Just a quickie diary. Jerome Corsi was on Thom Hartmann today insisting that Barack Obama is still not qualified to be president.
His argument is that one can be a citizen under the 14th amendment but not a citizen under Article II of the constitution (actually I think he cited Article I, but he should have cited Article II). He was saying that before the 14th amendment, a person born in the United States was not a citizen, and even after the 14th amendment they do not count as a "natural born citizen."
From Dict.org:
From Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856) :
CITIZEN, persons. One who, under the constitution and laws of the United
States, has a right to vote for representatives in congress, and other
public officers, and who is qualified to fill offices in the gift of the
people. In a more extended sense, under the word citizen, are included all
white persons born in the United States, and naturalized persons born out of
the same, who have not lost their right as such. This includes men, women,
and children.
2. Citizens are either native born or naturalized. Native citizens may
fill any office; naturalized citizens may be elected or appointed to any
office under the constitution of the United States, except the office of
president and vice-president. The constitution provides, that "the citizens
of each state shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of
citizens in the several states." Art. 4, s. 2.
3. All natives are not citizens of the United States; the descendants
of the aborigines, and those of African origin, are not entitled to the
rights of citizens. Anterior to the adoption of the constitution of the
United States, each state had the right to make citizens of such persons as
it pleased. That constitution does not authorize any but white persons to
become citizens of the United States; and it must therefore be presumed that
no one is a citizen who is not white. 1 Litt. R. 334; 10 Conn. R. 340; 1
Meigs, R. 331.
This definition not only completely debunks Corsi, it also shows why that part of the 14th was necessary in the first place. And one could say that it illustrates other things too.