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That there are many [court decisions and precedents], does not make them correct.

That's true, but it doesn't make them incorrect, either.

And it does make them the law of the land.

Whether you personally agree with these court decisions or not, it is a settled point of law that a person born in the United States does not have to have citizen parents in order to be a natural born citizen. You may say the courts are wrong, but the courts have said that you are wrong.

And legally, it's the opinion of the courts that counts, not yours or mine, and that opinion is never going to be reversed. It will be the law of the United States for as long as there is a United States, or until you or someone else gets a Constitutional Amendment passed to change it.

This weird concept [that the grandfather clause was passed to honor and not offend those who had come here from other places, who were not natural born Americans, who had risked their lives and fortunes to help us gain Independence] is straight from "Dr. Conspiracy." He dreamed it up in an attempt to patch a hole in his goofy theory, namely the "grandfather clause" of article II.

No, Dr. Conspiracy did not dream it up. This has been the view of historians throughout American history. Absolutely for more than 100 years, but probably much earlier than that.

It requires one to believe that someone can be a natural born citizen of two different countries simultaneously, and one of them doesn't even exist yet!

No, it simply recognizes that when the colonists WERE colonists, they held allegiance both to their Colonies, and to the King who ruled them.

They were natural born citizens of what might be called Englamerica, because it was a country that consisted both of England and America.

Upon the Revolution, what had once been a single country divided into two countries.

Englamerica became, by its division, England-without-America, and America.

At that time, people had to decide which half of the amoeba they were really committed to, and which half of the amoeba they were going to CONTINUE to be citizens of.

They had always been citizens. Those born in the Colonies had been NATURAL BORN citizens, or natural born subjects, whichever term you care to use. BOTH terms were used interchangeably in the early United States. But natural born citizen soon mostly supplanted natural born subject, although natural born subject still appears in at least one state constitution.

This was the view of the Founding Fathers, and it is clearly seen in James Madison's speech regarding William Loughton Smith.

As for the idea that Dr. Conspiracy "dreamed up" the "weird" concept that the grandfather clause was passed to honor those who had come here from other places, who were not natural born Americans, who had risked their lives and fortunes to help us gain Independence, your making that claim only illustrates the fact that you simply don't know what you're talking about, although you imagine you do.

No one who genuinely had a clue would ever make such a claim. Earlier I suggested that MamaTexan needed to go back to being a mother. I think you need to go back to being an electrical engineer, or whatever it is that you actually do.

Because claiming that idea was invented by someone running a blog since the election of Barack Obama is a sure indicator to anybody watching that when it comes to interpreting history and the Constitution, you're a complete and absolute quack.

No foreign-born person can fill the highest office in our government. This provision was made to guard against foreign influence, and the intrigues of ambitious foreigners for this position of honor and trust. One exception to this rule, however, was made in the Constitution: a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, though a naturalized citizen, could hold the office of President. This exception was made because of the many citizens of foreign birth who had risked their lives and spent their fortunes in the protection of their adopted country through the bloody war of the Revolution. To have denied them any privileges which were given to the native-born citizens would have been gross injustice.

The Civil Government of the United States. Fitch, 1889

The foreign-born citizen cannot be elected President; surely no great discrimination when the same rule of exclusion holds practically true of many millions of "natural born" citizens. Even to this rule there is an exception stated in the Clause, doubtless made out of respect for distinguished foreign-born members of the Convention, notably Hamilton, Wilson, Robert Morris, to whom the Convention here makes this bow of courteous recognition. Very appropriate will the little act of courtesy turn out, for one of these foreign-born citizens, Alexander Hamilton, will produce in The Federalist the best exposition of the Constitution that has ever been made in a book, being still the classic work on this subject.

The State, Specially the American State, Psychologically Treated. Snider, 1902

Many of foreign birth who had helped to create the United States would have been rendered ineligible had not the provision been inserted making eligible those of foreign birth who at the time of the adoption of the Constitution were citizens of the United States. The lapse of time long since removed that class and left the excepting clause the mere record of an interesting historic fact. Seven of the signers of the Constitution were foreign born: James Wilson, Robert Morris and Thomas Fitzsimons of Pennsylvania, Alexander Hamilton of New York, William Paterson of New Jersey, James McHenry of Maryland, and Pierce Butler of South Carolina.

The Constitution of the United States, Its Sources and Its Application. Norton, 1922

The committee also specified that anyone who was "a Citizen of the United States at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution" would be eligible to the presidency. This seems to have been done in consideration of certain prominent American leaders, including James Wilson, Alexander Hamilton, and Robert Morris, who had been born abroad.

Who Vies for President? Nelson, 1987

Only the presidency and vice presidency were reserved for birth-citizens. Even this reservation would not apply so as to exclude any immigrants who were already American citizens in 1787, men who had proved their loyalty by coming to or remaining in America during the Revolution. Seven of the thirty-nine Philadelphia signers were themselves foreign-born, and during the ratification process, countless naturalized Americans voted on equal terms with their natural-born fellow citizens.

[Note: As well as clearly alluding to the reason for the grandfather clause, this states that America's natural born citizens voted for ratification in 1787. Since the Declaration of Independence was in 1776, and 11-year-olds don't vote, it is clear that the author is referring to those born on American soil, who adhered to the Revolution, as natural-born citizens.]

America's Constitution: A Biography. Amar, 2005

Issues... that garnered little opposition included... that the president be at least thirty-five years old... and that the president be a natural-born citizen. This citizenship proviso seemed to eliminate aspirations to the presidency that might have been entertained by three of Madison's allies - Hamilton, Robert Morris, and Wilson. However, the committee on postponed matters added a clause requiring merely that the president be either a natural-born citizen or a fourteen-year resident of the United States, and the delegates approved it unanimously... The Committee of Style dropped even the fourteen-year requirement in favor of a requirement that the president be a natural-born citizen or a citizen at the time of the Constitution's adoption.

The Constitution and America's Destiny. Robertson, 2005