If we discard a word of the Constitution as superfluous (i.e. surplusage) without a compelling reason, then trouble's ahead, because the anti-surplusage canon is essential to interpreting the document, just as it was essential to writing the document. In particular, admitting superfluousness into the interpretation of the Natural Born Citizen Clause would weaken the canon in a way that could not be limited to that clause alone.
Mike Ramsey asserts that the word "natural" is essentially superfluous in the Natural Born Citizen Clause, but there is evidence to the contrary — evidence that this word was originally understood in the 1780s to mean "native." I previously quoted James Iredell from the North Carolina Ratification Convention in July 1788: "No man but a native, or who has resided fourteen years in America, can be chosen president." To this, I can add Tench Coxe, who publicly wrote in September 1787 that the president will be "born among us."
The word "natural" was not inserted into the Constitution with a hyphen; it appeared as "natural born" instead of "natural-born." So, the standalone meaning of this word is applicable to the NBC Clause. In his famous and immense dictionary of 1755 (not merely the shortened version of 1756), Samuel Johnson declined to explicitly define either compound term, explaining: "Compounded or double words I have seldom noted, except where they obtain a signification different from that which the components have in their simple state." Thus, the terms "natural born" and "natural born citizen" use the word "natural" in a way that signifies its standalone meaning.
Johnson defined a "natural" as a "native," and it is impossible to believe that that understanding was merely coincidental with the interpretations of Iredell and Coxe. One can quibble that Johnson (like Iredell) equated the word "native" to the noun "natural" rather than to the adjective "natural," but this is a weak argument (even if we assume that the word "natural" is used as an adjective in the NBC Clause) for a couple different reasons. First of all, Johnson said that he did not diligently seek to include, and often omitted, material that was "formed by a constant and settled analogy" like the words "greenish" or "dully" or "vileness," and readers of that era would likewise have assumed that a native person was a native, and vice versa. They also would have assumed that the word "natural" in the NBC context means the same thing as the root of the word "naturalize" which is a word that Johnson defined in terms of "native subjects". Secondly, there is plenty of evidence, quite apart from Johnson, that the word "natural" was used as an adjective — not merely as a noun — synonymous with "native" (e.g. we find from the year 1585 "his owne naturall countrey," and from the year 1657 we find "have the publick service in their natural tongue").
I've already pointed out previously that the word "native" signified not just inhabitants but also offspring, in the eighteenth century. So, Mike and I ultimately reach the same conclusion about the eligibility of someone like Ted Cruz (who was born among the people of the United States by virtue of having a mother who was born and grew up in Delaware). But it's important how we get to that result, and I would not abandon the non-superfluousness canon. The actual situations where Mike and I reach a different result under the NBC Clause are difficult to imagine; one example would be if Congress extends birthright U.S. citizenship to all children and grandchildren of the King or Queen of England even though the offspring are born outside the U.S. without any U.S. citizen parent. That sort of legislation is extremely unlikely now, but perhaps not so easily dismissed in 1789. And in the future it could become less unlikely, given the congressional penchant for granting citizenship via private bills.
Posted at 3:41 PM