You have made several statements which seem to have no bearing on my point. British Common Law was a source for much of our Constitution, and courts often go back to it in interpreting American law. So one can’t reasonably claim the Constitution based a particular thing on Vattel, without proof and no one has shown any. There is however, the Madison quote, showing what the “Father of the Constitution” thought about this.
What you put up is not proof that only jus soli births is what the Founders meant in Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5 of the Constitution. Post 254 takes that assertion apart. And what I did say in my post has bearing on the nature of this issue.
There is however, the Madison quote, showing what the “Father of the Constitution” thought about this.
And we also have a quote from George Mason, “The common law of England is not the common law of these States.”
This quote by George Mason, a Founding Father, has bearing.
The much used, abused, and misrepresented quote from Madison actually supports Vattel's Law of Nations, but it is extremely doubtful you could get the naysayers to even attempt an understanding of the historical reasons why this is so.
Vattel is quoted simply because John Jay, the subsequent first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, directly cited it as one source for his request to put the natural born citizen clause into the Constitution. That being so does nothing whatsoever to change the fact that Vattel was reporting upon, explaining, and describing what had already been written about the concept in previous treatises on the Law of Nations and the laws and customs practiced by by the international community in prior centuries. To deny and ridicule the importance of Vattel and his work with respect to defining the meaning of the natural born citizen clause also constitutes a denial and ridicule of the works and histories used to compile his work.
The common law cited is often misrepresents and substitutes British common law for the American common law actually used by the Founding Fathers in their deliberations. Likewise, those who wrongly try to argue that the British common law contradicts Vattel fail to understand the very British common law they are citing or its own origins. I am quite certain this observation will invite the most vitriolic attacks. Nonetheless, those who attack the statement I am also quite certain will be unable to understand and unwilling to acknowledge the historical precedents which support the observation. The misuse of Madison's quotation would seem to support these conclusions.