I completely understand the depth of frustration that Cruz supporters feel. In fact, just quoting the Constitution just now, I’m ready to grasp at a straw myself ...
No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President...
What is this ‘or a Citizen of the United States’ about? So if someone is not natural born, but he was born as a citizen ...? [crossing fingers]
That provision in the constitution which requires that the president shall be a native-born citizen (unless he were a citizen of the United States when the constitution was adopted,) is a happy means of security against foreign influence, which, wherever it is capable of being exerted, is to he dreaded more than the plague. The admission of foreigners into our councils, consequently, cannot be too much guarded against; their total exclusion from a station to which foreign nations have been accustomed to, attach ideas of sovereign power, sacredness of character, and hereditary right, is a measure of the most consummate policy and wisdom. The title of king, prince, emperor, or czar, without the smallest addition to his powers, would have rendered him a member of the fraternity of crowned heads: their common cause has more than once threatened the desolation of Europe. To have added a member to this sacred family in America, would have invited and perpetuated among us all the evils of Pandoras Box.
Of Article II, section I, clause 5, Supreme Court Justice Joseph story said this 46 years after the adoption of the constitution:
A loophole for themselves was created out of respect to those distinguished revolutionary patriots, who were born in a foreign land
It doesn't get much clearer than that my friend.
or a Citizen of the United States AT THE TIME OF THE ADOPTION OF THE CONSTITUTION.