[unspun]

John Bingham wrote a good part of the 14th Amendment.

His position is clear on the subject. A natural born Citizen must be born in the territory to two parents who are citizens. One can read about that, here:

http://investigatingobama.blogspot.com/2008/12/donofrio-dual-citizenship-natural-born.html

[Michael Michael]

John Bingham wrote a good part of the 14th Amendment.

But he had NOTHING to do with the citizenship clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

And what people fail to understand is that citizenship had been grounded firmly in the English common law in this country both before and after the Revolution.

After the revolution the states enacted reception statutes, which stated that the English common law was to prevail unless it was specifically altered by the state's constitution or legislative action.

None of the states veered from the English common law with regard to citizenship. And citizenship under the English common law is decidedly jus solis. Which means you are a citizen by fact of your birth within a state, and without regard for the citizenship of your parents, save for those parents who were ambassadors and other foreign diplomats residing in the US while in the service of their respective countries. And this too comes straight out of the English common law. Bingham's "parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty" is merely a restatement of this, and not any sort of modification or repudiation of jus solis.

Those such as Donofrio who bring up Bingham in this way, and also throw in de Vattel, are simply ignoring, or are ignorant of the well established history of the English common law in this country.