To rehash (yet again):
If the Framers did not intend for the phrase they put into the Constitution - Natural Born Citizen - to mean what it meant at the time they wrote it, they would have written out a definition into the Constitution to redefine it. Since they did not, we can only assume it meant what the phrase meant when they wrote it out - the English common law definition - those born within the borders of the realm are naturally born citizens. There are a number of court cases where it is defined in this manner with regard to those born with far looser connections to the United States than Marco Rubio, Chester Arthur, (or Kamala Harris). The first case where it seems this was dealt with by a court was Lynch vs. Clarke in New York over a dispute with who could inherit property - there was a law on the books stating that only a “U.S. Citizen” could inherit property, and the presiding judge (apparently in this court the judge was called a “Vice Chancellor”) made this declaration: “Suppose a person should be elected president who was native born, but of alien parents; could there be any reasonable doubt that he was eligible under the Constitution? I think not. The position would be decisive in his favor, that by the rule of the common law, in force when the Constitution was adopted, he is a citizen...Upon principle, therefore, I can entertain no doubt, but that by the law of the United States, every person born within the dominions and allegiance of the United States, whatever the situation of his parents, is a natural born citizen. It is surprising that there has been no judicial decision upon this question.” In another case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court over the citizenship of a person born who was born to Chinese parents (it was illegal at that time for Chinese immigrants to become U.S. Citizens) it was declared that he was a natural born citizen by virtue of having been born in the United States, and Justice Field, who wrote the opinion, actually referenced the Lynch v. Clarke decision in the ruling of the Court: “After an exhaustive examination of the law, the Vice-Chancellor said that he entertained no doubt that every person born within the dominions and allegiance of the United States, whatever the situation of his parents, was a natural-born citizen, and added that this was the general understanding of the legal profession, and the universal impression of the public mind.” This case was In re Look Tin Sing. Another U.S. Supreme Court case was United States v. Wong Kim Ark https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/169/649 dealing with the same issue of a child born to Chinese parents made the same ruling and also declared him to be a natural born citizen in the ruling by virtue of his right to citizenship by birth. All of those cases were in the 1800s.
There was a U.S. Supreme Court case in 1939 with the title Perkins v. Elg http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/307/325.html which dealt with the issue of a woman who was born in the U.S. to Swedish citizens who returned to Sweden with her when she was four years old. Her father was naturalized prior to this as a U.S. Citizen and held dual citizenship. She then came back to the U.S. and was admitted entry as a citizen at the age of 21. For whatever reason, her father later did away with his U.S. Citizenship status and the equivalent of the INS at the time declared she was to be deported. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against this, finding she was a natural born U.S. Citizen by right of birth and even declared she was eligible to be President of the United States in the ruling. A past President, Chester Arthur, was born with an Irish father who was not yet naturalized as a U.S. Citizen, though his mother was born in Vermont where Arthur himself was born.
Detractors like to ignore all of information and court cases and instead rely totally on a case Minor v. Happersett - seeming to deliberately misquote the ruling - indeed, the justices specifically stated they were not making a finding of every scenario that constitutes a natural born citizen in their ruling: “The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their [p168] parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first. ***For the purposes of this case it is not necessary to solve these doubts.***” Minor v. Happersett - full text of ruling https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/88/162
This is where everyone gets it wrong. There *IS* no English common law definition for "Citizen." There is only a definition for "Subject."
"Citizen" has no place in English law. It didn't even mean then what it means now. I've looked up the word "Citizen" in the complete works of Blackstone, and if I recall properly, it was listed 5 times, and in each context, it refers to the "Citizen of London" or the citizen of some other town.
English Common law deals with *SUBJECTS*. You don't borrow a definition for *SUBJECTS* and then say "This is the definition for citizens."
That is wrong, incorrect, and people's willingness to do it is how this issue got so screwed up from the beginning.
The word "Citizen", as we have used it since 1776 comes from Switzerland. Switzerland was at that time the only *REPUBLIC* in existence. The entire rest of the world used the word "Subject" to refer to their nationals.
The founders used "CITIZEN" to show a break from the English common law claim that they owed perpetual allegiance to the King. Why would we keep a definition that requires us to keep loyal to the King?
Since our *WORD* comes from Switzerland, via the writings of Emmerick Vattel, why would the founders have intended to use any definition but the one he articulated in his book "Law of Nations"?
It gets better. *VATTEL* is where the idea of *FORMING* the United States came from. It was literally *HIS* idea.
Here is a quote from his book, the arrival of which is what actually triggered the entire revolution.
§ 10. Of states forming a federal republic."Finally, several sovereign and independent states may unite themselves together by a perpetual confederacy, without ceasing to be, each individually, a perfect state. They will together constitute a federal republic: their joint deliberations will not impair the sovereignty of each member, though they may, in certain respects, put some restraint on the exercise of it, in virtue of voluntary engagements. A person does not cease to be free and independent, when he is obliged to fulfil engagements which he has voluntarily contracted."
https://www.constitution.org/2-Authors/vattel/vattel_01.htm
Bear in mind, this book was written at a time when it was Treason to do it in England, France, Germany, or *ANY PLACE IN THE WORLD OTHER THAN SWITZERLAND.*
It was literally illegal to write this in England. It undermined the authority of the King. It undermined the authority of *ANY* King. Samuel Rutherford had to flee England for the much lesser thing he wrote about the Rights of Man and Law.
The Idea of colonies renouncing the authority of the king and governing themselves could only have came from Switzerland, because Switzerland is the only place where this had already happened, and the only place that believed in this idea at the time.