I admit (and it’s obvious) that I am no lawyer. But after reading some of the valiant research by various freepers including but not limited to bushpilot1, rxsid, Red Steel (and others) it is clear to me that the founders entirely intended Natural Born Citizen to mean someone born on US soil from parents who were citizens.
Why are you so quick to dismiss the two parents?
See FReep mail. :-)
The two parent rule is dismissed by some because it serves their own self interests..not protecting the Constitution.
I don't see myself as "quick" to do anything. All of these Vittel based arguments have been around a long time and have been considered in the journals and among Constitutional lawyers in a number of different settings.
And there is not, as you suggest, any doubt what the founder's intended.
But after the founder's acted and we had the Constitution, we amended it--so the Constitutional bar looks at the Amendment as having changed the application of the provisions of the Constitution pertaining to citizenship.
The prevailing view is that the adoption of the born in the USA citizenship rule is viewed as conveying all of the rights privileges and immunities of citizenship including but not limited to natural born rights to any person who is born here.
In the context of the present political environment, the natural born clause is in general disrepute among the Liberal legal establishment generally--they are all in favor of a single international rule of legal principals they like. They don't have the courage to just say they are going to ignore the constitution although that is clearly where they would like to go. In the context of the personal attacks on Goldwater and Romney (the elder) on natural born grounds, they do not view themselves as being in a position to ignore the provision.
But it is going to get very narrow application. In the present situation, if Obama can prove he was born in the USA, he is going to win. If we can prove he was not born here, we would win.
Mistakenly believes that the 14th did away with the two parent rule. But the 14th never defines a Natural Born Citizen anywhere. It talks about people becoming citizens. It has nothing at all to do with a Natural Born Citizen at all.