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Unfortunately, neither the Constitution itself nor the documentary record pertaining to its drafting and ratification in the 1780’s provides any additional insight into what the framers specifically meant by the phrase “natural born citizen.”

.... Certain factors definitely make one a “natural born citizen.” It has always been accepted that any white person, and since 1870, any person of any race, actually born in the United States is eligible to be elected president once they reach the age of 35 and have been 14 years a resident. (Male gender was never a prerequisite, even when women were denied the right to vote. That is how Belva Lockwood could run for president in 1884 as the candidate of the National Equal Rights Party.)

It has also been accepted from the beginning that a person born outside the United States with two citizen parents is a natural born citizen. Although no president has ever fallen into this category, a number of actual and potential presidential candidates have, including turn-of-the-last-century Supreme Court Justice David Brewer (born in the Ottoman Empire), nineteenth-century Republican politician John S. Wise (Brazil); Michigan Governor George Romney (Mexico), and 2008 Republican nominee John McCain (Canal Zone).

What is less clear is (1) what constitutes the United States for “born in” purposes, i.e., which territories, if any, are included, and (2) what is the citizenship status of an individual born outside the United States with only a single citizen parent. Congress has answered these questions differently in different eras.

The Obama citizenship “debate” has surprisingly brought former president Chester A. Arthur (1829-1886) back into the pages of American newspapers, which is no small feat. Unlike President Obama, who is clearly eligible to hold the nation’s highest office, Arthur, the twenty-first president (1881-84), may well have been an “unconstitutional” president.

Although Arthur is frequently seen as Millard Fillmore primary competition for the title of “Most Obscure President in U.S. History,” the circumstances of his birth have raised questions eeriely similar to those asked about President Barack Obama by the birthers.

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