“Vattel’s Law of Nations definition of NBC was the commonly held definition at the time of the framing of the constitution in the then (ahem) “civilized world”.
Interesting. “Natural Born Citizen” did not appear in any translation of Vattel until 10 years AFTER the US Constitution. Indeed, writing in the 1750s, where no democracy or republic existed on earth, Vattel would have needed to write about ‘natural born subjects’ - or, in French, sujets naturel. He never ever wrote that phrase.
He wrote, “The natives, or indigenes”. 10 years after the Constitution, a translator ‘translated’ indigenes (an English word as well as French, “a person or thing that is indigenous or native; native” - http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/indigenes) NBC.
And, as has been pointed out, the Mass legislature used NBC interchangeably with natural born subject for years after the Constitution. That means one of the original 13 ratifiers of the Constitution - remember, state legislatures voted on the Constitution - understood NBC to be fully interchangeable with NBS.
>>... or, in French, sujets naturel. He never ever wrote that phrase...<<
Too bad Jefferson was just a simpleton who could barely read and write English, much less be fluent enough in French to understand what he was reading. Too bad the other founders involved in the framing of the Constitution were dumb mono-linguists too.../sarc
But seriously, it’s latter translation stands accurate in communicating the original. To attempt to argue it changed the meaning & intent is laughable. Again, Vattel didn’t create the concept of a “natural born citizen” out of whole-cloth, he merely codified the commonly held understanding. From the common-sense point of view, he codified what was held as a citizen “by nature”. A native with no need for state-action. The combination of Jus Soli and Jus Sanguinis at birth left *NO OTHER POSSIBILITY* for additional citizenship by birth — you are a citizen by nature.
That’s why the translation stands as “natural-born-citizen” and it is the clear, obvious, unarguable translation. The founders and anyone else from that time on clearly understood this. Natural-born is “natural” born. As regards intent, there is nothing in the Mass legislature’s usage, nor is there anything in recorded history before, during or since the framing of the Constitution that indicated the founders, when using the exact phrase “natural born citizen” in the context of presidential qualifications, meant they intended someone subsequently born with multi-citizenship as being qualified as president. Even the mere suggestion of that argument wholly invalidates your point of view. It is revisionism writ large. Again, nothing subsequent courts or legislatures do will change the founders original intent.