It is widely accepted on these shores that there is a rule in our Constitution that no one may obtain to the office of the presidency who was not born here. There also lingers a suspicion in some quarters that our previous president provided insufficient proof of his birth on American soil, and that he was born even farther away than Hawaii—in Kenya, the home of his father’s side of the family. Thus his presidency was illegitimate.

I take no position on that subject. Among other considerations, we’re too far along for it to matter much; impeachment on those grounds was always pretty much out of the question. (But won’t it serve up a grand kerfuffle if, by and by, it turns out to be true?)

Still, the conversation had the unforeseen and unexpected consequence of putting me on track to discover a few things hitherto concealed—in plain sight—in our revered United States Constitution: the founding document of our republic, and the bulwark of our rights and duties as citizens. Etc.

I began to wonder just what, exactly, our Constitution requires of those who would ascend to the presidency of this great nation, and enjoy intercontinental snoozes on Air Force One. We all think we know the requirements, but do we? I looked it up. The relevant paragraphs are reproduced here:

“The Constitution of the United States, Article II, Section 1, Clause 5.

“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.”

I was gobsmacked!

Take that first bit, only one innocent and harmless-looking comma along in this richly convoluted and seductive sentence: nobody but a “natural born citizen” or “a citizen of the United States…” can qualify. OR! 

If the candidate was born in this country, he’s got as as good a shot as anyone to put his feet up on the desk in the Oval Office. Fair enough; agreed all around. But after that “OR” comes an earth-shattering departure from conventional wisdom: he needn’t have been born here, after all; he need only to have obtained citizenship prior to his election to the job—it’s either one or the other, but not necessarily both.

Can it reasonably be interpreted any other way? The qualifications regarding a prospective chief executive’s origin turn out to be a bit more flexible than we thought.

And there’s more. Immediately thereafter we proceed briskly to this: “…at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution…”

Another thunderbolt! Having been born here or acquired legal citizenship somehow, the candidate must have accomplished one or another of those things “at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution…” !

Now that puts a cat among the pigeons.

The Constitution was “ratified” (which is as good as “adopted”) in 1788. This turns American history upside down and shakes it silly. Consider:

George Washington, our first president, was born on these shores in 1732 and was still alive and kicking in 1789 and thus a full citizen “…at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution…” —and at the time of his inauguration—so he’s definitely bona fide. Thereafter we have John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Monroe, Adams (John Q.), Jackson, Van Buren—followed forthwith by one William Henry Harrison—all qualified under the regulations.

After that, it gets very dodgy. Our 10th president, John Tyler (Harrison’s successor) was born in 1790. In 1788 he wasn’t a citizen, wasn’t a person, wasn’t even the bright idea his parents were planning to have later. He just wasn’t. And under the “…at the time of the Adoption…” rule, he certainly wasn’t qualified to be president.

Nor, under the same rule, was anybody who came after him.

This, as our former vice president has been quoted on another subject, “is a big ****ing deal.”

According to the official document—revered, as I’ve mentioned, by many, and kept under glass in soft lighting ever since—we’ve had no legal president since William Henry Harrison, born in 1773 and in office in 1841.

His was a beating heart in 1788, the significant year, which qualified him; he was more than 34 years of age when he took the oath; and had, as far as we know, spent at least 14 years between our golden coasts.

As to whether the first nine presidents were at least 35 when they took the oath (as per the next point in the regulations), and whether each had been a resident in the country for at least fourteen years (as per the point after that), the answers are “yes” and “probably.” Nevertheless, it’s an unarguable fact that since nearly the beginning of the republic, our presidents have all been a bunch of interlopers and pretenders; the last 36 of them couldn’t even pass the entry exam… and nobody noticed.

This is good to know, in some sense, because it clears the cobwebs of history away and gives us a clear vision of our strength as a nation from Harrison’s last day on Earth until right now. That is to say, as the presidents go, we haven’t had any and haven’t needed one.

William Henry Harrison, our ninth and final thoroughly qualified president, took the oath of office and forthwith gave what was already the traditional inaugural speech. The oath and the speech were, according to the same species of custom, given outdoors. The day was chilly and wet. And as is usual with speeches of any kind, it went on too long.

President Harrison caught a mortal cold that day. He took to his bed in the White House, and died within a month.

What followed was a tempest of confusion and indecision. Harrison was the first president to die in office, and there was not yet any rule in the Constitution regarding who should succeed a fallen president. Finally, his vice president, Tyler, got to keep the job. As we now know, that was a mistake (see "first impeachment proceedings" here). As have all the presidential accessions since.

Harrison was in many ways the perfect president: he took the oath, made a speech nobody remembers, and died before he had a chance to screw up anything. And since he was the last legitimate president we had, all the mischief perpetrated in that office since his mercifully brief tenure didn’t really happen.

Harrison’s my man.