[DiogenesLamp]

All those people were citizens of the various states, which was the same thing, since the states formed the nation.

There were no "citizens" prior to 1776. Everyone was a "subject" of King George III.

Even for a long time after 1776, a lot of states kept saying "subject."

This use of "citizen" didn't really catch on until after the Constitutional convention in 1787.

"Citizen", in it's modern meaning, is a Swiss word, borrowed from the Swiss Republic. "Subject" is the English term that was in common usage in America at the time.

[Responsibility2nd]

What NBC kooks don't understand is why the Framers went on about the ambiguous and vague concept of Natural Born Citizen.

They borrowed the notion from old English Law that protected the Monarch and all it's subjects from something. Even historians going back 600 years cannot quite define who or what a Natural Born Citizen is. 

So the Constitution was amended (14th) to help redefine what NBC really means. That didn't work. So Supreme Court decisions have been handed down throughout the decades. Of course those didn't work either. In Obama's case there were 226 challenges brought about challenging his status as Natural Born Citizen. None. Zero. Nada were even admitted or heard before any court.

Historians have found that using the strictest sense of of defining a Natural Born Citizen means that even both parents must not only be citizens, but they must have been born in this country as well.

A fact that disqualifies Donald Trump himself since his mother was born in Scotland. She was not an NBC. You claim that is immaterial as she was a citizen when Donald was born? Doesn't matter. The original intent of NBC prohibits even Trump.

I wish these racists would leave this matter alone. They are embarrasing themselves and Free Republic.

Racists? Yes. The real reason they use the NBC clause as a smoke screen is to avoid brown foreign people.

[odawg]

Wikipedia:

Nationality law in the American colonies preceding the Articles of Confederation was a decentralized early attempt to develop the concept of citizenship among colonial settlers with respect to the major colonial powers of the period. Precedent was largely based on English common law, with jurisdictional discretion afforded to each of the colonies in accordance with the principles of self-governanc

[one guy in new jersey]

John Adams used the term “Natural Born Citizen” in drafts of the Treaty of Paris.

Circa 1782 if memory serves.

He did so in reference to U.S. Americans.