[SoConPubbie]

From the perspective of 1787, it would be like requiring a definition of the word "foot."

Anyone who would need one is probably too stupid to understand one. I would suggest you could figure out the meaning by looking how it worked in practice.

Still doesn't matter.

From the perspective of constitutionality, the meaning of that day, unless codified in the Constitution, US Law, and/or SCOTUS rulings is not the same as a constitutional definition.

In order for your definition, and the definition that you declare was the general meaning, because it was not the universal meaning as proven by the writings of those alive around the same general time, in order to make your definition the constitutional definition, it will require a new amendment to the Constitution, a new US Law, or a ruling by SCOTUS. Until then, it is just your opinion of WHAT SHOULD BE Constitutional. Not what is Constitutional.

[DiogenesLamp]

In order for your definition, and the definition that you declare was the general meaning, because it was not the universal meaning as proven by the writings of those alive around the same general time,

Who are you talking about? Certainly Franklin and Wilson followed the jus sanguinus version. They said so when they wrote the original Pennsylvania constitution. John Marshall and Bushrod Washington likewise explicitly said they followed Vattel on matters of citizenship. Then there is the entire Supreme Court of Pennsylvania that said that Vattel was the standard for citizenship in our country. (They shot down William Rawle's case on the matter by Unanimous vote against him.)

You have James Monroe explicitly stating that a man born here to English Parents was NOT an American citizen, you have John Armstrong saying that another man born here of English Parents was NOT an American citizen, and you have James Madison himself backing up Ambassador Armstrong's decision in this, perhaps even going so far as to defend this decision in the newspaper under his old Federalist Papers pseudonym "Publius." Whoever wrote that, certainly knew the inner details of the affair that would very likely be unknown outside of the Madison government itself.

You have Vattel's law of Nations explicitly mentioned and cited in various state ratifying conventions, and you have the real practice of how the children of British Loyalists were regarded by the government at that time.

You have numerous and sundry other lesser officials (Langdon Cheves, William Lewis, William Johnson, Baynard, etc.) asserting it as well. You have the very document which CREATED US Citizenship citing Natural law in utter defiance of the British Natural Born Subject law.

Who have you got saying otherwise? Rawle? Definitely. Story? More ambiguous and unclear. St. George Tucker? Very liberal reading to put him in that camp. Madison made that one statement, but did the very opposite when he was in power.

In fact, you have very little support for the English law idea of subjectude in the early Governing authorities.

I believe I have come to understand how the Rawle version turned the existing understanding upside down and why. You see, I have been researching Rawle, and I am convinced that it was impossible for him to be unaware of how wrong he was.

The legal circles he ran in, the very men he worked with, all had the opposite view from that which Rawle wrote in his book. It was impossible for him to avoid the conclusions of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania regarding what English laws applied.

In the Legal circles of Philadelphia it was a watershed event, the likes of which no attorney of the bar could possibly miss.

He likewise could not have been confused regarding the absolute defeat his arguments had in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 1804. No, Rawle knew what he was writing was incorrect, but he did it anyway.

I think I know why he did it.