The Constitution is the supreme law, and it contains legal terms, with a specific, known definition evident in the writing of them. There are many terms of art used in the Constitution, not just in the one instance referring to "natural born citizen."
The only confusion as to the intended, original meaning of the term "natural born citizen" arises from deliberate obfuscation created by a tortured interpretation of the 14th Amendment. The 14th Amendment dealt with extending the rights and obligations of citizenship to former slaves. It did not and does not, however, alter eligibility requirements for the office of President.
Suddenly... the reason for Obama's oval office desk made of slave ship wood seems to become more clear.
If challenged, he is going to claim he is covered by the 14th. By the time a case like that gets resolved, he will have his 4 years done.
For the fun of it.. lets say all of this is true and winnable in a court action, which, if I'm correct, would lead to putting it before the House of Representatives, still something like that cannot win in a Senate that propped up a perjuring (and now dis-barred) Bill Clinton, which would lead to a helluva mess in 2012.
But Obama may have never intended to run for a second term, knowing full well this was eventually going to come up, which would certainly offer a better explanation as to why he appointed Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, and why they still viciously attack Palin. They fear a Palin vs Hillary contest in 2012, because Hillary has never drawn 10,000 people to a rally in her whole life. Hillary's political machine is still running, and they ain't just whistlin' Dixie.
(It would also explain Obama's brash tactics and sense of extreme urgency to get his agenda passed. He has two good years to pass legislation.)
In return for Obama's generosity of providing Hillary some foreign policy cred, Hillary has likely promised Obama he will be the next Sec of State, or Ambassador to Hawaii, or whattheheck... hes got the Pres. pension, and Secret Service protection for life... he's fixed up for life. He can go out and 'community organize', make speeches in Japan for a cool million, and be rich and play golf. Works good for him. So he will have more fun and make more money by NOT running in 2012, anyway. Sounds like some very practical thinking to me.
So Obama avoids the Constitutional crisis of 2012 by stepping aside in the 'spirit of bringing this country together' and lets Hillary run for her chance at the national perk lottery.
That's mostly true. The issue is how citizenship at birth is distinguished from "natural born citizen" under Article II.
Pretty difficult to see how a person would be a natural born citizen and not a citizen at all.
De Vattel is just a guy like Blackstone who sat down and wrote a general summary of the Law of the nations. He was good and his work was the best document of its time so it was influential.
But if you're in a lawsuit and going to make a legal argument to the court, you look for the law. The English Common Law is adopted as the law of the land. I assume, and I have not sat down in the library and looked carefully at ancient English cases, but I expect you would find lots of law on the issue of natural born subjects. And you would argue based on the authority of the historical communications some of which but not all are posted here, that those precedents governed the facts here.
You aren't going to find someone born in a far away jurisdiction subject to the sovereignty of another king with no real attachments to your country held to be a natural born subject at common law--and we aren't going to find him a nature born citizen either.
I beg to differ. English common law, as stated by Blackstone and other 18th century authorities, followed the jus solis, under which anyone born in England was a natural-born subject even if both parents were aliens. Vatel's Law of Nations takes a different view, but that is (as the title itself makes clear) because Vatel's book was about European law, not English common law. The U.S. Constitution has always been interpreted in light of the common law.
The U.S. Supreme Court has never decided a case about a presidential candidate's eligibility under the Natural Born Citizen clause, but there are statements in many Supreme Court cases (Wong Kim Ark v. United States is only one example) that there are only two kinds of U.S. citizens-- natural born and naturalized. That would mean that someone born in the U.S. is a natural born citizen.
Most importantly, from a practical point of view: Obama has always stated that his father was not a U.S. citizen. When he ran for president, no one-- no primary opponent, no general election opponent, no member of Congress from either party, no election official in any state, no judge, no law professor-- ever suggested that this disqualified him from office. So there is no way in hell any court is going to undo an election based on the theory that facts Obama publicly disclosed before the election disqualify him. (Proof that he wasn't born in the U.S. might be a different matter, but his non-citizen father-- no way.)