My point is that you need to make every effort to be comprehensive about the arguments and the motivation behind them. Attorneys have a habit of spinning things if it helps them win. The Government attorneys may very well have offered that argument in the hopes that the Judges would buy it, but not necessarily because they believed it themselves.
As a Judge said to Abraham Lincoln, "Mr. Lincoln, early this morning in my court you argued a case which you won. And now later today I find you in my court, offering the exact opposite argument this afternoon. Would you explain yourself?"
Lincoln replied: "Your Honor, this morning when I made those arguments, I thought I was correct. Now that I have had more time to think about it, I decided this afternoon that the argument I am making now is even more correct. "
(Or words to that effect.)
The Fact remains that when article II was written, there existed "citizens" which were not "natural born citizens" demonstrating unequivocally that the one thing is not the same as the other, with the difference being only that of Presidential eligibility. Had the Supreme court used the terminology "natural born citizen" then the Government attorney's arguments would have been valid. As they chose to use the word "citizen" it is not.
Too many people are misunderstanding the term to mean "born a citizen." which it does not. What it means is born as "natural citizen."
Yes, of course. My point is just that you don't get to speculate about what the US attorneys meant and then complain that I'm trying to think with someone else's brain.