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?
Meanwhile, on the WINNING side you find stuff like:
It may then be safely assumed, that at the Declaration of Independence, by the law of each and all of the thirteen states, a child born within their territory and ligeance respectively, became thereby a citizen of the state of which he was a native.
This continued unchanged to the time when our National Constitution went into full operation. There is no evidence of any alteration of the rule in any of the states during the period that intervened; and the references which will be made under another head, show conclusively that there had been no intermediate change in their policy.
and:
6. Upon principle, therefore, I can entertain no doubt, but that by the law of the United States, every person born within the dominions and allegiance of the United States, whatever were the situation of his parents, is a natural born citizen. It is surprising that there has been no judicial decision upon this question. None was found by the counsel who argued this cause, and so far as I have been able to ascertain, it never has been expressly decided in any of the courts of the respective states, or of the United States. This circumstance itself, in regard to a point which must have occurred so often in the administration of justice, furnishes a strong inference that there has never been any doubt but that the common law rule was the law of the land. This inference is confirmed, and the position made morally certain, by such legislative, judicial and legal expositions as bear upon the question. Before referring to those, I am bound to say that the general understanding of the legal profession, and the universal impression of the public mind, so far as I have had the opportunity of knowing it, is that birth in this country, does of itself constitute citizenship.
If you can't pick up on the absurdity, that only demonstrates how far down the rabbit hole you've fallen.
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 see. So the English phrase "natural born citizen" was well-understood to mean "born within a country's borders with two citizen parents" in 1787? So well-understood that the Founders deemed it unnecessary to simply state that the President must be born to two citizen parents? In that case, there must be a wealth of examples of the term being defined that way before 1787. And it would mean that US legal textbooks after 1787 would have had no reason to express a differing interpretation.
Unless they uncovered a treasure trove of heretofore unknown founders documents supporting their opinion, I would have to conclude that they are indeed wrong.
Wonderful. Every time I think Birthers can't move the goalposts any further, you continue to amaze me.
It wasn't enough to spend three years saying that Obama could end everything by releasing his long-form birth certificate, and then forget that after he released his long-form. Simultaneously, I've seen Birthers argue for years that only a judicial decision could definitely settle the definition of "natural born citizen." Now I see that even a unanimous decision of the U.S. Supreme Court penned by a conservative Chief Justice can't convince Birthers that their armchair legal theories are wrong. You simply declare that the Supreme Court is wrong too. Maybe make up some conspiracy nonsense about the Justices being paid off or threatened, like Birthers have done so many times before.
There really is nothing that can convince Birthers that they're wrong. Impossible standards of proof aren't the mark of rational people, you know.