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Rawle’s stepdad was a Loyalist. And I may have been a bit harsh to DL, as some sources actually say that he was a Loyalist during the Revolution as well. He might have been, due to his stepfather’s influence. But he was barely 17 years old when the Declaration of Independence was signed. And the source that DL quoted stated that Rawle felt a “sense of humiliation over his family’s British sympathies.” So perhaps the bottom line is that we don’t 100% understand all of his feelings on the matter as a teenager. They may well have changed.

Rawle went to England during the War, at age 22, and toured Europe, and after spending two years abroad returned to the United States. By this time the War was certainly winding down, and if Rawle had been a Loyalist before, he certainly doesn’t seem to have been one now. Why would a Loyalist leave England to go to live forever in the United States? Doesn’t make any sense.

One author writes: “Whatever Loyalist tendencies the young Rawle had did not last. After returning from England in 1783, he expressed his commitment to the United States. George Washington even offered to make him attorney general, an offer which Rawle declined. Rawle seemed to have little interest in a career in politics, but he was a strong Federalist.”

So by 1783, it was clear that young Rawle was all in for the United States of America, and he spent the rest of his life here, becoming a respected leader. By 1787 and the summer of the Constitutional Convention, he was obviously quite thick with both George Washington and Ben Franklin.

So Rawle was EXTREMELY well positioned to know exactly what the Framers of the Constitution meant by “natural born citizen.”