why the Congressional Report of 2002 states that the matter of honorary citizenship had been explored in 1935, and it was determined by the Department of State that U.S. honorary citizenship could not be conferred through the individual states. See House Report, 107th Congress, second session, to accompany S.J. Res. 13, dated 2002. There is also a reference to honorary citizenship being granted on four prior occasions.
I have noted a number of dates when Lafayette was purported to have become an honorary citizen. Some of the information appears on sites of reputable organizations including universities. By going to the primary sources, we can conclude what was done, but not why.
Additional discussion at the same link:
Quote:
Maryland made Lafayette (And his male heirs until the end of time!) "natural born Citizens." I don't know what Connecticut and other states did, but the language in the Maryland resolution is clear.
Thus, while we can call Lafayette an honorary citizen of the United States from 1784 on (since the granting was an honor), his is the one case in which an honorary citizenship unambiguously granted all legal rights and privileges of a non-honorary citizenship. Since the ratification of the Constitution and consequent grandfathering of all (non-symbolic) state citizenships into "natural born citizen"ship was a one-time thing, other honorary citizens a) are ineligible for the Presidency and b) may or may not have other rights of citizenship such as voting. As the article notes, they can't carry US passports. YLee (talk) 08:49, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
in addition, in 1784, Lafayette and his family were made honorary citizens of Connecticut (Clary, Adopted Son p. 369); note that later in 1795 Adrienne de Lafayette and the children were issued American passports. Pohick2 (talk) 22:43, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
And note... none of this exchange had an Birther or Anti-Birther axes to grind.
I'm quite frankly stunned that so many know so little about our country's historical facts, and so few can understand why owing allegiance to a foreign country and having to obey a foreign country's laws would be problematic for the President of the United States and our military's Commander in Chief.
That's because outside of the rarefied atmosphere of the Birther echo chamber, none of that is true.
Step out. Take a deep breath. Whole vista's of truth await you.
Ah, Birthers on legal matters. It's like getting a geography lesson from the Flat Earth society - as the logic breaks down, the intensity of the arguing increases. Look at all that bolding, those dynamic underlines.
Wow.......'Franky and his Fogbow Follies' are in treacherous deceptive spin mode today.
Follies 1. A lack of good sense, understanding, or foresight. 2. a. An act or instance of foolishness b. A costly undertaking having an absurd or ruinous outcome
Last edited by Steve McGarrett; 01-06-2012 at 11:53 AM..
A letter from a researcher at the library of Congress
Sorry, the State Department doesn't see it that way, and neither does the U.S. Congress. Hence, the conferral of honorary U.S. citizenship posthumously in 2002.
That's because outside of the rarefied atmosphere of the Birther echo chamber, none of that is true.
Wow. You're in major denial.
Easy to prove you wrong, yet again...
Quote:
" Each country has its own citizenship laws based on its own policy. Persons may have dual nationality by automatic operation of different laws rather than by choice... The U.S. Government recognizes that dual nationality exists but does not encourage it as a matter of policy because of the problems it may cause... dual nationals owe allegiance to both the United States and the foreign country. They are required to obey the laws of both countries."
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