I read post #141. You’ll note that the Constitution doesn’t define “natural-born.” We can all agree the term includes people born in the US, but excludes naturalized citizen.
That leaves the category of people who were citizens at birth, but were not born in the US. In their case, we need either a law or a court ruling to decide whether they are natural-born for purposes of the Constitution.
We have a law from 1790 which defines natural-born to include someone born abroad to an American citizen. As I mentioned, many of the FF were in Congress at the time. With this law being passed so close to the date of adoption of the Constitution, by many of the people who actually drafted the Constitution, that is a very good showing of the original intent behind the natural-born clause: i.e., that it is meant to cover everyone who is an American citizen at birth, rather than through naturalization.
Yes.
That leaves the category of people who were citizens at birth, but were not born in the US. In their case, we need either a law or a court ruling to decide whether they are natural-born for purposes of the Constitution.
Exactly. Although I would add constitutional amendment to the list.
We have a law from 1790 which defines natural-born to include someone born abroad to an American citizen. As I mentioned, many of the FF were in Congress at the time. With this law being passed so close to the date of adoption of the Constitution, by many of the people who actually drafted the Constitution, that is a very good showing of the original intent behind the natural-born clause: i.e., that it is meant to cover everyone who is an American citizen at birth, rather than through naturalization.
IIRC, the 1790 law did NOT include just anyone "born abroad to an American citizen." It only covered this circumstance under two conditions: BOTH parents were US citizens AND they were stationed abroad on official US business, either as part of the diplomatic corps, or the military.
“We have a law from 1790 which defines natural-born to include someone born abroad to an American citizen. As I mentioned, many of the FF were in Congress at the time. With this law being passed so close to the date of adoption of the Constitution, by many of the people who actually drafted the Constitution, that is a very good showing of the original intent behind the natural-born clause: i.e., that it is meant to cover everyone who is an American citizen at birth, rather than through naturalization.”
Yes, this is the clearly correct understanding of the term natural-born citizen.