Not true; I suggest you do some reading on the history of the Constitution. English Common Law formed the basis of much of the Constitution. Justice Scalia, for one, disagrees with you, as do several other justices. Justice Joseph Story
And so has been the uniform doctrine in America ever since the settlement of the colonies. The universal principle (and the practice has conformed to it) has been, that the common law is our birthright and inheritance, and that our ancestors brought hither with them upon their emigration all of it, which was applicable to their situation. The whole structure of our present jurisprudence stands upon the original foundations of the common law.Chief Justice Howard Taft wrote
"The language of the Constitution cannot be interpreted safely except by reference to the common law and to British institutions as they were when the instrument was framed and adopted."From the WKA case:
In U. S. v. Rhodes (1866), Mr. Justice Swayne, sitting in the circuit court, said: 'All persons born in the allegiance of the king are natural- born subjects, and all persons born in the allegiance of the United States are natural-born citizens. Birth and allegiance go together. Such is the rule of the common law, and it is the common law of this country, as well as of England.' 'We find no warrant for the opinion [169 U.S. 649, 663] that this great principle of the common law has ever been changed in the United States. It has always obtained here with the same vigor, and subject only to the same exceptions, since as before the Revolution.' 1 Abb. (U. S.) 28, 40, 41, Fed. Cas. No. 16,151." [emphasis added]See also See also Lynch v. Clarke, 3 N.Y.Leg.Obs. 236, 1 Sand. Ch. 583 (1844),
The only standard which then existed, of a natural born citizen, was the rule of the common law, and no different standard has been adopted since. [emphasis added]
The term “natural born citizen” is alien to common law; they had native born subjects. At the time natural born citizen was understood to mean one that was a citizen by birth regardless of where he was born because both parents were citizens.
Nope. See Ainslie v. Martin, 9 Mass. 454, 456, 457 (1813)
And if, at common law, all human beings born within the ligeance of the King, and under the King’s obedience, were natural-born subjects, and not aliens, I do not perceive why this doctrine does not apply to these United States, in all cases in which there is no express constitutional or statute declaration to the contrary. . . . Subject and citizen are, in a degree, convertible terms as applied to natives, and though the term citizen seems to be appropriate to republican freemen, yet we are, equally with the inhabitants of all other countries, subjects, for we are equally bound by allegiance and subjection to the government and law of the land.
Change your handle to “sometime thinker.”
Sometime, I’m sure that you will think.
"The Second Amendment provides: 'A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.' In interpreting this text, we are guided by the principle that '[t]he Constitution was written to be understood by the voters; its words and phrases were used in their normal and ordinary as distinguished from technical meaning.' United States v. Sprague, 282 U. S. 716, 731 (1931) ; see also Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 188 (1824). Normal meaning may of course include an idiomatic meaning, but it excludes secret or technical meanings that would not have been known to ordinary citizens in the founding generation."
How many "ordinary citizens" in the founding generation or today were/are familiar with Grotius, Vattel or any of Vattel's theories of citizenship? I think that if the term "natural born citizen" had in the minds of a few of the drafters some sort of special little meaning (in French or in English) and they wanted to bind Americans then or now to that special little meaning, then they were under an obligation to disclose that special little meaning in the text of the Constitution for "ordinary citizens" in the founding generation. I also think that, absent such a disclosure, "citizen at birth" is a very normal, natural NBC construction for ordinary citizens, then or now.
If some now want to impose on the rest of us that special little meaning, then they should amend the Constitution and add the appropriate language.