But the writers of the Constitution didn’t use native, did they? Had they done so, the case that they were following Vattel would be stronger. Nor did they say “born of citizen parents”, which they could have written, using 4 words instead of 3.
They wrote natural born citizen, which had an established legal meaning rooted in the phrase natural born subject, and that meaning included those born in the country of alien parents.
“Before our Revolution, all free persons born within the dominions of the King of Great Britain, whatever their color or complexion, were native-born British subjects; those born out of his allegiance were aliens. . . . Upon the Revolution, no other change took place in the law of North Carolina than was consequent upon the transition from a colony dependent on an European King to a free and sovereign State; . The term ‘citizen,’ as understood in our law, is precisely analogous to the term ’subject’ in the common law, and the change of phrase has entirely resulted from the change of government. The sovereignty has been transferred from one man to the collective body of the people, and he who before as a ’subject of the king’ is now ‘a citizen of the State.”
State v. Manuel, 4 Dev. & Bat. 20, 24-26 (1838)
“And if, at common law, all human beings born within the ligeance of the King, and under the King’s obedience, were natural-born subjects, and not aliens, I do not perceive why this doctrine does not apply to these United States, in all cases in which there is no express constitutional or statute declaration to the contrary. . . . Subject and citizen are, in a degree, convertible terms as applied to natives, and though the term citizen seems to be appropriate to republican freemen, yet we are, equally with the inhabitants of all other countries, subjects, for we are equally bound by allegiance and subjection to the government and law of the land.”
James Kent, COMMENTARIES ON AMERICAN LAW, pg. 258 (1826)
Hmmmmmmmm?
WTF is the difference??????????????