age requirement president us
There is no proof that deliberations took place at the convention on the subject of the letter. While the Committee on Detail originally proposed that the President must be merely a citizen as well as a resident for 21 years, the Committee of Eleven changed citizen to natural born citizen without explanation. Article II, Section 1, Clause 5. The Constitution imposes three eligibility requirements on the Presidencyâ€”based on the officeholder's age, residency, and citizenshipâ€”that must be satisfied at the time of taking office. By virtue of the Twelfth Amendment, the qualifications for Vice President are the same. First, Presidents must be thirty-five years of age or older. In contrast, Senators must be at least thirty years old, and Representatives no less than twenty-five years old. Second, the President must have been a Resident of the United States for fourteen years. In the United States, many groups have attempted to lower age of candidacy requirements in various states. In 1994, South Dakota voters rejected a ballot measure that would have lowered the age requirements to serve as a State Senator or State Representative from 25 to 18. Although any citizen may become a Member of Congress so long as he has held citizenship for the requisite time period, to be President, one must be a natural born Citizen.. Undivided loyalty to the United States was a prime concern. In Chile the minimum age required to be elected President of the Republic is 35 years on the day of the election. Before the 2005 reforms the requirement was 40 years, and from 1925 to 1981 it was 30 years. 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. Birth, however, derives its force sometimes from place, and sometimes from parentage; but, in general place is the most certain criterion; it is what applies in the United States. That was not on the point of presidential eligibility, but it does show which rule applies. In the 2008 election both major parties nominated candidates whose eligibility is dubious. For Barack Obama the question was whether he was born in Hawaii, which is U.S. soil. For John McCain the question was whether the Panama Canal Zone, where he was born, was U.S. soil. Persons naturalized according to these acts, are entitled to all the rights of natural born citizens, except, first, that they cannot be elected as representatives in congress until seven years, thereafter. Secondly, nor can they be elected senators of the United States, until nine years thereafter.
Thirty-five years