[patlin]

I got it, sorry, I confused the issue. You are correct, the 1790 wording did contradict that and it was repealed in 1795. In Madison’s papers, he goes into how the 1790 Act was too lax and thus it was changed in 1795.

[rxsid]

Of course, the Naturalization Act of 1790 was repealed by the Act of 1795 (which did NOT attempt to define or extend the definition for NBC). What the 1st Congress had tried to do in 1790 was to EXTEND the known definition (of born in country to citizen parentS) to those born outside of sovereign territory, to citizen parentS. Of course, they can't do that. That is, use their Constitutional powers for creating laws on Naturalization to modify the meaning of the term "Natural Born Citizen." Congress (by itself) doesn't have the Constitutional authority to modify or define (or EXTEND) the Constitutional term "Natural Born Citizen." Only a SCOTUS decision on the intent of the framers, or an amendment to the Constitution can do that.