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I’m reposting this from the comments section of the ABC story posted above. It’s well-worth the read...

The meaning of the term-of-art ‘natural born citizen’ has been addressed, and confirmed by the US Supreme Court. The idea that all persons who are a citizen at birth, are ‘natural born citizens’ can not possibly be accepted for the simple reason that NO part of the Constitution can be interpreted in such a way as to make any part of the Constitution irrelevant. What that means is that the Constitution MUST be interpreted in such a way that every word in relevant. The idea that ‘citizen at birth’ equates to ‘natural born citizen’ ignores the word ‘natural’. If the intention was otherwise, they would have simply said a ‘born citizen’, or a ‘citizen at birth’ or ‘born a citizen’. So it is clear they intended something else. So - what does the word ‘natural’ mean in the context of ‘natural born citizen’? There are two types of law. There is ‘positive law’ - this is man-made law, such as the Constitution, laws from Congress, state law, local ordinances, and so on. And then there is ‘natural law’ - this is the law of nature, or the divine. An example would be when the founders wrote the Declaration of Independence, and stated - “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”. That is a form of natural law. So, the term ‘natural born citizen’ means EXACTLY what it says, a citizen at birth according to natural law.OK - what is a citizen by natural law? Remember, a natural law is one that is unwritten. So a citizen by natural law, would be a citizen that would require no man made ‘positive’ law to be a citizen. So, when is someone a citizen without need of any positive law? When they can be nothing else. Does that sound familiar? Ever heard someone answer a question with the word ‘naturally’, because the answer could be nothing else? “Does Monday come after Sunday? Naturally!”. Who can be nothing other than a citizen at birth, and therefore requires no positive law? There are 4 basic variables governing citizenship. 1) born in or out of a country. 2) Both parents are citizens. 3) One parent is a citizen. 4) Neither parent is a citizen. The first (where born) is combined with the other 3 to determine whether or not a child is a citizen at birth. There are laws written to govern every situation - except one. The only situation not covered by positive law is when a child is born in a country, and both parents are citizens of that country. Why? Because no law is required, the child is a citizen ‘naturally’. Both side want to ignore this FACT. Maybe where a person is born shouldn’t really matter. I’ve seen many immigrants who are much more patriotic than natural born American’s. But there is a process to go thru if that is the case, and that process is the Amendment process. But that probably wouldn’t go through. So what do they do? They simply ignore that part of the Constitution. The real danger is what part do the decide to ignore next?

"Constitution does not explicitly define the phrase. The Constitution doesn’t define any words! Guess ABC didnt’ know that!"

Amazing isn't it satan69? Free Republic has an unhealthy collection of agitprop specialists busy keeping our low-information audience confused as well.

Obama isn't natural born because he told us so. “I am a native-born citizen of the US”. The 14th Amendment made native born residents into citizens, with the exception of American Indians, “untaxed”. Obama told us he was born a British Subject. He told us he was naturalized by the 14th Amendment. Citizens are either naturalized or natural.

McCain had problems because he was not born on sovereign US soil. Don Nickles, former Oaklahoma Senator, tried to help has friend McCain with a Constitutional amendment in 2004, to make the overseas-born children of citizens natural born citizens. It failed to pass, just as did the other seven attempts at amending Article II Section 1 filed between 2002 and 2008. The two filed by Conyers and one by Robert Menendez would have made Obama eligible. None passed.

Obama and his campaign chair, Clair McCaskill, sponsored S. 2678, February 2008, the ‘‘Children of Military Families Natural Born Citizen Act’’, to imply that McCain was eligible, since McCain provided cover of Obama. It failed to pass. So McCaskill and Leahy, realizing they hadn't a prayer of passing anything other than a feelgood resolution, sponsored Senate Resolution 511, entirely focused on how no one doubted McCain's allegiance, and since he was born to citizen parents, in spite of any irregularities with where he was born, our framers would have wanted McCain to be considered a natural born citizen.“My assumption and my understanding is that if you are born of American parents, you are naturally a natural-born American citizen,” Chertoff replied. “That is mine, too,” said Leahy.” Of course Senator Obama wasn't born to citizen parents, but we are not only a low-information society, but are properly assumed to have short memories, and Obama had not yet secured the party's nomination.

As to who is a natural born citizen it is remarkable to see discussions where legal sources are avoided, so here is the only, and never amended, interpretation for the term natural born citizen, never doubted common-law before 1875 and positive law after Chief Justice Waite's brilliant decision in Minor v. Happersett:

“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.”

Before the 14th Amendment the only citizen defined by the Constitution was a natural born citizen. Least someone suggest that the 14th Amendment also changed the definition for who were natural born citizens, here is the crystalline statement by its author, Congressman-judge John Bingham to the House of Representatives as he explains his naturalization amendment to the House of Representatives in 1866:

I find no fault with the introductory clause [S 61 Bill], which is simply declaratory of what is written in the Constitution, that every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen….

Not natural born citizens: Obama, Chester Arthur, McCain, Ted Cruz, Rubio, Jindal, Wong Kim Ark, Arnold Scharzenegger, Madeline Albright, Henry Kissinger, Zbigniev Brezinski... Natural born citizens: Rand Paul, Sarah Palin, Suzanne Martinez, Ben Carson, ....