Do you have any real proof that they referenced Vattel for the citizenship part? People have committed the “Post hoc, ergo propter hoc”: logical fallacy in this regard. That because someone knew of the book, they obviously meant to include an alleged definition from that book in the U.S. Constitution.
Read Vattel, and I am sure you will find many of Vattel’s ideas did not transfer. For example, if the Founding Fathers thought so highly of Vattel, why don’t we have a monarchy in this country as is found in the second sentence of Vattel’s book to be the best form of government?
Another problem that you get into, is that if merely knowing of Vattel’s book is enough, well then the Founders also knew of Blackstone’s book. What puts Vattel’s alleged meaning in and NOT those contained in Blackstone?
Finally, the Wong Court considered both Vattel and English common law, and chose English common law, leaving Vattel to the dissent. The Ankeny court in November 2009 did the same.
You are battling uphill against at least 400 years of law.
parsy
WKA didn’t choose English common law as they only recognized the plaintiff as a citizen of the United States (you know, the other Constitutionally recognized class of citizen).
Also, Vattel didn’t include the translation “natural born citizen” until AFTER the Constitution was written. The word he used in French was simply repeated in early English translations, and has since entered our language as ‘indigenous’.
If the Founders were relying on Vattel, they would have said the President must be an indigenous native...