To repeat once again - history and reality already dictate what it meant at the time it was written - and also what Courts have already ruled. Papers making arguments do not change reality:
There was a U.S. Supreme Court case in 1939 with the title Perkins v. Elg http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/307/325.html which dealt with the issue of a woman who was born in the U.S. to Swedish citizens who returned to Sweden with her when she was four years old. Her father was naturalized prior to this as a U.S. Citizen and held dual citizenship. She then came back to the U.S. and was admitted entry as a citizen at the age of 21. For whatever reason, her father later did away with his U.S. Citizenship status and the equivalent of the INS at the time declared she was to be deported. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against this, finding she was a natural born U.S. Citizen by right of birth and even declared she was eligible to be President of the United States in the ruling. A past President, Chester Arthur, was born with an Irish father who was not yet naturalized as a U.S. Citizen, though his mother was born in Vermont where Arthur himself was born.
Detractors like to ignore all of information and court cases and instead rely totally on a case Minor v. Happersett - seeming to deliberately misquote the ruling - indeed, the justices specifically stated they were not making a finding of every scenario that constitutes a natural born citizen in their ruling: “The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their [p168] parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first. ***For the purposes of this case it is not necessary to solve these doubts.***” Minor v. Happersett - full text of ruling https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/88/162
Here’s the problem with the conclusion of all these cases using 14A §1 birthright citizenship: They are all antithetical to the very point of requiring a citizen to be born of two citizen parents so as to ensure as much as possible the Commander in Chief’s sole loyalty is to the United States.
Chester Alan Arthur is generally believed to have been born in northern Vermont, but opponents at the time spread the rumor that he had actually been born in Canada.
Incorrect. The English common law defines "Subjects" not "citizens." Citizen isn't even an English word that meant the same thing at the time. "Citizen" in 1760s English meant "City dweller." It did not mean "Member of a nation" back then. (Except in Switzerland, where it did since the 1300s.)
The deliberate choice of the word "Citizen" when "Subject" was the normal and more common term, meant they were rejecting English law on the matter, the same as they rejected it regarding the establishment of a state religion, Debtor's prison and "Corruption of blood."
All English laws that were anathema to the natural law foundation of American Independence were rejected, and the jus soli foundation of English subjectude was among them.
The English made everyone born on their soil owe allegiance to their King as a means of making them his soldiers to defend the crown. It was forcible patriation, and it did indeed force children born to foreign parents into the English army and navy.
Jus Soli common law is not for the benefit of the people, but instead was solely for the benefit of the crown.
Here is a critique of the practice from a Scottish Presbyterian minister in the early 1800s.
“the English common law definition - those born within the borders of the realm are naturally born citizens. “
WRONG!
We just fought a revolution to NOT BE under “English common law”
Also the phrase they use is “naturally born citizens”.
The constitution says “NATURAL born citizen”. NOT the SAME!
When “commas” make a YUGE difference, I think a whole DIFFERENT word MIGHT make a difference, but hey it doesn’t really matter since it is from our former tyrant’s common law.