Page:Qualifications for President and the “Natural Born” Citizenship Eligibility Requirement.pdf/22

 because of the development of statutory law in England to “encourage also foreign commerce.” As stated by Blackstone in his 1765 treatise, "[A]ll children, born out of the king’s ligeance, whose fathers were natural-born subjects, are now natural born subjects themselves, to all intents and purposes, without any exception; unless their said fathers were attainted, or banished beyond sea, for high treason; or were then in the service of a prince at enmity with Great Britain."

The “commonly understood” meaning of the term “natural born” in the United States at the time of the drafting of the Constitution might thus be broader than the early, strict English “common law” meaning of that term. As noted by Charles Gordon, former Chief Counsel of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, whether the body of English law in the 1770s was from early common law, from statutory law, or from the common law modified over the years by statutory law, these provisions “were part of the corpus of the English law in existence at the time of the Revolution, which was substantially recognized and adopted by our forefathers.” This common usage and popular understanding to the framers of the term “natural born” subject (as employed in England), and the term’s apparent evolution and broadening of meaning through statutory law, has thus led several other legal commentators and historians to conclude: “The constitutional Framers had a broad view of the term ‘natural-born’ and considered all foreign-born children of American citizen parents eligible for the Office of the Presidency;” or, as stated by another: “[T]he delegates meant to apply the evolved, broader common law meaning of the term when they included it in the presidential qualifications clause.”

Presidential historian Michael Nelson has also averred that the term appeared to have a common meaning at the time of the drafting of the Constitution which involved within its concept both the common law definition and mode of acquisition of citizenship (through jus soli), as well as the common understanding of the long-standing broadening of such term by the operation of English statutory law to include those subjects who may have traveled abroad for purposes of commerce, or otherwise. As noted by Nelson (and pointed out by others), a more restrictive meaning to include only those born within the boundaries of the United States would mean that John Jay, who Rh