From: Randall Randall (randall@randallsquared.com)
Date: Thu Aug 07 2003 - 10:28:04 MDT
On Thursday, August 7, 2003, at 10:23 AM, John K Clark wrote:
>> "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 to that office who shall not have attained
>> to the age of thirty five years, and been fourteen Years a
>> resident within the United States."
>
> Brett Paatsch" <bpaatsch@bigpond.net.au>
>
>> So on my reading, (and contrary to what I thought I knew),
>> if Arnie is a US citizen and has been a resident for 14 years
>> he is not precluded.
>
> Huh? It says nobody born outside the USA can become president unless
> he was
> naturalized when the constitution was adopted, is older than 35, and
> lived
> in the USA for at least 14 years. Arnold was not born in the USA, so
> unless
> he's about 200 years old and was naturalized when the constitution was
> adopted he can't be president.
If they meant "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",
why didn't they say that? Basically, Brett is saying that it might be a
valid rewording to say:
When this Constiution is adopted, no person except a natural born
citizen
or a citizen of the United States shall be eligible to the office of
President [...]
In an otherwise admirably terse document, why add a comma in the middle
of
a phrase, if not to clarify that two phrases are intended? :)
-- Randall Randall <randall@randallsquared.com> "Not only can money buy happiness, it isn't even particularly expensive any more." -- Spike Jones
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