You then quote from his well known work on common law as to the application of common law and our practice of proceedign under it as our inheritance. Nowhere in his work on common law does he discuss citizaenship as being determined by the common law and you have not cited any such passage. Moreover the reason that Vattel gave his book the title was precisely because the law of nations was recognized as being different from the common law and thus sthe entire work is devoted to it. As Chief Justice Marshall, probably the only early Supreme Court Justice of greater prestige than Story said in the The Venus many of that day found Vattel the most satisfactory writer on the subject. Natural law was one subject and common law was another as taught in that day. You are confusing the fact that Vattel chose the subject for the title of his book with the subject. That is called sophistry.
Gray, in WKA, did not contradict Story in his opinion. WKA was after all an opinion written after the enactment of the 14th Amendment and was about citizenship or ordinary people, not Presidents, under the Amendment. To posit that WKA addressed the issue of the Article II eligibilty requirement, which was not an issue presented in the case, is to put words in Gray's mouth and is also sophistry. Gray understood what you refuse to understand, namely, that the 14th Amendment cut across the line of distinction between the two subjects with regard to those to whom it applied, leaving no need to refer to, and no room to refer to, the law of nations. An amendment becomes part of the Constitution with regard to that to which it does apply, which, in the case of the 14th Amendment, as recognized by SCOTUS in Schneider v. Rusk does not include the eligibilty clause of Title II. You are misrepresenting matters and sowing confusion.
What I am saying about the application of the law of nations to citizenship was made plain by the most prominent authority on common law in the fledgling United States at the time, St. George Tucker. And in his American edition of Blackstone, the most prominent work on Blackstone's common law commentaries of the time is evident in the post notes to his edition of Blackstone, which is available on line. His authority is taken note of by SCOTUS into recent times.
To sum it up. You misrepresent what you yourself quote because you do not take cognizance that in the discourse of that day the law of nations and the common law were two separate subjects within the law.
What I am saying about the application of the law of nations to citizenship was made plain by the most prominent authority on common law in the fledgling United States at the time, St. George Tucker. And in his American edition of Blackstone, the most prominent work on Blackstone's common law commentaries of the time is evident in the post notes to his edition of Blackstone, which is available on line. His authority is taken note of by SCOTUS into recent times.
Let's look at what St. George Tucker had to say:
That provision in the constitution which requires that the president shall be a native-born citizen (unless he were a citizen of the United States when the constitution was adopted,) is a happy means of security against foreign influence...Note Tucker's use of "native born" interchangeably with "natural born." Or will you argue that "native born" means something other than "born in the country"? Or how about [emphasis added]
An alien in America, antecedent to the revolution, was entitled to all the rights and privileges of an alien in England, and many more; to all that an alien in England could claim, because, as has been remarked elsewhere, the common law of England and every statute of that country made for the benefit of the subject, before our ancestors migrated to this country, were, so far as the same were applicable to the nature of their situation, and for their benefit, brought over hither by them; and wherever they are not repealed, altered, or amended by the constitutional provisions, or legislative declaration, of the respective states, every beneficial statute and rule of the common law still remains in force.
“To sum it up. You misrepresent what you yourself quote because you do not take cognizance that in the discourse of that day the law of nations and the common law were two separate subjects within the law. “
I like your style, AV. “I like your moves.” :)