I hate it when people cite that act because they always leave out the salient clause, as you did too.
Provided, that the right of citizenship shall not descend to persons whose fathers have never been resident in the United States:
Apparently Congress had a problem with Non Resident (meaning Foreign) Fathers. It disallowed citizenship for those people born to Foreign Fathers.
Now are you happy you brought this up? Your citation of the Naturalization act of 1790 absolutely proves you wrong. Children born to foreign fathers are REJECTED for citizenship.
Next time remember that the document proves the opposite of what you want before you bring it up.
I have no clue what you are talking about. I did NOT leave out the “salient” clause. Go look at my post again (or maybe you pinged the wrong person).
My point was that the Naturalization Act of 1790 defines what the framers meant by “natural born citizen” — which is a person whose parents are citizens of the United States. The clause you cite, and which I also included, seems to be fairly straight forward. I cannot see how anyone can not understand it. It bolsters the definition I mentioned.