Natural-Born Clause in US Constitution

Presidential Birth Qualification Should Have Been Left Out

Aug 26, 2009

Fringe critics of President Obama have latched onto a clause in the Constitution that was a mistake to begin with. Does anyone care where the President was born?

Lots had to be done, compromises had to be made that summer and fall of 1787 in Philadelphia. People wanted to get out of town. So, it was too much to expect the document to be flawless. Some problems have been corrected through amendments. Others have not.

Here is one flaw that has gotten way too much attention: Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5. This says in part: "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." This is the clause that the so-called "Birthers" have latched on to to challenge the legitimacy of Barack Obama's presidency. Despite plenty of evidence, the Birthers claim Obama was not a natural-born citizen. That is, Obama was not a citizen of the United States at birth, Birthers say. The claim seems to be based mainly on the fact that Obama’s father was not a US citizen and on speculation that Obama - despite a Hawaiian birth certificate - was born somewhere other than the United States.

Framers Concerned About Loyalty

The Framers of the Constitution were concerned about divided loyalties: that someone born a citizen or subject of another country could not be counted on to be loyal to the United States. By that reasoning, George Washington and none of the other men writing the Constitution could be dependably loyal because, obviously, none were born citizens of the United States. The writers thus inserted the clause that exempted themselves from the natural-born requirement.

Obama is not the first president among those born after the adoption of the Constitution to have a foreign-born parent. Others include:

Questions About Chester Arthur's Birth

Nor is Obama the first president to be touched by this sort of controversy. Questions arose about Arthur’s place of birth. He said he was born in Vermont, but evidence is sketchy and some said at the time that he was actually born in Canada. That question is not likely to ever be settled.

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