[Godebert]

I have read the evidence and it supports the idea that someone who is born a citizen is a “Natural Born Citizen”. There isn’t an extra layer to reach that mythical status. And yes, Vattel was widely known in the time of the writing of the Constitution. But so was English Common Law. And English Common Law was the basis of our law, except where specified. If the writers of the Constitution wanted to use Vattel as the basis for who was eligible to be President, they would have spelled it out, or at least the early courts would have supported it. They didn’t. They supported English Common Law.

Why then did the Framers of the Constitution reject Alexander Hamiliton's proposed presidential eligibility language of "born a Citizen" for John Jay's stricter "natural born Citizen"?

One of the Founders, David Ramsay, defined natural born Citizen in 1789:

The citizenship of no man could be previous to the declaration of independence, and, as a natural right, belongs to none but those who have been born of citizens since the 4th of July, 1776.

[4Zoltan]

“Why then did the Framers of the Constitution reject Alexander Hamiliton’s proposed presidential eligibility language of “born a Citizen” for John Jay’s stricter “natural born Citizen”?”

I’ve seen this posted form time to time and unfortunately it is not historically accurate.

On June 18, 1787, Alexander Hamilton submitted to the Convention a draft plan for a Constitution. It did not have a clause about “born a citizen”. It did have a executive position call a Governour, who would serve a life term.

“IV. The supreme Executive authority of the United States to be vested in a Governour to be elected to serve during good behaviour” June 18, 1787, Notes on the Debates in the Federal Convention by James Madison.

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/debates_618.asp

Towards the end of the Convention, Hamilton gave Madison a copy of a draft constitution that contained the Presidential eligibility clause,

“Copy of a paper Communicated to J. M. by Col. Hamilton, about the close of the Convention in Philada. 1787, which he said delineated the Constitution which he would have wished to be proposed by the Convention: He had stated the principles of it in the course of the deliberations.”

[skip]

“Article IX”

“§. I. 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.” Max Farrand, The Record of the Federal Convention of 1787.

http://tinyurl.com/6s4dkdw

The Framers never saw Hamilton’s draft constitution.