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McCain’s Canal Zone Birth Prompts Queries About Whether That Rules Him Out
By CARL HULSE
Published: February 28, 2008
WASHINGTON — The question has nagged at the parents of Americans born outside the continental United States for generations: Dare their children aspire to grow up and become president? In the case of Senator John McCain of Arizona, the issue is becoming more than a matter of parental daydreaming.
Mr. McCain’s likely nomination as the Republican candidate for president and the happenstance of his birth in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936 are reviving a musty debate that has surfaced periodically since the founders first set quill to parchment and declared that only a “natural-born citizen” can hold the nation’s highest office.
Almost since those words were written in 1787 with scant explanation, their precise meaning has been the stuff of confusion, law school review articles, whisper campaigns and civics class debates over whether only those delivered on American soil can be truly natural born. To date, no American to take the presidential oath has had an official birthplace outside the 50 states
U.S. Constitution - Article 2 Section 1
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
Title 8 of the U.S. Code
The following shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth:
(c) a person born outside of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents both of whom are citizens of the United States and one of whom has had a residence in the United States or one of its outlying possessions, prior to the birth of such person
Originally posted by Agent Styx
Does it really matter where someone is born, as long as it was by citizens of the country? I mean it was just happenstance that he was born on a military base, to parents who serving our country. It would be a slap in the face to every serviceman we have if it became a controversy.
Originally posted by BlueTriangle
It will be up to the courts to determine the exact meaning of "natural born citizen"
Originally posted by centurion1211
A child of 2 U.S. citizens born in another country is still a U.S. citizen. Should be the end of this story.