Crs Report for Congress

The Constitution sets out three eligibility requirements to be President: one must be 35 years of age, a resident \“within the United States\” for 14 years, and a \“natural born Citizen.\” There is no Supreme Court case which has ruled specifically on the presidential eligibility requirements (although several cases have addressed the term \“natural born\” citizen), and this clause has been the subject of several legal and historical treatises over the years, as well as more recent litigation. The term \“natural born\” citizen is not defined in the Constitution, and there is no discussion of the term evident in the notes of the Federal Convention of 1787. The use of the phrase in the Constitution may have derived from a suggestion in a letter from John Jay to George Washington during the Convention expressing concern about having the office of Commander-in-Chief \“devolve on, any but a natural born Citizen,\” as there were fears at that time about wealthy European aristocracy or royalty coming to America, gaining citizenship, and then buying and scheming their way to the presidency without long-standing loyalty to the nation. At the time of independence, and at the time of the framing of the Constitution, the term …