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I dislike using Wikipedia but they have this information.
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Citizenship (Panama Canal Zone)

“Although the Panama Canal Zone was legally an unincorporated U.S. territory until the implementation of the Torrijos-Carter Treaties in 1979, questions arose almost from its inception as to whether the Zone was considered part of the United States for constitutional purposes, or, in the phrase of the day, whether the Constitution followed the flag. In 1901 the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled in Downes v. Bidwell that unincorporated territories are not the United States.[3] On July 28, 1904, Controller of the Treasury Robert Tracewell stated: “While the general spirit and purpose of the Constitution is applicable to the zone, that domain is not a part of the United States within the full meaning of the Constitution and laws of the country.”[4] Accordingly, the Supreme Court held in 1905 in Rasmussen v. United States that the full Constitution only applies for incorporated territories of the United States.”

Until the rulings in these so-called “Insular Cases”, children born of two U.S. citizens in the Canal Zone had been subject to the Naturalization Act of 1795, which granted statutory U.S. citizenship at birth. With the ruling of 1905 persons born in the Canal Zone only became U.S. nationals, not citizens.[6]

#3 ^ United States Supreme Court, Downes v. Bidwell.
#4 ^ Not Part of United States, The New York Times, July 29, 1904, http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9C06E1DF113BE631A2575AC2A9619C946597D6CF, retrieved 2008-06-02 |
#5 ^ United States Supreme Court.
#6 ^ “Nationality” in: 7 FAM 1111.3 (c)