From a practical standpoint, I think the court is loathe to define the term; they've avoided explicitly doing so at every previous occasion, and I don't see them wanting to do so now.
From a legal standpoint, based on Jay's letter to Washington, the lack of debate about the phrase being included in the constitution, and the common law usage of the word at the time, I believe the phrase's meaning was clearly understood at the time -- natural born citizen meant all those born in the United States other than children of diplomats or hostile occupying forces. If they'd wanted to refuse American-born children of foreigners, the constitution would have said natural-born citizens of OTHER COUNTRIES were ineligible. Instead, it said the opposite -- that natural born citizens of this country were.
Your analysis still doesn’t answer the question of what constituted “natural born” at the time of the signing-—specifically, whether it required citizenship descend from the *father.*
If that was the case, and it may have been, and that had not been changed in some constitutionally competent way by 1961, we got ourselves a ball game.
All I’m saying is I sure do love to sit around and jawbone about the law and what you or I think it means and what the cases say and how this statute and that statute applies or doesn’t. But so what? All we’re proving is that no one really knows because the Supreme Court has never addressed the issue-—even to address it by saying the Congress must establish a standard that is not vague, that has procedures for enforcement (vetting), for challenge and appeal, and a remedy.
You are bringing up Jay’s letter to Washington. Hells bells! Doesn’t that tell you something? Don’t you think lawyers out to be able to point to something, chapter and verse, as to under what circumstances a person is and is not eligible to be President of the United States and Commander in Chief?
It may not be the SCOTUS’ baliwick to figure out that standard in the first instance, but it is the SCOTUS’ responsibility to ensure that the law of the land comports with the Constitution and this may be a case in which they can do that.
BTW, based on the rationale for the “natural born citizen” provision-—ensuring against foreign allegiance, etc.-—here’s what I think would have made sense to the framers at the time:
(1) Natural born citizen = a citizen literally “born American” (as opposed to merely born IN America). This means citizenship determined by descent-—i.e., by operation of nature (or “natural law”). At that time, most likely descent from the father. I don’t think we have had a president whose parents were not both Americans at the time of his birth.
(2) Citizenship at birth = those who are Americans at birth because a law makes them so-—i.e., by operation of law-—, regardless of the citizenship of their parents. These Americans AT birth would not have the same status as Americans BY birth. In the latter case, no law, at all, was required to make them citizens while, in the former case, a law was required.
(3) Naturalized citizens = those who were not Americans BY birth or AT birth, but obtain citizenship later by fulfilling a legal requirement and doing a substantive legal act to obtain citizenship. This would be citizenship by operation of law and volition.
In short:
— a natural born citizen would be one who, by operation of nature (descent) was born American, regardless of birthplace;
— a citizen would be one who, by operation of positive law, was deemed an American at birth, regardless of parents’ citizenship; and
— a naturalized citizen who, by operation of positive law and volition, becomes an American sometime subsequent to birth.
Since much of the caselaw on citizenship addresses only citizenship, and therefore could be limited to citizenship by operation of positive law (i.e., AT birth as opposed to BY birth), much of that precedent may not be helpful in determining eligibility to serve as President.
OTOH, if natural born citizenship status is as simple as having two parents who were Americans by the time of one’s birth, or—according to the law at the time-—a father who was American by the time of one’s birth, that’s a straightforward standard that would greatly limit the possible factual permutations that could be presented.