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RE: It does NOT take a supreme to ‘decide’ the founders intent of a ‘natural born’ US citizen.

Unfortunately, this matter has not been clarified at all by the framers. They never DEFINED the term in any of their writings and explications of the constitution. That’s the reason why we’re in this situation we are in.

People keep citing Vattel ( see one of the posts above ). But we don’t even know if the framers were thinking of Vattel when they wrote this phrase. Why not Blackstone?

That is why I think the SCOTUS needs to pick this issue up and settle it once and for all.

Seriously? The framers did not write above our heads. Only the legal and liberal minded have subverted the founders original intent. Ted Cruz knows full well what the founders intent was when they specified ‘natural born’ US citizenship to hold the office of president. There is none that can make lying Cruz a ‘natural born’ US citizen.

Unfortunately, this matter has not been clarified at all by the framers. They never DEFINED the term in any of their writings and explications of the constitution. That’s the reason why we’re in this situation we are in.

They didn't think to define it because it's meaning was very clear at the time... and I will explain why and how.

People keep citing Vattel ( see one of the posts above ). But we don’t even know if the framers were thinking of Vattel when they wrote this phrase. Why not Blackstone?

I'm glad you asked that question. I have searched the complete works of Blackstone, and if I recall properly, he uses the word "Citizen" exactly three times. In all cases he uses it to mean the inhabitants of a City. (As in the Citizens of London.)

Something a lot of modern people do not understand is that the word "citizen" did not mean the same thing in 1770s English that it does now. In old English, the word "Citizen" literally meant "someone who lives in a City."

Shakespeare uses the word a few times. He too uses it in context of the "Inhabitants of a City." The King James Bible uses it a few times, but it too refers to the inhabitants of a City.

I have checked Four English Law dictionaries from prior to 1770, and the word does not even exist in any of those English Law Dictionaries. It just isn't there.

Usage of the word "Citizen" to describe the members of a Nation was not a correct or normal usage of the word in 1770 English. The correct word for inhabitants of a Nation was "Subjects."

So if the word "Citizen" meaning "members of a nation", did not come from the English language, from whence did it come? As it turns out, the only place in the world in which the word "Citizen" meant members of a nation was in the Republic of Switzerland. (The only Republic in the World at that time.)

The Word "Citizen" had meant members of a country to the Swiss since their "Charte des prêtres" of 1370. (Considered to be the founding document of the old Swiss Republic.)

This makes a lot of sense because the Swiss Republic was cobbled together out of several independent states, and they were no longer "Subjects" of any Monarchy.

So why did the US Start Using it? Why didn't we use the word "Subject" just as we had always done before? Why did Jefferson deliberately eschewed this word to describe the Inhabitants of the New Independent States? Why did he deliberately chose to use this word "Citizen" in a manner that was not at the time, correct for the English language?

Well it's probably because they got the idea for creating a Confederated Republic from this book that was then currently sweeping across the nation. This book was called "Droit des Gens" (Law of Nations) and it was written by this Swiss guy who used the word "Citizen" to describe the members of a Republic which he suggested be created from a confederacy of Independent States. (Like Switzerland.)

Here is what this guy Vattel wrote in 1758.

Finally, several sovereign and independent states may unite themselves together by a perpetual confederacy, without ceasing to be, each individually, a perfect state. They will together constitute a federal republic: their joint deliberations will not impair the sovereignty of each member, though they may, in certain respects, put some restraint on the exercise of it, in virtue of voluntary engagements. A person does not cease to be free and independent, when he is obliged to fulfil engagements which he has voluntarily contracted.

Vattel used the word "Citizen" a lot. The English legal writers of the time seldom used it at all, and even when they did use it, they meant "Denizens of a City" or "City-zens."

So why did they not feel the need to define it? Because pretty much everybody at the time knew they got the word from Vattel, and he got it from the normal Swiss usage.

If you are honest with yourself and read the excellent material that has been gathered on the subject from the original writings at the time it is clear that the Founders thought that born on the soil was pivotal.

“The subject of whether jus soli or jus sanguinis applies to the United States came up in a debate in the U.S. House of Representatives, May 22, 1789, when James Madison said:

It is an established maxim, that birth is a criterion of allegiance. 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.”

The main authority for the original meaning of “natural born” is William Blackstone, in his Commentaries on the Laws of England, Volume II, edited by St. George Tucker, a Founder, published in 1803, especially Chapter 10: The writings of Blackstone actually demand that a child be born of two citizens in land under the jurisdiction of the King.”The first and most obvious division of the people is into aliens and natural-born subjects. Natural-born subjects are such as are born within the dominions of the crown of England”

St. George Tucker, the editor, says this in a footnote:

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. Thirdly, they are forever incapable of being chosen to the office of president of the United States. Persons naturalized before the adoption of the constitution, it is presumed, have all the capacities of natural born citizens. See C. U. S. Art. 1, 2.

The Naturalization Act of 1790 stated “children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond the sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural-born citizens.”, but “considered as” does not change the definition of the term or the fact of the physical circumstances of birth, nor can conferring a privilege by statute change an eligibility requirement in the Constitution. The 1790 Act also provided that its terms only applied to the law then in effect, which was changed with the repeal of it in 1795.

When this Act was reconsidered, Madison himself pointed out that Congress only had constitutional authority to naturalize aliens, not U.S. citizens, and reported a bill that amended the statute to eliminate the words “natural born” and simply state that “the children of citizens of the United States” born abroad “shall be considered as citizens.” This indicates that Madison’s view was that children born abroad of U.S. citizens were naturally aliens, rather than natural born citizens, and thus could be naturalized by Congressional statute but should not be called “natural born.” Congress adopted this amendment in the Naturalization Act of 1795.

The 1790 Congress made a mistake, using sloppy language, which was corrected it in the next act on the subject. It is also irrelevant. It is a naturalization act, and a statute cannot change the meaning of a term in the Constitution. For that one has to go back to the usage of the term before 1787, and that means usage by Coke and Blackstone, especially Coke, in Calvin’s Case. That case controls the meaning for the Founders, who regularly referred to those authors when they were unclear on legal terms of art. The early Congresses often made constitutional errors. Then as now they did not always think everything through. For that matter, the Framers made some mistakes in the Constitution, but we are stuck with those mistakes unless or until we amend it. That error was corrected by repeal. It should be noted they were on their own titles naturalization acts, not “natural born definition” acts.
http://www.constitution.org/abus/pres_elig.htm

That is why I think the SCOTUS needs to pick this issue up and settle it once and for all.

I think we need a careful amendment to the Constitution defining NBC clearly for all.

People keep citing Vattel ( see one of the posts above ). But we don’t even know if the framers were thinking of Vattel when they wrote this phrase.
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We DO know that Vattel was a heavy influence on the Framers and that The Law of Nations was cited BY NAME in Article I, Section 8, Clause 10. Everyone knew what natural born citizen meant just as they knew what Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God meant.