Shall I start my response with insults, too?
Black’s does not define “native born” so it may not even be a legal term. This may help explain the inconclusive nature of the Wong Kim Ark case.
However, it does describe “native” as “A natural-born subject or citizen; a denizen by birth; one who owes his domicile or citizenship to the fact of his birth within the country referred to.” It then refers to U.S. vs Wong Kim Ark.
I agree that the 14th did not decide this issue though the discussion in Congress made it clear that transit aliens’ children were not to be considered citizens if born here. This should be verified through court actions.
Actually, Gray misstated what common law said about Natural Born Citizens by saying every child born to aliens in England were Natural Born Subjects. Judge Gray left out the "little fact" that in common law a child born of an alien father who owed another allegiance to another power. Nothing but dicta that did not have any bearing on Wong Kim Ark who decided the case based on the 14th Amendment.
And also in the Ark decision, (Blackstone) child's born to aliens in England are Natural Born Subjects, except when the child [Denizens] is also a subject of another sovereign and who have the almost the same rights of other Natural Born Subjects BUT not to hold high office.
Please consider that the founding fathers drew upon their education, classical studies, common sense, and referenced many philosophical works. Vattel’s “The Law of Nations” [1758], a contemporary treatise on the natural rights and responsibilities of nations, would have been one such source.
http://www.constitution.org/vattel/vattel_01.htm
BOOK I.
OF NATIONS CONSIDERED IN THEMSELVES.
CHAP. XIX.
OF OUR NATIVE COUNTRY, AND SEVERAL THINGS THAT RELATE TO IT.
§ 212. Citizens and natives.
The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. As the society cannot exist and perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights. The society is supposed to desire this, in consequence of what it owes to its own preservation; and it is presumed, as matter of course, that each citizen, on entering into society, reserves to his children the right of becoming members of it. The country of the fathers is therefore that of the children; and these become true citizens merely by their tacit consent. We shall soon see whether, on their coming to the years of discretion, they may renounce their right, and what they owe to the society in which they were born. I say, that, in order to be of the country, it is necessary that a person be born of a father who is a citizen; for, if he is born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country.