We’re only discussing one decision and some specific, yet stupid quotes. What part of that do you not understand??
Again, we’re talking about the Indiana appeals court decision. Let’s focus.
Vattel’s influence on the founders and the SCOTUS has been documented plenty of times. Are you really going to play the stupid game??
This quote reflects the citizenship laws of Vattel’s native Switzerland; two paragraphs later, he notes that “...there are states, as, for instance, England, where the single circumstance of being born in the country naturalises the children of a foreigner.” This reading of “natural-born” is more applicable to US law, which is generally founded on English common law.
During the process of developing a new U.S. Constitution Alexander Hamilton submitted a suggested draft for a Constitution on June 18, 1787. He also submitted to the framers a proposal for the qualification requirements in Article II as to the necessary Citizenship status for the office of President and Commander in Chief of the Military.
Alexander Hamilton’s suggested presidential eligibility clause:
"No person shall be eligible to the office of President of the United States unless he be now a Citizen of one of the States, or hereafter be born a Citizen of the United States."
Many of the founders and framers had a fear of foreign influence on the person who would in the future be President of the United States since this particular office was singularly and uniquely powerful under the proposed new Constitution. The President was also to be the Commander in Chief of the military.
This fear of foreign influence on a future President and Commander in Chief was particularly strongly felt by John Jay, who later became the first Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. He felt so strongly about the issue of potential foreign influence that he took it upon himself to draft a letter to General George Washington, the presiding officer of the Constitutional Convention, recommending/hinting that the framers should strengthen the Citizenship requirements.
John Jay was an avid reader and proponent of natural law and particularly Vattel's codification of natural law and the Law of Nations. In his letter to Washington he said that the Citizenship requirement for the office of the commander of our armies should contain a "strong check" against foreign influence and he recommended to Washington that the command of the military be open only to a "natural born Citizen". Thus Jay did not agree that simply being a "born Citizen" was sufficient enough protection from foreign influence in the singular most powerful office in the new form of government. He wanted another adjective added to the eligibility clause, i.e., 'natural'. And that word natural goes to the Citizenship status of one's parents via natural law.
The below is the relevant proposed change language from Jay's letter which he proposed to strengthen the citizenship requirements in Article II and to require more than just being a "born Citizen" of the United States to serve as a future Commander in Chief and President.
John Jay wrote in a letter to George Washington dated 25 Jul 1787:
"Permit me to hint, whether it would be wise and seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government; and to declare expressly that the Commander in Chief of the American army shall not be given to nor devolve on, any but a natural born Citizen. "
See a transcription of Jay's letter to Washington at this link. This letter from Jay was written on July 25, 1787. General Washington passed on the recommendation from Jay to the convention and it was adopted in the final draft and was accepted adding the adjective "natural" making it "natural born Citizen of the United States" for future Presidents and Commanders in Chief of the military, rather than Hamilton's proposed "born a Citizen". Thus Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution, the fundamental law of our nation reads:
Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of U.S. Constitution as adopted 17 Sep 1787:
"No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States."
No problem. The dissent in the Wong Kim Ark decision cites Vattel:
Before the Revolution, the view of the publicists had been thus put by Vattel:The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country of parents who are citizens.
This same definition in the dissent is matched nearly verbatim by the majority opinions in Minor V. Happersett and Wong Kim Ark. I've underlined all the matching portions of the defintions to prove the point.
... all children, born in a country of [p680] parents who were its citizens, became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens ...
Justice Gray explained further that those persons who fit this definition were excluded from the 14th amendment by the Supreme Court.
... the court to be committed to the view that all children born in the United States of citizens or subjects of foreign States were excluded from the operation of the first sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment ...This quote reflects the citizenship laws of Vattel’s native Switzerland; two paragraphs later, he notes that “...there are states, as, for instance, England, where the single circumstance of being born in the country naturalises the children of a foreigner.”
Sorry, james, but you're simultaneously mischaracterizing Vattel's natural born citizenship definition as only applying to Switzerland (which is nonsense, since the title of the book is "Law of Nations") and you're undermining the faither NBC argument by showing that the common law in England (in reference to children domestically born of aliens) is regarded as an act of naturalization (which I underlined in your quote above).