Yes, I can imagine the conversation now:
Founder 1: So we've decided on qualifications. All Representatives must have been U.S. citizens for at least seven years, and all Senators must have been U.S. citizens for at least nine years.
Founder 2: You sure it's OK to have naturalized citizens running our country?
Founder 1: Yeah, that's fine.
Founder 2: OK then. And the President?
Founder 1: Oh, he needs to be born on U.S. soil and both his mother and his father must have been U.S. citizens at the time of his birth. The only way we can ensure his loyalty is through the citizenship of his parents, you know.
Founder 2: Well that's awfully specific. We'd better be clear about that in the text.
Founder 1: No, we'll just write "natural born citizen." They'd be morons to not realize that implies an absolute requirement of parental citizenship at the time of one's birth.
Incidentally, something tells me that the U.S. Supreme Court could hand down a unanimous ruling tomorrow, written by Chief Justice John Roberts himself, that Obama is a natural born citizen, and that "natural born citizenship" does not require parental citizenship, and DiogenesLamp would still be arguing that the Supreme Court is wrong.
Founder 2: But doesn't that sound a lot like "natural born subject"? Mightn't they think we mean the same thing but just substituted the word "citizen"?
Founder 1: Nah.
I assume that is supposed to be sarcasm, but your dialogue never rises to the level of absurdity. Indeed, most of the Founders were well acquainted with Vattel, and as the term was well enough understood at the time, no one would think it necessary to expound on it. I have for some time come to the conclusion that it is the subsequent influence of English law which created the confusion as to the meaning. As is related in this quote:
Attorney-General Black, whose opinion of July 4, 1859, concerning the case of Christian Ernst, a naturalized American citizen of Hanoverian origin who was arrested upon his return to Hanover, has become a classic on this subject. It seems worth while to quote from this notable opinion:
“The natural right of every free person, who owes no debts and is not guilty of any crime, to leave the country of his birth in good faith and for an honest purpose, the privilege of throwing off his natural allegiance and substituting another allegiance in its place—the general right, in one word, of expatriation—is incontestible. I know that the common law of England denies it; that the judicial decisions of that country are opposed to it; and that some of our own courts, misled by British authority, have expressed, though not very decisively, the same opinion. But all this is very far from settling the question. The municipal code of England is not one of the sources from which we derive our knowledge of international law. We take it from natural reason and justice, from writers of known wisdom, and from the practice of civilized nations. All these are opposed to the doctrine of perpetual allegiance. It is too injurious to the general interests of mankind to be tolerated; justice denies that men should either be confined to their native soil or driven away from it against their will.”
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Incidentally, something tells me that the U.S. Supreme Court could hand down a unanimous ruling tomorrow, written by Chief Justice John Roberts himself, that Obama is a natural born citizen, and that "natural born citizenship" does not require parental citizenship, and DiogenesLamp would still be arguing that the Supreme Court is wrong.
Unless they uncovered a treasure trove of heretofore unknown founders documents supporting their opinion, I would have to conclude that they are indeed wrong. I do not regard the Supreme Court as the final arbiter of truth. They may decide which direction the law enforcement guns get pointed, but they don't make fiction into fact.
Do you believe the Supreme court ever gets anything wrong, say, Roe v Wade? What if the decision was unanimous? Would you therefore proclaim it correct?