Berg v. Obama et al.: Internecine battle erupts ... just what this case needs (??)

From: Paul Andrew Mitchell <supremelawfirm@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Internecine battle... just what this case needs (??)
Date: Wednesday, November 12, 2008, 1:04 PM

Murphy v. Ramsey got garbled by a software error;  repeating:

Federal citizenship is a political FRANCHISE domiciled in D.C.:

The people of the United States***, as sovereign owners of the national territories, have supreme power over them and their inhabitants. ... The personal and civil rights of the inhabitants of the territories are secured to them, as to other citizens, by the principles of constitutional liberty, which restrain all the agencies of government, state and national;  their political rights are franchises which they hold as privileges in the legislative discretion of the congress of the United States**.  This doctrine was fully and forcibly declared by the chief justice, delivering the opinion of the court in National Bank v. County of Yankton, 101 U.S. 129.

 

[Murphy v. Ramsey, 114 U.S. 15 (1885)]

[italics in original, emphasis added]

 

 

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Paul Andrew Mitchell <supremelawfirm@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Nov 12, 2008 at 1:00 PM
Subject: Re: Internecine battle... just what this case needs (??)
To: JoanSharon@aol.com
Cc: SupremeLaw <supremelaw@googlegroups.com>


Ask Mr. Martin if he's ever read People v. De La Guerra, or Pannill v. Roanoke
or if he has ever bothered to visit a law library -- to construct the Qualifications
Clauses -- as we have done here.  Before Internet ("BI"), this legal research took
several HUNDRED hours of hard work:

http://www.supremelaw.org/cc/gilberts/swornaff.htm#delaguerra

As it was the adoption of the Constitution by the Conventions of nine States that established and created the United States***, it is obvious there could not then have existed any person who had been seven years a citizen of the United States***, or who possessed the Presidential qualifications of being thirty-five years of age, a natural born citizen, and fourteen years a resident of the United States***. The United States*** in these provisions,
means the States united. To be twenty-five years of age, and for seven years to have  been a citizen of one of the States which ratifies the Constitution, is the qualification of a representative. To be a natural born citizen of one of the States which shall ratify the Constitution, or to be a citizen of   one of said States at the time of such ratification, and to have attained the age of thirty-five years, and to have been fourteen years a resident within one of the said States, are the Presidential qualifications, according to the true meaning of the Constitution.

                [People v. De La Guerra, 40 Cal. 311, 337 (1870)]
                                                 [emphasis added]




http://www.supremelaw.org/rsrc/twoclass.htm#pannill

... citizens of the District of Columbia were not granted the privilege of litigating in the federal courts on the ground of diversity of citizenship. Possibly no better reason for this fact exists than such citizens were not thought of when the judiciary article [III] of the federal Constitution was drafted.


... citizens of the United States** ... were also not thought of; but in any event a citizen of the United States**, who is not a citizen of any state, is not within the language of the [federal] Constitution.
                            [Pannill v. Roanoke, 252 F. 910, 914]
                                                 [emphasis added]


http://www.supremelaw.org/fedzone11/htm/chaptr11.htm

      In the fundamental law, the notion of a "citizen of the United States" simply did not exist before the 14th Amendment; at best, this notion is a fiction within a fiction.  In discussing the power of the States to naturalize, the California Supreme Court put it rather bluntly when it ruled that there was no such thing as a "citizen of the United States":

 

      A citizen of any one of the States of the union, is held to be, and called a citizen of the United States, although technically and abstractly there is no such thing. To conceive a citizen of the United States who is not a citizen of some one of the States, is totally foreign to the idea, and inconsistent with the proper construction and common understanding of the expression as used in the Constitution, which must be deduced from its various other provisions. The object then to be attained, by the exercise of the power of naturalization, was to make citizens of the respective States.

 

[Ex Parte Knowles, 5 Cal. 300 (1855)]

[emphasis added]

 

This decision has never been overturned!

 

      What is the proper construction and common understanding of the term "Citizen of the United States" as used in the original U.S. Constitution, before the so-called 14th Amendment?  This is an important question, because this status is still a qualification for the federal offices of Senator, Representative and President.

 

No Person can be a Representative unless he has been a Citizen of the United States for seven years (1:2:2);  no Person can be a Senator unless he has been a Citizen of the United States for nine years (1:3:3);  no Person can be President unless he is a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States (2:1:5).

 

If these requirements had been literally obeyed, there could have been no elections for Representatives to Congress for at least seven years after the adoption of the Constitution, and no one would have been eligible to be a Senator for nine years after its adoption.

 

Author John S. Wise, in a rare book now available on Richard McDonald's electronic bulletin board system ("BBS"), explains away the problem very simply as follows:

 

      The language employed by the convention was less careful than that which had been used by Congress in July of the same year, in framing the ordinance for the government of the Northwest Territory.  Congress had made the qualification rest upon citizenship of "one of the United States***," and this is doubtless the intent of the convention which framed the Constitution, for it cannot have meant anything else.

 

[Studies in Constitutional Law:]

[A Treatise on American Citizenship]

[by John S. Wise, Edward Thompson Co. (1906)]

[emphasis added]

Federal citizenship is a municipal FRANCHISE
domiciled in the District of Columbia:


http://www.supremelaw.org/fedzone11/htm/chaptr11.htm



The people of the United States***, as sovereign owners of the national

territories, have supreme power over them and their inhabitants. ...
The personal and civil rights of the inhabitants of the territories are secured to them, as to other citizens, by the principles of constitutional liberty, which restrain all the agencies of government, state and national; their political rights are franchises which they hold as privileges in the legislative discretion of the congress of the United States**. 

This doctrine was fully and forcibly declared by the chief justice, delivering the opinion of the court in National Bank v. County of Yankton, 101 U.S. 129.

 

[Murphy v. Ramsey, 114 U.S. 15 (1885)]

[italics in original, emphasis added]

 

 

 

Sincerely yours,

/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell, B.A., M.S.
Private Attorney General, 18 U.S.C. 1964(a)
http://www.supremelaw.org/decs/agency/private.attorney.general.htm
Criminal Investigator and Federal Witness: 18 U.S.C. 1510, 1512-13
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__

Andy Martin asks Supreme Court of Pennsylvania to investigate the bizarre litigation behavior of anti-Obama lawyer Philip J. Berg   ANDY MARTIN Executive Editor ContrarianCommentary.com   "Factually Correct, Not Politically Correct"   FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:   INTERNET POWERHOUSE ANDY MARTIN ASKS PENNSYLVANIA SUPREME COURT DISCIPLINARY BOARD TO EXAMINE ATTORNEY PHILIP BERG'S PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT   (NEW YORK)(November 12, 2008)  Andy Martin has asked the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania Disciplinary Board to investigate the conduct of anti-Obama attorney Philip J. Berg of Lafayette Hill, PA. "There have been a lot of questions, and criticism, swirling around Mr. Berg's behavior," Martin stated. "I thought his behavior merited a look by the Disciplinary Board. That way there can be a fair and impartial examination of his claims and actions."   A copy of Martin's Statement, which is part of Martin's form complaint, (faxed to the DB today, November 12th) follows:   November 12, 2008   Philip J. Berg contacted me in mid-August about a complaint he proposed to file in federal court. He sent me the complaint to review, and I advised him the complaint was nonsense. He was suing the wrong parties in the wrong court for the wrong relief. Berg said he wanted to "enjoin the Democratic National Convention," which caused me to question his sanity. He pleaded that Barack Obama was "born in Kenya" when there is not a shred of credible evidence to support this claim.   He filed his complaint and then began issuing a series of asinine news releases about the progress of his lawsuit.   Berg is playing on the vulnerability of people who intensely dislike President-elect Barack Obama, and using his inflated accusations to solicit money from the public. He constantly exaggerates or misrepresents the facts. In early September persons acting on his behalf claimed there was a "court order" for Obama to produce a birth certificate. No such order existed.   Then he claimed Obama was in "default" and had "admitted" he was born in Kenya. This was compete nonsense. As someone who is a genuine critic of Mr. Obama, I know firsthand what confusion Berg creates with his false and misleading claims. Most recently he or persons acting in concert with him have suggested that the U.S. Supreme Court "ordered" a response to his nonsense. The Court has done nothing of the sort. The court's rules simply provide a thirty-day period for responses.   I don't know whether Berg suffers from an emotional disturbance, or is merely a money-grubbing huckster, or what, but Berg's behavior is undermining public faith in the integrity of the Pennsylvania legal profession.   Berg has been disciplined in the past for misconduct:   http://systocracy.com/Bergmalpracticetwo http://www.paed.uscourts.gov/documents/opinions/05D0679P.pdf http://www.paed.uscourts.gov/documents/opinions/05d0521p.pdf   Lawyers are entitled to engage in vigorous advocacy. They are encouraged to extend and revise legal precedents. But they are not entitled to file delusional claims without a scintilla of support, particularly when they then use these delusional claims as a basis to solicit money from the public.   Mr. Berg has previously claimed that the U.S. Government blew up the World Trade Center, again without shred of evidence to support his nonsense.   He is a threat to vulnerable citizens who tend to believe his false claims and give him money on the false assumption that Berg is acting in good faith. By stealing small amounts of money from people across the nation he has flown under the radar of professional discipline. No competent attorney could have acted as Berg did during the past three months. His behavior in federal court, all of which is a public record, is outrageous. --------------------------------------------- A copy of Martin's complaint is available by fax (not e-mail) --------------------------------------------- Andy Martin is a legendary Chicago muckraker, author, Internet columnist, radio talk show host, broadcaster and media critic. He has over forty years of broadcasting experience in radio and television. He is currently based in New York selling his new book, Obama: The Man Behind The Mask. Andy is the Executive Editor and publisher of www.ContrarianCommentary.com. © Copyright by Andy Martin 2008. Martin comments on regional, national and world events with over forty years of experience. He holds a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Illinois College of Law.   His columns are also posted at ContrarianCommentary.blogspot.com; contrariancommentary.wordpress.com. Andy is the author of Obama: The Man Behind The Mask, published in July 2008, see http://www.OrangeStatePress.com.   MEDIA CONTACT: (866) 706-2639 or CELL (917) 664-9329 E-MAIL: AndyMart20@aol.com [NOTE: We frequently correct typographical errors and additions/subtractions on our blogs, where you can find the latest edition of this release.]