Do you know if there was such a statute then? After repeating myself in these several exchanges of messages, I will inform you once again that there is no statute.
The source of the English common law that asserts those born on the soil are "natural born subjects" stems from Calvin's Case in 1608. This case revolved around peculiar circumstances created by the Union of the Crowns in 1603.
After reading through it, and reading the history surrounding it, it became quite apparent to me that this case was a potentially grave threat to the Union. (Which you ought to be against based on your other posts on the issue of Union. :) )
Had the decision gone the other way, it would have simply blown the Union apart, because the Scots would never have stood for being second class citizens in England.
The Calvin's Case decision was absolutely necessary to turn out as it did to prevent civil war. In other words, King James I, got the decision he absolutely had to have in order to save the union. Even so of the 14 judge panel, there were two dissenters. Lord Coke was the King's chief legal representative in the proceedings.
And this is how English law, which was descended from Roman Law, (note all the Latin gibberish in law) came to deviate significantly from Roman law on the point of how citizenship was acquired at birth.
Calvin's case was a gimmick to keep the peace and consolidate power for King James I.
I will inform you once again that there is no statute.I will take your word for that.
The term natural born citizen does not define itself for me. I feel comfortable performing my responsibilities as a citizen without ever being certain about what definition(s) the Founders would have given to the term. If I saw evidence that clearly indicated that most of them consciously agreed to a more specific definition than what they provided in the Constitution, I would be inclined to abide by it. But, nothing that I have read from people who have taken various positions on the matter has been overwhelmingly persuasive.
What I see is uncertainty. Clearly, they wanted there to be a significant connection between a president and this country, but I am not convinced that they wanted a list of detailed requirements that would serve only to arbitrarily exclude a lot of very good candidates.
I think that the problem more or less takes care of itself in that I have never seen any evidence that anyone dangerously foreign to this country could ever get himself elected president. And, yet, the phrase is in the Constitution and so it deserves our respect. My personal answer to that problem is to treat the term as meaning that the candidate must be a citizen at birth. That covers at least two of the words - born and citizen. I wish that I could do more. ;-)