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June 20, 2015
CDR Kerchner (Ret) Responds to Professor Gutzman’s Dodgy Comments About Vattel
CDR Kerchner (Ret) Responds to Professor Gutzman’s Dodgy Comments About Vattel
In the video below, listen to Professor Gutzman’s attempt to diminish the writings and words of Vattel as to the meaning of “natural born Citizen” in the presidential eligibility clause in Article II of our U.S. Constitution, apparently in an effort to support the eligibility of Ted Cruz who was born in Canada to a non-U.S. Citizen father: https://cdrkerchner.wordpress.com/2013/08/19/confirmed-sen-ted-cruz-releases-canadian-birth-certificate-was-a-dual-citizen-at-birth-not-eligible-to-be-u-s-president/  . His position thus would also to continue to support the eligibility of Obama who also had a non-U.S. Citizen father and whose exact and true birth location has been the subject of debate and discussion for the last 7 years. https://www.scribd.com/collections/3248475/Kenyan-Gov-Officials-African-Newspapers-Obama-1991-Bio-Barry-Obama-Obama-Family-Mbrs-and-other-Accounts-Reporting-Obama-is-Kenyan-Born This 2013 video interview of Professor Gutzman has been re-surfaced recently by Cruz supporters. Join the discussion here http://www.birtherreport.com/2015/06/founders-tv-gotta-see-this-one-history.html and/or read my comments about Professor Gutzman’s remarks below. Here is a link to the relevant section of Vattel that Professor Gutzman was being questioned about in the 2013 interview
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Watch below video interview of Professor Gutzman and then read my comments https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a27RfN-ZIqQ
I listened to Professor Gutzman’s comments in the above video. Here are my comments.
 
The purpose of having the term “natural born Citizen” as a constitutional requirement for future presidents and commanders in chief or our military was as a “strong check” against “foreign influence”, per John Jay’s letter to George Washington, on the person who would hold that office in the future. They wanted a person born with Sole Allegiance and Unity of Citizenship to the USA and only the USA. See this article for more on that point: http://puzo1.blogspot.com/2009/04/article-ii-natural-born-citizen-means.html . They would never have wanted a person born with dual or tri citizenship and attendant multiple allegiances and foreign influences on them at birth to ever gain command of our military. As with anything dealing with our Constitution, if you wish to understand terms therein we need to go back to original intent and understanding as to why the founders and framers chose the words they did. We need to understand the Who, What, When, Where, How, and Why the term “natural born Citizen” was chosen by the founders and framers. The Why was they wanted a person with sole allegiance to the USA at birth, and only the USA, for future commanders in chief of our military. See: The Three Legged Stool Test for Natural Born Citizenship to Constitutional Standards: https://www.scribd.com/doc/185258103/Three-Legged-Stool-Test-for-Natural-Born-Citizen-to-Constitutional-Standards
 
Now some specific comments about what Professor Gutzman said and also what he omitted from Vol.1 Chapter 19 Section 212 of Vattel’s writings. First, he does not give the full name of Vattel’s book. And that is important to the debate on its content. It was titled The Law of Nations or Principles of Natural Law. “Natural Law” is key to this debate because the term under scrutiny is a natural law term, “natural born Citizen”. Any legal term with the word “natural” in it refers to Natural Law and not to positive, man-made law. Vattel’s book was a treatise on Natural Law. And Natural Law forms the foundation of other types of law. And the founders and framers where keenly interested and aware of Natural Law as evidenced by the opening of the Declaration of Independence wherein it specifically cites the “Laws of Nature”, i.e., Natural Law. And the Law of Nations was mentioned in the Constitution also in reference to defining Piracy. So the founders and framers were keenly aware of Natural Law and the Law of Nations. And Vattel was their number one choice and reference on those subjects. I own both a French and English copy of Vattel’s “The Law of Nations or Principles of Natural Law”. Regarding the comment that Vattel’s treatise The Law of Nations or Principles of Natural Law being written in French, the professor does not mention that most of the key founders and framers were multi-lingual and specifically they were fluent in French, which was the diplomatic language of that time frame. The French were our allies in our Revolutionary War against England. When he read part of the section 212 and he read the French word “naturels” he failed to acknowledge that that in 1781 the French word naturels, years prior to the writing of the U.S. Constitution in 1787, had been translated in treaty correspondence with the French to mean “natural born” in U.S. English. Thus the USA founders in U.S. English understood the term “the naturels” when used in the context of discussion of the matter of Citizenship in the USA or in the case of England being a Subject of the King, they translated the adjective and term and understood it to mean “the natural born”. See: https://cdrkerchner.wordpress.com/2015/04/17/absolute-proof-the-founders-knew-and-accepted-vattels-french-naturels-to-mean-natural-born-before-constitution-was-written/  It also should be noted that the very title of Vol. 1, Chapter 19 in which “natural born Citizen” is defined, is “Des citoyens et naturels” which in the USA meant to the founders and framers, “The natural born Citizens”. They got the idea and meaning of “natural born Citizen” from Vattel and other writers in Europe of the Enlightenment. They did not look to English Common Law to define and understand the citizenship terms in our new federal Constitution and Constitutional Republic. They discarded English Common Law when it came to Citizenship in the new nation. They looked to Natural Law and the Law of Nations to found our new form of government, a Constitutional Republic, and to determine who would be its initial citizens and the subsequent natural born Citizens, i.e., the children born in the country of citizens (both parents, born or naturalized).

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