The issue of whether the constitutional requirement that the president be a “natural born Citizen” excludes someone born of an American parent living abroad has once again reared its head in an election campaign, this time in the form of Donald Trump’s charge that the Canadian-born Ted Cruz may not be legally eligible to serve. I’m not going to try to settle that one here, except to note that the overwhelming body of legal opinion is in Cruz’s favor. Equally interesting is how that requirement made its way into the Constitution in the first place. It doesn’t apply to members of Congress, who only need to have been citizens for seven years (representatives) or nine years (senators). In fact, in no other part of the Constitution—and in virtually no other areas of American law—is a distinction drawn between the rights of one kind of citizen and another. The answer lies in the uncertain politics of 1787, when the Constitution was written. The framers of that document conducted their business in secret, which meant they could only guess how the public
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