What did the framers like James Madison and Alexander Hamilton say about 'natural-born citizen' in 1787–1788?
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Executive summary
In 1787–1788 the framers debated a “natural born citizen” rule but left its text unexplained; John Jay’s July 25, 1787 letter proposing a birth‑based bar influenced the final clause and James Madison adopted Jay’s wording over Alexander Hamilton’s broader private draft [1] [2]. Hamilton privately favored treating “born a citizen” by reference to positive law and warned that strict birth rules would create second‑class status for immigrants; Madison seconded Hamilton’s practical objections in convention notes and in later commentary [1] [3] [4].
1. How the phrase entered the Constitution: a patchwork of committee reports and a Jay letter
The words “natural born citizen” first appeared late in the Convention via a Committee of Eleven report and were reinforced by John Jay’s July 25, 1787 letter urging a birth‑based limitation on the presidency; surviving convention notes show no extended floor debate on the exact phrase, so the Jay language—and the committee’s report—shaped the final text [1] [5] [6].
2. Hamilton’s known position: a private draft that preferred broader rules
Alexander Hamilton produced drafts and private papers in 1787 that differed from the Convention’s final language. In a June 1787 sketch and in a private paper handed to Madison, Hamilton proposed language that would have allowed people “born a Citizen of the United States” under whatever naturalization rule Congress enacted, a more expansive rule that could have kept foreign‑born loyal Americans eligible [6] [2] [7].
3. Madison’s role: seconding Hamilton’s practical concerns but choosing Jay’s wording
James Madison shared Hamilton’s concern about creating second‑class citizens and, according to contemporaneous records cited by scholars, seconded Hamilton’s motion in committee discussions; nevertheless, Madison later recorded that he selected John Jay’s language for Article II, a choice that left the clause terse and undefined in the text [1] [3] [2].
4. Competing interpretive traditions that trace back to 1787–1789
Scholars and institutions diverge: some rely on English common‑law usage and First Congress enactments to argue the framers understood “natural born” to include children born abroad to citizen parents (Congress’s Constitution Annotated; Harvard Law Review summary), while others emphasize the framers’ turn to Jay’s language and Hamilton’s rejected alternative to argue for a narrower original meaning [8] [9] [2].
5. Hamilton vs. Jay/Madison — two different rationales
Hamilton’s surviving writings stress that citizenship rules can be drawn from “positive law” (Congressional naturalization statutes) and that making immigrants second‑class would discourage valuable settlers; by contrast Jay’s and the adopted wording were explicitly aimed at keeping foreign influence and intrigue from the chief executive, a security rationale that Madison ultimately endorsed in text if not in all practical sympathies [4] [3] [2].
6. What the framers left unanswered — and why that matters today
The Convention adopted the clause without defining “natural born,” producing decades of interpretive work: courts and later statutes treated British common law, Vattel, early congressional acts, and Supreme Court commentary as relevant aids. These post‑1787 materials have been used to support both inclusive (children of citizens born abroad) and exclusive (only those born on U.S. soil to citizen parents) readings; the framers’ own record does not resolve modern edge cases [10] [9] [8].
7. Sources, agendas and implicit motives to watch for in the record
Histories emphasizing Hamilton’s intent sometimes aim to protect eligibility for prominent foreign‑born founders (an agenda noted in Time and other retrospectives), while accounts that foreground Jay and Madison point to security fears about foreign intrigue; modern polemics (e.g., “birther” debates) often cherry‑pick Hamilton’s private drafts or Jay’s public letter to support partisan claims—scholars recommend consulting the Convention record, Jay’s letter, Hamilton’s drafts, Madison’s notes, and early congressional statutes together [6] [7] [1] [8].
Limitations and open questions: primary Convention debate on the phrase is sparse and the Constitution itself does not define “natural born,” so available sources rely on related letters, private drafts, later Federalist essays, and early congressional practice; those materials point to competing framers’ views rather than a single definitive 1787–1788 meaning [5] [1] [2].