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“in a sort of “it makes as much sense as applying Swiss law and not English law to define ‘natural born’” sort of way.”

I’ll assume that you are refering to Emerick Vittal’s Law of Nation’s (Natural Law).

Vittal’s book above is not law as you suggest in your sentence above. Vittal was a legal theorist (jurist), and his book was a well known work on legal theory in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s. It has been well documented that Ben Franklin supplied 6 copies of this text for use by the delegates to the Constitutional convention.

It is illogical to assume that the delegates used the exact words of Vittal when writting the Constitution, rather than use the words of Blackstone’s Commentary on British common Law.....(which by the way is unwritten and can be best described as “traditional” or customary legal theory.) and meant to apply the British concept of “subject.”

The legal underpinnings for the government/people interface is a polar opposite in the US v Great Britin. Subjects are responsible to goverment as in Great Britin, and for much of Europe. The US struck out on new ground and made the goverment responsible to the “citizens”.....clearly a rejection of British/European legal practice.

When they wrote the Constitution the Founders established “statutary law” (written Law) and rejected customary law as practiced by their former masters the British.

Your comment defies logic, history, and the rulings of the USSC through it’s history.

"The actual substance of English law was formally "received" into the United States in several ways. First, all U.S. states except Louisiana have enacted "reception statutes" which generally state that the common law of England (particularly judge-made law) is the law of the state to the extent that it is not repugnant to domestic law or indigenous conditions.[19] Some reception statutes impose a specific cutoff date for reception, such as the date of a colony's founding, while others are deliberately vague.[20] Thus, contemporary U.S. courts often cite pre-Revolution cases when discussing the evolution of an ancient judge-made common law principle into its modern form,[20] such as the heightened duty of care traditionally imposed upon common carriers.[21]"

English Law Stuff In America

We had this stuff in my business law class when we learned about contracts having to be in writing and stuff.

“It is illogical to assume that the delegates used the exact words of Vittal when writting the Constitution”

They didn’t. Vattel wrote, “Les Naturels ou indigènes font ceux qui font nés dans le pays de Parens Citoyens.” That was translated as “The natives, or the indigines...” in all English editions until 1797 - 10 years AFTER the Constitution was written.

Only in 1797 did an edition of Vattel appear which used “The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens...” - translating indigenes as NBC instead of substituting the equivalent English word.

If the Founders had followed Vattel, they would have required the President be “native”, or “indigenous”, or perhaps just “natural”. Instead, they used a phrase taken from English common law.