[Quote]
It is widely accepted that the constitution is written in the language of the English Common law and the English Common law is clear as to what a Natural Born Citizen is and isn’t.
All persons born in the allegiance of the king are natural-born subjects, and all persons born in the allegiance of the United States are natural-born citizens. Birth and allegiance go together. Such is the rule of the common law, and it is the common law of this country, as well as of England.
Justice Swayne, United States v. Rhodes, 1 Abbott, US 28 (Cir. Ct. Ky 1866)
[Unquote]
Swayne’s commentary was in the case law of a Circuit Court, and not the U.S. Supreme Court. The dissenting opinion of Justice Fuller in the United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) said:
Considering the circumstances surrounding the framing of the Constitution, I submit that it is unreasonable to conclude that “natural-born citizen” applied to everybody born within the geographical tract known as the United States, irrespective of circumstances, and that the children of foreigners, happening to be born to them while passing through the country, whether of royal parentage or not, or whether of the Mongolian, Malay or other race, were eligible to the Presidency, while children of our citizens, born abroad, were not.
It must a;lso be noted Swayne’s opinion is impeached by a number of other sources, including Scott v. Sandford (1856), which denied the possibility of children born in the United States with alien parents acquiring U.S. citizenship at birth or by birth in the United States. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution provided citizenship at birth in the United States, but that citizenship is naturalized citizenship by the legislation of the Constitution and statutes. The Constitution, amendments to the Constitution, and the derivative statutes have no power to make any person an actual natural born person as defined by natural law.
The Constitution itself does not make the citizens, (it is, in fact,made by them.) It only intends and recognizes such of them as are natural-home-born-and provides for the naturalization of such of them as were alien-foreign-born‚ making the latter, as far as nature will allow, like the former.
Attorney General Bates, Opinion of Citizenship, (1862)
If there was no US constitution, there would be no such thing as a US citizen. The notion of "citizenship" in a non-existent country or nation is nonsense.
And conversely, the existence of a country depends on it having citizens or subjects.
Whether or not it is legitimate under the laws of nature or not, the constitution purports to define a system of government, in force in a reasonably well defined geographic place. The constitution says who will be citizens under that system of government.