At the founding of the USA, who were considered natural born citizian and eligibile to run for President?

Question

Some of the Founding Fathers were not born here so were they considered natural born citizians at the founding? What about people who live in a territory when it becomes a State?

Answer 1

Read the Constitution, for pity's sake!

Here's what it says in Article II, Section 1:

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;

So, if you were a citizen of the United States at the time the Constitution was adopted, you would be eligible to run for president. Otherwise, you would have to have been born in the USA. To be a citizen of the US in those days, you had simply to be a citizen of a state, so you would look to the laws of the states to see who is and is not a citizen.

Answer 2

Those of you who said that are founding fathers were not born in the US are mistaken:
Washington- Virginia
Adams- Mass
Jefferson- Virginia
Madison- Virginia
Monroe-Virginia
J Q Adams- Mass
Jackson- S. Carolina
Van Buren - New York
ect.......
And the requirements to be President have always been the same as were stated in Article 2 section 1.........
No person except a natrual born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligable for the office of President.
It just so happens that all of our Presidents were born in the US.

Answer 3

According to the Constitution: "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. "

In order to understand what this means you have to understand the concept of what the term "United States" means. Each state in the union existed well before they formed together to form the "United States". For example Virginia was founded as a colony in 1607. So someone who was born in Virginia in 1752 (or any of the other colonies) would have been eligible to run for President.

Answer 4

I'm pretty sure the Articles of the Confederation had different standards for president (white males that owned land, in particular), and after the Constitution was signed the new standards were set. And a few of the Founding Fathers were indeed born on American soil. We were colonies way before we revolted.

Answer 5

The laws you are refereing to, were not part of the origional constitution. They were added later. Very few of the founding father was born in the USA.

Answer 6

by the time of the revolution, the land had been settled for decades, and then some. so most people in politics had been born here.

Answer 7

white males who owned land.