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.
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.”
Actually, you are quite mistaken. I suggest you read the very lengthy commentary of what Hugo Grotius among others have to say about what does and does not constitute a sovereign state and how the state arises from the people who constitute that society.
With respect to the United States, the United States of America and its citizens existed prior to the drafting and adoption of the Constitution in 1787. The United States of America and its citizens existed prior to the drafting and adoption of the Articles of Confederation. The United States of America and its citizens came into existence on 2-4 July 1776. Earlier still, the societies which constituted the United States of America on 2-4 July 1776 wee previously constituted as a North American colonial federation with distinct legal status as citizens thereof under British colonial governance. Upon independence these pre-Revolutionary War citizens of the North American colonies were collectively naturalized as U.S. citizens, provided they complied with the necessary oaths of allegiance. Consequently, the first generation of U.S. citizens were collectively naturalized upon the Declaration of Independence and during the Revolutionary War. These naturalized U.S. citizens then gave birth to the first natural born citizens of the United States, as reflected in the natural born citizen clause of the Constitution. The Declaration of Independence established the United States of America. The states naturalized their citizens. The children of the naturalized citizens naturally arrived as the first of the natural born citizens without the authority of statutory law to do so.
“And conversely, the existence of a country depends on it having citizens or subjects.”
Yes, and they were acquired by state statutes authorizing collective naturalization of existing colonial citizens and personal naturalization of new immigrants.
“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.”
No, the Constitution has no power to make natural law that ancient legal tradition established centuries and millennia before the existence of the Constitution and the United States. In fact, the Constitution is a legislative act known as Positive Law. See the definitions of Positive Law and Natural Law in Bouvier’s Law Dictionary. At most, the Constitution can take note of the prior existence of Natural Law and the Law of Nations as it does so implicitly with the Bill of Rights. The Constitution enumerated the powers delegated by the People to the Congress, and that was “To establish an Uniform Rule of Naturalization.” Nowhere in the Constitution is there an improper attempt to delegate a power To establish an uniform rule of natural law citizenship.