The Ninth and Tenth ammendments to the Constitution have always been considered by the People as being a guarantee against an abuse of power by the federal government. They read as follows:

They seem to be fairly straight forward and unambiguous in what they say. As I read them, the federal government can not exercise any power not given to it by the Constitution, and if it is not given there the states or the people retain those rights for themselves. The government has only the powers spelled out, and no more. That is the way I believe most people would interpret them.

But, as is the case with most questions of points of law, there have been court decisions that have supported a simple interpretation, and rulings that take a more creative and complex approach in interpreting meaning. The acceptance and application of one or the other of these methods by a current court is not consistent but wavers to and fro over time and is the cause of much or all ignorance and confusion on the subject.

There exists precedent that allows the feds to assume powers not granted to them, as well as precedent preventing any use of power not specifically granted. On one hand, the last paragraph of Article One, Section Eight gives Congress the power to, "make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States or in any Department or Officer thereof. "

That paragraph has been used by the courts to give Congress powers not specifically enumerated. On the other hand courts have made decisions based on a simple and strict reading of these ammendments such my opinion above. The people have no way of knowing these opposing precedents exist, but even if they did, they could not be confident in any court ruling a certain way because there is legal standing for the courts to rule this way or that.

The existence of precedents supporting opposing rulings renders these two ammendments meaningless. This is the case with all the limitations and grants of powers to the federal government written into the Constitution. The courts have an open buffet of past decisions on every question, custom made for whatever situation arises.

If I had the opportunity to propose a single ammendment to the Constitution, I would propose that there be a grand jury type civilian review of all SCOTUS decisions. This jury would be selected randomly and neither the SCOTUS nor the jury would know, before hand, the duty they were being dealt, and this duty would not be divulged until they had completed their work. If, in the future, the decision of that jury was found to be in contention with the Constitution, the previous decision would be superceded rather than be allowed to coexist.

The coexistence of opposing rulings as precedent renders the entire Constitution useless.

Glenn Flowers

There has been much debate over what constitutes a natural born citizen. Much of the debate has been misinformed calling the concept of natural born an obscure technicality or an overight by the writers of the Constitution. Neither of these characterizations are true.

Many times the true meaning of consitutional wording must be determined by looking at the era and the circumstances, and, in some cases, terminology in other sections of the constitution, the inclusion or exclusion of supporting verbage, and even writings other than the Constitution.

Article 2, section 1 of the Constitution states, "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; neither shall any person be eligible who shall not attained to the age of thirty-five years, and been fourteen years a resident within the United Satates."

The addition of a grandfather clause in this paragraph says a lot as to the meaning of natural born. The first thing it says is that being born in the US is not enough to be natural born, otherwise the grandfather clause would not be necessary. The writers and delegates, having been born in the US, wanted to be eligible for the presidency, but most were the children of British subjects. Knowing that that eliminated them from being natural born and, thus, from eligibility, they included the grandfather clause which expired when the last person alive at the time of the ratification of the Constitution died. So, being a native born citizen is not the same as being natural born. If it were the framers would not have included the clause.

When asked to define natural born citizen, John Bingham, the author of the 14^th ammendment which extended the bill of rights to former slaves, stated, "Any human born to parents who are US citizens and are under no other jurisdiction or authority." The Naturalization Act of 1790, also passed by this congress, declared "And the children of citizens of the US shall be considered as natural born, provided that the right of citizenship shall not descend to persons whose fathers have never been a resident of the US." Neither of these definitions, one from US law, mentions birthplace, only the parents' citizenship.

This concept of citizenship by blood as opposed to citizenship by geography is a concept with a long history in British common law. A law passed in 1677 says that natural born citizens are those persons born to British citizens, including those born overseas. Alexander Porter wrote an article over 100 years ago in which he declares that the framers drew upon this difference in the law of heredity and territorial allegiance to define a third class of citizen applicable only to the eligibility to hold the office of president. According to Morse, "the framers thought it wise to provide that the president should at least be the child of citizens owing allegiance only to the US at the time of birth." He goes on to say that the the eligibility of the president "was scarcely intended to bar the children of American citizens, whether born at sea or in foreign territory."

The concept of citizenship by blood also precludes the equation of natural born with native born as the latter strictly demands geographical requirements.

Many argue that Barack Obama was eligible to be a state senator and a US senator and could not suddenly be ineligible to be president, but that is exactly the case. If this premise were true, Arnold Schwarzenegger, governor of California, would also be eligible to be president, and it is established that he is not.