One of the rather interesting implicatons is the way in which the Framers so confdently consulted varous legal authorities, analyzed the basis for their commentaries on citizenship, and then concluded the natural born citizen clause as their own unique application of the natural law principles in a basic definition accomplishing the exclusion they intended. I’d wager they would be shaking their head sin disbelief to see their straightforward thinking being so badly misrepesented and misapplied today.
No the framers are shaking their heads because you birthers have no clue. They didn’t define NBC because they thought it would be obvious. Minor v. Happerset had it exactly right:
” The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar...”
If the Framers of the Constitution didn’t rely on our ENGLISH heritage and the common law for the meaning of “natural born citizen,” then why the heck did they choose to use a specific legal term which was found in the common law and no place else?
And if they were referring to Vattel’s concept, then why the heck didn’t they use Vattel’s terms — and state that the President had to be “a natural,” or “an indigene?”
Who even bothers any more to learn that they used @THE SPIRIT OF LAWS by Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu as one of their references? Not too many.
And that's just from one man. They used the works of over thirty different peoples.
Note that it is www.constitution.org, not www.constitution.net
.net has, IMO, some very questionable material there.