They used Vattell’s Law of Nations as a reference.
The letter from John Jay to George Washington insisting on a natural born citizen still exists.
More at this link:
http://www.art2superpac.com/issues.html
http://usnaturalborncitizen.com/vattel.html
I read that linked letter earlier, and it didn’t really answer my question. Perhaps I asked it poorly:
Why would the born child of two citizens born outside the borders be unfit to be President or in Jay’s specific objection, “Command in chief of the american army”? In a world where it might take months to take a journey (instead of hopping on a 747 and being back on US soil in under 24 hours) why would a child, born to citizen parents on foreign soil be considered unfit for those jobs? Is it solely due to the danger of a dual citizenship from being born on the soil of a country like the USA which gives citizenship to anyone born on the soil of the USA, and thus having a divided allegiance? Even if the country specifically did NOT grant citizen to those birthed on their soil?
That is, did the Framers just make it a blanket denial of inclusion in the “natural born” category because they recognized that laws in any country, can change at any time, and trying to determine who was born where in what time under which laws at that time could be dangerously unpredictable?