The popular line of thinking is that our forefathers were slavishly devoted to the English Common Law in all regards including the definition of a Natural Born Citizen; however, the English common law definition of a Natural Born Citizen was built up around a monarchy which we fought a revolution to get away from and which is entirely different than a representative democracy. While we may be slavishly devoted to the English law in most cases there is evidence that we were not completely devoted to it as the Law of Nations by Emmerich Vattel is cited as a major influence on our forefathers who wrote our constitution and Emmerich Vattel is absolutely, unequivocally adamant that a Natural Born Citizen is an individual who was A.) BORN IN THE COUNTRY OF B.) CITIZEN PARENTS.
In 1778, America needed immigrants desperately however so our forefathers penned the eligibility clause without strictly defining Natural Born Citizenship so as not to imply that immigrants would be in any way "second class citizens".
Their equivocation on the matter was evidenced by the naturalization acts of 1790 and 1795. So the years passed by without a clear definition and it was generally assumed that NBC in America was exactly the same as NBC in English Common Law but I feel that it's safe to say that if the King of England's rule could be usurped by voters, the English Common Law definition of NBC would be entirely different. It would be Vattel's definition. Given our forefather's ORIGINAL INTENT and the undeniable fact that they were frequently referencing the Law of Nations when they constructed our constitution, I think it's safe to say that they were absolutely referring to the Vattel definition when they penned the eligibility clause, not the King of England's definition.
But, we are in fact slavishly devoted to the English Common Law in many regards and so, despite compelling evidence to the contrary, we have leaned towards the English Common Law definition of NBC instead of the Vattel definition.
width=700