Vattel does not determine US law. Also, Vattel was commenting on common practices of various nations, and noted that England - which the US was part of in 1758 - had different practices.
And Vattel never wrote ‘natural born citizen’, which would have been “sujets naturel” in the French, or ‘natural born subject’ in an English translation. Nor did it appear in any translation of Vattel until 10 years after the Constitution - so it is simply false to say Vattel provided a definition of NBC. He never, ever wrote on the subject!
Vattel is sufficient enough authority to have been cited by the United States Supreme Court dozens, if not scores of times.
33.US.495
33.US.491
39.US.210
136.US.479
39.US.540
92.US.130
I could go on and on and keep typing, but will spare you the details, there are about 20 more on my search results list, and I stopped the search before it was done.
I have all of US Reports up to about 2003 on my laptop.
Vattel pointed out that Britain naturalized the children of foreigners at birth. Barry may or may not have been naturalized at birth, but if the father of record was British, he is not a natural born citizen.
Nor did it appear in any translation of Vattel until 10 years after the Constitution
Have you personally consulted the 1787 New York edition at the Library of Congress or elsewhere? http://lccn.loc.gov/41038703 . If your answer is no, I urge you to cease posting lies to FreeRepublic.com.
LOL! You do realize that quite a few of the Founders were fluent in French, didn't you?
I am much obliged by the kind present you have made us of your edition of Vattel. It came to us in good season, when the circumstances of a rising state make it necessary frequently to consult the law of nations. Accordingly, that copy which I kept, (after depositing one in our own public library here, and sending the other to the college of Massachusetts Bay, as you directed has been continually in the hands of the members of our congress, now sitting, who are much pleased with your notes and preface, and have entertained a high and just esteem for their author. Your manuscript Idee sur le gouvernment et la royauté, is also well relished, and may, in time, have its effect. I thank you, likewise, for the other smaller pieces, which accompanied Vattel. Benjamin Franklin To Charles-Guillaume-Frédéric Dumas, Philadelphia December 9, 1775.
Just because Vattel didn't write his material with the intention of it being used for Constitutional interpretation doesn't mean the Founders didn't write the Constituion with Vattel in mind
In fact, if the Law of Nations is irrelevant to the Constitution, why are they mentioned IN the Constitution?
"Les naturels, ou indigenes, sont ceux qui sont nes dans le pays, de parens citoyens"
Translate that into English. What do you get?