But they did.
TWO SCANT PARAGRAPHS DOWN from where they quoted Article II, Section I of the Constitution: "no person except a natural-born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President" - they followed it up by recognizing:
Under the power to adopt a uniform system of naturalization Congress, as early as 1790, [ - A MERE THREE YEARS AFTER THE ADOPTION OF THE CONSTITUTION - ] provided "that any alien, being a free white person," might be admitted as a citizen of the United States, and that the children of such persons so naturalized, dwelling within the United States, being under twenty-one years of age at the time of such naturalization, should also be considered citizens of the United States, and that the children of citizens of the United States that might be born beyond the sea, or out of the limits of the United States, should be considered as natural-born citizens.
In recognizing - TWO PARAGRAPHS DOWN FROM WHERE THEY TALKED ABOUT ELIGIBILITY TO THE PRESIDENCY - "that the children of citizens of the United States that might be born beyond the sea, or out of the limits of the United States, should be considered as NATURAL-BORN CITIZENS,"
The United States Supreme Court in Minor v. Happersett thereby recognized that children born abroad of US citizen parents are eligible to run for President of the United States.
There is ONE REASON, and one reason only to draw a legal distinction between "citizens" and "NATURAL-BORN citizens," and that is ELIGIBILITY TO RUN FOR AND SERVE AS PRESIDENT.
This is therefore an EXPLICIT REJECTION of the birther doctrine that "natural born citizens" are ONLY those born BOTH on US soil AND of US citizen parents.
And if you can't convincingly disprove that, then YOU HAVE NO CASE; the "both-and" definition of "natural born citizen" is DEAD.
“There is ONE REASON, and one reason only to draw a legal distinction between “citizens” and “NATURAL-BORN citizens,” and that is ELIGIBILITY TO RUN FOR AND SERVE AS PRESIDENT.” Jeff Winston
One other reason I would say. A natural born citizen doesn’t require naturalization.
Lets capitalize all the functional terms in the phrase not just cherry pick the ones that fit the thinking.
“...should be considered as NATURAL-BORN CITIZENS,”
The emphasis needs to go on the words ‘considered as’ as much as ‘natural born Citizen’. BTW - no hyphen and the C is capitalized - in both the Constitution AND the immigration act.
What in the importance of ‘considered as’. It clearly recognizes that the the subjects of this part of the were not ACTUAL ‘natural born Citizens’. And thus the act indicated they are to be treated as such since they are NOT ‘real’ ‘natural born Citizens’.
What are they lacking? Why are they not real, actual natural born Citizens and thus must be ‘considered as’? They meet the standard of jus sanguinis. So they are of the blood by their citizen parents (plural). It is jus soli that they lack. So the act of 1790 attempted to remove the jus soli requirement from eligibility for the President.
‘considered as’ clearly and without doubt shows that this class of citizen was NOT considered an ACTUAL natural born Citizen.
The reason for the passage being dropped in 1795 is not clear. But it was dropped is NOT part of codified law today. Maybe Congress realized their error - that they had modified the constitution or attempted to do so without a formal amendment.
The passage of this act tells us with almost no doubt that that the ACTUAL status of ‘natural born Citizen’ required both jus sanguinis and jus soli. But the founders CONSIDERED jus sanguinis the much stronger of the two. So strong that they were willing to waive the jus soli requirement and for those born overseas to parents of citizens ‘considered (them) as’ ‘natural born Citizen’.