“Citizen and subject are synonyms with the difference having to due with the form of government under which one lives. (Republic or monarchy, respectively)”
Yeah, and it kinda makes a difference, since we’re arguing about what law applies to Obama, who happens to live in a Republic. I don’t care if throughout all of recorded time monarchies only considered the offspring of two subjects to be natural-subjects. It wouldn’t necessarily mean natural-born U.S. citizens need to have two U.S. citizen parents.
“Suggesting that the usage examples given by the OED are random just demonstrates your ignorance of what the OED is. Since I’m guessing that you do not own one, I suggest that the next time you are in a library you pick up volume one and read the introduction which contains some philosophy and history of the work (in the 2nd edition, at least, which is the one that I own).”
Listen, you smug bastard, the excerpts quoted in the OED are random *to our purposes*. I’m sure the editors chose them carefully. But they probably didn’t have U.S. law in mind when they did so. If they had, maybe they could have helped us out by including a local entry from 1789.
“What is important, in law, is to understand the words and terms in the same manner as they were used when a law was drafted.”
And I see nothing in the excerpts pointing to a necessary understanding of how the Framers viewed the term. That’s why I called them random.
“The 14th amendment is completely silent about what makes one a natural-born citizen as opposed to some other citizen outside the class of natural-born citizens.”
That’s only true if you come into the situation believing some citizens at birth might not be natural-born citizens, which I think you’ve noticed is not a view held by by the general populace, nor by the legal establishment.
I thought you might appreciate a note from the "smug bastard."
I also recommend the OED's Introduction to you to. (Have you ever even held a volume in your hand?) You see what the OED attempts to be is a history of the each word (or phrase) in the English Language, very definitely including US usage. Unlike the paperback dictionary you probably use which has current meanings of words used by the unwashed, the major thrust of the OED is to enable us now to discover the meanings of English words at the time they were used. They do this by providing usage examples for the first time a word was used with a particular meaning. They invite people to submit other meanings and/or earlier usages to them (which I have done BTW, but not related to natural-born) so that as successive editions of the Dictionary come out, these histories are more accurate. The unwashed with their paperback dictionaries are unaware of all this, but now you are not.
BTW, if you don't want to read the OED Introduction and would be more comfortable with a trade book, I would suggest The Professor and the Madman, by Simon Winchester. (Note that this book may have a different title outside the US.) It's really quite a good book for people interested in out English language.
ML/NJ