I am quoting a primary source on English law in the middle of the eighteenth century. The law that all 55 men at the Philadelphia Convention were familiar with. The law they grew up with, the law they knew when they were proud to call themselves Englishmen, before July 4, 1776. Before the American Revolution the men in that hall were proud to call themselves subjects of the King of Great Britain. The transmutation of subjects into citizens was part of what the American Revolution was fought about.
If the Constitutional Convention had wanted to require the President to be born in the United States of two American citizens they would have said so in so many words.
... which makes it especially peculiar, that you'd think the Founders would defer to the English law governing subjects of the king, when those men at the Philadelphia Convention were also quite familiar with Vattel.
As well they should have been, since it was Vattel who first coined the term "natural-born citizen," and provided the definition of the term that more than just a few Founders and even early Chief Justices of the Supreme Court cited.
Benjamin Franklin spoke glowingly of the value of Vattel's The Law Of Nations, as did John Jay, as did Samuel Adams much earlier, in the 1760's, and likewise did John Adams and also James Otis of Massachusetts.
Vattel's very definition of the term was cited, nearly verbatim, by John Jay, John Marshall, John Bingham ... I'd say the evidence is far more definitive for Vattel than English common law, as the source for "natural-born citizen."
Interestingly, the framers and founders were just as familiar with Vattel. As a matter of fact, they openly read his work during the Constitution Convention itself.
"If the Constitutional Convention had wanted to require the President to be born in the United States of two American citizens they would have said so in so many words."
There are copious items in the Constitution that are not explicitly defined. There's no indication they intended it to be a literal dictionary.
Furthermore, there was no need to define it in the Constitution for the reason I stated above. Folks during that time new Vattel's work and therefore were familiar with his definition. Clearly, Vattel defines "Natural Born Citizen" and Blackstone defines "Natural Born Subject." Which appears in the Constitution?
And....
The question presented then is whether the US is willing to allow persons who were born without sole allegiance to the US to be Commander in Chief of our military.
For it is this specific fear that prompted our first Supreme Court Chief Justice – John Jay – to suggest to George Washington the following:
"Permit me to hint, whether it would be wise and seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government; and to declare expressly that the Commander in Chief of the American army shall not be given to nor devolve on, any but a natural born Citizen."
This letter was written on July 25, 1787. It is in direct response to Alexander Hamilton’s suggested Presidential requirement appearing in the first draft of the Constitution wherein Hamilton – five weeks earlier – on June 18, 1787 submitted the following:
"No person shall be eligible to the office of President of the United States unless he be now a Citizen of one of the States, or hereafter be born a Citizen of the United States."
There you have the crux of the issue now before the nation. Hamilton’s original drafted presidential requirement was ejected by the framers. Instead of allowing any person born a citizen to be President, the framers chose to adopt the more stringent requirement from John Jay, that the President be a natural born citizen.
Slaves were subjects too, until Britain outlawed slavery. Before that date, slaves were subjects but not citizens.
They did, when they stipulated the qualification that one must be a "natural born citizen".
And, I'm sorry your reversion to the English common law is PRECISELY the outcome the Framers intended to avoid with that particular choic of words.
But thaey never counted on the persistence of Cheburashka!
I support here is a quote from majority opinion of the Supreme Court in US v Wong Ark Kin 169 US 649 (1898)
“The interpretation of the constitution of the United States is necessarily influenced by the fact that its provisions are framed in the language of the English common law, and are to be read in the light of its history.” 124 U.S. 478
“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.”
“The (14th) amendment, in clear words and in manifest intent, includes the children born within the territory of the United States of all other persons, of whatever race or color, domiciled within the United States. Every citizen or subject of another country, while domiciled here, is within the allegiance and the protection, and consequently subject to the jurisdiction, of the United States. His allegiance to the United States is direct and immediate, and, although but local and temporary, continuing only so long as he remains within our territory, is yet, in the words of Lord Coke in Calvin’s Case, 7 Coke, 6a, ‘strong enough to make a natural subject, for, if he hath issue here, that issue is a natural-born subject-”