AHC: President Winston Churchill

[Superman]

As it says. Make Winston Churchill President of the United States with a POD no later than 1900. Bonus points if he leads the USA during *World War II or in the 1940s.

IOTL, Churchill's mother was American, so he would count as a "natural born citizen" due to one interpretation of the clause by the Supreme Court.

 

[Admiral Halsey]

Wouldn't he needed to have been born in the US to have gotten dual citizenship?

 

[Superman]

Wouldn't he needed to have been born in the US to have gotten dual citizenship?

No, AFAIK, one of his parents being American is enough. Though if I'm wrong, then feel free to correct me.

EDIT: To the best of my knowledge, you are counted as a natural born citizen if you're born in the US, any of its territories (current or at the time of your birth), or any military bases, OR if you have one or both parents who are American. Churchill had an American mother, so he fits.

 

[Anaxagoras]

But by 1900, he's an officer in the army of another nation and sworn allegiance to Queen Victoria. Legally, he has renounced any chance of American citizenship.

 

[Superman]

But by 1900, he's an officer in the army of another nation and sworn allegiance to Queen Victoria. Legally, he has renounced any chance of American citizenship.

Would it not be possible for him to try and get it again? After all, Barack Obama was an Indonesian citizen before regaining his American citizenship.

 

[gladiator8085]

The easiest way would require a pre-1900 POD. Perhaps Winston's father dies shortly after his birth and his mother relocates them both to the USA so she now has the support structure of her family. Then he grows up as an American.

 

[oshron]

The easiest way would require a pre-1900 POD. Perhaps Winston's father dies shortly after his birth and his mother relocates them both to the USA so she now has the support structure of her family. Then he grows up as an American.

yeah, Churchill would have to move to North America early in life, possibly to Canada and then move to the US after reaching adulthood. he has to wait fourteen years before being eligible, but he could totally be President if he identifies more as an American than an Englishman

 

[David T]

Churchill was elected to the New Hampshire legislature as a Republican in 1902. In 1906 he made a serious bid for the Republican nomination for governor of New Hampshire. (In 1912 he was to be the Progressive candidate for the same office, after which he foreswore electoral politics.) Suppose he had won the nomination and the general election in 1906. Could this have led to the presidency? According to http://www2.mcdaniel.edu/history/awc.html#churchill "Relationships with Roosevelt and Taft will spread his influence in Republican circles beyond New Hampshire in the coming years." And this would presumably be still more true if he were elected governor.

One possible path to the presidency would be via the vice-presidency. The problem is that GOP conventions were generally pretty conservative, and when they felt they had to nominate fairly progressive presidential candidates, they usually balanced the ticket with a conservative running mate (Fairbanks in 1904 and 1916; Sherman in 1908). However, let's say that TR in 1904 did *not* take himself out of the running for 1908. In that year, the party desperately wants him to run again, fearful that any other candidate will lose. (Of course in OTL we know that Taft was to defeat Bryan fairly easily, but the GOP could not be sure of that in early 1908. Anyway, let's say that Taft has accepted a Supreme Court justice's position, and makes it clear he has no interest in running for president.) Roosevelt insists that if the party wants him to run again, *he* must choose the vice-presidential nominee, and the man he wants is Governor Winston Churchill of New Hampshire, who has made a name for himself attacking the Boston and Maine Railroad's domination of state politics. Then of course after the Roosevelt-Churchill ticket is elected, all we need is a nut and/or anarchist to kill TR, and Winston Churchill is POTUS. He might even be able to be nominated and elected for a full term in 1912. (After all, control of Southern patronage would make it hard to defeat an incumbent Republican president at a GOP convention, however much many of the delegates would object to his progressivism.)

Or did you have some other Winston Churchill in mind?

(In all seriousness: For many years in the US, if you said the words "Winston Churchill" the name that would immediately come to most people's minds would not be a British politician but a New Hampshire novelist. Winston Churchill (1871-1947) was in fact "the most popular Progessive novelist" (to quote Richard Hofstadter in *The Age of Reform*)--though his historical romances were even bigger sellers than his modern "problem novels."

 

[Rich Rostrom]

As it says. Make Winston Churchill President of the United States with a POD no later than 1900. Bonus points if he leads the USA during *World War II or in the 1940s.

IOTL, Churchill's mother was American, so he would count as a "natural born citizen" due to one interpretation of the clause by the Supreme Court.

Jennie Churchill gets caught up in a scandal that leads to the death of her husband, Lord Randolph, in 1880, four years after Winston's birth.

Universally shunned by British society, she returns to the U.S. Winston grows up as an American. He serves in the Spanish-American War as one of the Rough Riders. (OTL, young Churchill was an excellent horseman; he played on a polo team that won the championship of India.) He becomes political ally of Colonel Roosevelt.

After serving as Assistant Secretary of the Navy in Roosevelt's administration, he moves to California, where he becomes a Progressive firebrand. In 1914, he is elected to the U.S. Senate. He serves three terms, becoming a relatively conventional Republican. He is turned out in the Democratic landslide of 1932.

During the next six years, he becomes a prominent critic of the New Deal, writing numerous articles and giving radio talks. In 1938 he regains his Senate seat. In 1940, he is the Republican candidate for President. FDR has retired due to ill health and the two-term rule. Churchill wins; he is President during WW II.

 

[David T]

No, AFAIK, one of his parents being American is enough. Though if I'm wrong, then feel free to correct me.

EDIT: To the best of my knowledge, you are counted as a natural born citizen if you're born in the US, any of its territories (current or at the time of your birth), or any military bases, OR if you have one or both parents who are American. Churchill had an American mother, so he fits.

Except that his mother had become a British subject by marrying Randolph Churchill. ("To-day, as your Lordships are aware, an alien woman, on marrying a British man, ipso facto becomes herself a British subject."
http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1938/jul/25/british-nationality-and-status-of-aliens)

Of course Churchill was ultimately made an "honorary" US citizen by Congress http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorary_citizen_of_the_United_States but that is another matter. Prior to that time, he was not a US citizen, "natural born" or otherwise.

 

[oshron]

Except that his mother had become a British subject by marrying Randolph Churchill. ("To-day, as your Lordships are aware, an alien woman, on marrying a British man, ipso facto becomes herself a British subject."
http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1938/jul/25/british-nationality-and-status-of-aliens)

Of course Churchill was ultimately made an "honorary" US citizen by Congress http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorary_citizen_of_the_United_States but that is another matter. Prior to that time, he was not a US citizen, "natural born" or otherwise.

i'm pretty sure becoming a British subject doesn't cancel out Jeanette Churchill's US citizenship. the natural-born citizen clause states that anyone born in the United States, who has at least one US citizen for a parent, or who was a citizen of the United States at the time of its foundation is counted as a natural-born American, which is why every single one of the Founding Fathers--who most certainly were NOT born in the United States--count and why all those conspiracies about Obama and even McCain or most other presidential-hopefuls are bullshit: even if Obama WAS born in Kenya, he's still a natural-born citizen and therefore eligible because his mother was a citizen, and McCain actually WASN'T born in the United States but is also a natural-born citizen because of his parents' citizenship

to have ever been eligible for the presidency, Churchill would have simply had to move to the United States and live there for at least fourteen years. i know this because i asked exactly this question in a history class which clarified my confusion over what dual-citizenship falls under in this situation

 

[David T]

i'm pretty sure becoming a British subject doesn't cancel out Jeanette Churchill's US citizenship. the natural-born citizen clause states that anyone born in the United States, who has at least one US citizen for a parent, or who was a citizen of the United States at the time of its foundation is counted as a natural-born American, which is why every single one of the Founding Fathers--who most certainly were NOT born in the United States--count and why all those conspiracies about Obama and even McCain or most other presidential-hopefuls are bullshit: even if Obama WAS born in Kenya, he's still a natural-born citizen and therefore eligible because his mother was a citizen, and McCain actually WASN'T born in the United States but is also a natural-born citizen because of his parents' citizenship

to have ever been eligible for the presidency, Churchill would have simply had to move to the United States and live there for at least fourteen years. i know this because i asked exactly this question in a history class which clarified my confusion over what dual-citizenship falls under in this situation

(1) The reason that all the Founding Fathers were eligible for the presidency is simply that the Constitution provides that "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..." (emphasis added)
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html Hence they had no need to be natural-born citizens of the US.

(2) Obama was clearly born in the US and is therefore a natural-born citizen. However, the argument that it would not matter even if he were born outside the US is not necessarily true. See http://www.volokh.com/archives/archive_2008_11_30-2008_12_06.shtml#1227910730 for the rather complicated law (as of the time of Obama's birth) about what happens when one parent is a US citizen and one is not and the birth is outside the United States. All this, as I say, is irrelevant because Obama clearly was born in the United States. (Both McCain's parents were US citizens and therefore the status of the Canal Zone, where he was born, is irrelevant.)

(3) I am not sure whether British law at the time of Jennie Jerome's marriage to Randolph Churchill regarded a foreign woman's marrying a British subject as not only making her ipso facto a British subject but also as a renunciation of whatever foreign citizenship she had previously had. I will have to look that up.

 

[I want to learn]

The constitution could be amended at some point such that Churchill is eligible.

 

[Makemakean]

Legally, he has renounced any chance of American citizenship.

No, no, no! That's not true. If you're born as an American, then it doesn't matter what you do, you can always reclaim your American citizenship. In the middle of the Cold War, Lee Harvey Oswald defected to the Soviet Union, walked straight into the US Embassy in Moscow, went to the desk to the receptionist, declaring he wanted to "dissolve his citizenship", even spoke to the consul, handed over his passport in which he had inked out his address in the United States, and then handed him a note declaring that he was seeking Soviet citizenship and declaring his allegiance to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics!

...and he still managed to regain it later on and travel back to the United States.

Okay, no I freely admit that perhaps the case of Lee Harvey Oswald maybe isn't the best example of this to refer to (certainly not if you like me think that it's a good thing that you can reclaim your US citizenship), but it is unfortunately the only one I know of...

 

[BlueTrousers]

(3) I am not sure whether British law at the time of Jennie Jerome's marriage to Randolph Churchill regarded a foreign woman's marrying a British subject as not only making her ipso facto a British subject but also as a renunciation of whatever foreign citizenship she had previously had. I will have to look that up.

I would have thought that what matters here isn't whether British law regarded her American citizenship as being renounced, but whether United States law did.

 

[David T]

"The Expatriation Act of 1868 allowed American citizens, for the first time, to disavow their citizenship. The Act detailed the requirements and “ended the common-law tradition of indelible nationality.”[6] At the same time, some legal minds saw a legislative movement toward recognizing “the husband, as the head of the family, [to be] considered its political representative, at least for the purposes of citizenship, and that the wife and minor children owe their allegiance to the same sovereign power.” [7] Britain codified this trend with the Naturalization Act of 1870.

"In the early twentieth century, Congress followed Britain’s lead and enacted the Expatriation Act of 1907 that caused women to lose their American citizenship if they married foreigners. Section 3 of the Expatriation Act of 1907 states “[t]hat any American woman who married a foreigner shall take the nationality of her husband. At the termination of the marital relation she may resume her American citizenship, if abroad, by registering as an American citizen within one year with a consul of the United States, or by returning to reside in the United States, or, if residing in the United States at the termination of the marital relation, by continuing to reside therein.”[8] In other words, a female U.S. citizen lost their citizenship by marrying a non-U.S. citizen and could only regain her citizenship if the marriage ended." http://blog.consource.org/post/78215541661/the-expatriation-act-of-1907-how-american-women-lost

Jenny Jerome married Randolph Churchill before the Expatriation Act of 1907, of course; but it was after the British Naturalization Act of 1870. So it could certainly be argued that by the voluntary act of marrying Randoph Churchill, she had renounced her US citizenship, since the purpose of the Naturalization act was to assure that the nationality of the wife would follow that of the husband.

To be sure, the 1868 Expatriation Act did not spell out procedures for renouncing US citizenship. "Before [the 1907 Act] "the State Department and the courts seemed to agree that the only act which would cause a native-born citizen to lose U.S. citizenship was *voluntary acquisition of citizen or subject status in a foreign state.* [my emphasis--DT] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expatr...ss_of_United_States_citizenship_under_the_Act Which is exactly what Jenny Jerome did...

So I would have to conclude that Winston S. Churchill was not a natural-born American citizen.

 

[Rich Rostrom]

Jenny Jerome married Randolph Churchill before the Expatriation Act of 1907, of course; but it was after the British Naturalization Act of 1870. So it could certainly be argued that by the voluntary act of marrying Randoph Churchill, she had renounced her US citizenship, since the purpose of the Naturalization act was to assure that the nationality of the wife would follow that of the husband...

So I would have to conclude that Winston S. Churchill was not a natural-born American citizen.

Interesting point. But if Jenny returned to the U.S. after only few years, with her husband dead, would she really be considered a non-citizen? Particularly if she repudiated all connection with Britain due to the scandal?

Then when Winston reaches manhood and goes into politics... It could be a question, like the nationality of Chester A. Arthur and Charles Evans Hughes (Hughes was the child of immigrants naturalized later. It was argued this made him a non-citizen.)

But if he's lived in the U.S. almost his whole life, I think it would be viewed as a pointless technicality.

 

[oshron]

Interesting point. But if Jenny returned to the U.S. after only few years, with her husband dead, would she really be considered a non-citizen? Particularly if she repudiated all connection with Britain due to the scandal?

Then when Winston reaches manhood and goes into politics... It could be a question, like the nationality of Chester A. Arthur and Charles Evans Hughes (Hughes was the child of immigrants naturalized later. It was argued this made him a non-citizen.)

But if he's lived in the U.S. almost his whole life, I think it would be viewed as a pointless technicality.

i think for the most part it would give him, at most, about as much difficulty in an election as Obama received; Churchill, however, has the advantage of being white (because, frankly, most of America and the West in general then was racist by today's standards) as well as arguably being one of the best politicians of the modern age. he'd win over fellow politicians with his policies and the general public with his wit.

 

[Admiral Halsey]

I gotta admit Churchill being president of the US during WW2 would be interesting to say the least. Anyone else think that he might actually try the "Unthinkable"?

 

[oshron]

I gotta admit Churchill being president of the US during WW2 would be interesting to say the least. Anyone else think that he might actually try the "Unthinkable"?

define "the "Unthinkable"". 'cuz there's lots of things considered "unthinkable"