the 1758 edition has des citoyens & naturels
the 1773 des citoyens & des naturels
des translates today to “of”
is this important?
des translates today to “of”: is this important?
Yes. “AND” in legal terms means they are 2 distinct persons. If they were similar, Vattel would have used “OR”. Every society has citizens, but not all citizens are natural born citizens.
James Kent: There is a still more general division of the inhabitants of every country, under the comprehensive title of aliens and natives, and to the consideration of them our attention will be directed in the present lecture.
Natives are all persons born within the jurisdiction of the United States. If they were resident citizens at the time of the declaration of independence, though born elsewhere, and deliberately yielded to it an express or implied sanction, they became parties to it, and are to be considered as natives; their social tie being coeval with the existence of the nation.
This is why the phrase "natural born" is used. If it was meant for all natives, then there would only have been a need to say " A Native citizen, 35yrs old & resident of the US for 14 yrs or a Native citizen at the time of the adoption. According to Kent, all citizens at the time of the adoption of the constitution were natives, but not all natives became citizens hence the generalization of the term. Natural born is a very specific term. This is why that pesky holding allegiance to a foreign nation that the trolls & drones like to disregard is such a poking point to them. And as St. George Tucker put it, per his edition on Blackstone's commentaries, a man can not owe 2 allegiances at once and as long as the Constitution or statutes never put the concept of "dual citizenship" into positive law, then it was automatically the law of nature that applied.
I can’t figure out where in each version you are refering to. Can you give page numbers (in the originals)?