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Citizenship by statute is NOT the exact same thing as natural born Citizenship. A created citizen is not the same as a natural born citizen.

Currently, we have three ways to acquire citizenship: (1) jus solis or birthright citizenship; (2) jus sanguinis or by blood, i.e., being born to two US citizens overseas or to an unmarried US woman citizen abroad (and now there are new regulations governing US citizen fathers for births abroad;) and (3) naturalization. The first two are automatic citizenship. Some could call it natural born citizenship.

All Presidents since and including Martin Van Buren were born in the United States subsequent to the Declaration of Independence. The only issue with regard to the qualifications set out in this clause, which appears to be susceptible of argument, is whether a child born abroad of American parents is ''a natural born citizen'' in the sense of the clause. Such a child is a citizen as a consequence of statute. Whatever the term ''natural born'' means, it no doubt does not include a person who is ''naturalized.''

Thus, the answer to the question might be seen to turn on the interpretation of the first sentence of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment, providing that ''[a]ll persons born or naturalized in the United States'' are citizens. Significantly, however, Congress, in which a number of Framers sat, provided in the Naturalization act of 1790 that ''the children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond the sea, . . . shall be considered as natural born citizens. . . .'' This phrasing followed the literal terms of British statutes, beginning in 1350, under which persons born abroad, whose parents were both British subjects, would enjoy the same rights of inheritance as those born in England; beginning with laws in 1709 and 1731, these statutes expressly provided that such persons were natural-born subjects of the crown.

There is reason to believe, therefore, that the phrase includes persons who become citizens at birth by statute because of their status in being born abroad of American citizens. Whether the Supreme Court would decide the issue should it ever arise in a ''case or controversy'' as well as how it might decide it can only be speculated about.

While some have suggested that perhaps a "natural born citizen" must have been born on US territory (i.e., in keeping with the definition of a citizen given in the 14th Amendment) -- and news reports dealing with presidential eligibility almost invariably misstate the rule in this manner -- the majority opinion of legal experts seems to be that the term refers to anyone who has US citizenship from the moment of his or her birth -- i.e., someone who did not have to be "naturalized" because he/she was born "natural" (i.e., born a citizen).

The first Congress enacted a citizenship law which stated that "the children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens". [Act of Mar. 26, 1790, ch. 3, 1 Stat. 104.] This strongly suggests that the phrase was understood by the framers of the Constitution to refer to citizenship by birth.

Whenever I see this cite of the 1790 Act, without being followed by a recognition that the Act was repealed and replaced with that of 1795, I'm dubious. The "natural born citizens" language was removed, with just "citizens" in its place.

The enumerated powers of Congress do not allow such an Act. Congress is limited to enacting "an uniform rule of naturalization." Statute law, in other words.

One thing a natural born citizen isn't, is naturalized. Or a citizen created via statute.

That the first Congress believed the matter to require addressing via the 1790 Act indicates that they understood the term natural born citizen not to cover individuals born "beyond the sea." Their attempt to address the matter collided with the separation of powers and enumerated powers under the Constitution, however.

The 1790 Act was unconstitutional and was recognized as such, having been repealed and replaced with language that did comport to enumerated powers.

A statute, even an early one, cannot define or alter a phrase in the Constitution. Contrary to your assertions, the legal authority of the early years of this republic is quite clear that the phrase as used in the Constitution means and was intended to mean born in the United States of two parents both of whom are citizens of the United States. There is no majority of legal authority that the phrase in Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 is identical in meaning with 14th Amendment citizenship. Can you cite any? The early statute to which you refere was quickly repealed, one of the reasons given being that it wrongly attempted to define and alter the Constitution.

Only if you ignore the distinction, very important to the Framers, between “subjects” of the crown and “citizens” of a republic.