Talk:Article Two of the United States Constitution

Actual text

Shouldn't the text not be quoted in the article in addition to the conclusions of the constitution's meaning? Lord Metroid 08:43, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Someone needs to proofread the thing. In the quoted extract regarding the qualifications of President, there was a missing comma. We should be using the official text of the Constitution for quotation purposes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Slagathor (talk • contribs) 11:41, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Qualifications of Vice President

Itt was stated under presidential qualifications that, according to the 22nd amendment, no one can be elected to the Presidency more than twice (which is correct) and that the same standard applies to a former President elected to the office of VP (which isn't correct). Specifically, the sentence said:

"The Twenty-second Amendment also prevents a President from being elected more than twice. Presumably, this also means a former two-term President could not later qualify to be Vice President."

Since no former President has run for or been elected to the office of the Vice President since the passage of the 22nd amendment and in light of the fact that there is a distinct lack of judicial opinions on the matter, it would be appropriate here not to provide such a conjecture. sebmol 21:57, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Also, going by the actual text related to the Natural-Born requirement, there doesn't appear to be anything specifically related to the position of Vice-President:

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.

If australia was to become a state, would I, a natural born australian be eligible for president? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.217.59.87 (talk) 04:25, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Is it 14 or 15 years residence? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.188.92.176 (talk) 05:40, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Natural born citizen

moved from article page:

While the "natural born" clause has never been challenged, in theory, "Adoption of this Constitution" could mean anyone who is a United States Citizen at the time the Archivist of the United States officially declared the current version of the Constitution, modified by the most recent Amendment, valid could become President.

Why was it included?

Is it possible to determine why this was incorporated ? Was it simply to ensure no English person could become president and cede power back to England? "Native Americans" were still relatively few in number at the time of the authorship of the constitution , this clause will have excluded many Irish, Italian etc. immigrants at that time and many many more today. Does it not imply all non "natural born" citizens are either not to be trusted or are of less ability - or is there no such concern within the US? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.146.131.19 (talk) 22:36, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

It was included primarily because Alexander Hamilton's political opponents didn't want him to become President. Hamilton was born in Bermuda and thus not a natural-born US citizen.

Wrong. The Constitution clearly reads that to be president you must have been either born in the US at the time of the adoption of the constitution, or a citizen at the time of the adoption of the constitution. No American president born AFTER the adoption of the constitution has been legitimately elected. They've all been usurpers. It's that extra comma. It changes everything. The Constitution itself is clearly unconstitutional. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Slagathor (talk • contribs) 11:42, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

As to the other matter of the paragraph which has been removed and re-inserted - it doesn't matter if it's NPOV, it is factually incorrect. There is no debate. Every reliable authority on the United States Constitution believes that persons born in U.S. territories are natural-born citizens. That's why the statement about the "dispute" sat uncited for two months - because there is no authority to back up that claim. John McCain is a natural-born citizen and there is no controversy as to his eligibility to be President. JTRH (talk) 01:54, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Factually incorrect were the words I was looking for. It had seemed odd to me, but I'm glad that there is another source to back that feeling up. NuclearWarfare (talk) 02:27, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

The Hamilton comment above is inaccurate because Hamilton was a citizen by the time Constitution was adopted. He was certainly eligible. (24.44.63.141 (talk) 23:35, 20 October 2008 (UTC))

Section 2, clause 2: Appointments

Is there any precedent of Congress abolishing a presidentially appointed office while that office was not vacant (this, of course, gives Congress a means of firing an officer it doesn't like despite the objections of the president)? If so, I believe a sentence or two on that topic is appropriate in the article. Karlhahn 15:04, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

"Missing clause"?

A subheading under "Section 2: Presidential Powers" is titled "The missing clause: Executive Privilege". I see no reason why this extension of presidential power should be elevated to the status of a "Missing clause" (or is it lowered by pointing out that the Constitution doesn't provide for it?). NPOV and clarity both suggest that this topic not be presented under this heading. Harold f 02:51, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Seeing no objection in the last month, and consistent with the above, I have changed the title and first sentence from

The missing clause: Executive Privilege

The question of what information the President may withhold from the courts or Congress is contentious and undetermined.

to

Executive Privilege: A missing clause?

Presidents have claimed the power to withhold information from the courts and Congress, but no clause of the Constitution speaks of such a power, and questions regarding this are contentious and undetermined.

I think that this makes no change in the statement of fact, but removes inappropriate implications. Harold f 22:51, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

commander-in-chief

The president is not the highest ranking officer in the military. He is not a part of the military. Rather he is a civilian who is the civilian commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy, plus the state militias, The intention, as stated in Federal Paper No. 69 (http://usinfo.state.gov/infousa/government/overview/federa69.html) "First. The President will have only the occasional command of such part of the militia of the nation as by legislative provision may be called into the actual service of the Union." Gary Wills, a conservative historian, wrote: "The glorification of the president as a war leader is registered in numerous and substantial executive aggrandizements; but it is symbolized in other ways that, while small in themselves, dispose the citizenry to accept those aggrandizements. We are reminded, for instance, of the expanded commander in chief status every time a modern president gets off the White House helicopter and returns the salute of marines. That is an innovation that was begun by Ronald Reagan. Dwight Eisenhower, a real general, knew that the salute is for the uniform, and as president he was not wearing one. An exchange of salutes was out of order. (George Bush came as close as he could to wearing a uniform while president when he landed on the telegenic aircraft carrier in an Air Force flight jacket). We used to take pride in civilian leadership of the military under the Constitution, a principle that George Washington embraced when he avoided military symbols at Mount Vernon. We are not led — or were not in the past by caudillos." From the WashingtonPost address blacked. The distinction of the American system is that the military is answerable to civilian. Wills cites Eisenhower. What his article does not say is that Eisenhower resigned from his 5-star rank on May 19, 1952 to run for president. After he served two terms he applied for reinstatement as a 5-star general. Jmc9595 (talk) 00:17, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Fixed, thanks :) NuclearWarfare (talk) 01:25, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Vice presidential succession

If the VP is not a natural born citizen (or otherwise ineligible) and the presidency is vacant for whatever reason, is the VP passed over to the Speaker? --Daysleeper47 (talk) 15:07, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

A person cannot be Vice President if he/she is not a natural born citizen. Andy120290 (talk) 20:18, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Can we go one step further and ask, if the VP also is vacant for whatever reason, and the Speaker is not a natural born citizen - will the Speaker be president? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ucla1989 (talk • contribs) 08:48, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Short answer: no. You have to meet all the requirements to become president. For example, although the Secretary of State is third in line (after the veep and house speaker) neither Henry Kissinger nor Madeline Albright could have assumed the office as they were both naturalized. Wschart (talk) 19:46, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

expansion request

The treatment of Qualifications for Office should summarize the current questions or scholarly debate regarding the natural-born citizen clause. 69.140.152.55 (talk) 19:52, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Questions or scholarly debate might lead the reader to assumptions that may not be based on facts. However, past case laws that have addressed this issue would better show the intent of our framers of the constitution with the "natural-born citizen" clause. Presumably, the history of this clause could be better found by also looking at English common laws or law of the land, where our framers derived their language. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.66.18.106 (talk) 00:18, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Gender-specific pronouns

Sure are alot of them in this part of the U.S. Constitution. Whether "he", "his", or "him", they are provocative and suggest that the founding fathers did not envision a "she" becoming POTUS. It would be interesting to know how constitutional law scholars/experts interpret these Articles. For the record, I have no issue with a woman being our President, and in fact would vote for any woman running for POTUS simply because it would be cool to see happen. However... since the Supreme Court has already determined once who the lawful President should be, there is a precedent that they are within their power to determine this again should any issue come up. 24.247.170.144 (talk) 17:27, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

The courts (from top to bottom) have routinely held that the use of gender-specific pronouns is a function of the English language not having a good history with the use of neutral pronouns, and that they should not be construed as providing any gender-specific limitations. This issue has never come up in the context of the relevant portions of Article II, but frankly I would consider it beyond belief that any court (Supreme or otherwise) would deviate from this entrenched approach. MrArticleOne (talk) 02:42, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Since this issue routinely comes up, I figure it might be a good idea to include a line or two about this in the article. Anyone have any case citations for this? NuclearWarfare ^{contact me}_{My work} 23:16, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Notice that Article One of the United States Constitution also talks about "he" in reference to members of the Congress. The only "case citation" possible would be if someone went to court asserting that the Constitution only allows males. That would be an interesting find. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 09:00, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

clause 3:

clause 3 which reads:

'after the choice of president, the person having the greatest number of votes of the electors shall be the Vice President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal votes, the Senate shall choose from them a Vice President'

-- which if i read it correctly means that john mccain should have been nominated for the vice-presidency following the 2008 election, just as al gore should have been nominated for the vice-presidency following the 2000 election. but this never happens. is this section obsolete? or is the article i am reading somehow faulty? and if it is no longer valid, when was it revised? or is the clause 'invoked' (clause allows Senate to choose a Vice President) without the qualifying specification ('if there should remain two or more who have equal votes') -sio. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.230.224.28 (talk) 20:52, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

See the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution — JPMcGrath (talk) 23:54, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

You read it correctly, but it has not applied in over 200 years.

This section applied (as you read it) to the first 4 President elections. It was, for example, how Thomas Jefferson became Vice President when John Adams became President.

The Constitution was amended while Jefferson was President. The 12th Amendment says that the elector shall vote for President, and vote for Vice President, and the person who gets the most votes of electors for President shall be President, and the person who gets the most votes of electors for Vice President (same electors, but they vote twice, once for each office) shall be Vice President.

The 12 Amendment removed the possibility of the Vice Presidency going to the losing Presidential candidate. This happened only once, in the election of 1796 (Adams elected President, Jefferson elected Vice President). 71.109.155.155 (talk) 15:52, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I'd like to point out that actually the original asker of the question did not in fact read the (whole) clause correctly. Even absent the Twelfth Amdendment, John McCain didn't have the second highest number of electoral votes in 2008, Joe Biden did (or rather Biden had as many votes as Barack Obama). The Democrats won 365 electoral votes, but each of those electors had two votes to exercise. So under the original system, the vote would have been:

Barack Obama: 365

Joseph Biden: 364

John McCain: 173

Sarah Palin: 172

Biden and Palin get one vote less each by an unofficial prior arrangement of the parties with a single chosen Elector. That idea, tried in 1800 and 1804, never worked so they amended the Constitution as explained above. But the point is that Biden had as many electoral votes as Obama, and Cheney had as many as Bush (having been awarded the Florida votes by the Supreme Court). Silas Maxfield (talk) 22:33, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Hamilton

It's odd there is no mention of Alexander Hamilton in this article, as the wording of the eligibility clause is entirely due to Hamilton being born on Nevis and his fellow Founding Fathers (at least those aligned with him) were afraid the "natural born citizen" aspect could be used to bar him from the presidency. In 1787 at the time of ratification, the "United States" was already 11 years old and Washington was the assumed first executive, hence the 14 years part would be satisfied at the earliest point Hamilton could possibly run. I get the feeling if I check the history I will find this was part of the article until someone with an agenda (ie, the 2008 election) changed it. Surely, a doctoral candidate, much less an actual scholar, can provide the sources that explicitly state this. RoyBatty42 (talk) 21:27, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Correct name for article -- "Article II of the United States Constitution"

We are using the word "Two" in this article to describe "Article II". (E.g., the title and the redirects send us to these written numbers.) Since the original text uses the Roman numerals, this article and the others should be retitled to read "Article II of the US Constitution" etc. (Is there discussion in the other articles? I'll check.) Thoughts? --S. Rich (talk) 19:31, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia practice is to title Wikipedia articles based on how something is most commonly described, not its officially name. For example, this practice means that the article on the 42nd President should be titled "Bill Clinton", not "William Clinton" or "William Jefferson Clinton".

However, there should be redirects from the official names to the Wikipedia articles. 71.109.155.155 (talk) 15:55, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Cdr of the militia -- reverted edit

My revert here [1] is based on a subtle, though important distinction. The Clause makes the President the commander of the militia (National Guard) when they are called up. The clause does not give the President the authority to call them up. Enabling legislation is required and the authority/power to do the call up is in the United States Code. Moreover, calling up the Guard/militia requires the expenditure of money. The Constitution says no one can spend the Treasury's money without legislation authorizing the expenditure. Therefore the Budget of the United States, each year, contains moneys set aside for such call ups. Again, it is an enacted law that gives the President the authority to call up the militia and pay them, not the Constitution itself.--S. Rich (talk) 17:47, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

New reference in Section 3 Clause 5

I have added a new reference to the second paragraph of the Clause 5 subsection of this article where there was not one previously. I'm mentioning this here because the citation I added is to the Heritage Foundation's Constitution guide and I work for Heritage. I previously proposed adding this to the President of the United States article but an editor there suggested it would work best here. If anyone has questions I'd be happy to respond on my user talk page. Thanks! Thurmant (talk) 19:41, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

also?

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other High crimes and Misdemeanors.

The Constitution also allows for involuntary removal from office.

I don't understand the force of "also" here. It suggest something distinct from what has already been referenced. Lewis Goudy (talk) 20:21, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

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Trump Presidency 2017 Pardon

Looking like the expansion of the Pardon topic surrounding Trump will grow. A section is needed, somewhere--Wikipietime (talk) 13:09, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

Choosing Electors

The section covering the selection of electors says that electors are chosen on what we commonly call "election day" (Tuesday after the First Monday), and indeed 3 USC 1 specifies that date, but that is not entirely accurate. We hold a popular vote on election day, but the actual appointment of electors rarely happens on that day. Instead, slates of candidates for elector are usually named by the major parties weeks before election day, but the actual appointment of the winners doesn't happen until some days after election day. 3 USC 2 permits states to make the choice of electors on a later date; 3 USC 5 gives the states a "safe harbor" if they make the choice at least 6 days before the meeting of the electors. This later limit was a factor causing some urgency of a decision in the 2000 election in Florida. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Christianbstevens (talk • contribs) 21:38, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

misquotes

You would think this would be pretty straight forward to remember as there would be 2 kinds of citizenship:

No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution

Strangely it seems like some ignore the "or" and blend it into a single thought.

• Perry, Warren. "Chester Arthur: A Birthplace Controversy, 1880". National Portrait Gallery. Article Two, Section One of the United States Constitution states that, "No person except a natural born citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President..." and it continues to say that person must be at least thirty-five years old and a resident of the United States for a minimum of fourteen years .. in 1789, the United States was only thirteen years old as a nation, so it would not be possible for anyone to have been a citizen for fourteen years.

How common are goofups like this? I wonder if it's to the point of a phenomena worth observing. WakandaQT (talk) 06:23, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

Limits on state legislatures for choosing electors

The wikipedia article currently states: "In McPherson v. Blacker (1892), the Supreme Court affirmed the ability of a state to appoint its electors based on electoral districts rather than a statewide popular vote, describing the power of state legislatures to determine the method of appointment of electors as "plenary", and suggesting that it was not limited even by state constitutions.[7][8][9]"

The last clause is what I am concerned with "suggesting that it was not limited even by state constitutions." How can this be a sensible inference? Are state legislatures not even limited by state law? Isn't a state constitution the supreme law of the state, and a state legislature can only act within the bounds set forth in the state constitution? So if a state legislature is not bound by the constitution of the their state, then how can they be bound by state law. Thus a state legislature can just randomly decide to choose electors and nullify the current popular vote. I'm sure that is absurd.

For example. If a state constitution sets their voting age to 16 instead of 18. Can the state legislature then reset it to 18 simply by passing a law but not amending the state constitution? I doubt it since that has no direct bearing on *how* electors are chosen. If a state constitution says elections are to be free and equal, then a state legislature cannot make them unfree or unequal.

I think the point here is that the US Constitution is the supreme law of the land and that a state constitution cannot supersede it. The US Constitution provides that state legislatures determine how the electors are chosen. A state constitution cannot take that power away. A state constitution cannot, for example, say that electors are chosen by winner takes all popular vote. In this case, the state legislature can make laws that change the way electors are chosen without even amending their state constitution. If anyone objected, it would go to SCOTUS and the offending state constitution clause would easily be struck down.

Jraudhi (talk) 09:23, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

searchable congress discussions preceding 1788 regarding issues in article two

In the interest of understanding the intentions of writers regarding certain phrases, does anyone know if there is a searchable database of congress sessions and debates (or private letters, etc) where we can put in key words like "natural born" and see the context in which phrases like this were used in the 60s/70s/80s?

One note of interest is where we can read the first 1760 translation into English of The Law of Nations for example, but mainly I want to read what congress wrote regarding this and/or English common-law leading up to deciding on what sentences to include in article two. They probably had debates and disagreements and argued about it somewhere? WakandaQT (talk) 05:14, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

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The fourteenth amendment exception

I notice that @Drdpw added the fourteent amendment exception in 2018, with an adequate reference; and that the applicability of this exception also to the president since then has been treated as uncontroversial. I personally find this a rather reasonable interpretation. (The constitution explicitly defines the presidency as an "Office"; and the amendment refers to "...or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States...". Finally, the idea that a person swearing to "uphold" the constitition as a requirement for taking office thereby would not be considered to have sworn to "support" it is sophistery.) However, I'm no lawyer, and my opinion (and implicitly the opinions of a number of wikipedians who edited this page over the last five years) has little bearing. I notice that some politicians now argue that this rebellion clause cannot be applicable to a president, be (s)he guilty of "rebellion" or not. Does anyone know if any of the (lower) court decisions so far has accepted this opinion? If so, and possibly anyhow, we might have to add a note that the application of the fourteenth amendment to the presidency is disputed. If not, we might wait until and if such an opinion gets this kind of "official sanction". (So far, the only court decision I know of which didn't avoid this issue is that by the Colorado SC, and that one upheld the applicability of the amendment.) JoergenB (talk) 14:34, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Suggested edit, in CAPS

Section 1 provides that each state chooses members of the Electoral College in a manner directed by each state's respective legislature, with the states granted electors equal IN NUMBER to their combined representation in both houses of Congress. =avallone (talk) 13:27, 23 July 2024 (UTC)