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It is "commonly accepted" that Vattel’s “Law of Nations” was not translated from French to English until 1797, 10 years AFTER the Constitution was written. This is important, as Vattel’s “Law of Nations” contains the purest form of the phrase “Natural Born Citizen” defined in English, as required per Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the Constitution.

Charles Dumas, one of Benjamin Franklin's key collaborators in his European diplomacy, met with Franklin in Holland. In 1770, Dumas sent three copies of the “Law of Nations” (presumably written in French) and instructed Franklin to send one copy to Harvard University, and one in the Philadelphia library. Franklin retained a third copy for himself.

It is further "commonly accepted" that the Founders and Framers only had access to the one copy of “Law of Nations” in Philadelphia when they wrote the Constitution and it was written in French.

However, upon further research, this is not true.

A lesser-known version of Vattel’s “Law of Nations” was actually the first to be translated into English (anonymously) in 1760 in London, based upon Vattel’s French original “Droit des gens” of 1758. Older law journal articles from the early 1900s lead to this "discovery".

In 1765, five years before Franklin received his three copies of Vattel “Law of Nations” from Dumas in 1770, the 1760 English version of Vattel’s “Law of Nations” was referenced by Attorney James Otis of Massachusetts in his 1765 pamphlet “The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved”.

Below is a COMPARISON between a Vattel reference from the 1765 James Otis pamphlet (quoting the 1760 London English translation of Vattel’s “Law of Nations”) and the 1854 London English version of Vattel’s “Law of Nations” (which, in turn, is based upon the 1797 London English anonymous translation) of Vattel’s “Law of Nations”.

The quotes, Long-S notwithstanding (" ſſ "), are virtually identical:

This proves two important points, perhaps never before pieced together:

Today’s version of Vattel’s “Law of Nations”, thought to be based upon the 1854 version (taken, in turn, from the 1797 London English version), is actually primarily based upon the lesser-known 1760 London English version of Vattel’s “Law of Nations”.

An English version of Vattel’s “Law of Nations” was available to the Colonists in America at least 11 years BEFORE the “Declaration of Independence” was penned, and 22 years before the “US Constitution” was written.

As cousins Samuel and John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and others cited Vattel before 1776, it is likely they had access to James Otis' or other copies of Vattel's "Law of Nations" published in English from 1760 London. This new finding likely impacts what we have long understood about the influence Vattel's "Law of Nations" had on this nation's Founding documents.

I know that you are aware that I have posted several times on this issue and that in my opinion, the real bottom line is that if Obama could prove he was born in Hawaii, he wins--the rest of the argument doesn't play in the current environment.

I agree completely with your technical argument and I would love to make the argument to the Supreme Court but it is a loser and in fact, it may turn counterproductive on us.

The Political Establishment, including the press, has agreed that the "natural born" Constitutional requirement has no place in the modern political environment and should be ignored. The "Modern" view was pretty well expressed by George Bush II that the Constitution is just another irrelevant piece of paper.

Although the establishment is not yet ready to state that position in a Supreme Court opinion or on the front pages of the New York times, that is where they are coming from.

Four of the current nine members of the Court have expressed variations of this view (controlling international law over the Constitution) and I believe at one point, Kennedy has said something like this.

To date, none of the litigation that I am aware of has been procedurally well founded so the Court has never had a problem that forced it to the real answer. What would happen if a real case came to the court is uncertain.

However at present, another set of concerns has reached the attention of Presidential advisers that is motivating possible action.

The true Constitutional power is in the states, not the Court. That is the argument Constitutional scholars think should have prevented the decision in Marbury v. Madison.

Where it comes up now is in a number of states where pending legislation would prohibit ballot access in either a primary or final Presidential election unless the candidate satisfied the relevant state official of his eligibility. That is why Obama is referring to himself as a possible one-term President.

There is now discussion about a pending fix which would work like this. We get one of these actions founded solely on the line of reasoning BP2 advances here--nothing about the fact that Obama was born in Kenya.

They let the argument get to the Court on this theory; the Court holds it doesn't make any difference because he was born in Hawaii and the 14th Amendment overrides other elements of the "natural born" rule; Obama is ok.

Then they turn around and hand this decision to the state officer charged with enforcement of state legislation requiring proof of eligibility as res judicata; when the state officer refuses to accept the decision without proof he was born in the US, they sue to overrule on equal protection grounds (Bush v. Gore) and if the state wants to get ballots counted in the general election, it must put Obama on the ballot.

Very good. The two passages you quote at the end from 1765 and 1864 are identical, word for word, with the sole exception of that clause at the end:

“ought also to extend to its colonies.”

“must also extend to its colonies.”

It seems to me that the two different phrasings mean essentially the same thing, except that the later phrasing perhaps strengthens the point, from ought to must. I don’t think you could get such identical language, with just one deliberate change, if the second did not copy from the first, rather than coincidentally arriving at the identical wording from two independent translations from the French.

Of course there could have been an intermediate English version, or versions, somewhere between them, to transmit the wording from one to the other.